Niamey, Niger, August 19, 2023: Thousands of young people queue to register to volunteer to defend their country as part of a volunteer initiative. General Abdourahmane Tchiani, head of the Presidential Guards Unit, has repeatedly warned ECOWAS and unnamed Western nations against stepping in. “We once again reiterate to ECOWAS or any other adventurer our firm determination to defend our fatherland”.
Whilst some may cheer on the anti-France feelings seen in protests in Niger, the military coup is unlikely to provide the people with relief from the current poverty, let alone put the country on a democratic path, argues Yasser Louati.
It was easier to approach Moscow in June than to leave it in August. Wagner Group mercenary leader Yevgeniy Prigozhin, who staged a short-lived mutiny against the Russian military two months ago, was reportedly killed in a plane crash along with nine other passengers on Wednesday while traveling from Moscow to St. Petersburg, according to Russian authorities and Wagner-affiliated Telegram groups. Some reports have indicated that the plane was downed by Russian air defenses. Just hours earlier, General Sergei Surovikin, who allegedly had advance knowledge of the Wagner mutiny and had not been seen in public since it occurred, was removed from his post as head of Russia’s air force.
The Islamic State has exploited the chaos in Libya to extend its influence.
Libyan authorities have arrested an Islamic State leader suspected of having planned three deadly attacks in Libya’s capital in 2018, the UN-backed government announced on Thursday.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and intensified United States (US)–China competition have had two important geostrategic consequences. They have blown new life into the European Union (EU) and North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and accelerated expansion of the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS) bloc’s role and membership, as confirmed at this week’s Johannesburg summit.
Après le Mali, le Burkina Faso et le Niger, la France est-elle en passe d’être chassée du Sahel ?
Quelle est sa stratégie pour ne pas perdre le dernier pays où elle a repositionné ses troupes ? Parviendra t’elle à convaincre la CEDEAO de frapper les putschistes de Niamey ? N’est-ce pas la fin de présence française dans le Sahel africain ?
On 26 July, high-ranking Nigerien officers announced on national television that they had overthrown President Mohamed Bazoum, who was democratically elected in 2021. In this Q&A, Crisis Group analysts lay out the reasons for the coup as well as the stakes going forward.
Many of today’s problems affecting the majority of the world, including Africa and Russia, are a direct consequence of the persistence of old colonialism and the imposition of renewed forms of colonialism.
Conversely, the notorious prosperity of the West can be attributed to the rules of a predatory world order generated by this colonial legacy. The justifications, forms and technologies of colonialism have changed over the centuries, but to this day their disastrous consequences have not been fully overcome.
Russia’s grey-zone influence in the Middle East and Africa enters uncharted territory amid reports of the Wagner chief’s death.
Russian state media claimed that Yevgeny Prigozhin, the de facto head of the Wagner paramilitary organization, was killed along with nine other people onboard a private jet that tumbled out of the skies north of Moscow on Wednesday.
The Syrian tragedy started with peaceful efforts by a large segment of the population to secure more individual freedoms, a curb on corruption, and better economic opportunities.
All the current talk about normalization and reconstruction is a subterfuge to avoid the core geopolitical aspect of this tragedy created by conflicting visions of the future, not only of Syria but of the Middle East as a whole.