The Regional Security Imperative to Protect the Congo Basin
Comprising almost 200 million hectares of dense rainforest and peat swamp soils, the Congo Basin absorbs more carbon dioxide than any other region in the world…Yet, estimates are that the Congo Basin forests are shrinking by 1 to 5 percent a year and that 30 percent of forest cover has been lost since 2000, largely due to unregulated commercial logging and mining…Pressure on the Congo Basin forests is further exacerbated by illegal wildlife trade (IWT) and illegal mining, including the high concentrations of cobalt and coltan. Given the high-value revenue streams, weak forest management, and lax government oversight of these sectors, transnational organized criminal networks and armed militant groups are playing an increasingly central role in resource extraction from the Congo Basin. This poses both a growing security and economic threat to the region. Africa Center for Strategic Studies
New President Says Botswana’s Smooth Transfer of Power Sets Example
Botswana’s newly elected leader, Duma Boko, says Africa can draw vital lessons from his country’s smooth transfer of power. Boko spoke after the Botswana Democratic Party, which had ruled the country since independence in 1966, suffered a crushing defeat in last week’s elections. Addressing the media after an official handover of office Monday, Boko praised outgoing President Mokgweetsi Masisi for ensuring a seamless transfer of power…“This is democracy in motion; this is democracy exemplified, sent as an abiding lesson to the whole world to say to the African continent — it must happen, it can happen and when it does, it is one of the most beautiful experiences a country can go through.” VOA
New Botswana President Aims to Fix Ties with Diamond Group De Beers
Botswana’s new president, Duma Boko, has pledged to repair relations with Anglo American’s De Beers diamond business after his surprise election win in the world’s largest producer of the gemstone by value. Boko’s party, the Umbrella for Democratic Change, defeated the Botswana Democratic party, which held uninterrupted power since independence in 1966 — the year before De Beers discovered diamonds in the southern African country…But Boko is inheriting blemished ties after populist posturing by his predecessor over a renewal of terms, a downturn in the global diamond market and Anglo’s plans to exit De Beers since it warded off a £39bn takeover offer from BHP earlier this year. Financial Times
Sudan Scraps $6 Billion UAE Port Deal, Citing RSF Support
Sudan has cancelled a $6 billion deal with the United Arab Emirates to develop a Red Sea port, Finance Minister Gibril Ibrahim said on Sunday, accusing Abu Dhabi of supporting the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the country’s ongoing conflict. The deal, signed in December 2022, would have seen Abu Dhabi Ports and Invictus Investment, a company managed by Sudanese businessman Osama Daoud, build and operate the Abu Amama port, located about 200 km (124 miles) north of Port Sudan…The scrapped project was part of a larger investment package that also included a free trade zone, an agricultural project, and a $300 million deposit to Sudan’s central bank. Sudan Tribune
How Russian Interference Threatens to Derail Malaria Vaccines in Africa
Russia has launched a widespread disinformation campaign in Africa attacking the new game-changing British-made malaria vaccines in a bid for geopolitical gain…The new push aims to drench Africa in an avalanche of medical disinformation with the aim of undermining western influence on the continent…US officials have identified “African Initiative”, an information agency focused on Africa-Russia relations, as the key mechanism at the heart of Russia’s deception campaign…“When an idea is first introduced, it starts as a little blip on the periphery of the conversation,” says Mark Duerksen, a researcher at the African Center for Strategic Studies in Washington. “But over time it can be pushed more and more to the centre of the public square where it…becomes a galvanising political issue that is polarising and evokes strong emotions.” The Telegraph
Nigeria: How Disinformation Fueled Ethnic Tensions in Kaduna
[A military drone attack that killed scores of worshippers in Kaduna in December 2023 set in motion a disinformation campaign targeting the General Officer Commanding 1 Division Nigerian Army, Valentine Okoro, an Igbo man.] The information manipulation on social media provoked threats of terror on members of the Igbo ethnic group residing in the state. A PREMIUM TIMES analysis of hundreds of social media posts reveals that numerous accounts on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) spread false narratives, igniting a barrage of hate speeches against ethnic and religious groups…In one post viewed more than a million times on X, a user accused Mr Okoro, a major general, of orchestrating the killings in Tudun Biri, suggesting that the worshipers were massacred because of their Hausa-Fulani ethnic and Islamic affiliations…[D]isinformation actors play on existing biases, which cloud people’s judgement, said [Nurudeen Akewushola, a Nigerian fact-checker working at the FactCheckHub. Premium Times
Nigeria: Court Strikes Out Treason Charges against 119 Minors
The Federal High Court in Abuja on Tuesday struck out treason charges filed against the minors who have been detained regarding the #EndBadGovernance protest since August. The trial judge, Obiora Egwatu, struck out the case after the Director of Public Prosecutions of the Federation (DPPF), M.D. Abubakar, announced the withdrawal of the case in response to public outrage…The development is a culmination of the public outrage that followed the illegal attempt by the police to prosecute the minors and the collapse of two of them while waiting to take their pleas during the last proceedings on 2 November. Premium Times
Mpox Cases in Congo May Be Stabilizing. Experts Say More Vaccines Are Needed to Stamp Out Virus
In recent weeks, Congo has reported about 200 to 300 lab-confirmed mpox cases every week, according to WHO. That’s down from nearly 400 cases a week in July. The decline is also apparent in Kamituga, the mining city in the eastern part of Congo where the new, more infectious variant of mpox first emerged. But the U.N. health agency acknowledged Friday that only 40% to 50% of suspected infections in Congo were being tested — and that the virus is continuing to spread in some parts of the country and elsewhere, including Uganda…Health experts are also frustrated by the low number of vaccine doses the central African nation has received — 265,000 — and say that delivering the vaccine to where it’s needed in the sprawling country is proving difficult. AP
A Rejuvenated Railway Could Change how Minerals Move in Africa – and Globally
The US is providing hundreds of millions of dollars of financing for the Lobito Corridor [a railway that connects the Copper Belt to the Atlantic Ocean]…[P]roject proponents say that the corridor will create thousands of jobs and catalyze the growth of myriad sectors…[T]he initiative will be “absolutely critical” for the economies of the DRC and Zambia, Wamkele Mene, the Secretary General of the African Continental Free Trade Area, told CNN. “It enables them to have access to a port, an efficiently run port. It gives them access to global markets and also to regional markets,” he said. CNN
South Africa: Hundreds of Illegal Miners Arrested after Underground Food and Water Supplies Cut
At least 565 illegal gold miners — zama zamas — were arrested at the weekend in the North West town of Orkney after the police choked off their food and water supplies, forcing them to the surface. The arrests were the latest made under Operation Vala Umgodi, which seeks to disrupt illegal mining at a time when companies such as Sibanye-Stillwater have recorded a spike in such activities, including direct attacks on mine operations and infrastructure against the backdrop of record gold prices…Zama zamas ply their dangerous and illegal trade for weeks or months at a time underground and depend on local communities to provide them with sustenance at highly inflated prices. Daily Maverick
Senegalese Women Take Aim at Polluting Countries in March for Climate Justice
About 50 Senegalese women climate activists hit the streets of Dakar Saturday to demand climate justice ahead of COP29 in a march held annually since 2021, but that organizers say is particularly pertinent this year…This year saw record breaking floods across the Sahel, and Senegal was no exception. Flooding in recent months has left tens of thousands of people affected and more than 1,000 hectares of crops damaged in the north and east of the country according to government figures. AP
Boat Capsizes off Comoros Islands, 25 Killed, UN Agency Says
At least 25 people died off Comoros islands after traffickers capsized their boat on Friday night, the United Nations’ migration agency IOM said on Monday, the third such incident in three months…IOM, citing survivors, said the boat was carrying around 30 people from different nationalities, among them seven women and four children…In September, a boat carrying 12 people sailing from Anjouan failed to reach Mayotte, while in August eight people died in a similar incident, IOM said, adding that thousands have died on this route since 2011 while attempting to reach Mayotte…Mayotte is officially part of France, although Comoros claims it. Reuters
Two Novels on Impact of Post-colonial Conflict Win Key French Literary Awards
Novels about wide-scale violence in Algeria and Rwanda have won France’s two most important literary prizes and been hailed as groundbreaking narratives about the pressure on younger generations to come to terms with conflict in post-colonial societies. The French-Algerian writer Kamel Daoud won the Goncourt literary prize for his novel, Houris, about a young woman scarred by the violence of Algeria’s civil war in the 1990s. The writer and hip-hop artist Gaël Faye won the Renaudot prize for his bestselling novel, Jacaranda, about young people navigating the legacy of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The Guardian