Humanitarian Border Patrols and Buffers for Fortress Europe

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/9/22/eu-to-start-releasing-money-to-tunisia-under-migration-pact

This is but one in a series of incidents regarding deals with European authorities and African states. Couched in humanitarian terms, the real goal is to curb immigration. The Europeans and Americans both have realized that it's cheaper and better (in terms of optics) to prevent the migrants from actually arriving on European shores. If they can create and pay for a buffer that will block these streams of human beings fleeing war, poverty, overpopulation, and in some cases a collapsing climate, they can feel good about what they're doing – because they don't have to look at it or get their hands dirty as it were.

Another French Defeat and Growing Uncertainty in North Africa

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66907517

This story is already falling out of the news cycle especially with all the other things happening in the Middle East.

After the July coup in Niger there was a great deal of focus on the country and the new ruling junta. The signs were bad (from a Western perspective) when Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland made a trip to Niger and was effectively rebuffed.

The Sublime Porte versus L'Elysee

https://www.euractiv.com/section/global-europe/news/turkey-bolsters-influence-across-north-africas-maghreb/

While the Istanbul-based Porte is no longer active, the Erdogan administration in Ankara certainly has a vision of Neo-Ottomanism - the Neo-Porte is you will. On the back burner for a season, it's back with a vengeance as Turkey attempts to triangulate its alliances, play its opposition off against one another and re-assert its unique geographical and cultural role. This is best seen in its geo-strategic and economic policies within the Middle East, the Caucasus region, Europe (particularly Germany and the Balkans) and the larger Mediterranean region.

Russian Eyes on the Red Sea

https://www.thedefensepost.com/2020/12/09/russia-naval-base-sudan/

Given that the US government has already demonstrated considerable influence over the new government in Khartoum, this naval base agreement with Russia was something of a surprise. When considers the overwhelming pressure the US has put on its allies regarding Huawei and 5G networks, surely Washington could have come up with enough pressures, incentives, and even threats to dissuade the Sudanese government from cutting a deal like this. So what happened?

The Context for the Tigray Revolt

There's been a fair bit of news coverage regarding the situation in Ethiopia but as is often the case – little contextualisation. A quick survey will help to explain the nature of the conflict and its potential dangers to the wider region.

Trouble on the Nile

There is serious trouble brewing in Northeastern Africa. While many of the tensions and conflicts of our day are packaged in terms of human rights and political struggle there is an underlying factor that is driving geopolitical tension and that is the struggle for resources.

Libya and the Escalating Mediterranean Conflict

https://www.euractiv.com/section/global-europe/news/turkey-raises-prospect-to-send-troops-to-libya/

The rift continues to deepen between Turkey and Libya and the story is further complicated by frankly dishonest Western reporting regarding the status of Khalifa Haftar and his backers.

Haftar: Made in the USA

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190614-sisi-egypt-will-always-suppor

Contrary to the official narrative and policy I would argue that the United States has been supporting Haftar since his return to Libya in 2011.

Few would doubt that his part in the 2011 so-called Libyan Revolution was sponsored by Washington. But the official narrative posits that he fell out of favour during the subsequent and ongoing civil war which many date to 2014.

A Murder in Mali

https://theintercept.com/2018/11/16/seal-team-6-green-beret-death/

I had almost deleted The Intercept from my bookmarks. The news magazine started out as one of the most interesting and cutting edge news websites in the aftermath of the Snowden affair but has since been appropriated and even dominated by reporting more or less in line with the Left-wing of the DNC. It went from being Anti-Establishment to being reformist and advocating many of the pseudo-Left views represented by people like Bernie Sanders. For some time it has seemed like Glenn Greenwald is about the only reporter left who has anything interesting to say.

Proxy Wars and Imperial Footprints in West Africa

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/28/world/africa/ghana-us-military-deal-protests.html

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ghana-protest/ghanaians-protest-over-expanded-military-co-operation-deal-with-u-s-idUSKBN1H41ZS

ISIS and Al Qaeda are active in West Africa and the semi-arid Sahel zone which extends from Mauritania to Sudan and Eritrea. No one disputes this but at the same time many Africans have woken up to the fact that both France and the United States are using this reality as pretense to expand their footprints and to carve out spheres of influence and control.

In addition, the posturing of the Trump administration and of course Trump himself has sent a clear signal that the welfare of Africans is not really Washington's concern. I would argue it never has been but in Trump, Western indifference and even contempt is expressed in its most base and even brutal form.

French Militarism in Africa

http://allafrica.com/stories/201706290652.html

France under the new Macron administration is obviously looking to expand its military influence. Macron has proposed to reinstate conscription and now a second trip to Mali as well as this new agreement indicates Old French West Africa is far from dead.

Peeling Back the Curtain on Recent Israeli Machinations

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/26/inquiry-launched-palestinian-fugitive-omar-zayed-death-embassy-bulgaria

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4771252,00.html

This story is from earlier this year and involves a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) fugitive who was murdered while hiding out in the Palestinian embassy in Bulgaria.