NEWS ANALYSIS

Banjul, Gambia | AFP | President Yahya Jammeh scored only half his previous box office tally in last week’s election, handing victory to opposition coalition leader Adama Barrow. But why did Gambians turn against Jammeh after 22 years in power? Economic crisis A triple blow has been dealt to the …

  Accra, Ghana | AFP | Ghana’s New Patriotic Party (NPP) candidate Nana Akufo-Addo is hoping it’ll be third time lucky when the country votes for a new president on December 7. Akufo-Addo, an erudite rights lawyer and former government minister with round tortoiseshell glasses, narrowly lost the 2008 and …

Seoul, South Korea | AFP |  When South Korea’s Park Geun-Hye looks back on the scandal-fuelled implosion of her presidency, she may reflect ruefully on what lit the first fuse — a parent pulling strings over a child’s education. Park’s downfall was the result of her friendship with Choi Soon-Sil …

Experts tell Museveni, Mutebile, Muhakanizi President Yoweri Museveni’s unchecked spending and the Ministry of Finance and Bank of Uganda efforts to clean have created a lope-sided economy that is hurting everyone. That is the view of several economists interviewed by The Independent. Dr. Lawrence Bategeka, formerly a researcher at the …

Victim or villain as 100 are killed in Kasese massacre? On Nov. 14, two police officers on guard at Queen Elizabeth National Park in Kasese district were attacked and killed by unknown assailants who grabbed their two guns and disappeared. This was just two days after Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga …

Killing Castro: Poisoned cigars, explosive seashells Havana, Cuba | AFP | Mobsters, poisoned cigars, exploding seashells, a contaminated diving suit: The CIA’s imagination ran wild in its plots to assassinate Fidel Castro. As the late Cuban leader’s ashes are laid to rest in the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba …

  Kasese, Uganda | AFP |  Outside the mortuary in Kasese, grief-stricken families wait to find out if their missing relatives were among scores killed by Ugandan security forces at the weekend. Huddling in groups, some pull clothes over their mouths and noses to mask the sickening stench of the …

Luanda, Angola | AFP | Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who has ruled for 37 years, will stand down before next year’s general election, state radio said Friday citing sources in the ruling MPLA party. The autocratic Dos Santos, 74, became president in 1979, making him Africa’s second-longest serving …

Banjul, Gambia | AFP | Gambian President Yahya Jammeh, who was defeated in this week’s poll, seized power in a 1994 coup and clung to office for 22 years with a blend of severity, mysticism and iron-clad self-belief. “No matter what people say about me, I am not moved… I …

  Washington, United States | AFP | As a candidate, Donald Trump tore up the political rule book. As the president-elect, the Republican billionaire, who was back at work building his cabinet Friday, is showing no signs of tempering his unconventional style. On the heels of his first “thank you” …