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Published 16th November 2023

Vol 64 No 23

Wagner pays cash for digital influence

Drissa Meminta
Drissa Meminta

A leak from the Russian group's propaganda arm reveals payments for videos by West African bloggers and influencers on social media platforms

The Wagner Group has been paying West African social and digital media influencers and broadcasters for videos and blogs attacking France and supporting Russian narratives on the Ukraine war, according to documents leaked by a disgruntled former group employee to Africa Confidential.

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Darfuris face a global dereliction of duty

Copyright © Africa Confidential 2023
Copyright © Africa Confidential 2023

As the UN accuses the generals of 'verging on pure evil', the international system runs out of ideas and energy

As fighters from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) edge near to total control of the five states of Darfur, the human cost in terms of ethnic killings and deliberate starvation of civ...

Abiy spells out expansionist plans

Copyright © Africa Confidential 2023
Copyright © Africa Confidential 2023

The premier is targeting direct access to the Red Sea, a move that could destabilise the region

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, whose popularity has plummeted at home and abroad due to the war in Tigray, the chaos in Oromia, and now conflict in Amhara, appears to have a new plan t...

BLUE LINES
THE INSIDE VIEW

Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has vowed to draft a new treaty on migration with Rwanda after the Supreme Court in London struck down a £140 million (US$174m) 'cash for asylum seekers' deal with President Paul Kagame's government. The ruling is a major blow for Sunak, who has made migration control one of his government's top priorities.

On 15 November, Lord Reed, the president of the Court, said the judges agreed unanimously with a Court of Appeal ruling in June that ther...

Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has vowed to draft a new treaty on migration with Rwanda after the Supreme Court in London struck down a £140 million (US$174m) 'cash for asylum seekers' deal with President Paul Kagame's government. The ruling is a major blow for Sunak, who has made migration control one of his government's top priorities.

On 15 November, Lord Reed, the president of the Court, said the judges agreed unanimously with a Court of Appeal ruling in June that there was a strong risk of claims being wrongly determined in Rwanda, resulting in genuine asylum seekers being returned to their country of origin (refoulement). He said a similar accord between Israel and Rwanda had failed.

Under the 2022 agreement, asylum seekers would be flown to Rwanda, where their asylum claims would be assessed. The first planned flights were blocked a year ago by the European Court of Human Rights, which imposed an injunction barring deportations until all legal action was concluded.

This latest setback for London could also hit the EU, whose institutions and member states have followed Britain's lead. The European Commission has spent recent months negotiating migrant control agreements with Tunisia and Egypt. These are designed to prevent boats carrying migrants from crossing the Mediterranean rather than processing claims outside the EU.

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Trading dams for ports

Abiy's clumsy proposal to swap shares in the Nile dam for access to a port took the region by surprise

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed shocked allies and enemies alike when he announced on 13 October that access to the Red Sea was an 'existential' issue for his landlocked countr...

ZANU-PF's impostor plot

The ruling party sows discord in the opposition as a rogue activist sacks their MPs

Behind the bizarre shenanigans in which the speaker of parliament endorses the recall of at least 15 opposition MPs at the hands of a man widely believed to be working for the ruli...

Into the arms of Abdel Fattah el Sisi

The likelihood that the Israel-Hamas war will trigger a refugee crisis has pushed Brussels to strike a migration deal with Cairo

Fears that a full-scale ground invasion of Gaza by the Israel Defense Forces will create tens of thousands of refugees have prompted the European Union to reorganise its relations ...

Tinubu tightens grip, opposition regroups

Violence, low turnouts and blatant vote rigging raise doubts about the APC's latest state election victories

Such was the nature of the victories for the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in the off-cycle state governorship elections on 11 November in Kogi and Imo states, that they h...

Weah-Boakai election race tests 20-year peace settlement

In the closest election since the civil war, voters choose between the two front-runners in the presidential run-off

Regional stability and economic progress weighed heavily in the second round of the presidential elections as voters trooped to the polling stations on 14 November. The early signs...

Amid regional chaos, a glimmer of hope in Jeddah and Addis

As the devastating stalemate between Burhan's and Hemeti's forces continues, the pressure for a ceasefire is mounting

The resumption of peace talks in Jeddah between Sudan's warring factions on 26 October just as the Israel-Hamas war was escalating was more than a show of diplomatic multi-tasking ...

Godongwana's realism unsettles ANC

Ministers are torn between tax hikes and spending cuts in the tightest fiscal crunch for 30 years

After several opinion surveys forecast support for the African National Congress (ANC) dropping below 50% for the first time in next year's national election, the government is str...

Presidents Mahamat Kaka and Macron meet on security threats

Paris needs Ndjamena's cooperation more than ever after the rupture of its ties with Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso

The worsening regional crisis triggered by the war in Sudan and Chad's own national reconciliation process dominated the visit of President Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno 'Kaka' t...

Pointers

Green hydrogen shoots

A €1 billion fund for projects developing 'green' hydrogen and critical raw materials has just been signed off in Brussels by President Hage Geingob and European Commission Pr...

Pay more to be Kenyan

Kenyans are bracing themselves for at least two years of fiscal austerity as William Ruto's government prioritises its Eurobond repayments. And the pain just keeps coming.

Putting a LID on cocoa

Civil society groups are demanding that European Union lawmakers include a guarantee of minimum prices for cocoa producers in the latest agreement between the EU, Ghana, Côte...

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