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Somalia signs defense pact with Turkey amid tensions with Ethiopia
Turkey confirmed Thursday that it has signed a defense agreement with Somalia. The deal commits Ankara to defending Somali waters and to helping Mogadishu build up its navy against “foreign interference” – a veiled reference to rising tensions with Ethiopia.
Last month, Addis Ababa signed a memorandum of understanding with the breakaway state of Somaliland allowing Ethiopia to utilize the port of Berbera in exchange for recognizing Somaliland’s independence. Ethiopia is the world’s most populous landlocked country, so securing sea access is vital, but Mogadishu says the deal is an unacceptable violation of its sovereignty.
Could it come to war? The United States is certainly concerned, with Washington’s top Africa diplomat, Assistant Secretary of State Molly Phee, shuttling between meetings with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and telling reporters “the region can ill-afford more conflict.” The European and African Unions, the Arab League, and Egypt are all echoing US and Turkish calls for Somali sovereignty to be respected.
But we’ve got our eye on the United Arab Emirates, which previously facilitated ties between Ethiopia and Somaliland and could lean on its growing military influence in the Horn of Africa to sway the course of events – particularly with African Union troops set to pull out of Somalia this year.9 fun facts about the Africa Cup of Nations
The Africa Cup of Nations is underway in Ivory Coast, with the gut-churning knockout stage set to begin on Saturday. The month-long continental soccer tournament happens every two years and recently expanded to accommodate 24 national teams – all of which began the competition hoping to prove they’re the best squad on a continent of 1.4 billion people. We have compiled a list of what you should know about this tournament, including the political backdrop of the event.
1. From the pitch to peace
Argentina's Roberto Ayala and Ivory Coast's Didier Drogba during the World Cup in Hamburg, Germany, on June 10, 2006.
Christian Liewig/Reuters
Soccer has played an important role in Ivory Coast’s recent history. In 2005, the country’s national team – particularly international superstar Didier Drogba – helped stop a bloody civil war that began in the West African country three years earlier. Right after Les Éléphants defeated Sudan and qualified for the World Cup for the first time, Drogba issued an emotional call for the warring parties to lay down their weapons for the sake of the country. Drogba’s speech was blasted across the airwaves and ultimately helped lead to a cease-fire.
2. China’s stadium diplomacy
Security forces officers stand guard in front of the Alassane Ouattara Olympic Stadium of Ebimpe in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, on July 11, 2023
REUTERS/Luc Gnago
Three out of six stadiums used for the tournament across Ivory Coast were either built or designed by China, highlighting Beijing’s efforts to expand its influence in Africa through infrastructure projects tied to its Belt and Road Initiative. The Stade Alassane Ouattara Ebimpe, where the final of the tournament will be played on Feb. 11, was built by the Chinese state-owned Beijing Construction Engineering Group.
3. Eyes on the prize money
Senegal's national team celebrates after winning AFCON in Feb. 2022.
REUTERS
The winners of AFCON will receive a $7 million prize, which is a 40% increase from what Senegal received when it won the cup two years ago. But it’s still far below what was raked in by the victors of other recent major tournaments. Argentina, for example, received a $42 million prize for winning the World Cup in Qatar in 2022. And all of the teams playing in this year’s UEFA European Championship get over $9 million each – just for taking part.
4. Near-empty stadiums, full-on scandal
Cameroon during the TotalEnergies Caf Africa Cup of Nations Afcon 2023 match between Gambia and Cameroon at Stade De La Paix on January 23, 2024 in Bouake, Cote d Ivoire.
Didier Lefa/REUTERS
Before the tournament, the African soccer governing body CAF announced staggering numbers of ticket sales to whet the appetites of fans and to show sponsors how viable their flagship product was. But when the tournament kicked off and games were played in almost empty stadiums, people started questioning those numbers. Fans found tickets hard to purchase, and allegations of black market activities swirled across social media — a claim the scandal-plagued CAF has since denied. It attributed the setback to a “printing issue” due to a spike in orders at the last minute.
5. Broadcast battle
Algeria during the Africa Cup of Nations match between Mauritania and Algeria at Stade De La Paix on January 23, 2024 in Bouake, Cote d Ivoire.
Didier Lefa/Reuters
Just before the tournament began, fans faced the possibility they might miss the highly anticipated event altogether. Africa's largest pay-TV company, MultiChoice, withdrew from an agreement to broadcast the competition to over 20 million subscribers. New World TV, a relatively unknown broadcaster headquartered in Togo, initially outbid the South African company for the rights. They subsequently managed licensing for other broadcasters but couldn’t reach a deal with their South African counterpart. Ultimately, all parties involved hurried to secure a MultiChoice deal just three days before the opening game.
6. Give or take a year
January 13, 2024. AFCON 2023, Ibrahim Sangare, Ivory Coast vs Guinea Bissau, at the Stade Olympique Alhassane Ouattara, Abidjan, Cote D Ivoire
Ebenezer Amoakoh/Reuters
Why is it called AFCON 2023 when it’s 2024? Since 2019, the competition has been planned for the summer to ease scheduling conflicts with the European soccer calendar, where Africa’s biggest stars ply their trades. Planned for the 2023 summer, the competition was postponed in July 2022 due to concerns about weather in Ivory Coast, which promised a torrent of downpours during the Northern Hemisphere’s summer — which even the newly designed Chinese stadiums couldn’t handle. Rather than change its name to AFCON 2024, the initial iteration was maintained for sponsorship purposes. This was also the case with the previous edition, AFCON 2021, which was held in 2022 in Cameroon.
7. Chaos undoes predictions
January 22, 2024. AFCON 2023, Pablo Ganet celebrates his goal in the final round of group stage match between Equatorial Guinea vs Ivory Coast, Stade Olympique Alhassane Ouattara, Abidjan, Cote D Ivoire.
Ebenezer Amoakoh
The AFCON defies logic. It is pure chaos. Once the competition commences, most pre-tournament punditry/projections become irrelevant. Ivory Coast, an African football heavyweight and the tournament host, faced the prospect of an early exit after being humiliated by Equatorial Guinea, a country led by a 34-year-old who plays in Spain’s lower league. Ghana is out. Tournament record winner Egypt pulled out all the stops to progress to the knockout stage. 2019 champs Algeria finished bottom of its group after a string of embarrassing results, compounded by a loss to Mauritania — which had never won a game at the competition and is ranked 105th best soccer team in the world. True to tradition, the tournament continues to humble giants.
8. White Elephant project?
Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara during the AFCON opening ceremony.
REUTERS/Stringer
Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara seems to have borrowed from the African dictator's playbook: hosting a big, popular sporting event to try to launder his undemocratic image. Ouattara, who is winding down a controversial third-term presidency, knows a thing or two about being autocratic, though it is unclear whether the 82-year-old will try to tighten his grip on power in 2025. But at least through CAF, he’s given Ivorians palpable joy and pride in exchange for popularity. He even grabbed Washington’s attention: Sec. of State Antony Blinken attended one of the games this week as America’s top diplomat was touring the region to hawk America’s soft power.
9. Questionably ‘energizing’ soccer
The Africa Cup of Nations match between Cape Verde and Egypt at Stade Felix Houphouet-Boigny on January 22, 2024 in Abidjan, Cote d Ivore.
Didier Lefa/Reuters
Global brands are also notorious for using huge sporting events to whitewash their images, and the AFCON is no different. French oil and gas giant TotalEnergies, controversial for its dealing on the continent, has been the title sponsor of CAF’s flagship competition (and its other tournaments) since 2016.
Interestingly, it still retains this position even as African leaders are increasingly taking a prominent role in the global climate conversation, an issue with severe implications for the continent's 1.4 billion people. What a time to have a global oil giant dominate pitch-side advertising boards and maintain a ubiquitous presence across its endless social media posts to millions of fans.
Hard Numbers: Cameroon rolls out kids malaria vaccine, Gaza death toll hits grim milestone, Deadly winter weather grips US, Massive earthquake hits China, Benito the giraffe migrates south
250,000: Cameroon began rolling out the world’s first malaria vaccine program for children on Monday. The country aims to vaccinate roughly 250,000 kids throughout 2024 and 2025. The WHO-approved vaccine, Mosquirix, is 30% effective and requires four doses. But it’s being portrayed as an important new safeguard against the mosquito-borne illness, which infects roughly 250 million people in Africa each year.
25,295: At least 25,295 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since fighting between Hamas and Israel broke out on Oct. 7, and roughly 63,000 have been injured, the territory’s health ministry said Monday. Meanwhile, the Israeli military said three of its soldiers were killed in southern Gaza on Monday, bringing the IDF’s death toll in the war so far to 198.
95: There have been at least 95 weather-related deaths across the United States in the past week as winter storms slammed several states. At least 25 weather-related deaths were recorded in Tennessee alone, as well as 16 in Oregon.
7.1: A 7.1-magnitude earthquake hit a mountainous, remote part of China’s Xinjiang region early on Tuesday morning, according to the state-run Xinhua News Agency, and the tremors were felt as far away as Delhi, India. Limited damage has been reported thus far.
1,200: A giraffe named Benito embarked on a 50-hour journey on Monday in search of better weather – and perhaps even love (a new mate). Benito will journey 1,200 miles south from the colder border climes of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, to Africam Safari park in the state of Puebla, where he will find three female giraffes waiting for him. !Buena suerte, Benito!
Local farmers in Africa brace for new EU deforestation law
Under EUDR, coffee growers hoping to sell to the world’s largest economy will have to digitally map their supply chains down to the plot where the raw materials were grown, a task that could involve tracing millions of small farms in remote regions.
In Ethiopia, where some 5 million farming families rely on coffee beans, orders have been drying up in recent months. Ivory Coast – the world's largest exporter of cocoa – ships around 70% of its annual output to the EU, but half of its crop is sold by local intermediaries and thus difficult to trace.
The law could increase small-scale farmer poverty and raise prices for EU consumers, while also undermining the EUDR's impact on forest conservation, as countries like Ivory Coast are considering declassifying protected forests so that they comply with the EU regulations.
The DRC wants stability. Will this week’s election deliver?
On Wednesday, voters in the vast heart of central Africa go to the polls in just the fourth election since the Democratic Republic of Congo began transitioning to democracy 20 years ago. Incumbent President Félix Tshisekedi looks likely to beat the crowded opposition, but he faces a severe crisis of insecurity in the mineral-rich northeast, while folks in the more secure west and south struggle to get ahead against ubiquitous corruption and lack of resources.
But for all its problems, Congo is brimming with potential. It is the world’s No. 3 copper producer and plays a crucial role in the green energy economy as a source of cobalt, tantalum, and tungsten. It is home to some of the last pristine rainforests on the planet and cooperates with Brazil and Indonesia in efforts to bolster this crucial resource in the fight against climate change. Plus, Congo is an incredibly young country, with a median age of just 16. Its population is projected to reach 200 million people by 2050, the majority of whom will be fluent in a global language, French.
So who are the main contenders to take on the difficult task of running the DRC?
- Félix Tshisekedi took power in the country's first-ever peaceful democratic transition in 2019 – and even then previous President Joseph Kabila remained a thorn in Tshisekedi’s side via his control of the legislature (he’s still a senator-for-life). Félix is the son of venerated pro-democracy leader Étienne Tshisekedi, who opposed both the dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko and the regimes of Kabila and his father. Polling is scarce in the DRC, but US-based firm Geopoll, which specializes in African elections, put Tshisekedi’s support at 55%, which ought to be plenty to overcome the divided opposition.
- Martin Fayulu, Tshisekedi’s main rival in the 2018 election — which he claims, with some evidence, was fraudulently stolen from him — is back on the campaign trail, doubling down on anti-corruption pledges. He’s promising not to take a cent in salary (as a former ExxonMobil exec, he can afford it) and reinvest that money in social programs.
- Moïse Katumbi is the governor of Katanga province and one of the richest men in the DRC. His efforts to expand and formalize copper production, develop agriculture, and build infrastructure in the province have led to long-term economic growth, which he says he can bring to the Congo as a whole.
- Denis Mukwege is a gynecologist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018 for his work helping women in the conflict-ridden Northeast who had suffered sexual violence. He is the only leading candidate from the center of the conflict zone and enjoys national admiration for his work, but he has no political experience.
In addition to these four, over a dozen more candidates are running for president, but none are expected to net strong results.
Who’s likely to take office in January?
Tshisekedi looks strong, but it’s hard to know who will come out on top – and it’s not just because of a lack of polling. Joseph Mulala Nguramo, a non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Center and Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, said the lack of transparency around vote counting could lead to a situation where multiple candidates declare victory on Wednesday.
“That would put the country into one of the worst crises we have seen in our history,” he says. “Is it possible the candidates will reach out to their voting bases and call for violence? I like to think we won’t go there because the country won’t survive.”
Independent observers have already raised the alarm that the government’s preparations are inadequate to deliver a free and fair election, and Tshisekedi’s rivals have complained he is using government powers to impede their campaigns.
But Ben Shepherd, who specializes in DRC politics at Chatham House, said that voters’ sophisticated understanding of how the system works – corrupt as it is – could prevent the worst scenarios.
“Congolese voters don’t have a great deal of faith that anyone with political aspirations is doing it for the right reasons,” he says. If rival candidates call for demonstrations in Kinshasa, voters “know they could tear the city apart, but that it probably wouldn’t change a great deal.”
And it is important to note that Tshisekedi has delivered some progress on key issues. The economy has grown strongly under him — though corruption prevents most of the benefits from reaching ordinary folks — and the conflict in the Northeast has thus far been contained, rather than spiraling into a regional war as in 1996 and 1998.
Challenges for the winner
The immediate problem for whoever wins will be in control of the legislature. No candidate is likely to earn a parliamentary majority, says Nguramo. They also face six more rounds of local elections through 2024, meaning a clear picture of the political landscape might not emerge for months.
The armed conflict in the Northeast remains a major risk, and Tshisekedi’s efforts to suppress the rebels with help from the United Nations and the East African Community regional bloc appear to be on the rocks. Many locals in the Kivu provinces and Ituri resent the foreign troops for failing to keep them safe, and Tshisekedi has asked both the UN and EAC to leave.
“Taking a hard line with the UN particularly plays very well and touches a nerve of the Congolese population, a sense of being abandoned by the world, which isn’t entirely untrue,” says Shepherd, adding that Tshisekedi’s frustration that EAC troops did not take the offensive against the rebels led to the breakdown.
Long term, both Nguramo and Shepherd believe Kinshasa needs to improve its engagement with the wider world and accentuate the progress it has made. The perception of the DRC as a hopeless “heart of darkness” unfairly colors the world’s vision and impedes necessary investment and support.
In a country where powerful individuals have helped themselves to tens of billions of dollars of public money, Nguramo says the DRC will not truly thrive until it has expunged its culture of bribery and embezzlement. If you’re an ordinary person, he adds, “you wake up in the morning and don’t know where your next meal will come from. You don’t know how to bring your kids to school. How many schools could you build [with the money lost to corruption]? How many hospitals, how many roads?”
UN’s footprint in Africa shrinks again, courtesy of Sudan
With Russia abstaining, the UN Security Council voted unanimously on Friday to wind down its 245-person Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan, aka UNITAMS, starting Dec. 4. Over the next three months, tasks will transfer to other UN agencies “where feasible,” and financial arrangements will be made with the UN Country Team remaining on the ground.
UNITAMS was established in 2020 to support Sudan’s transition to democratic rule, but operations stalled after a military coup in October 2021. When fighting erupted in April 2023 between the Sudanese army and the Arab-led paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, Sudanese leader Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan blamed UNITAMS chief Volker Perthes for the violence and demanded he be fired. Perthes stepped down in September, but last month, al-Burhan requested the end of the mission. The UNSC had to comply as it cannot operate without the host country’s consent.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres defended UNITAMS, blaming the violence on Burhan and RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Daglo. Washington, meanwhile, has signaled that it’s “gravely concerned” that the withdrawal will “embolden the perpetrators of atrocities with dire consequences for civilians.” In the last six months, 9,000 people, mostly ethnic Masalit, have been killed in violent conflicts between the Sudanese army and the RSF, and experts warn of an impending genocide.
The withdrawal is the latest blow to the UN’s influence in Africa, coming on the heels of Mali’s demand in June for the UN to terminate its peacekeeping mission there; it ends on Dec. 31.Hard Numbers: Azerbaijan targets journalists, Brazil feels the heat, deadly stampede hits the Republic of Congo, flooding kills in Somalia
112.6: It’s dangerously hot in Brazil. The country just recorded its highest temperature ever on Sunday in the southeastern town of Araçuaí: 112.6 degrees Fahrenheit (44.8 degrees Celsius). The heatwave, which has been linked to El Niño, has seemingly contributed to mass faintings at Taylor Swift concerts in the South American country in recent days. One fan at the pop star’s Friday show in Rio de Janeiro on Friday died amid the unbearable temperatures. Meanwhile, scientists continue to ring alarm bells about climate change as average global temperatures enter threatening territory.
37: At least 37 people were killed on Monday in a stampede at a military recruitment event in Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of Congo. This came after the army announced it was recruiting 1,500 people between 18 to 25, leading droves of young people to flock to recruitment centers in the central African country — where there are few economic opportunities. Youth unemployment in the Republic of Congo stands at roughly 42%, according to the World Bank. After the deadly stampede, which occurred at a stadium, the Congolese Armed Forces Command announced it was suspending recruitment in the nation’s capital.
700,000: Flash flooding in Somalia caused by heavy rains has killed at least 50 people and displaced nearly 700,000, according to comments on Monday from Mohamud Moalim Abdullahi, director of the Somali Disaster Management Agency. The recent torrential rainfall in Somalia has been tied to El Niño, much like the extreme heat in Brazil, and more downpours are expected before the end of the month.
Sudan genocide feared after massacre at refugee camp
Sudan’s ongoing civil war may once again be spiraling into genocide. Late last week, the UN Refugee Agency condemned the mass killing of at least 800 people within 72 hours by the Arab paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and its allies in the Ardamata refugee camp in West Darfur. This weekend, the EU's chief diplomat Josep Borrell cited witness reports that over 1,000 members of the Black African Masalit population had been killed, noting that the international community “cannot turn a blind eye on what is happening in Darfur and allow another genocide to happen in this region."
Borrell was referencing the mass killing in Darfur that saw 300,000 Masalit murdered between 2003 and 2005 by an Arab militia known as the Janjaweed. Former President Omar al-Bashir used the militia to crush Darfuri rebel groups who were revolting against the neglect of the region's Black African population. Today’s RSF, including its leader, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, aka Hemedti, are reportedly drawn from this group of Janjaweed fighters.
The UN Refugee Agency also reported “shocking accounts of widespread rape and sexual violence” committed by the RSF, following a report in August 2023 by the UN Human Rights Commission that the RSF was deploying rape and sexual violence “as tools to punish and terrorize communities.”
So far, however, no major world leaders have condemned the violence, called for a ceasefire, or demanded meetings to end the conflict.