Recent Africa Articles

The famine in Somali is no natural disaster

When we see dying Somalis, it is all too easy to see a natural disaster. But droughts are more frequent because oil executives demand the right to carry on exploring and extracting and to keep our society addicted to burning.

Without the level of carbon we have pumped into the atmosphere, we would have neither the frequency nor the scale of droughts we see today.

But the drought is only one factor. It has arrived in the middle of a perfect storm for Somalia, with very high global food prices and very weak government.
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Why is the Guardian’s Simon Tisdall defending Bashir again?

contribution by Tim Flatman

Earlier this year the Guardian became the first mainstream UK newspaper in recent memory to carry a front-page interview with an ICC-indicted war-criminal, describing him as a “maverick” who “polarised opinion”.

It implied state-sponsored abuses in Darfur were a thing of the past, contrary to many reports over the last 12 months of numerous rape and camps being bombed.

Now its columnist Simon Tisdall is trying to justify the Government of Sudan’s invasion of Abyei.
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Why there could be civil war in Sudan again

contribution by Tim Flatman

Over the weekend, Sudanese Armed Forces took control of Abyei town on the borders of North & South Sudan, after two days of aerial bombardment and ground fighting in surrounding areas.

President Bashir dissolved Abyei administration in a congratulatory broadcast. Tens of thousands of Southern civilians were successfully evacuated in the morning, with no adequate shelter or food. The number of civilians killed or injured in the attacks is unknown.
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