Sir David King, until the end of 2007 the chief scientific adviser to the British government, thinks Africa is not able to feed itself because we have rejected GM crops. Sir David spoke at the British Association for the Advancement of Science’s Festival of Science in Liverpool recently and attacked the United Nations and NGOs for “backing traditional farming techniques which cannot provide enough food for Africa’s growing population”. But is GM food the future forAfrica? asks Khadija Sharife. More...

As we went to press, results from Ghana indicated that the country would vote again on 28 December to elect a new president to take over from the outgoing John Agyekum Kufuor. Elections held on 7 December had produced no winner as the leading candidates could not garner the mandatory “50%+1” to win on the first ballot. But as Stephen Gyasi Jnr reports from Accra, the conduct of the polls and the general peaceful atmosphere in which they were held, will provide vital lessons in democracy for other countries in Africa. More...

The moral standards of Nigeria’s all-powerful ruling class – or its dismal lack of them – have always been the subject of titillating bar-room gossip amongst the country’s chattering classes. But there has always been an unwritten rule, similar to the Italian Mafia’s code of “Omertà” (silence), that members of the exclusive club never wash their dirty linen in public. But Mrs Oluremi Obasanjo, the first wife of the former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, has thrown it all out of the window by publishing a most sensational new book, revealing all on her husband. Osasu Obayiuwana was at the book launch in Lagos, from where he filed this report. More...