Dakar to Riyadh: Links for 2/7/2025

News and analysis from the Sahel, North Africa, the Horn, and the Middle East

Last week’s links are here.

General

Amandla Thomas-Johnson at Mid Theory Collective:

Growing up in London, the original capital of global racial empire, under the shadow of the so-called “war on terror” helped me understand Cornell’s approach. An abiding policy of Western counter-terror policy in the post-9/11 era has been to reduce the conceptual gap between non-violent and violent forms of political expression. Think tanks, government hawks, and the mainstream media meticulously attached “extremism” and “radicalization” to the signifier of “terrorism.” (The same logic governs Israel’s collective punishment of the Palestinian people, as it claims to go after Hamas.)

Brett Christophers in the London Review of Books:

I have borrowed the language of ‘surrender’ from Overshoot by Andreas Malm and Wim Carton, a clear-eyed analysis of the last half-decade or so of climate horrors. Stranded assets [leaving fossil fuels in the ground] – their absolute necessity, and their apparent impossibility – are at the centre of the story. Malm and Carton give a stark account of the fossil fuel industry’s resistance to stranding, and the alacrity with which it continues to fashion and exploit opportunities to convert reserves into productive assets. As they point out, it is a matter of wealth accumulation: the oil and gas business remains staggeringly profitable, the business of developing alternative energy sources anything but. It is easy to frame the present historical moment, in Gramscian terms, as an interregnum: the old (fossil fuel capitalism) is dying and the new (clean capitalism) cannot yet be born. But, as Malm and Carton insist, fossil fuel capitalism isn’t dying: if it were, output and emissions would be falling decisively. Instead, the industry has been buoyed by waves of approvals for new project-development in the last few years.

Sahel and West Africa

A movement to buy “made in Senegal” fashion is gaining ground - but there are serious obstacles to growth, including a lack of financing, high production costs, etc. Related: Aude Konan at Africa Is a Country on “Dakar’s Fashion Revolution.”

TV5Monde reports on Malian refugees in Mauritania, and also on pastoralists’ difficulties maintaining season migration amid war in northern Mali.

At AfriqueXXI, Guillaume Bagayoko writes about the Malian authorities’ conflicts and negotiations with mining companies. Meanwhile, Jeune Afrique profiles Mamou Touré, “the brains behind mining sovereignty-ism in Mali.” Reuters also discusses the role of Mamou Touré and another former employee of Randgold, Samba Touré.

Adejumo Kabir for HumAngle: “Nigeria Takes Action to Secure HIV/AIDS Treatment Amid Uncertainty Over US Funding.”

A “Quran Festival/Convention” is causing controversy in Nigeria - over terminology, format, and intentions.

Emele Onu at Bloomberg: “Nigeria Extends Dollar Access as Naira Shows Ongoing Stability.”

In Chad, a legislators elected in December have taken their seats. Prime Minister Allamaye Halina resigned as a courtesy but was retained; he has now formed a new government.

North Africa

In Tunisia, long prison sentences were handed down for major opposition figures Rached Ghannouchi and Hichem Mechichi, among others. The sentences have been criticized by former President Moncef Marzouki and others.

Tunisia has a new finance minister: Michket Slama Khaldi, who was previously head of an anti-corruption commission. The outgoing finance minister, Sihem Boughdiri Nemsi, had relative longevity in the Tunisian context - three and a half years.

Algeria also has a new finance minister: Abdelkrim Bouzred, who had been the ministry’s secretary general.

Morocco passed a new law regulating strikes, and most unions are up in arms - a general strike occurred on February 5-6.

L’Opinion‘s Pascal Airault interviewed Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, especially on French-Algerian relations. Related: Maher Mezahi at Africa Is a Country on “Algeria and France’s Endless Rift.”

Al-Sharq al-Awsat on the Tuareg quest for citizenship and identity papers in Libya.

Greater Horn of Africa

Yasir Zaidan in Foreign Policy: “Why Sudanese Democracy Activists Are Now Backing the Army.”

Antonio Ciscais for DW: “Is Ethiopia's Tigray on the Brink of a Fresh Conflict?”

Mohamed Kheir Omer at Geeska: “Asmara: An African Modernist City Frozen in Time.”

Kenya’s High Court has declared unconstitutional a declaration by Inspector General of Police Douglas Kanja last year banning protests in the Central Business District of Nairobi.

Mohamed Olad Hassan at VOA: “Scores Killed in Somalia in Clash Between Security Forces, Islamic State.”

Mashriq

Obai Kurd Ali and Halem Henish for the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy: “A Crossroads for Refugee Rights: Examining Egypt’s New Asylum Law.”

Munira Khayyat in MERIP:

In the wintery garden, we sat in an awkward moment: suspended in a space of limn, a time of ceasefire, after two months of hell unleashed, after more than one year of ecocidal devastation in South Lebanon and genocide in Gaza. Every conversation in this momentary respite from the incessant destruction and loss of this past year of war addresses this stupefying existential predicament: What is now? And, where do we go from here? In the aftermath of the massive blows to the leadership and capabilities of Hizballah, the military resistance in Lebanon, Southerners realize more than ever that their very lives are resistance. This formulation is not ideological but very prosaic.

Rita Baroud reports and reflects from Gaza for The New Humanitarian

Everything around me suggests that the life we once knew is over, that what we are living now is nothing but the remnants of life – fragments of a reality that no longer exists. The question that never leaves me is: If this is what relief looks like, then what does pain feel like? Can we build a life from beneath the rubble? Will we be allowed? Or does war leave us with nothing but ashes?

Lubna Masarwa and Heba Nasser in Middle East Eye: “Israel's West Bank Assault Displaces 26,000 from Jenin and Tulkarm Camps.”

Haid Haid for Al Majalla: “Unity or Conflict: Where Are Fragile HTS-SDF Talks Headed?”

Amwaj Media: “Syria’s New Ruler Tours Region as Iranians Debate Shifting Sands.”

Reuters: “Iraq Parliament Approves Compensation Plan to Resolve Kurdistan Oil Dispute, Say Lawmakers.”

AP’s Stella Martany: “Historic Landmarks in Iraq’s Mosul Are Reopening as the City Heals from Islamic State Devastation.”

Prashant Rao at Semafor: “Saudi State Mining Giant Steps Up Search for Copper.”

Kim Ghattas in the FT: "Saudi Arabia’s High-Wire Act Wobbles Amid Trump’s Gaza Gambit.”