JOHANNESBURG: The African Union (AU) has suspended Niger from all its activities following the military coup there and told its members to avoid any action that might legitimize the junta.
The coup last month has caused alarm among Western allies and democratic African states who fear it could allow Islamist groups active in the Sahel region to expand their reach, and give Russia a foothold to increase its influence.
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has been trying to negotiate with the junta but says it is ready to send troops into Niger to restore constitutional order if diplomatic efforts fail.
The AU Peace and Security Council said in a communique on Tuesday that it had noted ECOWAS’ decision to activate a standby force and asked the AU Commission to assess the economic, social, and security implications of deploying such a force.
It also said it had asked the AU Commission to compile a list of members of the military junta and their supporters for targeted sanctions and “the application of individual punitive measures.”
The resolutions in Tuesday’s statement were adopted at a council meeting held on Aug. 14, it said.
ECOWAS has already imposed broad sanctions on Niger, which the AU endorsed.
The AU reiterated calls for the coup leaders to immediately release elected President Mohamed Bazoum, who has been detained since the coup, and return to their barracks.
The junta has resisted pressure to stand down and proposed a three-year timeline to organize elections, a plan which ECOWAS rejected. The bloc may send another mediation mission to Niger, ECOWAS Commissioner Abdel-Fatau Musah said on Monday.
The ECOWAS Parliament, one of the regional bloc’s institutions, is against sending in troops, said Ali Ndume, a representative from Nigeria.
“Our stand is informed by the grave implications of a military intervention in Niger. (There is) no alternative to diplomatic solution,” he told journalists in Abuja on Tuesday, following a parliamentary meeting on Niger the night before.
Regional leaders have taken a hard line on Niger, trying to show that they meant it when they said coups would no longer be tolerated in the region. Niger’s coup is the seventh in West and Central Africa since 2020.
The country has strategic significance as a base for US and French troops helping fight Islamist militant groups in the region, and as one of the world’s biggest producers of uranium.
Algerian state radio said late on Monday that Algeria had refused a French request to fly over its airspace for a military operation in Niger. France denied making any such request. It was not clear what type of operation Algeria referred to.
The AU said it strongly rejected any external interference in the situation by any actor or country outside of Africa, including engagements by private military companies — a likely reference to Russian mercenary group Wagner, which is active in neighboring Mali.
Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin has welcomed the coup and on Monday posted a video in which he appeared to be in Africa, promoting Wagner’s activities there.
African Union suspends Niger over coup, prepares sanctions
https://arab.news/pj7nr
African Union suspends Niger over coup, prepares sanctions
- The AU Peace and Security Council said in a communique on Tuesday that it had noted ECOWAS’ decision to activate a standby force
- It also said it had asked the AU Commission to compile a list of members of the military junta and their supporters for targeted sanctions
Macron to visit Greenland to show European support for the strategic Arctic island coveted by Trump
Macron’s visit on Sunday comes just ahead a meeting of the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations next week in Canada that will be attended by both Macron and Trump.
The French president’s office said the trip to Greenland is a reminder that Paris supports principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity and the inviolability of borders as enshrined in the UN charter.
Macron is also to meet with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen.
Macron mentioned Greenland last week in his opening speech at the UN Ocean Conference, saying it isn’t “up for grabs” in remarks that appeared directed largely at Trump.
“The deep seas are not for sale, nor is Greenland up for grabs, nor are the Arctic or the high seas for sale, nor are fishing licenses in developing countries up for grabs, nor are scientific data and the security of coastal populations to be sacrificed,″ Macron said at the summit in Nice, France.
Macron’s role in Europe
Macron in recent months has sought to reinvigorate France’s role as the diplomatic and economic heavyweight of the 27-nation European Union.
The French president has positioned himself as a leader in Europe amid Trump’s threats to pull support from Ukraine as it fights against Russia’s invasion. Macron hosted a summit in Paris with other European heads of state to discuss Kyiv, as well as security issues on the continent.
Sunday’s visit will also be the occasion to discuss how to further enhance relations between the EU and Greenland when it comes to economic development, low-carbon energy transition and critical minerals. The leaders will also have exchanges on efforts to curb global warming, according to Macron’s office.
A meeting between Macron, Frederiksen and Nielsen will take place on a Danish helicopter carrier, showing France’s concerns over security issues in the region, Macron’s office said.
Trump and Greenland
Last week, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appeared to acknowledge that the Pentagon has developed plans to take over Greenland and Panama by force if necessary but refused to answer repeated questions during a hotly combative congressional hearing Thursday about his use of Signal chats to discuss military operations.
Hegseth’s comments were the latest controversial remarks made by a member of the Trump administration about the Arctic island. The president himself has said he won’t rule out military force to take over Greenland, which he considers vital to American security in the high north.
The Wall Street Journal last month reported that several high-ranking officials under the US director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, had directed intelligence agency heads to learn more about Greenland’s independence movement and sentiment about US resource extraction there.
Nielsen in April said that US statements about the island have been disrespectful and that Greenland “will never, ever be a piece of property that can be bought by just anyone.”
Woman arrested over alleged links to Colombia presidential candidate shooting
- The alleged shooter, a 15-year-old boy, and an accomplice who was accused of participating in the “logistics” of the attack had already been arrested
BOGOTA: A woman arrested Saturday in southern Colombia was suspected of being involved in the attempted murder of presidential candidate Miguel Uribe, police said.
Uribe, a 39-year-old conservative senator, was shot twice in the head and once in the leg while giving a speech in a park on June 7 in western Bogota.
The alleged shooter, a 15-year-old boy, and an accomplice who was accused of participating in the “logistics” of the attack had already been arrested.
On Saturday, a police source informed AFP of a woman — suspected of having links to the attack — who was arrested in the Amazon region of Caqueta.
“In the next few hours, they will transfer her to Bogota,” the police source said, without providing further details.
The other two detainees, heavily guarded in a prosecutor’s bunker, are accused of homicide and carrying weapons.
The minor, identified as the alleged gunman, pleaded not guilty to the charges on Tuesday.
According to a report Saturday in Colombian magazine Semana, he said he was offered 20 million pesos (more than $4,800) to kill the politician.
The newspaper El Tiempo also reported that one of the accused named a criminal who lives in Ecuador and controls a drug dealing area in Bogota as the alleged mastermind.
Uribe remained hospitalized in intensive care, though he showed some signs of improvement this past week, doctors said Wednesday.
President Gustavo Petro said the senator’s improving health “cannot be explained by science.”
“He should be dead... and what’s happening is that he’s recovering,” Petro said Saturday.
Uribe’s party, the opposition Democratic Center, temporarily suspended its campaign events for the 2026 presidential elections on Friday.
Uribe has been a strong critic of Petro, Colombia’s first left-wing president, who sought in vain to make peace with the country’s various remaining armed groups.
Guinea’s military junta sets up up election body for December vote
- Guinea is one of several West African countries where the military has taken power and delayed a return to civilian rule
DAKAR, Senegal: Guinea’s military junta has created a new institution that will be responsible for managing elections, including a constitutional referendum in September and the general and presidential elections set for December.
Guinea is one of several West African countries where the military has taken power and delayed a return to civilian rule. Gen. Mamadi Doumbouya, in power since 2021, agreed in 2022 to launch a democratic transition after a Dec. 31, 2024, deadline.
The ruling junta’s failure to meet the deadline led to opposition protests that paralyzed Guinea’s capital Conakry in January.
The Directorate General of Elections, or DGE, will be responsible, among other duties, for organizing elections, managing the electoral register and ensuring electoral fairness, junta leader Doumbouya announced in a decree read on state television late Saturday.
The two heads of the institution will be appointed by presidential decree, he added. The DGE will also represent Guinea in sub-regional, regional, and international electoral bodies.
Last month, Prime Minister Amadou Oury Bah said the general and presidential elections will take place in December 2025. He also confirmed the organization of a referendum to adopt a new constitution on Sept. 21, as announced by the junta in April.
There are concerns about the credibility of the elections. The military regime dissolved more than 50 political parties last year in a move it claimed was to “clean up the political chessboard.”
It has also tightened the grip on independent media, rights groups say, with social networks and private radio stations often cut off and information sites interrupted or suspended for several months without explanation, while journalists face attacks and arrests.
‘This is a culture’: TikTok murder highlights Pakistan’s unease with women online
- Sana Yousaf was shot dead outside her house in the capital Islamabad by a man whose advances she had repeatedly rejected
- Violence against women is pervasive in Pakistan, according to the country’s Human Rights Commission
ISLAMABAD: Since seeing thousands of comments justifying the recent murder of a teenage TikTok star in Pakistan, Sunaina Bukhari is considering abandoning her 88,000 followers.
“In my family, it wasn’t an accepted profession at all, but I’d managed to convince them, and even ended up setting up my own business,” she said.
Then last week, Sana Yousaf was shot dead outside her house in the capital Islamabad by a man whose advances she had repeatedly rejected, police said.
News of the murder led to an outpouring of comments under her final post — her 17th birthday celebration where she blew out the candles on a cake.
In between condolence messages, some blamed her for her own death: “You reap what you sow” or “it’s deserved, she was tarnishing Islam.”
Yousaf had racked up more than a million followers on social media, where she shared her favorite cafes, skincare products and traditional shalwar kameez outfits.
TikTok is wildly popular in Pakistan, in part because of its accessibility to a population with low literacy levels. On it, women have found both audience and income, rare in a country where fewer than a quarter of the women participate in the formal economy.
But as TikTok’s views have surged, so have efforts to police the platform.
Pakistani telecommunications authorities have repeatedly blocked or threatened to block the app over what it calls “immoral behavior,” amid backlash against LGBTQ and sexual content.
TikTok has pledged to better moderate content and blocked millions of videos that do not meet its community guidelines as well as at the request of Pakistan authorities.
After Yousaf’s murder, Bukhari, 28, said her family no longer backs her involvement in the industry.
“I’m the first influencer in my family, and maybe the last,” she said.
Only 30 percent of women in Pakistan own a smartphone compared to twice as many men (58 percent), the largest gap in the world, according to the Mobile Gender Gap Report of 2025.
“Friends and family often discourage them from using social media for fear of being judged,” said a statement from the Digital Rights Foundation (DRF).
In southwestern Balochistan, where tribal law governs many rural areas, a man confessed to orchestrating the murder of his 14-year-old daughter earlier this year over TikTok videos that he said compromised her honor.
In October, police in Karachi, in the south, announced the arrest of a man who had killed four women relatives over “indecent” TikTok videos.
These murders each revive memories of Qandeel Baloch, dubbed Pakistan’s Kim Kardashian and one of the country’s first breakout social media stars whose videos shot her to fame.
After years in the spotlight, she was suffocated by her brother.
Violence against women is pervasive in Pakistan, according to the country’s Human Rights Commission, and cases of women being attacked after rejecting men are not uncommon.
“This isn’t one crazy man, this is a culture,” said Kanwal Ahmed, who leads a closed Facebook group of 300,000 women to share advice.
“Every woman in Pakistan knows this fear. Whether she’s on TikTok or has a private Instagram with 50 followers, men show up. In her DMs. In her comments. On her street,” she wrote in a post.
In the fifth-most-populous country in the world, where 60 percent of the population is under the age of 30, the director of digital rights organization Bolo Bhi, Usama Khilji, says “many women don’t post their profile picture, but a flower, an object, very rarely their face.”
“The misogyny and the patriarchy that is prevalent in this society is reflected on the online spaces,” he added.
A 22-year-old man was arrested over Yousaf’s murder and is due to appear in court next week.
At a vigil in the capital last week, around 80 men and women gathered, holding placards that read “no means no.”
“Social media has given us a voice, but the opposing voices are louder,” said Hira, a young woman who joined the gathering.
The capital’s police chief, Syed Ali Nasir Rizvi, used a press conference to send a “clear message” to the public.
“If our sisters or daughters want to become influencers, professionally or as amateurs, we must encourage them,” he said.
US-China trade truce leaves military-use rare earth issue unresolved, sources say
- China dominates global production of rare earths and holds a virtual monopoly on refining and processing
BEIJING/SINGAPORE: The renewed US-China trade truce struck in London left a key area of export restrictions tied to national security untouched, an unresolved conflict that threatens a more comprehensive deal, two people briefed on detailed outcomes of the talks told Reuters.
Beijing has not committed to grant export clearance for some specialized rare-earth magnets that US military suppliers need for fighter jets and missile systems, the people said. The United States maintains export curbs on China’s purchases of advanced artificial intelligence chips out of concern that they also have military applications.
At talks in London last week, China’s negotiators appeared to link progress in lifting export controls on military-use rare earth magnets with the longstanding US curbs on exports of the most advanced AI chips to China. That marked a new twist in trade talks that began with opioid trafficking, tariff rates and China’s trade surplus, but have since shifted to focus on export controls.
In addition, US officials also signalled they are looking to extend existing tariffs on China for a further 90 days beyond the August 10 deadline agreed in Geneva last month, both sources said, suggesting a more permanent trade deal between the world’s two largest economies is unlikely before then.
The two people who spoke to Reuters about the London talks requested not to be named because both sides have tightly controlled disclosure. The White House, State Department and Department of Commerce did not immediately respond to requests for comment. China’s Foreign and Commerce ministries did not respond to faxed requests for comment.
President Donald Trump said on Wednesday the handshake deal reached in London between American and Chinese negotiators was a “great deal,” adding, “we have everything we need, and we’re going to do very well with it. And hopefully they are too.”
And US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said there would be no “quid pro quo” on easing curbs on exports of AI chips to China in exchange for access to rare earths.
CHINA CHOKEHOLD
But China’s chokehold on the rare earth magnets needed for weapons systems remains a potential flashpoint.
China dominates global production of rare earths and holds a virtual monopoly on refining and processing.
A deal reached in Geneva last month to reduce bilateral tariffs from crushing triple-digit levels had faltered over Beijing’s restrictions on critical minerals exports that took shape in April.
That prompted the Trump administration to respond with export controls preventing shipments of semiconductor design software, jet engines for Chinese-made planes and other goods to China.
At the London talks, China promised to fast-track approval of rare-earth export applications from non-military US manufacturers out of the tens of thousands currently pending, one of the sources said. Those licenses will have a six-month term. Beijing also offered to set up a “green channel” for expediting license approvals from trusted US companies.
Initial signals were positive, with Chinese rare-earths magnet producer JL MAG Rare-Earth, saying on Wednesday it had obtained export licenses that included the United States, while China’s Commerce Ministry confirmed it had approved some “compliant applications” for export licenses.
But China has not budged on specialized rare earths, including samarium, which are needed for military applications and are outside the fast-track agreed in London, the two people said. Automakers and other manufacturers largely need other rare earth magnets, including dysprosium and terbium.
BIG ISSUES REMAIN
The rushed trade meeting in London followed a call last week between Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Trump said US tariffs would be set at 55 percent for China, while China had agreed to 10 percent from the United States.
Trump initially imposed tariffs on China as punishment for its massive trade surplus to the United States and over what he says is Beijing’s failure to stem the flow of the powerful opioid fentanyl into the US
Chinese analysts are pessimistic about the likelihood of further breakthroughs before the August 10 deadline agreed in Geneva.
“Temporary mutual accommodation of some concerns is possible but the fundamental issue of the trade imbalance cannot be resolved within this timeframe, and possibly during Trump’s remaining term,” said Liu Weidong, a US-China expert at the Institute of American Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
An extension of the August deadline could allow the Trump administration more time to establish an alternative legal claim for setting higher tariffs on China under the Section 301 authority of the USTR in case Trump loses the ongoing legal challenge to the tariffs in US court, one of the people with knowledge of the London talks said.
The unresolved issues underscore the difficulty the Trump administration faces in pushing its trade agenda with China because of Beijing’s control of rare earths and its willingness to use that as leverage with Washington, said Ryan Hass, director of the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution.
“It has taken the Trump team a few punches in the nose to recognize that they will no longer be able to secure another trade agreement with China that disproportionately addresses Trump’s priorities,” Hass said.
