NEWS ANALYSIS

Paris, France | AFP |  He’s the man with the Midas touch — and French President Emmanuel Macron proved it again Sunday when his party secured a huge parliamentary election giving him a free hand to push through his programme. Just four weeks after taking office and 14 months after …

  BUDGET ANALYSIS: Why UDB got Shs50bn, Museveni donations Shs70bn and more Kampala, Uganda | JULIUS BUSINGE |  Matia Kasaija, Uganda’s Finance minister, is a jocular person for whom talking tough is always light hearted. It was no different on June 12 when he attended a post-budget reading breakfast meeting organised by …

Mercury: Slow killer in Uganda’s gold mines Kampala, Uganda | RONALD MUSOKE |   Inside one of the dozens of gold camps that dot the foothills and valleys of Mubende in central Uganda, the hustle and bustle is astounding. “Saigon City” nestled in the valley of Kayonza; Kitumbi Sub-County is one such camp. …

Paris, France | AFP |  The theory has been aired several times over the last week: French voters are so desperate for change and for new President Emmanuel Macron to succeed that they are blindly electing his party’s candidates to parliament. Polls suggest that Macron’s Republic on the Move (REM) …

Lusaka, Zambia | AFP |  Nearly a year after coming to power in a contested election, Zambian President Edgar Lungu is facing a growing chorus of criticism over his government’s moves to clamp down on dissent. “Zambia eminently qualifies to be branded a dictatorship,” the country’s religious leaders said in …

Cairo, Egypt | AFP |  Guards check drivers’ papers to keep out uninvited guests from gated compounds where Egypt’s rich can escape the chaos of Cairo’s streets in a country with a widening wealth gap. Built in the deserts around Cairo, some compounds offer amenities such as indoor and outdoor …

Maiduguri, Nigeria | AFP | In 2013, thousands of young men formed a rag-tag militia and rounded up Boko Haram members in Maiduguri, northeast Nigeria, then handed them over to the military. The Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF), as it later became known, was instrumental in driving the Islamist militants …

Berlin, Germany | AFP |  Germany’s longest serving post-war leader Helmut Kohl, the father of national reunification and an architect of European integration, died Friday at the age of 87. Kohl helped a Germany that was split during the Cold War between a capitalist west and a communist east make …

Pretoria, South Africa| BY PETER FABRICIUS| ISS TODAY| Later this month South Africa’s ruling party begins its five-yearly policy conference to determine the direction to be taken by the new African National Congress (ANC) president who will be elected in December. This is assuming that that person also becomes South Africa’s …

For the past two decades, the phenomenon of the opposition coalition has gained growing traction and interest across Africa. Johannesburg, South Africa| AFRICAN ARGUMENTS| BY NICOLE BEARDSWORTH | For the past two decades, the phenomenon of the opposition coalition has gained growing traction and interest across Africa. In 2000, a group of …