For Azad Essa, the press conference celebrating 100 days before kick-off failed to address the big questions that still need asking about how South Africans will benefit from the World Cup.

Africa is bearing the brunt of the slowdown of global aid commitments, according to the high-level Africa Progress Panel led by Kofi Annan and Olusegun Obasanjo

Alongside the grand receptions to be convened next year to celebrate 50 years of independence from colonial rule, many Africans are arguing that their countries would benefit from a more solemn convention to produce a brutally honest stocktaking of the progress so far and to map out a forthright plan on the way ahead for the next 50.



Nigeria’s chief militant, Government Ekpeemuplo or Tompolo, is now on first-name terms with its President. Blogging from the Niger Delta for The Africa Report, Ibnbatuta explains why Tompolo has emerged as a role model for the youth there ….

A massive police presence, protestors complaining about meddling in domestic economies, watercannons mounted on armoured cars – just another IMF/World Bank annual meeting, writes Nicholas Norbrook. Except this edition, in Istanbul, Turkey's majestic city on the Bosphorus, is being held one year after the spectacular meltdown in global equity markets. And the Zimbabwean roadshow is in full attendance.

Sometime by the end of this year, the United Nations assures us, the billionth African will have been born. Amid global financial crises and wars in Afghanistan and Somalia, the significance of Africa joining the world’s billion people club, alongside China and India, has been lost. Yet it is more than a symbolic marker – the power of numbers in politics and economics is overwhelming.