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Ghana is set to complete its ratification of the Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products, an international treaty under the aegis of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). The move is a landmark step for a country where one in five cigarettes are sold illegally and an…
Siemens Gamesa is making important moves in Africa. The subsidiary of German engineering conglomerate Siemens installed the first turbine in Djibouti’s new windfarm project in early August and is on course to build the first renewable energy plant in the country. But while Djibouti continues to modernise, investment and development…
Chad’s transitional president Mahamat Idriss Déby this week announced plans to hold a long-awaited national dialogue between his transitional government and the rebel groups currently active in the country. Déby, who leads the Transitional Military Council (CMT), invited rebel groups to take part in “frank and sincere” talks ahead of…
In 2026, Senegal will become the first country in Africa to host an Olympic event, when the Summer Youth Olympics will take place in Dakar. Initially set for 2022, the world’s most important sporting tournament for teenagers has been pushed back on account of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. While regrettable,…
On July 1st, Togo began systematically enforcing a comprehensive fiscal marking system which will allow authorities to track a wide range of consumer goods, from fruit juices to alcoholic beverages. Distributors and local points of sale who have so far sold their wares under the table in an attempt to…
On the eve of the second Libyan peace conference, which took place in Berlin on June 23, the EU finally took a strong stance on the elections which the troubled North African country is slated to hold this December 24th: Brussels threatened to impose sanctions on anyone attempting to delay…
Mahamat Idriss Déby, the head of Chad’s Transitional Military Council (CMT), scored another political endorsement last week, with a visit to Abuja earning him the support of Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari. Nigeria follows in the footsteps of France and the USA, who have also given their backing to Déby’s running…
On May 18th, US diplomat Joey Hood became the highest-ranking American official to visit Libya since 2014, the year that Washington closed its embassy in Tripoli amid surging violence. Hood’s visit tempered optimism—the US dangled the possibility of eventually reopening its Libyan embassy—with clear concern over the likelihood of achieving…
As with so many other facets of global wealth (and health) inequality, the rollout of the four Covid-19 vaccines produced by Western pharmaceutical companies and approved by American and European health officials – the “Big Four” of Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, Oxford/AstraZeneca, and Johnson & Johnson – has quickly became yet another…
The long-time president of Djibouti, Ismaïl Omar Guelleh, has launched his re-election campaign in the run-up to national elections on 9 April. With the exception of Zakaria Ismael Jafar, an “anti-system” independent candidate, Guelleh is set to run for his fifth term unopposed. His challengers in the 2016 election have…
Note: This article was updated on March 26, 2021 to include comments from Apollinaire Compaoré. Two troubling recent investigations from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) have shone a fresh spotlight on the tobacco industry’s continued complicity in tobacco smuggling in Africa. The first highlighted how Philip Morris…
Africa is finally joining the rest of the world in providing the long-awaited COVID-19 vaccinations to its people, beginning with Rwanda and Kenya. Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Angola and Congo have also received their first vaccine doses, while Mali, Senegal, Malawi and Uganda are set to receive them later this…
Monday morning’s arrest of the democratically elected leader of Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi, and party officials from the National League for Democracy (NLD) in a military coup, has sparked international outrage. Just hours before the new government were set to convene for the first time, the military seized control…
Ismail Omar Guelleh, president of the small but strategically vital country of Djibouti in the Horn of Africa, announced in late December he would be running for a fifth term in presidential elections this April. Taking advantage of the media attention surrounding the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) summit, which…
In the nearly ten years since Recep Tayyip Erdogan made his famous visit to Mogadishu in August 2011, Turkey has rapidly become one of Somalia’s most important (and generous) international benefactors. After Erdogan became the first head of state from outside of Africa to visit Somalia since the country’s disastrous…