• Lamido Sanusi, Nigeria’s central bank governor, argues that Africa’s relationship with China carries with it a whiff of colonialism and that Africa must start treating China as a competitor. “Africa is now willingly opening itself up to a new form of imperialism,” writes Sanusi.
• Sub-Saharan Africa has some of the fastest growing economies in the world, and since it represents just 4 per cent of the emerging markets private equity asset class there is plenty of room to expand. But as the African growth story attracts more and more funds the going is getting tougher, reports Katrina Manson.
• Barack Obama’s outreach efforts may do more to expose Republican resistance to his overtures than to build bipartisan bridges.
• The CIA is boosting its support of elite Iraqi antiterrorism units amid alarm that the civil war in Syria may spill over the border.
• Here are Amos Chapple’s photographs of his trip to Iran: “For ordinary Iranians … the government is a constant embarrassment. In the time I spent there I never received anything but goodwill and decency.”
• Steven Cook at the Council on Foreign Relations ponders the need for reform within Egypt’s Ministry of the Interior and the likelihood of it: “As much as bulldozing the Ministry of Interior would likely reverse President Morsi’s declining fortunes, he – like Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi before him – will never do it because he both needs and fears the police.”
• Peter Guest looks at whether oil and gas exploration in east Africa will be a boon or a curse in Turkana, northern Kenya. “This area is often a battlefield,” says one development worker.
• While you’re on tenterhooks for white smoke to appear at the Vatican, see who would be your ideal Pope with the Pontifficator.

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