-
3 weeks ago | 
panafricanreview.com | Peter Kagwanja |Maureen Barasa |Charles Onyango-Obbo
In November 2008, Zimbabwe’s inflation soared to one of the highest levels of hyperinflation in world history. The peak month-on-month inflation rate is estimated to have reached an incomprehensible 79.6 billion percent (79,600,000,000%). This colossal economic crisis, from which Zimbabwe is still recovering, sparked turmoil within the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) and could be argued to have partly led to Robert Mugabe’s ousting on 21 November 2017.
-
3 weeks ago | 
panafricanreview.com | Peter Kagwanja |Maureen Barasa |Lionel Manzi
Allies Belgium and the DRC face a grim reality. The Congolese army is in disarray, losing every battle against the AFC/M23 rebels and ceding territory in the process. But even as well-meaning actors pin their hopes on Qatar’s facilitation and the EAC-SADC-led process, Brussels and Kinshasa have a different priority: to buy time, halt the rebels’ advance and rebuild a combat-capable Congolese army.
-
1 month ago | 
panafricanreview.com | Peter Kagwanja |Maureen Barasa |Geoff Iyatse
President Donald Trump’s seesawing tariff threats and retaliations from across the globe have jolted markets, raised fears of an economic slowdown and threatened to set off a series of price crises. For many, the damage could be broader. A protracted trade war could reinforce the unfair trading pattern that brought about the poverty of resource-rich regions and increased the prosperity of the global north.
-
1 month ago | 
panafricanreview.com | Peter Kagwanja |Maureen Barasa |Ogbéni Adémola
By early 2025, France finds itself unceremoniously ejected from over 70% of the African nations where its troops once strutted with impunity. What remains of its military presence is a ghostly echo—1,500 soldiers in Djibouti, 350 in Gabon. The grand retreat is nearly complete. France, that most stubborn of colonial lingerers, has at last seen the big door shut in its face.
-
1 month ago | 
panafricanreview.com | Peter Kagwanja |Maureen Barasa |Lonzen Rugira
Recently, Ugandan BBC host Alan Kasujja posted on X: “There’s a systemic coordinated messaging against Rwanda from Western capitals,” adding a rhetorical question: “Why aren’t we talking about their interest in critical minerals?” He isn’t alone in noticing the trend of actions by Western powers and in reflecting on what is driving them.
-
1 month ago | 
panafricanreview.com | Peter Kagwanja |Maureen Barasa |Charles Onyango-Obbo
A brilliant young chap in the USA—let’s call him Thomson Kamara, the son of a dear friend—is off to university later this year to study African history. He wrote to me with a challenge:“Give me an Idiot’s Guide to the DRC war. Explain the crisis as if I’m a 14-year-old in rural America—curious but clueless beyond finding the country on a map. Why are minerals such a big deal?
-
2 months ago | 
panafricanreview.com | Peter Kagwanja |Maureen Barasa |Charles Onyango-Obbo
Last month, President Felix Tshisekedi’s government in Kinshasa suffered a stinging defeat when the AFC/M23 rebel coalition captured the key and strategic eastern city of Goma. Goma, which sits on the border between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, is the capital of North Kivu province. It is also the unofficial mineral capital, not only of the extravagantly mineral-rich eastern DRC but of the Great Lakes region.
-
2 months ago | 
panafricanreview.com | Peter Kagwanja |Maureen Barasa |Chika Esiobu
Nigeria’s Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, recenlty declared in an interview that he is not Igbo but Ikwerre. This declaration of identity by the prominent politician has attracted much comment. Nigerians who willingly identify as Igbo have continued to protest the denial of Igbo identity by the Delta and Rivers communities, citing historical, geographical, and cultural reasons why the Igbo identity must be embraced by the alleged deniers.
-
2 months ago | 
panafricanreview.com | Peter Kagwanja |Maureen Barasa |Lionel Manzi
Following the fall of Goma, the capital of North Kivu Province, speculation about Rwanda’s alleged plans to annex parts of eastern Congo has intensified. Could there be any basis for such claims? Weighed against historical facts, current realities and international power dynamics, the theory simply does not stand up to scrutiny. Rwanda’s troops were present in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) from 1996 to 2003.
-
2 months ago | 
panafricanreview.com | Peter Kagwanja |Maureen Barasa |Charles Onyango-Obbo
What did DR Congo’s M23 rebels (or is it a movement) do on January 27, 2025? Did they “overrun”, “seize”, “capture”, “take control” of, or “liberate” the key eastern city of Goma, the capital of North Kivu? M23 prefer “liberated”. In DRC, there is a war of words, which is as ferocious as the shooting war. The consequences are as far-reaching as those of the bullets. Nowhere is this language war as fierce as in the description of M23.
