Naomi Conteh

Sudan’s future is being shaped by the same regional powers that have spent years exploiting its conflict. Egypt and Turkey, alongside Saudi Arabia, have been central to diplomatic tracks that largely exclude Sudanese voices. At the same time, networks linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and the Al-Baraa Bin Malik Brigade remain embedded within the Sudanese Armed Forces. These are the same ideological currents Egypt has crushed at home while tolerating or working with abroad when it serves its regional interests. Turkey, long a patron of Brotherhood-aligned forces, continues to treat Sudan as a space for influence rather than a country whose people should decide their own future. This is not neutral diplomacy. It is external management dressed up as mediation. While Sudanese civilians face mass displacement, famine risk, and systematic violence, outside powers protect preferred factions, shield Islamist networks when convenient, and negotiate outcomes over the heads of the people who will live with the consequences. Sudan is being treated as a theatre for regional projects ideological, strategic, and economic rather than as a society with the right to determine its own path. fairobserver.com/region/midd…

The world is entering its biggest rearrangement since 1945. Africa does not have the luxury of treating map arguments as the main event. Great-power competition, supply chains, energy systems and security alignments are being rewritten in real time. What African states need in that environment is not another decade of fighting over inherited lines. They need defence capacity they control, economies that produce more than they extract, and a serious assault on the corruption that turns both into empty slogans. Borders matter. They are not the only thing that matters. A continent that spends its political energy policing colonial cartography while remaining dependent for weapons, finance and processing will wake up inside someone else’s new order.

Kenya is joining the African push to ban raw mineral exports. President Ruto has said gold, iron ore, graphite, titanium, limestone and soda ash should be processed at home rather than shipped out unrefined. Zimbabwe, Ghana, Namibia, Malawi, Mozambique and the DRC have moved in the same direction. The logic is straightforward. The continent has spent decades exporting cheap rock and importing expensive finished goods.A ban is not industrial policy on its own. Without power, plants, skills and capital, raw export bans become shortages and smuggling. The test is whether Kenya can actually build the refineries and factories that keep value in the country, or whether this remains a speech while the ore still leaves. Value addition only matters if the capacity exists. Otherwise the raw material still finds a buyer somewhere else.

Washington is being told to recognise Somaliland because it would help against Iran and the Houthis. The argument is that Hargeisa already functions as a state, sits on a vital stretch of the Gulf of Aden, and that governments now invoking Somalia’s territorial integrity have applied that principle selectively elsewhere. Israel has already recognised Somaliland. The United States is being asked to follow for its own security interests. The geography is useful. That part is true. What should not follow is the idea that Somaliland only becomes real when it can serve someone else’s Red Sea strategy. It has governed itself since 1991. Recognition should follow that record. A self-governing society should not have to prove its worth as a counterweight to Tehran in order to exist on paper. foreignpolicy.com/2026/09/04…

The United States is importing record volumes of Congolese copper as buyers grow more willing to take it. In July alone, US imports from the DRC hit 53,290 tonnes, nearly a quarter of all copper entering the country. A year earlier the figure for the whole of 2024 was under 32,000 tonnes. Traders moved metal ahead of possible tariffs. Improved standards and a discount to exchange-listed brands made the copper easier to sell into American mills. This is the energy transition in practice. Congo supplies the metal. Foreign markets decide when it is acceptable. Prices, freight and tariff fears shape the flow more than any change in who controls the mines or who captures the value on the ground.

The case for recognizing Somaliland is being made again in Washington. This time the hook is Iran and the Houthis. A new argument says the United States should treat Somaliland as a state because of its coastline, its stability, and its value against threats in the Red Sea. The piece also points out that governments now citing Somalia’s territorial integrity have been selective about that principle elsewhere.The strategic case is real. Berbera sits on a corridor the world suddenly cares about. That is not a reason to pretend Somaliland only became a political fact when it became useful. It has governed itself since 1991. Recognition should follow that record, not wait until a self-governing society can be sold as a tool against Tehran. A state that already works should not have to audition as someone else’s forward base in order to exist on paper. foreignpolicy.com/2026/09/04…

Uber is leaving Nigeria and Uganda while cutting 3,300 jobs worldwide and pouring money into driverless cars. The company says it is concentrating on markets where it can extract more value. That is the point. A foreign platform entered two of Africa’s key ride-hailing markets, built a workforce of drivers around its app, then walked away when the numbers no longer suited headquarters. This is the pattern. African cities become useful until they are not. The drivers who absorbed the risk stay behind. The capital moves on to the next bet, this time robotaxis and markets judged more profitable.

Congo is forcing a reckoning with Belgium over a $60 million passport contract. A Brussels court has ordered Belgian firm Semlex and 13 others to stand trial for alleged corruption, money laundering and tax fraud. The deal produced biometric passports for the DRC. Congolese citizens paid more. Investigators say the state kept only $65 per passport while $60 was routed to an offshore company. Fifty-one Congolese civilians and anti-corruption groups helped drive the case. This is not only a procurement scandal. It is a reminder of how the old relationship still works. A company from the former colonial power runs a basic function of the state. Revenue leaves the country. The public is left with inflated fees and no clear account of where the money went. Sovereignty means more than independence day speeches. It means control over the documents, contracts and cash that hold a country together.

A Belgian court has ordered a trial over a Congo passport deal that allegedly siphoned off nearly $60 million. Semlex, a Belgian biometrics firm, and 13 other defendants will face charges of corruption, money laundering and tax fraud. The contract covered biometric passports for the DRC. Passport prices almost doubled. Investigators say $60 from each document was channelled to a company linked to a relative of former president Joseph Kabila. This is the old arrangement in a modern form. A European company wins a sensitive state contract in one of Africa’s poorest countries. The public pays more for a basic document. Money leaves through offshore channels. Congolese citizens are left with inflated fees and a hollowed-out state.

Africa’s biggest companies are increasingly African-owned. Two-thirds of firms with more than $1 billion in annual revenue are now locally owned and headquartered.That is a real shift. For decades the commanding heights belonged to foreign multinationals. Family conglomerates from Nigeria to Tanzania are now building refineries, factories and logistics networks on their own balance sheets.African ownership still is not the same as public power. These groups are often secretive, politically connected and concentrated in a handful of families. They can industrialise. They can also replace foreign extraction with a local oligarchy sitting on the same model.The question is simple. Does this capital build broader productive capacity, or does it just put African names on the same old pattern?

Türkiye is deepening its security role off Somalia’s coast and presenting it as partnership. Turkish naval forces and Somali troops have retaken a cargo ship hijacked by pirates after a 10-day operation. Somali officials say pirate boats were destroyed and the vessel was recovered under the two countries’ defence cooperation framework.Piracy is a real threat. That is not the whole story. Ankara is using maritime security to expand a military and political footprint that already includes training, arms, and privileged access inside Somalia. Each successful operation is then used to justify a larger presence. This is how external power settles in. First the training mission. Then the joint patrol. Then the argument that Somalia cannot secure its own waters without the partner that now has a stake in staying.

A new investigation says Russia has been planting “ghost” reporters inside African newsrooms. Since 2021, networks linked to Moscow have used legitimate African media outlets to push anti-US, anti-French and anti-Ukrainian content, then amplified those stories through fake grassroots pages on Facebook. Once the articles appear on real sites, they are made to look like local opinion rather than an imported line. This matters. African media space is not empty. It is already crowded with foreign narratives competing for influence. Russia’s method is not unique in ambition it is distinctive in how it hides behind local mastheads and then launders the result as organic debate. The issue is not that African outlets should only carry one approved story. It is that sovereignty over information is being treated as another resource to be captured by foreign powers.

The Trump administration is calling for a country-wide UN arms embargo on Sudan as drone attacks escalate. Washington’s Africa envoy has urged the Security Council to expand the existing Darfur embargo across the whole country. Strikes on markets, schools, fuel stations and water systems have intensified, and the UN has already recorded more than a thousand civilian deaths from drone attacks in the first half of the year. The problem is not the absence of embargo language. It is that the war has become a regional supply operation. External patrons continue to arm the conflict while diplomats talk about restraint. An embargo that cannot stop the flow of drones, ammunition and political cover will remain a statement rather than a constraint. Sudanese civilians are paying for a war that is being armed from outside and treated as a theatre rather than a society. bbc.com/news/articles/c4g5zy…

Somaliland’s geography is useful. That part is not in dispute. Berbera sits on one of the most important stretches of coastline in the Horn. A deep-water port, an upgraded airfield, and a relatively stable territory next to the Bab el-Mandeb give Hargeisa something external powers actually want: a place from which to help secure Red Sea shipping. After 35 years of being ignored, offering that partnership is a rational move. Usefulness can open doors that principle alone never did. The problem is what happens when usefulness becomes the whole argument. Somaliland did not become a functioning society because it was convenient for foreign navies. It did so by governing itself, holding elections, and building institutions when almost no one was paying attention. That record should matter on its own. Recognition can serve strategic interests. It should not depend on them. A state that already works should not have to rent out its coastline in order to be treated as real.

At least 31 people have been killed in Conakry after a rubbish landfill collapsed onto nearby homes. Heavy rain triggered the collapse in the Dar-es-Salam area, burying houses under waste. Similar tragedies have occurred at the same site before. Authorities had ordered residents to relocate, but many remained, a reflection of the limited alternatives available to people living on the margins of the city. This is not simply a natural disaster. It is the predictable result of long-term neglect: unsafe waste management, inadequate housing, and the concentration of the poorest communities next to environmental hazards. When people are left with no viable options, danger becomes a permanent condition of daily life. The deaths in Conakry expose the human cost of systems that allow risk to accumulate until it becomes catastrophe.

The war in Sudan is expanding the use of indiscriminate and allegedly prohibited weapons. Reports from North Kordofan describe airstrikes involving explosive barrels and Iranian-made vacuum bombs dropped on towns and villages. These attacks have killed civilians, including women and children, destroyed water sources, and hit areas with no clear military presence. Explosive barrels are crude, unguided munitions with inherently indiscriminate effects. Their continued use points to a willingness to treat civilian areas as acceptable targets. This is not an isolated pattern. Healthcare facilities have faced hundreds of attacks, and earlier concerns over chemical weapons already led to US sanctions on the Sudanese Armed Forces and its leadership. As the conflict grinds on, the methods are becoming more brutal while meaningful accountability remains distant. When prohibited or indiscriminate weapons become routine tools of war, the distinction between combatants and civilians collapses further and the human cost continues to mount. the-star.co.ke/news/2026-08-…

The strategic case for US recognition of Somaliland is becoming harder to dismiss. Somaliland sits on a critical stretch of the Gulf of Aden, with the renovated deep-water port at Berbera offering a potential logistics and naval support hub near the Bab el-Mandeb. At a time when Houthi attacks and Iranian pressure continue to threaten Red Sea shipping, that geography carries clear weight. It also provides an alternative point of presence in a region where China already maintains a military base in Djibouti and continues to expand influence. Beyond location, Somaliland has maintained relative stability for more than three decades, rejected major Islamist control, and built working relationships with key geopolitical partners It also holds potential reserves of critical minerals at a moment when supply-chain diversification away from China is a stated priority. These factors do not invent Somaliland’s political reality — they simply make it more difficult for Washington to keep treating a functional, self-governing territory as a diplomatic inconvenience.

Eritrea’s alignment with the Sudanese Armed Forces is less about Sudan’s future and more about regional power plays. Asmara has provided the SAF with logistical support, access to its ports and airfields, facilitation of arms flows, and the mobilisation of border communities. The relationship is driven by shared hostility toward Ethiopia, shifting Gulf rivalries, and Eritrea’s interest in expanding its leverage along the Red Sea and northern frontier. For the SAF, the partnership offers wartime advantages. For Eritrea, it is an opportunity to weaken a stronger neighbour and insert itself deeper into the politics of the Horn. Sudanese civilians, meanwhile, continue to bear the cost of a war that is increasingly shaped by external calculations. hornreview.org/2026/08/18/ma…

Egypt continues to treat Ethiopia’s rise as a problem to be managed rather than a reality to be accommodated. A recent Ethiopian assessment argues that Cairo is coordinating with Eritrea, elements of the Sudanese Armed Forces, and various armed groups inside Ethiopia to limit Addis Ababa’s regional options. The pattern is familiar: pressure over the Nile, efforts to keep Ethiopia landlocked, and the use of regional alliances to contain a neighbour whose demographic and economic weight is growing.Egypt frames its posture as the defence of existential interests. In practice, it has repeatedly sought to preserve an older hierarchy in which it retains privileged control over the Nile and influence over the Red Sea approaches. That approach leaves little room for Ethiopia’s own development or maritime ambitions and keeps the Horn locked in cycles of proxy pressure and mutual suspicion.

Russia has been recruiting Ghanaians to die in its war in Ukraine. At least 62 Ghanaian citizens have been killed and 15 remain missing after being drawn into fighting for Russian forces. Ghana’s foreign minister has now received assurances from Moscow that the illegal recruitment will stop. The fact that such a conversation is even necessary shows how far the practice had already gone. This is the reality behind Russia’s posture in Africa. While presenting itself as an alternative to Western influence, it has treated African lives as expendable manpower for a distant war. The same pattern seen with fighters drawn from other parts of the continent is now visible in the death toll from Ghana.Partnership that ends with young men disappearing into someone else’s battlefield is not solidarity. It is extraction of a different kind.

Nigeria is finally pushing to reconnect its ports and railways driven in large part by the needs of the Dangote refinery. With domestic refining now covering most of the country’s petrol demand, the old model of importing fuel and trucking it across long distances is under pressure. The government is moving to link southern refineries and ports to the national rail network so products can move more efficiently to northern markets.The shift is significant. It shows what becomes possible when refining capacity is built at scale. It also exposes how long basic logistics infrastructure was left to decay. Rail and port connectivity are only being treated as urgent now that a major private industrial project requires them to function properly. Industrialisation is not just about building factories and refineries. It also requires the public infrastructure that allows production to move through the country instead of remaining trapped by weak distribution systems. theafricareport.com/427559/d…