Coups make a comeback in Africa

Gideon Rachman speaks to historian and author Simon Sebag Montefiore about his new book, The Cauldron: The Making of the Modern Middle East. They discuss the forces that shaped the region, from the Ottoman Empire and Ataturk to the ongoing tensions between the US, Israel and Iran ...  Show more

Gideon talks to Vali Nasr, author of Iran’s Grand Strategy and professor of Middle Eastern Studies at Johns Hopkins University, SAIS, about how the balance of power in the Middle East is changing. After six months of on-off hostilities, Nasr argues, Iran’s core aims are unchanged ...  Show more

Last week’s coup in Niger is the latest in a string of recent military takeovers in Africa—seemingly the final domino to fall in a region plagued by instability and the battle between Russia and the West for influence in the Sahel. Coup leaders are now facing an ultimatum from th ...  Show more

Niger and Gabon are the latest countries in Africa's Sahel to experience military coups. But that’s not the only issue that is facing the area. Beverly Ochieng from BBC Monitoring in Nairobi explains why several countries in the region are among the worst on the Global Terrorism ...  Show more

In this episode of Hold Your Fire!, Richard is joined by Crisis Group’s Sahel director, Jean-Hervé Jezequel, to discuss the decision of military leaders in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger to withdraw from the regional bloc ECOWAS, their campaigns against jihadist insurge ...

As country after country in the Sahel has fallen prey to coups, President Macky Sall’s Senegal seemed an outpost of stability. Yet our correspondent finds him <a href="https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2023/10/26/senegals-president-asks-if-democracy-can-work-in- ...