THE PIVOT TO AFRICA 🌍 THREAD
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WTF????
Oh wow they took this shyt seriously
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Uganda removes president's son from army role after Kenya invasion tweets
President Yoweri Museveni has removed his son, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, as commander of Uganda's land forces, the military said on Tuesday, after Kainerugaba repeatedly threatened on Twitter to invade neighbouring Kenya.
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Ukraine’s top diplomat tries to counter Russia’s narrative on Africa tour.
“I arrived here and I hear, ‘Russia and Ukraine are one people,’” Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said in Senegal on the first stop of his 10-day trip across Africa.
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Capt. Ibrahim Traore deposed the last guy who overthrew the government — Lt. Col. Sandaogo Damiba — who did extensive training with the Americans.
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West African nations move to create anti-jihadist force | Semafor
Seven west African countries have agreed to create a military force to fight jihadists who have destabilized the region.
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AFRICA
West African nations move to create anti-jihadist force
Updated Nov 23, 2022, 11:37am ESTKent is a freelance journalist based in Accra, Ghana.
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Accra, Ghana — Seven west African countries have agreed to create a military force to fight jihadists who have destabilized the region.
Islamic State and al-Qaeda fighters have carried out hundreds of attacks in and around the Sahel, stoking insecurity that has led to coups in Mali and Burkina Faso in the last two years. The violence has killed 2,000 people, forced around two million to flee their homes, and deprived nearly 10 million of reliable access to food in the first six months of this year, according to the United Nations.
Earlier this month, the U.K. and France both announced the withdrawal of their troops from Mali, with the latter ending its decade-long mission against Islamists in the region. On Tuesday Germany also said it was pulling its troops out of the country. Meanwhile, Mali’s ruling junta has in the last year sought help from the Russia-backed private security force Wagner Group to fight insurgents.
This week Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Mali, Niger, and Togo held talks in the Ghanaian capital Accra, along with representatives of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the European Union, and the African Union to discuss security. The seven African countries formed a group five years ago called the Accra Initiative to collaborate on regional security and share intelligence.
On Tuesday, Accra Initiative members said their new anti-jihadist “joint task force” would start operating within a month. The announcement came after Ghana’s president Nana Akufo-Addo told those taking part in the talks that insurgents were "seeking new operational grounds" and drifting south to the region’s coastal countries.
Ghana’s national security minister Albert Kan-Dapaah told Semafor the full details of the “standby force” and the contribution from member states needed to be finalized.
Half of the 346 insurgent attacks recorded in Africa in the first three months of this year took place in West Africa, according to Kan-Dapaah. He added that there were another 264 militant attacks between July and September this year, which killed 745 people. “We are absolutely concerned about the withdrawal of Western troops from the region, specifically Mali but… the Accra Initiative is a homegrown solution to our own problems,” Kan-Dapaah said.
The president of the ECOWAS Commission, Gambian diplomat Omar Touray, rejected criticism from some quarters that the new force was unnecessary. “We need to tackle terrorism and violent extremism from multiple fronts and I don’t see it as a replica of what we already have at ECOWAS,” he told Semafor.
The porous borders between West African countries have increased fears that instability in the Sahel could move further south to more densely populated urban areas on the sub-region’s coast.
A lot needs to be done when it comes to curb violent extremism in the region, and the response from the region’s leaders has so far been mostly ineffective.
For countries to work together effectively, political leaders must take basic steps to improve security, beginning with the strengthening of border controls. Security staff must be better paid to disincentivize bribe-taking in exchange for foregoing vital checks. Without tighter controls, we won’t be able to stop the free movement of militants.
There is some skepticism about about the prospect of a new anti-jihadist force in West Africa, particularly given that it would not include Nigeria. Cheta Nwanze, partner at Lagos-based risk consultancy SBM Intelligence, said input from Nigeria’s 223,000-strong armed forces which has experience of battling jihadist groups Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province would be needed to make a regional security force viable. He also questioned whether the UK, which took part in the talks, would contribute anything beyond words of encouragement.
“The Ghanaian military is made up of around 16,000 personnel. There are bandit groups in Nigeria that have more than that, so unless the Brits are willing to commit to it in terms of personnel, not just lofty words, we’re all just wasting time,” he said.
Nwanze added that regional bloc ECOWAS had “proven to be toothless” and while the EU would make “sweet noises” about support, this was meaningless in the absence of France after it decided to pull its troops out of the region.
Britain’s Armed Forces Minister James Heappey said climate change, global economic insecurity, and the rising cost of living are creating conditions within which violent extremism is spreading rapidly across Africa.
Addressing delegates at the recent conference in Accra, he said the U.K. wanted to show solidarity with Africans. “This is a regional problem that you have here in West Africa and it’s right that you seek to provide solutions,” he said. “But, given that the instability and security here so profoundly have a consequence to us in Europe, it’s also right that we stand ready to assist you.”
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Sahel insurgency could 'engulf' West Africa, Ghana President says
Ghana's President Nana Akufo-Addo on Tuesday warned that a rampant Islamist insurgency in West Africa's Sahel is threatening to engulf the entire region.
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Sahel insurgency could 'engulf' West Africa, Ghana President says
Reuters2 minute readNovember 22, 202212:11 PM ESTLast Updated a day agoACCRA, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Ghana's President Nana Akufo-Addo on Tuesday warned that a rampant Islamist insurgency in West Africa's Sahel is threatening to engulf the entire region.
West African leaders and European ministers are in Ghana's capital Accra to discuss regional solutions to the insurgency that is spreading as foreign troops pull out of Mali, where militants have seized vast swathes of territory.
France, Denmark and Ivory Coast are among countries that ended military cooperation with Mali this year over the ruling junta's cooperation with Russian mercenaries.
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Mali, where West Africa's insurgency took root in 2012, has been at odds with regional governments, Western powers and a United Nations peacekeeping mission since a military government that seized power in an August 2020 coup failed to hold promised elections.
Collaboration with Russia and alleged army abuses exacerbated tensions.
There are concerns military withdrawals from Mali will create a security vacuum in an area where groups linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State have already branched into Mali's neighbours and moved into coastal states south of the Sahel.
"Today the terrorist groups, emboldened by their success in the regions, are seeking new grounds," Akufo-Addo said on the second day of the Accra Initiative security conference.
[1/6] West African heads of state pose with European Council President Charles Michel at the Accra Initiative regional security conference in Accra, Ghana, November 22, 2022. REUTERS/Cooper Inveen
"The worsening situation... threatens to engulf the entire West Africa region," he said.
Attacks have increased over the past decade despite efforts to fight insurgents. The violence has killed thousands of people and displaced more than 2.7 million across the Sahel, according to the U.N.
Conflict and climate shocks have also created a food crisis in the region.
Over 30 million people in Sahel will require lifesaving assistance and protection in 2022, almost two million more than the previous year, the U.N. said in June.
Coastal states such as Benin and Togo have meanwhile seen rising attacks in recent years, prompting discussions about Western help to stem the insurgency's southward spread.
"The risk of contagion into the coastal states is not a risk anymore, it's a reality," said European Council President Charles Michel.
"We all need to identify the best way to have an impact on the ground," he said, adding that EU support to the region included "lethal hardware for defensive purposes".
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Reporting by Christian Akorlie and Cooper Inveen Writing by Sofia Christensen and Tomasz Janowski
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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ADevilYouKhow
Rhyme Reason
Can’t defeat an idea idk what they’re going to do in Sahel
they're gonna cry uncle and the USA is gonna have to go in there and clean it out. I dont think China can even do it.
Kenya Discloses Part of Secret Railway Contract With China (Published 2022)
The publication of details of a 2014 loan agreement for a cross-country train fulfilled a campaign vow by President William Ruto and revealed Beijing’s tough terms.
Kenya Discloses Part of Secret Railway Contract With China
The publication of details of a 2014 loan agreement for a cross-country train fulfilled a campaign vow by President William Ruto and revealed Beijing’s tough terms.
Nov. 8, 2022
The Standard Gauge Railway inside the Nairobi National Park in 2021. Construction on the project began five years ago and has cost $4.7 billion.
The Standard Gauge Railway inside the Nairobi National Park in 2021. Construction on the project began five years ago and has cost $4.7 billion.Brian Otieno for The New York Times
Kenya’s government has disclosed some details of the loan agreement the country signed in 2014 with China to build a railway, a major step toward political accountability but one that could strain relations with Beijing, the country’s top financier of infrastructure projects.
The administration of President William Ruto of Kenya on Sunday published three documents from a contract used to construct the railway, a passenger and freight service that was funded, designed and built by China. The railway starts from Kenya’s coastal region but ends in the middle of nowhere.
Since the $4.7 billion rail project, known as the Standard Gauge Railway, began five years ago, it has cast a long shadow over the East African nation. It was over budget by millions of dollars and became the center of multiple criminal investigations, saddling the economy with ever-growing debt and ending with judges declaring it illegal because it contravened the country’s procurement laws.
Experts on China and Africa said the revelations were unprecedented, given that Chinese loan contracts were often shrouded in secrecy.
“It is a significant gesture toward transparency,” said Cobus van Staden, managing editor of the China Global South Project, a nonprofit researching Beijing’s engagement with Africa.
The three documents revealed how the railway’s financier, Exim Bank of China, had the upper hand in the negotiations. China is Kenya’s top trading partner, and the African country owes more bilateral debt to China than to any other nation.
The contract stipulated that any goods bought using proceeds from the railway would preferably be sourced from China. Any dispute that emerged from the agreement, the documents said, must be resolved through binding arbitration in China. The contract also could not be disclosed to any third parties without the financier’s consent, a move that, now completed, could strain relations between the two countries.
Although it wasn’t immediately clear whether the Kenyan authorities had consulted Beijing before releasing the documents, the Chinese Foreign Ministry issued a statement after the move.
“Chinese financial institutions provide financing support for China-Kenya cooperation in accordance with internationally accepted commercial and market principles, which alleviated Kenya’s lack of funds and enhanced Kenya’s capacity for independent development,” a spokesperson for the Chinese ministry said.
The documents also showed that the loan’s terms were costlier than expected, said Tony Watima, an economist based in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital. The loan’s interest rate was higher than what is typically found in a deal between two governments, he said.
Li Keqiang, the Chinese premier, left, and Uhuru Kenyatta, then the president of Kenya, at the signing of the Standard Gauge Railway agreement in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, in 2014.
Li Keqiang, the Chinese premier, left, and Uhuru Kenyatta, then the president of Kenya, at the signing of the Standard Gauge Railway agreement in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, in 2014.Thomas Mukoya/Reuters
The agreement also stipulated that if Kenya defaulted on any other external loan, the default clause on the railway loan would automatically kick in, forcing Kenya to repay the loan and all accrued interest immediately and giving China the right to cease further disbursements.
“Despite it being negotiated as a government-to-government project where one expects a symbiotic relationship, all the risks were taken by the Kenyan taxpayer,” Mr. Watima said. “Whether the project pays for itself or defaults, the financiers are guaranteed their return.”
The deal was signed by the government of President Uhuru Kenyatta; Mr. Ruto was vice president at the time and part of the administration that launched and vigorously defended the project. But troubles with the railway mounted, and China balked at financing the last section, which would have been a link to neighboring Uganda.
To make the railway profitable, the Kenyan authorities issued a directive that all incoming cargo at the Mombasa port be transported by train — a move that led to huge protests, multiple court cases and growing unemployment. In the lead-up to the August elections, Mr. Ruto vowed to revisit the project. When he was inaugurated in September, he reversed the directive in a bid to restore thousands of jobs, particularly in Mombasa.
On Sunday, Kipchumba Murkomen, the cabinet secretary for transport, announced on Twitter that he was releasing the agreement as part of the new administration’s campaign promises.
But observers said on Monday that Mr. Ruto’s government should publish the full contract in order to allow activists and the public to scrutinize the agreement. That would reveal what the authorities offered as a guarantee to get the loan, and may reveal whether the deal was padded by Kenyan officials and Chinese contractors, said Mr. van Staden, of the China Global South Project.
If they did release the full details “it would probably add pressure to renegotiate the loan,” he added. “For incoming governments facing loans taken on by their predecessors, this could be an interesting precedent.”
Claire Fu contributed reporting.
Abdi Latif Dahir is the East Africa correspondent. He joined The Times in 2019 after covering East Africa for Quartz for three years. He lives in Nairobi, Kenya. @Lattif
A version of this article appears in print on Nov. 9, 2022, Section A, Page 6 of the New York edition with the headline: Kenya Discloses Part of Rail Deal With China. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
Megalopolis: how coastal west Africa will shape the coming century
The long read: By the end of the century, Africa will be home to 40% of the world’s population – and nowhere is this breakneck-pace development happening faster than this 600-mile stretch between Abidjan and Lagos
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