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 World Food Program talks of a famine of Biblical proportions.

The WFP says the coronavirus crisis will push more than  a quarter of a billion people living in conflict zones to the brink of starvation.

That’s twice the number of people suffering acute food shortage last year.

The WFP’s chief economist Dr Harif Husain tells the UN Security Council  COVID 19 is catastrophic for people already hanging on by a thread.

It’s a hammer blow for millions who can only eat if they earn a wage.

Lockdowns and the economic recession has decimated their nest eggs. COVID 19 will drive them over the edge

More than 20 million people  are driven to starvation by the desert locust infestation in East Africa and the Horn.

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A Chinese-sponsored Presidential statement unanimously adopted by all 15 members calls for more predicable resources and expertise to counter terrorism and violent extremism in Africa.

The Presidential statement from the United Nations power house calls on the international community to address all drivers of violent extremism conducive to terrorism.

It says providing quality education, employment opportunities and vocational training to young people are keys to address the problem.

Including young people in all levels of decision making also contributes to  countering recruitment for terrorism.

The UN political chief Rosemary Di Carlo expressed concern that terrorism and violent extremism continued to grow in Africa despite efforts to  prevent and counter it.

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He tells them it’s happening at a challenging time for the country, the continent and world.

President Cyril Ramaphosa takes a swipe at Russia and Turkey, without naming them, for having ulterior motives in getting involved in Libya.

South Africa will look carefully at this as chair of the African Union and a revolving member of the UN Security Council.

Ramaphosa says advancing peace and security is priority for the South African chairmanship of the AU as the continental body seeks to silence the guns in 2020.

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UN envoy Ghassan Salame says the attack that wounded more than 80 people could constitute a war crime.

Warlord Khalifa Haftar’s self styled Libyan National Army, that threatened to increase air strikes on the capital, now denies that it hit the migrant detention centre.

The attack has put the spotlight on the European Union’s deal with Libya militia to take African migrants turned back from trying to cross the Mediterranean into Europe.

United Nations High Commission for Refugees spokesman Charlie Yaxley says the safety of migrants is paramount.

“We have to see a change now. There has to be an immediate release of all the detainees in these centers and we have to make sure that no rescued refugees rescued on the Mediterranean are taken to Libya,” he says.

Migrants returned to Libya are kept in appalling conditions and often fall prey to traffickers.

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The  United Nations Security Council has condemned the violence and noted the junta’s undertaking to investigate the massacre.

About to re-engage in dialogue with civilian leaders, Sudan’s Transitional Military Council says it regrets the error made in deploying the paramilitary Rapid Support Force, formerly known as the janjaweed,  against protestors.

Meeting in New York last night the UN Security Council emphasises the importance of protecting human rights in Sudan.

The junta has had a similar call from President Donald Trump’s most senior representative to Africa  Tibor Nagy who is in Sudan with Washington’s newly-appointed special envoy Donald Booth. 

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The human rights watchdog calls what happened in the Sudanese capital barbaric and a bloodbath.

The African Union punitive measure against the military junta in Khartoum is unprecedented.

It has gone further than the United Nations Security Council where China and Russia blocked condemnation of the attacks on Sudanese civilian  demonstrators

The continental body’s Peace and Security Council decided at an emergency meeting yesterday that Sudan will remain suspended until a civilian-led administration is restored.

The Transitional Military Council is split on how to respond raising fears of a civil war in Sudan.

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Eid Ul Fitr is a joyous holiday bringing celebrants out in their finery.

This year it has become a fearful stay-at-home event in Khartoum because the  the military has sought to strengthen its hand after ousting President Omar Al Bashir in a  coup two months ago by deploying  former janjaweed militants to brutally disperse pro-democracy protestors.

Talks between the junta and  civilian groups have broken down irretrievably after more 60 protestors were killed.

Russia and China have blocked a bid in the United Nations Security Council to condemn the violence.

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But as the United Nations Security Council prepares to take up the matter today, the varied responses to the announcement from the electoral commission show it’s far from universally accepted.

The African Union congratulates the Congolese people on the peaceful election that will give the DRC the first democratic change of President in its history.

The European Union, by contrast says its waiting to peruse results from different observer missions.

France and Belgium have joined Catholic bishops in casting doubt on the provisional outcome giving Felix Tshisekedi victory.

Martin Fayulu, the man they believe actually won, denounces what he calls an electoral coup and says he’ll take his objections to the Constitutional Court that must now determined the final result.

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The statement will please fellow United Nations Security Council members Russia and China but disappoint the Western members and human rights watchdogs urging the Congolese government to accept the defeat of its candidate.

South Africa officially accepts the findings of the regional observer group SADC that the Congolese election went relatively well.

But Western countries and human rights groups – who fear the government of Joseph Kabila is delaying things in a bid to manipulate the results – expected more leadership from South Africa that played a crucial mediation role in ending that country’s civil war and putting it on the path to democracy. 

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