Gabon’s prime minister says international sanctions and pressure for a return to constitutional order could be devastating to the country’s economy. He also says the military junta needs time to carry out reforms and a national dialogue before a projected return to civilian rule.

Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Gabon’s prime minister, Raymond Ndong Sima, said he wants to remind the world that by seizing power, the military saved the central African state from a civil war.  

He said Gabon’s political opposition was ready to take up arms and defend its victory after ousted president Ali Bongo Ondimba orchestrated alarming fraud and declared himself thewinner of the August 26 presidential election.

Sima said the international community and friendly countries should be compassionate and stop all sanctions they have already imposed or are planning to impose to press for a return to constitutional order in Gabon. The prime minister said Gabon will have challenges developing its economy and fighting poverty if foreign pressure and sanctions are not rapidly removed.

Contested results indicate 69-year-old Albert Ondo Ossa, leader of Gabon’s main opposition group Alternance 2023, won the August 26 election. But soldiers announced on national television on August 30 that they had seized power.

The designation of General Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema, head of the Republican Guard, as president, sparked an international outcry for a return to constitutional order.

This week, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the suspension of what he called certain foreign assistance programs to Gabon, pending a review of the circumstances that led to the ouster of President Bongo, who had ruled Gabon since 2009, when he succeeded his late father, Omar Bongo.  

The State Department said the suspension would not affect U.S. government operations in the oil-producing central African nation but did not elaborate on what U.S.-funded programs would be affected or how much money would be placed on hold.

Sima, speaking in Gabon’s capital, Libreville, said the country’s military junta should be allowed to undertake initiatives to restore stability, carry out institutional and legislative reforms, fight corruption, ensure sustainable economic development, and conduct a national dialogue before organizing elections.  

Sima did not say how much time the military junta needs to carry out the reforms and return power to civilians.

Telesphore Ondo is a public law lecturer at Omar Bongo University in Libreville.

Ondo tells Gabon state TV that the central African state’s military leader needs time and resources to carry out consultations and organize a national dialogue that will reconcile civilians who are angry over the Bongo family’s close-to-60-year rule that did not develop the oil producing nation. He says during the consultation and dialogue the military junta should make it known if it needs one, two or three years to return to civilian rule.

France, China, Russia, the United Kingdom and Canada are among nations, along with the U.S., that have expressed concerns about the military junta taking over in Gabon and are asking for a return to normalcy.  Similar requests have come from the United Nations, two central African regional blocs and the African Union. 
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Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin returns to the U.S. Thursday after wrapping up his first tour across the African continent as defense secretary. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb is traveling with Austin and has details from his trip.
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Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin returns to the United States Thursday after wrapping up his first tour across the African continent as Pentagon chief.

Austin started his tour in Djibouti, home to the primary U.S. military base on the African continent. There he met with Djiboutian leaders and Somalia’s president, whose forces, Austin said, had made more progress against the al-Shabab terror group in the past year than the previous five years combined.

Austin then turned to Kenya, visiting a base in Manda Bay near the Somali border where a terrorist attack in 2020 killed three Americans.

“Message here being very clear that the war on terror still remains top on the agenda of the American government,” said Vincent Kimosop, a policy analyst with Sovereign Insight.

The American and Kenyan defense secretaries signed a five-year security agreement to support working together against their common terror threat.

Austin also pledged $100 million in support of Kenyan security deployments, as Kenya prepares to lead a multinational peacekeeping mission to Haiti to combat gang violence.

“Kenya is ready, Kenya is willing to lead that multinational peacekeeping force that will go to Haiti,” said Kenyan Cabinet Secretary of Defense Aden Duale.

Austin ended his trip on Africa’s western coast, becoming the first U.S. defense secretary to ever visit Angola. Officials of both nations are hopeful that Angola can dump Russia as its arms supplier and opt for American-made weapons.

“Africa deserves better than outsiders trying to tighten their grip on this continent,” Austin said. “Africa deserves better than autocrats selling cheap guns, pushing mercenary forces like the Wagner Group or depriving grain from hungry people all around the world.”

Austin called out African military juntas without naming Burkina Faso, Gabon, Mali or Niger. It was his most forceful rhetoric since the military removed Niger’s elected president from power in July.

“When generals overturn the will of the people and put their own ambitions above the rule of law, security suffers — and democracy dies,” Austin said. “Militaries exist to defend their people, not to defy them. And Africa needs militaries that serve their citizens and not the other way around.”

France decided this week to withdraw its military forces from Niger by the end of the year, and analysts say the U.S. could follow suit should the Nigerien military not return the elected government to power.

“Niger has become the key hub, the key center of counterterrorism operations for the U.S. and France in the region,” said Bill Roggio of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “And if this is, if it’s cut back, or if it’s reduced, or if it’s ended, there is no other assets in the region that the U.S. can use.”

The U.S. has so far kept its forces in Niger, but the Pentagon has declined to conduct counterterror operations with Niger’s military.
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Malian political groups expressed outrage Wednesday at the junta’s decision to postpone indefinitely the presidential election that was supposed to bring back civilian rule.

The ruling junta on Monday announced a delay to a presidential election scheduled for February in the jihadi-hit West African nation.

New dates for the voting “will be communicated later,” a government spokesperson had said.

The reasons given for the postponement included issues linked to the adoption this year of a new constitution and a review of the electoral lists.

The spokesperson also cited a dispute with French company Idemia, which the junta says is involved in the census process.

The M5-RFP opposition coalition denounced the decision to delay the two rounds of voting — initially set for Feb. 4 and 18, 2024 — saying the junta needs “to respect its commitments.”

Since Monday, other parties have spoken out against the postponement, which is a further challenge to the West African bloc ECOWAS.

ECOWAS has not reacted officially to the latest announcement but has been putting pressure on the junta since 2020 to return civilians to power.

The 15-member organization, which proclaims a principle of “zero tolerance” for coups d’etat, has been faced with a succession of coups since the first putsch in Bamako, in Mali’s neighbors Burkina Faso and Niger, as well as in Guinea.

The Mali junta’s announcement is yet another delay to the schedule for handing back power to elected civilians.

The soldiers, who carried out back-to-back coups in 2020 and 2021, had earlier promised legislative elections for February 2022.
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In Goma, a city in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, residents say plastic and other waste is increasingly polluting Lake Kivu. A new initiative is keeping some of that waste out of the lake. Austere Malivika has this report from Goma, narrated by Aida Issa.
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France’s ambassador to Niger left the country early on Wednesday morning, around one month after the military government ordered his expulsion and days after President Emmanuel Macron said the diplomat would be pulled out and French troops withdrawn.

Relations between Niger and France, its former colonial ruler which maintained a military presence in the country to help fight Islamist insurgents, have broken down since army officers seized power in Niamey in July.

The junta had ordered French ambassador Sylvain Itte to leave the country within 48 hours at the end of August in response to what they described as actions by France that were “contrary to the interests of Niger.”

France at first ignored the order, sticking to its stance that the military government was illegitimate and calling for the reinstatement of elected President Mohamed Bazoum, who was toppled in the July coup.

But Macron announced on Sunday that the ambassador would return to Paris and French troops would leave.

Two security sources in Niger said Itte had flown out of the country. The news was later confirmed by the president’s office in Paris.

There have been almost daily protests against France in Niamey since the military took power. Crowds of junta supporters have spent days camping outside a French military base to demand the troops’ departure.

Macron had said Itte and his staff were effectively being held hostage at the embassy.

Anti-French sentiment spreads

Niger is just one of France’s former colonies in West Africa where there has been growing anti-French sentiment both among the population and the authorities, especially in countries where military rulers have seized power.

Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad and Niger are now all run by army officers following a spate of coups over the past three years, and anti-French rhetoric has been a recurring feature of their public pronouncements.

Critics of France say that for decades after its former colonies gained independence, it sought to maintain strong economic and political influence through a system of overt and covert diplomacy known as ‘Francafrique.’

The French government says the days of Francafrique are over and operations like the one in Niger were being conducted with the full consent, knowledge and cooperation of local governments, such as Bazoum’s now defunct administration.

While France’s critics accuse Paris of continuing to exert excessive and disruptive influence in the region, some analysts say military juntas are using France as a scapegoat for hard-to-solve problems.

The juntas in Mali and Burkina Faso have already kicked out French forces deployed to help fight a decade-long Islamist insurgency that has killed thousands and displaced millions across the Sahel region.

Some analysts have expressed concern that the withdrawal of French troops from Niger could further hamper Western efforts to stem the violence, which has risen since the coups, and bolster Russian influence in the region.
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The United States said Tuesday it would halt assistance to Gabon after the military took charge last month. 

“The U.S. government is pausing certain foreign assistance programs benefiting the government of Gabon while we evaluate the unconstitutional intervention by members of the country’s military,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.

He said that the United States was maintaining diplomatic and consular operations in the oil-rich Central African country. 

The move is temporary as the State Department considers a formal determination that Gabon experienced a military coup, which under U.S. law would snap off assistance. 

U.S. officials have previously said that U.S. assistance was minimal to Gabon, run by the Bongo family for more than half a century. 

Washington has a larger presence in both security and economic assistance in Niger, another African nation where the military recently took power.

Gabonese military leaders on Aug. 30 overthrew Ali Bongo Ondimba just as he was proclaimed the winner of an election widely criticized for irregularities. 

The military installed as prime minister the opposition leader, Raymond Ndong Sima, who in an address to the United Nations last week promised to take steps to hold new elections and called on the West not to condemn the coup “without nuance.”
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Nigeria’s two biggest workers’ unions plan to start an indefinite strike next week to protest a cost-of-living crisis after the government scrapped a popular but costly petrol subsidy, union leaders said on Tuesday.

Unions have been pushing President Bola Tinubu to reverse his May decision to scrap the decades-old subsidy that had kept fuel prices low but was draining government finances.

Prices have risen sharply, including the cost of food, transport and power as most businesses and households rely on petrol generators for electricity.

The Nigeria Labour Congress and Trade Union Nigeria, the biggest unions, said they would begin the strike on October 3.

“It’s going to be a total shutdown … until government meets the demand of Nigerian workers, and in fact Nigerian masses,” the union leaders said in a joint statement.

“The Federal Government has refused to meaningfully engage and reach agreements with organized labor on critical issues of the consequences of the unfortunate hike in price of petrol which has unleashed massive suffering on Nigeria workers and masses.”

The government had urged unions to continue negotiations instead of resorting to strikes, saying this would hurt an economy grappling with double-digit inflation, foreign currency shortages and low oil production.

Tinubu has defended his two biggest reforms — removal of the subsidy and foreign exchange controls — saying although this would lead to hardships in the short term, they were necessary to attract investment and boost government finances.
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Just weeks ago, Abdessamad Elgzouli earned a living introducing tourists to the rugged beauty of Morocco’s High Atlas Mountains and the ethnic Amazigh, or Berbers, who live here.

Today, Elgzouli has a new vocation: organizing a tent camp in the town of Amizmiz, for hundreds left homeless by this month’s earthquake.

“For me, the past is gone,” Elgzouli said as he surveyed his home, deeply fissured but still standing. “I live for today.”

The 6.8 magnitude quake on September 8 killed nearly 3,000 people, flattened mountain villages and demolished schools, hospitals and homes in the five provinces hardest hit. In a matter of seconds, it also wiped out a flourishing tourist economy that amounted to a windfall for this poor and underdeveloped slice of Morocco.

Now, the region faces the difficult job of rebuilding as winter looms, and harsh weather promises to complicate recovery — and intensify hardship for thousands of Moroccans living in tents perched high in the mountains.

While the government has pledged $11.7 billion to help more than 4 million earthquake-affected people rebuild, experts suggest the fallout could be steep. Earlier this month, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated the quake — exacerbating a broader economic contraction — could cost Morocco up to 8% of its GDP this year.

The quake also has taken on a political edge, as the Moroccan government accepted aid from only a few countries, declining offers from regional rival Algeria and former colonial power France. Critics suggest authorities were slow to respond.

Morocco’s king, Mohammed VI, was in Paris when the quake struck. Only a few days later did he visit a hospital in the nearby city of Marrakech, which was damaged by the quake.

Authorities rebut the criticism, and Moroccans interviewed expressed pride in the king and their country’s response. They point to the mountains of clothes, blankets, food and medications donated by citizens across the country, and in the diaspora.

War zone

“This is the way Moroccans have always been,” said Anis Beri, an economics student from the northern city of Meknes, who came to the High Atlas region to join the earthquake response.

Nearby, half a dozen men tossed donated rugs and mattresses from a large truck into a barbed-wire enclosure. The bedding would later be transported up narrow mountain roads to quake-affected villages, where many homes are now rubble.

Fruit and vegetable seller Abdeslam Stuti flashed a peace sign at a picture of the king, plastered on one side of a truck.

“We came with eight trucks full of everything people need,” he said, describing a 900-kilometer journey from Morocco’s northern coast to support earthquake survivors. He praised the police and gendarmes for providing logistics and escorts along the way.

Bigger challenges lie ahead.

Amizmiz — a jumping off point for mountain tourist treks — looks like a war zone. Residents pick their way through piles of rubble that pockmark many streets. On one, the pink shell of a coffee shop is bent skyward. But a honey store up the road is intact, bees buzzing over golden pots once sold to locals and tourists alike.

The Al-Haouz province where Amizmiz sits, the epicenter of the quake, counts among the 15 poorest in the country. In a region where subsistence agriculture remains a top source of income — and homes are still built with clay bricks — tourism has been a boon.

“Tourism was helping this area to develop,” tour guide Elgzouli said. “It’s been good business.”

Then came COVID-19. Amizmiz craftsman Ahmed Lawza, who sells silver-decorated furniture and mirrors to tourists, was forced to close shop. He worked in marble quarries to make ends meet. Since the earthquake, he said, “work has stopped again.”

Tough times ahead

“The impact is going to be big — enormous,” predicted Bruno Dubois-Roquebert, the owner of Maroc Lodge, a boutique hotel in Amizmiz, of the economic toll. “For [a] certain period of time there will be no tourists. It will take some time before they come back.”

The quake damaged or destroyed many area hotels. But Maroc Lodge escaped intact. Dubois-Roquebert, a Frenchman who was born and raised in Morocco, credits sound building.

On a recent day, he and friends loaded vehicles and navigated steep hairpin turns to donate bedding to families of staff living in a remote mountain hamlet.

“They have everything they need for the short term,” he said. “But we must not abandon these people. Because tomorrow is going to be very hard.”

Tour guide Elgzouli shares that sentiment. He and his family sleep outside, fearful of aftershocks. Soon after the quake, he began organizing the sprawling tent camp, which sits across from his house. Friends and clients have contacted him, offering support.

“People need me. I’m doing my best to help,” he said.

Elgzouli is thankful his family is alive … and for another gift.

The earthquake that struck late on a Friday night knocked out the neighborhood’s power.

“For the first time here,” he said, “I saw the stars.”
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Some Zimbabweans living in abject poverty are reacting angrily to claims by President Emmerson Mnangagwa that the country’s economy is the fastest growing in the southern African region. Columbus Mavhunga reports from Harare, where some economists and members of the main opposition say the president is being misinformed or does not understand basic economics. Camera —  Blessing Chigwenhembe.
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Conservationists in Kenya are ramping up efforts to protect elephants and increase their dwindling population. This follows a study published earlier this year that shows elephants play an important role in mitigating climate change. Juma Majanga reports from Kenya’s Amboseli National Park, home to over 2,500 elephants. Camera: Jimmy Makhulo.
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The earthquake that killed nearly 3,000 people in Morocco’s High Atlas Mountains this month also took a toll on the region’s flourishing tourist industry — a key source of jobs and income. The raft of tourist cancellations adds to the many challenges facing impoverished mountain communities as they begin the difficult task of rebuilding. Lisa Bryant reports for VOA from the Moroccan town of Amizmiz.
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The charity group Mercy Corps is helping rural communities in Kenya preserve rangelands and protect themselves against the impact of climate change. Ahmed Hussein reports from Wajir County, Kenya.
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Mali’s military government has postponed a presidential election that was expected to return the West African nation to democracy following a 2020 coup, a government spokesperson said Monday.

The presidential election scheduled for February 2024 is being delayed for “technical reasons” to allow the transitional government to review its election data and to address a new constitutional provision that would delay the second round of the vote, government spokesman Abdoulaye Maiga told reporters in Bamako, the capital city.

“The transitional government specifies that the new dates for the presidential election will be communicated at a later date, following discussions with the Independent Election Management Authority (AIGE),” Maiga said.

It is the second time that Mali’s military government – which emerged from two coups in 2020 – has postponed the country’s presidential election.

Politicians in Mali criticized the decision, which could draw economic sanctions from West Africa’s regional bloc, ECOWAS. The bloc eased sanctions on Mali in July 2022 after the government promised to hold the election.

“Nothing explains the postponement of the presidential election,” Amadou Koita, president of Mali’s Yeleen-Kura Socialist Party, said.

Mali is dealing with attacks by armed groups linked to al-Qaida, the Islamic State group and former rebels whose yearslong peace deal with the government failed in recent weeks.

A wave of coups in Africa’s Sahel region kicked off in Mali in August 2020, when soldiers led by Colonel Assimi Goita overthrew the democratically elected president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta. The military said it would restore civilian rule within 18 months.

Seven months into the transition process, however, military leaders removed the interim president and prime minister they had appointed and swore in Goita as president of the transitional government.

Malian voters cast ballots in a June referendum on a new draft constitution that the regime said would pave the way for elections.
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Egypt will hold a presidential election over three days in December, officials announced Monday, with President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi highly likely to remain in power until 2030.

Waleed Hamza, the chairman of the National Election Authority, said the vote will take place on Dec. 10-12, with a runoff on Jan. 8-10 if no candidate secures more than 50% of the vote. Egyptian expatriates will vote on Dec. 1-3, and in the runoff on Jan. 5-7, he added.

A handful of politicians have already announced their bids to run for the country’s highest post, but none poses a serious challenge to el-Sissi, who has been in power since 2014 and has faced criticism from the West over his country’s human rights record.

El-Sissi, a former defense minister, led the military overthrow of an elected but divisive Islamist president in 2013 amid street protests against his one-year rule. Since then, authorities have launched a major crackdown on dissent. Thousands of government critics have been silenced or jailed, mainly Islamists but also many prominent secular activists, including many of those behind the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

El-Sissi has not announced his candidacy yet.

He was first elected in 2014 and reelected in 2018 for a second four-year term. Constitutional amendments, passed in a referendum in 2019, added two years to his second term, and allowed him to run for a third, six-year term.

In the 2018 vote, el-Sissi faced only a little-known politician who joined the race at the last minute to spare the government the embarrassment of a one-candidate election after several hopefuls were forced out or arrested.

Among the presidential hopefuls in the December election is Ahmed Altantawy, a former lawmaker, who has repeatedly complained of harassment by security agencies of his campaign staff. He also claimed that authorities have spied on him through cutting-edge technology.

Others who announced their bid include Abdel-Sanad Yamama, head of the Wafd party, one of Egypt’s oldest; Gameela Ismail, head of the liberal Dostour, or Constitution, party; and Farid Zahran, head of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party.

The board of trustees of National Dialogue, a forum announced by el-Sissi last year to help chart Egypt’s roadmap through recommendations, called for reforms to ensure a “multicandidate and competitive” presidential election.

In a statement last week, the trustees demanded that all candidates and opposition parties be allowed to interact directly with the public.

“The state institutions and agencies are required to keep an equal distance from all presidential candidates so as to safeguard their legal and constitutional rights as well as equal opportunity to all of them,” the trustees said.

The board of trustees also called on the government to accelerate the release of critics held in pretrial detention and to amend the relevant legislation, which it said established “a sort of penal punishment without a court verdict.”
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The four-day 2023 World Rowing Masters Regatta held at Roodeplaat Dam in South Africa ended on Sunday, marking the first time the global World Rowing Federation has hosted a competition in Africa. Marize de Klerk has more from Roodeplaat Dam. Camera: Patrick O’Reilly 
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The mayor of Libya’s eastern city of Derna was detained along with other officials on suspicion of mismanagement and negligence over the collapse of dams that flooded the city two weeks ago, Libya’s attorney general’s office said on Monday.

The attorney general’s office, based in the capital Tripoli, said it had issued orders to detain eight local officials over the collapse of dams in a storm, which unleashed the torrent that swept neighborhoods into the sea, killing thousands.

Those detained included the mayor and an official in charge of water resources, it said, without identifying them.

Angry residents have blamed the authorities for the collapse of the dams, which had been built to hold back the flow into the seasonal riverbed running through the city.

A 2007 contract to repair the dams was never completed amid civil war that began with the NATO-backed uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Derna was controlled until 2019 by fighters from a series of groups including Islamic State.

Demonstrators torched the home of mayor Abdulmenam al-Ghaithi last week, and the administration in the east of the country said he was suspended and the entire city council was sacked.

Thousands of people are confirmed dead from the floods and thousands more are still missing, with whole buildings washed out to sea. International rescue teams continue efforts to recover bodies from under the rubble and in the city’s port, with hopes of finding survivors dwindling.

The flood and rescue effort have also exposed friction between the central government and a rival administration that controls the east of the country and does not recognize the authorities in Tripoli.
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Growing up in an impoverished neighborhood in Kenya, Mburu Wanyoike’s journey from gang member to nationally recognized swordsman is an unlikely as it is inspirational. Saida Swaleh spoke to him and has this story from the capital Nairobi. Camera – Nelson Aruya.
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French President Emmanuel Macron said Sunday, France is imminently to withdraw its ambassador from Niger, followed by the French military contingent in the next months, in the wake of the coup in the west African country that ousted the pro-Paris president.

Macron’s announcement appeared to end two months of French defiance over the coup, which had seen Paris keep its ambassador in place in Niamey despite him being ordered by the coup leaders to go.

“France has decided to withdraw its ambassador. In the next hours our ambassador and several diplomats will return to France,” Macron told French television in an interview, without giving details over how this would be organized.  

Niger’s military rulers have banned “French aircraft” from flying over the country’s airspace, according to the Agency for the Safety of Air Navigation in Africa and Madagascar (ASECNA) website. It was not clear if this would affect the ambassador being flown out.

Macron added that military cooperation was “over,” and French troops would withdraw in “the months and weeks to come” with a full pullout “by the end of the year.”

“In the weeks and months to come, we will consult with the putschists, because we want this to be done peacefully,” he added.

France keeps about 1,500 soldiers in Niger as part of an anti-jihadis deployment in the Sahel region. Macron said the post-coup authorities “no longer wanted to fight against terrorism.”  

Niger’s military leaders told French ambassador Sylvain Itte he had to leave the country after they overthrew President Mohamed Bazoum on July 26.  

But a 48-hour ultimatum for him to leave, issued in August, passed with him still in place as the French government refused to comply, or to recognize the military regime as legitimate.

Earlier this month, Macron said the ambassador and his staff were “literally being held hostage” in the mission eating military rations with no food deliveries taking place.  

Macron in the interview reaffirmed France’s position that Bazoum was being held “hostage” and remained the “sole legitimate authority” in the country.

“He was targeted by this coup d’état because he was carrying out courageous reforms and because there was a largely ethnic settling of scores and a lot of political cowardice,” he argued.

The coup against Bazoum was the third such putsch in the region in as many years, following similar actions in Mali and Burkina Faso in 2021 and 2022 that also forced the pullouts of French troops.

But the Niger coup is particularly bruising for Macron after he sought to make a special ally of Niamey, and a hub for France’s presence in the region following the Mali coup. The U.S. also has over 1,000 troops in the country.

Macron regularly speaks by phone to Bazoum who remains under house arrest in the presidential residence.

The French president has repeatedly spoken of making a historic change to France’s post-colonial imprint in Africa, but analysts say Paris is losing influence across the continent especially in the face of a growing Chinese, Turkish and Russian presence.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) threatened military action to restore Bazoum but so far, its threats, which were strongly supported by France, have not transferred into action.

“We are not here to be hostages of the putschists,” said Macron. “The putschists are the allies of disorder,” he added.

Macron said that jihadi attacks were causing “dozens of deaths every day in Mali” after its coup and that now such assaults had resumed in Niger.  

“I am very worried about this region,” he said.

“France, sometimes alone, has taken all its responsibilities and I am proud of our military. But we are not responsible for the political life of these countries, and we draw all the consequences.”
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U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with Djiboutian leaders and the president of Somalia in Djibouti on Sunday, marking his first trip to Africa as Secretary of Defense amid continued violence in the region. Later in the week, he will travel to Kenya and Angola.

Djibouti is home to the U.S. military’s major base on the continent, and Austin said Camp Lemonnier was “critical” to “countering violent extremism and supporting security throughout the region.”

He added that the U.S. is proud to partner with Djiboutian forces and African Union forces in support of neighboring Somalia, where al-Shabab militants are increasingly resistant amid ongoing military operations against the group.

Al-Shabab is the main branch of al-Qaida on the continent.

Somalia faced recent setbacks in its fight against al-Shabab after a deadly attack on the town of Cowsweyne on August 26. The incident left dozens of government soldiers dead and resulted in a hasty retreat from front lines and towns previously captured from the militant group.

The setback was one of the reasons Somalia cited in requesting a “technical pause” to the military drawdown of African Union forces from Somalia. The drawdown, which started last week, is scheduled to see 3,000 AU soldiers transferring their forward operating bases to Somali soldiers by the end of this month.

“Unfortunately, on August 26, 2023 we have suffered several significant setbacks after the attack on our forces in Cowsweyne area, Galgudud region and the subsequent retreats by the forces from several towns that were recently liberated,” read the letter written by National Security Adviser Hussein Sheikh-Ali. “This unforeseen turn of events has stretched our military forces thin, exposed our vulnerabilities in our front lines.”

A U.S. defense official described al-Shabab as a “difficult challenge” and “not one that is going to stop overnight.”

“It’s one that’s going to continue to require consistent, sustained cooperation between us and our east African partners on this, including Kenya,” the official said.

The U.S. military has been “advising and assisting” Somali forces for years in the fight against al-Shabab, including the training of Special Forces and carrying out airstrikes against the group.

On Sunday, a senior U.S. defense official said that AFRICOM did not conduct an airstrike on September 22, 2023. The al-Shabab group via telegram message claimed that an AFRICOM strike killed eight members of the same family, including six children, on the same day. The Somali government reported that a senior al-Shabab commander identified as Isaaq Abdullahi, who was responsible for the group’s operations in Bakool region, and seven “bodyguards,” were killed in a targeted airstrike.

Meanwhile, the U.S. defense official confirmed that a U.S. contractor and a partner force member were injured after al-Shabab militants fired on a base staffed by Kenyan defense forces on Friday. Al-Shabab claimed the attack injured four U.S. soldiers and nine Kenyan troops. The U.S. defense official said the al-Shabab claim was “overblown.”

Thousands of Kenyan troops are in Somalia serving as part of the African Union Transition Mission, ATMIS. Kenya has also faced repeated attacks from al-Shabab, including the high-profile attack on Westgate Mall in Nairobi 10 years ago that killed 67 people.

Austin will travel to Kenya and Angola later in the week. According to a senior U.S. defense official, this will be the first time a U.S. defense secretary has ever traveled to Angola and the first time since 1976 that an American defense chief has visited Kenya.
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Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa shattered the women’s marathon world record in Berlin on Sunday, lopping off more than two minutes from the previous best to clock an official time of two hours 11 minutes and 53 seconds.

Assefa, who had set a course record with a personal best last year, set a blistering early pace, gradually shaking off any competition to pulverize Kenyan Brigid Kosgei’s record of two hours 14 minutes and four seconds set in 2019.

Remarkably, her splits were faster after the halfway mark.

“I knew I wanted to go for the world record but I never thought I would do this time,” said the 26-year-old, a former 800-metre runner. “It was the result of hard work.”

With her time she set a marker for next year’s Paris Olympics while also almost certainly nailing down a spot on the Ethiopian Olympic team for 2024.

“I have set a mark now. The decision does not lie with me but with officials. It is up to the National Committee to select me for the team.”

Her remarkable victory overshadowed men’s world record holder Eliud Kipchoge’s record fifth victory on Berlin’s quick and flat inner-city course.

The 38-year-old Kenyan, who is aiming to win his third Olympic marathon medal next year in Paris, did not come close to the record he set in Berlin last year, finishing with a time of two hours two minutes 42 seconds.

“I always learn from every race and every victory,” Kipchoge said. “I’m very happy to win for the fifth time in Berlin and I shall use these lessons in my preparation for the Olympics.”

Compatriot Vincent Kipkemoi was second, with a time of two hours three minutes 13 seconds and Ethiopia’s Tadese Takele third.

Climate activists, who had threatened to disrupt the event, tried to run onto the course with buckets of orange paint but were quickly stopped and taken away by police just minutes before the start.

Assefa, who only started racing marathons in April last year, made her intentions clear from the start with a lightning-quick pace of her own.

Along with compatriot Workenesh Edesa they carved out a gap from the chasing pack but Edesa could not keep up and was dropped by the 17th kilometer.

She clocked an hour six minutes 20 seconds at the halfway mark and was one of six women to be on world record time at that stage as the Berlin marathon lived up to its reputation as one of the world’s fastest.

She had no problem maintaining her pace and at the 37km mark she was just three seconds per kilometer slower than Kipchoge’s time at the same stage, cruising to a sensational world record.

Sheila Chepkirui of Kenya came second almost six minutes behind, with Tanzania’s Magdalena Shauri in third.

 
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At the annual meeting of world leaders last year, the U.N. chief sounded a global alarm about the survival of humanity and the planet. This year, the alarm rang louder and more ominously, and the message was even more pressing: Wake up and take action — right now.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ assessment, delivered in his no-nonsense style, aimed to shock. We are becoming “unhinged,” he said. We are inching closer to “a great fracture.” Conflicts, coups and chaos are surging. The climate crisis is growing. Divides are deepening between military and economic powers, the richer North and poorer South, East and West. “A new Rubicon” has been crossed in artificial intelligence.

Guterres has spoken often on all these issues. But this year, which he called “a time of chaotic transition,” his address to leaders was tougher and even more urgent. And looking at his previous state-of-the-world speeches, it seems clear he has been headed in this direction for quite some time.

In his first address to world leaders in 2017 after taking the helm of the 193-member United Nations, Guterres cited “nuclear peril” as the leading global threat. Two years later, he was warning of the world splitting in two, with the United States and China creating rival internets, currency, trade, financial rules “and their own zero-sum geopolitical and military strategies.” He urged vigorous action “to avert the great fracture.”

Then came the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020. The global response Guterres called for never happened; richer countries got vaccines and poorer ones were left waiting. At last year’s leaders’ gathering, his message was almost as dire as this week’s: “Our world is in peril and paralyzed,” Guterres said. “We are gridlocked in colossal global dysfunction.”

This year, his message to the presidents and prime ministers, monarchs and ministers gathered in the vast General Assembly hall was unambiguous and stark.

“We seem incapable,” Guterres said, “of coming together to respond.”

The world’s future, and the UN’s

At the heart of Guterres’ many speeches this week is the very future of the United Nations, an institution formed immediately after World War II to bring nations together and save future generations from war. But in a 21st-century world that is far more interconnected and also more bitterly divided, can it remain relevant?

For Guterres, the answer is clear: It must.

The Cold War featured two superpowers — the capitalist United States and the communist Soviet Union. When it ended, there was a brief period of U.S.-dominated unipolarity after the breakup of the Soviet Union and its dissolution into a dominant Russia and smaller former republics. Now it is moving to a more chaotic “multipolar world” — and creating, Guterres says, new opportunities for different countries to lead.

But Guterres’ key argument is rooted in history. He says it teaches that a world with many power centers and small groups of nations can’t solve the challenges that affect all countries. That’s why strong global institutions are needed, he told leaders on Thursday, and “the United Nations is the only forum where this can happen.”

The big question, upon which Guterres is now laser-focused, is whether an institution born in 1945 — a time when the tools to address chaos and fragmentation were more rudimentary — can be retooled and updated to tackle today’s challenges.

“I have no illusions,” he said. “Reforms are a question of power. I know there are many competing interests and agendas. But the alternative to reform is not the status quo. The alternative to reform is further fragmentation. It’s reform or rupture.”

That is the conundrum sitting in the U.N. chief’s lap: Can 193 nations with competing agendas undertake major reforms?

To meet the challenge, Guterres has called on world leaders to attend a “Summit of the Future” at next September’s U.N. global gathering, and in the coming, year to negotiate a “Pact for the Future.” At a meeting Thursday to prepare, he told ministers that the pact “represents your pledge to use all the tools at your disposal at the global level to solve problems – before those problems overwhelm us.”

The secretary-general said he knows reaching agreement will be difficult. “But,” he said, “it is possible.”

A sense that things are ‘fundamentally broken’

Time, Guterres says, is against the United Nations and countries that support the return of united global action. Perhaps that is why his words grow more dire each year.

He points to new conflicts like Ukraine, more intense geopolitical tensions, signs of “climate breakdown,” a cost-of-living crisis and the debt distress and default that is bedeviling more countries than ever.

“We cannot inch towards agreement while the world races towards a precipice,” Guterres said. “We must bring a new urgency to our efforts, and a shared sense of common purpose.”

That’s easier said than done, as this week’s high-level meetings — and the priorities and problems they raise — make clear.

Can all the U.N.’s far-flung nations unite behind a common purpose? Whether that happens in the next 12 months remains to be seen. Certainly there is support. Consider Bahamas Foreign Minister Frederick Audley Mitchell, addressing the global gathering Friday night. “Now, more than ever, we need the United Nations,” he said.

Richard Gowan, the U.N. director for the International Crisis Group, said Guterres’ state-of-the-world speech spoke “truth to power” and was an especially blunt and bleak assessment.

“He really seems to think that the multilateral system is fundamentally broken,” Gowan said. The secretary-general seems frustrated after years of difficult dealings with the divided U.N. Security Council, Gowan said, alluding to the United States and its Western allies increasingly clashing with Russia and China.

“Sometimes it feels like Guterres no longer believes in the institution he leads,” Gowan said.

For Guterres, then, the Summit of the Future presents an opportunity but also a possible demarcation point — between a brighter future and a more desolate one, between a chance at progress and the prospect of a closing door. To Gowan, it will be “a last chance for U.N. members to get their act together and rethink how the multilateral system could work.”

And that could present a potentially insurmountable peak for the world’s most senior diplomat to scale. Mark Malloch-Brown, president of the Open Society Foundations and a former U.N. deputy secretary-general, pronounced Guterres’ keynote speech to world leaders “a brave and frank admission that the U.N. is broken — no longer fit for purpose.”

“The problem is that precisely because of that, nobody may hear him,” Malloch-Brown said. “He may be speaking to an empty room.”
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Ethiopia said Saturday it had begun a second round of talks with Egypt and Sudan over a controversial mega-dam built by Addis Ababa on the Nile, long a source of tensions among the three nations.

Ethiopia this month announced the completion of the fourth and final filling of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, prompting immediate condemnation from Cairo, which denounced the move as illegal.

Egypt and Sudan fear the massive $4.2 billion dam will severely reduce the share of Nile water they receive and had repeatedly asked Addis Ababa to stop filling it until an agreement was reached.

For years at loggerheads over the issue, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed agreed in July to finalize a deal within four months, resuming talks in August.

Ethiopia’s foreign ministry wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the three countries had opened a second round of negotiations in Addis Ababa.

“Ethiopia is committed to reaching a negotiated and amicable solution through the ongoing trilateral process,” it said.

Fears over water access

Protracted negotiations over the dam since 2011 have thus far failed to bring about an agreement between Ethiopia and its downstream neighbors.

Egypt has long viewed the dam as an existential threat, as it relies on the Nile for 97% of its water needs.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, in an address to the U.N. General Assembly, said that Cairo wanted a “binding agreement” on the filling and operation of the dam.

“We remain in anticipation of our goodwill being reciprocated with a commitment from Ethiopia to arrive at an agreement that will safeguard the interests of Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia,” Shoukry said.

“It would be a mistake to assume we can accept a fait accompli when it comes to the very lives of more than 100 million Egyptian citizens.”

The dam is central to Ethiopia’s development plans, and in February 2022 Addis Ababa announced that it had begun generating electricity for the first time.

At full capacity, the huge hydroelectric dam — 1.8 kilometers long and 145 meters high — could generate more than 5,000 megawatts.

That would double Ethiopia’s production of electricity, to which only half the country’s population of 120 million currently has access.

The position of Sudan, which is currently mired in a civil war, has fluctuated in recent years.

The United Nations says Egypt could “run out of water by 2025” and parts of Sudan, where the Darfur conflict was essentially a war over access to water, are increasingly vulnerable to drought due to climate change. 
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At least 34 people died in Benin near Nigeria’s border on Saturday when a contraband fuel depot exploded into flames, sending up a black cloud of smoke into the sky and leaving dozens of charred bodies at the site, a government official and residents said.

The blaze erupted at a warehouse for smuggled fuel in the southern Benin town of Seme Podji, where cars, motorbikes and tricycle taxis came to stock up on fuel, according to local residents.

Nigeria is a major oil producer and fuel smuggling is common inside the country and along its borders, with illegal refineries, fuel dumps and pipelines sometimes causing fires.

“I am still in shock. We heard people screaming for help. But the intensity of the flames was too much for people to try to approach,” said Innocent Sidokpohou, a local carpenter.

“I got gas for my motorbike to go do my shopping. I left and barely 5 meters away I heard an explosion. When I turned around it was all black smoke.”

Benin’s Interior Minister Alassane Seidou told reporters a serious fire had occurred in the town but did not give details about exactly how it had happened.

“Unfortunately, we have 34 deaths including two babies. Their bodies are charred because the cause of the fire is smuggled fuel,” the official said.

The minister said another 20 people were being treated in hospital, including some in serious condition.

“I live not far from the tragedy,” said Semevo Nounagnon, a local bike driver.

“I can’t really give you the cause of the fire, but there is a large gasoline warehouse here and cars, tricycles and motorcycles come from morning to evening.”

For decades, Nigeria’s low-cost subsidized gasoline was transported illegally by road to neighboring countries, primarily Benin, where it is resold on the black market by informal sellers.

When he come to office in May, Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu abandoned the long-standing subsidy meant to keep petrol prices artificially low for Nigerians.

The subsidy cost the government billions of dollars a year and Tinubu made it his first of a series of reforms aimed at revamping Nigeria’s economy and attracting more investment.

That decision caused a tripling in petrol prices in Nigeria, but also impacted the price of black market fuel smuggled over the border into Benin and other countries.

Nigeria’s subsidy decision illustrated Benin’s deep economic dependence on its giant neighbor, with 215 million inhabitants, the continent’s largest economy and status as one of Africa’s top oil producers.
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