Hello and welcome to First Post Africa where we get you the top stories from the continent and from across the world.
I’m Allison Lraange coming to you live from Durban, South Africa.
First, let’s take a look at the headlines.
US President Donald Trump lands in Beijing for a high-stake summit with Chinese leader Xihinping aimed at easing deep tensions between the rival superpowers.
The two leaders are expected to hold talks over Iran war, trade, and Taiwan.
Multiple gunshots ring out inside the Philippine Senate where Senator Ronald de la Rosa wanted by the International Criminal Court has sought refuge.
Rosa was the former president Rodrigo Duterte’s top enforcer during his drug war.
Russia says it is interested in joint economic projects with the United States if Washington stops linking trade ties with a peace deal on Ukraine.
French authorities confine more than 1,700 passengers and crew on a British cruise ship docked in Bordeaux after an elderly passenger died.
Officials played down any links to the hunter virus scare.
And the European Union says it will not ban conversion therapy targeting LGBTQ people, but it will push member states to take action against such practices.
Hello and thank you for joining us.
Let’s begin with our top story.
Pressure is increasingly mounting on South Africa to address xenophobic violence in the country.
African nations are questioning the Ramapora government over reported attacks on their nationals and now they have sprung into action.
Ghana will be evacuating 300 of its citizens from South Africa as anti-immigration protests escalate in the country.
The Ghanaian foreign ministry said that their distressed nationals had formally requested to be rescued at the Ptoria embassy.
ARA has also written to the African Union to discuss the issue of safety of foreigners in South Africa.
Nigeria too has joined Ghana in questioning and slamming the South African government.
Abuja has said it will repatriate at least 130 of its nationals living in South Africa.
Both Ghana and Nigeria have summoned South African envoys to demand answers for the attacks against their nationals.
Other African nations too have warned their citizens to remain vigilant in South Africa.
These include Kenya, Malawi, Lutu and Zimbabwe.
The latest xenophobia row broke out after videos circulating on social media allegedly showed Ghanaian being mistreated by South African locals.
Amid the backlash and uproar, South Africa has struck a defiant tone.
Pritoria has called the videos showing attacks fake and pushed back against the xenophobic label.
Cabinet condemned the viral circulation of fake videos and images claiming to be attacks of foreign nationals in South Africa.
The fake videos and images are not only fake but they are intended to undermine the good reputation of South Africa internationally and undermine South Africa’s pursuit of a better Africa agenda.
On Monday, President Sor Ramapora condemned the attacks on foreign nationals.
However, he described them as isolated acts of criminality and not as proof of South Africa’s hostility toward foreigners.
South Africa is known as the continent’s most industrialized economy.
Thus, it is a natural magnet for migrants seeking better jobs and better lives.
Reports suggest that South Africa is home to over 3 million foreigners who make up nearly 5% of the population.
But most of these migrants are undocumented and illegal.
They don’t have the required papers.
The influx of these illegal migrants has been at the center of the latest anti-immigration protests across the country.
South Africans have been rallying in Durban, Johannesburg, and in the capital Ptoria, demanding the government to shut shops owned by illegal migrants.
They argue that these undocumented foreigners compete with locals for resources, health care, and jobs.
In a country where the unemployment rate is at 30%, the anti-immigration sentiment is visibly high.
The Ramapora government has defended the right of South Africans to protest and slammed critics for wrongly framing their concerns as xenophobic behavior.
South Africans are within their right to protest against the spiraling illegal immigration challenge.
But violence linked to those protests in the past is not acceptable and law enforcement must deal with the instigators of such violence decisively.
Cabinet condemned the opportunistic attempts to hijack the genuine concerns of South Africans about high unemployment and limited economic opportunities by mobilizing South South Africans to destabilize the country including mobilizing attacks on foreign nationals and the tribal mobilization trend.
In fact, the Ramapoza government has blamed other African nations for the migration crisis.
Ptoria says that because of bad governance, wars and conflicts in other nations, migrants rush to South Africa and that is the root of the crisis.
However, migrants say that they are being scapegoed for the failures of the South African government.
Now, they argue that South Africans are wrongly projecting the anger that they have toward the government on the migrants.
In the past, this anti-immigration sentiment has led to deadly outbursts.
Back in 2008, at least 62 people were killed in xenophobic violence which started near Johannesburg and then engulfed almost the entire country.
Migrants from Zimbabwe, Mosmbique, Malawi and Somalia were killed and one of them was even burned alive by the mob.
Similar incidents have been seen in 2015, 2019, 2021, and in 2024.
As the xenophobia row escalates, things are getting more and more difficult for President Zor Ramapora.
He already has an impeachment probe looming over his head.
Calls for his resignation are growing louder.
South Africans want him to protect them against illegal migrants.
And at the same time, fellow African nations are urging him to protect their nationals against xenophobic attacks.
President Ramapora is clearly walking a diplomatic tightroppe while his seat is under threat.
How will his government further respond to the crisis at home and international pressure? Now that remains to be seen.
Tear gas on the streets of Nairobi, anti-French chants in the hearts of the Kenyan protesters, and a diplomatic reset that quickly turned into a public backlash.
French President Emanuel Macron claims Africa is no longer France’s backyard, but on the streets of Kenya, the people aren’t buying it.
protesters gathered in Nairobi as Macron attended the Africa Forward summit alongside more than 30 African leaders.
They accused France of continuing what they called neoc colonial politics across the continent.
For many demonstrators, this wasn’t about the summit as much as it was about the history of France in Africa.
From the 2011 intervention in Libya to the current instability across the Sahal, activists link today’s trade deals to decades of French military interference.
To them, French co-investment is simply the same old exploitation wearing a new suit.
Emanuel Macro represents French imperialism, not pan-Africanism.
He he is not a panafricanist.
He is an imperialist.
What have they done to the Sahel? What have they done to K Devoir? What have they done to Gaddafi in Libya? That’s the heritage of French imperialism.
Not in the 19th century, not even in the 20th century.
That’s all in the 21st century.
That’s what their face is like.
There’s no development.
When they say development, it’s development of their military bases, not development for the Kenyan people.
It’s not pan-Africanism.
The anger went beyond security and war.
Some activists also accused France and Western powers of what they called environmental paternalism.
They argued that European countries responsible for much of the world’s pollution are now lecturing Africa about green energy and climate policy.
Majority of the western hemisphere are the responsible the destruction of our mother planet.
So they cannot tell us that coming to lecture us about tree planting while every time they are destroying our planet.
So we are going to the street today to demonstrate to the Kenyan people that there are some sane people in Kenya who are able to advance an anti-imperialist agenda.
The protests are geopolitically significant.
Anti-French sentiment has mostly been concentrated in West Africa in recent years particularly in Mali Bkinaaso and Nger where French troops were expelled after coups and public pressure.
But this time the same rhetoric followed Macron into East Africa and that matters.
The summit in Kenya was supposed to represent a clean slate for French diplomacy.
Instead, the same accusations of imperialism followed Macron to Nairobi, giving him a stark reminder that the ghosts of the past are very much alive.
The tension between the French president and Kenyans peaked during a youth focused event.
Macron interrupted the event as the room grew loud during speeches by young artists.
The French president called the noise a total lack of respect and asked attendees to quiet down.
Excuse me everybody hey.
I’m sorry guys, but it’s impossible to speak about culture to have people like that super inspired coming here making a speech with such a noise.
So this is a total lack of respect.
So I suggest if you want to have bilaterals or speak about somebody else some I mean something else you have bilateral rooms or you go outside.
While Macron framed it as a plea for respect.
The moment went viral for all the wrong reasons.
Critics online quickly turned the moment into a symbol.
To them it looked like a European leader disciplining African youth.
the exact power imbalance Macron claims to be dismantling.
Inside the summit, the language was about billions, not bases.
Macron announced a massive 27 billion investment package for energy, AI, and agriculture.
He also insisted that the era of France giving dictuts to Africa was over.
Africa will no longer be seen as a place for rare earths and other resources to be extracted, but rather to be a partner.
So, we’re working towards a transformation of investment relations.
It’s neither France nor Europe that will be here giving you dictats on the way forward.
No, those days are way behind us.
No, the European agenda has every interest in seeing you march strongly towards sovereignty and autonomy.
While President William RTO welcomed the investment, many locals dismissed the event as a puppeted summit, claiming these massive projects often benefit a small elite while the broader economy continues to struggle.
The purported summit and I call it by name purported summit.
The motive behind what we do as a Kenyan community is always about selfish interests and uh it’s only one way of manipulating and diverging people from the real cause and the real problem at the expense of the economy.
Anything we Africans do is based on fake ideologies.
We actually mis introduce ourselves and bring up projects which at the end of the day is just to benefit one or few individuals economically and financially.
When shall we change as Africans to do things with goodwill and a sincere motive? Macron may insist that Africa is no longer France’s backyard.
But on the streets of Nairobi, the question remains, if the backyard is gone, why is the landlord still trying to set the house rules? The protests in Kenya showed just how difficult it will be for Paris to escape the long shadow of its colonial past.
Now moving on to the Sahal, America’s Africa strategy is changing.
The Trump administration says it is done with forever wars and wants a smaller military footprint across the continent.
Washington has unveiled a new 2026 counterterrorism strategy and it marks a major break from the post 911 era.
The document makes one thing clear.
The United States still wants power and influence in Africa, but it no longer wants large numbers of American troops stuck in open-ended conflicts.
So instead of largecale deployments, the US will focus on intelligence sharing, surveillance, counterterror training, and targeted strikes against ISIS and al-Qaeda linked groups.
Our new US counterterrorism strategy is a return to common sense and peace through strength.
As I said after our first successful counterterrorism mission, just days after I was sworn back in office, if you hurt Americans or are planning to hurt Americans, we will find you and we will kill you.
The new strategy also formally abandons the nation building model that defined previous US interventions.
The White House openly criticized what it called the interventionist approach of past administrations.
The main hot spots identified by Washington include Somalia, the primary test case for US over the horizon strikes, the Sahal, where Washington is quietly trying to rebuild ties after losing ground to Russia, the Lake Chad basin and Mosmbique where ISIS linked groups and Boo Haram continue to expand and Sudan where civil war risks wider regional instability.
But this is not just about terrorism.
The new strategy aims for the protection of Christian communities, a central part of US security policy.
We will not permit terrorist groups operating on the continent to massacre Christians with impunity.
With the decisive action President Trump recently took in Nigeria, he made it clear that the slaughter of Christians will not go unchecked.
As President Trump said on Christmas Day in 2025, “I have previously warned these terrorists that if they did not stop the slaughtering of Christians, there would be hell to pay.
” And tonight, there was.
The shift in the US policy comes after a series of military setbacks for Washington.
US troops were forced out of Nger, security ties collapsed with Mali, and Russia’s Africa Corps filled part of the vacuum.
Now, Washington appears to be quietly trying to rebuild relations with some of those same governments.
Somalia has now emerged as the main test case for this new doctrine.
Just this month, precision strikes in the Golas Mountains targeted ISIS Somalia.
The US is also pushing the African Union’s peacekeeping forces to take the lead.
Washington wants access to secure Red Sea shipping routes, but they have no intention of taking full responsibility of Somalia’s internal security.
This is also happening as Africa becomes a major geopolitical battleground.
The US accuses China, Russia, and Iran are fueling instability through arms transfers and security networks.
What this really means is that Africa is no longer being viewed only as a counterterror hot spot.
The continent is now emerging as a frontline theater in the competition between global powers.
And for some African governments, this new approach may actually be attractive for some countries like the ones in the Sahal.
To them, Washington is offering security cooperation without the democracy and human rights lectures of previous administrations.
It is a far more transactional model, one designed to compete directly with Russia’s security approach across the continent.
But the strategy also carries risks.
If America reduces its physical presence, who fills the space? local governments, private military networks, or the very terrorist groups Washington says it is trying to contain.
In many parts of Africa, state control remains fragile, and a light US military footprint can quickly turn into a security vacuum.
For now, Washington still wants to shape Africa’s security landscape, but it no longer wants to police it directly.
Onto our last story now.
Kenya has made a difficult choice to keep the country moving.
The government has lifted a ban on the import of dirty fuel.
For the next 6 months, Kenya will allow the import of petrol and diesel with much higher sulfur levels.
Why is this happening? It is a direct result of the war in West Asia.
The conflict between the US and Iran has effectively blocked the straight of Hermus.
This is a vital shipping lane for the Gulf oil that Kenya heavily relies on.
With supply lines cut and prices ready to spike, the RT government says it had to act fast.
Now, the new rules allow fuel with five times more sulfur than before to enter the Kenyan markets.
The previous limit was 10 mg per kilogram.
Now that limit has been pushed to 50 mg.
By lowering the standards, the Kenyan government hopes to avoid dry pumps and total economic standstill.
But this decision has sparked a wave of anger.
Environmental groups and health experts are sounding the alarm.
They are calling this a massive step backwards.
Critics argue that this is not just a technical change.
It is a health hazard.
Higher sulfur means more toxic fumes.
When this fuel burns, it releases sulfur dioxide and fine particles into the air.
Experts warn that this could lead to a spike in respiratory issues.
We are talking about more cases of asthma and chronic lung disease.
Critics say the cost of this cheap, dirty fuel will not be paid at the gas station.
It will be paid in hospital wards.
And it isn’t just people.
Experts warn that this fuel can rot car engines from the inside and reduce the life of vehicles.
Another question remains, why was the RT government caught off guard in the face of a foreseeable crisis? Kenya already has a government oil import arrangement with Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
It allows Nairobi to import refined fuel on credit and cut out middlemen.
Then why has the deal failed to cushion Kenya from the current crisis? This is the question the opposition is asking President R.
But in the face of this criticism, the government is playing defense.
The Ministry of Trade said this is a temporary emergency measure.
They claim it is the only way to ensure that fuel is actually available for buses, trucks, and industries.
But there is a bigger picture here.
Amid the crisis, President R is pushing for a long-term solution.
The East African refinery.
R is currently in talks with investors including Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangoti.
Baruto has vowed that his government would finance 20% of this project which could cost up to $20 billion.
African refinery facility is an investment that the government of Kenya, the government of Uganda, the government of uh Tanzania, we have agreed that we want to develop a facility that is going to um assist us with our fuel products.
We do not want to be held hostage anymore by the state of Amoose.
We do not want to be held hostage by wars that are started by other people.
We have our own resources here and we are saying we are going to use our African resources to industrialize our region.
The president’s message is clear.
He wants East Africa to refine its own crude.
This would give Kenya control over its own fuel quality and its own prices.
A refinery takes years to build, but it won’t take long for dirty fuel to affect the health of Kenyans.
The RT government has said yes to cheap, lowquality fuel instead of having no fuel at all.
It is a gamble with high stakes.
This move might keep Kenyan vehicles moving for the next 6 months, but in the long run, it might cost Kenyans their health.
And that’s it on the show for today.
We will see you again tomorrow at the same time.
Thank you for watching and good night.
