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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The Senegalese authorities who are holding him are using the the jail to quarantine COVID 19-infected inmates.

It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good.

Many might argue that Hissène Habré, who ran a brutal regime in Chad from 1982 until he was deposed in 1990, doesn’t deserve a break.

They say has an old and infirm inmate he is being held in special quarters that won’t be used to quarantine infected prisoners.

Habré was sentenced four years ago by a special African Union Court to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity.

He was found guilty of ordering the torture, rape and killing of political opponents

The trial and his jail sentence are Senegal-based because of the emotions it will raise in Chad.

The Senegalese authorities have to explain where exactly Habré will be held, and how they will ensure that he comes back to his cell in July.

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They agreed on the need for a political settlement and ending military action and foreign interference.

Libyan Government of National Accord head Fayez Al Sarraj came to see President Cyril Ramaphosa in his capacity as chairman of the African Union to discuss political and security developments in his Maghreb state.

They’ll meet again in Brazzaville on Thursday when President Denis Sassou Nguesso chairs the AU High Level Committee on Libya.

The heads of state of  Egypt, Chad and Algeria will also be there.

Since the 2011 killing dictator Muammar Gadaffi, Libya’s disintegration  has been a particular headache for the AU 

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The dead include women and children.

Most of the fatalities are refugees from Nigeria.

According to the United Nations, the camp at Diffa houses more than 250 000 people displaced by Boko Haram terrorists in northeast Nigeria.

For more than a decade, Boko Haram has been battling to form an Islamist caliphate in Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon.

Thousands of military personnel and civilians have died in the attacks.

The Nigerian Government has been unable to bring the organisation to heel.

The stampede occurred when the refugees were queueing for food, clothing  and money being handed out by the visiting Governor of Nigeria’s Borno state Babagana Oumara Zulum. 

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The US leader is cutting immigration from countries with large Muslim populations to rally his support base as he seeks a second term in the White House.

In 2018, the United States issued nearly  8 000 immigrants visas to Nigerians.

That’s a thing of the past in terms of the extended ban coming into effect this month.

Tanzania, Eritrea, Sudan, are also affected.

Somalia and Chad are on the original list.

In the past Trump has made foul-mouthed references to African countries and complained that Nigerias who arrive in the United States on visas never to back to their huts

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He was speaking at a summit in Pau he hosted for the five countries facing increasing violence from the so-called Islamist State in Greater Sahara.

President Emmanuel Macron is concerned about the anti-French sentiment expressed in Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Chad and Burkina Faso about its military support for the fight against jihadis.

France has 4500 troops in the region where it stepped in to stop Mali being overrun by terrorists.

At the Pau summit he committed a further 220 troops to the operation which will now have a joint command structure.

The six countries present called on the United States to continue what they called its crucial support for their fight.

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Some were on the  refueling truck blown up by the device and others died when the convoy come under attack by jihadis lying in wait.

The truck was travelling to Alatona near Mali’s border with Mauritania.

Thousands of soldiers and civilians have died in attacks by Islamist insurgents since 2012, making Mali the most deadly country in which to be a peacekeeper.

More than 140 soldiers have been killed in the last quarter of 2019 in Mali.

France intervened six years ago to stop its former colony being overrun from the north.

It still has at least 1000  troops in the country supporting those from Mali’s neighbours Burkina Faso, Niger, Mauritania and Chad. 

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President Mahamadou Issoufou of Niger has raced to home to deal with a deadliest  rebel attack on his country in living memory.

A military spokesman in Niger says 73 soldiers were killed in yesterday’s  attack on a base in Inates near the border with Mali.

It follows an attack in Agando, also in the west of the country, on Monday that left four soldiers and 14 rebels dead.

The military spokesman say several hundred attackers were involved and they sustained heavy casualties.

French President Emmanuel Macron has called a meeting in Pau, southwestern France next week of the G5 Sahel group to which Niger belongs with Mali, Mauritania, Chad and Burkina Faso.  

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Speaking at the end of the NATO summit in London, Macron says the Sahel leaders must address anti French sentiment about its role in Africa.

France is the only Western country with a substantial military presence in Africa.

It sent in troops to prevent Mali being overrun by Jihadis in 2013.

It still has 4 500 soldiers helping the so called Sahel G5 comprising Mali, Niger, Mauritania, Chad and Burkina Faso.

French President Emmanuel Macron says if those troops are stay there, African leaders must affirm that they need them.

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25 Malian troops were killed and 78 are missing.

Only 13 soldiers emerged unscathed from the twin attacks on the Boulkessy camp housing Malian forces from the G5 group that includes Burkina Faso, Chad, Mauritania and Niger.

It is unclear whether the 75 missing troops have been killed or captured.

The jihadis, who at one stage held the northern half of Mali before being driven out by French forces, captured 20 vehicles and significant stores of ammunition.   

Two military helicopters and at least 12 vehicles were burned in the attack.

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