Sayid Ali Ahmed

The U.S. State Department is preparing to reduce visa-processing services across Africa, cutting the number of U.S. embassies and consulates that handle visa applications from nearly 50 to 20, the Associated Press reported. The change is expected to take effect in June, though no final date has been set. The move is part of the Trump administration’s broader push to tighten immigration controls, including closer scrutiny of both immigrant and temporary visa applicants.

Members of the international community on Monday urged Somali leaders to resume dialogue and agree on an electoral roadmap, warning against actions that could escalate political tensions.

The central African nation of Chad has entered a phase of acute structural vulnerability that puts it and the wider on a collision path with state collapse. Too long ignored by regional actors and the international community, who have wrongly interpreted prowess on the battlefield with internal stability, the question is no longer simply whether the government of President Mahamat Deby Itno is authoritarian. It is. It is whether he can hold the country together at all.