Geopolitical Monitor - Region: Africa

August 24th, 2010 (Geopoliticalmonitor) - Al-Shabab’s latest attack displays a level of planning and execution that doesn’t bode well for the AU-backed transitional government in Mogadishu.

The United States’ intervention in Africa is driven by America’s desire to secure valuable natural resources and political influence that will ensure the longevity of America’s capitalist system, military industrial complex, and global economic superiority – achieved through the financial and physical control of raw material exports.

August 6th, 2010 (Geopoliticalmonitor.com) - Voting on a new Kenyan constitution has wrapped up without a repeat of the terrible violence of two years ago. Now comes the real challenge: pulling the rug out from under old entrenched interests and implementing a new political order.

July 28th (Geopoliticalmonitor.com) - The al-Shabab attack on World Cup revelers in Uganda three weeks ago has served as a wake-up call for African Union leaders.

As Washington prepares to unveil a strategy aimed at neutralising the Lord’s Resistance Army, LRA, many in northern Uganda are mindful of how past attempts to deal a knock-out blow to the rebel movement have succeeded only in increasing instability in the region.

July 21st (BBC News) - US authorities have charged a man with providing material support to Somali Islamist militant group al-Shabab.

July 21st (BBC News) - Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir is visiting neighbouring Chad, in defiance of calls from the International Criminal Court (ICC) for his arrest.

July 15th (Al Jazeera) - The Sudanese government and the United Nations are "alarmingly" unprepared for a scheduled January 2011 referendum on south Sudan's independence, according to a new report from a coalition of NGOs.

July 14th (BBC News) - Nigeria's state oil firm is insolvent, unable to pay debts of $5bn (£3.3bn), a government minister has said.

This weekend’s double bombing in Kampala bears all the hallmarks of an al-Shabab attack. It seems that Somalia’s homegrown strain of the Taliban has struck outside its own borders for the very first time.