Category: Top Stories

Can a Congolese general really walk away from nine years of US sanctions unscathed? What happens when a man who spent nearly a decade on America’s financial blacklist suddenly finds the door reopened? That is the question now facing Kinshasa after the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) formally removed retired four-star General François Olenga Tete and his Safari Club from its sanctions list. The decision, confirmed in a notification to his legal team, ends a nine-year freeze that had barred him from any dealings with US…

Some legal careers are measured not by titles but by the institutional footprints they leave behind. Bakari Traoré, an Ivorian business lawyer and tax specialist, has spent thirty years quietly laying the groundwork for West Africa’s commercial legal framework — a contribution whose scale raises a critical question: can a single jurist’s persistence truly reshape how an entire region does business? The overlooked flaw that sparked a regional overhaul In the late 1990s, Traoré — a doctor of business and economic law — alerted his minister to a glaring problem:…

It was supposed to be a routine television appearance, a chance to celebrate the security record of Captain Ibrahim Traoré’s government. Instead, Defence Minister General Célestin Simporé turned it into something far more revealing. To explain why the fight against armed groups keeps deteriorating, he reached for a single argument: the Burkinabè army, he said, was historically “poorly trained”. The claim may have been designed to deflect blame, but it has ignited a far more uncomfortable question across Burkina Faso — if yesterday’s supposedly deficient force managed to contain the…

Gabon’s decision to dismiss more than 1,400 public employees for abandoning their posts raises a blunt question: will the 11 billion CFA francs saved each year actually be turned into better hospitals, schools and public services — or will the old habits quietly return? The answer will shape how citizens judge the transitional authorities’ promise to clean up public spending. Inside the audit that removed 1,473 absent workers The government did not act on a hunch. A sweeping accounting and biometric review ordered by the transitional authorities was designed to…

Gabon has entered the 81st United Nations General Assembly, underway in New York since 22 September, carrying a fresh institutional responsibility. Elected in June as a vice-president of the Assembly, Libreville is marking its debut on the General Committee of the UN’s principal deliberative body. That upgraded status adds weight to Gabon’s presence in New York. It comes as Libreville works to deepen its multilateral engagement and advance its priorities on major global issues. Marie-Édith Tassyla-Ye-Doumbeneny is leading the Gabonese delegation in this context, raising a key question: can this…

As world leaders gathered in New York for the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly, a crucial question hung over the continent’s security debate: can the principle of good neighborliness actually stop terrorism from crossing Africa’s porous frontiers? Benin’s foreign minister, Corinne Amori Brunet, put that question squarely on the table on Wednesday, September 23, 2026, when she chaired the 1369th ministerial meeting of the African Union’s Peace and Security Council (PSC). The session, held on the sidelines of the UN gathering, brought together representatives of PSC member…

Will Senegal’s president dissolve parliament? the question looming over Dakar Senegal’s President Bassirou Diomaye Faye has openly acknowledged his break with former ally Ousmane Sonko and left the door ajar to dissolving the National Assembly, now led by his one-time partner. The burning question: will he actually pull the trigger? In an interview in New York on Thursday, September 24, Faye declined to rule out using a constitutional power that could reshape Senegal’s political landscape. His government must soon defend its budget choices before an Assembly dominated by the Pastef…

SocietyCameroon Cameroon’s youth online: what if the real social media battle is happening off-screen? SocietyCameroon Kyrielle Ayombi | Elisabeth Asen 24/09/202624 September 2026 In this edition of #PasSansElles, young people speak up about their experiences, their concerns and their views on the impact of social media in their lives. https://p.dw.com/p/5MgmF They inform, entertain and bring people together… but they can also manipulate, divide and expose. In Cameroon, social media has become an inescapable part of daily life for young people. Between learning opportunities, digital entrepreneurship and freedom of expression, these…

Economy Gabon’s poultry import ban: can a market shutdown build a real industry before 2027? Libreville, Thursday 24 September 2026 – The dispute now pitting Libreville against Washington over poultry imports goes far beyond what sits in a freezer. It tests whether a state can shield a strategic sector, organise its domestic market, and turn food demand into productive activity. The real question is not whether Gabon should open or close its market, but under what conditions it can back local production without breaking international trade rules. As the 81st…

As global debt burdens mount and threaten to crowd out spending on children, Côte d’Ivoire brought a provocative question to New York: how can a country borrow without mortgaging its future? The answer, presented during two high-level UNICEF gatherings on September 21 and 22, 2026, lies in a financing approach that ties repayment conditions to measurable development outcomes. Dr. Souleymane Diarrassouba, Minister of Planning and Development, used both platforms to share his country’s experience and the deliberate choices made to shield investments in human capital from the pressures of rising…

In Burkina Faso, the boundary between fighting armed extremism and suppressing religious freedom has rarely been so blurred. The dilemma the country now faces is as uncomfortable as it is unavoidable: can a government claim to be protecting its people while silencing the Muslim clerics who help hold that same people together? Since the transitional administration led by Captain Ibrahim Traoré began tightening its grip on religious life, a Muslim-majority nation has watched its imams, preachers and Islamic associations come under a level of pressure it had never known before.…