Africa

Researchers analyzed twenty suspicious YouTube channels acting in a highly similar fashion, mimicking pro-Kremlin and anti-Western news content in videos targeting African audiences in several countries.

The channels published content targeting Burkina Faso, Niger, Senegal, Mali, Rwanda, and Congo. Their videos covered real news events but presented them in a misleading way with clickbait titles that further sensationalized the content. Notably, one of the channels was cited by a media outlet and in an academic study, highlighting the breakout ability of such content to reach different audiences outside of YouTube.

Additional suspicious posts on X appear to indicate that the YouTube channels’ best performing content denigrated French politicians following the Niger crisis, along with videos in favor of South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accusing Israel of alleged genocidal acts against Palestinians. Certain posts also shared videos with pro-Russian views on the presence of Wagner soldiers in West Africa that criticized the role of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

Africa also wants five non-permanent seats.

"Reform of the security council is long overdue," says Sithembile Mbete, Lecturer in Political Science at the University of Pretoria. "Its structure — five permanent members with veto power and ten non-permanent elected members serving two-year terms — is outdated. It reflects the configuration of global power at the end of the second world war."

"The council faces a credibility crisis because of its failure to address the biggest conflicts of our time. Expanding representation and democratising its working methods is essential to ensuring its legitimacy, credibility and effectiveness in meeting the security challenges of the future."

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/1888508

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Since Chinese engineers routed a $4.7 billion railway through the Kenyan village of Emurutoto, residents no longer worry about being cut off by flooding. Or being hit by a train. However, work has long since stopped on a Belt and Road project to connect Kenya and Uganda, with China gaining leverage of indebted Kenya's economy.

[...]

By 2017, the first half of the Kenya-Uganda line was operational, though losing money. In April 2019, work in the Great Rift Valley stopped. As alarms were raised about the mounting costs of the line, and secrecy around borrowing terms between Beijing’s banks and other African countries struggling to repay debts, China balked at financing the final 200-mile stretch linking Nairobi to the border with Uganda.

The single most expensive infrastructure project in Africa had become a case study in China swamping poorer nations with colossal debt. “The managers told us there was no more money to finish, and they went,” Shonke said.

[...]

If one policy is synonymous with President Xi’s China, it is the Belt and Road Initiative [...] Descriptions are awash with the Chinese Communist Party’s favourite slogans — “win-win co-operation” and “China meets the world” — but its underlying ideology is Xi’s.

[...]

The “win-win” was obvious. Countries short of cash would receive an infusion of investment, while China would have faster access to natural resources and bigger potential markets for its manufacturing industries.

The side-effects would also, Xi hoped, be useful for China. It would show off Beijing as an alternative “hegemon” to the United States and its western allies — and one that did not ask questions about human rights. It would also confirm the potential of China’s state-led economic model, a more attractive proposition to many governments than the West’s present insistence on privatisation.

[...]

However, just as the Chinese economy has had a poor few years — particularly since Covid-19 exposed flaws in Beijing’s “command, control and no questions asked” system of government — so Belt and Road has also had problems. Kenya’s financial crisis, in part owing to debts incurred on Belt and Road projects, is one example.

Other countries were also taken aback by the unsentimental approach of their Chinese partners. Loans were handed down with tough terms, often disguised from voters by secretive contracts.

[...]

With Chinese banks wondering how many projects would offer a return on their money, and governments growing wary of the leverage China now had over them, the scheme began to wind down, or at least focus on smaller projects.

As with much of Xi’s legacy, many Chinese people are proud of Belt and Road’s results, but it is not only the Chinese Communist Party’s western critics who have noticed cracks starting to appear.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/1815120

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China has become Africa's largest trading partner and creditor in recent years under the Belt and Road Initiative [...] Beijing's economic focus on Africa, especially for the latter's raw minerals, has restarted full-scale in the post-COVID years. China's relentless hunt for critical minerals is driving its new initiatives inside Africa. Meanwhile, it also continues to maintain its old ones such as infrastructure construction.

Further, according to findings by Australia's Griffith Asia Institute, new Chinese investment in Africa increased by 114% in 2023. However, it remained heavily focused on minerals, coupled with Beijing's plans to revive its own flagging economy.

All efforts to boost other imports from Africa seem to be faltering. This has resulted in the continent's ballooning trade deficit with China. In fact, the value of Africa's exports to China has fallen by 7% and its trade deficit has widened by 46%. Carrying one of Africa's largest trade deficits with China, Kenya is fast becoming a critical case study in this context.

Official Narratives vs Economic Realities

Despite these hard data-based realities, China's official Xinhua News Agency still harps on how numerous construction companies from Hubei and Hunan provinces have ventured into Africa. Xinhua claims that these companies are undertaking diverse engineering projects, for instance, in Kenya. Some sectors it mentions are energy, transportation, municipal construction, housing, telecommunications, and metallurgy. Furthermore, there are other projects in agricultural technology, equipment manufacturing, and fish-processing infrastructure. But the trade exchanges with Africa are anything but "thriving" as Xinhua puts it.

Beijing makes tall commitments worth billions of dollars for new construction projects. However, data also reveals a mercantile and extractive kind of Chinese strategy and approach towards Africa. According to the Global China Initiative at Boston University, ports built by Chinese companies, hydropower plants, and railways across the continent peaked in terms of annual lending worth $28.4 billion USD in 2016. These are financed mainly through sovereign loans.

[...]

China's Africa strategy in the past decade finds its foundation in the Belt and Road Initiative, whose deals are based on opaque agreements on multiple counts. Beijing aggressively pursued repayment of its debts from many African countries in the past. However, this approach created real problems for China's international standing and approach towards developing nations.

[...]

The pattern of how China uses its economic leverage for achieving politico-strategic ends at a later stage has been well displayed across Asia, Africa, and Latin America. In fact, this has become a predictable pattern in China's toolkit. An added phenomenon to this strategy is the application of blunt coercion in the case of many lesser-developed and impoverished African economies.

[Edit title for more clarity.]

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/1474382

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Local and international experts and diplomats on Wednesday discussed in Taipei what they called China's "bad governance model" in Africa, criticizing it for creating unpayable debts for countries in that continent.

They highlighted Taiwan's model in Somaliland as an alternative, at a half-day symposium, themed "China's Bad Governance Model for Africa -- Alternative Visions," which was organized by the Taipei-based non-governmental organization, Taiwan Inspiration Association.

• Citing the example of Zambia, as the landlocked African country is widely considered "Ground Zero" for China's Investment on the continent. Its Patriotic Front government assumed power in 2011, and Zambia has worked hand-in-hand with China on a number of major construction programs.

• Unfortunately, as part of these China-Zambia deals, only Chinese companies were allowed to compete, meaning the profits were ultimately shared by Chinese companies and government officials, while ordinary Zambians received none of the benefits.

• In total, Beijing provided more than US$10 billion in loans to Zambia during the Patriotic Front administration -- from 2011 to 2021 -- which was as much as 50 percent of the country's GDP.

• An alternative to China's bad governance model, is the relationship between Taiwan and Somaliland, according to Taiwan's representative to the East African state Allen Lou (羅震華). Lou praised Somaliland as the "only country to say no to China in Africa."

• In contrast to the Chinese model in Africa, Taiwan's model of cooperation focuses on "people centric, knowledge transfers, and capacity building," Lou said at the symposium. Ultimately, Taiwan wants to create a model in Somaliland to win more friends in East Africa, the envoy said.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/1404554

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A ubiquitous Chinese government talking point is the principle of non-interference in other countries. This includes issues of governance where China has long claimed that it does not export its model or encourage foreign nations to emulate its practices.

Yet, this is rapidly changing in China’s engagements in Africa. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has escalated its training of African party and government officials as part of CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping’s “new model of party-to-party relations,” particularly in the Global South.

• The blurred line between the CCP and the Chinese state mirrors the situation in parts of Africa where the interests of the ruling party are self-interestedly conflated with those of the state. China has many venues to advance its governance philosophy and practice. Between 2012 and 2019, the CCP conducted 368 exchanges with African parties (257 in China and 111 in Africa), according to the CCP’s International Department’s metadata.

• An indication of this renewed emphasis is the Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Leadership School. Launched in 2022, the Nyerere School trains ruling party members from the Former Liberation Movements of Southern Africa (FLMSA) coalition—Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe.

• The Nyerere School - which started in 2019 - is the first in Africa to be modeled after the CCP Central Party School, which trains China’s top cadres and leaders. It is also the first of its kind to cater to multiple African political parties. This school parallels the China-Africa Institute, a continental CCP initiative to train African party and government leaders.

• CCP-supported governance and party training also occurs at the national level as illustrated by the refurbishment of the Herbert Chitepo School of Ideology, the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party school, completed in 2023.

• The non-brick-and-mortar schools of China’s National Academy of Governance (CAG), the external name for the CCP’s Central Party School. Algeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, and South Africa are among the African countries whose governance academies maintain year-round training partnerships with CAG. China’s party exchanges have increased alongside this expanding training. China is expected to receive over 50 African party delegations this year—double the number of party visits hosted in 2015.

• While often overlooked in discussions of party training, Chinese government institutions also run programs in Africa (and the Global South more generally) on “sharing governance experience in governing state affairs” that mirror the CCP initiatives. Many of these trainings place emphasis on party supremacy over the state and government, a concept that is at odds with the multiparty democratic framework required by most African constitutions and AU conventions. Notably, CCP party schools are embedded in the structure of China’s government institutes.

A fake Cameroonian news outlet and TV channel known as Ebene Media TV has been spreading pro-Russia content since 2023. The DFRLab investigated Ebene Media TV’s online presence, sourcing practices, and social media amplification strategies. Our investigation found that the outlet often copied and reposted content published by Russian state media outlets RT and Sputnik. We also identified evidence of amplification via inauthentic means to promote the outlet’s YouTube videos, including the use of a news aggregator and social media posts in multiple languages.

An investigation shows that Ebene Media TV is part of a wider operation launched by CSS Engineering, a Cameroonian business previously flagged for plagiarism and spreading pro-Russian content online. The DFRLab was able to attribute the campaign to CSS Engineering and found evidence of the company creating more fake news initiatives that spread pro-Russian content online.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/834864

Since December 2023, more than 1,000 Syrian fighters have travelled to Niger via Turkey, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), which monitors the conflict in Syria through a network of sources on the ground. They tend to sign up for six months, but some have now extended the contract to a year.

Before they go, the official line is that the men will be protecting Turkish projects and commercial interests in Niger. Turkey has extended both its political influence and business operations in the region, selling equipment such as drones to Niger to help it combat militant jihadist groups. It is also involved in mining the country’s natural resources, which include gold, uranium and iron ore.

But the recruits know that despite what they are told, when they arrive in Niger, the reality can be very different.

The SOHR and friends of mercenaries who have already worked in Niger said that Syrians had ended up under Russian command fighting militant jihadist groups in the border triangle between Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso.

The prospect of fighting under Russian command poses a dilemma for Syrian fighters who are opposed to the Syrian regime because Russia has been a staunch supporter of President Assad.

“We are mercenaries here and mercenaries there,” says one, “but I am on a Turkish mission, I will not accept orders from the Russians.”

But he may not have a choice, as another mercenary acknowledges. “I hate these forces but I have to go for economic reasons,” he says.

President Joseph Boakai's office stated that he hopes this decision will set a precedent for "responsible governance" and show "solidarity" with the people of Liberia. This action is similar to that of his predecessor, George Weah, who also reduced his salary by 25%.

Reactions to the pay cut have been mixed. Some people praise the move, while others question its significance since the president still receives benefits such as a daily allowance and medical coverage.

Anderson D. Miamen from the Centre of Transparency and Accountability in Liberia called the pay cut "welcoming." He hopes the public will see where the deductions go and how they will be used to positively impact people's lives.

Without Beijing's support, practically nothing works in Guinea-Bissau. The country's president has described China as an "indispensable partner" and praises China's stance, saying the nation "never interferes in the internal politics of an African country."

China expert and China expert Diamantino Lopes, a Bissau-Guinean sociologist, has a different view on the matter: "As we all know, there are no free lunches in international relations," he warned. China always keeps its own advantage in mind and is not hesitant to demand returns for its gifts sooner or later, he added.

What returns could interest China? "China's interests in Guinea-Bissau are mainly in the geostrategic area. From the Chinese perspective, Bissau can certainly act as a gateway to the sub-region due to its location. But there are also tangible economic interests at play," Lopes said.

And the Chinese are also after Guinea-Bissau's natural resources: "Chinese companies exploit rare sands and earth in our country. Additionally, entire forests in the interior of the country have repeatedly been cut down by the Chinese in the past. Furthermore, there are oil deposits in Bissau-Guinean waters. We also have bauxite, phosphate, and other raw materials," so the expert.

• South African retailers have urged the government to plug tax loopholes that they fear are being used by Chinese e-commerce platform Temu, and Shein, another Chinese online platform,

• Etienne Vlok, a national industrial policy officer for Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers Union, said the government should consider urgent changes to tax rules on small items to ensure fair competition for local businesses.

• Temu, the online shopping juggernaut backed by China’s PDD Holdings Inc. has offered huge discounts in South Africa since its launch in January. The firm has expanded its global footprint to 49 countries and recently took out ads at the Super Bowl to try and sustain growth among US consumers.

• Thirty-two percent of companies analyzed in Ghana’s fisheries sector were either owned or controlled by politically exposed persons (PEPs), with over 80 percent showing connections to Chinese ownership interests.
• Twenty-five (25) companies analyzed showed that no director and shareholder had filed their PEP status as required by law.
• The Registrar General of Companies in Ghana had not prosecuted a single case of PEPs’ non-disclosure of status or beneficial ownership, despite promises of legal action made years earlier.
• The Fisheries Commission of Ghana and the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture lacked processes to enforce PEP regulations set by the Bank of Ghana and the country’s beneficial ownership regulations.
• Over 80 percent of companies licensed to operate fishing vessels in Ghana failed to declare beneficiary ownership, despite evidence of foreign ownership ties.

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- The Kremlin threatens to deport Africans unless they sign up

- Officials have adopted tactics first used by Wagner group

- There are 35,000-37,000 African students currently in Russia, according to Yevgeny Primakov head of Rossotrudnichestvo, an organization devoted to spreading knowledge about Russia abroad.

- “Every year we sign up about 6,500 students from Africa to study in Russia for free”, he said on Thursday at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.--

The Kremlin has forced thousands of migrants and foreign students to fight alongside Russian troops in its war against Ukraine, adding extra manpower for its offensive in the Kharkiv region, according to assessments from European officials.

Using tactics first deployed by the Wagner mercenary group, Russian officials have with increasing frequency been threatening not to extend the visas of African students and young workers unless they agree to join the military, according to officials familiar with the matter.

Moscow has also been enlisting convicts from its prisons while some Africans in Russia on work visas have been detained and forced to decide between deportation or fighting, one European official said. Some of those people had been able to bribe officials to stay in the country and still avoid military service, said the official, who like other people cited spoke on condition of anonymity.

Russia’s practice of sending migrants and students into battle under duress dates back to earlier in the war, another European official said. Those troops suffer especially high casualty rates because they are increasingly deployed in risky offensive maneuvers to protect more highly trained units, the official added. A spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry didn’t respond to an email seeking comment.

According to reports citing Ukrainian intelligence, Russia has engaged in a global recruitment drive to enlist foreign mercenaries in at least 21 countries, including several nations in Africa. Army recruitment campaigns offer lucrative signing bonuses and salaries for those who’ll join up as contract soldiers. Recruiters have also targeted migrants and students who previously looked for employment in Russia, and in some cases have lured others over with promises of lucrative work before forcing them to train and deploy to the front.

Russia’s ability to mobilize far greater numbers of troops could become a significant factor in the war as President Vladimir Putin seeks to capitalize on a shift in momentum this year.

For now though, his forces have been grinding forward only slowly in northeastern Ukraine and suffering heavy losses, despite a shortage of troops and ammunition on the Ukrainian side.

The Russian military lost more than 1,200 people a day during May, according to the UK Ministry of Defence, its highest casualty rate of the war. Since the beginning of the invasion, Russia has seen some 500,000 personnel killed or wounded, the UK estimates. Bloomberg is unable to independently verify these figures.

At a meeting with foreign media in St. Petersburg late Wednesday, Putin appeared to imply that about 10,000 Russian troops a month are being killed or wounded and that Ukrainian losses are five times higher.

While the Kremlin has failed to achieve a breakthrough on the battlefield, it has stepped up a bombing campaign against Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. Western officials say those attacks appear designed to make the city uninhabitable.

As he seeks to maintain public support in Russia, Putin has so far resisted a full-scale mobilization and Russia says it has been able to make up a significant share of its losses — in terms of numbers if not the standard of the troops — through a voluntary recruitment drive that has attracted tens of thousands of people.

The government in Kathmandu said earlier this year that it is aware of about 400 young Nepali men who have been recruited by Russia but many more have likely signed up without the government knowing. India’s decision to stop recruiting Nepalese Gurkhas for its army, ending a 200-year-old tradition, may have encouraged Nepalis to look for work in Russia and elsewhere.

A senior Ukrainian official said they have seen an uptick in the number of foreign fighters among the prisoners Ukraine has captured on the battlefield. Africans and Nepalis have been particularly common, they said.

Some of Ukraine’s allies have been considering sharing what they know with the affected countries, another European official said.

Group of Seven nations, who will hold a leaders’ summit in Italy next week, have been trying to persuade countries from the so-called Global South to offer more support to Ukraine. But many of those nations have instead remained neutral, while their populations have been a focus for Moscow’s disinformation efforts.

Reuters reported last year that the mercenary group Wagner had recruited several African citizens as part of a drive to enlist convicts from Russian prisons for its forces in Ukraine. The news agency traced the story of three men from Tanzania, Zambia and the Ivory Coast.

There are 35,000-37,000 African students currently in Russia, according to Yevgeny Primakov head of Rossotrudnichestvo, an organization devoted to spreading knowledge about Russia abroad.

“Every year we sign up about 6,500 students from Africa to study in Russia for free”, he said on Thursday at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

Twenty-two Chinese nationals have pleaded guilty to committing cyber-related crimes in Zambia.

They are among 77 suspects who were arrested in April in connection to what authorities described as a "sophisticated internet fraud syndicate".

The swoop on a Chinese-run company in the capital, Lusaka, followed an alarming rise in internet fraud cases in the country, targeting people in countries around the world.

The Chinese nationals are set to be sentenced on Friday, local media report.

There have been increasing cases of Zambians losing money from their mobile and bank accounts through money-laundering schemes which extend to other foreign countries, the Drug Enforcement Commission (DEC) said in April.

People in countries including Singapore, Peru, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and others across Africa have also been targeted in the online scam, Zambian authorities said.

Dozens of young Zambians were also arrested after allegedly being recruited to be call-centre agents in the fraudulent activities, including internet fraud and online scams, the DEC said during the arrests.

After a trial lasting several weeks, the 22 Chinese nationals, including one female, pleaded guilty to three charges - computer-related misrepresentation, identity-related crimes, and illegally operating a network or service.

The 22, along with a Cameroonian national, were charged with manipulating people's identities online with intent to scam them.

The accused hold different positions in the Chinese-run Golden Top Support Services, the company at the centre of the raid.

The company, located in Roma, an upmarket suburb of Lusaka, is yet to comment on the allegations.

Li Xianlin, believed to be the director of the company, was charged with operating the network without a licence from the Zambian authorities.

On Tuesday, the state prosecutor requested the court to include more details about the charges.

The Zambian nationals were charged in April and released on bail so they could help the authorities with their investigations.

Authorities said the Zambians involved had been tasked "with engaging in deceptive conversations with unsuspecting mobile users across various platforms such as WhatsApp, Telegram, chatrooms and others, using scripted dialogues".

Among equipment seized were devices allowing callers to disguise their location and thousands of Sim cards.

During the raid, 11 Sim boxes were discovered - these are devices that can route calls across genuine phone networks.

More than 13,000 Sim cards, both local and foreign, were also confiscated, demonstrating "the extent of the operation's reach," according to the DEC.

Two firearms and about 78 rounds of ammunition were confiscated and two vehicles, belonging to a Chinese national linked to the business, were also impounded during the raid.

Sudan’s deputy leader is traveling to Russia for talks, days after the North African nation’s army said it may get weapons in exchange for letting the Kremlin establish a military fueling station on the Red Sea coast.

Former rebel leader Malik Agar will meet President Vladimir Putin to discuss Sudanese-Russian relations and ways to improve ties, according to a statement from Sudan’s military-backed government on Monday. The Sudanese ministers of finance, mining and foreign affairs are also on the several-day trip that includes attendance at an economic forum in St. Petersburg, it said.

Russia has long coveted a foothold on Sudan’s 530-mile (853-kilometer) coastline, seeking to gain influence on one of the world’s busiest shipping corridors that lies south of the Suez Canal. Its navy officials also visited Sudan’s neighbor Eritrea in April to discuss deepening ties in the defense, security and mining industries.

Read More: Sudan’s Army Deepens Ties With Russia, Iran as Civil War Rages

Sudan’s move is likely to stoke Western concern about Russia’s growing profile in Africa, where Moscow has also forged tight relations with governments in Mali and the Central African Republic. The initiative comes as the Sudanese military strives to regain swathes of territory lost to the Rapid Support Forces militia in a civil war that erupted in April 2023 and may have killed as many as 150,000 people.

Another source of unease for the US and its allies comes from the Sudanese army’s revitalized ties with Iran. The Islamic Republic has supplied armed drones that have helped the military regain control of much of the capital, Khartoum.

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The China-linked threat actor known as Sharp Panda has expanded their targeting to include governmental organizations in Africa and the Caribbean as part of an ongoing cyber espionage campaign.

"The campaign adopts Cobalt Strike Beacon as the payload, enabling backdoor functionalities like C2 communication and command execution while minimizing the exposure of their custom tools," Check Point said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "This refined approach suggests a deeper understanding of their targets."

The Israeli cybersecurity firm is tracking the activity under a new name Sharp Dragon, describing the adversary as careful in its targeting, while at the same time broadening its reconnaissance efforts.

The adversary first came to light in June 2021, when it was detected targeting a Southeast Asian government to deploy a backdoor on Windows systems dubbed VictoryDLL.

Subsequent attacks mounted by Sharp Dragon have set their sights on high-profile government entities in Southeast Asia to deliver the Soul modular malware framework, which is then used to receive additional components from an actor-controlled server to facilitate information gathering.

Evidence suggests the Soul backdoor has been in the works since October 2017, adopting features from Gh0st RAT – malware commonly associated with a diverse range of Chinese threat actors – and other publicly available tools.

Another set of attacks attributed to the threat actors has targeted high-level government officials from G20 nations as recently as June 2023, indicating continued focus on governmental bodies for information gathering.

Key to Sharp Panda's operations is the exploitation of 1-day security flaws (e.g., CVE-2023-0669) to infiltrate infrastructure for later use as command-and-control (C2) servers. Another notable aspect is the use of the legitimate adversary simulation framework Cobalt Strike over custom backdoors.

What's more, the latest set of attacks aimed at governments in Africa and the Caribbean demonstrate an expansion of their original attack goals, with the modus operandi involving utilizing compromised high-profile email accounts in Southeast Asia to send out phishing emails to infect new targets in the two regions.

These messages bear malicious attachments that leverage the Royal Road Rich Text Format (RTF) weaponizer to drop a downloader named 5.t that's responsible for conducting reconnaissance and launching Cobalt Strike Beacon, allowing the attackers to gather information about the target environment.

The use of Cobalt Strike as a backdoor not only minimizes the exposure of custom tools but also suggests a "refined approach to target assessment," Check Point added.

In a sign that the threat actor is continuously refining its tactics, recent attack sequences have been observed using executables disguised as documents to kick-off the infection, as opposed to relying on a Word document utilizing a remote template to download an RTF file weaponized with Royal Road.

"Sharp Dragon's strategic expansion towards Africa and the Caribbean signifies a broader effort by Chinese cyber actors to enhance their presence and influence in these regions."

The findings come the same day Palo Alto Networks uncovered details of a campaign codenamed Operation Diplomatic Specter that has been targeting diplomatic missions and governments in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia since at least late 2022. The attacks have been linked to a Chinese threat actor dubbed TGR-STA-0043 (formerly CL-STA-0043).

The sustained strategic intrusions by Chinese threat actors in Africa against key industrial sectors, such as telecom service providers, financial institutions, and governmental bodies, align with the nation's technological agenda in the region, tying into its Digital Silk Road (DSR) project announced in 2015.

"These attacks conspicuously align with China's broader soft power and technological agenda in the region, focusing on critical areas such as the telecommunication sector, financial institutions, and governmental bodies," SentinelOne security researcher Tom Hegel previously noted in September 2023.

The development also follows a report from Google-owned Mandiant that highlighted China's use of proxy networks referred to as operational relay box networks (ORBs) to obscure their origins when carrying out espionage operations and achieve higher success rates in gaining and maintaining access to high-value networks.

"Building networks of compromised devices allows ORB network administrators to easily grow the size of their ORB network with little effort and create a constantly evolving mesh network that can be used to conceal espionage operations," Mandiant researcher Michael Raggi said.

One such network ORB3 (aka SPACEHOP) is said to have been leveraged by multiple China-nexus threat actors, including APT5 and APT15, while another network named FLORAHOX – which comprises devices recruited by the router implant FLOWERWATER – has been put to use by APT31.

"Use of ORB networks to proxy traffic in a compromised network is not a new tactic, nor is it unique to China-nexus cyber espionage actors," Raggi said. "We have tracked China-nexus cyber espionage using these tactics as part of a broader evolution toward more purposeful, stealthy, and effective operations."

Europe supports, finances and is directly involved in these clandestine operations in North African countries to dump tens of thousands of Black people in the desert or remote areas each year to prevent them from coming to the EU.

An investigation reveals that in Morocco, Mauritania and Tunisia, refugees and migrant workers, some of whom were on their way towards Europe, as well as people who had legal status and established livelihoods in these countries, are apprehended based on the colour of their skin, loaded onto buses and driven to the middle of nowhere, often arid desert areas.

There, they are left without any assistance, water or food, leaving them at risk of kidnapping, extortion, torture, sexual violence, and, in the worst instances, death. Others are taken to border areas where they are reportedly sold by the authorities to human traffickers and gangs who torture them for ransom.

Funds for these desert dumps have been paid under the guise of “migration management” with the EU claiming that the money doesn’t support human rights abuses against sub-Saharan African communities in North Africa. Brussels claims publicly that it closely monitors how this money is spent. But the reality is different.

In a year-long investigation with the Washington Post, Enass, Der Spiegel, El Pais, IrpiMedia, ARD, Inkyfada and Le Monde, we reveal that Europe knowingly funds, and in some instances is directly involved in systematic racial profiling detention and expulsion of Black communities across at least three North African countries.

Our findings show that in Morocco, Mauritania and Tunisia, refugees and migrant workers, some of whom were on their way towards Europe, as well as people who had legal status and established livelihoods in these countries, are apprehended based on the colour of their skin, loaded onto buses and driven to the middle of nowhere, often arid desert areas.

There, they are left without any assistance, water or food, leaving them at risk of kidnapping, extortion, torture, sexual violence, and, in the worst instances, death. Others are taken to border areas where they are reportedly sold by the authorities to human traffickers and gangs who torture them for ransom.

This investigation amounts to the most comprehensive attempt yet to document European knowledge and involvement with anti-migrant, racially motivated operations in North Africa. It exposes how not only has this system of mass displacement and abuse been known about in Brussels for years, but that it is run thanks to money, vehicles, equipment, intelligence and security forces provided by the EU and European countries.

Methods

The team interviewed more than 50 survivors of these expulsions across Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia – all of whom were from Sub-Saharan or West African countries – which helped us to recognise the systematic and racially-motivated nature of the practices. Some survivors supplied visual material and/or location data from their journey, which we were able to geolocate to support their accounts and map out what happened.

The team interviewed more than 50 survivors of these expulsions across Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia – all of whom were from Sub-Saharan or West African countries – which helped us to recognise the systematic and racially-motivated nature of the practices. Some survivors supplied visual material and/or location data from their journey, which we were able to geolocate to support their accounts and map out what happened.

As well as visual material supplied by survivors, we used open source methods to find videos posted on social media purporting to show dumps taking place. We sought to geolocate and verify these cases. In the case of Tunisia, we were able to verify 13 incidents that occurred between July 2023 and May 2024 in which groups of Black people were rounded up in cities or at ports and driven many miles away, usually close to the Libyan or Algerian borders, and dumped, as well as one incident of a group being handed over to Libyan security forces and then incarcerated in a detention centre.

Where visual evidence of the operations wasn’t available online, we documented it through ground reporting. In Morocco we followed the paramilitaries of the Auxiliary Forces and filmed them picking up Black people from the streets three times over three days in the capital, Rabat. We also filmed people being detained in local government buildings before being loaded onto unmarked buses and taken to remote areas.

In Mauritania we used similar techniques by observing a detention centre in the capital Nouakchott. We witnessed and filmed refugees and migrants being brought to the centre in a large truck and Spanish police officers entering the detention centre on a regular basis. We filmed a white bus with migrants in it leaving the detention centre towards the border with Mali, an active warzone.

By speaking with current and former EU staff members, as well as sources within national police forces and international organisations with a presence in the countries where the dumps are taking place, we established that the EU is well aware of the dump operations and sometimes directly involved.

European officials have expressed concern over escalating operations in the region against sub-Saharan African migrants, and consistently denied that funds are being used to violate basic rights. But two senior EU sources said it was “impossible” to fully account for the way in which European funding was ultimately used.

One consultant who worked on projects funded by the EU Trust Fund, under which the EU has given Tunisia, Mauritania and Morocco more than €400m for migration management in recent years, said of the aims of the fund: “You have to make migrants’ lives difficult. Complicate their lives. If you leave a migrant from Guinea in the Sahara [in Morocco] twice, the third time he will ask you to voluntarily bring him back home.”

Using freedom of information laws, we were able to obtain a number of internal documents, including one from the EU’s border agency Frontex from earlier this year stating that Morocco was racially profiling and forcibly relocating mainly Black migrants. We also unearthed hard-to-find publicly available documents showing that EU officials have held internal discussions on some of the abusive practices since at least 2019. They also revealed that the EU is directly funding the Moroccan paramilitary auxiliary forces, who we filmed rounding up people with black skin in the capital.

Crucially, we were able to match vehicles used during the round-up and expulsions to vehicles provided by European countries by identifying tenders and carrying out visual analyses. For example in Tunisia, the Nissan vehicles we observed being used by the National Police in raids to arrest migrants before they are driven to desert areas match in make and model with those donated to Tunisia by Italy and Germany.

We also spoke with analysts and academics who told us the European funding links make the EU accountable for these abuses. “The fact is that European countries do not want to get their hands dirty,” said Marie-Laure Basilien-Gainche, a law professor at the University of Lyon and a specialist in human rights and migration. “They don’t want to be held responsible for human rights violations and outsource them to others. I believe that, under international law, they are indeed responsible.”

Storylines

Timothy Hucks, a 33-year-old US citizen, was arrested by plainclothes officers a few metres from his home in Rabat in 2019. He recalls how he showed his American driver’s licence and offered to get his passport from his flat, but the officer handcuffed him and shoved him into the back of a white van.

Hucks, who now lives in Spain, recalls being taken to a police station where around 40 Black men were crammed together in a dirty room with broken toilets. The security forces took his fingerprints and a photo of him. They asked questions that sounded like accusations: was he a terrorist? A member of Boko Haram? “It’s difficult to describe how angry I was at that moment,” says Hucks. He was then transported along with the other men to a town about 200km south of Rabat, and abandoned. Eventually, he found a bus to take him back to Rabat.

In another case, Idiatou, a Guinea woman in her twenties, told how she was intercepted at sea while trying to reach the Canary Islands from Mauritania. She was taken to a detention centre in the capital Nouakchott, where Spanish police officers took her photograph before she was forced in a white bus towards the border with Mali. There, in the middle of nowhere, she and 29 other people were sent away. “The Mauritanians chased us like animals,” she recalls. “I was afraid that someone would rape me.” After four days of walking she managed to reach a village and found a driver who took her to a relative in Senegal.

Further east in Tunisia, François, a 38-year-old Cameroonian national, describes how he was intercepted at sea by the Tunisian National Maritime Guard while trying to reach Italy on an overcrowded boat. He was then boarded onto buses with dozens of other sub-Saharan Africans and taken to the desert area near the Algerian border. He was able to hide his phone so it wasn’t confiscated by the police, and he provided us with GPS data and photographs from the journey, enabling us to verify his account.

At the Algerian border, François and the group of around 30 people were abandoned by the Tunisian security forces and ordered to walk towards Algeria. Facing warning shots from the Algerian side, they decided to head back to Tunisia. “There were two pregnant women in the group and a child with a heel infection […] We were thirsty. We began to suffer hallucinations,” he recalls. They walked for nine days, more than 40 kilometres, before finally finding transport to take them back to the Tunisian city of Sfax.

Archived link

Russia has been bolstering its military presence in Libya for the past few months, according to an investigation. Libya has been mired in civil war since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, and Russia has long been accused of meddling in the conflict. Now, the Kremlin appears to be shipping more military equipment to Libya and the surrounding region and redeploying regular troops disguised as mercenaries, along with recruits from Wagner Group’s Africa operations.

The increased military activity in the region may also have something to do with increased pressure for Libya to hold elections. While there have been several attempts to hold elections, plans have often been delayed or disrupted due to escalations in the military conflict. The U.N. has urgently called for elections to be held to prevent the country from sliding further into war.

'Tectonic shifts’

In the past three months, Russia has begun actively transferring military personnel and mercenaries to Libya, according to Verstka’s findings. These forces are primarily concentrated in eastern Libya, a region under the control of Khalifa Haftar, the commander of the Libyan National Army and a Kremlin ally. (The western part of the country, including the capital, Tripoli, is governed by the U.N.-recognized Government of National Accord.)

A source within a Libyan security agency reported that at least 1,800 Russian military personnel have arrived in the country in the last two weeks alone. Some were dispatched to Niger, while others remain in Libya awaiting further orders.

One serviceman told journalists that he and several hundred other special forces soldiers were redeployed from Ukraine at the beginning of the year. Several thousand more fighters — both professional soldiers and mercenaries from Wagner Group’s Africa operations — arrived in Libya between February and April. In conversations with journalists, the soldiers themselves acknowledged that their presence in Libya is unofficial. They said that they’re there as part of a private military company, though they didn’t specify which one.

Russian military personnel and equipment have been spotted in at least 10 locations in eastern Libya since the beginning of March. Russian troops are stationed around major military bases, such as Al Jufra Air Base and Ghardabiya Air Base, as well as near smaller ones by Waddan and Marj.

Sources say that some of the newly arrived Russian military personnel are involved in training local soldiers and new recruits from private military companies. Others are carrying out combat missions, such as securing the transport of military equipment.

“There’s never been such a fuss; tectonic shifts are happening here,” one Russian soldier in Libya commented. “I think a big mess is brewing.”

Following the breadcrumbs

Location data from Telegram users show an increase in activity around military sites in Libya. On March 5, a Russian soldier with the username “Andrey” showed up near the Ghardabiya Air Base near Sirte. A few months before, “Andrey” was in Mulino — a city in Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod region where soldiers are being trained for combat in Ukraine. Nearly two weeks after “Andrey” appeared at Ghardabiya Air Base, the Libyan National Army conducted military exercises there.

Soon after, another group of Russian soldiers was spotted in Marj, Libya. On March 17, photos of them were posted on Libyan social media; Verstka and its investigative partners were able to geolocate these photos by comparing the buildings and structures in them with satellite images.

In early May, geolocation data confirmed the presence of two Russian soldiers in Jufra. One of them was the same “Andrey” who’d been at the Ghardabiya Air Base in March. He stayed there until at least April, then moved to Jufra by May.

The second soldier in Jufra was 26-year-old Pavel Vavilov from Russia’s Vladimir region. It’s likely that Vavilov entered the military recently: leaked data shows he worked as a security guard in 2020, and before that, as a taxi driver. He’s faced various legal issues, including a theft conviction. Another Telegram account linked to Vavilov shows a car with a license plate from the self-proclaimed “Luhansk People’s Republic” in the profile picture.

In recent weeks, there’s been a notable increase in shipments of Russian weapons and transport vehicles from Syria to Libya. In photos published on March 30 by the Russian pro-war Telegram channel Military Informant, several Russian Tigr armored personnel carriers can be seen being used in Libyan National Army exercises. Judging by the unit insignia on the front doors, they were delivered to the Libyan National Army’s 106th Brigade.

The channel also released video footage of the exercises. After comparing the terrain, buildings, and landmarks seen in the video to satellite images, Verstka and its investigative partners determined that the footage was shot between Al Jufra Air Base and the town of Waddan.

Russia is shipping a large amount of military equipment to Libya by sea. A source told Verstka that he had personally escorted equipment from a “military port” to various “military bases.” In some cases, the equipment comes to Libya via Syria’s Tartus port. For instance, on April 2, two Russian landing ships — the Alexander Otrakovsky and the Ivan Gren — were spotted in Tartus. On April 6, the same ships were off the coast of Crete, and on April 8, they arrived at the Port of Tobruk in Libya. These vessels were transporting vehicles and weaponry; one item in the shipment resembled a Soviet-era 2S12 “Sani” heavy mortar system. According to open-source investigators, this marked the fifth such shipment in the last six weeks. Satellite imagery shows that since then, the ships have continued to make trips back and forth.

Jalel Harchaoui, a Libya expert at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank, drew attention to the fact that Russian military personnel are being redeployed to the Brak al-Shati base in Libya. According to him, the number of Russian-speaking personnel at the base has increased by about 25 percent in recent weeks.

Back in March 2024, investigators from the All Eyes on Wagner project didn’t find any Russian Telegram accounts at the base. However, the situation has changed in the last few weeks. For example, in early May, an account registered to a Russian number was discovered near the base. The user, 28-year-old Russian Maxim Kukol, doesn’t appear to have been connected to the military before 2021. But there’s no public record of his employment after this. However, by 2022, his debts had been cleared.

Geolocation data also shows a steady stream of Russian military personnel arriving at the Tartus port in Syria, which has become a kind of redistribution hub for military resources. Among them is 19-year-old Navy serviceman Anton Zaikin, who was stationed in Baltiysk, in Russia’s Kaliningrad region, in early 2024. By early May, he had relocated to Syria.

A strategic move

Turkey, the U.S., and other countries have repeatedly accused Russia of interfering in the Libyan conflict, including through the use of Wagner Group mercenaries. Journalistic investigations have confirmed that Russian mercenaries have been present in Libya since at least 2019, and experts say the Kremlin has been supporting Khalifa Haftar since around 2018.

In 2023, Russian officials and Haftar held their first public negotiations since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In August, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-bek Yevkurov met with him in Libya, and in September, Haftar met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Following this, there were multiple media reports of Kremlin plans to build a Russian naval base in Tobruk, Libya (where Russian military cargo arrives from Syria).

In January 2024, shortly before Russia began sending large numbers of troops to the region, Yevkurov visited Libya again. He met with Haftar in Benghazi; Verstka’s sources say that a new Russian military training base is already operating not far from this city. According to Verstka and All Eyes on Wagner’s sources, the Russian contingent in Libya is controlled by four commanders who were previously in Syria. They, in turn, report to Yevkurov.

"I think the Russians are betting on a war inside Tripoli among the militias, so they’re going to shift gears,” said one military source. Another source suggested that the current influx of Russian equipment and the repositioning of troops are intended to supplant Wagner Group forces in Libya and pave the way for further deployments to other African countries.

RUSI’s Jalel Harchaoui noted that an increased presence in Libya aligns with many of Russia’s strategic regional interests. “Libya offers extremely valuable access to the Mediterranean Sea, acts as a southern flank to exert pressure on NATO and the E.U., and strengthens dialogue with other key Arab countries,” he explained. “Importantly, it also serves as a gateway to Sub-Saharan African countries, offering a strategic route to countries like Sudan, Niger, and beyond.”

According to him, cooperating with the Haftar family allows the Kremlin to achieve these goals while minimizing costs. “Roughly speaking, the Haftar family rewards Moscow materially and financially for doing things that are already in its interest,” Harchaoui believes.

The increased military activity in the region may also have something to do with increased pressure for Libya to hold elections. While there have been several attempts to hold elections, plans have often been delayed or disrupted due to escalations in the military conflict. The U.N. has urgently called for elections to be held to prevent the country from sliding further into war.

Timber smuggling, estimated to be worth $23m (£18m) a year, from Mozambique’s ancient forests to China is helping to fund a brutal Islamist insurgency as well as a large criminal network in the north of the southern African country.

This illicit trade in rosewood is linked to the financing of Mozambique’s Islamic-State linked militants, in the northernmost province of Cabo Delgado, according to data seen by the BBC from the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), an NGO that campaigns against alleged environmental crime.

Rosewood is a catch-all trade term for a wide range of tropical hardwoods that are highly prized for luxury furniture in China.

Mozambique’s rosewood is protected under an international treaty, meaning only very limited trade that does not threaten the species is allowed.

However, a four-year undercover investigation by the EIA in both countries has revealed that poor management of officially sanctioned forest concessions, illegal logging and corruption among port officials is allowing the trade to expand unchecked in insurgent-controlled areas.

The revelation comes at the same time as a significant resurgence in fighting in the north of Mozambique. On Friday, at least 100 insurgents staged their boldest attack in three years, on the town of Macomia, which was eventually stopped by the army.

The location of the attack confirms that the insurgency is expanding its area of operations due to the increased presence of soldiers in the worst-affected areas. It “has also gained enough funds to recruit in neighbouring Nampula province further south”, according to Mozambique analyst Joe Hanlon.

A Mozambique government report published earlier this year and seen by the BBC - the National Risk Assessment on Terrorism Finance Report - says the al-Shabab insurgents have taken advantage of the illicit timber trade to “fuel and finance the reproduction of violence”.

The report says the insurgents’ involvement in the “smuggling of fauna and flora products”, including wood, and the “exploitation of forest and wildlife resources” is contributing to a “very high level of fundraising” for the insurgency group. It estimated its revenue from these activities amounted to $1.9m a month.

Given the challenge in accessing the Cabo Delgado region it is hard to quantify the insurgents’ level of day-to-day involvement in the timber trade but there have been reports of firms paying a 10% protection fee to insurgent groups to carry out illegal logging in forest areas.

Forests with valuable trees – not just rosewood - are divided up in to chunks, or concessions. Anyone who wants to log these areas must pay a fee to the authorities. These are typically licensed to a Mozambican national - the middleman - and rented out to Chinese logging firms.

Trading sources who did not want to be named estimate that 30% of the timber logged in Cabo Delgado is at high risk of coming from insurgency-occupied forests.

There are thought to be three main forested areas in Cabo Delgado where logging and timber sales take place: Nairoto; Muidumbe and Mueda, plus one more in Napai, in neighbouring Nampula province.

While the Chinese authorities have made it illegal to log rosewood in their own country, huge quantities continue to be imported.

Rosewood is given a customs code for hongmu (meaning red wood in Chinese) on arrival in the country, which allows researchers to trace it.

Mozambique was China's top African supplier of hongmu wood last year, providing over 20,000 tonnes worth $11.7m, according to Trade Data Monitor, a commercial company that tracks global trade.

It has overtaken other countries like Senegal, Nigeria and Madagascar as their rosewood species have been stripped or depleted, or laws banning exports have been more strictly enforced.

As part of its undercover investigation, the EIA tracked a huge rosewood shipment out of Mozambique.

Between October 2023 and March 2024, investigators traced around 300 containers of a type of rosewood known as pau preto from the port of Beira to China.

Pau preto rosewood, which is found in the north of Mozambique and in Tanzania, is classed as a threatened species on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list.

These 300 containers were transporting 10,000 tonnes of the rosewood. Trader estimates value each container at around $60,000, putting the value of the total shipment at around $18m.

EIA undercover footage seen by the BBC shows some of this specific shipment was also in raw log form - rather than planks that had been processed through sawmills. This breaks Mozambique's own 2017 law on exporting any unprocessed timber.

The containers also held processed planks.

Industry sources say that typically when trees are cut down by loggers in Cabo Delgado’s forests - either at concessions operated largely by Chinese firms, or illegally beyond these boundaries – the timber is taken to be processed at sawmills around Montepuez, a large town in Cabo Delgado.

This timber from multiple sources is then mixed up and moved from the Montepuez mills by trucks to the ports of Pemba or Beira.

At these ports the cargo should be inspected by Mozambican authorities and receive a permit or export licence. But the EIA says the logs are often mis-reported or not declared at all in customs paperwork.

Rosewood transported between Mozambique and China is carried by two of the world’s biggest global shipping lines, Maersk and CMA-CGM, according to the EIA investigation.

A spokesperson from Maersk said in a statement to the BBC that it is “committed to combatting illegal wildlife trade and will not knowingly accept bookings of wildlife or wildlife products, where such trade is contrary to CITES or otherwise illegal. We request our customers to correctly declare the content of their cargo and we are dependent on customs authorities to verify the declarations and certificates. Shipments can only take place against CITES certificates and authority approval.”

The statement explained that it is common in shipping for customers to load and seal their containers before handing them over to the shipping line.

A CMA-CGM spokesperson said it transports goods belonging to customers compliant with local and international regulations and is “not responsible and has no way to control the origin of the goods which are all shipped into sealed containers".

The spokesperson also said that “CMA-CGM does not transport unprocessed wood anymore, and has introduced a rule forbidding the reservation of space on board the group's vessels for unprocessed wood leaving Mozambique”.

Deforestation in Mozambique is continuing apace. The country is losing the equivalent of around 1,000 football pitches of forest cover every day, according to NGO Global Forest Watch.

The trade of rosewood is supposed to be restricted under Cites, yet it has become the most trafficked wildlife product in the world, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. In terms of value, it now far out paces trade in elephant ivory and rhino horn.

Pau preto rosewood is listed on Cites Appendix II, for it to be exported legally the Mozambique government must complete a thorough scientific investigation called a non-detriment funding study (NDF) to ensure trade does not threaten its survival.

The BBC asked the Mozambican representative to Cites Cornelio Miguel, who works for the National Administration of Conservation Areas, if an NDF on pau preto had ever been carried out. He did not provide a comment.

Without this assessment, any trade violates the international treaty. China, as a signatory, would be breaking the treaty’s terms in accepting non-compliant imports.

The BBC contacted some of the Chinese trading firms cited in the EIA report, but none were willing to comment on whether they were being supplied with timber from Mozambique.

For environmentalists like Dr Annah Lake Zhu from Wageningen University, this treaty can only ever be as robust as the governments enforcing it. She believes sustainable management of the rosewood trade needs a total rethink.

Dr Zhu says the treaty does not halt the insatiable demand from China’s elite for hongmu furniture.

She suggests the process of listing specific species before they are more tightly regulated may even be driving market dynamics as it “effectively advertises upcoming shortages” and in turn, creating scarcity.

Strengthening the law and bringing in a more sophisticated tracing system would improve the situation. But in practice, conserving rosewood can only work if source countries and timber dealers make it a priority.

In conflict zones such as Cabo Delgado this looks unlikely to happen.

In many ways Cabo Delgado is the “perfect place” for an illicit timber trade to blossom, says EIA Africa programme manager Raphael Edou. He describes the province as a nexus of trade routes, with a mix of lawlessness, corruption, and a desperately poor local population.

Aside from being home to some of the world’s most valuable trees, Cabo Delgado has other lucrative sources of wealth within its borders, including oil, natural gas, rubies, and sapphires.

These treasures pull in huge global investors such as the French energy firm, Total, which has built a $20bn gas liquification plant.

Fabergé jewellery brand owner, Gemfields Group, owns 75% of the Montepuez ruby mine in Cabo Delgado. In 2023, its revenue was $167m.

Insurgent activity in the province has led to one of Africa’s most significant displacement crises, with more than a million people forced to leave their homes.

The insurgents target civilians, carrying out massacres, beheadings, rapes and kidnappings. Houses and whole villages have been bombed and burned.

The violence has destabilised most of Cabo Delgado for almost a decade prompting the government to rely on foreign troops to police the province.

The authorities are struggling to reinforce laws designed to protect Cabo Delgado’s most vulnerable people, let alone those designed to protect its environment and forests.

Here is the video (Twitter link, 26 sec)

A video claiming to show a Chinese man whipping African workers has gained massive traction on social media. In the accompanying caption, journalist Dom Lucre, who shared the video on X, wrote the employees are being treated like "trans-Atlantic slaves". In the clip, the employees are sitting in what looks like a container and the Chinese man is yelling at them. He then takes out a stick and starts mercilessly beating the workers who cover their heads to avoid any serious injury.

Mr Lucre has said in the caption that Chinese are "far more racist than the White man in Africa".

"Everyone rails against America while completely ignoring the human rights abuses going on all over the world," commented one user. "Every race has owned slaves, and every race has evil people among them. It's time for all the good people, who make up the majority in each race, to stand together against those in all races who are evil," said another.

"You don't beat your employees and those are just boys. It is sick and disgusting!" a third user said.

This is not the first time that such incidents have been reported. In April last year, news agency ANI carried a report that highlighted the ill treatment of African workers by Chinese project managers.

Quoting Geneva Daily, the news agency said that local workers in Africa are abused and forcefully made to work under dire conditions and given wages that are way below contract pay.

The report also said that these employees are often made to work for long hours.

In 2022, a court in the central African country of Rwanda sentenced Chinese man Sun Shujun to 20 years in jail after a video of him whipping a worker spread across the internet.

The case angered many Africans. Following the decision, the Chinese embassy in the Rwandan capital of Kigali made a rare statement. It warned its citizens in Rwanda to follow local laws.

A year before that, a Kenyan worker was awarded more than $25,000 by a court after he was beaten by his Chinese restaurant employer.

China has cultivated trade partnership with African nations, which are known for their rich mineral resources.

Wanjira Mathai, the managing director for Africa and global partnerships at the World Resources Institute thinktank, said much more of what the continent produced must be processed and made use of close to where it is produced, if the world is to shift to a low-carbon footing.

Africa’s vast resources are vital to the global economy, in sectors spanning agriculture, forestry and fisheries to minerals and metals. But most of these are extracted to be processed and turned into finished products elsewhere, sometimes with dire environmental consequences.

Products such as cobalt, copper and gold are used in increasing quantities in renewable energy production and low-carbon technology such as electric vehicles. But if the processing is nearly all done overseas, few of the economic and social benefits will come to Africans themselves, said Mathai.

Financing for EACOP is yet to be secured, but if it is and the project moves forward, a 1,443km (897-mile) pipeline will stretch from oil fields in western Uganda to the port of Tanga in eastern Tanzania.

The project’s completion would not only contribute to increased greenhouse gas emissions which fuel climate change but also harm local communities. That is why, Human Rights Watch is calling on insurance firms to stop providing support for it.

The pipeline is planned to traverse some of Africa’s most sensitive ecosystems, including Murchison Falls National Park and the Murchison Falls-Albert Delta Ramsar site. Pipeline ruptures, inadequate waste handling, and other pollution impacts would cause significant damage to the land, water, air and the species that rely on them.

Nigerian troops have rescued a pregnant woman and her three children 10 years after she was abducted by Boko Haram militants when she was a schoolgirl in the town of Chibok.

Lydia Simon was rescued in Gwoza council area, about 95 miles (150km) east of Chibok, from where 276 schoolgirls were seized in April 2014. As many as 82 are still missing a decade after the high-profile mass kidnapping.

Announcing the news on Thursday, the Nigerian army did not give details of the rescue other than to say Simon was found in the community of Ngoshe.

Cross posted from: https://feddit.de/post/11211250

Scientists from Mali, Burkina Faso, Mozambique, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United States and the United Kingdom collaborated to assess to what extent human-induced climate change altered the likelihood and intensity of the extreme heat across the Sahel.

The recent heatwave coincided with Ramadan (fasting) and power cuts, which compounded the risk for vulnerable groups and even those not traditionally considered vulnerable, the scientists say.

Even minimum temperatures, overnight, remained relatively high, making it so that people did not get a break from the heat. The power cuts further made it difficult for those who did have access to mechanical cooling to use it, thus reducing their coping capacity.

Even in today’s climate, that has warmed by 1.2°C since pre-industrial times due to human activities, the extreme heat observed over the Mali/Burkina Faso region is still rare. While the daily temperatures were extreme, with a return time of about 100 years, the 5-day maximum temperatures were particularly unusual with a return time of 200 years. Minimum temperatures were less extreme but still rare with a return time of 20 years over Mali/Burkina Faso. For the Sahel region the return time of the 5-day maximum temperatures are 30 years.

Critical infrastructure such as electricity, water, and healthcare systems needs to be strengthened to adapt to the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme heat, requiring increased investment to ensure reliable access and service delivery.

[Edit typo.]