Supremacy feud: Fighting flares between Somalia’s Jubbaland and federal government
Fighting has erupted between Somalia’s semi-autonomous Jubbaland region and the federal government, officials said on Wednesday, in an escalation of tensions after Jubbaland held an election against the Mogadishu government’s advice. “This morning, federal forces from Mogadishu in Ras Kamboni, using drones, attacked Jubbaland forces,” Adan Ahmed Haji, assistant security...
UN peacekeepers, governor and two Congolese army officers accused of possible crimes against humanity in Goma
Eastern Congo has struggled with armed violence for decades as more than 120 groups fight for power, land and valuable mineral resources, while others try to defend their communities. Some armed groups have been accused of mass killings. More than 7 million people have been displaced.
Punitive, unpredictable school levies in Africa sometimes force students to ask fees from dying parents
More than anything, it’s the unpredictable tuition hikes – for sometimes questionable reasons – that haunt parents across the country of more than 45 million people. Some critics, including Uganda’s parliament speaker, have called for regulation to protect parents from exploitation.
US wants new regime in Syria to uphold minority rights as refugees return, caretaker PM named
Rebuilding Syria will be a colossal task following a civil war that killed hundreds of thousands of people. Cities have been bombed to ruins, swathes of countryside depopulated, the economy gutted by international sanctions and millions of refugees still live in camps after one of the biggest displacements of modern times.
Syria’s rebels start forming government, restore order after Assad ouster as UN Security Council meets
With the mood in Damascus still celebratory, Assad’s prime minister, Mohammed Jalali, on Monday agreed to hand power to the rebel-led Salvation Government, an administration based in rebel-held territory in northwest Syria.
‘This is stupidity’: Centralising WHO, giving it control of global health amounts to giving Big Pharma free reign over our lives
The evidence (for example, here and here) points to the fact that regional approaches, grounded in local contexts and community empowerment, offer a much more promising path toward a healthier future for a lot more people.
Police officers in Haiti UN peacekeeping mission have been paid salaries, no resignations, says inspector-general
While some Haitians welcome them, others view the force with caution, given that the previous intervention – the UN’s 2004-2017 peacekeeping mission – was marred by allegations of sexual assault and the introduction of cholera, which killed nearly 10,000 people.
Feeling cheated and abused by US and own government, Kenyan police in Haiti resign over pay delays
National police chief Douglas Kanja addressed reports in Kenyan media of pay delays at a news conference on Wednesday, saying the officers had been paid “up to the end of October”. The three officers disputed this, saying they were last paid in September.
Redesigned AU conflict intervention force suits African needs but requires funding
Inevitably money is the key issue. The last large AU missions, launched in Mali in 2013 and the Central African Republic in 2014, were quickly passed wholesale to the UN. The AU’s Peace Fund – moribund for years – only recently reached its $400 million target (actually surpassing it by $208 million following a pledge in July by the African Export-Import Bank). But to put that figure in perspective, AMISOM is estimated to have cost $1.2 billion a year.
Irony of UN missions: UN deploys where there’s peace to keep, while African-led PSOs deploy where there’s no peace at all
Eighteen years on, al-Shabab remains a potent presence in Somalia’s south-central countryside. AMISOM found itself hamstrung by inconsistent financing, shortages of equipment, poor coordination and the complexity of Somalia’s domestic politics.
