Given the number of potential spoilers and intruders, the US and other peace brokers urgently need to bring in the United Nations.
Sudan’s war is on the brink of igniting a regional ring of fire. That can be prevented — but it needs the United Nations to play its role.
Countries in West Africa need to collaborate to stem the tide of weapons flowing through Niger.
Arms and ammunition seizures by security forces in Niger’s Agadez and Tahoua regions between January 2021 and February 2022 helped dismantle trafficking networks in the country. This is positive, but what do the seizures say about the extent of the problem? Is arms trafficking from Libya to countries in the south on the rise again?
For a decade, gold exploitation, legal or illegal and official or informal, has known a speedy expansion throughout the Sahel. Its actors are numerous and range from Canadian and Russian multinationals to small informal local operators. Financial incomes and especially jobs creations, even dangerous ones, are considerable for all: private companies, governments and small operators as well as their equipment suppliers often from Middle East. More than other industrial activities, gold mining in the Sahel has a confirmed impact on the health of workers and on the environment. This is especially true of its informal activities. The wells, dug to reach the ore as well as the use of mercury to separate gold from the rock, are mortal and lasting dangers for all: people and nature. For many observers this informal gold exploitation has obvious links with radical groups. Faced with multiple international controls on financial transfers, they therefore have found sources of a local, sustainable and unrestrained funding. Thus, destabilizing the formal local gold exploitation gives them more space and freedom to access local sources of revenues far from the many national and international controls or surveillances of money transfer. The recent murderous evasion of four terrorists from Nouakchott main civilian prison, already a privilege, is a latest power demonstration of these groups various and powerful networks in the Sahel. The paper below, on gold mining in Burkina Faso, shows the importance of this mineral precious but not only for governments and private companies. – Ahmedou Ould Abdallah, President, centre4s.org
Nouakchott — Obvious, that very complex question is now more frequently raised than ever before. It calls for an answer. Ten years of wars – with international forces support – deaths, injuries, displacements and budgets in billions of dollars, have not reduced terrorists presence or expansion. Isn’t it then time to change – analysis, strategy and combat – to openly ask, experts and especially the victims, that is to say the populations?
Chili peppers, fake medicine, fuel, gold, guns, humans, and more are being trafficked via millennia-old trade routes crisscrossing the Sahel, and the UN and partners are trying out new, collaborative ways to thwart those attempting the illegal practice, a growing problem in this fragile African region.
Introduction
Beginning in the sixteenth century, millions of African people were kidnapped, enslaved, and shipped across the Atlantic to the Americas under horrific conditions that frequently resulted in starvation and death. Nearly two million people died at sea during the agonizing journey. Over two centuries, the enslavement of Black people in the United States created wealth, opportunity, and prosperity for millions of Americans. As American slavery evolved, an elaborate and enduring mythology about the inferiority of Black people was created to legitimate, perpetuate, and defend slavery. This mythology survived slavery’s formal abolition following the Civil War.
A senior Iraqi military delegation, consisting of top commanders from Joint Operations Command arrived in the Kurdistan Region’s Sulaimani on Tuesday.
Top commanders from the Kurdistan Region’s Peshmerga forces and the military on Tuesday agreed to increase the joint operations against the remnants of ISIS in the disputed areas with the support of the Iraqi air force.
An airstrike targeted a militant group in northern Iraq’s Yazidi heartland of Sinjar on Tuesday, according to local officials, who attributed the strike to Turkey.
Officials gave conflicting reports regarding the number of casualties. The semi-autonomous Kurdish region’s counter-terrorism service said in a statement that three fighters were killed in the attack, and one wounded. Ali Hamed, a member of the militia-affiliated town council, however, denied that there were any deaths, saying one civilian was lightly injured in the attack.
The regional interests behind Syria’s return to the Arab League have nothing to do with democracy, participation, or respect for human rights.
Syria has a rich history stretching back to the earliest civilizations, with a legacy found not only in the traces left by empires, but also in the country’s accumulated cultural heritage. Syrians continue to produce literature, art, poetry, and philosophy at the highest level.
Jihadists with ties to Al-Qaeda have warned followers about the possibility that “deepfake” Artificial Intelligence technology could be used to get into, or influence their online discussions.
Security Services, the message suggests, could use fake audio to give fake commands while pretending to be jihadist leaders. Or they could disguise themselves by using the technology to generate authentic-sounding responses.