Africa News and Discussions

[firestar464]

Jesus christ...you'd be better off buying USD at that point

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Progressive International Applauds Kenyans for Rising Up to Defeat IMF Austerity Bill
by Jake Johnson
June 27, 2024

Introduction:

(Common Dreams) Progressive International on Thursday applauded the people of Kenya for taking to the streets en masse to defeat an International Monetary Fund-backed legislative package that would have hiked taxes on ordinary citizens as part of an effort to repay the government's powerful creditors.

"Pushed through at the behest of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the U.S. State Department, the bill would impose severe austerity measures and crippling taxes on Kenya's working people, who are already strained by Kenya's legacy of colonial underdevelopment," Progressive International said in a statement.

"The Progressive International stands firmly with the people of Kenya," the organization added. "They refuse to become another laboratory for neoliberalism—impoverished, beaten, or killed for the benefit of foreign corporations and their lackeys in the Kenyan government."

The Kenyan government's proposal, welcomed by the IMF as necessary for "debt sustainability," triggered massive youth-led protests in the nation's capital last week as thousands of citizens already immiserated by sky-high living costs flooded the streets to express outrage at the U.N. financial institution and their government for fueling the crisis.

The government crackdown was swift and deadly, with police using tear gas and live ammunition to beat back demonstrators calling for the withdrawal of the proposed bill and the resignation of President William Ruto, who took office in 2022.

Read more here: https://www.commondreams.org/news/kenya-protests

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More on that:

What Kenya’s Deadly Protests are Really About
by Ellen Ioanes
June 29, 2024

Extract:

(Vox) Complicating matters are Kenya’s other economic problems. Corruption, cronyism, financial mismanagement, and the vestiges of colonialism have hobbled Kenya’s once-impressive economic development and exacerbated class and ethnic inequalities.

All of that has led to a long-simmering political crisis: Ruto was elected on a promise that he would improve the lot of Kenya’s youth and lower classes, presenting himself as a break from the old, corrupt, politically incestuous elite. But he’s been unable to deliver, despite the country’s wealth in resources and economic boom in the early 2000s — and that has left large swaths of the population displeased with him, and his government, leading to the rancorous protests of recent days.

Though (President William) Ruto has backed off from the taxation bill, Kenyans, especially young people, are mobilized against the government and the status quo — and they aren’t backing down. Protests continued Thursday in Nairobi and other cities despite military patrols. After the bill and the violent repression, some protesters are now calling for Ruto to resign.

Amid serious distrust of his administration, Ruto now must find a way to manage the East African country’s debt load and avoid default without further harming the economy or inflaming people’s very real anger. It’s unlikely he’ll be able to do all of these things. But inaction could drive Kenya further into economic disaster.

Read more here: https://www.vox.com/world-politics/357 ... hina-imf

[SerethiaFalcon]

Removed for personal reasons.

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Malawi’s Farmers Face a Precarious Future from Climate Change-Related Storms
by Jenipher Changwanda and Freddie Clayton
July 8, 2024

Introduction:

(Independent Media Institute - Wiki Observatory) According to the 2021 Global Climate Risk Index, Malawi is among the five nations worldwide most affected by extreme weather events. The country experiences distinct wet and dry seasons, so climate phenomena like El Niño can disrupt normal rain patterns and lead to periods of drought.

The nation’s proximity to the Indian Ocean also makes it susceptible to cyclones and heavy rain. Poverty and deforestation exacerbate these weather impacts for the nation’s smallholder farmers, who produce 80 percent of the food consumed in Malawi.

Cyclone Freddy lasted a record 38 days in February and March 2023. The storm barreled 5,000 miles across the Indian Ocean, pummeling Madagascar and Reunion before striking the African mainland. It swirled over southern Mozambique and Zimbabwe, re-intensified over the warm waters of the Indian Ocean, then returned to strike northern Mozambique and Malawi.

In Malawi’s densely populated southern region, Freddy dropped six months’ worth of rainfall in six days, triggering floods and mudslides that killed more than 1,200 people and displaced 659,000. The government’s Post-Disaster Needs Assessment claims total loss and damages exceeded $1 billion. More than 2 million farmers lost their crops as 440,000 acres of land were destroyed or washed away, and 1.4 million livestock either drowned, starved to death, or became lost.

Malawi’s food system was still reeling months after the cyclone dissipated. “[Cyclone Freddy] caused soil erosion and degradation,” said Paul Turnbull, the World Food Program’s (WFP) country director in Malawi. “This has not only affected the 2023 harvest but also [had] long-term consequences on the productivity of agricultural land. Soil erosion diminishes soil fertility and can lead to decreased crop yields. Some affected households … had to wait for another farming season to grow food.”

Read more here: https://observatory.wiki/Malawi%E2%80% ... ed_Storms


Malawi

[Time_Traveller]

Another Coup, Another Defeat for France in Africa
by Cain Burdeau
August 30, 2023

Introduction:

(Courthouse News) — A military coup on Wednesday in the oil-rich West African nation of Gabon became the latest disaster for France's long-standing goal to keep a major presence in its former African colonies.

The coup in Gabon, a former French colony ruled for the past 55 years by a corrupt family dynasty and close ally of France, follows a series of major geopolitical setbacks for Paris in Africa.

The most serious attack on France's African ambitions took place just over a month ago when the democratically elected government of Niger was ousted in a military coup. It was the fourth coup in a Francophone West African nation since 2020.

The coup in Gabon took place early Wednesday morning when the country's mutinous military announced it had taken over the government. The news prompted large crowds of cheering Gabonese to take to the streets in the capital Libreville.

“France condemns the military coup that is underway in Gabon and is closely monitoring developments in the country, and France reaffirms its wish that the outcome of the election, once known, be respected,” French government spokesman Olivier Veran said.

Read more here: https://www.courthousenews.com/another ... africa/

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A year after Niger’s coup, split political loyalties test family ties

26 Jul 2024

Niamey, Niger – “No talk of politics today,” Aissata* said to her teenage daughter on the way to her parents’ house for their traditional Sunday gathering in Niamey.

“We can’t talk about any of this with the others. I don’t want any tension at the table.”

The 60-year-old mother of four and former teacher returned to Niger with her family five years ago after spending most of her adult life in the United States. She and her husband decided to retire to their homeland when their youngest daughter left home for college.

Since the July 26, 2023 coup against Mohamed Bazoum – a democratically elected leader and close ally to the European Union who ruled for a mere two years before being forced out of office – Aissata has welcomed the military government and new President, Abdourahamane Tchiani.

“I think some people misjudge Tchiani for being part of the former establishment that he’s condemning today. But as the former head of the presidential guard, he isn’t responsible for the previous governments’ shortcomings,” she told Al Jazeera.

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024 ... amily-ties

[firestar464]

A year has passed since Niger’s dramatic coup. Life has become more dangerous and desperate

https://apnews.com/article/niger-coup-s ... a3a45df084

I hope the people will be able to free themselves from this oppression one day.

[firestar464]

Niger oil exports under threat, as Patriotic Liberation Front warns of more pipeline attacks

https://www.france24.com/en/video/20240 ... ne-attacks

Apparently there is an armed resistance group operating, but it seems like their tactics are not supported by the wider population. They may need to adjust.

[firestar464]

https://www.voanews.com/a/niger-planned ... 66762.html
https://www.barrons.com/news/niger-auth ... s-c6bd803e

Some background on the group

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Wagner Group Setback in Mali Challenges Moscow’s Strategy in Africa and the Region’s Faith in Russian Mercenaries
by Christopher Michael Faulkner
August 9, 2024

Introduction:

(The Conversation) While Russia’s army is bogged down in Ukraine, its mercenaries are faring no better in Africa.

In late July 2024, mercenaries from the the Wagner Group, a Moscow-aligned private military company, accompanied the Malian army in what the Malian regime called a “stabilization operation” in the West African country’s northeastern town of Tinzaouaten, near the Algerian border.

That mission quickly went sideways when fighting broke out between that coalition and rebels from the Permanent Strategic Framework, an ethnically Tuareg separatist group.

In retreat, Wagner and Malian forces were ambushed by militants from the al-Qaida affiliate Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, or JNIM.

Upward of 80 Wagner personnel and over 40 Malian soldiers were reportedly killed in the fighting. Among the casualties was Nikita Fedyanin, who ran Wagner’s popular Telegram channel The Grey Zone.

Read more here: https://theconversation.com/wagner-gro ... es-236285

Of related interest: https://www.eurasiareview.com/09082024- ... analysis/


Mali

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Visit to Bulengo Prompts Fundraising Concert in Lewiston, Maine
by Eloge Kaneza
August 7, 2024

Introduction:

(Amjambo Africa!) “Take your hands off the Democratic Republic of Congo, take your hands off Africa, stop smothering Africa. Africa is not a mine to be exploited, nor a land to be robbed. Africa should be the protagonist of its own destiny.” – Pope Francis

When Gege Kizubanata and Dinha William Bilimba, the leaders of two nonprofit organizations active in humanitarian work in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, visited the displacement camps of Bulengo in Goma, the capital of North Kivu Province in eastern Congo, in April, they were joined by Cecile Thornton, from Lewiston.

Thornton, who is known in the Maine immigrant community as a friend, wanted to see for herself if reports of deplorable living conditions in the refugee camps were accurate.

While they were in Bulengo, the visitors heard about a father who had just died of starvation.

Distressed by the level of hunger they witnessed everywhere in the camps, and the living conditions they saw, this news of the father’s death propelled the visitors to decide they had to do something to help at least some people.

Read more here: https://www.amjamboafrica.com/visit-to ... ewiston/


Democratic Republic of the Congo

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UN Agency Indicates Sudan is at a ‘Breaking Point’ as Civil War Rages
by Michael Mitsanas
August 12, 2024

Introduction:

(CNN) Sudan is at a “breaking point,” a United Nations agency said Monday, as a growing number of people need food, water, shelter and medical care in a country devastated by intensifying war.

Over eight million people have been displaced since fighting erupted between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) last year, plunging the country into what the UN has called “one of the worst humanitarian disasters in recent memory.”

“Without an immediate, massive, and coordinated global response, we risk witnessing tens of thousands of preventable deaths in the coming months,” Othman Belbeisi, the Middle East and Africa director for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said in a statement. “We are at breaking point, a catastrophic, cataclysmic breaking point,” he added.

At least half of the displaced are children in a war tarred by “appalling levels of rights violations, ethnic targeting, massacres of civilian populations and gender-based violence,” the statement said.

Earlier this month, the UN-backed Famine Review Committee said at least one refugee camp in Sudan’s Darfur region is experiencing famine, which the agency has only declared twice in Sudan’s history. In May, the World Food Programme said people in that region had been forced to eat grass and peanut shells to survive.

Read more here: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/s ... gNewsSerp


Sudan

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How Debt and Taxes Conspired to Rob Nairobi’s Slum-dwelling Youth of the Promise of a Better Life
by Angela R. Pashayan
August 22, 2024

Introduction:

(The Conversation) Throughout the summer of 2024, young Kenyans have taken to the streets of the capital, Nairobi, in a series of anti-government demonstrations.

Dubbed the “Gen Z” protests, the unrest was sparked by the introduction of an unpopular finance bill in mid-June. A month later, the bill was withdrawn, but protests have persisted and at least 50 people have been killed in the subsequent police crackdown on demonstrators.
But the roots of the protests predate this summer; Kenyans have been dissatisfied with the country’s economy since at least mid-2023, when initial protests began. And while the catalyst for these latest demonstrations may have been a series of tax increases proposed in the finance bill, the problems that young Kenyans face extend far beyond that issue.

For more than a decade, I have been researching slums in Nairobi and speaking with low-income residents in the capital. I’ve watched Gen Zers grow up since 2010 when some were just 5 years old. That same year, Kenya adopted a new constitution that guaranteed protected rights for all Kenyans, including adequate and affordable housing, clean water, health, equality, freedom of assembly, freedom from violence, and children’s rights to basic education. In short, poor Gen Zers were promised a pathway toward a decent life.

The failure of the Kenyan government to deliver on that pledge provides the backdrop to the deep-rooted grievances among Kenya’s poor that have manifested in widespread protests this summer.

Read more here: https://theconversation.com/profiles/a ... -1537283


Kenya

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Tanzania: President Samia Suluhu Hassan Denies Killing Opposition Figure as U.S. Calls for Investigations
by Eloge Kaneza
September 10, 2024

Introduction:

(Amjambo Africa!) On Monday, September 9, the U.S. government called for an investigation into the assassination of Tanzanian opposition figure Ali Mohamed Kibao, who was a leading member of Chadema, Tanzania’s primary opposition party. According to Agence France Presse (AFP), Kibao was forced off a bus at gunpoint Friday, September 6 by suspected security agents, beaten, and doused with acid.

Freeman Mbowe, Chairman of Chadema, told the AFP, “The post -mortem found that Mr Kibao had been severely beaten and had acid poured on his face. We cannot allow our people to continue disappearing or being killed like this. The lives of Chadema leaders are currently at risk.”

Tanzania will hold local elections in November and general elections next year, and speculation is rife that the assassination is connected to the upcoming elections.

The U.S. issued a statement on Monday saying that “Murder and disappearances, as well as last month’s detentions, beatings, and other efforts to disenfranchise citizens ahead of elections, should have no place in a democracy. ”

Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan condemned what she qualified as ‘brutal acts’ on the platform X (formerly Twitter): “It is with great sadness that I received the news of the assassination of Chadema leader Mr. Mohamed Ali Kibao. I apologize to the leaders of the party, the family, the family of Kibao, relatives and friends,” she wrote in Swahili on Monday, 9 September.

Read more here: https://www.amjamboafrica.com/tanzania ... igations/


Tanzania

[wjfox]

UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

3 October 2024, 10:58 BST

The UK has announced it is giving up sovereignty of a remote but strategically important cluster of islands in the Indian Ocean after more than half a century.

The deal – reached after years of negotiations - will see the UK hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius in a historic move.

This includes the tropical atoll of Diego Garcia, used by the US government as a military base for its navy ships and long-range bomber aircraft.

The announcement, made in a joint statement by the British and Mauritian Prime Ministers on Thursday, ends decades of often fractious negotiations between the two countries over the islands.

The US-UK base will remain on Diego Garcia – a key factor enabling the deal to go forward at a time of growing geopolitical rivalries in the region between Western countries, India, and China.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c98ynejg4l5o

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Tigray (Ethiopia): War’s End Does Not Erase Scars of Sexual Violence
by Samuel Getachew
October 6, 2024

Introduction:

(Ambajo Africa) Often described as one of the most vicious conflicts of the 21st century, war in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia officially ended two years ago. However, the effects of the violence are lasting and omnipresent, with a special toll on women.

With an estimated 600,000 people killed during the war and millions displaced, the violence in Ethiopia included harrowing stories of sexual violence throughout the Tigray region, which is one of Ethiopia’s most impoverished and volatile.

At Mekele’s largest public hospital, at the height of the war, when millions of citizens were under siege and medicine was in short supply, the rape crisis center at Ayder Comprehensive Specialized Hospital was overwhelmed with victims.

Kibrom Gebreselassie, the director of the hospital, vividly recalls the horrors he witnessed when women converged on the hospital looking for help, recounting stories of gang rape and abduction.

“This happened as soon as the war commenced so unexpectedly almost four years ago. With many health infrastructures destroyed, especially in the rural areas of the region, many made the risky trip to us, and we offered safe houses that quickly filled. Victims continued to flock to this facility,” Gebreselassie recalled.

Read more here: https://www.amjamboafrica.com/wars-end ... violence/


Ethiopia

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UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

3 October 2024, 10:58 BST

The UK has announced it is giving up sovereignty of a remote but strategically important cluster of islands in the Indian Ocean after more than half a century.

The deal – reached after years of negotiations - will see the UK hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius in a historic move.

This includes the tropical atoll of Diego Garcia, used by the US government as a military base for its navy ships and long-range bomber aircraft.

The announcement, made in a joint statement by the British and Mauritian Prime Ministers on Thursday, ends decades of often fractious negotiations between the two countries over the islands.

The US-UK base will remain on Diego Garcia – a key factor enabling the deal to go forward at a time of growing geopolitical rivalries in the region between Western countries, India, and China.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c98ynejg4l5o

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Deal struck to deport migrants arriving in the Chagos Islands to British island territory

3 hours ago



Sir Keir Starmer has agreed a deal to deport migrants who arrive in the Chagos Islands in small boats.

Refugees arriving in the archipelago will be removed to St Helena, another UK territory more than 5,000 miles away in the Atlantic Ocean

The deal was reached in the wake of a political agreement for the UK to hand the Chagos Islands over to Mauritius, following negotiations that began in 2022.

That decision, announced earlier this month, is designed to secure the future of a secretive military base on the island of Diego Garcia, but it has also left the UK without sovereign territorial control over the islands.

The government of St Helena has been handed £6.65m to house any migrants that arrive on the Chagos Islands until the full agreement has been worked out.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/p ... 31758.html

[firestar464]

‘The world doesn’t see us:’ What a militia chief said while holding me captive in Darfur

https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/23/africa/d ... index.html

The Globe and Mail- The horrific crisis in Sudan is being prolonged by foreign meddling

https://archive.ph/m3Unr

Foreign Policy- How the U.N. Can Prevent Genocide in Sudan

https://archive.ph/z3xGn