Blue Lines
The UN COP28 climate summit in Dubai is being heralded as a triumph by western nations and its Emirati hosts. That is largely because of the presence in the final communiqué of a commitment, albeit heavily qualified, to shift 'away from fossil fuels in en...
Blue Lines
The status and funding of the Loss and Damage Fund will be the main institutional issue facing African and other world leaders as the UN COP28 climate summit in Dubai opens on 30 November. It is set to become the third-leading UN channel for climate finan...
Blue Lines
Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has vowed to draft a new treaty on migration with Rwanda after the Supreme Court in London struck down a £140 million (US$174m) 'cash for asylum seekers' deal with President Paul Kagame's government. The ruling is a ma...
Blue Lines
Already facing record levels of inflation, Egypt's economic woes were deepened by a credit rating downgrade in October attributed to growing concerns about its debt affordability. The IMF has warned that Egypt's foreign exchange reserves will continue sou...
Blue Lines
The explosion at the Al-Ahil Hospital in Gaza has underscored the limits on Israel's political support from African states just days after Hamas's 7 October attacks killed more than 1,400 people in southern Israel.AU Commission chairman Moussa Faki Mahama...
Africa Confidential
Out of the phenomenon known as 'earthquake diplomacy' – as practised in Fukushima, Bali and l'Aquila – natural disasters have given grand multilateral meetings a shot in the arm and a sense of purpose. That is what the what the Moroccan government hopes w...
Blue Lines
The 40 African leaders at this week's UN General Assembly contrasts with the absence of four leaders of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and points to an imbalance in multilateralism. Geopolitics helps explain it. Russia's invasion of...
Blue Lines
In the absence of Russia's Vladimir Putin and China's Xi Jinping, the European Union will hold an informal 'mini-summit' with the African Union on the margins of the G20's summit in New Delhi on 9-10 September. That is being marketed as a political win in...
Blue Lines
The crash of a plane on 23 August with Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of Russia's mercenary Wagner Group, said to be on board will do little to resolve the questions surrounding the company since its thwarted march on Moscow. Prigozhin and his deputy, Dmit...
Blue Lines
Niger's putsch of 26 July ousted the last but one elected president in the Sahel region. Only Mauritania retains an elected leader, Mohamed Ould Ghazouani. All the other countries are run by military governments and are at war. The junta in Mali has lost ...