Heavy Gunfire in Somalian Capital As Row Over Election Delay Escalates

By Al Mayadeen English

4 Jun 2026 13:13

Armed clashes erupt in Mogadishu as Somalia’s election dispute deepens following the extension of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s term.

Government forces and opposition fighters have exchanged heavy gunfire in Mogadishu on Thursday as tensions over delayed elections escalated into armed confrontation. Residents reported sustained shooting across several neighborhoods during the night, with insecurity spreading through parts of the capital.

Police said they were conducting a large-scale security operation targeting heavily armed militias who reportedly carried out mortar attacks in certain areas.

The violence comes amid a deep political standoff following the expiry of Hassan Sheikh Mohamud's presidential term on May 15, which was later extended by one year. Opposition figures rejected the extension, calling it unconstitutional and urging nationwide protests.

Talks between the federal government and opposition groups have taken place but have so far failed to produce an agreement on the electoral framework.

Shift toward electoral reform

The current crisis unfolds against the backdrop of efforts to transition Somalia toward a one-person, one-vote electoral system, replacing the long-standing indirect model in which clan elders select MPs who then choose the president.

Somalia has not held a direct nationwide vote since 1969 and has experienced more than three decades of civil conflict and political instability.

Former Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire said he and other opposition leaders came under attack from government forces while preparing for planned demonstrations. He described the upcoming protests as "peaceful" and said responsibility for any casualties or damage rests with the president, whose term has already expired.

For his part, Former President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed also condemned the clashes, saying they would not deter planned demonstrations. He stated that opposition groups would continue their activities despite the security situation, signaling continued political defiance.

With no agreement reached between the government and opposition, and armed clashes now emerging in the capital, Somalia faces an increasingly fragile political environment.

The situation remains fluid, with fears that continued political deadlock could further destabilize the electoral transition process and deepen insecurity in the capital and beyond.

African States Push Back Against US Aid-for-access Demands

By Al Mayadeen English

2 Jun 2026 09:18

Several African nations are resisting US aid agreements tied to access to minerals, health data, and strategic concessions, raising concerns over sovereignty and transparency.

A growing number of African countries are pushing back against new US foreign aid arrangements that link health assistance to access to strategic resources, sensitive health data, and broader geopolitical objectives, sparking debate over sovereignty, transparency, and the future of international development.

The tensions emerge after the Trump administration reshaped Washington's foreign assistance model, replacing traditional aid programs with agreements that require recipient states to commit additional funding and, in some cases, provide strategic concessions in return for support.

Several African governments have expressed concerns over the terms attached to new US health assistance packages aimed at combating HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and emerging disease outbreaks.

While nearly two dozen sub-Saharan African countries have reportedly signed agreements with Washington, others have either rejected the proposals outright or slowed negotiations amid concerns over their implications.

The Democratic Republic of Congo, currently facing a major Ebola outbreak, reached a five-year agreement reportedly valued at $900 million. The deal followed a separate minerals agreement between Kinshasa and Washington, highlighting the increasingly transactional nature of US engagement on the continent.

Officials in Zambia, Ghana, and Zimbabwe have taken a more cautious approach, raising objections to provisions related to data access, resource agreements, and preferential treatment for American companies.

Health funding linked to minerals, data, and strategic interests

The Trump administration has openly framed its approach as part of an "America First" foreign policy, arguing that aid should advance US diplomatic, economic, and security interests.

Negotiations with Zambia stalled after Washington sought agreements involving critical minerals, expanded commercial opportunities for US firms, and access to sensitive health information.

“Zambia has a duty to protect its people’s interests, just as the US protects its citizens, and the negotiations reflect this reality,” Zambian Foreign Minister Mulambo Haimbe said.

The controversy has fueled criticism that humanitarian assistance is increasingly being used as leverage to secure strategic advantages in resource-rich countries.

US lawmakers have also voiced concerns. In April, three Democratic senators urged Secretary of State Marco Rubio to reject proposals that would condition HIV treatment funding on access to Zambia's copper reserves.

“Holding lifesaving assistance hostage for American access to Zambian copper mines is a disturbing break from the long-held bipartisan support” for overseas HIV treatment programs, the senators wrote.

Zambia, Ghana, and Zimbabwe resist Washington's demands

Zimbabwe reportedly became the first country to reject a proposed US assistance package, citing concerns over broad access to health and research data without guarantees that local populations would benefit from its use.

The proposed package was reportedly worth approximately $325 million.

Ghana also withdrew from negotiations over concerns regarding the handling and privacy of sensitive health information sought by Washington under the proposed agreement.

In Kenya, legal challenges have been launched against ongoing negotiations, with critics arguing that the financial obligations attached to US assistance could place additional pressure on an already strained national budget.

Opponents contend that the lack of transparency surrounding the agreements has prevented meaningful public scrutiny.

Critics warn of sovereignty and data privacy concerns

Civil society organizations, health experts, and lawmakers across Africa have increasingly questioned the long-term implications of granting foreign governments access to large volumes of health and pathogen data.

Critics argue that such information carries significant strategic and commercial value, particularly in pharmaceutical research and vaccine development.

Githinji Gitahi, chief executive of Amref Health Africa, warned that extensive data-sharing arrangements could weaken African countries' negotiating position in future discussions regarding vaccine access and benefit-sharing mechanisms.

Analysts have suggested that bilateral agreements may allow Washington to secure advantages for American pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms outside multilateral frameworks.

Concerns have also been raised regarding the secrecy surrounding the negotiations. Public Citizen, a US-based consumer advocacy organization, has filed a lawsuit seeking disclosure of the agreements and related negotiations.

Trump administration defends transactional aid model

US officials have defended the policy shift, arguing that previous aid models fostered dependency and lacked sufficient accountability.

The State Department said the new framework requires recipient countries to assume greater responsibility for their own health systems while reducing long-term reliance on US funding.

“The old model of global health assistance was essentially an open-ended subsidy,” a State Department spokesperson said, per the Wall Street Journal.

According to health policy analyses cited in the original report, countries signing the new agreements could receive approximately $13 billion over five years while contributing an estimated $7.5 billion of their own funding.

However, analysts note that the overall level of support remains lower than previous funding cycles and that assistance is structured to decline over time.

Expanding Ethnic Conflict in South Darfur Leaves 50 Dead

3 June 2026

June 3, Kubum — Continuous fighting between the Salamat and Beni Halba tribes in South Darfur State has claimed the lives of at least 50 civilians, a local community leader revealed on Tuesday. The official accused the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of involvement in backing one of the parties with combat vehicles and drones.

Since May 23, extensive areas in South Darfur, including Kubum and Markundi, have witnessed fierce clashes between the two ethnic groups. The violence has been accompanied by arson, widespread abuses including killings and arbitrary detentions, and the forced displacement of a large number of civilians.

“The fighting between the Salamat and Beni Halba has resulted in the deaths of more than 50 people as clashes between the two sides continue,” the community leader told Sudan Tribune.

The source clarified that the casualties include approximately 21 people, among them women and children, who were killed in a strike executed by a drone that took off from Nyala and bombed sites inside Kubum.

According to the official, the latest escalation was triggered by the assassination of a herder in the Al-Juraif area near Kubum. This was followed by a violent assault on May 30 at a water collection point, resulting in casualties on both sides.

This conflict is an extension of previous clashes between the two groups in 2023. Although the RSF previously succeeded in facilitating a cessation of hostilities agreement between them, the confrontation quickly reignited, taking on a much more violent dimension.

The community leader noted that the situation deteriorated further after a local committee of traditional leaders, who were attempting to recover and bury bodies, was targeted.

The scope of the conflict expanded on May 31 when tribal forces from both groups mobilized on opposite banks of the Roweina valley, leading to an attack on the Dembe Silsili area.

The Salamat and Beni Halba are among the prominent tribal groups whose leadership declared support for the RSF since the early days of the ongoing war, deploying thousands of fighters to participate in military operations.

Fears are now mounting that the confrontations could spill over into Central Darfur State amid ongoing mobilization campaigns in the Um Dukhun area near the border with the Central African Republic, where youths are being urged to join the tribal theater of operations.

Sudan Army Repels Major RSF-SPLM-N Assault on Al-Barka in Blue Nile

3 June 2026

Sudanese army officers and soldiers celebrate the recapture of Mogja, Blue Nile region, on April 20, 2026

June 3, AD-Damazin — The Sudanese Armed Forces announced on Wednesday that they had repelled a large-scale attack by the RSF and SPLM-N alliance on the town of Al-Barka in the Blue Nile region, in the latest round of fighting around the strategic border town of Kurmuk.

The Fourth Infantry Division said in a statement that its forces and support units “succeeded in foiling a wide attack on the Al-Barka area in southern Blue Nile, after executing a precise ambush that resulted in the destruction and seizure of a number of combat vehicles and inflicting heavy casualties in lives and equipment on the attacking forces.”

However, pro-RSF platforms simultaneously broadcast video footage appearing to show RSF elements inside a Sudanese army base in Al-Barka, suggesting the town had changed hands — at least temporarily — following the attack, which was launched by large alliance units from early morning. The army had seized Al-Barka in late May as part of its push toward Kurmuk.

Colonel Ubadi al-Tahir, commander of the “Al-Naba al-Yaqeen” army convoy, said forces were at full readiness to meet the attack and that the military plan was executed with high precision, concluding the battle in a short time. He said the operation confirms the vigilance of the armed forces in protecting strategic areas and countering attempts to destabilise Blue Nile region.

Pro-army platforms also circulated footage showing destroyed RSF combat vehicles.

Fighting has escalated across Blue Nile since March, when the RSF and SPLM-N launched a broad military operation that enabled them to seize Kurmuk and surrounding areas. Operations in the western and southern parts of the region have caused significant humanitarian deterioration, with thousands of civilians displaced toward Ad-Damazin, where many are living in shelters, amid intensive drone use by both sides.

Sudanese Refugees Face Severe Risks in Libya Amid Anti-foreigner Campaigns

4 June 2026

June 4, Tripoli — Sudanese nationals who fled to Libya are facing increasingly perilous conditions driven by a surge in anti-foreigner sentiment and growing calls for widespread protests against refugees and migrants.

Scores of Sudanese citizens have sought refuge in neighboring Libya since the outbreak of war in April 2023. However, escalating anti-migrant campaigns are raising deep concerns over safety in their place of asylum.

Apprehensions spiked on Thursday as Libyan activists launched a campaign to organize demonstrations across several cities. The organizers are demanding the closure of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) headquarters, alongside an immediate halt to resettlement initiatives and irregular migration.

Hostile rhetoric has flooded Libyan social media platforms, with users demanding the expulsion and confrontation of foreign workers. These demands have not exempted Sudanese refugees, despite having fled a devastating war that has torn their country apart for over three years.

A Sudanese journalist residing in Libya told Sudan Tribune that the start of these demonstrations, combined with aggressive security campaigns in major streets and markets, has forced many Sudanese journalists to remain confined to their homes to avoid potential threats. The community is now living in a state of high anxiety and anticipation regarding what the coming days might hold.

The journalist added that media professionals have been deeply impacted by these developments. A number of them have been forced to quit temporary retail jobs and informal labor—which they rely on for basic survival—out of fear of being targeted or detained during random inspection campaigns and arrests aimed at foreigners. Their situation has grown increasingly complex due to a severely restricted labor market, dwindling income sources, and ongoing uncertainty surrounding their legal and humanitarian status in Libya.

According to the source, there are currently 39 Sudanese journalists living in Libya, including 13 women. Among them, 23 are formally registered with the UNHCR. The majority are concentrated in high-risk zones within the cities of Tripoli, Misrata, Sabratha, and Sorman—areas that have historically witnessed crackdowns on migrants and refugees.

Fleeing War to Face Insecurity

A Sudanese female journalist living in Libya, who spoke to Sudan Tribune on the condition of anonymity for security reasons, explained that Sudanese refugees who sought safety are now consumed by panic as xenophobic campaigns gather steam.

She noted that she arrived in Libya three years ago to escape the conflict in Sudan, but now avoids leaving her home except for absolute necessities due to a pervasive sense of insecurity. She further pointed out that job opportunities for Sudanese nationals are extremely scarce, as certain positions are legally restricted to Libyan citizens. Furthermore, no institutional body is currently providing support to displaced Sudanese journalists.

“I was forced to abandon journalism and pivot to giving private English lessons during exam seasons just to secure a basic income, though the financial return is minimal compared to the effort exerted,” she said.

She sharply criticized the Sudanese Embassy in Libya for its complete absence in monitoring the conditions of its citizens or intervening to mitigate their challenges, noting that the embassy has made no effort to contact or reassure the community.

“If any of us is harmed, we do not know who to turn to or who to call for help,” she added, expressing profound dread over a future she described as “completely unknown” under the prevailing circumstances.

Urgent Calls for Protection

Stranded journalists have appealed to international organizations and bodies concerned with press freedom and human rights to intervene urgently to guarantee their safety. They are requesting evacuation from high-risk zones to safer areas or resettlement in third countries, noting that previous appeals have yielded no practical response.

In a related development, the Sudanese Journalists Syndicate expressed grave concern on Thursday regarding the safety of Sudanese journalists stranded in Libya. The syndicate stated it had received direct testimonies indicating that some journalists are facing harassment, threats, and discriminatory practices that jeopardize their lives and those of their families.

According to the syndicate, journalists reported heightening security and humanitarian risks as part of the broader challenges facing foreigners in Libya. One testimony came from a journalist working for a Sudanese media outlet who reported receiving direct threats and facing harassment that forced him to flee his residence immediately to protect his family.

The Sudanese Journalists Syndicate called on international and regional organizations specialized in press freedom and human rights to conduct an independent assessment of the conditions of Sudanese journalists in Libya. It urged the provision of emergency protection mechanisms, alongside legal, humanitarian, and psychological support for affected individuals.

The syndicate further demanded that international stakeholders explore options for humanitarian evacuation, resettlement, or safe passage for the most vulnerable cases, while enhancing coordination with competent authorities to shield journalists from abuse or discrimination.

Concluding its statement, the body urged Libyan authorities to take all necessary measures to ensure the safety of Sudanese journalists and their families. It called for the fair application of the law to safeguard the rights and dignity of all residents, emphasizing that the situation of Sudanese refugees should be treated in accordance with international humanitarian principles and legal obligations.

African Integration Beyond Trade - When Africans Become Foreigners in Africa

3 June 2026

allAfrica.com

guest column

By Rachel Gyabaah

In my earlier piece in February, Beyond Preferences and Rhetoric: What Africa's 2025 Integration Moment Really Demanded I argued that Africa's long-term competitiveness would not be secured by waiting on external trade preferences, but by taking integration seriously as an economic project. I called for political will, industrial strategy, and a human-centred approach to the continental vision. I did not expect to be writing a follow-up so soon. But the events of April and May 2026 in South Africa have made this necessary.

Because what is unfolding in the streets of Johannesburg, Durban, and Pretoria is a direct assault on Africa's integration agenda and can’t be seen simply as a South Africa’s issue. African Union, the AfCFTA Secretariat, and every head of state who has ever signed a protocol on the free movement of persons must now answer a simple but devastating question: What exactly are we integrating, if not Africans?

The Burning Streets and the Broken Promise

In April and May 2026, a vigilante movement called March and March organised anti-immigration demonstrations across South Africa's major cities, resulting in attacks on foreign-owned businesses, destruction of livelihoods, and at least one death. As reported by Human Rights Watch, a 43-year-old Cameroonian shopkeeper who had spent nearly two decades in Durban watched a group of men break down his doors during protests targeting foreign-owned shops. He had built a life there. He had become, in every meaningful sense, a resident of the country. It did not matter. He was African but the wrong kind.

Human Rights Watch documented the violence and warned of a new wave of xenophobic attacks, noting that police response was insufficient and in some cases absent. The African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights issued a formal statement of grave concern, situating the 2026 violence within a long and shameful pattern the 1998 killings in Johannesburg, the Cape Town murders of 2000, the nationwide carnage of 2008 in which over 60 people died and 100,000 were displaced, the 2015 military deployment, and the ongoing harassment of migrants throughout the 2020s by groups such as Operation Dudula. This is not an aberration. This is a pattern. And a pattern demands a structural explanation, not a diplomatic one.

The South African government's response has been, at best, inadequate. President Ramaphosa, speaking on Freedom Day April 27, 2026 offered moving words: "We did not walk alone into freedom. We were carried by a tide of solidarity from the nations of Africa." Yet noble sentiments alone do not rebuild the Cameroonian shopkeeper's door. They do not compensate the Ghanaians who were evacuated on May 27, 2026 the first in what may become a steady retreat of African nationals from a country once celebrated as the continent's economic anchor. South Africa's government went further by publicly denying the xenophobic nature of the attacks, describing them as "isolated incidents." African civil society groups and indeed the evidence rejected that denial outright.

A Continent That Signs Protocols by Day and Tolerates Pogroms by Night

Here is the central contradiction that must be stated plainly: African heads of state have, under the architecture of the African Union and the AfCFTA, committed themselves to creating a single continental market one that includes the free movement of persons, not just goods. The AU's Protocol on Free Movement of Persons, adopted in 2018, envisions an Africa where citizens can live and work anywhere on the continent. The AfCFTA, described as a $3.4 trillion economic integration project, cannot function if the people who are supposed to trade across borders are afraid to cross them.

And yet, according to the latest GovDem Survey of the Inclusive Society Institute, 73 percent of South Africans report not trusting African immigrants "at all" or "not very much." South Africa the country that accounts for over 40 percent of all intra-African trade, the continental powerhouse without whose participation AfCFTA loses much of its gravitational force is also the country where intra-African trade is least safe in human terms.

The African Chamber of Content Producers put it with blunt precision: intra-African trade stands at just 14 percent of total African trade, compared to roughly 60 percent in Asia and Europe. Xenophobia is not merely a moral outrage in this context. It is a structural barrier to integration as consequential as any tariff wall or non-tariff barrier. You cannot have free trade without free movement. You cannot have free movement without safety. And you cannot have safety while your government denies that the attacks are even happening.

The Centre for Global Affairs and Responsible Governance in Accra captured this contradiction sharply: "You cannot champion AfCFTA by day and allow mobs to lynch traders by night. Violence against Africans anywhere is violence against Africa."

What If This Were Europe?

It is worth pausing to ask an uncomfortable comparative question. If vigilante groups in Germany had, over three decades, periodically attacked French, Italian, or Polish shopkeepers burning their businesses, looting their goods, and driving them from their homes, with documented fatalities what would the European Union have done?

The answer is not hypothetical. The EU has invoked Article 7 proceedings against member states for rule-of-law violations that were far less physically violent than what has transpired repeatedly in South Africa. The European Commission has financial tools the ability to withhold structural and cohesion funds to compel compliance with the bloc's foundational norms. There are the European Court of Justice, the European Court of Human Rights, and a mature architecture of accountability that moves slowly but does move.

The African Union, by contrast, is convening its Eighth Mid-Year Coordination Meeting in Cairo on June 24-27, 2026, partly at Ghana's formal request that South Africa's xenophobic attacks be placed on the agenda. That Ghana needed to petition for the matter to be discussed at all rather than it being treated as an automatic breach of continental obligations reveals a profound gap in the AU's enforcement architecture. The AU's aspiration for integration is real. Its mechanisms for holding member states accountable to that aspiration remain, in too many cases, aspirational themselves.

This is not an argument for supranational punishment. It is about ensuring that the commitments we make as a continent are reflected in practice. The African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights has expressed concern, the UN Secretary-General raised his voice, civil society across the continent has demanded action. What has been missing is a commensurate, structural institutional response one that makes clear that a member state's domestic policy of tolerance toward anti-foreigner violence is incompatible with its continental commitments.

The petition filed in Accra on May 31, 2026, calling for the AU to review the continued suitability of the AfCFTA Secretary-General a South African national for his position is a symptom of this frustration. Whether or not one agrees with the petition's remedy, its logic is instructive: when a country's conduct fundamentally contradicts the values of a continental institution, the institution cannot appear indifferent. Indifference is its own statement.

The Ubuntu Paradox and the Path Forward

There is a word that South Africa gave to the world: ubuntu the philosophy that a person is a person through other people, that humanity is constituted through relationship and mutual recognition. President Ramaphosa himself invoked it in his Freedom Day address. The paradox is almost too painful to articulate: a nation that exported ubuntu to the world has struggled, across three decades of democracy, to extend basic dignity to African migrants within its own borders.nBut this is not ultimately a South African problem to solve alone. It is a continental governance failure that requires a continental governance response.

The 2025 African Integration Report was clear: Africa's integration is stalled not by lack of vision but by competing national interests, limited political accountability, and the absence of effective mechanisms to address asymmetries between member states. Xenophobia is the most violent expression of those competing national interests the zero-sum logic that says African solidarity ends at the border. If the AU and AfCFTA cannot name that logic and challenge it, then the integration project is building on sand.

What is required is not more declarations. It is architecture. The AU must develop a binding monitoring and sanctions framework for xenophobic violence not as a punitive tool, but as a deterrent and accountability mechanism, the way the EU's rule-of-law conditionality functions. AfCFTA's implementation roadmap must explicitly address the free movement of persons as a trade-enabling condition, not a long-term aspiration starting by making the ratification of the AU Free Movement Protocol, which has been gathering dust since 2018, a prerequisite for full AfCFTA participation. And South Africa as the continent's largest economy, as a country whose liberation was bankrolled by African solidarity, as a signatory to every relevant continental framework must be held, with respect and firmness, to its obligations.

Ghana's Foreign Affairs Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa was right to take the matter to the AU. But the question now is whether Cairo will produce accountability or choreography. Because Africans watching from Lagos, Nairobi, Accra, and Dakar are drawing their own conclusions. And the conclusion they are drawing is that the integrated Africa of Agenda 2063 is not yet a place where an African from Cameroon can build a shop, serve a community, and feel safe.

That is the gap between our protocols and our reality. Until we close it, AfCFTA will remain what too much of Africa's integration has been: a magnificent aspiration undermined by the failure of political will and in this case, the failure of basic human solidarity.

------------------------

Rachel Gyabaah is a Development Practitioner.

This article is a follow-up to "Beyond Preferences and Rhetoric: What Africa's 2025 Integration Moment Really Demanded and Beyond," published in The Business & Financial Times, February 2026. https://thebftonline.com/2026/02/18/beyond-preferences-and-rhetorics-what-africas-2025-integration-moment-really-demanded-and-beyond/  

References: Human Rights Watch (May 2026) https://www.hrw.org/news/2026/05/20/south-africa-new-waves-of-xenophobic-attacks 

African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (April 2026) https://achpr.au.int/en/news/press-releases/2026-04-27/xenophobic-attacks-and-vigilante-conduct-perpetrated-nationals-other 

GovDem Survey, Inclusive Society Institute (2025) https://www.inclusivesociety.org.za/post/rising-distrust-govdem-survey-shows-sharp-increase-in-anti-immigration-sentiment-in-south-africa 

African Chamber of Content Producers statement (May 2026) https://www.spotlightinafrica.com/post/intra-african-trade-to-boost-the-continent-s-economy-by-450billion 

Centre for Global Affairs and Responsible Governance, Accra (April 2026) https://www.myjoyonline.com/xenophobia-centre-for-global-affairs-and-responsible-governance-urges-au-intervention-in-south-africa/ 

South African DIRCO statement (May 2026)

African Integration Report 2025, African Union

AfricanVibes (April 2026).

No, European Union Didn't Call for Removal of Tanzania's President Hassan, Video Misrepresents Lawmaker's Remarks

4 June 2026

Africa Check (Johannesburg)

By Grace Gichuhi

No, European Union didn't call for removal of Tanzania's president Hassan, video misrepresents lawmaker's remarks

IN SHORT: A viral Facebook video claims the European Union demanded Tanzanian president Samia Suluhu Hassan be removed. But while the German lawmaker David McAllister criticised Tanzania's human rights record, he did not call for Hassan's removal.

A video has been posted on Facebook with the claim it shows a member of the European parliament (MEP), calling for the removal of Tanzanian president Samia Suluhu Hassan over alleged political repression and human rights abuses.

Text placed over the video reads: "The European Parliament bloc has demanded the forceful ouster of Samia Suluhu Hassan and called for her to be held accountable over alleged civilian 'takeout' and the abduction of innocent people."

The video features David McAllister, a German member of the European parliament. He says: " [The] Great people of Tanzania, they deserve new free and credible elections colleagues, if we truly stand for democracy and human rights we cannot stop at words, let us use every tool at our disposal to hold those in power accountable."

He also calls for the release of political prisoners, an investigation into alleged killings, abductions and enforced disappearances and argues that European Union funds should not support state-controlled entities linked to repression.

The EU is a political and economic union of 27 member states, represented by institutions such as the European parliament and the European commission.

McAllister also calls for the release of Tundu Lissu, the chair of Tanzania's main opposition party Chadema, who has been in detention for over a year. Lissu was further barred from running for president in October 2025 general elections.

But did the EU call for Hassan's removal from office? We checked.

No such resolution

There is no evidence that the EU or its parliament has adopted a resolution calling for the removal of Tanzania's president.

If this had indeed happened, it would have been widely reported by credible news outlets. However, there is no evidence or reporting confirming such a resolution.

Nor does the EU have any mechanism to remove a sitting head of state in another sovereign country. When raising concerns about democracy or human rights, it typically relies on diplomatic pressure, public statements, sanctions and conditions attached to development funding.

On 27 November 2025, McAllister criticised what he described as "systematic political repression, abductions and manipulation" surrounding Tanzania's elections and called for accountability measures. But he did not call for Hassan's removal from office.

Tanzania's government spokesperson, Gerson Msigwa, also dismissed the viral claim.

Read the original story, with links and other resources.

Africa Check is a non-partisan organisation which promotes accuracy in public debate and in the media. X @AfricaCheck and www.africacheck.org

Armed Clashes Erupt in Mogadishu As Somalia Political Crisis Deepens

Axmadyare / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4)

Mogadishu.

3 June 2026

Shabelle Media Network (Mogadishu)

Mogadishu — Heavy fighting erupted in parts of Mogadishu on Wednesday as forces aligned with Somalia's government and opposition forces exchanged gunfire in a dramatic escalation of a political standoff that has pushed the Horn of Africa nation closer to instability, residents said.

Witnesses reported bursts of gunfire broke out in an area near the presidential palace in the capital, prompting civilians to flee affected neighbourhoods and businesses to shut their doors.

The clashes come amid a deepening dispute over the country's electoral process and the status of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, whose opponents accuse him of overstaying his mandate. International partners, including the United Nations and the European Union, have urged Somali leaders to return to dialogue and avoid actions that could trigger wider conflict.

Residents described scenes of panic as families sought shelter from the gunfire.

"We heard heavy shooting and people were running in all directions," one resident told Shabelle Radio by telephone, requesting anonymity for security reasons.

Security sources said armed opposition figures and their supporters had taken positions in strategic areas of the capital in recent days, raising fears of a confrontation near key government institutions.

No official casualty figures were immediately available, and authorities had not issued a comprehensive statement on the extent of the fighting.

The latest violence threatens to undermine efforts to stabilise Somalia, which continues to battle the Islamist insurgent group Al-Shabaab while facing recurring political crises and humanitarian challenges.

Diplomats have warned that further escalation could distract security forces from counter-insurgency operations and risk plunging the capital into a broader conflict.

Read the original article on Shabelle.

Africa: Unsafe Food Causes 866 Million Illnesses and 1.5 Million Deaths Annually, Young Children At Highest Risk

Viktor Forgacs/Unsplash

Industrially produced trans fat is commonly found in packaged foods, baked goods, cooking oils and spreads.

4 June 2026

World Health Organization (Geneva)

press release

Children aged less than five years face almost three times the risk of illness from unsafe food than older children and adults, according to new estimates released today by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Despite being just 9% of the global population, young children suffer from nearly one third of all cases of foodborne diseases, particularly diarrhoeal diseases which can be deadly for this vulnerable age group. In addition, exposure to chemical hazards such as methylmercury and lead in food can harm the developing brain and cause lifelong neurological and developmental problems in children.

WHO estimates that unsafe food causes around 866 million illnesses and 1.5 million deaths annually, many of which could be prevented with measures including improved water, sanitation and hygiene, food safety practices such as pasteurization and access to health care for vulnerable populations. Although the total foodborne disease burden has declined since 2000, major regional inequalities persist, with the greatest burden in Africa and South-East Asia.

Exposure to biological hazards, including foodborne bacteria and viruses as well as parasitic infections, caused the majority of foodborne illnesses (approximately 860 million in 2021), while chemical exposures drove a disproportionate share of deaths. In 2021, chemical hazards accounted for a striking 73% of deaths due to contaminated food. Most of these chemical-related deaths were linked to inorganic arsenic (42%) and lead (31%), largely because these exposures increase the risk of heart disease and cancers.

Beyond health impacts, the study estimates that in 2021 foodborne disease led to about US$ 310 billion in lost productivity (time away from work due to illness). When the economic impact was adjusted for cost-of-living differences between countries, the estimate increased to US$ 647 billion in lost productivity.

"Food safety is not an abstract issue - it touches every meal, every family, every day. Unsafe food has always been a major public health concern, but until now we lacked the bigger picture of its staggering human and economic toll. These new estimates change that." said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. "For the first time, countries have their own data to see where the burden is highest. With that knowledge, governments can prioritize the actions needed to protect people's health."

Expanded scope, sharper picture

WHO's new analysis significantly expands the evidence base by assessing 42 major foodborne hazards, including bacteria, viruses, parasites and chemicals, from 194 countries from 2000 to 2021. The estimates now include new hazards including metals, rotavirus, and Trypanosoma cruzi (the parasite that causes Chagas disease).

Food can be contaminated with chemicals such as inorganic arsenic, lead and methylmercury from natural sources and human activities. Once these substances have entered the food chain, they are often difficult or impossible to remove. WHO calls on governments to prevent contamination at the source - through better agricultural practices, stricter industrial controls and stronger environmental regulations.

While the presence of some metals in food has been decreasing over time, these estimates reveal for the first time the burden of cardiovascular diseases, cancers, and intellectual disability resulting from dietary exposure to metals. Inorganic arsenic and lead are linked to more than 1 million deaths in one year; methylmercury can harm the developing brain and cause lifelong neurological and developmental problems in children.

A crisis of equity

Evolving diets, environmental pressures, globalization and inequalities in food systems continue to shape who is most exposed to unsafe food. Children and people living in low-resource communities experience the greatest health burden, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. The African and South-East Asian regions together account for nearly three-quarters of all foodborne illnesses and 60% of global deaths.

"This report is a wake-up call - but also a roadmap. The data show that foodborne diseases are not only persistent but are being made worse by climate change, which increases contamination risks, and by antimicrobial resistance, which makes infections harder to treat. We cannot tackle these threats alone," said Yuki Minato, WHO technical officer for food safety and senior author of The Lancet Global Health paper. "A One Health approach - integrating human, animal, plant, and environmental health - is essential. Countries must act urgently, using these estimates to target interventions, invest in surveillance, and break down the silos between health, agriculture and environment sectors. Delay costs lives."

Note to editors

The assessment and data can be explored in detail via an interactive online dashboard and updated Global Health Observatory pages with maps. The key findings are published in The Lancet Global Health, with an accompanying commentary and four papers focusing on specific hazard groups and associated diseases.

The estimates cover 42 foodborne hazards, but many other potentially important hazards could not be included due to insufficient data. These include antimicrobial resistant bacteria, pesticide residues, and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). Other health outcomes, such as growth impairment from aflatoxin exposure or enteropathogenic bacteria, and stillbirth due to listeriosis, were also excluded. These omissions highlight the urgent need for more national data, expanded investment in research, and strengthened surveillance to better characterize the full extent of illness caused by more than 200 known biological hazards and numerous chemical hazards transmissible via food.

National-level data covering the years 2000 to 2021 helps governments to focus their policies and actions towards areas with greatest burden. These estimates are intended to support national risk ranking, enabling governments to compare food safety threats, prioritize interventions, strengthen multisectoral collaboration, and allocate resources more effectively.

World Food Safety Day

WHO is releasing these updated foodborne disease estimates ahead of World Food Safety Day on 7 June 2026. This year's theme is "From burden to solutions - safe food everywhere". The 2026 edition of the estimates, along with the interactive data tools, provides a strong evidence base for the campaign, helping countries and partners turn data into targeted action to reduce the burden of unsafe food.

Experts from WHO will present these findings during a webinar on Thursday 4 June 2026 at 11:30 CEST/10:30 BST/5:30 ET.

For additional details and to register to attend the webinar:

WHO estimates of the global burden of foodborne diseases 2000-2021: Key findings from the 2026 edition

Read the original article on WHO.

Cost of Middle East War Harshly Impacting Children in Africa, Globally – UN Agency

Mirindi Johnson/UNICEF

(file photo)

3 June 2026

allAfrica.com

By Peter Kenny

Geneva — The war launched in the Middle East by the United States is nearly 100 days old, and the fallout extends far beyond the region, with the cost of vaccines impacting children across Africa and globally, says the United Nations.

“The disruption to global humanitarian supply chains is impacting children across the globe, with continued congestion in global supply routes, and higher transport costs at all levels,” the head of logistics for the UN children’s agency UNICEF, Jean-Cedric Meeus, said on Tuesday.

“Transportation and logistics costs alone are having a tremendous impact. Maritime diversions around the Cape of Good Hope now add two to four weeks to shipping times,” said Meeus, addressing a UN press conference in Geneva.

“Air freight capacity has tightened across Middle East routes, while port congestion is spreading across Africa and beyond,” said the UNICEF official.

The “cascading disruption” is a simple and brutal equation: with every additional dollar UNICEF spends on transport, one less dollar goes to supplies for children.

Increased transport costs mean less money for the lifesaving supplies children need, creating a precarious situation for agencies like UNICEF and severely impacting operations.

“Air freight costs for vaccines from India to Ethiopia, Nigeria, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo have jumped 50 to 70 percent,” Meeus explained.

-       Trucking costs for therapeutic food soar

“Trucking costs for Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food, from Kenya manufacturers to Somalia, South Sudan, and the DRC have climbed 30 percent.”

At the same time, sea freight for education materials from China to Yemen and Mozambique has surged 100 to 150 per cent.

“In Nigeria, rerouting syringes for a polio vaccination campaign targeting 12 million children cost an additional $200,000, a 56 percent transport increase,” said the UNICEF official.

“In Mali, the international freight budget saw a significant increase of 36 percent in the first quarter.”

With rising costs, the UNICEF Mali office faces the choice of reducing the number of supplies ordered and the number of children who can be treated.

“African ports in Beira, Conakry, Abidjan, Dar es Salaam, and Mombasa are all experiencing significant delays,” noted Meeus.

“Landlocked countries that depend on these corridors continue to face cascading effects. Ethiopia's Djibouti corridor, the country's primary humanitarian gateway, is under growing pressure.”

He said UNICEF faces the unprecedented scenario of nearly exhausting its annual transport contributions from logistics partners.

African Americans in Southern States Continue Struggles to Regain Voting Rights

Alabama state emergency appeal to Supreme Court upholds the elimination of an electoral district where African Americans could maintain representation

By Abayomi Azikiwe

Editor, Pan-African News Wire

Wednesday June 3, 2026

Political Review

In an emergency appeal to the United States Supreme Court, which is dominated by Conservatives in a 6-3 majority, the elimination of an entire district where African Americans have a sizable vote has been upheld.

The redrawing of the Alabama voting districts was made possible through the recent Louisiana v. Callais case which eviscerated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

This emergency appeal was aimed at overturning a lower court ruling which concluded that the previous map approved two years ago was constitutional. Yet, in the Republican Party efforts to maintain their majority margin in the House of Representatives has compelled their officials in Southern state governments to reshape how voting districts are designed.

The withdrawal of federal support for Reconstruction in the South after the national elections of 1876, resulted in the 15th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution being essentially nullified when a series of rulings by the Supreme Court declared that the government had no authority to enforce laws which systematically discriminated against the African American people. The disenfranchisement of African Americans was enforced through Jim Crow laws as well as vigilante organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan and the White Citizen’s Councils. 

Some 61 years after the Voting Rights Act was signed by then U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson, becoming one of the crown jewels of the mass Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, a concerted effort by the administration of President Donald Trump and its supporters to foster the disenfranchisement of millions of African Americans is well underway. Many are anticipating that a number of African American Democratic House members could lose their seats during the upcoming midterm elections.

Trump’s policies which have prompted the decline in the U.S. economy resulting from the imposition of tariffs during 2025 and the unprovoked war against the Islamic Republic of Iran alongside its allies in Occupied Palestine beginning in late February of this year, has driven up prices in all major sectors. Large scale lay-offs in manufacturing and tech firms have not been addressed by the White House.

The disapproval ratings for the Trump administration are threatening the MAGA Republican base which dominates both the House and the Senate. Therefore, large scale disenfranchisement of African Americans by rendering their voting power dysfunctional is one of the options being utilized by the White House and its cohorts in Congress. 

A report published by The American Prospect described the assaults on African American voting rights as the resurrection of the “Dixiecrat” South. Although the MAGA Republicans claim that their policy decisions are not based upon institutional racist sentiments, it is quite evident that they are completely indifferent to the political aspirations of African Americans and other nationally oppressed communities. 

Despite the fact that the majority of African Americans still reside in the Southern states, The American Prospect says of the current situation:

“It has been just one month since the 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court effectively nullified Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), making it lawful for states to draw congressional districts that systematically dilute the votes of Black and Latino Americans. Within hours, Southern states responded. Florida legislators passed a GOP gerrymander the day the decision was announced. Alabama moved to eliminate majority-minority districts even after primary-election votes had been cast, though an appellate court has temporarily blocked the state from proceeding. (UPDATE: The Supreme Court waved the gerrymandered map through last night.) In Tennessee, the district representing Memphis—majority-Black—was cracked into three, all now majority-white, all expected to turn red. By 2028, South Carolina will likely gerrymander out of existence the district that has elected the state’s only Black congressman, civil rights icon James Clyburn.” (https://prospect.org/2026/06/03/return-of-dixiecrat-south-voting-rights-act-racial-gerrymandering/)

Obviously, the political and social statuses of African Americans are imperiled. The shifting demographic character of the U.S. has undoubtedly worsened racial attitudes towards African Americans and other people of color communities.

Racial minorities are rapidly becoming a combined majority within the U.S. Since the majority of African Americans vote for Democratic candidates and the Republicans are largely a cult centered around the personality of Trump, the implications for policy remain dire for progressive forces.

The reduction of voting power among African Americans may please many whites in the U.S., however, it will harness greater mobilizations and organizational activities among the oppressed peoples particularly African Americans. 

Responses to Attacks on Voting Rights

There have been mass demonstrations against the Louisiana v. Callais decision and the subsequent legislation redrawing voting maps in Southern states. Alabama was a focal point of these protest actions since the state will be impacted by the Supreme Court decision while the historical irony of redrawing maps harkens back to Selma Campaign of the 1960s. 

The events leading up to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 resulted in the deaths of several activists. Jimmie Lee Jackson of Marion, Alabama was killed by a state trooper on February 25 in the aftermath of a night march. 

Later on March 9, Unitarian Universalist Minister James Reeb was beaten by a white mob in Selma after he had participated in a voting rights march led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He died two days later from his injuries. Just two days prior to his beating, hundreds of activists had been attacked on the Edmond Pettus Bridge in the initial attempt to march from Selma to Montgomery demanding universal suffrage. 

Following the arrival of thousands in Montgomery on March 25, Detroit activist, Viola Liuizzo was murdered by the Ku Klux Klan while transporting demonstrators in her vehicle. These deaths are some of most well known in the long saga of struggles between 1955, when the bus boycott was held in Montgomery, Alabama, through the next 10 years. 

Even during the summer of 1964 when the Civil Rights Act was signed, three Civil Rights workers were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan. James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman were kidnapped and lynched in Neshoba County, Mississippi while they were participating in a voter registration campaign throughout the state. 

It remains to be seen whether such sacrifices will be made in the current period. In addition to mass demonstrations, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has called for African American students to boycott mainstream state higher educational institutions’ sports programs in the Southern states where redistricting is occurring. 

In a statement issued by the national NAACP, the organization is calling upon higher education students to place financial pressure on the universities and colleges by withholding their sporting talents and labor. There are tremendous profits garnered from college sports through ticket sales, advertising, and clothing. 

The NAACP said on May 19 that:

“The NAACP today launched the ‘Out of Bounds’ campaign, a national call for Black athletes, families, fans, alumni, and consumers to withhold athletic and financial support from public universities in states that have moved to limit, weaken, or erase Black voting representation in the wake of the Supreme Court's 6-3 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, which gutted what was left of the Voting Rights Act. The NAACP identified eight priority states — Tennessee, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, and Georgia — and targeted flagship public athletic programs generating more than $100 million in annual revenue that continue to recruit Black athletes while their state governments dismantle the political power of Black communities.” (https://naacp.org/articles/naacp-calls-black-athletes-fans-withhold-support-public-schools-states-attacking-black)

Other targets will be considered in this regard. During late 2025, a boycott of Targets was launched after they repudiated any form of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) in line with the executive orders issued by the Trump administration. 

The conditions of worsening institutional racism and national oppression will foster creative methods of resistance. Moreover, the economic crisis in the U.S. and internationally will compel even more working class people to fight against the capitalist system. 

Ebola Patient Recovers in Eastern DR Congo's Goma

Source: Xinhua| 2026-06-04 02:09:30|Editor: huaxia

Family members celebrate after a relative was declared cured of Ebola in Goma, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), June 3, 2026. A patient infected with Ebola virus disease was discharged on Wednesday in Goma, the capital of North Kivu Province in the eastern DRC, after being declared recovered by medical teams. The recovery brought relief to the patient's family, who said they had gone through days of anxiety and uncertainty. (Str/Xinhua)

KINSHASA, June 3 (Xinhua) -- A patient infected with Ebola virus disease was discharged on Wednesday in Goma, the capital of North Kivu Province in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), after being declared recovered by medical teams.

The recovery brought relief to the patient's family, who said they had gone through days of anxiety and uncertainty.

"We are very happy. Her illness worried us deeply. Since she was hospitalized, none of us could go to work. We were all anxious," said Kavira Kazadi, a family member of the patient.

The DRC government said on Tuesday that, as of Monday, six patients have recovered from Ebola, with 344 confirmed cases, including 60 deaths.

Medical charity Doctors Without Borders said on Monday that the Ebola response in North Kivu is being organized around systems already put in place during previous epidemics. In Goma, an Ebola treatment center with 80 beds has been set up, and the first patients have been admitted, according to the organization.

Goma, a major city in eastern DRC, has been under the control of the March 23 Movement rebel group since early 2025. Access to parts of North Kivu has remained difficult amid the continued insecurity.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday that it remains present in the Kivu region despite the security and access challenges in parts of eastern DRC.

"We have never left Kivu," said Mohamed Yakub Janabi, WHO regional director for Africa, in response to a question on access to North Kivu and Goma.

The WHO declared the Ebola outbreak in the DRC and Uganda a public health emergency of international concern on May 17. The current outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo strain of the Ebola virus, for which there is currently no approved vaccine or specific treatment. 

Dialogue Commission Creating Platform for Consensus, Building Strong State: Deputy Chief Commissioner

Addis Ababa, June 3, 2026 - The Ethiopian National Dialogue Commission (ENDC) affirmed that it has been creating a conducive platform for citizens to discuss key national issues that help to build consensus and contribute to the building of a strong and stable state. 

Deputy Chief Commissioner Hirut Gebreselassie told ENA that Ethiopia is at a critical juncture in its efforts to address longstanding differences among citizens through informed dialogue and inclusive consultation aimed at forging a lasting national consensus.

She recalled that the ENDC was established to facilitate a participatory process that enables citizens to openly discuss major national issues. 

Since its establishment, the Commission has conducted extensive consultations with Ethiopians both at home and abroad, collecting agendas and promoting broad public engagement.

According to Hirut, the consultation process has now reached a decisive stage, with preparations underway for the main national consultative conference. 

The Commission is currently organizing collected agendas and mobilizing the resources required for the conference.

Ethiopia has created an environment in which differences of opinion can be addressed through a structured and peaceful consultation process, she said.

"The various stages of the national consultation have demonstrated that it is possible to build consensus on major national issues through dialogue based on the supremacy of ideas," Hirut stated.

The Deputy Chief Commissioner further explained that citizens are actively participating in the development of a consultation framework designed to foster national consensus and strengthen state institutions through discussions on fundamental national questions.

The process has enabled diverse viewpoints and agendas to be freely expressed through the active participation of different segments of society, further reinforcing the inclusive nature of the consultation, she noted. 

According to her, the Commission is engaging with a wide range of stakeholders as part of preparations for the main conference, where critical national agendas will be deliberated.

She also revealed that efforts are underway to document the entire national consultation journey, including through digital platforms, to ensure future generations can learn from the experience.

"This clearly demonstrates the participatory and inclusive nature of Ethiopia's National Consultation Process," she said.

She also emphasized that the documentation effort, which includes research and analytical work, will also create opportunities for sharing Ethiopia's experiences and lessons with other countries.

The consultation process has entered the final phase of preparations for the official launch of the main national conference, with collected agendas being organized for discussion, she added.

The conference, she said, will be conducted with due consideration for Ethiopia's diversity and national unity, ensuring that the concerns and aspirations of all Ethiopians are represented.

Hirut also confirmed that the necessary technical and logistical preparations are being finalized to ensure the successful convening of the main national consultative conference.

AUC Chairperson Receives Credentials of Ethiopia’s New Permanent Representative to AU

Addis Ababa, June 3, 2026 - The Chairperson of the African Union Commission (AUC), Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, today received the Letters of Credentials of Ethiopia’s newly appointed Permanent Representative to the African Union, Ambassador Lemlem Fiseha Minale.

During the credential presentation ceremony, the Chairperson congratulated Ambassador Lemlem on her appointment, expressing confidence that her extensive experience and leadership would further strengthen cooperation between Ethiopia and the African Union.

He also commended Ethiopia’s continued support for the Union and welcomed the peaceful and orderly conduct of the country’s recent electoral process.

The two sides exchanged views on regional and global developments, as well as key priorities facing the African Union.

He reaffirmed the Commission’s readiness to work closely with Ethiopia in advancing the objectives of the Union and addressing emerging challenges across the continent.

 For her part, Ambassador Lemlem praised the Chairperson’s leadership and reiterated Ethiopia’s firm commitment to supporting the African Union and its continental agenda.

She underscored her government’s readiness to deepen cooperation with the Commission and conveyed the greetings and best wishes of the Ethiopian leadership.

Coalition of Ethiopian Civil Society Organizations Reports High Voter Turnout, Largely Peaceful Election

Addis Ababa, June 3, 2026 —The Coalition of Ethiopian Civil Society Organizations for Elections (CECOE) said the voting process in Ethiopia’s 7th General Election reflected high voter turnout and was mostly peaceful, and conducted by election officials with high diligence in polling stations.

Briefing the media today, CECOE Board Chairperson Sahleselassie Abebe stated that the observers saw active participation of political parties, journalists, the media; and no major flaws were observed.

Coalition of the Civil Society Organizations commended Ethiopians for registering as voters and casting ballots, praising citizens for showing the initiative to line up patiently throughout the Election Day until the conclusion of the voting process.

According to the CECOE’s preliminary observation report released today, the Coalition deployed 2,506 sitting and 867 mobile observers recruited from 101 member organizations.

The CECOE reported that it monitored 7,723 polling stations, representing 15 percent of the 51,026 polling stations established by NEBE, using a proportional methodology based on the number of polling stations in each region.

The findings were drawn from five voting-day processes monitored at the polling station observer sites: Polling station setup and opening, voting, closing, ballot counting, and posting of results at polling station level. 

According to the Coalition, most polling stations complied with election rules on setup and voting procedures. 

Among the Coalition’s highlighted observations included that 99 percent of the monitored stations were established in legally permitted locations, observers able to enter and monitor without restriction at nearly all stations, with entry denied at 3 polling stations.

Voting and counting were generally not interrupted, and CECOE said violence, intimidation, or harassments were reported in only a small number of stations.

Political party representatives were present at 65 percent of the monitored polling stations, and public display of results was posted at 97 percent of polling of stations.

The CECOE, which reported no major flaws overall, pointed out to some issues requiring attention, including the establishment of polling stations in 11 prohibited places, campaigning or symbols inside or within 200 meters of 9 polling stations, and denial of observer entry at 11 stations.

Repeated and unauthorized assistance by individuals other than the polling station head were witnessed in 22 stations, temporary security disruptions affecting voting at 19 polling stations, as well as the presence of unauthorized individuals in 4 polling stations, the Board Chairperson said.

He also urged competing parties and the Ethiopian public to await results with patience, accept outcomes once announced by National Election Board of Ethiopia and submit any grievances through the existing legal framework.

Full details of the report will be presented in a comprehensive observation report to be released soon, it was learned.

Heads of AU and IGAD Election Missions Laud Ethiopia's Democratic, Electoral Evolution

Addis Ababa, June 3, 2026 —The African Union and IGAD Election Observation Missions to the 2026 Ethiopian election have commended the significant milestone in the country’s democratic and electoral evolution. 

The Heads of the African Union Election Observation Mission (AUEOM) and IGAD Election Observation Mission to Ethiopia's 2026 election gave a joint press briefing and presented their preliminary findings today. 

Presenting the preliminary statement of the mission, AUEOM Head and former Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said the election was conducted within a legal and institutional framework that broadly supports democratic governance.

“The electoral environment on Election Day was generally calm, with voting proceeding in an orderly manner, and voters being processed steadily across most polling stations observed. This provided an opportunity for voters to cast their vote unhindered.”

According to the Head, the introduction of technology in voter registration to complement manual registration processes potentially contributed to the increased number of registered voters, specifically young people accustomed to using this technology.

The final African Union Observation Mission Report on the 7th General Election of Ethiopia will be released 30 days after the declaration of the final results, he said. 

The AUEOM Head also noted Ethiopia’s pioneering role for Africa's independence, expressing his firm hope for Ethiopia to become a nation that leads Africa to the next stage of a truly independent democratic continent, guided by her principles of inclusive growth and capable of living to the vision of African solutions to African problems. 

“Today is a day that the people of Ethiopia should be proud of. Today is a day we should remember your history, a nation that stood against the wave of colonialism, united and never colonized,” Uhuru Kenyatta said.

Ethiopia is a nation that stood for Africa's independence and for Africa's right to self-governance and rule; a nation, as a result of this that has become the capital of Africa, he further affirmed.

A great nation like Ethiopia should therefore take advantage of this moment to move and further deepen political and social dialogue.

For her part, IGAD Election Observation Mission Head and former Uganda Vice President Speciosa Wandira-Kazibwe said the election marked an important milestone in Ethiopia's democratic and electoral evolution. 

Wandira-Kazibwe commended the people of Ethiopia, the government, the National Election Board and other electoral actors for conducting a successful election and peaceful electoral process. 

The Head further underscored that the general election represents a notable milestone in Ethiopia's democratic and electoral development, particularly the introduction of major technological and institutional reforms aimed at improving election administration and enhancing the inclusivity and credibility of electoral participation.

The significant milestone in Ethiopia's democratic and electoral evolution is accordingly demonstrated by the major institutional, administrative and technological reforms, she added.

On behalf of the IGAD Election Observation Mission, Wandira-Kazibwe extended sincere congratulations to the government, and the people of Ethiopia for the generally peaceful and orderly conduct of the electoral process.

The election underscores a shared national commitment to stability, constitutionalism, and democratic progress, she reiterated. 

Accordingly, IGAD reaffirms its commitment to supporting the government and the people of Ethiopia in promoting democracy, good governance and credible elections.

Ethiopia's General Election Conducted Peacefully Despite Security Challenges: Observers

Source: Xinhua| 2026-06-04 00:58:15|Editor: huaxia

ADDIS ABABA, June 3 (Xinhua) -- Ethiopia's seventh general election, held on Monday, was marked by high voter turnout and orderly, peaceful participation, according to preliminary reports by election observation missions of the African Union (AU) and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD).

While presenting the preliminary report on Ethiopia's general election on Wednesday in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, head of the AU Election Observation Mission Uhuru Kenyatta, also former Kenyan president, said that the election was conducted in a generally "peaceful and orderly manner."

"Overall, the mission observed that voting was conducted in a peaceful, transparent and orderly manner, although operational and accessibility challenges were noted in some polling stations," Kenyatta told a joint press conference.

He said AU observers noted high levels of procedural compliance, with voter identification and verification procedures consistently applied and ballot boxes properly sealed.

According to Kenyatta, the election took place in a challenging security environment, particularly in parts of the Oromia, Amhara and Tigray regions, where insecurity affected political activities, electoral preparations and voter participation.

Head of the IGAD Election Observation Mission Speciosa Wandira-Kazibwe, also Uganda's former vice president, said the election marked an important milestone in Ethiopia's democratic and electoral development.

She said the election reflected a collective commitment to stability, constitutionalism and democratic progress, while demonstrating the impact of reforms aimed at improving election administration, inclusiveness and credibility.

"Observers reported high voter turnout throughout the day, with long queues observed at many polling stations visited. Women and elderly voters constituted the majority of voters in the morning, while youth participation increased in the afternoon," she said.

"Eight constituencies in the Amhara region and 38 in the Tigray region did not participate in the electoral process," she said, highlighting that the relevant authorities have expressed commitment to conducting the election in these areas once conditions permit.

She added that special voting arrangements for members of the military, security services and internally displaced persons are scheduled for June 8, while the official announcement of the final election results is expected on June 11.

The AU deployed an observation mission comprising 73 observers drawn from 35 African countries, while IGAD deployed 27 observers across eight regions of Ethiopia to monitor the country's election.

Russian Edition of Volume I of "China's Governance Under Xi Jinping's Leadership" Launched in St. Petersburg

Source: Xinhua

Editor: huaxia2026-06-04 03:40:00

ST. PETERSBURG, June 3 (Xinhua) -- The Russian edition of the first volume of "China's Governance Under Xi Jinping's Leadership" was launched at the 29th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on Wednesday.

Roughly over 100 representatives from media outlets, think tanks and government authorities of China, Russia and other countries attended the launch ceremony.

During the ceremony, President of Xinhua News Agency Fu Hua, TASS Director General Andrey Kondrashov and Chinese Consul General in St. Petersburg Luo Zhanhui jointly unveiled the new book.

Participants of the event noted that the book is a documentary work presenting a panoramic view of the great practices and remarkable achievements in China's governance in the new era. Packed with detailed case studies, objective perspectives and systematic elaboration, it fully documents China's arduous journey of overcoming difficulties and forging ahead in the new era.

The Russian edition of the book is expected to serve as an authoritative and vivid reference for people from various walks of life in Russia seeking to better understand how China has achieved its development and the effectiveness of its governance, while also building a solid bridge for deeper China-Russia cultural exchanges, said the participants.

Compiled by Xinhua News Agency and published by Xinhua Publishing House for global distribution, the first volume of "China's Governance Under Xi Jinping's Leadership" is now available in Chinese, English, Arabic, Russian and other languages. 

China’s $6 billion Investment Turns Africa’s Largest Car Manufacturing Hub into EV Battleground with Europe

BI Africa Contributor

31 May 2026 07:30 PM

China’s growing investment in Morocco is turning Africa’s largest carmaking hub into a key battleground with Europe in the global electric vehicle industry.

China is rapidly investing in Morocco, building a massive electric vehicle supply hub including industrial parks and a $1.3 billion battery gigafactory.

European Union policymakers fear that China is using Morocco as a backdoor to bypass heavy EV tariffs by exporting minimally processed parts tariff-free to Europe.

Moroccan officials deny the allegations, highlighting strong rules of origin and significant local value-add

The situation creates a dilemma for EU regulators, as penalizing Moroccan exports could disrupt supply chains for major European carmakers that operate in Morocco.

Outside the port city of Tangier, a 500-hectare industrial park called Tanger Tech City is quickly replacing farmland with factories. Numerous Chinese companies are setting up operations to manufacture tires, brakes, and battery components.

Further down the Atlantic coast, a Chinese battery manufacturer is constructing a 1.3 billion dollar gigafactory. Morocco aims to establish a complete manufacturing supply chain capable of providing parts for half a million electric vehicles per year by the end of 2026.

Tariffs and the Backdoor Fear

This massive influx of Chinese capital, which has reached roughly $6 billion since the pandemic, is causing severe anxiety for European Union policymakers in Brussels.

The EU has introduced heavy tariffs of up to 45 percent on electric vehicles imported directly from China to protect its own domestic market.

European officials worry that Beijing is using Morocco as a backdoor launch pad to avoid these trade barriers. They fear that heavily subsidized Chinese parts will undergo only minor processing in North Africa before being shipped tariff-free into Europe, allowing China to export its domestic industrial overcapacity.

European Union policymakers fear that China is using Morocco as a backdoor to bypass heavy EV tariffs by exporting minimally processed parts tariff-free to Europe.

The EU has already started pushing back, previously penalizing aluminum wheel shipments from Morocco after finding they received unfair state subsidies.

Moroccan trade officials strongly reject the idea that their economic zones are just a corporate camouflage for China to bypass Western trade barriers. Instead, they pitch Morocco as a legitimate, highly competitive manufacturing partner.

The nation offers major incentives, including a five-year corporate tax holiday, a young workforce, and local renewable energy that helps companies avoid Europe's strict carbon taxes.

Most importantly, Morocco has free trade agreements with both the EU and the US. Local authorities emphasize that Chinese firms must follow strict rules of origin, meaning components must be significantly transformed within Moroccan borders to legally qualify for tariff-free export.

A Dilemma for European Regulators

This situation presents a major dilemma for European regulators. Launching aggressive trade penalties against Morocco is incredibly complicated because European automotive giants like Renault and Stellantis already run massive factories there and rely on the local supply chain.

Furthermore, strict Moroccan labor laws mean these new factories must hire local workers, which has boosted the local economy and created jobs.

However, geopolitical experts warn that China has the financial muscle to dominate Morocco's entire vertical electric vehicle supply chain, from mining its massive phosphate reserves to building the transport infrastructure.

As the EU debates new laws to protect its eroding industrial base, Morocco is turning into a major economic battleground where Europe's defensive trade policies directly collide with China's manufacturing ambitions.

Victor Awogbemila

Americans Who Test Positive for Ebola at Kenya Facility Could be Treated in US, Federal Officials Say

By Deidre McPhillips

Jennifer Hansler

MSF teams wearing full protective equipment reinforce perimeter barriers around a restricted Ebola isolation zone and basic hygiene facilities at the General Referral Hospital on May 26, 2026 in Mongbwalu, Democratic Republic of Congo.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday that Americans who test positive for Ebola while under observation at a facility in Kenya could be sent for treatment in the United States — an apparent shift from the Trump administration’s position that no Ebola cases would be allowed into the country.

“We’re not actually asking Kenya to set up treatment for Americans. I think the one that’s been very controversial is a misunderstanding. There is a facility that the Kenyans are allowing us to open. If there are any Americans that are exposed, potentially exposed, they will be transferred to this facility for observation,” Rubio said at a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing.

“If they test positive at any time while in that facility, we will remove them from Kenya and send them to the nearest treatment facility, either in Europe or in the home – or in the United States, to be treated for Ebola,” he said.

Rubio, who said last week that “we cannot and will not allow any cases of Ebola to enter the United States,” did not provide further details.

The Trump administration has been working to stand up a facility in Kenya to quarantine and treat Americans who have been exposed to Ebola in the area of the outbreak. However, the facility has faced significant backlash from Kenyan residents, and from health and medical experts in the US.

US officials had previously said that anyone at the Kenya facility who develops symptoms or tests positive would be evacuated to Europe.

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, director of the US National Institutes of Health and acting director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Wednesday that the facility was meant to provide “confidence” to Americans who may be exposed that there will be a dedicated place for them to cared for that they can reach quickly.

Treating American patients in the US is still an option, depending on individual circumstances, he said.

“We’re not ruling out moving people out to the United States if we believe that case requires more intensive management,” Bhattacharya told CNN’s Anderson Cooper and Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta on Wednesday on “Ebola: Facts and Fears,” a CNN All Access Subscriber Series event.

If they are exposed but don’t get sick, they can also quickly return to the DRC to help with the response again, he said.

A US official told CNN that the US facilities that would accept citizens who test positive would probably be in the continental United States, noting that the US has specialized hospitals including Atlanta’s Emory University.

They also noted that there are “very strong facilities in Europe,” including the hospital in Germany that is treating an American doctor who tested positive for the virus, and that those are “much closer.”

The official said that if people are symptomatic or need care, they would be evacuated directly to Europe or the US and would not go to the Kenya facility, which they said is intended primarily for observation of people who have a high-risk exposure but are not symptomatic or in need of complex treatment.

The official told CNN that it was never the case that Americans who had tested positive would be blocked from coming to the US.

Bhattacharya told CNN that he hasn’t spoken with Rubio but that the goal is to avoid “inadvertent entry.”

“The key thing is that, just make sure that there are no inadvertent cases imported in the United States, and to do that, we have these travel restrictions there for airports where screening is taking place for passengers that come from those areas, so they can get assessed by CDC teams rapidly. So far to date, I think, we’ve screened more than 2,000 passengers on this.”

Acting CDC director: US Ebola response isn’t diminished by cuts

Bhattacharya said that the United States has had a “very concerted response” since learning about the current Ebola outbreak and that cuts to the US Agency for International Development are not hindering it.

“The problem is really a technical challenge, and as far as will and technical expertise, we’ve been all in,” Bhattacharya told CNN.

The challenges come from managing an outbreak in remote areas of a conflict-ridden country, he said.

“I have not seen any diminishment in our capacity to manage the manage the outbreak,” Bhattacharya said. “What I do see is a massive challenge caused by just the unfortunate physical reality of how Ebola spreads, and a environment where there really is a lot of difficulty to reach local populations, because it’s a war-torn area controlled by warlords in many ways, where the government itself doesn’t have a tremendous amount of control.”

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How big of a threat is Ebola?

The CDC has a team of 25 people who are in DRC all the time, largely based in the capital of Kinshasa, Bhattacharya said, and more have been surged to respond specifically to the outbreak. Nearly 90 more CDC staff are based in Uganda, which has also seen cases. Those teams are working to help with technical parts of the response, such as contact tracing and modeling projections for possible spread.

The US has also surged testing resources and personal protective equipment to help with the outbreak, he said, and the US State Department and the CDC are working closely with local nongovernmental organizations.

Bhattacharya said that the State Department has released $80 million in funding to support the DRC and that an additional $107 million for “rapid response support” has been sent to Congress for approval after getting signoff from US Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Outbreak may have started in February

A local leader in the Democratic Republic of Congo told CNN that they believe that the first Ebola case associated with the current outbreak may have occurred on February 22, months before the World Health Organization was alerted to the outbreak.

WHO was informed of a high-mortality outbreak of unknown illness in the Ituri Province on May 5, the organization has said. The DRC health ministry declared an Ebola outbreak on May 15, and WHO declared it to be a public health emergency of international concern on May 17.

The mayor of Mongbwalu, a remote gold mining town in Ituri province, told CNN’s Clarissa Ward that a coffin was burned after a body that had been in a local morgue was moved to a different coffin.

“Within two weeks of that, 48 people in his town were dead,” Ward told Cooper and Gupta during Wednesday’s event.

At first, local leaders thought tuberculosis may have been driving the deaths, she said.

They also conducted tests for Ebola, but those results were initially negative because they were looking for the more common Zaire strain, not the Bundibugyo strain that’s behind the ongoing outbreak.

“So you just lost all those weeks and weeks and weeks before they were able to identify that it was Ebola and declare an outbreak,” Ward said.

At a WHO briefing on Wednesday, officials said there is an ongoing investigation to understand the timeline of the outbreak — including field teams talking with community members to learn more. Officials said they think the outbreak started earlier, but they are waiting to complete the investigation to share a full report.

Bhattacharya told CNN that “the estimates are that the outbreak has been going on since at least February.”

But the “first notice of it was just a couple weeks ago, and since then, we have devoted considerable resources to address the outbreak,” he said.