NIGER: With tens of thousands of migrants flooding into the desert city of Agadez en route to Europe, Africa’s smuggling capital enjoyed a surge in business which boosted the local economy.
But a government ban on the transportation of migrants has hit business badly, leaving disgruntled locals out of pocket.
“It’s as if you smacked a child without saying what it had done wrong,” explains Issouf Maha, mayor of Tchirozerine, a town in central Niger which lies on the edge of the Sahara, just north of Agadez.
In May 2015, the government in Niamey adopted a law banning the illegal trafficking of migrants with those found guilty facing a prison sentence of between one and 30 years, and fines of up to 30 million CFA francs (45,000 euros/$51,000).
It was only in August 2016 that the government began “rigorously” applying it, Interior Minister Mohamed Bazoum told AFP.
Since then, “more than 100 people smugglers” have been arrested, around a hundred vehicles seized and “nearly 7,000 migrants” brought back to Agadez, Bazoum said, indicating the importance of cracking down on all forms of smuggling.
“All trafficking is interlinked” whether it be in migrants, weapons or drugs, he said.
As a result of the crackdown, both smugglers and fixers have found themselves at a loose end.
But it’s not only them: shops, banks and lorry drivers are also feeling the absence of the thousands of migrants who, despite their extreme poverty, have stimulated the economy in this impoverished desert city that is a key transit point for those heading to Europe.
“Me, I just help one of the fixers. Now the police are calling us ‘accomplices’,” says Achama Akomili, 35, describing the criminalization of an activity which only three months ago was legal.
“Before I was earning a good living. I paid my rent through the migrants and the fixers. With that I could feed my wife and help my family. At the moment, it’s not going well.
“We carry on because there’s no other work. We’ve got no choice. Before I was earning between 30,000-40,000 CFA francs per day (45-60 euros).
“But now, I can go a whole week without earning anything,” he complains.
And one day soon, he himself might have to join “the exodus” heading north, Akomili says.
Taher Soufiane, who has been driving migrants to the border since 2013, is also at a loose end after being arrested on the road with around 20 people in the back of his pick-up truck.
“We didn’t know it was forbidden,” says this 29-year-old father-of-three.
After several days in jail, he appeared before a judge and was released. But he’s not clear whether it’s a provisional release before a trial or whether he’s been handed a suspended sentence.
“They just told me that if I do it again, I will go to prison for a long time. They took my car and my work and now I just sit around all day,” he complains.
“Why is Europe banning this without giving us anything?“
In the market, trader Issouf Halidou says he too has seen his business hit by the crackdown on people smuggling.
“I’m not selling anything any more. Business is at a standstill,” he grumbles.
His stall is packed with all the paraphernalia sought by migrants taking the long desert journey north: for 500 CFA francs (75 centimes, 85 cents), you can buy a small water bottle, gloves, a balaclava and sunglasses.
For a little more, there is also food: milk for about 2.0 euros, cassava for 1.50 and sugar for 90 centimes. But now he doesn’t know what to do with his stock.
The banks are also quiet, the walls covered with ads for money transfer services — MoneyGram, Western Union, Allzza and others — giving just a brief glimpse of multiple transfers they once handled.
“Before there was always a queue in front of the banks. There might be more than 300 migrants a day going into a branch! Today there’s no one or nearly no one,” said one bank employee, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“It’s hard to know exactly what the shortfall is but there’s definitely an impact, that’s for sure. It’s a loss for the region,” he told AFP, saying the banks would likely start making staff redundant if the ban wasn’t lifted.
The government is aware of the problems.
“The criticism is well founded,” admits Interior Minister Bazoum.
“Taking into account the scope of trafficking in illegal migrants, a whole economy grew up around it which provided a living for many people.
“There is a need and we have committed to developing an alternative to this criminal economy.”
Backed by Europe, Niger embarked on a 460-million-euro program to address “all spheres of activity,” Bazoum said, indicating that it would address both economic and security issues.
But not much of it is likely to make an impact in Agadez.
“When are we going to see the money that Europe has given? There are all these meetings but there’s never anything for us. We have women and children to feed and we’re waiting,” complained Abdoulaye Alora, a 45-year-old fixer.
For the Tchirozerine mayor, the fear is that the ban on transporting migrants will push those desperate for work into the arms of other criminal groups, such as those trading in cocaine, weapons or stolen cars.
One observer dismissed the European support as meaningless in the effort to cut back migrant flows.
“We should be treating the symptoms and not the causes. As long as there’s more than 50 percent unemployment among young people in African countries, there will be migrants traveling through Agadez and other places.”
From boom to bust: crackdown takes toll on Niger smuggling hub
From boom to bust: crackdown takes toll on Niger smuggling hub
’‘Mr Satan’ charged with Trump assassination threat, Justice Department says
- Officials said Shawn Monper was detained and charged with “making threats to assault and murder” Trump and other US officials
- Monper is coincidentally from Butler, Pennsylvania where Trump was nearly assassinated during a campaign rally in July 2024
WASHINGTON: A US man posting content online as “Mr Satan” has been charged with threatening to assassinate President Donald Trump and other government officials, the Department of Justice announced Friday.
Shawn Monper, 32, was detained and charged in a federal criminal complaint with “making threats to assault and murder” Trump and other US officials, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.
In a statement, the DOJ said the FBI received an emergency message about threats posted on YouTube by a user who identified himself as “Mr Satan,” whose Internet activity was determined to correspond with Monper’s residence.
Monper is coincidentally from Butler, Pennsylvania where Trump was nearly assassinated during a campaign rally in July.
Shortly after Trump’s inauguration in January, Monper obtained a firearms permit and commented from his account that he had “bought several guns and been stocking up on ammo since Trump got in office,” the DOJ said.
On February 17 he wrote: “Nah, we just need to start killing people, Trump, Elon, all the heads of agencies Trump appointed, and anyone who stands in the way,” referring to Trump’s billionaire adviser Elon Musk.
“Remember, we are the majority, MAGA is a minority of the country, and by the time its time to make the move, they will be weakened, many will be crushed by these policies, and they will want revenge too. American Revolution 2.0,” he said, according to the DOJ.
Then on March 4, in a YouTube video titled “Live: Trump’s address to Congress,” Monper said he was “going to assassinate him myself,” the DOJ added.
Monper hails from Butler township, scene of a shooting last July 13 that nearly took Trump’s life, when a would-be assassin’s bullet grazed the Republican’s ear at an outdoor campaign rally. One person was killed and three were injured.
“Rest assured that whenever and wherever threats of assassination or mass violence occur, this Department of Justice will find, arrest, and prosecute the suspect to the fullest extent of the law and seek the maximum appropriate punishment,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in the statement.
A detention hearing is scheduled for April 14.
China retaliates again in Trump’s trade war, prompting flight from US assets
- Bond prices fall, dollar weakens, gold hits record high as stand up to US ‘bullying’
- Stocks recover but inflation and recession fears persist
BEIJING/WASHINGTON/LONDON: Beijing increased its tariffs on US imports to 125 percent on Friday, hitting back against President Donald Trump’s decision to raise duties on Chinese goods and upping the stakes in a trade war that threatens to upend global supply chains.
The retaliation intensified global economic turmoil unleashed by Trump’s tariffs. US stocks ended a volatile week higher, but the safe haven of gold hit a record high during the session and benchmark US 10-year government bond yields posted their biggest weekly increase since 2001 alongside a slump in the dollar, signaling a lack of confidence in America Inc.
One US survey of consumers showed inflation fears have mounted to their highest since 1981, while financial institutions have been forecasting an ever greater risk of recession.
Trump downplayed the market turbulence, predicting the dollar would strengthen and saying many tariffs could settle in around 10 percent once the United States cut trade deals with all the countries that want to negotiate.
“When people understand what we’re doing, I think the dollar will go way up,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One late on Friday. “The bond market’s going good. It had a little moment but I solved that problem very quickly.”
The White House has said more than 75 countries have sought negotiations and that future deals would bring certainty.
India and Japan are among the powers to have advanced toward trade talks, but generally foreign leaders have puzzled over how to respond to the biggest disruption to the world trade order in decades.
The tit-for-tat tariff increases by the US and China stand to make goods trade between the world’s two largest economies impossible, analysts say. That commerce was worth more than $650 billion in 2024.
“The president made it very clear: When the United States is punched, he will punch back harder,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Friday.
The dollar slid and a sell-off intensified in US Treasuries, the world’s biggest bond market, as gold climbed.
With the dollar weakening, selling of US assets was perhaps most exemplified by t
The price decline in the US 10-year Treasury note. decline drove its yield — which moves opposite to the price and is critical for determining interest rates on mortgages — to a two-month high. On the week, its yield has climbed nearly half a percentage point.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is closely monitoring the bond market, Leavitt said.
A second day of data on US inflation showed price pressures were not yet building broadly across the US economy, although the Producer Price Index for March did show industrial metals prices rising due to import levies on things like steel and aluminum, in place for a month now.
“Tarifflation will be much more important for the outlook than backward-looking data,” said Bill Adams, chief economist at Comerica Bank. “If tariffs stay in place they will push inflation considerably higher in coming months.”
The University of Michigan said its Consumer Sentiment Index dropped to 50.8 this month from 57.0 in March. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the index falling to 54.5.
In a reversal of previous surveys, the latest one also showed weakening confidence among Trump’s fellow Republicans.
Consumers’ 12-month inflation expectations soared to 6.7 percent this month, the highest since 1981, from 5.0 percent in March, according to the survey.
Trade war with China
This week, Trump announced a 90-day tariff pause on dozens of countries while ratcheting up tariffs on Chinese imports effectively to 145 percent.
China retaliated with more tariffs on Friday. China’s finance ministry called Trump’s tariffs “completely unilateral bullying and coercion.”
Beijing indicated this would be the last time it matched US tariff rises but left the door open for other types of retaliation.
“If the US truly wants to have talks, it should stop its capricious and destructive behavior,” Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in the US, wrote on social media. “China will never bow to maximum pressure of the US“
UBS analysts in a note called China’s declaration “an acknowledgement that trade between the two countries has essentially been completely severed.”
Leavitt, in turn, delivered a warning to Beijing: “If China continues to retaliate, it’s not good for China.”
On Thursday, Trump told reporters he thought the US could make a deal with China and he respected Chinese President Xi Jinping. On Friday, Xi made his first public remarks on Trump’s tariffs, telling Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez in Beijing that China and the European Union should “jointly oppose unilateral acts of bullying.”
US senators ask SEC for Trump insider trading probe
- Trump posted on his website Truth Social early Wednesday that “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!” as stock markets were tanking
- A few hours later, Trump announced a 90-day suspension of additional tariffs against some countries, triggering a historic stock market rebound
WASHINGTON: A group of US senators on Friday urged the government’s markets watchdog to investigate whether President Donald Trump or White House insiders broke securities laws ahead of his dramatic reversal on global tariffs.
The six Democrats — led by Massachusetts progressive Elizabeth Warren — noted in a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that Trump posted on his website Truth Social early Wednesday that “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!” as stock markets were tanking.
A few hours later, Trump announced a 90-day suspension of additional tariffs against dozens of countries, triggering a historic stock market rebound and the best day for the S&P 500 since the recovery from the 2008 financial crisis.
“We urge the SEC to investigate whether the tariff announcements... enriched administration insiders and friends at the expense of the American public,” senators wrote in a letter to regulators at the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The letter urged the SEC to probe whether “any insiders, including the president’s family, had prior knowledge of the tariff pause that they abused to make stock trades ahead of the president’s announcement.”
Trump signed his Truth Social post with the letters “DJT” — both his initials and the stock market abbreviation for his media company, Trump Media & Technology Group.
The company’s shares closed up 21.67 percent on Wednesday.
“Corruption and lawlessness”
The senators called on the SEC to investigate whether the president, his donors or other insiders had engaged in market manipulation, insider trading or other violations of securities laws.
SEC chairman Paul Atkins has history with Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, who has accused him of having conflicts of interest over his ties to the financial services industry.
Atkins is not obliged to do what the senators ask, and four of the group followed up with a second letter to the National Association of Attorneys General asking for state-level investigations.
“Corruption and lawlessness have become a calling card of the Trump administration,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, one of the signatories of both letters.
The demand for action came amid concern over the growing number of avenues through which Trump and his family can monetize the power of the presidency, although no evidence of corruption had emerged.
Days before his inauguration, Trump released a “memecoin” — a digital cryptocurrency token with no inherent value — opening the door for secret donations from foreign buyers.
“Now anyone in world can essentially deposit money into bank account of President of USA with a couple clicks,” his former aide Anthony Scaramucci posted on social media after the launch.
“Every favor — geopolitical, corporate or personal — is now on sale, right out in the open.”
The White House told The Washington Post that Trump’s Truth Social post sought only to “reassure” the public and that he had a responsibility to “reassure markets and Americans about their economic security.”
US prosecutors seek release of ex-FBI informant who admitted fabricating claims against Biden
- The move is the latest by the Trump administration to reverse cases against supporters of President Trump or those who aided conservative causes
- Smirnov pleaded guilty in December to fabricating bribery claims against former President Joe Biden and his son Hunter
WASHINGTON: US prosecutors plan to review the case of a former FBI informant who admitted to fabricating bribery claims against former President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, according to a court filing on Friday.
The disclosure came as prosecutors, together with defense lawyers for the informant, Alexander Smirnov, asked a federal judge to release him from prison while he appeals a six-year prison sentence.
“The United States intends to review the government’s theory of the case underlying Defendant’s criminal conviction,” prosecutors wrote in a filing in Los Angeles federal court.
The move is the latest by the US Justice Department during the Trump administration to review or dismiss cases against supporters of President Donald Trump or those who aided conservative causes.
Smirnov pleaded guilty in December to causing the creation of a false record after falsely telling his FBI handler years earlier that he had knowledge of bribes paid by executives at a Ukrainian energy company to Joe and Hunter Biden. He also admitted to tax evasion.
Smirnov’s claims, documented in an FBI record, briefly became the focus of a Republican-led impeachment investigation into Joe Biden that was later abandoned.
The case was brought by former Special Counsel David Weiss, who separately indicted Hunter Biden on tax and gun crimes. Joe Biden later issued a sweeping pardon for his son.
In seeking his release, prosecutors agreed that Smirnov was not likely to flee or pose a threat to public safety. His travel would be limited largely to Nevada, where he lived, according to the filing. It is not clear how the Justice Department review could impact the case. Smirnov already struck a plea agreement with prosecutors.
His appeal has so far been limited to arguing that his time spent in pretrial detention should count toward his six-year sentence.
Chinese nationals fighting for Russia in Ukraine are mercenaries, US officials say
- Ukrainian forces had captured two men of Chinese origin in eastern Ukraine, says commander of US forces in the Indo-Pacific
- The mercenaries have no link to the Chinese government, but China had provided Moscow with material support for its war against Ukraine
WASHINGTON: More than 100 Chinese citizens fighting for the Russian military against Ukraine are mercenaries who do not appear to have a direct link to China’s government, two US officials familiar with American intelligence and a former Western intelligence official said.
Chinese military officers have, however, been in the theater behind Russia’s lines with Beijing’s approval to draw tactical lessons from the war, the former official told Reuters.
The head of US forces in the Indo-Pacific, Admiral Samuel Paparo, confirmed on Wednesday that Ukrainian forces had captured two men of Chinese origin in eastern Ukraine after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his country had information about 155 Chinese citizens fighting there on Russia’s behalf.
China, which has declared a “no-limits” partnership with Russia and has refrained from criticizing Moscow’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, had called Zelensky’s remarks “irresponsible” and said China was not a party to the war.
The US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Chinese fighters appear to have minimal training and are not having any discernable impact on Russia’s military operations.
The CIA, the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the National Security Council, as well as China’s embassy in Washington, did not respond immediately to requests for comment.
The former Western intelligence official with knowledge of the issue told Reuters there were about 200 Chinese mercenaries fighting for Russia with whom the Chinese government has no link.
But Chinese military officers have, with Beijing’s approval, been touring close to Russia’s frontlines to draw lessons and tactics from the war. The officers “are absolutely there under approval,” the former official said.
China has for years provided Moscow with material support to help aid its war against Ukraine, primarily in the shipment of dual-use products – components needed to maintain weapons such as drones and tanks.
Beijing has also supplied Russia with lethal drones to use on the battlefield. In October, the Biden administration sanctioned for the first time two Chinese companies for providing the weapons systems to Moscow.
Volunteers from Western countries, including the US, have been fighting for Ukraine since the early days of the war, and North Korea has deployed more than 12,000 troops to support Russian forces, thousands of whom have been killed or injured in combat.
