The News Journal

Mali on Sunday announced that it will quit the multinational military force in West Africa's sub-Sahara region, after it was blocked from assuming the presidency of the group. The country's military government blamed a lack of progress in the fight against the Islamists and the failure to hold recent meetings in Mali. “The government of Mali is deciding to withdraw from all the organs and bodies of the G5 Sahel Force," including the joint force fighting the extremists, Bamako announced. “The opposition of some G5 Sahel member states to Mali's presidency is linked to manoeuvres by a state outside the region aiming desperately to isolate Mali,” it added, without naming the country. The G5 Sahel force, which includes troops from Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso and Mauritania, was set up in 2017 to counter Islamist extremists who have swept across the region in recent years, killing thousands of people and forcing millions to flee their homes. Read More : https://www.thenationa...

 Somalia's newly elected politicians were sworn in after a long-delayed voting process marred by a power struggle between the country's president and the prime minister. The formation of Somalia's 11th parliament is the next step on the road towards selecting a new president for the nation, a process that is more than a year behind schedule. Of the 275 parliamentarians, 250 took their oaths of office on Thursday alongside 40 out of 54 senators at the African Union military base in the capital, Mogadishu. Dozens more are yet to be selected and sworn in. The legislators will then elect speakers and deputies for both parliamentary chambers before they sit to choose a new president. The rivalry between President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, better known as Farmajo, and Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble has continually delayed the elections and stoked fears of further instability in Somalia, which is also battling a decade-long insurgency and the threat of famine. Elections had...