Author: M Barbu

Or : Chirano, prototype de mine ghanéenne ?

Asante Gold Corporation serait en pourparlers avec Kinross Gold pour le rachat de la mine de Chirano. Ces discussions illustrent la reprise en main par le Ghana de son secteur extractif.

Le 6 avril, l’entreprise de Vancouver Asante Gold Corporation a annoncé être en pourparlers avec Kinross Gold pour le rachat de la mine ghanéenne de Chirano. Cette transaction entre les deux sociétés canadiennes illustre la reprise en main par le Ghana de son secteur extractif parce qu’elle serait financée par des fonds étatiques abondés par des prêts contractés par le Fonds d’investissement dans les infrastructures du Ghana (GIIF) et par le Fonds d’investissement des revenus miniers (MIIF).

Mali: la force française Barkhane annonce l’arrestation de six suspects à Gossi

Que s’est-il passé à Gossi ce dimanche 17 avril 2022 ? Des sources locales dénoncent l’enlèvement de plusieurs bergers par la force française Barkhane qui a démenti ce lundi et apporté sa version des faits.

Il s’agirait de cinq personnes, cinq bergers, selon des sources locales, « enlevés » par la force française Barkhane dimanche aux environs de 2 heures du matin à Adiora. Une localité située à une trentaine de kilomètres au nord de Gossi, dans le Gourma-Rharous, région de Tombouctou.

Mali : Bamako reçoit de nouveaux hélicoptères et radars russes

Les militaires au pouvoir à Bamako ont annoncé avoir reçu de nouveaux équipements russes, dont deux appareils de combat et des radars de surveillance.

Cité dans un communiqué de la Direction de l’information et des relations publique des armées (Dirpa), le général de division Oumar Diarra n’a pas manqué de se réjouir. « C’est la manifestation d’un partenariat très fructueux avec l’État russe », a déclaré le chef d’état-major général de l’armée malienne précisant qu’il s’agissait d’un « deuxième lot d’équipements militaires en provenance de la Russie ».

How Ukraine Can Build Back Better

Use the Kremlin’s Seized Assets to Pay for Reconstruction

The world’s attention has understandably been focused on the military side of the war in Ukraine. But in the next stage, the political-economic strategy may be decisive. As Tacitus once wrote of the Roman strategy in Britain, “they make a desolation and they call it peace.” Russia aims to do this to Ukraine not only with missile strikes and atrocities against civilians, but also by destroying the country’s economy. Its goal is not just Ukraine’s physical destruction, it is also to grind down the country’s hopes.

How Autocrats Endure

Viktor Orban and the Myth of the Self-Destructing Strongman

The timing could not have been more striking. On April 3, nearly six weeks after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s assault on Ukraine had apparently reinvigorated and reunified the liberal democratic West, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban was easily reelected to his fourth consecutive term in office, and his fifth in total. Although Orban has long emulated Putin and presides over an increasingly authoritarian regime—and although he faced for the first time a largely united opposition front—he had little trouble winning, drawing more than 53 percent of the vote and securing a continued supermajority in parliament. With the retirement of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, he also now carries the dubious distinction of being the longest-serving head of government in the European Union, a supposed bastion of human rights and democracy.

The New Nuclear Age

How China’s Growing Nuclear Arsenal Threatens Deterrence

In late June 2021, satellite images revealed that China was building 120 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) silos on the edge of the Gobi Desert. This was followed by the revelation a few weeks later that another 110 missile silos were under construction in Hami, in Xinjiang Province. Together with other planned expansions, these sites amount to a dramatic shift in the country’s approach to nuclear weapons. For decades, China maintained a relatively small nuclear force, but according to current U.S. intelligence estimates, that arsenal is now on track to nearly quadruple, to 1,000 weapons, by 2030, a number that will put China far above any other nuclear power save Russia and the United States. Nor does it seem likely that Beijing will stop there, given President Xi Jinping’s commitment to build a “world class” military by 2049 and his refusal to enter into arms control talks.

Yemen’s Houthi Rebels Sign Action Plan To End Use of Child Soldiers, UN Announces

The Houthi rebels in Yemen have agreed to end and prevent the recruitment and use of child soldiers. The United Nations praised the Houthis on Monday in its announcement that, as part of a two-month nationwide truce, the Houthis signed an Action Plan with the UN to protect the children affected by the armed conflict in Yemen. Thousands of child soldiers have fought on the side of the Houthis during the ongoing, seven-year-long civil war in Yemen.

That ‘Liberal, Post-Modern’ Life

It was aimed at explaining – and insulting – Russians but it wound up illuminating a lot more beyond Russia. In an April 12 interview on German television, German researcher Florence Gaub (a citizen of both Germany and France) said the following:

“We should not forget that, even if Russians look European, they are not European. In a cultural sense, they think differently about violence or death. They have no concept of a liberal, post-modern life. A concept of life than each individual can choose. Instead, life can end early with death. Russian life expectancy is quite low, you know, 70 years for men. That is why they treat death differently, that people simply die.”[1]