Headlines

Malicious militias in the Sahel have unleashed ethnic gangs with guns  

A cycle of tit-for-tat murder has begun

Bamako, May 2.– The first sound of danger was the roar of motorbikes. Then came the gunfire as about 20 men attacked Samani, a village in central Mali, killing three people and cutting off body parts as trophies. They took the chief’s 30-year-old son, “cut him in half, and took his heart out”, says Amadou Barry, an elder who managed to escape to Bamako, Mali’s capital.

The gunmen were from an ethnic militia, one of hundreds that have sprouted in Mali and Burkina Faso, and that have killed at least 800 people since the beginning of 2018. The militias are most active in Mali, which has battled a jihadist insurgency since 2012. Many emerged from groups of hunters, who used to stalk game with flintlock guns. Now they are armed with assault rifles and speed about on motorbikes. They say they hunt jihadists. In reality they are targeting Fulanis, a mainly Muslim minority group.

by Samuel Stolton with Alexandra Brzozowski

Back in the bygone days of my journalism studies, I memorised a quote I still turn to from time to time, as a means to reify the importance of my craft in a world ever blighted by existential challenges to the industry. An abridged version of Lord Bingham’s address to the House of Lords in 2000 reads: “The proper functioning of a modern participatory democracy requires that the media be free, active, professional and enquiring.”

May 4.– In the EU today, on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day, that very democratic functioning is at stake. A study published on Friday shows that 78% of Hungary’s media is under state control.

Volodymyr Zelensky is the next president of Ukraine. The Ukrainians elected him consciously, freely and democratically.

Kiev, Apr.22.– With over 99% of ballots counted as of 14:30 on April 22, showman Volodymyr Zelensky wins the second round of the 2019 presidential election with 73.22% of the vote. The incumbent head of state, Petro Poroshenko, receives 24.46%. The voter turnout in the second round of presidential elections in Ukraine reached 62.09%, a bit lower than in the first round.

In his speech after polling stations were closed and the first exit poll results were announced, Volodymyr Zelensky thanked the Ukrainians and his family for their support. "I thank the Ukrainians who supported me and the Ukrainians who made a different choice. I promise you all that I will never let you down," Zelensky said.

Prompted by President Trump to do more for their own defense, but the pace of change is slow and the legal obstacles daunting

 Yokosuka, Apr.17.– On a cold spring day, rowds of Japanese gather to peer at the hulking grey ship moored in the port of Yokosuka, just south of Tokyo. The Izumo, the country’s largest warship, has attracted attention at home and abroad since December, when Japan’s government announced that it would upgrade her. Her deck, and that of her sister ship, the Kaga, will be reinforced to accommodate up to a dozen of the 147 F-35 fighter jets Japan recently ordered from America.

The refitting of the Izumo is one sign of Japan’s shifting defence posture. The changes are small, by necessity. Japan is constrained by its constitution, written by occupying American forces after the second world war. It bars Japan from maintaining armed forces or settling disputes by war. Despite these strictures, Japan has long had an army in all but name: the “Self-Defence Forces”. The SDF has focused, aptly enough, on defence—hunting submarines and warding off warplanes, for example—while relying on American troops based in Japan to go on the offensive, should that be required. Little by little, however, that formula is changing.