The November 2005 elections in Liberia marked the end of a two-year transition period and ushered in a democratically elected government led by President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. She faces the enormous task of consolidating peace after fourteen years of conflict.

Over the past five years, Africa has made great progress in establishing an institutional architecture in order to tackle the continent’s manifold security problems. The United States has increasingly been supporting this effort through a variety of capacity building programs and initiatives designed to enable Africa to help itself. However, while much has been written about U.S. military capacity building initiatives like the African Crisis Response Force (ACRF) and the African Crisis Response Initiative (ACRI).

As the United States military forces execute Theater Security Cooperation (TSC) activities in support of the Global War on Terror and Homeland Defense overseas, the development of non-traditional partners requires a variety of non-traditional engagement activities and the discovery of new tools to be applied. Defense Support to Public Diplomacy (DSPD) and Military Support to Public Diplomacy (DSPD) move to the fore of all the functional capabilities U.S. forces can provide, a non-traditional role for the Department of Defense.

There is growing awareness that the vast resources and potential in the Gulf of Guinea are being undermined by multifaceted domestic, regional and international threats and vulnerabilities. Rather than contributing to stability and economic prosperity for countries in this sub-region, pervasive insecurity in this resource-laden maritime environment has resulted in more than $2 billion in annual financial losses, significantly constrained investment and economic prospects, growing crime and potentially adverse political consequences.

Rumors of a United States Africa Command that surfaced in January 2006 appeared to become reality in December. As Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld left his position, he presented to President Bush for approval a plan for a special geographic combatant command dedicated to Africa.If approved, the establishment of United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) will mark a significant step in the recognition of Africa as strategically important by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). In addition, other branches of government would interact more closely as this headquarters would contain significant additional representation across all government agencies.

During the Cold War, United States foreign policy toward Sub-Saharan Africa had little to do with Africa. As with other developing regions, African countries were first and foremost pawns in the great global chess game. Republican and Democratic Administrations alike supported American clients and sought to undermine Soviet ones. Economic and military assistance was directed to key allies, such as Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire and Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, and anticommunist rebel organizations, such as Jonas Savimbi's UNITA (União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola) in Angola.[2] Because the U.S. perceived few if any direct strategic or economic interests in Africa, engagement with the region was largely defined by Cold War logic from the late 1950s until the late 1980s, and remained relatively limited.

Africa has never held a central position in U.S. foreign policy, having little strategic significance and lacking a strong and organized domestic lobby to push the continent’s issues onto the U.S. foreign policy agenda. Therefore, it came as a surprise to many that the Bush Administration may actually have done more for Africa than its more liberal predecessors, once rhetoric is weighed against reality. The post-9/11 landscape has radically changed the prioritization of Africa in the United States’ concept of its strategic interests and the amount of assistance to the continent has accordingly increased.

Le gouvernement de transition somalien, appuyé par l’armée éthiopienne, a pris le dessus sur les miliciens islamiques après une semaine de combats et promis hier l’amnistie à ceux qui déposeraient les armes.

Since late October, instability has hit the Central African Republic (C.A.R.) as a rebel movement in the northeast is threatening the government in Bangui. The rebels have taken control over towns in the northeast of the country, such as Birao, Ouanda Djalle and Sam-Ouandja, near the Chad-Sudan border. There is concern, however, that the rebels will push south toward Bria, a diamond mining town, and then possibly make an attempt against the capital.

S'il n'en reste qu'un, Denis Sassou-Nguesso pourrait bien être celui-là. Dans un pré carré francophone en voie de délitement, le président du Congo- Brazzaville, au pouvoir depuis 1997, occupe la place du “monsieur Loyal” de la Françafrique, l'homme sur lequel Paris sait pouvoir compter en toutes circonstances. Seul Omar Bongo, l'inoxydable président du Gabon et par ailleurs gendre de Sassou, est en mesure de lui disputer ce titre.

Le Darfour, signifiant «patrie des Four») est une région de l'ouest du Soudan, dans le désert du Sahara. Elle est majoritairement peuplée par des populations musulmanes comme l'est le Soudan (sauf dans sa partie sud à majorité animiste). Administrativement, le Darfour se compose de plusieurs provinces : Gharb Darfour (capitale Al-Genaïna), Chamal Darfour (capitale Al Fachir) et Djanoub Darfour (capitale Nyala).

L’attaque le 23 mai de bases militaires dans le Nord fait craindre un retour aux années de braise et relance la polémique que le rôle de Kaddafi dans la région.

Failed states offer attractive venues for terrorist groups seeking to evade counterterrorism efforts of the United States and its partners in the Global War on Terror (GWOT). State failure entails, among its other features, the disintegration and criminalization of public security forces, the collapse of the state administrative structure responsible for overseeing those forces, and the erosion of infrastructure that supports their effective operation. These circumstances make identification of terrorist groups operating within failed states very difficult, and action against such groups, once identified, problematic.

Con apenas 1,6 millones de habitantes, suelos pobres y prolongadas sequías, Botswana posee el récord mundial de crecimiento económico de los últimos 45 años, por encima incluso de China. Desde 1961 ha duplicado su Producto Interno Bruto cada siete años.

For those wondering when they really must start paying attention to Africa, U.S. Gen. James Jones deploys every fragment of his 6-foot-5 frame to emphasize with a forward lean that the time is now. Why else would the U.S. military's European Command, which he runs, spend 70% of its time and energy on Africa, he says, up from nearly none when he took it over three-plus years ago?

This reality therefore compels us to gain insights and build up knowledge about the activities of the African diaspora in the EU countries in the conflicts in homeland. A knowledge that will equip us to explore possibilities of a new attitude that would enable African diaspora groups to relate to one another and to the conflict back home in new and more constructive ways.

Annan told the Financial Times in an interview it was vital for African countries to break their silence to protect the continent's credibility in the eyes of the world.

Mugabe and the ZANU-PF party used more sophisticated methods than previously but they manipulated the electoral process through a range of legal and extra-legal means to ensure that the election was basically decided well before the first voters reached the polls.

The recent fighting in North Kivu displaced over 100,000 people into the forests, where many died due to the harsh conditions. According to the International Rescue Committee (IRC), 31,000 die every month in the country as a result of the war, mostly due to hunger and disease. Since 1998, an estimated 3.8 million deaths have been attributable to the war.