A West African leaders’ summit yesterday opened amid political turmoil after the military rulers of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso cemented a breakaway union at a rival meeting.
The three countries announced they were forming a new confederation, and their defiant first gathering on the eve of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) summit marked another test for the regional bloc they split away from earlier this year.
ECOWAS is already wrestling with sweeping militant violence, financial trouble and the challenges of mustering a regional force.
Photo: EPA-EFE
It was not clear how the weakened bloc would respond after Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso adopted a treaty establishing a “Confederation of Sahel States” in Niamey on Saturday.
The juntas in those three countries came to power in a series of coups over the past few years and announced their joint departure from ECOWAS in January.
They have shifted away from former colonial ruler France and expelled French troops, with Niger’s General Abdourahamane Tiani, president of the National Council for the Safeguarding of the Homeland, calling for the establishment of a “community far removed from the stranglehold of foreign powers.”
“Our people have irrevocably turned their backs on ECOWAS,” Tiani said on Saturday, rebuffing the bloc’s pleas to return to the fold.
The Sahel countries’ ECOWAS exit was partly fueled by their accusation that Paris was manipulating the bloc and not providing enough support in combatting militants.
Yesterday’s summit in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, comes after several West African presidents called for the resumption of dialogue.
It was to be the first such meeting for new Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who last month said that reconciliation was possible.
Packed crowds in India celebrating their cricket team’s victory ended in a deadly stampede on Wednesday, with 11 mainly young fans crushed to death, the local state’s chief minister said. Joyous cricket fans had come out to celebrate and welcome home their heroes, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, after they beat Punjab Kings in a roller-coaster Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket final on Tuesday night. However, the euphoria of the vast crowds in the southern tech city of Bengaluru ended in disaster, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra calling it “absolutely heartrending.” Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said most of the deceased are young, with 11 dead
By 2027, Denmark would relocate its foreign convicts to a prison in Kosovo under a 200-million-euro (US$228.6 million) agreement that has raised concerns among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and residents, but which could serve as a model for the rest of the EU. The agreement, reached in 2022 and ratified by Kosovar lawmakers last year, provides for the reception of up to 300 foreign prisoners sentenced in Denmark. They must not have been convicted of terrorism or war crimes, or have a mental condition or terminal disease. Once their sentence is completed in Kosovan, they would be deported to their home country. In
Brazil, the world’s largest Roman Catholic country, saw its Catholic population decline further in 2022, while evangelical Christians and those with no religion continued to rise, census data released on Friday by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) showed. The census indicated that Brazil had 100.2 million Roman Catholics in 2022, accounting for 56.7 percent of the population, down from 65.1 percent or 105.4 million recorded in the 2010 census. Meanwhile, the share of evangelical Christians rose to 26.9 percent last year, up from 21.6 percent in 2010, adding 12 million followers to reach 47.4 million — the highest figure
LOST CONTACT: The mission carried payloads from Japan, the US and Taiwan’s National Central University, including a deep space radiation probe, ispace said Japanese company ispace said its uncrewed moon lander likely crashed onto the moon’s surface during its lunar touchdown attempt yesterday, marking another failure two years after its unsuccessful inaugural mission. Tokyo-based ispace had hoped to join US firms Intuitive Machines and Firefly Aerospace as companies that have accomplished commercial landings amid a global race for the moon, which includes state-run missions from China and India. A successful mission would have made ispace the first company outside the US to achieve a moon landing. Resilience, ispace’s second lunar lander, could not decelerate fast enough as it approached the moon, and the company has
RSS