Washington envoy Boulos has brokered a deal between Tripoli and Benghazi but fraud claims against the Haftar family could scupper it
Libya is edging towards a power-sharing agreement after the rival parliaments in Tripoli and Benghazi agreed on 11 April to approve a unified budget, as the first since...
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Washington is exploring normalisation with Asmara in talks driven by its control of over 1,000 kilometres of Red Sea coastline
United States officials have been talking with Eritrea to explore normalising relations. Initiated by Egypt and Massad Boulos, Senior Africa Advisor to US President Donald J Trump, the...
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Three years into a war that has killed 150,000 people, the world's diplomats found it easier to write cheques than to name the Gulf states fuelling the fighting
More than 120 delegations met in Berlin on April 15 for an international conference marking three years of Sudan's civil war and raising pledges of over €1.5 billion...
A US-backed mining bid is stalling as environmental warnings and political hesitation in Conakry leave Ivanhoe Atlantic struggling for traction
The United States-registered Ivanhoe Atlantic, which aims to develop the Kon Kweni iron ore mine in southeast Guinea, has intensified its efforts to secure a mining permit after...
The former Vice-President has hired US lobbyists to exploit the Trump’s administration’s enmity towards President Tinubu
Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar has become the latest Nigerian politician to throw money at K-Street lobbyists, hiring Von Batten, Montague, York on a US$1.2 million retainer as he...
King Mohammed VI’s government is trying to convince the White House and Congress to sanction the Sahrawi independence movement, claiming it has links to Iran
Morocco is aiming to tighten its grip on Western Sahara by getting the United States Congress to designate the Sahrawi independence movement’s political arm, the Polisario Front, as...
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Washington claims great success with its asylum offer to white South Africans as its new ambassador to Pretoria dials back the rhetoric
Almost 4,500 white South Africans have been given refugee status in the United States since last October, according to the US Department of State's Bureau of Population. In...
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Central Intelligence Agency veterans and Green Berets are buying Congolese assets under a pact with Washington – a logic that also explains why the United States is unlikely...
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Whitehall is eviscerating aid budgets but differs with Washington over cash for radio stations and soft power
Washington’s Voice of America radio station will be back on air in dozens of African countries following a court ruling outlawing attempts by the Trump administration to shut...
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The Ugandan opposition leader’s flight across Africa to land in the US embarrasses both Museveni and the Trump administration
Landing in the United States after two months on the run, Uganda’s opposition leader Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine wants the Trump administration and the European Union to...
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Some of the most effective Islamist militias fighting alongside Burhan’s SAF could be hit by the US ban
On the face of it, the US State Department’s designation on 9 March of the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organisation is a setback for General...
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The spreading security emergency and foreign political interference will cost President Bola Tinubu votes
A claim by a United States Congressional committee that Nigeria is the deadliest place in the world to practice Christianity has reignited tensions between Washington and Abuja as...
A year after breaking with Ecowas, the military regimes face more jihadist assaults but are getting some unlikely help from the US
For the juntas in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, the first anniversary of their breakaway from the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) was marked by an...
Somaliland and Somalia are in a mining-based competition to influence Washington’s stance but the prevailing mood there may be indifference
Somaliland Minister of the Presidency Khadar Hussein Abdi repeated on 21 February an oft-made promise: Hargeisa will grant the United States access to its mineral resources, including lithium...
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Activists in Lusaka and Harare oppose the US terms on offer and the pressure for access to minerals
The US State Department agreed a dozen bilateral deals with African states in December, featuring US funding commitments of over US$5 billion as part of its ‘America First...
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President Félix Tshisekedi’s government is pressing its diplomatic advantage after the US State Department sanctioned the Rwandan Defence Force (RDF) and four of its senior commanders for their...
MAGA Republicans want open confrontation with Pretoria, but many US companies are rebuilding ties
The arrival of United States President Donald Trump’s new ambassador, Leo Brent Bozell III, a veteran critic of the African National Congress, in South Africa sets up bilateral...
Vice-President Vance and Secretary Rubio unveil critical minerals plan in Washington
Amid a flurry of initiatives in Congo-Kinshasa, Sudan, Kenya, and the Sahel, the Trump administration has named Frank Garcia, a former staffer on the Intelligence Committee in the...
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For many governments on the continent, lobbyists in the US capital are seen as the fastest route to boost bilateral trade and diplomatic relations
President João Lourenço’s decision to re-hire Washington-based lobbyists Squire Patton Boggs is the most lucrative of several new lobbying deals linking African governments with the K-street lobbyist networks.
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Washington is withholding the funds it owes the UN to force reform but it is losing credibility and influence – even if no country wants to take over its role
António Guterres has sounded alarms before, but his 28 January warning that the United Nations faces ‘imminent financial collapse’ marked the organisation’s gravest moment since 1945. The Secretary-General’s...
Francophone African troops take on the gangs of the troubled Caribbean nation as they – and UN headquarters – try to profit from a top Trump priority
African nations are queuing up to contribute troops to the United Nations-organised Gang Suppression Force for Haiti, whose role is to build on the peacekeeping work of hundreds...
Activists are demanding urgent policy reform and UN agencies are on the brink of ending many life-saving relief operations in war zones
Against the backdrop of heightening geopolitical rivalries and a sluggish world economy, rich western economies are ending many of their long-established aid – or Official Development Assistance (ODA)...
Rival plans to extend Washington’s tariff relief offer – by one, three or sixteen years – are under review but South Africa looks set to be shut out
The US Senate is due to vote on the renewal of Washington’s preferential trade agreement with African economies in the next few days with South Africa facing the...
Trump’s exclusion of South Africa from the Miami summit shouldn’t deter other Africans from attending, says Washington
United States diplomats have told African governments and others planning to attend December’s G20 summit in Miami that if they want to continue to address issues such as...
Buoyed by the US President dismissing human rights policies and pausing anti-corruption laws, Harare had offered business incentives to Washington
Within hours of US President Donald J Trump’s re-election on 6 November 2024, his Zimbabwean counterpart Emmerson Mnangagwa ladled on the sycophancy in a social media posting: ‘Congratulations...
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Eighteen months after taking power, the President has appointed ambassadors to his country’s leading trading partners
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has unveiled a new senior diplomatic team, including a new ambassador to the United States, in a hint at which countries are its diplomatic...
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Senior commanders ignored the President’s instruction to restrict Iran’s role in China’s naval exercise off Cape Town
The confrontation over Pretoria’s security ties with Tehran – specifically its participation in South African-hosted naval exercises – underlines the erosion of civilian control over the military and...
By paying $9 million to US lobbyists through a pop-up law firm, the Abuja government has outbid Christian secessionists
Scrambling in the wake of US President Donald J Trump’s threat to ‘go into Nigeria guns ablazing’ on 1 November to end what he called a ‘Christian genocide’,...
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Multi-billion dollar oil, gas and mineral deals are at risk after last year’s unprecedented election violence
President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s government has signed a deal worth US$540,000 per year with the Washington-based Ervin Graves Strategy Group as it seeks to boost its relations with...
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Both governments are turning jihadist operations to their political advantage
Few confirmed details have emerged about the Pentagon’s attacks – launching 16 GPS-guided missiles from MQ-9 Reaper drones – on claimed jihadist camps near Jabo in Sokoto State...
Washington lobbyists are clashing over the rival claims of the federal government and the secessionists
President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s federal government in Mogadishu is being targeted for security and governance failures by senior Republicans in the United States who want Washington to recognise...
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Washington is pushing health contracts including tough conditions on big pharma, sexual health and data access
President Donald J Trump’s administration is reshaping development policy again with 13 bilateral pacts with African states so far as part of the ‘American First Global Health...
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