Last month, Tanzanian authorities confiscated the passports of Kenyan officials who were in Tanzania with a team of Ugandan officials working on an analysis of proposed routes for a multibillion-dollar oil pipeline, denying them access to the port of Tanga. In an email interview, Jonathan Markham, an upstream analyst with GlobalData, discussed the dispute between Kenya and Tanzania over the proposed pipeline to export Ugandan oil. WPR: What are the proposed pipeline routes from Uganda, and what are the advantages and disadvantages of each route? Jonathan Markham: A range of possible pipeline routes to ports has been proposed, including Lamu [...]
On Jan. 6, Djibouti announced it was severing relations with Iran inresponse to attacks on Saudi Arabia’s diplomatic missions in Tehran, following the execution of a prominent Shiite cleric by Saudi authorities. Shortly after, a joke appeared on Telegram, an instant messaging app popular among Iranians: “One good thing that the snapping of ties with Saudi Arabia taught me is geography. At least now I know where Djibouti is.” Although many Iranians have since dismissed the tiny Horn of Africa state as an inconsequential actor, it was not that long ago that Tehran sought to expand its engagement with small [...]
Security officials from South Sudanese President Salva Kiir’s government allegedly attacked and detained 16 members of rebel leader and former Vice President Riek Machar’s publicity team Tuesday. The publicity team was in Juba in advance of Machar’s return to South Sudan’s capital on April 18, when he is set to assume the office of vice president again in a unity government with Kiir as part of a fledgling peace deal. Tuesday’s violence is only the latest round of renewed fighting in South Sudan. The U.S. State Department issued a statement Monday condemning recent attacks on rebels in the northwest of [...]
