A conversation with a senior figure who has occupied several high-ranking positions pushed me to write this article. Our discussion revolved around political powers that have become part of the system despite operating outside of it.
The UN sounded the alarm Wednesday of impending famine in Sudan, where months of war have hit food supplies and pushed nearly four million people to flee the fighting. "Over 20.3 million people, representing more than 42 percent of the population in the country, are experiencing high levels of acute food insecurity," the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization announced.
Dany Salameh was already ill but a blast that devastated Beirut's port three years ago aggravated his condition, leaving him dependent on a walker and feeling abandoned by authorities. People hurt or disabled by the catastrophic explosion told AFP that Lebanon, bankrupt and politically paralyzed, has failed to deliver adequate medical care, financial support or justice.
Two West African nations ruled by mutinous soldiers said Monday that military intervention in Niger would be considered a "declaration of war" against them, as the junta attempts to consolidate power after a coup last week. The West African regional body known as ECOWAS announced travel and economic sanctions against Niger on Sunday over the coup, and said it would use force if the coup leaders don’t reinstate Bazoum within one week. Bazoum's government was one of the West’s last democratic partners against West African extremists.
In 2011, after two decades climbing the ranks of Niger's army, Abdourahamane Tiani was handed one of the military's most prized appointments: the head of an elite unit set up to protect the president. Last week, Tiani, a general, used his position and manpower to do the opposite. He imprisoned President Mohamed Bazoum in the presidential palace and appeared on state television on Friday to declare himself head of state, confirming the seventh military coup in West and Central Africa in three years.