Dec 13, 2007  Congo (Kinshasa): Conflict Background Analyses http://www.africafocus.org/docs07/ck0712b.php
    "North Kivu has been the epicentre of Congo's violence since the conflict began more than fifteen years ago. Now is the time to address this major gap in the Congolese transition and end a crisis which is producing immense suffering and continues to carry wider risks for Congo and its neighbours." - International Crisis Group

Nov 15, 2007  Somalia: Journalists and Civilians under Attack http://www.africafocus.org/docs07/som0711.php
    The Ethiopian-backed Somali government has closed down three independent radio stations, a media crackdown that coincides with escalated fighting in Mogadishu and an estimated 173,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) newly fleeing from Mogadishu. Human rights and media rights groups in Somalia and around the world have condemned the assault on journalists.

Nov 15, 2007  Horn of Africa: Mixed Signals on Border Conflict http://www.africafocus.org/docs07/horn0711.php
    The Security Council has called on Ethiopia and Eritrea to implement without delays or preconditions a 2002 border ruling, But observers warn that the conditions are ripe for a return to war. The U.S. voted for the resolution. But many critics say that the chances for war have been significantly increased by U.S. officials who have labeled Eritrea as a supporter of terrorism and failed to pressure Ethiopia to implement the binding arbitration decision of 2002.

Oct 30, 2007  South Africa: RIP Lucky Dube http://www.africafocus.org/docs07/dube0710.php
    "The tragic death [of Lucky Dube] shocked reggae adherents across the continent. Since the news of his death was announced on Friday, his legion of fans in The Gambia and abroad, jammed radio stations and media houses, with calls expressing shock and dismay at the violent killing of their hero. ... [he sang] many crime related songs and has died by the crime that he helped to fight, through music." - Daily Observer, Banjul

Sep 23, 2007  Zimbabwe: A Regional Solution? http://www.africafocus.org/docs07/zim0709b.php
    "Six months before scheduled elections, Zimbabwe is closer than ever to complete collapse. ... An initiative launched by the regional intergovernmental organisation, the Southern African Development Community (SADC), to facilitate a negotiated political solution offers the only realistic chance to escape a crisis that increasingly threatens to destabilise the region. But SADC must resolve internal differences about how hard to press into retirement Robert Mugabe ... and the wider international community needs to give it full support." - International Crisis Group

Sep 23, 2007  Zimbabwe: Pan African Response http://www.africafocus.org/docs07/zim0709a.php
    "For anybody genuinely concerned about the future of Africa there can be no politics of convenience. To be sure, the Zimbabwean crisis is not the only crisis in Africa ... [But it] is arguably the only ongoing crisis in which one side (the incumbent government) and its supporters have mobilised African support and silenced many by asserting more or less that its critics are sympathisers, supporters or agents of foreign interests and former colonial masters. This has wrongly narrowed the framework of the debate on the Zimbabwean crisis." - Rotimi Sankore

Sep 14, 2007  Congo (Kinshasa): Averting the Nightmare Scenario http://www.africafocus.org/docs07/conk0709.php
    "Between 1996 and 2002, the two massive wars fought in the Democratic Republic of the Congo were arguably the world's deadliest since World War II. With almost no international fanfare, Congo is on the brink of its third major war in the last decade, and almost nothing is being done to stop it." - Enough Project

Aug 22, 2007  Somalia: Shell-Shocked http://www.africafocus.org/docs07/som0708.php
    Based on dozens of eyewitness accounts gathered by Human Rights Watch in a six-week research mission to Kenya and Somalia in April and May 2007, plus subsequent interviews and research in June and July, this [Human Rights Watch] report documents the illegal means and methods of warfare used by all of the warring parties and the resulting catastrophic toll on civilians in Mogadishu.

Aug 10, 2007  China/Africa: Civil Society Meeting http://www.africafocus.org/docs07/ch0708.php
    "In China, attitudes toward Darfur are evolving rapidly - so that instead of being part of the problem, it could play a significant role in the solution. ... China does not want to be perceived globally as a defender of authoritarian regimes that perpetrate or are oblivious to human suffering." - Gareth Evans and Donald Steinberg

Aug 1, 2007  USA/Africa: Questioning AFRICOM, 2 http://www.africafocus.org/docs07/afc0708b.php
    "Like its predecessor, anti-communism, the GWOT (Global War on Terrorism) is a timeless, borderless geopolitical strategy whose presumptions lead to defining all conflicts, insurrections and civil wars as terrorist threats, regardless of the facts on the ground." Lubeck, Watts, and Lipschutz in report from Center for International Policy

Aug 1, 2007  USA/Africa: Questioning AFRICOM, 1 http://www.africafocus.org/docs07/afc0708a.php
    With the nomination in July of General William E. Ward as the first chief of the new U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), the long-discussed new command took another step toward full operation, now scheduled for October 2008. But the controversy about what this military reorganization means for U.S. military involvement in Africa is just beginning.

Jun 24, 2007  Somalia: Blind Alley, Mounting Casualties http://www.africafocus.org/docs07/som0706.php
    "The current western-backed Ethiopian approach to Somalia will lead to a mountain of civilian deaths and a litany of abuses. ... Washington, London and Brussels are in a blind alley in Somalia. They should rethink a policy which is encouraging serious abuses, and come up with one which prioritizes the protection of civilians." - Tom Porteous, Human Right Watch, London

Jun 12, 2007  Africa: Global Peace Index http://www.africafocus.org/docs07/gpi0706.php
    A new Global Peace Index, researched by the Economist Intelligence Unit and based on 24 indicators of both international and domestic "peacefulness," includes 121 countries, 21 of them in Africa, for which data was available. The United States ranked 96th, between Yemen and Iran, while South Africa ranked 99th, between Honduras and the Philippines.

Apr 22, 2007  Sudan: Walking Loudly, Carrying a Toothpick http://www.africafocus.org/docs07/sud0704b.php
    "The UN Security Council, the EU, and the Bush administration are expert at threatening to punish those who commit atrocities and obstruct peace-building efforts, but equally skilled at not following through. It's business as usual in Sudan. For the U.S. in particular, instead of walking softly and carrying a big stick, the Bush administration has been walking loudly and carrying a toothpick." - John Prendergast

Apr 22, 2007  Sudan: International Media Ignore Sudanese Voices http://www.africafocus.org/docs07/sud0704a.php
    The janjaweed militiamen are used "by a racist regime that is in many respects worse than the apartheid regime in South Africa, which at least had the dignity not to employ rape as a tactic of suppression." Did this scathing remark appear in the New York Times or Le Nouvel Observateur, two newspapers known for criticising the Sudanese government? No, surprising as it may seem, it was made in an editorial in the Citizen, a Khartoum daily, on 18 March. And there was no angry reaction from the government. - Reporters without Borders

Apr 9, 2007  Somalia: Escalation and Human Rights Abuses http://www.africafocus.org/docs07/som0704.php
    More than 100,000 Somalis have fled fighting in the capital area in the last two months, according to UN reports. As many as 400 civilians were killed in the most recent attacks by Ethiopian and Somali government troops on areas said to house insurgents, and a European Union observer has warned that "war crimes" may have been committed.

Feb 18, 2007  Guinea (Conakry): State of Siege http://www.africafocus.org/docs07/guin0702.php
    Army violence against civilians has escalated after declaration of a state of siege in Guinea (Conakry) on February 12, despite condemnation of the move by leaders of the West African regional organization ECOWAS and the African Union, as well as local and international non-governmental organizations. Fears are mounting that the violence may not only undermine hopes of change in Guinea itself, but also fuel further conflict in Guinea's neighbors.

Jan 16, 2007  Somalia: Creating Another Iraq? http://www.africafocus.org/docs07/som0701a.php
    While U.S. congressional debate focuses on the best way to withdraw from a failed war in Iraq, and President Bush plans for a surge in troops, U.S. policymakers seem determined to replicate the Iraq experience in Somalia. If that outcome is averted, it will be due not to better U.S. planning or strategy, but to the Somali desire for peace and to diplomatic efforts that U.S. action has made more difficult.

Jan 16, 2007  USA/Africa: Constructing a Terror Front http://www.africafocus.org/docs07/sah0701.php
    "Notwithstanding the lack of evidence, Washington saw a Saharan Front as the linchpin for the militarization of Africa, greater access to its oil resources (Africa will supply 25% of U.S. hydrocarbons by 2015), and the sustained involvement of Europe in America's counterterrorism program." - Jeremy Keenan