TWO years have passed since a sex scandal toppled the former head of the IMF and one-time French presidential hopeful, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, or "DSK" as he likes to be known. On May 14th, in the same week as a trailer was released for a film based on his carnal escapades in a New York hotel (starring another infamous Frenchman, Gérard Depardieu), Mr Strauss-Kahn popped up in South Sudan to help launch his friends' little-known bank.

The global economic oracle, who has spent two years dodging the media spotlight, made an undistinguished reappearance, emerging from a white 4x4 in the dusty streets of Juba, the capital. A handful of local and foreign journalists huddled around him, but other bystanders seemed more interested in the band and traditional dancers dressed in faux ...

[view whole blog post ]

A PLUME of black smoke marked the resumption of South Sudan's main oil field on May 5th, after a 16-month hiatus. The Palouge oil field in the north-eastern state of Upper Nile, which accounts for 80% of the country's oil production, was shut down because an agreement could not be reached over how much South Sudan should pay to export its oil via pipelines passing through Sudan, the northern state from which it seceded in 2011. The two countries finally reached a deal and Southern production has resumed.

As the giant tangled web of pipes began to quiver, a gaggle of Chinese and Malaysian oil workers and local government officials chanted: "South Sudan oyee. China oyee"--a reworking of an old South Sudanese rebel war cry.

[view whole blog post ]

"I'M ENJOYING this benign neglect," noted Liberia's president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, when asked to comment on the decision of her country's media to boycott her. "I wish they will continue it for a long time," she said.

Liberia's press called for a blackout on coverage of the president, following comments made by the head of the Executive Protection Services, Daniel Othello Warrick, at World Press Freedom Day on May 3rd. The event, hosted by the Press Union of Liberia, was on media and security relations. But the president's chief bodyguard, delivered a speech accusing the media of character assassination and cautioning journalists against getting involved in "presidential intelligence".

[view whole blog post ]

WHAT is the best response when facing a regional insurgency and your troops are fanning the flames with violent raids? President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria seems to think it is to send in even more troops. On May 14th, he declared a state of emergency in three northern states that suffer frequent terror attacks.

Unlike the "surge" of American troops in Iraq in 2006, which increased numbers but also refined tactics, Nigeria is going after Boko Haram, a brutal jihadi group, with a sledgehammer. "We will hunt them down, we will fish them out," the president declared on national television. In a single raid on the town of Baga last month, troops destroyed almost 3,000 homes; estimates of civilian casualties range from 30 to 200. Nigeria is likely to see more such incidents, potentially ...

[view whole blog post ]

LONG before Baobab became a lowly journalist he scraped a living as a lowly academic. "If you're so clever why aren't you rich?" was a favourite tease of his less bookish but better-paid peers. The Africa Progress Report, prepared by an expert panel led by Kofi Annan (pictured), a former UN secretary-general, was unveiled last week at the World Economic Forum conference in Cape Town, and deals with a more wounding provocation. If Africa is so resource-rich, it asks, why are its people not better educated, its children well nourished and its adults longer-lived?

The study notes a large gap in mineral-rich countries between incomes and broader gauges of living standards like the UN's human-development index. Twenty countries in sub-Saharan Africa are classified as "resource-rich" by the IMF. ...

[view whole blog post ]

ERITREANS are engaging in a popular new pastime on Friday nights. In arguably Africa's most paranoid police state, the quietly rebellious stay home and wait for the phone to ring. The draw is the faint possibility of a subversive voice on the other end of the line. The chosen few will hear a minute of recorded seditious suggestions such as: "Start asking questions", or "Don't take this lying down"--stirring stuff in Africa's answer to North Korea.

The calls are part of a campaign called "Freedom Friday", which its organisers in the Eritrean diaspora hope will be a small step towards breaking the silence in their country. The effort began two years ago when a brave soul smuggled out a telephone directory. Opposition volunteers worked their way through its pages but decided they were not ...

[view whole blog post ]

AS THE British and Somali governments co-host a conference about Somalia's future, Ahmed Soliman from the Africa Programme at Chatham House discusses the challenges the country faces

[view whole blog post ]

THE most dangerous day of a child's life is the day it enters the world--irrespective of where it is born. More than a million children a year die on the first day of life, 15% of all under-five deaths, according to a report by Save the Children, a charity. But by far the riskiest place to be born is sub-Saharan Africa. The region accounts for 12% of the world's population, but 38% of first-day deaths.

A big reason for this is that many African babies are born too early--in Malawi nearly a fifth of babies are born prematurely, the highest rate in the world. Many more are born too light. In Mauritania and Niger around a third of babies are born underweight.

[view whole blog post ]

THOUGH 60% of Ivorians are under 25, the country's politics is still firmly in the grip of old men. The president, Alassane Ouattara, is 71, while his prime minister, Daniel Kablan Duncan, soon turns 70. The leader of the ruling party's coalition partner, Henri Konan Bédié, a former president himself, is nearly 79. So Jean-Louis Billon, the commerce minister, who is 49 this year, is a relative stripling. More to the point, he is one of the government's few ministers who genuinely believe in the free market and liberal values.

After studying at universities in France and Florida, he cut his teeth in the cocoa industry in Wisconsin before returning home in 1995 to work for his family business. His father, Pierre Billon, was a tycoon and close confidant of Côte d'Ivoire's ...

[view whole blog post ]

DAVID STYAN, politics lecturer at the University of London, discusses Djibouti's strategic influence in the Horn of Africa

[view whole blog post ]