Africa

Salvage teams on Monday finally freed the colossal container ship stuck for nearly a week in the Suez Canal, ending a crisis that had clogged one of the world’s most vital waterways and halted billions of dollars a day in maritime commerce. A flotilla of tugboats, helped by the tides, …

The UAE reorients its strategy from one of military intervention to economic investment and power. Abdullah Muhammad al-Naqbi was sworn in on March 17 as director of the United Arab Emirates Trade Office in Somaliland. This appointment sparked immediate controversy due to contradictory messages from Somaliland’s official Twitter channels. Somaliland’s …

Russia and Turkey are backing opposing warring parties in three active conflicts. How­ever, this adversarial positioning has not hindered cooperation between Moscow and Ankara. They reign in opposing sides and, in effect, stage-manage their respective theatres of wars. Through multilateral arrangements, Europe is an enabler of Tur­key’s position and could …

Al-Hamadin, referred to as the “most dangerous and oldest of the takfiri elements in the Sinai,” was responsible for the murder of hundreds of civilians and Egyptian soldiers. Leader of the ISIS terrorist organization in the Sinai Peninsula, Salim Salma Said Mahmoud al-Hamadin, was killed during clashes with Bedouin and …

A container ship blocking the Suez Canal like a “beached whale” sent new shockwaves through global trade today as officials stopped all ships entering the channel and the salvage company said it may take weeks to free, Reuters reported. The 400 metre Ever Given, almost as long as the Empire …

Egypt’s Suez Canal Authority chief said on Saturday that officials could not lay out a set timetable for when Panamanian container ship, The Ever Given, will be dislodged. Lt. Gen. Osama Rabei said that the ship broke the canal’s bank and can only be moved using excavators.

Mahmoud al-Werfalli had been indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and was under US and EU sanctions. Unknown gunmen in Benghazi have assassinated a notorious eastern-based commander in Libya who was wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), media news outlets reported on Wednesday. Mahmoud al-Werfalli commanded …

Thirty-one member countries at the UN Human Rights Council issued a rare rebuke of Cairo’s crackdown on peaceful dissent. The United States joined 30 other countries on Friday to express concern over “the trajectory of human rights in Egypt” and the Egyptian government’s use of counterterrorism laws to crush peaceful …

Abdul Hamid Dbeibah has vowed to unify the war-torn country and lambasted the presence of foreign mercenaries. Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, Libya’s new prime minister, was sworn in on Monday ahead of United Nations-sponsored elections set for December that aim to reunite the war-wracked country a decade after the overthrow of …

Moderate Islamist parties in Algeria, which have been weakened by factionalism and internal disagreements over the years, are unlikely to increase their base in the upcoming general and local elections. Algeria’s moderate Islamist parties are unlikely to be able to capitalize on the snap general and local elections that President …