Media Review for October 23, 2012

Please note: The following news items are presented here for informational purposes. The views expressed within them are those of the authors and/or individuals quoted, not those of the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, the National Defense University, or the Department of Defense.

Today’s News

France to send drones to Mali region
France will move surveillance drones to West Africa and is holding secretive talks with U.S. officials in Paris this week as it seeks to steer international military action to help Mali’s feeble government win back the northern part of the country from al-Qaida-linked rebels, The Associated Press has learned. AP

Mali military intervention plan gathers pace
African leaders gathered in Bamako last Friday (October 19th) to discuss the crisis wracking Mali and plans for a military intervention to retake the north from radical Islamists. “We must not lose a single second. This is an emergency, this is a race against time,” Malian President Dioncounda Traore told attendees at the summit. Magharebia

Ignoring the Terrorist Threat Doesn’t Make It Go Away
[...] The fall of the Muammar Qadhafi regime also impacted Africa’s Sahel region. Terrorists and their affiliates have occupied northern Mali, and the interim government in Bamako (Mali experienced a coup last March) is too weak to do anything about it independently. Planning for military intervention by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is already underway. The Obama Administration’s response is conflicting. At first, it supported the reinstatement of a central government before any incursion takes place, but in September, Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Johnnie Carson stated that Mali “should accept the support…of other ECOWAS states.” The Heritage Foundation

Guinea-Bissau: Portugal behind failed coup bid
Guinea-Bissau’s interim government accused Portugal and other Portuguese-speaking countries of being behind an assault on an air force base, saying it was part of a strategy to return to power the West African nation’s exiled former prime minister. Reuters

Three arrested ‘over plot to poison Benin’s president’
Three people have been arrested over an alleged plot to poison Benin’s head of state Thomas Boni Yayi, officials say. The suspects include one of the president’s nieces, his personal doctor and an ex-minister, public prosecutor Justin Gbenameto told reporters. He said those detained faced charges of criminal conspiracy and attempted assassination of the West African leader. BBC

The Other 9/11: Libyan Guards Recount What Happened in Benghazi
More than a month after the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, U.S. officials have yet to talk to many of the Libyan guards on duty at the American mission on that fatal evening. Fearful of reprisal from the still unknown perpetrators of the attack, the guards have gone into hiding; and their vivid recollections are giving way to a sense of abandonment by the American government, which offered them no protection from the attackers the guards believe want them dead. TIME’s Steven Sotloff has talked to the guards for their account of what happened on the night of Sept. 11, 2012 and the early hours of the day after. Time

Libyan Town Under Siege Is a Center of Resistance to the New Government
A city under siege, a rising death toll and hospitals filling with men wounded by gunfire were unmistakable signs Sunday that war has returned to the Libyan town of Bani Walid, imperiling the country’s fragile political transition. At least 22 people have been killed in the last week and hundreds more injured in fighting around the city, a one-time bastion of support for Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi that has shrugged off the new government’s authority. New York Times

Security: : Is Africa’s maritime strategy all at sea?
The African Union’s (AU) deadline for securing the continent’s territorial waters – the world’s last major geographical region without a maritime strategy – has been set at 2050, a target that may prove untenable. Without a comprehensive strategy to police, patrol and promote the maritime economy and resources along its 42,000km coastline, Africa loses billions of dollars in revenue annually and leaves itself vulnerable to myriad criminal activities. IRIN

Worldwide sea piracy falls to lowest level in four years following international warship patrols in the Gulf of Aden
Worldwide sea piracy has fallen to its lowest levels in four years, according to the International Maritime Bureau, with attacks off the coast of Somalia falling sharply. Attempted hijackings fell from more than 350 to 23

African nations can no longer afford to be France’s garden
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) was recently the site of choice for the 14th Summit Meeting of La Francophonie Heads of State and Governments held in Kinshasa in mid-October. “La Francophonie” stands for a wide network of institutions and projects aimed at developing the political, economic and cultural links between France and its former colonies, through training support, academic and students exchanges, promotion of the French language, cultural exhibitions, subsidies and so on. Globaltimes

Violence erupts in Senegal over detention of religious chief
Scores of devout Muslim youths sowed panic in Dakar on Monday as they smashed up dozens of cars in protest against the detention of a powerful religious leader or marabout. Radio Netherlands

‘Obamagic’ vs. ‘Myth Romney’: Nigerians enjoy soap opera, not issues
[...] The story of “Obamagic” goes back four years, when it emerged that a black man actually stood a chance of becoming the president of the most powerful country in the world. Here, the boss of the stock exchange launched an “Africans for Obama” group (never mind that she probably meant to say “Billionaire Nigerians for Obama”) and organised a fund-raising dinner that amassed $600,000 for the Democratic candidate. There was only one snag; no one had taken the time to find out what American campaign financing laws had to say about such a move. The Obama campaign wasn’t allowed to receive the money, and Nigeria ’s anti-graft agency stepped in to probe the fundraising. CNN

Tunisians march against rising political violence
Thousands decried the growing violence in Tunisian politics during a protest in the capital Monday, warning that the nation’s nascent democracy is at risk almost exactly a year after it held historic elections. The march in Tunis came four days after the death of a union leader during a protest that turned violent. San Jose Mercury News3 in the first nine months of this year, with the bulk of that drop coming off the Horn of Africa where there were 70 attacks versus nearly 200 in the same period of the previous year. The Independant

Moroccan courts hit by strikes
Moroccan court clerks staged a three-day strike last week to protest work-related grievances and push for reform. The labour action, which ended on October 17th, followed a sit-in by judicial officers October 5th outside the Court of Cassation in Rabat. The strike was staged by members of the Democratic Justice Syndicate (SDJ) and involved sit-ins and demonstrations at courthouses. Magharebia

Mauritania: President’s shooting reveals military regime parading as a democracy
When the news spread that Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz of Mauritania had been shot my reaction was, “it finally happened!” While many of the details of the shooting remain unknown, and some accounts are contradictory, for those who have followed Mauritania’s politics since August 2005, it was only a matter of time before another attempt on his life was made. It certainly won’t be the last either. [...] The shooting should, however, be understood in the context of the country’s recent political evolution – certainly since Abel Aziz masterminded Colonel Ould Taya’s overthrow in 2005, and maneuvered himself into the presidential office following the 2008 coup. African Argument

Doctors in Egypt often won’t treat HIV-AIDS patients
[...] HIV education has become an international cause throughout Africa, where the rate of infection devastated many sub-Saharan nations but is being brought under control by concerted efforts on prevention and treatment. Similar efforts, however, are largely nonexistent in North Africa and the Middle East, and AIDS activists now worry that the rise of a conservative Islamic government in Egypt, where former longtime Muslim Brotherhood member Mohammed Morsi became the country’s first democratically elected president over the summer, will make matters worse. AIDS is still considered a disease of homosexuals and prostitutes here. Doctors are taught that it’s a foreigner’s disease, and they receive little training in how to treat such patients. Most doctors refuse to treat HIV patients or to deliver their children. McClatchy

U.N. frustrated by conflict in DRC
The U.N. Security Council expressed concern about foreign support for a rebel group operating in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Gert Rosenthal, the Guatemalan ambassador to the United Nations, called on all outside support for the rebel March 23 Movement to end “immediately.” UPI

Rwanda Wants ‘African Solutions’, Not ‘Tribal Alliances’
Ongoing conflict in eastern Congo can best be resolved by African leaders, without outside interference, Rwanda’s Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo said in an AllAfrica interview on the sidelines of United Nations meetings in New York. Along with President Paul Kagame, she denies reports that Rwanda is backing the M23 rebel militia, as alleged in a United Nations ‘experts’ report. allAfrica

Tanzania in fresh bid to sell its ivory stockpile
A fresh bid by Tanzania to be allowed to sell its stockpiled ivory is likely to meet strong resistance from the international community and conservationists. Ahead of the upcoming Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species conference in March, the government is lobbying Middle Eastern and Asian countries to be allowed a one-off sale of its 101,005kg ivory stockpile, worth nearly $60 million. The East African

70 years on from El Alamein, the desert battle that still claims lives
[...] Laced with millions of unexploded bombs, its sands remain one of the world’s biggest minefields; a lethal legacy of the Second World War, when Britain and her allies fought a tank war to prevent Egypt, and the rest of the Middle East, falling into Nazi hands. Since 1942, hundreds of Bedouin have been killed and thousands injured by some of the 16 million shells and landmines dotted around the desert. Official figures point to a total of more than 8,000 casualties, though this is a conservative estimate, given that records began only in 1982. The Independant