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Although the exact number of casualties has not been independently confirmed, sources in Abyei said more than 20 people had been killed in fighting between the Dinka and Misseriya. The south claims the Khartoum government instigated the fighting to put pressure on negotiations and undermine the secession referendum process, which will deliver a massive majority in favour of secession.

It hardly rates on the scale of the drama that a courageous Tunisian population delivered to the world in ousting Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, but manoeuvrings by members of the former presidential circle to allow them to profit handsomely with little effort from the award of contracts for a gas-fired

African Energy has seen an early copy of the investors’ guide to the new mining bill, which is due to be published by the Ministry of Energy and Mining at the end of January and distributed to companies.

The revelations and opinions included in leaked US cables suggest it is business as usual in the Nigerian oil industry, where IOCs and indigenous players are looking to trade more acreage, speculation surrounds a proposed marginal fields round and decisions on new natural gas schemes are being pushed ahead of next April’s elections

The issues that African Energy covers have risen much higher up the global agenda than seemed likely when the first issue was published in April 1998, when global concern about sub-Saharan Africa’s struggle to provide electricity to hard-pressed populations and industrial users, and the continent’s potential to provide energy to a fast-changing global economy driven by growth in emerging markets, seemed considerably less than now.

Hopes that long-delayed elections could end a decade-old political crisis looked set for disappointment as African Energy went to press, with President Gbagbo showing no sign of accepting defeat

The re-emergence of controversial former vice president Atiku Abubakar as presidential candidate for a group of powerful northern elite factions has added some very Nigerian spice to the 2011 presidential election

With the political elite gearing up to battle it out for the 2011 presidential nomination, the incumbent ‘GoodluckSambo’ ticket is looking for some ‘easy wins’ to outflank opponents. On the agenda is a revival of the stalled electricity sector liberalisation programme, writes Jon Marks in Abuja and Lagos

The emergence of a renewables programme is among the elements of the new strategy sketched out in recent weeks by energy and mines minister Youcef Yousfi

The government in Kinshasa is looking to impose President Joseph Kabila Kabange’s vision of how the world should do business with Democratic Republic of Congo, as it struggles to work with a pitifully small state budget, substandard governance and a woeful lack of human resources to meet huge demands for everything from basic health and education services to building transport, energy and other infrastructure almost from scratch

London has enjoyed close security co-operation with Algiers and Tripoli for some time, but the relationship is now more overt and ministerial attention more focused. In mid-November, minister for the Middle East and North Africa Alastair Burt – who civil servants say is genuinely enthusiastic about understanding North Africa – addressed a conference at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) on Europe’s relationship with North Africa.

With elections now set to go ahead and new donor support in prospect, Côte d’Ivoire may finally be able to resume its central role in the West African regional economy

Resource hungry China has given Ghana a $15bn package of loans for energy and other infrastructure, raising fresh expectations that Kosmos’ Jubilee stake will end up in Chinese hands

President Abdoulaye Wade has sacked energy minister Samuel Sarr and given the job to his son Karim after street protests over the latest wave of load shedding.

Mining ministers from 11 central African states have endorsed a system for tracing the origins of raw materials drawn up by the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).