Alors que les dynamiques géopolitiques et sécuritaires du Sahel évoluent rapidement, la Chine s’impose comme un acteur clé, prêt à exploiter le vide laissé par le retrait des puissances occidentales traditionnelles, notamment la France. Cette transformation est emblématique d’un repositionnement global de la Chine sur la scène africaine, où sécurité et développement se croisent.
Two fateful missteps after the fall of dictator Muammar Qadhafi offer important lessons on the impact of early policy choices.
Jubilant crowds tearing down statues and posters of a hated despot. Feared prisons emptying out their longtime occupants. City squares hosting raucous rallies and solemn Friday prayers, free from the prying gazes of the security services.
This past weekend my partner and I got together with a group of friends. We’ve been meeting every six weeks or so since 1982. Originally, this group of lesbians convened to talk about sex: what we were doing, what we wanted to do, what we fantasized about doing. But you know how it is with any relationship. Over time, it can come to embrace so many other things. That’s how it’s been with the group we call “Group” (or sometimes “A Closed Group with No Name”). We’ve seen each other through breakups, new lovers, job changes, housing worries, ailments, the deaths of lovers, caring for aging and dying parents, and now confronting our own age and the nearness of our mortality.
Just over 220,000 migrants were detected trying to cross into Europe illegally in the first 11 months of 2024, according to Frontex data. That represents a decrease of about 40 per cent from 2023, and is several orders of size smaller than the numbers seen in 2015, when around 1 million Syrians made their way to Europe to escape the civil war back home. However, the perilous Western African route saw a record 46,843 people reach the Canary Islands illegally in 2024, up 19 per cent from 2023.
A senior Trump administration official met Egyptian leaders in Cairo last week to discuss a plan to relocate Palestinians from Gaza.
The United States has reportedly used Egypt’s water security crisis as leverage to pressure Cairo into accepting the plan of forcibly relocation of Gaza’s Palestinians, according to The New Arab’s Arabic language edition Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.
Trump stunned the world today with his blithely unapologetic plans for the mass ethnic cleansing and terraforming of Gaza, after receiving a “golden pager” memento from a smirking Netanyahu—a more cretinous tableau could hardly be imagined:
Syria’s transitional President Ahmed al-Sharaa and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan are expected to discuss a joint defense pact in Ankara on Tuesday, including establishing Turkish airbases in central Syria and training for Syria’s new army, four sources familiar with the matter said.
Lebanon’s health ministry reported on Sunday that Israeli forces, after missing the agreed withdrawal deadline, killed 24 Lebanese civilians and injured 130 more after opening fire on protesters.
The incident came hours before news broke that the deadline was extended until 18 February. Tensions had flared in southern Lebanon as demonstrators, some waving Hezbollah flags, attempted to enter multiple villages still under Israeli control. The protesters voiced anger over Israel’s failure to meet the original Sunday deadline to withdraw.
Images verified by Al Jazeera’s Sanad unit shed light on Israel’s plans after it expanded area of control in Syria.
Israel is building military bases in the demilitarised buffer zone with Syria, according to satellite images seen by Al Jazeera’s Sanad verification unit.
On February 3, 2025, the Australian Government imposed anti-terror sanctions on several entities worldwide, including Lebanese Hizbullah’s new Secretary-General Na’im Qassem, saying the Iran-backed organization is responsible for the deaths of countless civilians in Lebanon, Israel and across the Middle East.[1]
On the following day, Lebanese Hizbullah and Palestinian factions, The Palestinian Mujahideen Movement (PMM) and The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), issued press releases condemning Australia’s sanctions as an “antagonistic” move aimed at breaking the will of the resistance against the “nation of injustice” and “Zio-Western hegemony.”
Hizbullah: The Sanctions Reveal Australia As “A Subservient Instrument In The Service Of The American-Zionist Project”
On February 4, 2025, Hizbullah issued a press release saying that the Australian government’s decision to impose anti-terror sanctions once again reveals the true face of Australia as a “subservient instrument in the service of the American-Zionist project.”[2]
It called the decision “unjust” and lacking the legal and moral basis: “It rather represents a clear bias towards the Zionist entity and a cover-up for its aggression and terrorism,” noting that the Australian government should have punished Israel instead, and stood by the oppressed peoples of Lebanon and Palestine.
Additionally, Hizbullah affirmed that this decision will not have any effect on Hizbullah’s “natural right” to resist and defend Lebanon and the Lebanese people, and to support the “just Palestinian cause.”
“Rather, it will increase its determination and steadfastness to continue the march in confronting the occupier.”
The Palestinian Mujahideen Movement: Australian Government Sanctions “Reveal Western Subservience To The Zionist Aspirations”
The PMM press release opens by saying: “The Australian government’s decision, which goes in line with the Western trend to besiege the resistance forces and designate them on terror lists, comes in the context of protecting the Nazi Zionist entity, and reveals the reality of the Western subservience to the Zionist aspirations.”[3]
The movement further stated that resistance is a legitimate right, and a patriotic duty, in the face of Israel’s “genocidal war supported by the West,” adding that Australia and other countries should impose sanctions on, and designate Israel, as a “terrorist entity” for the “ethnic cleansing and brutality” against the Palestinian people.
“These antagonistic decisions and Western scheming will not succeed in breaking the will of our nation’s resistance and legitimate efforts to get rid of the injustice and Zionist-Western hegemony.”
The PFLP: The Australian Authorities’ Decision Is “Further Evidence Of Involvement In The American-Zionist Project Against The Resistance Forces”
For its part, the PFLP issued a press release[4] strongly condemning the Australian government’s decision as “further evidence of the Australian authorities’ involvement in the American-Zionist project that aims to besiege the resistance forces and attempt to subjugate them.”
The group argued that the decision is part of an ongoing Western war against resistance movements, where “old and new colonial powers continue to target everyone that confronts their antagonistic projects and rejects their hegemony” in Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen, and every arena where the banner of the resistance continues to fly.
The PFLP stressed its firm support for Hizbullah and its leader, and called on others to condemn Australia’s decision and “expose its subordination to the American-Zionist axis.”
“Resistance is not terrorism. It is a source of pride and honor, and a legitimate right for all people who reject occupation and aggression,” it declared.
[1] Foreignminister.gov.au/February 4, 2025.
[2] Telegram, February 4, 2025.
[3] Telegram, February 4, 2025.
[4] February 3, 2025.