AZAWAD: Africa's Newest Country Faces 4 Big Obstacles To Survival
Gus Lubin and Michael Kelley | Apr. 27, 2012, 2:52 PM | 644 | 
http://www.businessinsider.com/africas-newest-country-2012-4 



Africa's newest country, Azawad, was formed when Tuareg rebels forced government troops out of the northern region of Mali.



But how long will it last?

William Moseley, a professor of geography and African studies at Macalester College, wrote in an op-ed at IPS that the forces that helped create the state may also undermine its longer term viability.

Those forces include (1) the troubled relationship between the Tuaregs and the newly reinstalled Malian government, (2) the desire of the Malian military to reclaim the northern region, (3) the pressure of Islamists who want to impose Sharia law and (4) an impending famine in the area.

The National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad will be the "interim administrators of Azawad" as the nomadic Tuareg people — who have inhabited West Africa for thousands of years — now control about 60 percent of Mali's total land area.

The last new country in Africa, South Sudan, was recently dragged back into war.

Now check out Deutsche Bank's big bullish case for Africa >

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/africas-newest-country-2012-4#ixzz1tT7HXSwy