Africa- so much desert and more

 The building of the Mauritania’s Train du Desert which was completed in 1963 must have been brutal. The train system operates a daily service from the port at Nouadhibou on the Atlantic coast to the iron ore mines in Zouerat. A full journey runs along the border of the disputed territory of Western Sahara and takes around 20 hours. The train is made up of three or four diesel locomotives, one passenger carriage, and between 200 and 210 freight cars. 

Mauritania became an independent nation in 1960.

March 31, 2023

Pirates have abandoned Monjasa Reformer, a Danish-owned ship hijacked in the Gulf of Guinea last week, but have taken some crew members with them. Ransom demands expected shortly.

April 6, 2023

Gunmen in Nigeria's northern Kaduna state kidnapped eight school kids while Nigeria's military fights a long-running Islamist insurgency in the northeast. I know it's sounds like same old sh^t but it serves as a reminder.

May 8, 2023

Rumors of Russian paramilitary group Wagner looking to supply weapons to the RSF in Sudan in exchange for RSF-controlled gold mining resources.

June 4, 2023

Turkey, which sent forces to help the government in Tripoli ward off an assault by eastern forces in 2020, has previously deployed drones from bases in western Libya. Ankara has not commented the June 2 drone strikes by Libya's Government on the western regions of Zawia, Zuwara, Ajeelat, and Maya.  What are Ergodan and Libya's GNU goals?

BTW, this started me thinking about Hannibal fleeing to what is now modern day Turkey. Yes, I know Carthage, Hannibal's base, is in modern day Tunisia.

July 23, 2023

Morocco considers Western Sahara its own territory, but Algeria isn't happy and many some Algerians prefer WS to be an independent state. Is war coming?

July 28, 2023

On-going coup of Bazoum in Niger. Some folks outside the National Assembly waved Russian flags and chanted anti-French slogans.

Sept 8, 2023

Jihad steps up attacks in Mali while UN works on its exit.

Oct 14, 2023

UN forces exit Mali -Fighting intensifies-no surprise- between the army and separatist insurgents in Mali. 

Oct 23, 2023

  Elsewhere in Africa: Moroccan police seized 1.37 tons of cocaine in Casablanca. It was concealed in a cargo of imported frozen fish found at a distribution company and was imported from a Latin American country via Spain, the Moroccan police. Where's Bogey.

EU sanctions the junta in Niger.

Nov 21, 2023

Malawi President Chakwera suspended all foreign trips by government officials, including himself. Let's see how long this lasts.

Dec 2, 2023

Biden promised to visit Angola. He hopes to discuss the Artemis Accords, a pact designed to shape the rules for space exploration with Angola, which has a satellite program that has benefited from Russian support. Angola and Russia have not signed up.

Jan 2, 2024 

 Landlocked Ethiopia signed a memorandum of understanding with Somaliland, a breakaway enclave of Somalia, which give it access to the Red Sea. 

Ethiopia has offered the region a stake in Ethiopian Airlines and will officially recognize it as a sovereign state. Somaliland declared its independence in 1991.

Feb 25, 2024

Canada pledges $59M for the deployment of a Kenya-led multinational mission to support Haitian police in its battle to contain criminal gangs. Quite a path!

April 15, 2024

Sunak, Brit PM, is ready to exit ECHR if his Rwanda Scheme passes in Parliament. It paves the way for asylum seekers to be deported to Rwanda. 

 Rwanda needs to be treated by British judges as a safe destination, and it will also limit individuals' options for an appeal to only exceptional cases.

April 27, 2024

A portion of the USA. troops in Chad will move to Germany for now, but it's a temporary step. Hey, Pentagon spokesperson Major General Patrick Ryder hints they may return after the country's May 6 presidential election, and it sounds like they're sure Deby will win.

June 12, 2024

 Tunisia: Saied may use a decree to void the Article 25 statute which prohibits direct financing of the state budget by its Central Bank.  Abassi, the bank's governor, warns financing it will lead to a Venezuela scenario.

June 25, 2024

Kenya  is facing tax protests in the street. A proposed "eco levy" on most manufactured goods including sanitary towels and diapers has made the situation worse.

July 2, 2024

Libya fully reopens major Ras Ijdir border crossing with Tunisia. Nouri, Tunisian IM, states "reopened for all activities except smuggling". It gave me a chuckle-although probably not his intention.

This follows three months of armed clashes.

Sept 28, 2024

Kenya supplies more than 40% of the flower market in Europe, particularly fresh roses. Planes makes deliveries daily to various cities.

Unpaid overtime, harsh working conditions, and lack of protective gear on some flower farms , are among numerous  complaints to both the Kenya Flower Council and (KEPHIS).

October 8, 2024

Saied, the leader of Tunisia since 2019, has removed institutional and legal checks on his own power and claims not to be a dictator.  He's getting financial help from European countries worried about migration.

Oct 30, 2024

Macron offers more French investment for the Western Sahara in a speech to Morocco's parliament. Tension with Algeria will heighten.

Algeria has been imposing visa requirements on Moroccans, accusing some of its passport holders of "Zionist espionage".

Nov 2, 2024

Global demand for diamonds hurt Botswana and BDP, its ruling party for 58 years, just got knocked out of power by the UDC (Umbrella for Democratic Change). Masisi out,Boko in. 

Older blog:

https://vaporvents.blogspot.com/2020/10/africa-those-darn-wigs-and-gowns.html

Africa- Those darn wigs and gowns

 Are wigs and black gowns, relics from colonial days, that are worn in courts across many English-speaking African countries, an issue that needs scrutiny when so many bigger problems are facing many countries in Africa? I posted this in 2017,The World Health Organization (WHO) has appointed President Robert #Mugabe of Zimbabwe as a "goodwill ambassador", here Stashing uniforms   

Also covered North Africa here: Topless in Tunisia

 Oct 20

#Liberia is asking for  assistance from the USA to investigate the mysterious deaths of four tax auditors. Ok, so while wondering why they're asking us for help I found we've had an interesting, to say the least, history with Liberia. In 1819 Congress appropriated 100k for the establishment of that nation, and in 1978 Jimmy Carter became the first USA President to visit there.

Nov 17 

 Meanwhile, # Putin has given the go-ahead to an agreement with Sudan on setting up a Russian naval facility, a logistics and repair hub, on Sudan's #RedSea coast.

Dec 28, 2020

A history lesson: Mozambique was the primary recipient of East Germany's development aid in the early 1980s, but after an attack in 1984 in the Unango, Niassa province, that aid dried up A total of eight East German citizens, a Yugoslav development worker, and five Mozambicans were killed during the attack.  RENAMO [National Resistance of Mozambique] , a group who attacked civilian sites, denied responsibility.

East Germany was a part of the Soviet bloc until 1989.

Jan 24, 2021

#OlfaHamdi, a 35-year old businesswoman ,engineer, and newly, appointed head of Tunisia’s state airline , has folks stirred up for dealing bluntly with a union organized sit-in. She said those participating were not TunisAir employees and were preventing others from working.  Tunisia has bigger issues than a failing airline, but will its citizens accept tough answers, and  in this case from a woman?

Jan 25, 2021

I rarely think about  the French military but this is noteworthy: Three French Soldiers were killed in Mali during  a counterterrorism mission a few weeks ago which brings France’s military fatalities to 47 during operations against militant groups in that region since 2013. 

Feb 8, 2021

#Angola  asked a Dutch court to hand over a half-billion-dollar stake in the Portuguese oil company #Galp linked to ex-first daughter(Portugal) Isabel Dos Santos. Those colonial ties linger.

feb 17, 2021

Chad is sending 1,200 troops to complement 5,100 French soldiers in the Sahel region of West Africa. .Hungary, Greece, and Serbia were willing to join the international force there but Germany isn't.

feb 18, 2021

Wow, it's been ten years since the 2011 uprising that led to the overthrow and eventual killing of longtime dictator Muammar #Gaddafi.

March 11, 2021

Here's the early info from the government of Equatorial Guinea , a former Spanish colony that has been run by President Nguema since 1979, on the deadly the explosions in his country. " fires set by farmers living near the military base and the negligent handling of dynamite stocks by the military unit guarding them.". There's a whole lot of why questions to be asked here.

March 30, 2021

While reading about French energy giant Total SE and international contractors  scrambling to evacuate staff from a $20 billion natural-gas project in northern Mozambique on Saturday, due to a a deadly attack by  Al-Shabab, an Islamic State-linked group, on a nearby town , I discovered that a dozen U.S. Special Forces are training Mozambican marines on a two-month mission to help them fight #Al-Shabab.

April 29, 2021

Idriss #Deby ,  the President of Chad was wounded on April 19 in the desert region of Kanem  then flown 130 miles to an N’Djamena hospital where he died of his injuries. Questions remain over the circumstances, including how he was killed and why he was so close to the front line of a battle with rebels. His son Mahamat Kaka was named interim President, and Chad’s government has switched off the internet, imposed a 6 p.m. curfew and closed the country’s external borders.

April 30, 2021

European security officials claim that Déby’s death came at the hands of a Chadian rebel group financed by the Libyan militia leader Khalifa Haftar, who is backed by the Kremlin.

July 11, 2021

Quick notes on Egypt's complaints about Ethiopia's Nile river dam which would have a storage capacity of 74 billion cubic meters of water.

Water flows into the Nile from tributaries in 10 countries and according to longstanding agreements, a certain amount of water must be released from each country to guarantee a steady flow for Egypt. A 1929 agreement that included the U.K., which ruled much of the Nile region at the time, gave Egypt the right to veto construction projects that might affect how much water it would receive, and since 1959 Egypt has impeded Ethiopian dam-building with threats of military intervention.

July 25, 2021

I just finished an MI6 influenced novel ,Ascension (An Elliot Kane Thriller) by Oliver

Harris, about space station intrigue on Ascension Island. The UK government denies the right of abode which means everyone is a temporary visitor. While looking for more information , I discovered that the British garrisoned Ascension around 1806 to discourage French attempts at rescuing Napoleon, who had been banished to St Helena. BTW, Harris' book is solid.

august, 20,2021

Zambian opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema was elected president of Africa’s second-largest copper producer. He defeated the incumbent Edgar Lungu, a close Beijing ally who  had blocked social-media sites over the weekend but conceded defeat on August 16. The country is still tied to China via a ton of loans.

Sept 16, 2021

France claims it killed Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi, the Islamic State leader who led the killing of four American  servicemen in Niger in 2017.  This comes at  a time when it appears the French are cutting back their presence in Africa.

Oct 4, 2021

When in doubt, play the "colonial" card. It's alleged that #Macron accused Algerian authorities of stoking hatred for France during a meeting at the presidential palace with French and Algerian grandchildren of former combatants in Algeria’s 1954-62 war of independence from France.

The office of the Algerian President  released this statement:

 “nothing and nobody can absolve the colonial powers of their crimes”.

If  France accepts that it behaved badly at times in North Africa, wouldn't its immediate reaction to the impossibility of absolution be , why bother making amends?

Nov 15, 2021

The Dutch in Africa- will this story be a source of more columns that colonialism has returned? Heineken NV  agreed to buy two African alcohol companies, DHG and the remainder of Namibia’s largest brewer, Namibia Breweries Ltd., that it doesn’t already own.  This region is considered one of  the top growth markets for booze.

Jan 16, 2022

Trouble brewing between Algeria and Morocco? The situation became tenser when Morocco evicted Iran’s ambassador from its territory in 2018 and shuttered its embassy in Tehran due to Iran’s support for Hezbollah and for the Polisario Front, a Western Saharan independence movement. The USA continues to tell the Israelis not to supply weapon systems that could cause an immediate military imbalance in favor of Morocco, but maybe that changes if Iran keeps sending weapons to Algeria.  And how involved will France get in this regional tension?

Feb 15,2022

Perhaps Boris Johnson has a way to deflect the covid partying talk. Mauritian government's reps planted its nations flag during an excursion to map reefs around the Chagos Islands, an Indian Ocean archipelago controlled by Britain.  And claimed if the flags were removed, it would be considered a provocation by the UK. 

Feb 20, 2022

See my July 11, 2021 post. Ethiopia began producing electricity today from its Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), a multi-billion-dollar hydropower plant on the Nile that neighbors, Sudan and Egypt, continue to think will cause water shortages downstream.

March 20, 2022

In late 2020, the Trump administration recognized Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara as a quid pro quo for mending ties with Israel.  Algeria was pissed then and yesterday it recalled its ambassador from Madrid in protest at Spain’s decision to back a Moroccan autonomy plan for the Western Sahara, an area with rich phosphate resources and access to lucrative Atlantic fishing waters.

June 29, 2022

Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez on Saturday blamed "mafia" people traffickers for a violent border incursion on the Moroccan border with the Spanish north African enclave of Melilla which ended with 18 migrants dead and scores of Spanish and Moroccan officers injured.

Melilla is one of the special member state territories of the EU but can't be a member of NATO.

July 28, 2022

Russia's courting new friends in Africa while French oil and energy company TotalEnergies started production from the Ikike field in Nigeria. They're hoping to deliver peak production of 50,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day by the end of 2022.

Aug 18, 2022

Algerian supplies account for more than a quarter of gas demand in Spain and Italy and Sonatrach of Algeria is the third-biggest exporter to Europe after Russia and Norway.

Nov 6, 2022

Burning wood generates about five times the carbon emissions of LPG, but a gas shortage is forcing urban dwellers in Cameroon to turn to cooking with wood or charcoal. Have all the climate groupies considered this while bashing Big Oil?  Paging Joe Biden and many others!!!!!!!!!

Dec 8, 2022

Nigeria limits cash withdrawals to $225 a week in a move to curb counterfeiting and discourage the payment of ransoms to kidnappers who demand cash. This should go over well ...right!

Dec 11, 2022

Morocco has been successful in recruiting eligible soccer players in countries Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Holland, and Spain. 14 of its 26 players in the World Cup are of Moroccan descent but born outside of Morocco.