Africa

The country’s bloated debt portfolio is the outcome of decades-long economic mismanagement.

Among the many dangers threatening the very foundation of the Nigerian state is the government’s increasing reliance on internal and external borrowing to finance its operations. In recent weeks, various international organizations, private entities, senior government officials, and former government functionaries have decried the Buhari administration’s appetite for borrowing, and warned about the risk to the Nigerian state of allowing the situation to get out of hand. These include the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which projected that “the Nigerian government may spend nearly 100 percent of its revenue on debt servicing by 2026;” the World Bank, which warned that the country’s debt, while seemingly sustainable, is “vulnerable and costly;” and the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), a body of private sector leaders, which warned against what it saw as the prospect of creating “a debt burden for future governments.”

Militant Islamist violence in Africa has risen continuously over the past decade, doubling in just the past 3 years.

A review of violence involving African militant Islamist groups over the past decade underscores the continuing, although varied, escalation of this threat.

The threat from the Islamic State extremist group is growing by the day in Africa and the continent could be “the future of the caliphate,” an African security expert warned the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday.

In both spirit and language, the newly launched Biden administration’s Africa strategy illustrates the shift in the diplomatic mood in the four years since National Security Advisor John Bolton announced the Trump administration’s Africa policy. Consistent with the temper of the time, Trump’s Africa strategy emphasized three principles: prosperity, security, and stability. If there was one overriding military objective to be achieved, it was “countering the threat from radical Islamic terrorism and violent conflict.”

The al-Shabab extremist group has exploited Ethiopia’s internal turmoil to cross the border from neighboring Somalia in unprecedented attacks in recent weeks that a top U.S. military commander has warned could continue.

After years of failed military efforts, the path forward has to include some kind of accommodation with the militants.

Since at least 2017, when Mali’s government organised a peace forum called the Conference of National Understanding, prominent voices in the country and the wider Sahel region have explored the possibility of dialogue with jihadists.

Three Anti-Stock Theft Unit officers were injured on Monday after suspected Al-Shabaab militants attacked Mandera’s Elram base.

Elram is about 10kms to the Somalia border.

Algeria is interested in joining the BRICS, the economic bloc of developing countries which includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The appeal was publicly made by the northern African leader, Abdelmadjid Tebboune during a TV interview broadcast on Sunday, July 31.

The United States has ordered non-emergency personnel and their families to leave Mali due to a heightened risk of attacks, the State Department said.

The US did not mention a specific threat to its employees, but said there was an increased danger of violence affecting Westerners in a country that has been plagued by jihadist attacks for years.