For the time being, the 37 year-old has the backing of former colonial power France.

President Emmanuel Macron went to N’Djamena for Friday’s funeral of Mahamat’s 68-year-old father who died at the hands of rebels a day after winning his sixth term as President of the troubled, largely desert country.

Constitutionally, Chad’s parliamentary speaker should have taken power and moved to elections within 18 months.

But the constitution and parliament have both been scrapped by the military council that put the son at the helm.

The country’s borders have been closed and a night time curfew is being enforced

France’s decision to back this move “for reasons of security following extraordinary events” puts its at odds with the international community.

The African Union, which is bound by its basic law to red card any unconstitutional change in government, has called on Mahamat to restore the country to legality.

Chad’s opposition has called the new power structure a “dynastic coup” and its trade unions are calling for a general strike until the constitution is restored.

There is an uneasy calm in Chad following the move that has played into the hands of the rebel Front for Change and Concord in Chad (FACT).

Mahamat realises this. He has made frequent appeals over national radio for peace and insisted that he open to dialogue.

The opposition will not take up this offer while he claims to be president.

France’s support comes because of Chad’s pivotal role in the fight against jihadis in the Sahel – that strip of land between the Sahara and the North African coastal states.

Idriss Deby was an inveterate supporter of the group of five Sahel states.

These include Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Niger and Mali.

In N’Djamena on Friday, Macron impressed on their leaders present the need to stand united against militant Islam threatening all their countries.

Will they heed the call from their former colonial power, who provides Chad with intelligence and security?

Or will they fall into line with the African Union that is bound to exclude Chad from the continental body’s deliberations until the constitution is restored?

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Ahmed won the coveted prize last year largely for forging a complex and difficult peace with neighboring Eritrea.

In doing so he greatly assisted stability in the Horn of Africa, one of the most dangerous hotspots on the planet.

He has yet to match domestically what he has achieved regionally.

In that respect he’s like the 1991 peace prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

She richly deserved the prize awarded for her doughty resistance to the brutal military regime in Myanmar.

Her star has faded of late because of her stubborn refusal to speak out against what is to all intents and purposes a genocide against the Rohingya people – a Muslim minority in a majority Buddhist country.

Ahmed has decided to show his muscle against the minority Tigray people.

Comprising only six percent of Ethiopia 110 million people they dominated business and politics until Ahmed from the majority  Oromo ethnic group took the helm.

The Tigrayan have a special place in Ethiopia’s history.

Legend has it their land bordering Eritrea was the home of the  Queen of Sheba.

A church in Tigray is said to house the Ark of the Covenant.

In 1991, the same year Aung San Suu Kyi won her Nobel Prize the Tigrayan led the fight to topple the cruel Derg regime in Ethiopia.

They have, of late become hugely angry at Ahmed reforms, claiming that they are becoming increasingly marginalized.

They are not the only ethnic group to oppose Ahmed’s reforms.

On November 4, Tigrayan rebels attacked a government military base.

There is no reliable indication of casualties.

Indeed the toll from three weeks of fighting is difficult to ascertain.

It is said to be hundreds, perhaps thousands.

The United Nations says if reports of attacks against civilians are true, it would amount to war crimes.

At least 40 000 Tigrayan have fled into neighboring Sudan to escape the fighting.

The Tigrayan have ratcheted up things with rocket attacks into Eritrea to the north and the Ethiopian province of Amhara to the South.

Ahmed’s assurance that the insurrection would not become a war has proved to be optimistic.

Fearful of a regional conflagration, the United Nations, European Union and African Union have all urgently called for an immediate ceasefire.

Ahmed is having none of it.

He says he will talk to the three AU envoys named to broker a peace.

Indeed he is open to negotiations with anyone except the Tigrayan leadership.

He has surrounded the Tigray capital of Mek’ele and warned residents to save themselves.

His uncompromising call to the Tigray leadership at the weekend was: “You have 72 hours to surrender.” 

He believes that Ethiopia will be pulled apart if he does not completely subdue Tigray. 

Angry and undoubtedly provoked, his bellicose language can be understood.

Nevertheless, it is not the behavior of an internationally acclaimed peacemaker.

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Speaking to the virtual meeting hosted by Saudi Arabia, Ramaphosa said the coronavirus pandemic has had a unprecedented  impact on health, societies and economic around the world.

“In the middle of the pandemic – even as we battle rising global infections – we must look to an inclusive  economic recovery where no country is left behind,” he said as Zambia last week found itself unable to meet interest payments on Eurobonds loans.

Africa has been hit less badly by infections than was initially feared. However African economies have borne the heaviest economic impact from the lockdown

“It was at the extraordinary G20 Leaders’ Summit in March this year that members committed to strengthening national, regional and global capacities to respond effectively to future pandemics,” Ramaphosa said

“As the African continent, we are playing our part, including through the establishment of a Covid-19 Response Fund to mobilise resources for a continental response and to support recovery. We also launched the African Medical Supplies Platform to ensure equitable access to medical equipment and supplies.

“We have been involved in the formation of the Access to Covid-19 Tools Accelerator, a global network to ensure access to vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics for all those who need it. We are pleased that there appears to be consensus in the G20 that access to an effective Covid-19 vaccine should be universal, fair and equitable” 

Ramaphosa believes a commitment by G20 leaders to invest substantially in the ACT-Accelerator’s immediate funding gap of $4.5 billion (R692bn) will immediately save lives, lay the groundwork for mass provision of Covid-19 tools around the world, and provide a way out of this global economic and human crisis, the president said.

“We look to the G20, international partners and the international financial institutions to work with African countries to rebuild their economies.”

He says the AU has proposed several measures, including debt relief in the form of interest-payment waivers and deferred payments. He urged leaders to invest in funding and research in order to prepare for a post Covid-19 future.

“We must bolster health infrastructure and health systems. We are encouraged by the continued commitment of the G20 to financing universal health coverage in developing countries. We must accelerate the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals to strengthen the capacity of all countries to better withstand the impact of future crises.

“This pandemic has demonstrated the interconnectedness of our world. It is only through co-operation and solidarity that we will ensure the future health and welfare of our global community.”

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Morocco has has used military action to end a three-week blockade of his arterial road to West Africa by Saharawi’s demanding that the kingdom keep its promise to hold a referendum on the Western Sahara.

The territory has been under internationally-condemned Moroccan occupation since 1975 when General Franco’s fall forced Spain to end its colonial occupation.

Polisario, the Western Sahara liberation movement,  immediately turned their guns on the Moroccans and Mauritanians who sought to replace the Spanish.

Mauritania quickly abandoned such intentions, but the Moroccans, armed by the apartheid regime and other reactionary forces at the time, fought until a UN-negotiated truce in 1991.

More than 9000 people died in the fighting.

Only that part of the Western Sahara behind a sand wall, called a berm, is under Moroccan control.

United Nations peacekeepers monitor that area under Polisario’s control.

This  includes the town of Guergarat where the blockade, stopping 150 trucks daily is being enforced.

Polisario  has warned that any Moroccan military incursion into its territory will end the 1991 truce.

Morocco took almost a month to respond to the blockade.

Fearing a mutiny, Moroccan authorities have not issued their army with bullets.

Only the paramilitary gendarmerie is given live rounds.

The military action from Rabat this week entailed anti-tank rounds entrusted to units believed to be loyal to King Mohammed VI.

Polisario does not share the fears of the international and continental organisations about the escalation of violence.

The liberation movement is under pressure from Saharawi activists to force the kingdom to keep its promise, made as part of the truce agreement, to hold a referendum on self determination for Western Sahara.

A return to fighting will also force the African Union and United Nations to decide who holds ultimate responsibility for enforcing peace and getting a Western Sahara settlement.

The African Union, at the behest of Morocco, which joined it only three years ago after shunning it because to recognizes the government of the Western Sahara, wants the file to be carried by the United Nations where it has the support of France and the United States.

The United Nations has been unable to get any movement on a settlement.

The the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has not found a suitable replacement for former German President Horst Kohler who threw in the towel more than a year ago as his special enjoy to the Western Sahara.

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Not surprisingly France’s President Emmanuel Macron was among the first world leaders to congratulate Joe Biden on winning the US Presidency.

Paris and Washington have a crowded schedule of business, starting with Biden bringing the United State back into the climate change agreement signed  in the French capital four years ago.

Biden will be an extremely welcome participant at the climate summit in Scotland.

France continues to control the file on this make-or-break issue for the world.

Running close behind welcoming America’s more prominent green agenda , France is looking for increased US support for the initiative to fight Islamist jihadis in the that strip of land between North Africa and the Sahara Desert known as the Sahel.

President Donald Trump has effectively told Macron that this French-led initiative is to Paris’ account.

Washington’s has given $8,5 million to Chad to help it counter ISIS terrorism.

This pales next to the boots on the ground and cash contributed to the G5 comprising Chad, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Mauritania.

The group was set up in 2014 when Mauritania held the AU presidency.

It has been underpinned by two resolution of the United Nations Security Council.

The world organization has committed 10 000 troops to its anti terror group in the region known as MINUSMA.

France has put its muscle where its mouth is with 3 000 troops from Operation Barkhane .

France stepped into drive out the Islamists who took advantage of a 2012  coup in Mali.

Things have become vary complicated since then and France could do with help form a fellow permanent Western member of the UN powerhouse.

Ibrahim Boubakar Keita, installed in 2012, was unseated in another coup last August which led to Bah Ndaw becoming become the interim president.

Further confusing things, Amadou Toumani Tourè, who led Mali for a decade during which he introduced democratic reforms before he deposed in the 2012 putsch, died in Turkey this week.

It will be impressed on Biden that Germany has provided 900 troops to the Sahel operation and the European Union  has chipped in 50million euros.

Even the cash-strapped African Union has contributed $3 million.

The world is waiting on the new administration in Washington.

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France’s  Foreign Trade and Economic Attractiveness Minister Franck Riester, reaffirms his country’s commitment to stand by South Africa in these challenging times and to support mutual economic partnerships with South Africa 

A statement from the French Embassy in Pretoria says that as a key partner within the G20 and the United Nations, and also as chair of the African Union, South Africa has been a key partner for France in the fight against the pandemic. 

Riester visit “ sends a strong message of support and solidarity to Africa, following the initiatives taken by President Emmanuel Macron and President Cyril Ramaphosa since the start of the crisis. 

“These initiatives have made it possible, in particular, to set up a collective, coordinated international response under the guidance of the WHO, as well as a new mechanism for research and the pre-purchase of vaccines for vulnerable countries, namely the COVAX initiative supported by France and South Africa. 

“The SANOFI laboratory, with a strong presence in South Africa, has just announced that it will supply 200 million doses through this mechanism, once a vaccine has been found,” concludes the statement. 

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Amnesty International names Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria has countries that have recorded a dramatic rise in gender-based domestic violence during the pandemic.

The virtual meeting of the women appealed to both the African Union and the African Centre for Disease Control and Prevention for assistance to bolster the protection of vulnerable women and girls.

The Nairobi-based feminist organisation FEMNET lamented the increase in violence against women and the number of girls forced into marriage during the lockdown.

Women are urged to to speak out so their suffering is not overlooked by countries battling the pandemic.

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Kagame denies claims that Rwandan troops have been deployed to its neighboring state.

Rwanda and Burundi fell out five years ago over an attempted coup on President Pierre Nkurunziza and have been at loggerheads ever since.

Local and foreign NGOs in the eastern DRC say Burundian and Rwandese troops are fighting alongside rival militia.

Thousands have been displaced in renewed violence this month.

President Paul Kagame insists there’s not a single Rwandan soldier in eastern DRC.

Burundi’s spokesman Jean-Claude Karerwa  says his country does not deploy troops in Africa except at the request of the African Union or the United Nations.

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Ramaphosa calls for international solidarity against COVID 19 and says Ghebreyesus has shown exceptional leadership from the earliest stages of the pandemic.

President Donald Trump is threatening to withhold US funding to what he calls the China-centric World Health Organisation.

He says the WHO, which warned about coronavirus six days after it was identified in China, called it wrong.

WHO director general Tedros Ghebreyesus urged an end to political point scoring over COVID 19.

His position is supported by AU Commission chair Moussa Faki Mahamat, Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Namibian President Hage Geingob.

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The French envoy expects publication later this week by the European Union of an action plan spelling this out. .

The French Ambassador was briefing journalists on President Emannuel Macron’s unprecedented inclusion in an African Union board meeting and his subsequent talks with AU chairman, President Cyril Ramaphosa.

He says a four-pillared programme has been devised covering immediate health imperatives; a massive economic stimulus package; provision of food and logistics to the most vulnerable countries; and scientific cooperation in developing a vaccine and the fair allocation of resources and information sharing.

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