War / Africa
Ethiopian Civil War
Federal drone strikes on Mekelle and a deadlocked multi-front insurgency push Ethiopia toward renewed full-scale war.
Zambia
Zambia built one of southern Africa's steadiest democratic records, and Hakainde Hichilema embodied it: in 2021 he beat a sitting president who conceded and handed over power.
His 2026 re-election is testing everything that reputation rested on. The electoral commission suspended the count over ballot theft and attacks on polling staff, police arrested opposition leader Brian Mundubile mid-count, and the commission then declared Hichilema the winner with about 60 percent. Observers called the vote free but not fair. Mundubile rejects the result.
The man who won power through a clean transfer holds it through a disputed one.
Zambia's post-election crisis has settled into a durable contested second term with no negotiated resolution and no external actor willing to press for one.
Washington's Africa envoy completed a second regional tour built around commercial access, attending Hichilema's inauguration without public comment on tally irregularities, promoting US participation in the Kenticha tantalum and lithium mine, and delivering the first US shipment of a long-acting HIV drug to Lusaka.
Washington's second Africa envoy tour confirms the US posture is a durable policy choice, not a one-off omission: commercial access across copper, cobalt, tantalum, and lithium, paired with health diplomacy.
Mundubile's arrest during the count remains the sharpest coercive signal, demonstrating the government's willingness to deploy security services against electoral challengers rather than rely on administrative process.
The absence of SADC or EU pressure to match Washington's silence leaves the opposition with no external leverage point.
SADC and EU observer missions. No external sponsor on either side.
Date unknown
Escalating
Diplomatic
US Africa Envoy's Second Tour Recasts Washington's Continental Posture Around Trade and Minerals
Washington's senior Africa diplomat met the Zambian and Kenyan presidents, Ethiopian ministers and the African Union commission chair across a tour built around commercial access.
War / Africa
Federal drone strikes on Mekelle and a deadlocked multi-front insurgency push Ethiopia toward renewed full-scale war.
War / Africa
Sudan's army fights on across Khartoum while a chlorine munitions dossier and a US embargo push reshape the conflict's accountability.