Author: Albert Savana

As a logical follow-up to the recent development of its gas strategy (Gas Master Plan), Mauritania has just launched – through Société Nationale Industrielle et Minière (SNIM) – a limited international consultation for the feasibility study of its offshore gas pipeline network. This thus comes opportunely in view of the “first gas” of phase 1 of Grand Tortue/Ahmeyin (GTA)  planned for 2023, the imminence of the signature of the final investment decision (FID) of the phase 2 of scheduled by end of 2022, as well as the promises of development of the gigantic offshore gas field BirAllah whose initial reserves…

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In Algiers, French President Emmanuel Macron, accompanied by his Minister of Defense, Sébastien Lecornu, and 89 businessmen and intellectuals including the historian Benjamin Stora, did not escape the quarrel over memories and, for to resume its polemical expression, of the “memorial rent”. The tenant of the Elysée who had qualified in 2017, while passing through Algiers, when he was a presidential candidate, French colonization as a “crime against humanity”, has since returned to the red lines defended by the official history of France. “Gratitude yes, repentance no,” he will say in essence. “I often hear that, on the question of…

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Nuclear energy was discussed during the audience granted on August 18, 2022 by Cameroonian Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute to his compatriot Enobot Agboraw, newly appointed Executive Secretary of the African Nuclear Energy Commission. Appointed only at the beginning of June 2022 by the President of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, after a selective process, the Cameroonian executive wants to give reality to an African nuclear energy program which is currently limited to regular declarations of intent in a context where, it must be emphasized, the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), is losing ground. With…

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The race for the “big five” metals of the energy transition is well underway but could quickly reproduce the drama of Kivu, a rich province of the RFC, today at the mercy of traffickers and armed gangs. These 5 most sought-after metals are copper, of which the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) precisely holds 80% of the world’s reserves, aluminum, nickel, cobalt and lithium. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), limiting global warming to less than 2˚C could require a fourfold increase in the supply of minerals for clean energy technologies over the next two decades. In such a…

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It was his fifth presidential bid. The election of the last chance for this veteran, soft leftist, imprisoned for nine years, several times minister, prime minister but never president. This time, Raina Odinga, 77, head of the Azimio la Umoja One Kenya (Coalition for Unity) coalition, is very close to the holy grail he had already thought he had reached during his supposed stolen victory in 2007 for the benefit of Mwai Kibaki. An electoral dispute settled in blood with 1100 dead in post-election violence which had led to a government of national unity with Odinga as Prime Minister. In…

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With his visit to Rwanda, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken ended a diplomatic tour on Thursday marking the return of the United States to the game of influence on the African continent. This last stage was undoubtedly the most closely scrutinized by the international community and the most delicate for the American diplomat who, upon his arrival, broached a sensitive subject with President Paul Kagame: the situation in eastern DRC, very weakened by the M23 terrorist group. Chance of the calendar or not, this visit came a few days after the leak of the report of United Nations experts,…

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President Ouattara caps commodity prices and subsidizes fuel at the risk of offending liberal orthodoxy. A costly but essential strategy for the preservation of social peace. The effort is substantial. The State of Côte d’Ivoire (Ba3 by Moody’s and BB- by S&P and Fitch) has granted subsidies of around 500 billion CFA francs (USD 778 millions) , since the beginning of 2022, for the fuel component alone. This was revealed by President Alassane Ouattara on Saturday August 6, 2022, as part of the commemoration of the 62nd anniversary of the independence of Côte d’Ivoire. Specifically, he says, “for each liter…

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The Central Bank’s key rate has briskly crossed 200% and the Zimbabwean dollar has lost 72% of its value against the dollar in 7 months 1 USD = 361.9 ZWD] Zimbabwe sees its inflation rate peak at 256.9% in July against 191.6% in June. The former Southern Rhodesia, freed from Apartheid by Robert Mugabe in the early 1980s, is once again sinking into a sad, tailor-made role of countries with the highest inflation in the world, ahead of Venezuela, Sudan and Yemen. This acceleration worries the business community and weakens the balance sheet of the Minister of Finance, Mthuli Ncube…

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The uninhibited liberal Abdoulaye Wade and the Melenchonien socialist Ousmane Sonko would they form an alliance between the carp and the rabbit? After two democratic alternations in 2000 and 2012, Senegalese democracy is moving up a notch with, a first in the history of this country which has been voting since 1848, a virtual balance of power between the opposition and the power. The result of the vote puts the country of Teranga in the same configuration as Ghana, another great West African democracy with since the 2020 elections, a parliament comprising 137 deputies for the ruling party (New Patriotic…

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Conakry had until August 1 to propose a “reasonable” deadline for the transition. An agreement had indeed been reached on July 20 between Guinean Bissau President Umaro Sissaco Embalo, current president of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and Colonel Mamadi Doymbouya, head of the National Committee of the Rally for Development (CNRD) in power in Guinea since a coup in September 2021. This agreement negotiated in Conakry between the two leaders concluded with a reduction of the duration of the transition from 36 to 24 months reveals Jeune Afrique. But, faced with the long silence of the…

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Mr. Amadou Hott, Minister of Economy, Planning and Cooperation, signed two financing agreements with Dr. Sidi Ould TAH Director General of the Arab Bank for Development in Africa (BADEA). These agreements relate to the Emergency Access Roads Program and the Urban Modernization Project of four municipalities, for a total amount of 75 million dollars, or 45 billion FCFA. The ceremony took place this Saturday, March 5, in Khartoum, Sudan, in the presence of Ministers MM. Mansour Faye, in charge of Infrastructure, Land Transport and Accessibility and Samba Ndiobène Kâ in charge of Community Development, Social and Territorial Equity. The Emergency…

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The volume of Islamic banking services in Egypt stood at around 429 billion Egyptian pounds EGP (more than 27 billion USD) in 2021, according to a report by the National Islamic Finance Association (Eifa). Up 17.4% from 2020, this level represents around 5% of the country’s total banking market size. According to the report presented this weekend by Mohamed Al-Beltagy, the president of the association, about 248 Islamic branches operate in the Egyptian market, representing about 5.6% of the total number of branches in the market as a whole. They serve a total of more than 3.2 million customers. The…

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