Belgian King Regrets Colonial ‘Humiliation’ in Landmark Congo Trip

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Kin­shasa, Demo­c­ra­t­ic Repub­lic of the Con­go —  King Philippe of Bel­gium, in a his­toric vis­it to Con­go, said on Wednes­day that his coun­try’s rule over the vast cen­tral African coun­try had inflict­ed pain and humil­i­a­tion through a mix­ture of “pater­nal­ism, dis­crim­i­na­tion and racism.”  In a speech out­side Con­go’s par­lia­ment, Philippe ampli­fied remorse he first voiced two years…

Will France’s Africa Policy Hold Up?

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Sum­ma­ry Dur­ing his first term, French Pres­i­dent Emmanuel Macron sought to revi­tal­ize his country’s diplo­mat­ic out­reach to coun­tries through­out Africa. Some aspects of this piv­ot were designed to more direct­ly address the lega­cy of French colo­nial­ism in Fran­coph­o­ne coun­tries. He also sensed that the grow­ing stature of non-West­­ern pow­ers like Chi­na has giv­en African counterparts…

UK Plan to Deport Asylum Seekers to Rwanda Considered “Cruel”

Ethics, Get Involved, Headline, Human Rights

Fol­low­ing a recent agree­ment signed between the British and Rwan­dan gov­ern­ments on asy­lum seek­ers in the Unit­ed King­dom, sev­er­al inter­na­tion­al aid agen­cies report that some asy­lum seek­ers in the UK have gone into hid­ing for fear of being sent to Rwan­da. Under the agree­ment, peo­ple sus­pect­ed of ille­gal­ly enter­ing the UK would be flown to…

How the West Lost Africa

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Wel­come to For­eign Pol­i­cy’s Africa Brief. The high­lights this week: Tunisia’s largest trade union calls a strike over wages, a politi­cian in Alge­ria seeks to crim­i­nal­ize nor­mal­iza­tion of rela­tions with Israel, and the Meroe pyra­mids in Sudan are dig­i­tized. If you would like to receive Africa Brief in your inbox every Wednes­day, please sign up here.…

How currency sanctions on Russia could disrupt trade with Africa

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Intro­duc­tion Finan­cial sanc­tions tend to hurt both the sanc­tioned and the sanc­tion­er, but they also threat­en to hurt coun­tries that are finan­cial­ly inter­linked with the sanc­tioned coun­try. Recent sanc­tions levied on Rus­sia by the Unit­ed States and the Euro­pean Union in response to Russia’s inva­sion of Ukraine are dis­rupt­ing glob­al trade and finan­cial net­works across…

Dawn of a second Cold War and the ‘scramble for Africa’

Business and Finance, Business and Investment, China in Africa, HeadlineLeave a comment

Abstract Ample empir­i­cal evi­dence shows that the African Con­ti­nen­tal Free Trade Area (AfCF­TA) will boost the com­pet­i­tive­ness of African economies and accel­er­ate the diver­si­fi­ca­tion of sources of growth and trade to deep­en eco­nom­ic inte­gra­tion in Africa and enhance the region’s assim­i­la­tion into the world econ­o­my. How­ev­er, real­iz­ing these poten­tials hinges on revers­ing the cur­rent trend…

Kaïes Saied

Tunisians Fight to Save Democracy

Elections and Democracy, Headline, North Africa

PAVIA, ITALY (AFRICA NEWS MATTERS)  Democ­ra­cy has tak­en a hit in the African nation of Tunisia, once again. This comes 10 years since the Jas­mine Rev­o­lu­tion.  Tunisi­a’s Pres­i­dent Kais Saied con­tin­ues to adopt mea­sures that con­tra­dict his con­sti­tu­tion­al duties. Fol­low­ing elec­tions in 2019, the num­ber of inter­nal divi­sions with­in the par­lia­ment began to grow. Recently…

After Cameroonians in the US Get TPS, A look Beyond the News

African Dictators, Elections and Democracy, Headline

DENVER, USA — (AFRICA NEWS MATTERS) News that an esti­mat­ed 40,000 Cameroo­ni­ans liv­ing in the Unit­ed States may qual­i­fy for Tem­po­rary Pro­tect­ed Sta­tus or TPS rock­et­ed to the top of the charts in the past week.  There are sev­er­al key dimen­sions to this sto­ry — not just the fact that the Cameroon­ian ben­e­fi­cia­ries who are fleeing…