Ouverture réussie pour le premier sommet Russie-Afrique organisé par Vladimir Poutine et co-présidé par le président en exercice de l’Union africaine (UA), Abdel Fattah al-Sissi. Les dirigeants africains ont répondu à l’appel de Sotchi et, en ce premier jour surtout consacré à la coopération économique, promesses, serments d’amitié et contrats se sont multipliés.
Russia has been busy on the African continent in recent years. Russian officials acknowledged Russians were on board an Antonov An-72 transport which crashed last week in a remote Congolese forest.
There have also been reports of Russians killed in civlil war battles in Libya recently. And Russia has been making deals and spending money and making commitments all over Africa.
The United States is keeping some troops near oil fields in northeastern Syria to protect them from being captured by Islamic State, defense chief Mark Esper said Monday.
A senior leader within al Qaeda’s Uqba bin Nafi Battalion (KUBN) was reportedly killed in a military operation earlier today, according to Tunisia’s Ministry of Interior.
Al-Qaeda maintains a stronger position in the Sahel than Islamic State-affiliated groups.
Although Western targets have been struck in recent years, the vast majority of jihadist attacks and resources have been focused on local-level operations in the Sahel.
Au sud du Sahara et au Maghreb, Vladimir Poutine veut voir son pays jouer un rôle de premier plan, comme au temps de la guerre froide. Du 22 au 24 octobre, Sotchi, au bord de la mer Noire, accueillera le tout premier sommet Russie-Afrique.
“We reached a level of injustice we could no longer take. For every action, there is a reaction,” explained one civil society activist following the Oct. 1 outbreak of protests in Baghdad and central and southern Iraq.
The team of researchers from the Syrian Association for Citizen’s Dignity (SACD) worked for months under extremely challenging conditions to interview 165 people in Homs, Damascus countryside, Dara’a, and Aleppo to document the security situation of returnees and those living in areas covered by “reconciliation agreements” in parts of Syria under the control of the regime of Bashar al-Assad. The resulting report and its underlying research comprise an unprecedented effort, considering that no international organization, including the UNHCR, has real, uncensored access to all areas under Assad’s control. It is virtually impossible to publicly gather information in these areas, especially when it comes to the security situation, threats facing returnees, their access to basic services, and their views on the return process and other relevant issues. That is why this report provides unique insights into one of the most relevant issues for the future of Syria.
Turkey’s cross-border incursion into northeastern Syria has stirred up a hornet’s nest of instability and threats. If left unchecked, this latest “war within a war” will have deeply destabilizing consequences for many years. The blame for this catastrophe lies in the hands of one man: President Donald Trump. Following a phone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Oct. 6, President Trump swiftly ordered nearly 100 American troops to evacuate their positions along the Syrian-Turkish border, thereby removing the only obstacle that had, until then, prevented Turkey from crossing to attack. Although the president may not have given a verbal “green light,” his decision could only have been read one way in Ankara.
Something had to give.
Decades of corruption and criminal mismanagement by Lebanon’s ruling elites — the same clique who have governed the country since its independence in 1943 — have finally led to an economic implosion and a social explosion.