Category Archives: African Union

‘We are ready for a war’: Somalia threatens conflict with Ethiopia over breakaway region

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Somaliland hoped to be recognised as a country after port deal with landlocked Ethiopia - but move has sparked fury in Somalia

Somalia is prepared to go to war to stop Ethiopia recognising the breakaway territory of Somaliland and building a port there, a senior adviser to Somalia’s president has said.

A memorandum of understanding signed on 1 January allowing landlocked Ethiopia to develop a naval base on Somaliland’s coast has rattled the Horn of Africa, one of the world’s most volatile regions.

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EU must face legacy of colonialism and support reparations, say MEPs

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Draft resolution to European parliament committee is first formal attempt to place reparations for slavery on EU agenda

The European Union should urgently address and reverse the lasting impacts of European colonialism and support a reparations programme to rectify continuing injustices, according to a draft resolution to be presented to the European parliament’s development committee.

Noting that the EU has made “no concerted efforts to recognise, address and rectify the lasting effects of European colonialism on social and international inequities”, the draft resolution calls for the creation of a permanent EU forum on restorative justice.

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African and Caribbean nations agree move to seek reparations for slavery

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African Union and Caricom members establish global reparations fund and call for formal apologies from European nations

A global movement to seek reparations for slavery has been forged during a summit in Ghana this week, with the African Union partnering with Caribbean countries to form a “united front” to persuade European nations to pay for “historical mass crimes”.

The partnership between the 55-member African Union and the Caribbean Community (Caricom) of 20 countries will aim to intensify pressure on former slave-owning nations to engage with the reparations movement.

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African Union made permanent member of G20 at Delhi summit

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Continent’s leaders welcome the move, which gives the AU the same status as the European Union

The African Union has been made a permanent member of the G20.

In his opening remarks to the group’s summit in Delhi on Saturday, the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, invited the continental body, represented by its chair, Azali Assoumani, to take a seat at the table of G20 leaders as a permanent member.

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West African bloc prepared for military intervention after Niger coup

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Ecowas says it is ready to restore democracy and describes president Mohamed Bazoum as a hostage

A west African regional political grouping has reiterated it is prepared to intervene militarily in Niger following last month’s coup, describing the country’s detained president, Mohamed Bazoum, as a hostage.

Ecowas’s commissioner for political affairs, peace and security, Abdel-Fatau Musah, made the comments as military chiefs of staff from the bloc met in the Ghanaian capital, Accra, on Thursday and accused Niger’s military junta of “playing cat and mouse” with the grouping by refusing to meet its envoys.

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Uganda says 54 African Union peacekeepers killed in Somalia by al-Shabaab militants

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Death toll one of heaviest since pro-government forces launched offensive against jihadists last August

Fifty-four Ugandan peacekeepers died when militants besieged an African Union base in Somalia last week, Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, has said, in one of the worst recent attacks by al-Shabaab jihadists in the war-torn country.

“We discovered the lifeless bodies of 54 fallen soldiers, including a commander,” Museveni said in a Twitter post late on Saturday.

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Moroccan officials accused of intimidation after fracas at African unity event in Canberra

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Kamal Fadel, a representative of the Sahrawi people of Western Sahara, was initially blocked from entering venue by Moroccan embassy staff

A diplomatic celebration of African unity in Canberra has degenerated into an undiplomatic altercation, with officials from the Moroccan embassy verbally abusing a representative of the Sahrawi people of Western Sahara while attempting to block him from entering the venue.

The representative Kamal Fadel, who had been formally invited to the Albert Hall event on Thursday evening, was initially stopped from entering by Moroccan diplomats. Australian federal police officers and other African ambassadors were forced to intervene, a video seen by Guardian Australia shows.

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African leaders gather in US as Joe Biden aims to reboot rocky relations

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President and Antony Blinken woo nations at summit in Washington in hope they will align with west rather than Russia or China

Dozens of African leaders have assembled in Washington for a summit aimed at rebooting US relations on the continent, which have languished in recent years.

The US-Africa summit, the first since 2014, will be the biggest international gathering in Washington since the pandemic and the most substantial commitment by a US administration to boosting its influence in the region for almost a decade.

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UN to vote on new tax convention proposed by African states

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Developing nations hope draft resolution will pave way for fresh talks on global tax policy

Developing nations are hoping to secure greater power over global tax affairs at a critical United Nations vote in New York on Wednesday.

If the body’s members vote in favour of a resolution put forward by the African Group of states, it could pave the way toward fresh intergovernmental talks on global tax policy.

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Ethiopian civil war: parties agree on end to hostilities

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Breakthrough ‘monumental’ says prime minister after two-year conflict between north Tigray and federal forces that displaced millions

Ethiopia’s warring sides have formally agreed to a permanent cessation of hostilities, an African Union special envoy said on Wednesday, bringing hope of an imminent end to a two-year war that has displaced millions and threatened to destabilise a swath of the continent.

Nigeria’s former president Olusegun Obasanjo, in the first briefing on the peace talks in Pretoria, South Africa’s administrative capital, also said Ethiopia’s government and Tigray authorities had agreed on an “orderly, smooth and coordinated disarmament”.

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Angola’s ruling party claims victory in tightly contested vote

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João Lourenço’s MPLA, which has been in power for decades, declared winners but opposition Unita rejects results

Angola’s electoral commission has declared the incumbent president, João Lourenço, and the ruling People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) winners of last week’s elections.

The polls were the most tightly contested vote in the country’s democratic history, and have been described by analysts as an “existential moment”.

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Ethiopia accused of ‘serious’ human rights abuses in Tigray in landmark case

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Lawyers bringing first complaint to Africa’s top rights body over conflict in country say violations ‘could amount to war crimes’

Ethiopia has committed a wide range of human rights violations in its war against Tigrayan rebel forces, including mass killings, sexual violence and military targeting of civilians, according to a landmark legal complaint submitted to Africa’s top human rights body.

Lawyers acting for Tigrayan civilians said the complaint, filed on Monday, marked the first time that the African Union’s human rights commission had been asked to look into the conduct of Ethiopian troops in their war with the northern region’s rebel forces.

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Kenya rejects UN court judgment giving Somalia control of resource-rich waters

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ICJ ruling aggravates fractious relations between two countries and threatens to destabilise restive region

Kenya’s president, Uhuru Kenyatta, has rejected a decision by the UN’s highest court to grant Somalia control of disputed waters in the Indian Ocean, saying it would “strain relations” between the neighbouring countries.

The president accused the international court of justice of imposing its authority on a dispute “it had neither jurisdiction nor competence” to oversee after it delineated a new boundary that gives Somalia territorial rights over a large portion of the ocean, which is thought to be rich in oil and gas reserves. According to the new maritime border, Somalia has gained several offshore oil exploration blocks previously claimed by Kenya.

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Case of missing spy aggravates tensions among fractious Somali leadership

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President and prime minister in row over disappearance of cybersecurity expert, reportedly killed by al-Shabaab

The Somali prime minister, Mohamed Hussein Roble, has fired the head of the country’s intelligence unit over the disappearance of a female spy.

Roble accused the spy chief, Fahad Yasin Haji Dahir, a former close ally of the president, of mixing politics and security and ordered him to hand over power within three days. He said the handling of the case of the missing 24-year-old was “inappropriate”.

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‘An economic calamity’: Africa faces years of post-Covid instability

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Damage from pandemic could quash ambitions, exacerbate tensions and deepen repression in parts of continent

Analysts and experts are warning of many years of instability across Africa, possibly leading to wars and political upheavals, as the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic deepens across the continent.

Though many of the likely consequences are yet to become evident, recent unrest in southern Africa, increased extremist violence in the Sahel and growing instability in parts of west Africa can all be attributed in part to the outbreak, observers say.

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The light that failed: South Sudan’s ‘new dawn’ turns to utter nightmare

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Nearly 400,000 have died since it won independence 10 years ago. Now violence looms again, within and beyond its borders

Independence isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be. Recent additions to the family of nations, such as Kosovo and East Timor (Timor-Leste), have struggled to find their feet. In 2017, Catalonia’s secessionists split their homeland in two. Scottish referendum voters took a pass in 2014. The uncomplicated glory days when “third world” liberation movements ousted colonial regimes seem a long time ago.

South Sudan, which marked its 10th birthday on Friday, came late to Africa’s independence party – the product of a complex 2005 deal to end Sudan’s decades-old civil war. Barack Obama, seeking the credit, waxed lyrical. “Today is a reminder that after the darkness of war, the light of a new dawn is possible,” he declared.

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Rich countries ‘deliberately’ keeping Covid vaccines from Africa, says envoy

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Questions raised over failure of Covax scheme to provide promised doses to the continent

African Union special envoy Strive Masiyiwa has accused the world’s richest nations of deliberately failing to provide enough Covid-19 vaccines to the continent.

Masiyiwa, the union’s special envoy to the African vaccine acquisition task team, said the Covax scheme had failed to keep its promise to secure production of 700 million doses of vaccines in time for delivery by December 2021.

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Somalia’s rival factions spread across Mogadishu as they jockey for power

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Opposition leaders leave airport bolthole as they step up pressure over contested presidency of Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed

After months living at an upmarket inn close to Mogadishu’s airport, Somalia’s opposition leaders, including two former presidents and their armed teams, have decamped, spreading across the capital in what is seen as a strategic move.

The sitting president, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed “Farmaajo”, has meanwhile flown to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where he reportedly hopes to win support for an extension of his presidential term from the African Union.

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African health workers left without Covid jabs as paltry supplies dwindle

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Fear of third wave and new variants as sub-Saharan vaccine distribution is dogged by supply disruption

Millions of healthcare workers in sub-Saharan Africa continue to risk their lives to fight Covid-19 as authorities across the continent struggle to obtain and distribute vaccines to frontline medical staff.

Though hundreds of millions of people in western nations are now protected from the virus, doctors, nurses and others on the frontline of the fight against Covid in Africa will have to wait months, or even years, for a vaccine.

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Sassou rules like an emperor while Congolese die from extreme poverty | Vava Tampa

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The world has turned a blind eye to Denis Sassou Nguesso’s controversial re-election, which will extend his iron-fisted reign to more than 40 years

The result of last month’s presidential election in Congo-Brazzaville brought no surprises. After 36 years in power, Denis Sassou Nguesso, 77, clinched 88% of the vote with a turnout of more than 67%. Accusations of vote irregularities, including ballot box stuffing, were widespread. His closest rival, who had urged for a “vote for change” died of Covid on the day of the vote.

Television showed a triumphant Sassou at home with his smiling henchmen, as the interior minister, Raymond Zéphirin Mboulou – instead of the head of the electoral commission – announced the win. The question now is whether or not the African Union, the US, the EU, the UK and former colonial power France will simply turn a blind eye to another disputed election result while Congolese are dying from extreme poverty?

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