French billionaire Vincent Bollore arrives at the French Senate, Paris, June 22, 2016 in Paris (AP photo by Kamil Zihnioglu).

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Senior Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. The arrest took place in a Paris suburb, but its ramifications may be felt most acutely thousands of miles to the south, in West Africa. On Tuesday, Vincent Bollore, the French billionaire and head of the Bollore Group, was detained in Nanterre for questioning over the circumstances under which the holding company obtained major port deals in Guinea and Togo. He was placed under formal investigation the following day. The allegations touch on the shady dealings that persist at […]

Nigerian Shiite Muslims protest to demand the release of Shiite leader Ibrahim Zakzaky, Cikatsere, Nigeria, April. 1, 2016 (AP photo by Sunday Alamba).

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Senior Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Over a three-day period in December 2015, Nigerian security forces carried out an operation in the northern town of Zaria that resulted in the deaths of more than 300 civilians, according to an official commission of inquiry. The attack targeted the Islamic Movement of Nigeria, or IMN, a Shiite organization founded in the 1980s by Nigerians inspired by the Iranian revolution. Nigeria is about evenly split between Christians and Muslims, and the vast majority of Muslims are Sunni. As […]

U.N. forces from Rwanda patrol the streets of Bangui, Central African Republic, Feb. 12, 2016 (AP photo by Jerome Delay).

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Senior Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. It was a rare example of a protest in the Central African Republic that managed to get the world’s attention, however briefly. On Wednesday, demonstrators placed at least 16 dead bodies outside the offices of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the capital, Bangui. The demonstrators said the dead were civilians killed by U.N. peacekeepers during recent operations in a mostly Muslim neighborhood of Bangui known as PK5. For the past several years, the Central African Republic has been […]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Rwandan President Paul Kagame arrive at the Kigali Memorial Center, Kigali, Rwanda, July 6, 2016 (AP photo).

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Senior Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. It was a tumultuous week for tens of thousands of African asylum-seekers in Israel, though it ultimately produced no clarity on whether some or all of them might be permitted to stay in the country and where they might go if they’re kicked out. On Monday night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that his government and the United Nations refugee agency had reached an “unprecedented understanding” by which more than 16,000 of the African asylum-seekers, many of whom […]