North Africa

Two benchmarks indicate a decline in democracy around the world by 2020. In Africa, the 10 most democratic countries no longer include Benin, but include Malawi. "A struggle without leaders for democracy," is the unpleasant headline in Freedom House's latest annual report. This American and independent think tank measures the…

March 22 is World Water Day. Some experts predicted that the wars of the future would be wars over water. In the Horn of Africa, we are not yet talking about armed conflict, but the tone continues to rise between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia. The waters of the Nile are at stake, which is at the center of an intense diplomatic struggle as Ethiopia completes the construction of its renaissance dam, the largest of its future in Africa. And she is determined not to be intimidated by Sudan and Egypt. Ethiopia will complete the…

Ocean Viking, the boat from the SOS Mediterranean organization, is conducting a new rescue campaign in the central Mediterranean. At sea, the ship rescued 796 people from Libya to Europe in January and February. RFI embarks on this mission. Every day we receive the logbook from our special correspondent. "Please play a game with me," Amias asks me. The 9-year-old boy points to two painted boards on the floor. Wooden puck acts as pawns. Amias has been aboard the Ocean Viking for three days: he has already had the…

The civilian authorities is making an attempt to regain management. Sudan is in the process of reforming its defense industry. At the very least, Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok, who has announced that the government will take back control of a group of companies owned by the army, hopes so. The Société de l'Industrie Militaire, one of the largest companies in the defense sector, will be separated into two units, a military and a civilian, where the Ministry of Economy and Finance will regain control through a private…

Honoré Ngbanda, former head of intelligence for Mobutu Sese Seko, died in Morocco (as Mobutu). He was 74 years old. The former special adviser to the president had left the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1997 a few days before the fall of Marshal Mobutu, who at the time had ruled with the iron fist of the DRC, aka Zaire from 1965 to 1997. He was former president Mobutu Sese Seko's master spy. Honoré Ngbanda has been a staunch supporter of the former Congolese head of state until the end. Born in Lisala, like Mobutu, in…

Several voices within the Sovereignty Council have spoken out against the proliferation of weapons and militias in Darfur. Security has not returned to this region of western Sudan, ravaged since 2003 by civil war and genocide, whose violence has left more than 300,000 dead. An upsurge in tribal conflicts is coming as UNAMID peacekeepers begin to retreat. In recent days, several villages and IDP camps have been attacked. In a few days, new militia attacks broke out at the Kutum site in North Darfur and in the Kalma IDP…

Long claimed, the list of victims of the 2011 revolution includes the names of 129 dead and 534 wounded. Three times less than the list published by the first committee. The victims swing between satisfaction and regret at not seeing progress in justice. as reported from Tunis Michel PicardInjured the day before Ben Ali's…

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan congratulated the Libyan unity government and said that recent developments in the war-torn country have promised hope for a permanent solution. The president held separate telephone talks with Mohammad Younes Menfi, head of Libya's presidential council and prime minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, according to a statement from the Turkish president's communications directorate. Erdoğan stressed that Turkey is ready to provide all necessary support to ensure Libya's…

Eight children were injured when a shell hit a residential area in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, according to local health authorities on Saturday. In a statement, Al-Jalal Hospital in Benghazi said the children, aged between seven and 16, sustained moderate and critical injuries in the attack that took place on Friday in the city's Zamzam district. The statement did not specify the group behind the attack. Benghazi is controlled by militias affiliated with Putist General Khalifa Haftar. On…

In Chinguetti, Mauritania, an exhibition of photographs returns to the routes of African caravans. These camel rides have crossed the centuries as much as the deserts! Freight convoys are now being replaced by trucks. But an unexpected phenomenon, or rather an unexpected wealth, could well give them another life: the gold mines!…