critical

Djibouti’s Red Sea dilemma: How the Middle East war could reroute trade and test a strategic hub PARIS — Tuesday, March 10, 2026 — The war in the Middle East is no longer just a battlefield story. It is a shock rippling through global trade routes and energy markets, with outsized consequences for small, strategic economies. At the mouth of the Red Sea, Djibouti’s position at Bab el-Mandeb has long been an asset. In a protracted crisis, it could become a vulnerability. This is a classic exposure problem. Djibouti has built a…

Ian Huntley, the convicted killer of schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, has been left blind and is not expected to regain consciousness after a violent attack inside a British maximum-security prison, according to The Sun. The tabloid reported that the 52-year-old suffered severe brain trauma after being struck repeatedly over the head with a metal bar in a workshop at HMP Frankland in Durham on Feb. 26. Huntley has been on life support in hospital since the attack, The Sun said, citing unnamed sources. Durham…

Synthetic Drug Crisis in West Africa: A Public Health Emergency A new report warns that the proliferation of synthetic drugs across West Africa presents the most "urgent and complex" public health and security challenges facing the region. Published by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, the report says the burden of consumption—and its devastating consequences—falls disproportionately on young people. "The crisis has grown so severe that since 2024, two countries have declared states of…

A new scramble for Africa is underway — not with warships or colonial flags, but with battery supply chains, green-transition targets and high-level trade delegations. Governments and corporations are hunting lithium, cobalt, graphite, manganese, platinum-group metals and rare earth elements that power electric vehicles, wind turbines and digital infrastructure. The race promises opportunity for African states; it also risks renewing old patterns of extraction without local benefit or environmental safeguards. The global…

MOGADISHU — Somalia’s lower house of parliament on Saturday approved a sweeping Cybersecurity Law designed to protect the country’s digital infrastructure, safeguard information systems and strengthen defenses against cyber threats amid rapid growth in online services. The legislation creates a national framework for preventing, reporting and responding to cyber incidents. It assigns policy leadership to the Ministry of Communications and Technology, gives the National Communications Authority a technical oversight role, and…

Ireland’s EU Commissioner Michael McGrath warned that Europe’s ties with the United States have reached a “pivotal and dangerous” moment, saying the European Union would deliver a “robust” response if the Trump administration proceeds with tariffs against countries that opposed the U.S. president’s ambitions to seize Greenland. Speaking to RTÉ News in Davos, McGrath said “we are at a moment of danger in the overall transatlantic relationship,” and cautioned that undermining the international rules-based order would leave the…

SYDNEY — A teenage boy was critically injured Sunday after a shark attack in Sydney Harbour, prompting beach closures and warnings to stay out of the water as authorities searched for the animal, police and state officials said. New South Wales Police said the boy, believed to be about 13 years old, was bitten off Shark Beach in the eastern suburb of Vaucluse. He suffered serious leg injuries. “The injuries are consistent with what is believed to have been a large shark,” police said in a statement. Officers pulled the boy…

Somalia’s unity and constitutional legitimacy are entering a perilous phase. With the mandates of the federal parliament and president set to expire in April and May 2026, respectively, the country has no agreed electoral framework—and no margin for political brinkmanship. In a forceful public statement, opposition leader Abdirahman Abdishakur Warsame warns that the stakes now transcend routine power struggles: the survival of the Somali state as a cohesive, credible entity is on the line. Warsame argues that a cocktail of…

EU warns of sabotage risk as Finland seizes ship suspected in Baltic cable damage Europe “remains vigilant” as its critical infrastructure faces a high risk of sabotage, EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas said, after Finnish authorities seized a cargo vessel suspected of damaging a subsea telecommunications cable between Helsinki and Tallinn. Finnish police detained the Fitburg, a 132-meter cargo ship, and its 14 crew members as part of an investigation into damage to a telecoms cable in the Gulf of Finland. Authorities…

Somalia’s growth is hitting an avoidable ceiling: the price and reliability of electricity. The country’s telecom sector—quietly swapping diesel generators for sunlight—offers a clear, local blueprint for how to lower costs, cut emissions and power a modern economy. If energy is the missing link, renewables are the bridge.