LAGOS MAY 26TH (NEWSRANGERS)-Customs officers in Burkina Faso seized a record haul of around 115 kilograms of cocaine worth more than $11.5 million last week, the directorate general of customs said in a statement on Wednesday. The drugs were intercepted on Thursday along the main road linking the southwestern city of Bobo to the capital…
LAGOS MARCH 26TH (NEWSRANGERS)-At the summit in Accra, leaders of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) gave Mali’s military transitional government 12 to 16 months to arrange elections and offered Guinea’s ruling junta a month to propose a timeline for democratic transition. They also demanded Burkina Faso’s interim leaders immediately release President Roch…
LAGOS FEBRUARY 22ND (NEWSRANGERS)-Mohamed Cisse used to employ hundreds of workers in Mali’s capital Bamako before economic sanctions last month shut borders and cut the lifeblood of his construction business. Cement is scarce. Its key ingredient, clinker, comes from neighbouring Senegal, from which all but essential goods are blocked. Cisse has been forced to shut…
LAGOS FEBRUARY 17TH (NEWSRANGERS)-President Emmanuel Macron says France will withdraw its troops from Mali but maintain a military presence in neighboring West African nations. Announcing the move during a Thursday news conference in Paris, Macron said, “We cannot remain militarily involved” alongside Malian transitional authorities with whom “we don’t share the strategy and goals.” France…
LAGOS FEBRUARY 4TH (NEWSRANGERS)-Thousands of anti-French protesters took to the streets of Mali’s capital on Friday waving Russian flags and burning cardboard cut-outs of French President Emmanuel Macron in celebration of the expulsion of France’s envoy in Bamako. Mali expelled the French ambassador last week over what the country’s transitional government described as “hostile and…
LAGOS JANUARY 17TH (NEWSRANGERS)-The UN mission in Mali has suspended all but medical evacuation flights in the war-torn country pending negotiations with Malian authorities, a United Nations spokesman said Monday. The move follows the implementation of new procedures that coincide with operations with the Malian army, a source close to the MINUSMA mission told AFP…
LAGOS JANUARY 5TH (NEWSRANGERS)-The US has barred Ethiopia, Guinea, and Mali from accessing the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), a two-decade old agreement which provides African countries with duty-free access to the US market for more than 1,800 products. The move comes two months after president Joe Biden told Congress that he plans to…
LAGOS DECEMBER 4TH (NEWSRANGERS)-At least 31 people have been killed in central Mali after militants attacked a bus carrying civilians to a market, local officials have said. Unidentified gunmen opened fire and killed the driver, before setting the bus on fire, according to authorities. Most of the victims were women who were on their way…