The Scams Which Drain West Africa’s Resources
The international coalition of journalists which pioneered reporting on the “Panama Papers” has teamed up with West Africa’s Norbert Zongo Cell for Investigative Journalism (Cenozo)* to expose the tax avoidance, financial crime and corruption which siphon money out of the region, hindering development. In what the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) calls West Africa’s […]
Wanted – Honorary Consuls For ‘Cash-Strapped’ African Nations
Honorary consuls occupy a little-known niche in the global elite. Many work to rigorous standards, but for others their avowed love for their adopted country is not always reflected in their tax filings. On an overcast afternoon in September 2009, Benin President Thomas Boni Yayi raised a pair of golden scissors above a ribbon at […]
Paris ‘Spiderman’ lands fire brigade job after citizenship fast-tracked
Video footage of Mamoudou Gassama scaling four floors of a the building with his bare hands has catapulted the young refugee to global fame and earned him the promise of citizenship from President Emmanuel Macron. Wearing white tracksuit pants and a black cap, the hero of a rescue video viewed by millions of people appeared […]
The Guaranteed Path to French Citizenship for African Immigrants Are Acts of Heroism
The heroic act of scaling a building to rescue a small boy has “earned” Mamoudou Gassama, a Malian undocumented migrant in France, his French citizenship. Gassama is an illustration of the extraordinary measures Africans need to take to attain official papers in Europe Mamoudou Gassama, a Malian migrant who has now been christened the “Malian […]
West Africa is Losing Millions of Dollars
West Africa is losing millions of dollars that could be spent tackling poverty and inequality because governments are bending the rules to favour the rich and powerful, said Oxfam today in the wake of #WestAfricaLeaks. #WestAfricaLeaks shows an elaborate collusion between some of the region’s most powerful politicians and business leaders. From Senegal and Nigeria […]
António Guterres welcomes deployment of regional force to combat terrorism in the Sahel
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has welcomed the deployment by the so-called Group of Five (G5) – Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger – of a joint force to tackle the threat of terrorism and organized crime in the Sahel region. In a statement issued late last night by his spokesman, the Secretary-General welcomed […]
Two UN ‘blue helmets’ killed in attack in northern Mali
Two peacekeepers of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) were killed and another injured on Tuesday morning in an ambush in the northern Kidal region. “A pedestrian patrol of MINUSMA was attacked in an ambush around 6:30 am this morning, five kilometres from Aguelhok,” the Mission announced. Strongly condemning “this murderous […]
French President Macron Pledges to Be Tough On Terrorism During Mali Visit
French president Emmanuel Macron reinforced his commitment to fighting armed Islamists in Africa during a speech made at the French military base in Gao, northern Mali, while also calling on more support from Germany and other European countries. The trip – his first outside of Europe – sent strong signals at the start to his […]
Emmanuel Macron Visits French Troops in Northern Mali
President Emmanuel Macron visited French troops fighting armed groups in the West African country of Mali on Friday, during his first official visit outside Europe. At the end of his first week in office, Macron flew into Gao, a city in Mali’s north, where political unrest and ethnic strife have raged for more than five […]