Africa

While it was certainly eye-catching to hear a former player so recently of the inner sanctum talk in such a way about the expectations around the side, the comments fed into the debate about Ireland’s current standing in the world game after a decade when they have consistently punched above their weight.

Coming into the month ranked third in the world – Ireland have since fallen to fourth below England – more competitive showings against those around them in the rankings are surely now viewed as a base, not an ambition.

While Ireland have not lost to a side lower than fifth in the present rankings since defeat by Wales in the 2021 Six Nations, Saturday’s loss means they have won just three of their past nine against England, New Zealand, South Africa and France, a run that dates back to the end of the 2023 World Cup and the retirement of talismanic skipper Johnny Sexton.

When considering the victories came against a 14-man France, an England side not then at the level they are now, and thanks to a last-kick drop-goal in South Africa, it all feeds into a concerning trend.

Without stripping the losses of similar context, that the reverses come with an average margin of defeat of 9.5 points feels instructive too.

At present, rather than the worst of the best or best of the rest, Ireland feel in a tier all of their own, still far from flat-track bullies but certainly struggling when expected to make the step up.

They start their 2026 Six Nations against France in Paris and visit England in round three. Between now and those testing February away days, direction of travel will continue to be the dominant theme.

World leaders broke with tradition and quickly adopted a new declaration at the start of the G20 summit, despite pressure from the Trump administration to avoid a leaders’ declaration in the absence of an American delegation.

Nigeria is in the news again due to recent attacks by armed groups, involving the kidnapping of many students from schools and an assault on a church service. These events have increased pressure on the Nigerian government, especially after U. S. President Donald Trump hinted at possible military action owing to the reported persecution of Christians in the country.

The attacks lack clear responsibility claims, but they resemble those by gangs seeking ransom. These armed groups, referred to as bandits, use intimidation and violence, abducting victims and escaping into forests. Recently, 25 students were taken from a Muslim girls’ school in Kebbi state, marking the first mass school kidnapping since a larger incident in March 2024. Additionally, another 64 individuals were kidnapped from Zamfara state, and two people were killed during an attack on a church in Kwara state, where 38 worshippers were also abducted with a ransom demand made. On Friday, more students were kidnapped from St. Mary’s Catholic school in Niger state, with reports indicating 52 students taken.

Experts believe these attacks are financially motivated, particularly targeting schools due to weak security. Kidnappers find it easier to demand ransoms from parents willing to pay to get their children back. The northwest of Nigeria is especially plagued by insecurity, with armed groups operating in remote areas. Meanwhile, in the northeast, extremist groups like Boko Haram and ISWAP have caused significant humanitarian crises, resulting in over 2 million displaced persons and many deaths.

Tension in Nigeria also arises from ethnic and religious conflicts, especially in the central regions where the Christian and Muslim populations clash over various issues. Despite claims of specific persecution against Christians, some argue that the situation is more complex and that Muslims also suffer violence. The Nigerian government rejects assertions of complicity in religious violence by security forces.

The U. S. is considering actions to pressure Nigeria into better protecting religious freedoms. Nigeria’s military leads the counter-efforts against these armed groups, with traditional leaders also engaging in peace negotiations. However, attacks continue amid reports of increasing violence, with thousands of civilian deaths this year alone. President Tinubu has dispatched officials to oversee rescue efforts for kidnapped schoolgirls.

With information from Reuters

Kanu’s Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) wants a swathe of the southeast, the homeland of the Igbo ethnic group, to split from Nigeria.

A Nigerian court has convicted separatist leader Nnamdi Kanu on charges related to “terrorism” after a years-long trial.

In his ruling on Thursday, Nigerian Judge James Omotosho said prosecutors proved that Kanu’s broadcasts and orders to his now-banned Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) group incited deadly attacks on security forces and citizens in the southeast.

The violence was part of his push for an independent Biafra state for the ethnic Igbo-dominated region.

“His intention was quite clear, as he believed in violence. These threats of violence were nothing but terrorist acts,” Omotosho said.

Kanu, who has been in custody since his controversial re-arrest in Kenya in 2021, shouted angrily in objection to the proceedings and was ejected from court ahead of the ruling. He had argued that his unlawful extradition from Kenya undermined any chance of a fair trial.

Kanu pleaded not guilty in 2021 to seven charges that included “terrorism”, treason and perpetuating falsehoods against Nigeria’s former President Muhammadu Buhari.

Kanu was first arrested in 2015, but fled the country while on bail. His social media posts during his absence and his Radio Biafra broadcasts outraged the government, which said they encouraged attacks on security forces.

Ultimately, security agents brought Kanu to court in Abuja in June 2021 after detaining him in Kenya, where his lawyer alleged he was mistreated. Kenya has denied involvement.

In October 2021, Kanu’s lawyers argued that his statements on Radio Biafra shouldn’t be admissible in a Nigerian court since they were made in London.

“I can’t see how someone would make a statement in London and it becomes a triable offence in this country,” Kanu’s lawyer Ifeanyi Ejiofor told reporters at the time.

Kanu, a dual Nigerian-British citizen, started Radio Biafra – an obscure, London-based radio station – in 2009 after he left Nigeria to study economics and politics at the London Metropolitan University.

In one broadcast, Kanu said: “We have one thing in common, all of us that believe in Biafra, one thing we have in common, a pathological hatred for Nigeria. I cannot begin to put into words how much I hate Nigeria.”

IPOB wants a swathe of the southeast, the homeland of the Igbo ethnic group, to split from Nigeria. An attempt to secede in 1967 as the Republic of Biafra triggered a three-year civil war that killed more than one million people.

Bola Tinubu says he suspended the trip in light of the abductions and a separate church attack in which armed men killed two people.

Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu has postponed his trip to South Africa for the Group of 20 summit, promising to intensify efforts to rescue 24 schoolgirls abducted by armed men earlier this week.

The president’s spokesperson, Bayo Onanuga, said in a statement on Wednesday that Tinubu suspended his departure in light of the girls’ abduction and a separate church attack in which gunmen killed two people.

Tinubu had been set to leave on Wednesday, days before the two-day summit of the world’s leading rich and developing nations was due to begin on Saturday.

“Disturbed by the security breaches in Kebbi State and Tuesday’s attack by bandits against worshippers at Christ Apostolic Church, Eruku, President Tinubu decided to suspend his departure” to the G20 summit, Onanuga said.

It was not clear immediately if or when Tinubu would leave for the weekend summit in Johannesburg.

Search for abducted girls ongoing

The schoolgirls were abducted by unidentified armed men from a secondary school in the northwestern town of Maga in Kebbi State late on Sunday night.

The attackers exchanged gunfire with police before scaling the perimeter fence and abducting the students.

One of the girls managed to escape, authorities said, but the school’s vice principal was killed. No group immediately claimed responsibility for abducting the girls, and their motivation was unclear.

Authorities say the gunmen are mostly former herders who have taken up arms against farming communities after clashes between them over strained resources.

In a separate attack on a church in western Nigeria on Tuesday, armed men killed two people during a service that was recorded and broadcast online.

Supporters of United States President Donald Trump have seized on the violence to embolden their claim that Christians are under attack in Nigeria.

Trump has threatened to invade Nigeria “guns-a-blazing” over what right-wing lawmakers in the US allege is a “Christian genocide“.

Nigeria has rejected the US president’s statements, saying more Muslims have been killed in the country’s various security crises.

The tourist boats that typically navigate Kenya’s renowned Lake Naivasha have recently taken on a new role: rescuing hundreds from inundated homes.

Though the lake’s water level has been increasing for more than a decade with repeated flooding, residents of the modest Kihoto district are stunned by this year’s unprecedented scale.

“It hasn’t happened like this before,” said resident Rose Alero.

According to local officials, the Rift Valley lake has advanced an unprecedented 1.5km (about 1 mile) inland.

“People are suffering,” said Alero, a 51-year-old grandmother, noting that many neighbours have fallen ill.

In her home, water reaches waist height, while throughout the district, toilets are overflowing.

“People are stuck … they have nowhere to go.”

The devastation is widespread: hundreds of homes are completely underwater, churches are destroyed, and police stations are submerged, surrounded by floating vegetation.

During one sudden water surge, children evacuated a school on improvised rafts.

Joyce Cheche, Nakuru County’s disaster risk management head, estimates 7,000 people have been displaced by the rising waters, which also impact wildlife and threaten tourism and commerce.

The county has provided transport assistance and implemented health measures, Cheche said, though financial compensation has not been offered yet.

Workers in the crucial flower export sector are avoiding work, fearing cholera and landslides.

She also highlighted the danger of encounters with the lake’s numerous hippos.

“We didn’t see it coming,” Cheche admitted.

At the lake’s edge, bare acacia trunks that were once lush now stand submerged in waters advancing about 1 metre (3.3 feet) daily.

This phenomenon affects other Rift Valley lakes and has displaced hundreds of thousands.

Numerous studies primarily attribute this to increased rainfall driven by climate change.

However, Kenyan geologist John Lagat, regional manager at the state-owned Geothermal Development Corporation, points to tectonics as the main cause, noting the lakes’ position along a major geological fault.

When English settlers arrived in the late 19th century, the lake was even larger before shifting tectonic plates reduced it to just 1km (0.6 miles) in diameter by 1921.

Subsequent tectonic movements increasingly sealed underground outflows, trapping water, Lagat explained, though he acknowledged that increased rainfall and land degradation from population growth also play a “substantial” role in flooding.

“We are very worried,” said Alero from her flooded home, dreading the upcoming rainy season.

“We can’t tell what will happen.”

In October 2025, a group of powerful states attempted to do in a few days what fifty years of occupation, war and repression had failed to achieve: close the file of Western Sahara in Morocco’s favour at the UN Security Council.

Using diplomatic blitzkrieg tactics, Morocco’s allies pushed a strongly pro-Moroccan “zero draft” resolution that they hoped to pass as a fait accompli. Had it gone through unchanged, Western Sahara would have been pushed closer toward erasure as a decolonisation question and recast as an internal Moroccan matter.

Instead, on 31 October 2025, the Council adopted Resolution 2797. Far from rubber-stamping Morocco’s claims, the final text reaffirmed every previous Security Council resolution on Western Sahara and restated an essential truth: any political solution must be just, mutually acceptable and consistent with the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, including the right of the Sahrawi people to self-determination.

Several Council members pushed back against the original US-circulated draft, which had aligned closely with Morocco’s position. Their amendments restored the text to the legal framework that has governed this issue for decades. The result is not perfect, but it is unmistakable: Western Sahara remains an unfinished decolonisation process. It is not a settled dispute, and it is not Morocco’s to absorb.

Had the Council endorsed the early draft, it would have risked becoming a 21st-century version of the Berlin Conference, a chamber where great powers redraw Africa’s map without Africans present. In 1884–85, European states divided a continent in ways that still shape its borders. The danger today is subtler but no less serious: that the future of Western Sahara might once again be written in foreign ink, this time on UN letterhead.

Western Sahara in International Law: An Unfinished decolonisation

Legally, Western Sahara’s status is unambiguous. It remains listed by the UN as a Non-Self-Governing Territory, one of the last awaiting decolonisation. International law recognises the Sahrawi people as possessing an inalienable right to self-determination and independence.

When Spain withdrew in 1975, it failed to organise the required act of self-determination. Instead, it divided the territory between Morocco and Mauritania. Mauritania later withdrew; Morocco did not. Its military occupation sparked a long war with the Sahrawi liberation movement, the Frente Polisario.

The 1991 UN-brokered ceasefire created MINURSO, the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara. The mission’s very name is a reminder of the international commitment made: a referendum in which Sahrawis would choose between independence and integration with Morocco. That referendum has never taken place.

Today, around 200,000 Sahrawis remain in refugee camps near Tindouf, Algeria, waiting in harsh conditions for the vote they were promised. In the occupied territory, Sahrawis face systematic repression and severe constraints on political expression. Yet they remain the only people with no seat at the table where their future is being debated.

Autonomy and the Logic of Conquest

The current situation cannot be understood without the US administration’s 2020 recognition of “Moroccan sovereignty over the entire Western Sahara territory” in exchange for Morocco’s normalisation with Israel. This reversed decades of US adherence to UN-led self-determination and signalled that territorial questions could once again be traded as diplomatic currency.

Support for Morocco’s autonomy proposal is the political expression of that bargain. Marketed as a pragmatic compromise, it is predicated on accepting Moroccan sovereignty upfront, removing independence from consideration and redefining self-determination as ratification of annexation. A solution that excludes independence is not self-determination. It is the formalisation of conquest.

Those who insist that independence is “unrealistic” are elevating raw power above law. As scholars such as Stephen Zunes have warned, accepting autonomy as the final settlement would mark an unprecedented moment: the international community would be endorsing the expansion of a state’s territory by force after 1945. Every aspiring land-grabber on the planet would take note.

This argument that diplomacy must conform to power rather than principle dresses surrender up as pragmatism. “Realism” that ignores law and rights is not realism; it is complicity. The entire post-1945 legal order was built to end the idea that war and annexation are acceptable methods of drawing borders. Undermining that norm in Western Sahara does not make the world safer; it normalises the very behaviour many of these same states claim to oppose elsewhere.

A proposal is not a peace plan. A “solution” written by one side and handed to the other as the only acceptable outcome is not a negotiation — it is an ultimatum for surrender.

A Call to President Trump: A chance to stand on the Right Side of History

There is still time, and still a path, for the United States to reclaim a constructive role in resolving this conflict. For President Donald Trump in particular, the question of Western Sahara offers a rare opportunity to stand on the right side of history, to uphold the very Wilsonian principle of self-determination that the United States once championed, and to return American policy to its long-standing position of neutrality and respect for international law.

For decades, Republican and Democratic administrations alike supported a UN-led process and recognised Western Sahara as a decolonisation question, not as a bargaining chip. Restoring that principled approach would not only correct the 2020 departure from US tradition, but would reaffirm the American commitment to a world where borders cannot be changed by force and where the rights of small nations are protected from the ambitions of larger ones.

If President Trump were to bring the United States back to its historical role, supporting a fair, just and lasting solution rooted in genuine self-determination, he would achieve something that eluded every administration before him. He would be remembered not as a participant in a geopolitical trade, but as the president who helped resolve one of the world’s longest-running and most clear-cut decolonisation cases. He would be remembered as the leader who chose law over expediency, principle over pressure, David over Goliath.

There is a rare chance here: to correct a historic wrong, to end a conflict that has defeated presidents, prime ministers and UN Secretaries-General, and to bring justice to a small, peaceful and long-suffering people. Standing with the Sahrawi right to self-determination is not only the moral choice; it is the choice that aligns the United States with its own ideals and its own stated values and ultimately its interests.

Anything else, any endorsement of the logic of conquest or any attempt to force a people to accept subjugation as “autonomy”, would be a political act that history will not forget, and the Sahrawi people will not forgive.

Call for International Solidarity

Behind every debate in New York are people living under occupation, in refugee camps and in exile, waiting for a vote they were promised decades ago. The Sahrawi people are not seeking special treatment. They are asking for the same right that helped dismantle colonial rule from Asia to Africa: the right of a people to freely determine their political future.

What was right for Timor and Namibia is right for Western Sahara.

History offers many examples of colonial powers that looked immovable until, suddenly, they were not. East Timor, Namibia, Eritrea, all show that no amount of repression or diplomatic engineering can extinguish a people’s demand for freedom. In each case, global civil society, more than great powers, ultimately helped shift the balance.

The Sahrawi people are determined to reclaim their homeland. Determination alone, however, cannot overcome tanks, drones, a 2,700-kilometre sand berm, prisons and diplomatic horse-trading. Stronger international solidarity is urgently needed—not only in support of a just cause, but in defence of the international system itself. The Sahrawi struggle today stands at the frontline of protecting both the right to self-determination and the principles on which the United Nations was built.

To stand with Western Sahara is to defend the rule that borders cannot be changed by force and that colonialism cannot be rebranded as “autonomy”. States that champion a “rules-based international order” should match their rhetoric with action: refuse to recognise Moroccan sovereignty; support a free and fair act of self-determination that includes independence; and ensure that UN resolutions are implemented rather than endlessly recycled.

Civil society and solidarity networks also have important roles to play, from advocacy to material support for Sahrawi institutions and refugee communities.

The Final Question

The UN Security Council is not mandated to rubber-stamp an illegal occupation and baptise it as decolonisation. Doing so would violate the UN Charter, particularly Article 24. Under the Charter and decolonisation law, the Council’s room for manoeuvre is constrained by the peremptory right of self-determination. It cannot lawfully override that foundational right. Article 24(2) requires the Council to act in accordance with the purposes of the Charter—including self-determination—and its decisions cannot derogate from jus cogens norms.

Decolonisation remains the only lawful path to ending this conflict. The core question is simple: does the international community still believe that peoples, especially colonised peoples, have the right to choose their own future? If the answer is yes, then sovereignty in Western Sahara remains, in law and in principle, with the Sahrawi people.

The map of Africa was once drawn in imperial ink. Whether Western Sahara remains the last stain of that era or becomes part of a different future depends on whether the world insists that decolonisation means what it says.

Two days after they were abducted from their beds by armed attackers, 24 Nigerian schoolgirls are still missing as the military intensifies its efforts to rescue them.

When US President Donald Trump declared that South Africa “should not even be” in the G20 and then took to Truth Social on November 7 to announce that no American official would attend this year’s summit in Johannesburg on account of a so-called “genocide” of white farmers in the country, I was not surprised. His outburst was not an exception but the latest expression of a long Western tradition of disciplining African sovereignty. Western leaders have long tried to shut down African agency through mischaracterisations, from branding Congolese nationalist Patrice Lumumba a “Soviet puppet” to calling anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela a “terrorist”, and Trump’s assault on South Africa falls squarely into that pattern.

As Africa pushes for a stronger voice in global governance, the Trump administration has intensified efforts to isolate Pretoria. South Africa’s growing diplomatic assertiveness, from BRICS expansion to climate finance negotiations, has challenged conservative assumptions that global leadership belongs exclusively to the West.

On February 7, Trump signed an executive order halting US aid to South Africa. He alleged that the government’s land expropriation policy discriminates against white farmers and amounts to uncompensated confiscation. Nothing could be further from the truth. South African law permits expropriation only through due process and compensation, with limited exceptions set out in the Constitution. Trump’s claims ignore this legal reality, revealing a deliberate preference for distortion over fact.

Soon after, the administration amplified its rollout of a refugee admissions policy that privileged Afrikaners, citing once again discredited claims of government persecution. What is clear is that Washington has deliberately heightened tensions with Pretoria, searching for any pretext to cast South Africa as an adversary. This selective compassion, extended only to white South Africans, exposes a racialised hierarchy of concern that has long shaped conservative engagement with the continent.

Yet, for months, South African officials have firmly rejected these claims, pointing to judicial rulings, official statistics, and constitutional safeguards that show no evidence of systematic persecution, let alone a “genocide” of white farmers. Indeed, as independent experts repeatedly confirmed, there is no credible evidence whatsoever to support the claim that white farmers in South Africa are being systematically targeted as part of a campaign of genocide. Their rebuttals highlight a basic imbalance: Pretoria is operating through verifiable data and institutional process, while Washington relies on exaggeration and ideological grievance.

At the same time, as host of this year’s G20 Summit, Pretoria is using the platform to champion a more cooperative and equitable global order. For South Africa, chairing the G20 is not only symbolic, but strategic, an attempt to expand the influence of countries long excluded from shaping the rules of global governance.

Trump’s G20 boycott embodies a transnational crusade shaped by Christian righteousness. Trump’s rhetoric reduces South Africa to a moral backdrop for American authority rather than recognising it as a sovereign partner with legitimate aspirations. The boycott also mirrors a wider effort to discredit multilateral institutions that dilute American exceptionalism.

This stance is rooted in a long evangelical-imperial tradition, one that fused theology with empire and cast Western dominance as divinely sanctioned. The belief that Africa required Western moral rescue emerged in the nineteenth century, when European missionaries declared it a Christian duty to civilise and redeem the continent. The wording has changed, but the logic endures, recasting African political agency as a civilisational error rather than a legitimate expression of sovereignty. This moralised paternalism did not disappear with decolonisation. It simply adapted, resurfacing whenever African nations assert themselves on the world stage.

American evangelical and conservative Christian networks wield significant influence inside the Republican Party. Their political and media ecosystem, featuring Fox News and the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), routinely frames multilateral institutions, global aid, and international law as subordinate to American sovereignty and Christian civilisation. These networks shape not only rhetoric but policy, turning fringe narratives into foreign policy priorities.

They also amplify unproven claims of Christian persecution abroad, particularly in countries such as Nigeria and Ethiopia, to legitimise American political and military interference. Trump’s fixation with South Africa follows the same script: a fabricated crisis crafted to thrill, galvanise, and reassure a conservative Christian base. South Africa becomes another stage for this performance.

In this distorted narrative, South Africa is not a constitutional democracy acting through strong, independent courts and institutions. Instead, Africa’s most developed country is stripped of its standing and portrayed as a flawed civilisation in need of Western correction. For conservative Christian nationalists, African decision-making is not autonomous agency but a supervised privilege granted only when African decisions align with Western priorities.

By casting South Africa as illegitimate in the G20, invoking false claims of genocide and land seizures, and penalising Pretoria’s ICJ case with aid cuts, Trump asserts that only the West can define global legitimacy and moral authority, a worldview anchored in Christian-nationalist authority. Trump’s crusade is punishment, not principle, and it seeks to deter African autonomy itself.

On many occasions, I have walked the streets of Alexandra, a Johannesburg township shaped by apartheid’s spatial design, where inequality remains brutally vivid. Alexandra squeezes more than one million residents into barely 800 hectares (about 2,000 acres). A significant portion of its informal housing sits on the floodplain of the Jukskei River, where settlements crowd narrow pathways and fragile infrastructure. Here, the consequences of structural inequality are unmistakable, yet they vanish entirely within Trump’s constructed crisis.

These communities sit only a few kilometres from Sandton, a spacious, leafy, and affluent suburb that is home to some of the country’s most expensive properties. The vast and entrenched gulf between these adjacent lands is essentially a living symbol of the profound inequality Trump is willing to overlook and legitimise as a global norm, built on selective moral outrage and racialised indifference.

In Alexandra, the struggle for dignity, equality, and inclusion is not a religious American fantasy, but a practical quest for the rights that apartheid and wider global injustice sought to deny. Their struggle mirrors the wider global fight against structures that concentrate wealth and power in a few hands. They, too, deserve better.

This is the human condition Trump’s pseudo-morality refuses to acknowledge. This is why South Africa’s global leadership matters.

Earlier this year, South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa commissioned a landmark G20 Global Inequality Report, chaired by Nobel-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. It found that the world’s richest 1 percent have captured more than 40 percent of new wealth since 2000 and that more than 80 percent of humanity now lives in conditions the World Bank classifies as high inequality.

The Johannesburg G20 Summit seeks to reform multilateral development banks, such as the World Bank, to confront a global financial system that sidelines developing countries and perpetuates economic injustice. While South Africa turns to recognised multilateral tools such as the ICJ and G20 reform, the US has moved in the opposite direction.

Under Trump, Washington has sanctioned the International Criminal Court, abandoned key UN bodies, and rejected scrutiny from UN human rights experts, reflecting a Christian-nationalist doctrine that treats American power as inherently absolute and answerable to no one.

South Africa offers an alternative vision rooted in global cooperation, shared responsibility, equality, and adherence to international law, a vision that unsettles those invested in unilateral power. The US recasts decolonisation as sin, African equality as disruption, and American dominance as divinely ordained. Trump’s attacks reveal how deeply this worldview still shapes American foreign policy.

Yet the world has moved beyond colonial binaries. African self-determination can no longer be framed as immoral. Human rights are universal, and dignity belongs to us all.

The views expressed in this article are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.

Dramatic video filmed on a plane carrying DR Congo’s mining minister captured the moment it crashed on landing at an airport in Kolwezi in the southeast. No casualties have been reported. The minister was travelling to the site of a recent mining disaster.

Health authorities isolate more than 100 contacts as deadly hemorrhagic virus detected near South Sudan border.

Ethiopia has confirmed three deaths linked to Marburg virus in the country’s south, as health authorities race to contain an outbreak of the deadly haemorrhagic disease that has put neighbouring nations on high alert.

Health Minister Mekdes Daba announced the deaths on Monday, three days after the government officially declared an outbreak in the Omo region bordering South Sudan.

Laboratory tests confirmed three deaths from the Ebola-like pathogen, while another three deaths showing symptoms of the disease are under investigation, the minister said in a statement reported by state broadcaster EBC.

The rapid spread of cases has triggered urgent containment measures across the region.

Ethiopia has isolated 129 people who came into contact with confirmed patients and is monitoring them closely, while South Sudan issued health advisories urging residents in border counties to avoid contact with bodily fluids.

Initial symptoms include severe fever, intense headaches and muscle pain, followed by vomiting and diarrhoea. In serious cases, patients develop haemorrhaging from the nose, gums and internal organs.

Ethiopian authorities first detected the virus on Wednesday in the Jinka area after receiving alerts about a suspected hemorrhagic illness. Officials tested 17 individuals, identifying at least nine infections before confirming the initial deaths.

Daba said that work is progressing to bring the outbreak under control quickly through a coordinated national response. The government has activated emergency response centres at multiple levels and deployed rapid response teams to affected areas, she said.

The Ethiopian minister added that no active symptomatic cases are currently being treated.

Here’s everything you need to know about #Marburg, its symptoms, and how it spreads. 👇🏿#ViralFacts@viralfacts pic.twitter.com/dg6VdniaNH

— WHO African Region (@WHOAFRO) November 16, 2025

Ethiopia has established its own laboratory testing capacity for Marburg at the national public health institute, allowing authorities to conduct diagnostics independently rather than relying solely on external support.

The minister urged anyone experiencing symptoms to seek immediate medical testing at health facilities.

International health teams from the World Health Organization and the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have arrived to support containment efforts.

The ministry has also launched a public awareness campaign, distributing infographics in Amharic detailing symptoms and prevention measures, and establishing a hotline for reporting suspected cases.

Marburg spreads through direct contact with infected bodily fluids or contaminated materials.

The virus kills roughly half of those infected on average, though mortality rates have climbed as high as 88 percent in previous outbreaks, according to WHO data.

The UN health agency warns that health workers are especially vulnerable to being infected by the virus “through close contact with patients when infection control precautions are not strictly practised”.

The Ethiopian outbreak extends a troubling pattern of haemorrhagic fever emergencies across East Africa.

A Marburg outbreak in Tanzania claimed 10 lives between January and March this year, while Rwanda ended its first recorded Marburg outbreak last December, with 15 people killed by the virus.

Rwanda tested an experimental vaccine during its outbreak response.

Africa CDC Director-General Jean Kaseya expressed particular concern about potential spillover into South Sudan, citing the country’s weak healthcare infrastructure as a major vulnerability in containing cross-border transmission.

As part of the second international forum “Russia-Africa Expo-2025,” a roundtable discussion titled “The Potential of Africa’s Mining Industry: New Opportunities for Cooperation with Russia and China” was held at the conference hall of the Financial and Business Association of Euro-Asian Cooperation (FBAEAC). The event served as an important platform for strengthening the trilateral Russia-China-Africa partnership in industrial and technological development.

The roundtable was organized by the FBA EAC, with co-organizers including the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s Council for Financial, Industrial, and Investment Policy, the Peace Foundation, the State Duma Committee on International Affairs, the Russian-African Club of Lomonosov Moscow State University, Patrice Lumumba Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University), and the company “Kapital-Info.”

The event brought together over 70 participants—diplomats, as well as representatives from business, academia, and international organizations. Among them were delegations from more than 15 African countries, as well as from Russia, China, and Iran.

The Chinese delegation played a significant role in the event. Participants included Sun Yongjun, First Secretary of the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China, and Liu Yan, Second Secretary, along with representatives from the “Chongqing Pump Plant” (joining online): Su Ao, Ji Xiaodong, Yang Jiaquan, Yang Yiguang, and Wang Renjie. The participation of the Chinese side confirmed the practical focus of the trilateral cooperation and the readiness for joint implementation of projects in the mining industry.

The African side was represented by a wide range of participants: Jean Rick Biyaya Kadievu (Minister Plenipotentiary of the Embassy of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Russia), Sid’Ahmed Cheikh Ould Aichetou (Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania); Eric Rubayita (Counsellor of the Embassy of Rwanda); Diarra Hadja Niamé Mariam Fofana (President of the Program of Consultations and Actions for Women Leaders of Mali); Gerry Mane (Chairman of the National Regulatory Authority for Communications and IT, Guinea-Bissau); Pierre Bangourou (Africa International Trade Connection, Côte d’Ivoire); Yumssi Tichuè (Général Import Export SARL, Cameroon); Amadou Demba Sy (Demba Mining & Frères, Cameroon); Domou Nouble Bruno Alkis (GIES, Cameroon).

The presentations by the African speakers emphasized the continent’s readiness to attract investments, adopt new technologies, and build sustainable production chains. Particular attention was paid to logistics, personnel training, and environmental issues.

The roundtable was also attended by a representative of Iran—Mehdi Rezazadeh, founder and general director of ZedPay Financial System & Services P.J.S.C. His participation further underscored the cross-regional nature of the discussion and the interest in expanding financial and technological cooperation within the context of industry projects.

Li Shaobin, President of the FBA EAC, addressed the participants with a welcome speech, noting that the development of cooperation with Africa in the mining industry opens new horizons for the entire Eurasian business space.

Ivan Borisovich Arkhipov, Deputy Chairman of the Russian-Chinese Friendship Society, also delivered a welcoming address, emphasizing the importance of strengthening humanitarian and economic ties.

Sergey Korotkov, Advisor to the President of the FBA EAC, presented a message from Vitaly Vovk, Deputy Director of the Industrial Policy Department of the Eurasian Economic Commission (EAEC). In his address, Vovk noted that the constructive discussion provides a new impetus for the development of sectoral cooperation and expressed the EAEC’s readiness to assist in developing specific mechanisms for collaboration.

A presentation by Roman Isakov, a recognized expert in the mining industry, attracted particular attention from the roundtable participants. Roman Isaevich delivered a report on “Technologies and Standards of Russian Mining Companies.”

Anatoly Tkachuk, Board Member of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP) and Head of the Center for International Projects and Programs at the International Congress of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (ICIE), spoke about the RSPP and ICIE mechanisms for developing joint projects in the mining sector.

Furthermore, the Russian side was represented by Daria Michurina (RSPP), Yury Malakhov (Association of Machinery Manufacturers of Kuzbass), Alexander Kotlyarsky (PROMTEK LLC, First Vice President of FBA EAC), Anton Vasilyev (SPARTA LLC, Member of FBA EAC), Alexandra Matveeva (IBEC), Viktor Lazutin (RF CCI), and Igor Khmelkov (NOBIS Company), among others.

The roundtable was moderated by Louis Gouend, founder and president of the African Business Club, chairman of the organizing committee for “Russia-Africa Expo-2025,” and president of the Cameroonian Diaspora in Russia, together with Anna Geroldovna Bezdudnaya, doctor of economics, professor, head of the Department of Management and Innovations at SPbSUE, executive director of the R&D Center for Arctic Environmental-Economic Research, and editor-in-chief of the “FBA EAC Herald” journal.

During the discussion, participants examined a wide range of issues: the formation of joint working groups and industrial clusters, the creation of joint ventures, specialist training, financial support mechanisms, the implementation of environmental standards, and the expansion of logistics chains.

Following the event, participants highlighted the need to coordinate efforts among business communities, research centers, and government structures to implement specific investment and educational projects in the mining industry.

Key conclusions and recommendations developed during the discussion included:

(i) The need to promptly establish expert working groups to prepare pilot project initiatives.

(ii) Intensifying the exchange of technologies and equipment with the direct involvement of industrial manufacturers and engineering companies.

(iii) Developing joint educational programs and academic exchanges for training qualified personnel.

(iv) Strengthening institutional project support through guarantee mechanisms and financial instruments.

(v) Implementing unified environmental standards and sustainable development practices.

Within the framework of the changing global economic architecture, Russian enterprises are highly prioritizing investments in Africa, demonstrating readiness to invest, particularly in energy, industrial technology, and infrastructure, and compete with global players.

Undoubtedly, Africa is fast becoming one of the most significant centers of power, attracting external players. One lingering question is how promptly the recommended measures designed would address historical investment gaps and ensure that agreements reached at the ‘Russia-Africa Expo-2025’ would lead to tangible outcomes.

DR Congo reach inter-confederation playoffs for 2026 World Cup after beating favourites Nigeria on penalties after a 1-1 draw.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo kept their hopes of a World Cup place alive as they edged Nigeria 4-3 on penalties after a 1-1 draw at the end of extra time to win the African qualifying playoffs in Morocco.

DR Congo now await the draw on Thursday for the inter-confederation playoffs in March where six teams will chase two places at the 48-team finals.

Captain Chancel Mbemba converted the decisive kick on Sunday after Congolese substitute goalkeeper Timothy Fayulu, brought on a minute before the shootout, made two saves in the shootout.

Frank Onyeka had Nigeria ahead in the third minute but Meschack Elia equalised for the two sides to be level 1-1 after extra time.

The mini-tournament in Rabat was for the best runners-up across the nine African qualifying groups, whose fixtures were completed last month with the nine winners automatically booking a berth at the World Cup in Canada, Mexico and the United States next year.

Nigeria, who have been to six previous World Cups, were off to a perfect start as the Congolese cleared an early cross but only onto the edge of their penalty area where Onyeka snapped up the ball and powered home an effort, helped into the net by a slight deflection off Axel Tuanzebe.

But the Congolese could have been level within nine minutes had Ngal’ayel Mukau not put his close-in effort over the crossbar after Nigeria goalkeeper Stanley Nwabali had flapped at the ball.

They did equalise in the 32nd minute after Alex Iwobi had been stripped of possession inside the Congolese half, and a quick counter saw Cedric Bakambu square for Elia to score despite the efforts of Nigeria captain Wilfred Ndidi to intercept the ball.

A clever backheel at a corner early in the second half from Bakambu saw Nwabali make a sharp stop, and there looked a decent penalty shout for the Congolese as Noah Sadiki was upended by Benjamin Fredrick in the Nigeria box in the 55th minute, but the referee did not show any interest, and there was no VAR check.

DR Congo looked more ambitious as the contest wore on, but it was characterised by a wary approach from both sides, keen not to make any mistakes with so much at stake.

Nigeria needed extra time to get past Gabon in their Thursday semifinal and looked much more fatigued than their opponents, who beat Cameroon inside 90 minutes in their semi later the same night.

There were two opportunities in extra time on either end, with Nigerian substitute Tolu Arokodare heading over and then with the last effort of the game, Mbemba had his effort saved by Nwabali.

DR Congo went on to hold their nerve in the shootout and still have a chance to compete at their first World Cup since 1974, when the country was still known as Zaire.

Egypt, Senegal, South Africa, Ghana, Cape Verde, Morocco, Ivory Coast, Algeria and Tunisia have already qualified directly for the 2026 World Cup from Africa.

Bolivia from South America and New Caledonia from Oceania have already reached the six-team continental playoffs.

In Asia, the UAE host Iraq in their second leg on Tuesday to decide another playoff entrant. The first leg was 1-1.

Also included will be the best two group runners-up from the North American, Central American and Caribbean federation once normally qualifying ends on Tuesday.

Europe has its own playoff system for the remaining non-automatic berths for the 48-team World Cup.

Earlier this week, a flight carrying 153 Palestinians from Gaza landed in South Africa without documentation. The passengers were stuck on the plane for 12 hours before the South African authorities, who claimed they had not been informed by Israelis about the deportation flight, allowed them to disembark on humanitarian grounds.

The Palestinians on board had paid between $1,500 and $5,000 to a company called Al-Majd Europe to leave Gaza. The operation is run by a few Palestinians on the ground in coordination with the Israeli occupation authorities. At least two other such flights had already been made since June this year.

This is the latest scheme Israel is deploying to depopulate Gaza – a longstanding goal of its apartheid regime that goes back to the early 20th century.

Since the beginning of the Zionist movement, Palestinians have been perceived as a demographic obstacle to establishing a Jewish state. In the late 19th century, Theodor Herzl, one of the founding fathers of Zionism, wrote that the displacement of Arabs from Palestine must be part of the Zionist plan, suggesting that poor populations could be moved across borders and deprived of employment opportunities in a quiet and cautious manner.

In 1938, David Ben-Gurion, a key Zionist leader who would later become Israel’s first prime minister, made clear he supported forced “relocation” and saw nothing “immoral” in it. Part of this vision was carried out 10 years later during the Nakba of 1948, when more than 700,000 Palestinians were forced out of their homes in what Israeli historian Benny Morris has called “necessary” ethnic cleansing.

After 1948, Israel continued efforts to displace Palestinians. In the 1950s, tens of thousands of Palestinians and Palestinian Bedouins were forcibly transferred from the Naqab (Negev) desert to the Sinai Peninsula or Gaza, which was under Egyptian administration at that time.

After the June 1967 war, when Israel occupied Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, it adopted a strategy of what it called “voluntary migration”. The idea was to create harsh living conditions to pressure residents to leave, including demolishing homes and reducing employment opportunities.

In parallel, “emigration offices” were established in the refugee camps of Gaza to encourage people who have lost any hope of return to their homes to leave in exchange for money and travel arrangements. Israel also encouraged Palestinians to go work abroad, especially in the Gulf.  The price Palestinians had to pay for leaving was never being allowed to come back.

After October 7, 2023, Israel saw another chance to carry out its plan of ethnically cleansing Gaza – this time through genocide and forced expulsion. It thought it had the necessary international sympathy and diplomatic capital to carry out such an atrocity, as statements by various Israeli officials, such as ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, show. They even came up with the so-called “General’s Plan” to fully depopulate northern Gaza.

The new scheme for forcing Palestinians out of Gaza fits well into this historical pattern. What distinguishes it, however, is that Palestinians are made to pay for their own forced displacement and their desperation is exploited by Palestinian collaborators who seek to make easy profit. This, of course, is meant to further the financial depletion of the Palestinian population and create more internal fissures and tensions.

This scheme, like previous ones, also has the central feature of denying Palestinians return. None of the passengers on the plane received Israeli exit stamps on their passports, which was the reason the South African authorities struggled with the admission process. Having no legal record of leaving the Israeli-occupied territory of Gaza means these people are automatically classified as illegal migrants and have no possibility of returning.

It is important here to clarify why Israel is allowing these flights to take place while impeding the evacuation of ill and injured Palestinians and students accepted in foreign universities. These exits of patients and students would be legal, and they imply the right to return – something Israel does not want to allow.

That there are Palestinians willing to fall for this flight scheme is unsurprising. Two years of genocide have driven the people of Gaza to unimaginable desperation. There are that many Gaza residents who would willingly board those planes. And yet, Israel cannot fly us all to South Africa.

Through decades of Zionist occupation, Palestinians have persevered. Palestinian steadfastness in the face of wars, sieges, home raids, demolitions, land theft, and economic subjugation confirms that the Palestinian land is not merely a place to live, but a symbol of identity and history that people are not willing to give up.

In the past two years, Israel has destroyed the lives and homes of two million Palestinians. And even that has failed to kill the Palestinian spirit and drive to hold onto the Palestinian land. The Palestinians are not flying out; we are here to stay.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.

Officials launch probe days after breach emerged amid widespread concern and speculation over leaked data.

Somalia’s Immigration and Citizenship Agency has confirmed that hackers breached its electronic visa platform, exposing sensitive personal data of travellers who used the system.

The admission on Sunday marks the first official acknowledgement by Somali authorities after the United States and United Kingdom issued warnings earlier in the week.

At least 35,000 people, including thousands of American citizens, may have had their data compromised when “unidentified hackers” penetrated the system, according to a US Embassy statement issued on November 13.

Somalia’s Defence Minister Ahmed Moalim Fiqi had praised the electronic visa system this week, claiming it had successfully prevented ISIL (ISIS) fighters from entering the country, as a months-long battle continued in the northern regions against a local affiliate of the group.

The leak came to wider attention last week after clusters of accounts on the social media platform X began circulating what they claimed was personal information from affected individuals.

The breach has cast a spotlight on the vulnerabilities of a digital system that Somalia’s government had promoted as essential for improving national security.

The immigration agency said it was treating the issue with “special importance” and announced it has launched an investigation into the issue.

The agency said it was investigating “the extent of the attempted breach, its origin, and any potential impact”, adding that a report would be published and those affected would be informed directly.

However, the statement did not indicate how many people were affected, nor did it give any sense of how long the process might take.

The government has since quietly moved its e-visa system to a new website.

The UK embassy warned travellers on November 14 that “this data breach is ongoing and could expose any personal data you enter into the system,” advising people to “consider the risks before applying for an e-visa”.

Mohamed Ibrahim, a former Somali telecommunications minister and tech expert, told Al Jazeera that while hacking is a significant challenge, the authorities’ lack of transparency is troubling.

“Somalia isn’t high-tech, and hacking, in itself, is neither here nor there. But they should have been upfront with the public,” Ibrahim said.

“Why was the website’s URL changed, for example? That hasn’t even been explained,” he added, referring to the domain name change for the e-visa application site.

On Saturday, the Somali immigration agency’s director-general dismissed media reports about the breach as “coordinated misinformation campaigns” intended to undermine state institutions.

“A Somali individual cannot undermine the dignity, authority, honour or unity of the state,” Mustafa Sheikh Ali Duhulow told an audience in Mogadishu on Saturday night, without directly addressing the hacking allegations.

The breach has sparked fury among officials in Somaliland, the breakaway region that declared independence from Somalia in 1991, who have generally resisted attempts by Mogadishu to impose control over the territory.

Mohamed Hagi, an adviser to Somaliland’s president, called Mogadishu’s administration “institutionally irresponsible” for keeping the visa portal active despite the breach.

The incident came amid escalating tensions between Somalia and Somaliland over airspace control.

Somalia’s government has been working to tighten control of its national airspace and centralise visa procedures, despite authority in the country being fragmented among autonomous regional states.

Just one day before the breach emerged, Somaliland declared that “entry visas issued by the Federal Government of Somalia bear no legal validity” within its territory.

Follow the build-up, analysis, and live text commentary of the CAF playoffs final for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

Representatives from the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Rwandan-backed M23 rebel group have signed a peace agreement deal in Qatar to end years of fighting. The agreed framework aims to re-establish calm in the DRC.

Entity called Al-Majd Europe taking families on buses out of Gaza to Israel’s Ramon Airport – and then to unknown destinations.

A Palestinian man who says he left Gaza through a shadowy organisation that has landed 153 people in South Africa without documentation describes the process set up to encourage more Palestinians to leave the devastated enclave.

The man, whose identity remains anonymous due to security concerns, told Al Jazeera there was “strong coordination” between the Al-Majd Europe group and the Israeli army on such displacements.

He said the process seemed “routine” and included a thorough search of personal belongings before he was put on a bus that moved through southern Gaza’s Israeli-controlled Karem Abu Salem crossing (which Israelis call Kerem Shalom) into southern Israel and the Ramon Airport.

At Ramon, “since there is no recognition by [Israel] of a Palestinian state, they did not stamp our passports,” the Palestinian man said.

A Romanian aircraft took the group to Kenya, a transit country. He said there appeared to be some coordination between Al-Majd Europe and the Kenyan authorities.

None of the passengers knew which country they would end up in, he said, adding that there were at least three people coordinating from inside Gaza while several Palestinian citizens of Israel carried out the rest of the network communication from outside the enclave.

Initially, there was an online registration, followed by a screening process. The man said he paid $6,000 to get himself and two family members out of Gaza.

“The payments are made through bank applications to the accounts of individual persons, not to an institution,” he said.

The first group he knew about left Gaza for Indonesia in June while the transfer of a second group to an unknown location was delayed before it received a call to leave in August.

The Palestinians on board Friday’s flight to South Africa were made to pay $1,500 to $5,000 per person to leave Gaza. They were allowed to bring only a phone, some money and a backpack.

Mysterious operation

Al-Majd Europe has been moving people using unofficial channels facilitated by the Israeli military. It has been demanding payments from Palestinians to leave Gaza. But it is unclear who is behind its operations.

The group claims it was founded in 2010 in Germany, but its website was registered only this year. The website shows images generated by artificial intelligence of its executives with no credible contact details. The website provides no office location, which is in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of occupied East Jerusalem.

Al Jazeera spoke to another Palestinian man who identified himself only as Omar in WhatsApp text messages. He said an Al-Majd Europe representative told him a passport and a birth certificate would be required to be accepted for a flight and there would be an initial charge of $2,500 per person as a down payment.

Omar, however, said his request for a transfer out of Gaza was rejected by the representative because the group did not accept solo travellers.

Speaking from az-Zawayda in central Gaza, Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary said Palestinians in Gaza have been hearing more about the operation and some are driven to consider it due to the “unbearable living situation” after two years of Israeli bombardments and ground operations.

“The education system in Gaza has also collapsed, so some Palestinians feel there is no future for them and their children,” she said.

The Israeli military acknowledged “facilitating” transfers of Palestinians out of Gaza, which is part of the “voluntary departure” policy for Palestinians that is backed by Israel and the United States.

The Israeli army established a unit in March to further encourage and facilitate this policy after obtaining approval from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet.