African nations are drowning in debt. A halt of US aid to many countries on the continent could worsen the crisis.
Africa is a continent rich in natural resources with a young population. African nations in theory have the potential to transform their economies. But many of them are facing mountains of debt.
Africa’s external debt climbed to more than $650bn last year.
More than half of African countries are either in debt distress or teetering on the edge. But credit restructuring is painstakingly slow, and many governments end up spending more on servicing their debt than on healthcare or education.
A new documentary claiming to have uncovered the name of the Israeli soldier responsible for shooting Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh has been released online.
Abu Akleh, a Palestinian American who had been with Al Jazeera since 1997, was killed while reporting from Jenin in the occupied West Bank in May 2022.
Shortly after her death, Israeli officials and media suggested she had been killed by Palestinian gunfire.
However, subsequent reports from human rights organisations and news agencies showed that the Palestinian fighters initially accused by Israel were some distance from Abu Akleh’s killing and, in September, Israel conceded there was a “high probability” its forces had “accidentally” killed the correspondent.
Contributors to the documentary, Who Killed Shireen? released on Thursday by Zeteo, suggested that Abu Akleh’s killing has helped further embolden a sense of impunity among Israeli soldiers, which has since contributed to the killing of more than 200 journalists by the Israeli military and settlers in the West Bank.
Here are four of the key takeaways from the investigation:
Biden administration knew that Israel was responsible for Abu Akleh’s killing
According to numerous testimonies featured in the film, officials within the Biden administration either knew or suspected that Abu Akleh had been shot by an Israeli soldier, but continued to support Israeli claims that she had been killed by Palestinians.
The filmmakers also claim that US officials had been informed by an unnamed Israeli general responsible for the West Bank within hours of Abu Akleh’s killing that one of his soldiers had likely shot her.
US Representative Rashida Tlaib speaks outside the US Capitol at event honouring Shireen Abu Akleh]Ali Harb/Al Jazeera]
Despite this, US officials continued to support public Israeli accounts of Abu Akleh’s killing that attempted to shift the blame, and then, when Israel publicly admitted the likely culpability of one of its soldiers, that the killing was unintentional.
US officials did not publicly dispute that narrative, and instead said they were unable to determine if a crime had been committed without access to the shooter, which Israel refused to allow.
US refused to take the matter further
Speaking to reporter Dion Nissenbaum, one anonymous staffer within the former administration of President Joe Biden said that officials declined to press the Israeli administration on killing one of their citizens for fear of “anger]ing] the Israeli government”.
This is despite officials having concluded, the same source said, that Abu Akleh’s killing had been an intentional act.
Interviewed in the documentary, Eyal Hulata, who was Israel’s national security adviser at the time of the killing, defended Israel’s decision not to release the suspected soldier for questioning by the United States, saying that Israel had a “very good and trustworthy investigative mechanism”.
Asked if he could ever remember the subject of the US journalist’s murder arising in discussions between President Biden and Naftali Bennett, who was Israeli prime minister at the time, Hulala replies, “This wasn’t a topic between the prime minister and the president”.
President Joe Biden shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett as they meet in the Oval Office of the White House, Friday, August 27, 2021, in Washington, DC]Evan Vucci/AP Photo]
Further requests from the Biden administration that Israel change the rules of engagement that some felt had led to Abu Akleh’s death met, according to one interviewee, “the brush off”.
The failure of the Biden administration to hold Israel to account or bring about a change to its rules of engagement after Abu Akleh’s murder has, US Senator Chris Van Hollen told filmmakers, contributed towards “the deaths of … other Americans and other civilians”.
The soldier blamed for killing Abu Akleh is now dead
The film reports that, according to soldiers active that day, Abu Akleh was killed by Alon Scagio, a sniper with the Israeli military’s elite “Duvdevan” unit.
Speaking of his response to having killed the journalist, despite her identity as a member of the press being clear, a friend of Scagio says he didn’t “remember anything special” about Abu Akleh’s killing, “so it wasn’t, like, an issue. He wasn’t happy, like, ‘ Hey, I killed a journalist, ‘ of course, but he wasn’t … eating himself from the inside”.
Investigations by the filmmakers show Scagio was moved out of the Duvdevan to a commander position in a different unit, distancing him from any investigation, as a result, the filmmakers guess, of having killed Abu Akleh.
Scagio was later killed in June 2024 by a roadside bomb in Jenin, the same West Bank city in which he is accused of killing Abu Akleh.
As a result of the fallout from Abu Akleh’s killing, Scagio’s friend claims the Duvdevan unit took to using her image for target practice.
US government support for Israel is unwavering
The killing of Abu Akleh came during what at the time was considered an intense phase of Israeli raids on the occupied West Bank. She was one of at least 145 Palestinians killed during the raids in 2022.
But since then, Israel has only ramped up its violence in both the West Bank and Gaza.
Israel has killed more than 52, 000 Palestinians since it launched its war on Gaza in October 2023, decimating the territory and refusing the entry of food since March, starving the local population.
And in the West Bank, Israel has increased the severity of its attacks, using heavy weaponry and air strikes, and forcing Palestinians out of their homes. More than 900 Palestinians have been killed there.
Palestinians wait in long queues to receive pots of food as they face food crisis, March 11, Gaza City, Gaza ,]Mahmoud İssa/Anadolu Agency]
Despite that, the US – both under former President Joe Biden and current President Donald Trump – has maintained its support of Israel, even as much of the rest of the world has criticised its actions.
At the United Nations, the US regularly votes alongside Israel, while the majority of member states seek to use the international body to pressure Israel to stop. And the US has threatened the International Criminal Court for seeking to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for committing war crimes.
The United States has announced a ‘breakthrough deal’ with the United Kingdom that would create an aluminium and steel trading zone and secure the pharmaceutical supply chain.
The deal affirms that “reciprocity and fairness is a vital principle of international trade” and increases access for US agricultural products, US President Donald Trump said on Thursday, though he added that the final details were still being written up.
“The final details are being written up,” Trump told reporters. “In the coming weeks, we’ll have it all very conclusive.”
The deal, the first one struck by the US since Trump imposed his far-reaching tariffs, is also said to strip back paperwork for British companies looking to export to the US.
The president said that the agreement would lead to more beef and ethanol exports to the UK, which would also streamline the processing of US goods through customs.
The White House said that the deal will bring in $6bn in external revenue from its 10-percent tariffs, which will stay in place, but that it would also bring in $5bn in new export opportunities. The UK agreed to lower its tariffs to 1.8 percent from 5.1 percent and provide greater access to US goods.
The US already runs a trade surplus with the UK, making it a bit easier to find common ground, as Trump has staked his tariffs on specifically eliminating the annual trade deficits with multiple nations that he says have taken advantage of the US.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer joined the president in the announcement over the phone. Starmer said the deal would boost trade and create jobs.
Thursday’s announced agreement is the first agreement since the Trump administration started a global trade war with universal levies of 10 percent. The US has also imposed 25-percent tariffs on cars, steel and aluminium, 25-percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico, and 145-percent tariffs on China. US and Chinese officials are due to hold talks in Switzerland on Saturday.
British implications
Starmer has struck up a warm relationship with Trump since his centre-left Labour Party was elected in July.
Starmer’s government has been seeking to build new trading relationships post-Brexit with the US, China and the EU without moving so far towards one bloc that it angers the others.
Economists and one chief executive of an FTSE 100 company — the highest capitalised blue chip companies on the London stock exchange—said the immediate economic impact of a tariff deal was likely to be limited but that trade agreements in general would help long-term growth. The UK struck a free trade agreement with India this week.
The US and the UK have been aiming to strike a bilateral trade agreement since the British people voted in 2016 to leave the EU, allowing the country to negotiate independently of the rest of the continent. Then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson touted a future deal with the US as an incentive for Brexit.
The US ran a $11.9bn trade surplus in goods with the UK last year, according to the Census Bureau. The $68bn in goods that the US imported from the UK accounted for just 2 percent of all goods imported into the country.
Markets respond
The US has been under pressure from investors to strike deals to de-escalate its tariff war after Trump’s often chaotic policymaking upended global trade with friends and foes alike, threatening to stoke inflation and start a recession.
Top US officials have engaged in a flurry of meetings with trading partners since the president on April 2 imposed a 10-percent tariff on most countries, along with higher rates for many trading partners that were then suspended for 90 days.
On Wall Street, US markets were responding to the news amid hopes that this could be enough to ward off a recession.
As of 11:30am ET in the US (15:30 GMT), the S&P 500 was up 0.97 percent and on track for an 11th gain in the last 13 days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was 1.02 percent higher and the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite was 1.17 percent higher than market open.
White smoke has emerged out of the Sistine Chapel chimney, signalling that a new pope has been elected.
Bells rang out Thursday evening from St Peter’s Basilica after cardinals elected the 267th pope to lead the Catholic Church on the second day of their conclave.
The smoke signal means the winner secured at least 89 of the votes from the 133 cardinals participating in the conclave to elect a successor to Pope Francis.
The name of the new church leader will be announced later, when a top cardinal utters the words “Habemus papam!” – Latin for “We have a pope!” – from the loggia or roofed area of the basilica. The cardinal then reads the winner’s birth name in Latin and reveals the name he has chosen to be called.
The new pope is then expected to make his first public appearance and impart a blessing from the same loggia.
Filipino Luis Antonio Tagle, Italian Pietro Parolin and Ghanian Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson are among the cardinals who are considered frontrunners.
Hoda Abdel-Hamid, reporting for Al Jazeera from Vatican City, said: “It certainly comes as a surprise that the choice came so quickly. Is it a compromise figure? Did the conservative win? Or did the church decide to stay on the progressive path? All these questions are still up there for us outside the Vatican, but those inside have already answered that question.”
“The excitement level is like that of a World Cup final,” she noted.
Priests made the sign of the cross and nuns wept as the crowd shouted “Viva il papa!” (“Long live the pope!”) after the white smoke wafted into the late afternoon sky at 6:07pm (16:07 GMT).
There had been a moment of hesitation in the vast crowd. “Is it white!?” one of the tens of thousands of people in St Peter’s Square asked. “It is!!” another said, shouting with joy.
The crowd erupted in jubilation after waiting for hours to see the colour of the smoke coming out of the Sistine Chapel’s chimney.
The Israeli military has been altering commercial drones to carry bombs and surveil people in Gaza, an investigation by Al Jazeera’s Sanad verification agency has found.
According to Sanad, drones manufactured by the Chinese tech giant DJI have been used to attack hospitals and civilian shelters and to surveil Palestinian prisoners being forced to act as human shields for heavily armoured Israeli soldiers.
This is not the first time DJI drones have been modified and used by armies. There were similar reports about both sides of the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022.
At the time, DJI suspended all sales to both countries and introduced software modifications that restricted the areas where its drones could be used and how high they could fly.
However, DJI has not stopped selling drones to Israel.
A DJI Avata captured in Gaza [Handout/Saraya al-Quds]
Israel’s use of DJI drones
The Israeli army’s use of DJI drones is not new.
By 2018, DJI drones were reportedly in extensive use across numerous divisions in the Israeli military. The Israeli campaign group Hamushim found evidence that Israeli military-trained operators were using DJI’s Matrice 600 model to drop tear gas on civilian protesters during the following year’s Great March of Return in Gaza.
Despite their previous deployment by the Israeli military, their lethal use against civilians and protected targets in Gaza, as documented in this investigation, is unprecedented.
Al Jazeera has reached out to Israeli authorities to request comment on the findings of this investigation but has received no response by time of publication.
A DJI Matrice 300 captured in Gaza [Handout/Saraya al-Quds]
Sanad has documented several DJI drones that have been adapted for military use.
However, it is the powerful DJI Agras drone, developed for agricultural use, that is the most significant.
According to its manufacturers, the DJI Agras can carry a substantial payload and is capable of precision flight.
As Sanad’s investigation shows, it can also be used to deliver an explosive payload to targets beyond the reach of conventional military forces.
In addition to the DJI Agras, the DJI Mavic has been used by the Israeli military across Gaza for reconnaissance and target acquisition.
Similarly, the compact DJI Avata drone, designed for recreational filming, has been repurposed by the Israeli military to navigate and map the intricate tunnel networks beneath Gaza.
Israeli soldiers equip a DJI Agras drone with explosives [tamerqdh on X]
Attacks on northern Gaza
By late 2024, Israel had laid siege to Gaza’s north, pushing the population to the brink of famine and imposing conditions described as “apocalyptic” by United Nations observers.
Residents and humanitarian organisations reported an alarming number of what appeared to be civilian drones armed with explosives.
In an incident documented by displaced civilians, footage shared on July 17, 2024, shows a DJI Agras drone dropping a bomb onto the IHH Turkish charity’s building in Jabalia, northern Gaza, less than 100 metres (330ft) from a school serving as a shelter and aid distribution centre.
A DJI Agras drone drops a bomb on a building next to a school used as a shelter [hamza20300 on Telegram]
In November in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza, a DJI Agras drone dropped a bomb in a residential neighbourhood where civilians had fled after Israeli shelling of a UN-operated school-turned-shelter.
People who witnessed the bombing told Sanad the attack seemed calculated to instil fear.
A DJI Agras drone drops a bomb on residential buildings [moneer._20 on Instagram]
Surveillance and urban warfare
Beyond direct attacks, Israeli-modified DJI drones have been used extensively for surveillance and tactical operations throughout Gaza.
An Israeli soldier’s TikTok account shows him operating a DJI drone using first-person-view goggles. The DJI headset is compatible with drones like the Mavic and Avata [amitmaymoni via TikTok]
In a further incident, footage obtained by Al Jazeera Arabic from one Israeli drone shows a DJI Avata helping to track an unnamed Palestinian being used by heavily armed Israeli soldiers as a human shield – an illegal practice under international law – in Shujaiya in December 2023.
The individual is seen opening the school’s doors to make sure there were no Palestinian fighters inside, closely monitored by another drone that captured the entire operation.
Israeli drone footage secured by Al Jazeera shows a second, DJI Avata, drone tracking a Palestinian detainee being used as a human shield to clear a school [Sanad/Al Jazeera]
DJI double standards: Gaza vs Ukraine
In 2022, in response to complaints from Ukrainian officials that DJI was sharing critical data with their Russian adversaries, the drone manufacturer suspended all sales to its retail partners in both countries.
DJI explained the move: “We will never accept any use of our products to cause harm, and we will continue striving to improve the world with our work.”
Despite evidence of DJI drones being weaponised by the Israeli military in Gaza, DJI has had no such response.
Responding to direct inquiries from Sanad, DJI said: “Our products are for peaceful and civilian use only, and we absolutely deplore and condemn the use of [DJI] products to cause harm anywhere in the world.”
A subsequent direct query asked if it plans “to halt sales in Israel or implement measures similar to those taken in the Russia-Ukraine conflict”.
