Washington, United States | AFP | A majority of US voters believe Donald Trump is not fit to be president and only 36 percent approve of the job he is doing in the White House, according to a poll released Wednesday. Americans were deeply divided by party, gender and race on …
Read More »UK Labour mobilises to push Corbyn into power
Brighton, United Kingdom | AFP | In a former church, 40-odd activists are learning how to become effective frontline troops in the battle to sweep Labour opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn into power. “The next campaign is already going on,” said 19-year-old Connor Hodgson-Brunniche, a student at York University, who came down …
Read More »Far-right electoral success: a poisoned chalice?
Vienna, Austria | AFP | For Europe’s nationalist parties, winning votes is the easy bit. The real challenge lies in keeping internal strife at bay. Just ask the Alternative for Germany (AfD) or the French National Front. On Monday, a day after becoming Germany’s third-largest force in parliament, AfD co-chief Frauke …
Read More »Behind Museveni land tour confusion
Cash handouts, secret age-limit talks and more Kampala, Uganda | RONALD MUSOKE | President Yoweri Museveni’s countrywide tour that he says is aimed at defusing what he called “toxic” information about the Land Amendment Bill before Parliament has run into trouble with experts and opposition politicians. Edmond Owor, the …
Read More »Angola swears in Lourenco, first new president for 38 years
Luanda, Angola | AFP | Jose Eduardo dos Santos’s 38-year reign over Angola finally came to an end Tuesday when his hand-picked successor Joao Lourenco was inaugurated as president at a ceremony in Luanda. Lourenco read an oath in which he vowed “on my honour to devote myself” to the …
Read More »Daunting challenges facing Angola’s new president
Luanda, Angola | AFP | Angola’s incoming president Joao Lourenco faces a slew of challenges that include dwindling oil prices, rampant poverty, soaring unemployment and the long shadow cast by his predecessor and his family. These are the key tasks that will confront him on his first day in the job …
Read More »ANALYSIS: Maize worm worries
Fall armyworms are back, but government’s help isn’t Kampala, Uganda | Andrew S. Kaggwa | The rains are back but so is the dreaded fall armyworm. This time it is attacking maize at a much younger stage – meaning it will be more costly for the farmers than last season. …
Read More »Angola’s Dos Santos: a family business
Luanda, Angola | AFP | Critics of outgoing Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos accuse him of stripping his country of much of its vast oil wealth to enrich himself and his family. Dos Santos, who will step down on Tuesday after 38 years of iron-fisted rule, has appointed several …
Read More »LOURENCO: Angola’s political Lazarus
Luanda, Angola | AFP | Angola’s new president, Joao Lourenco who will be sworn in Tuesday, is a former general who spent several years in the political wilderness after angling for the top job in the 1990s. Since then, Lourenco, 63, convinced key regime players he was the right man …
Read More »What future for UDB?
Experts debate fate of finance-starved long-term funder UDB Kampala, Uganda | IAN KATUSIIME | “Should the Uganda Development Bank (UDB) seek capital from the government only? How should it work around Uganda’s short-term investment culture? Should it operate like a private sector bank or continue as the government’s band-aid effort …
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