Africa

What’s new? South Sudan’s rulers keep a tight grip on its oil wealth, blocking outside scrutiny and obstructing reforms urgently needed to ease both popular hardships and political tensions. Along with International Monetary Fund support, a peace deal has kickstarted new efforts to fix the country’s broken finances. Why does it …

Around the world, states locked in conflict with jihadists are trying to devise policies to reintegrate disillusioned militants into society. In Nigeria, a program targeting defectors from the violent extremist group Boko Haram offers a window into the promise and pitfalls of such efforts. For the past 12 years, Nigeria …

In early May, in a televised address, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s president, Felix Tshisekedi, declared martial law in North Kivu and Ituri, two provinces on the country’s eastern border with Uganda and Rwanda, and placed them under military rule. In justifying this draconian measure, Tshisekedi invoked the regular mass …

The transitional government in Sudan announced last month that it will extradite former dictator Omar al-Bashir to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, where he is wanted on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity committed in Sudan’s Darfur region. The move was a sign that the new government …

“The terrorists are quick,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters after a summit with the leaders of Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad and Burkina Faso in Ouagadougou in May. “This is why we have to be quicker, so that we can beat them.” What happens in the Sahel, the vast sub-Saharan …

A violent insurgency in Mozambique’s northernmost province of Cabo Delgado is sparking fears that the area could become the next frontier for global jihadism in Africa. In recent years, young men, sometimes carrying the black flag of the Islamic State, have swept hundreds of thousands of people off their land …

In early June, jihadist militants in Burkina Faso raided homes and the local market in Solhan, a village close to the border with Niger. By sunrise, they had killed at least 160 civilians in what local officials said was the country’s worst terrorist attack in years. Though particularly shocking for …

Libya’s parliament on Monday passed a law on legislative elections, its spokesman said, ahead of a planned national vote set for December 24 under a United Nations-led peace process. The law comes less than a month after speaker Aguila Saleh signed off a law for presidential elections to be held …

A team of investigators appointed by the Human Rights Council said the rival factions, foreign fighters and third countries involved in Libya’s war have likely committed war crimes and crimes against humanity since 2016. Libya’s warring parties and their foreign backers have likely committed war crimes and crimes against humanity …

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, have discussed developments in several regional issues, including the Renaissance Dam project and the crises in Libya and Syria, at a meeting in Moscow. Shoukry said the talks covered efforts to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and strengthening the two-state …