On February 8, 2012, the International Security Program and the Michael S. Ansari Africa Center hosted a meeting of the Atlantic Council Maritime Piracy Task Force, chaired by Atlantic Council Board Director Franklin D. Miller. This is the third in a series of meetings looking into the challenge of piracy and possible strategic approaches.

For the better part of five years, much of Somalia's long-suffering population has been caught in a deadly stalemate between al Shabaab, an al Qaeda-linked militant group, and African Union peacekeepers, known as AMISOM.

On January 31, the Atlantic Council’s Michael S. Ansari Africa Center hosted a panel discussion, “Nigeria On The Edge”

On January 27, 2012 the Michael S. Ansari Africa Center hosted a luncheon briefing by Angèle Makombo-Eboum, chair and former presidential candidate of the Ligue des Démocrates Congolais (LIDEC) party and spokesperson for the Forces de l’Opposition Réunies au Congo (FORECO) coalition, on the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DRC) November 2011 presidential election and the subsequent political climate in the country.

J. Peter Pham, director of the Atlantic Council’s Michael S. Ansari Africa Center, was interviewed by Jeffrey Brown on PBS’s NewsHour program about the rescue by US Navy SEALs of an American aid worker and her Danish colleague who had been held hostage since October in north central Somalia.

Bronwyn Bruton, deputy director of the Michael S. Ansari Africa Center, was featured on WAMU Radio's Kojo Nnamdi Show on a segment entitled "Piracy in Somalia."

J. Peter Pham, director of the Atlantic Council’s Michael S. Ansari Africa Center, was interviewed on Islamist violence in Africa by Carol Castiel on this week’s edition of the Voice of America’s Encounter.

J. Peter Pham, director of the Atlantic Council’s Michael S. Ansari Africa Center, discussed the challenge of the Nigerian militant Islamist sect Boko Haram in an exclusive interview with correspondent Kamna Arora on Zee News, India’s oldest 24-hour news channel.

The Atlantic Council’s Michael S. Ansari Africa Center, in partnership with the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs and the WASH Advocacy Initiative, sponsored a workshop on “Actualizing the Upside of Water: Development, Diplomacy, and Defense,” for a select group of government and civil society leaders.

Michael S. Ansari Africa Center Deputy Director Bronwyn Bruton joined the New York Times East Africa Bureau Chief, Jeffrey Gettleman, on National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation.