Menas Associates Blog
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Nigerian military recaptures
six towns in Borno State
Nigerian military rejoice after capturing parts of the town of Baga, Borno State, from the Islamic State of West Africa Province (ISWAP) faction of Boko Haram The Nigerian military has launched several successful attacks against terrorist positions in the country’s...
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Pressure on Libyan militias intensifies
Libyan militias not aligned to Field Marshall Khalifa Haftar's self-styled Libyan National Army are facing legal and political pressure The 2 January decision by the Prosecutor General’s Office in Tripoli to issue arrest warrants for Abdelhakim Belhadj, Ibrahim...
read moreThe threat of regime implosion in Algeria
A central figure of the regime's Bouteflika clan, Saïd Bouteflika (left) and Army Chief of Staff General Ahmed Gaïd Salah (right) Algeria is now facing the very real threat of a rupture within the regime. For months, there has been talk about the in-fighting within...
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Kurdistan: Barzani family
re-establishes its pre-eminence
Masrour Barzani (left) with his fatherMasoud Barzani (right) The Kurdish region moved several steps closer last month towards forming its new government. This couldn’t come soon enough given that it has been almost three months since parliamentary elections took...
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New EU grants to counter illegal migration in Morocco
The EU announced on 14 December that it would commit an additional €118 million (US$133 million) to help Morocco tackle human trafficking and strengthen border management. The approved projects mean that the EU has pledged €148 million (US$167 million) to Morocco in...
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Collateral damage of US airstrike fuels concerns in the Sahel
A US airstrike in south east Libya on 29 November killed 11 Taureg mistakenly thought to be terrorists. Menas Associates investigations have found that the US intelligence was based on unchecked and unverified third hand information, and did not kill 11 al-Qa’ida in...
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Challenging year ahead for Nigeria’s economy
Nigeria's economy has remained sluggish despite recovering from a recession in 2017. Growth remains below 2.0%, with per capita growth consistently falling since 2015. Lack of key reforms means growth has largely depended on the oil sector’s performance. There is a...
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Iran in 2019: The political scene, economy, and society
The past year has been challenging for Iran, opening with popular protests that questioned regime legitimacy. As the year unfolded, the country came under intense pressure from beyond its borders and experienced a collapse of the national currency that took an...
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NOC assesses Benghazi mega-project
The divergent characters of the National Oil Corporation (NOC) and the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) reflect the different roles that they each played during the Qadhafi era. As the country’s principal source of income it was essential that the NOC remained...
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Baghdad and Erbil agree on Kirkuk oil export deal
After a standoff of more than a year, Baghdad and Erbil have agreed on a deal to resume oil exports from Kirkuk. Under the deal, which the Oil Ministry has described as a ‘preliminary agreement’, Erbil has agreed to pump between 50,000 b/d and 100,000 b/d from Kirkuk...
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