DARKENING SHADOWS OVER SUDAN AND ETHIOPIA

 

LES NOUVELLES - 2025

NOVEMBRE

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(Affichages faits sur Linked In, en date du dimanche 16 novembre 2025)

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So-called "Snowbirds", whether anglophones or francophones, should change destinations in the wintertime, with many alternatives being possible: back home, Mexico, Cuba or the Bahamas...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/09/canada-snowbirds-florida

It is worrying to see the way Trump is managing his country. To call those intended payments "dividends" plainly shows that he sees his tenure with a businessman's eye, not a politician's eye. He seems to think that the federal government is a company owned by its citizens. In his mind, apparently, he has raked in trillions of dollars in new revenue, from his new trading practices, and through extorsion from America's traditional allies, and he wish to give some of those gains to his fellow Americans as "dividends". All that money, supposedly, will continue to enrich America in the future, on a regular basis, and will also permit to eliminate completely the huge American federal debt. Trump doesn't seems to understand, 1) that his trading tariffs have hurt US consumers and US importers a lot more than the foreign exporters, and are likely to continue doing so as long as they remain in place; and also, 2), that the "pledges" made by the Europeans, the Japanese and the South Koreans, among others, to gave him hundreds of millions of dollars, personally, to invest as he please, are mere promises, made under duress, and, as such, are unlikely to materialize, especially given the sorry state of the public finances of those countries and groups of countries. Even worse, in the case of the Europeans, the tribute that is asked of them (since tribute is the right word to use for designating what is really requested of them by Washington) is supposed to take the form of private investments made by private outfits. Trump doesn't get that it is not public money pledged by the constituent countries of the European Union, that outfit being not a sovereign country, as he seems to think, but a grouping of countries sharing similar economic outlooks and goals. Trump's inability to fully understand what is really going on, here, is real, and the miscalculation he keeps making are adding up, worsening the possible outcome.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/11/10/trump-2000-tariff-checks-cost/87200625007/

It seems clear that the new Japanese Prime minister was talking spontaneously, without careful preparations, speaking her mind, as it were. It suggests that she sees an alliance existing not only between her country and the United States, but also between her country and the Philippines. Since there are American bases on Philippine soil and on Japanese soil (both in the Ryukyu archipelago and on the main islands of the Japanese archipelago), it is a significant point. It may have consequences:

1.       if China ever invade Taiwan,

2.      if America get actively involved in that fight and

3.      if China attack US bases in the Philippines and in Japan in such a case, embroiling these two countries in a possible large-scale war between China and America over the island of Taiwan.

That, of course, is a nightmare scenario that, hopefully, may never materialize. Still, given the tensions over the eventual return of the rebellious province of Taiwan in the mainland's fold, it is something important. One glimpse of hope is that Trump 2.0 doesn't seem to have much appetite toward an eventual military participation in a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan. In fact, most of the signals transmitted by the present administration seems to point to a defensive posture, along a Second Island Chain orientation, anchored on Japan & South Corea to the North, and in Australia & Papua New Guinea to the South, with Palau, Timor Leste, the Philippines and the Ryukyus as advanced outposts.

https://asia.nikkei.com/politics/defense/takaichi-veers-from-strategic-ambiguity-on-taiwan-sparking-debate

Reading this article makes it clear that Ukraine is on its knees: this winter may be the last of this political entity as a sovereign country. That unfortunate East European country is obviously the pawn of two imperialistic and jealous entities: the Russian Federation, on one side, and the US-dominated NATO countries, on the other side. The Russians clearly wish to add Ukraine to Belarus and thus reconstitute the Slavic heart of both the Tsarist Empire and of the Soviet Union. As for the Americans, they wish to keep their age-old domination over Europe and add Ukraine to their anti-Russia coalition, while they turn the focus of their attention to East Asia and their new Nemesis, China. With the Trumpians becoming more and more indifferent to the fate of Ukraine, the US government now wish the European countries, especially the Nordic ones, more amenable to Washington's policy preferences and culturally closer to the Trumpians, to take the slack and assume more of the burden of helping Kiev, economically, politically and militarily, with money, energy, weapons, munitions, industrial equipment, anti-Russian measures, etc. It is not clear at this point how many European governments will play along the extortionist mindset of the Trumpians, asking European countries to give them protection money in exchange of trade access, or how long they will do so if they agree to the scheme. Some countries, like Spain, Portugal, Belgium and Switzerland, seems to grow hesitant toward Washington's many requests, and its deplorable attitude, given the Trumpian tendency to treat them as mere tributary states. Also, the proposition that NATO European countries start shooting at Russian missiles and drones before they even cross their respective boundaries, over Ukrainian territory, seems almost deliberately designed to create diplomatic incidents between the Western military alliance and the Russian Federation, in order to deepen even more the dependency of the countries of the European Union upon the United States and NATO, and in this way prevent the eventual replacement of NATO by a genuinely European outfit centered upon the military needs of the members of the European Union, and not upon the military needs of the US...

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/ukraines-hardest-winter?s=EDZZZ005ZX&utm_medium=newsletters&utm_source=fatoday&utm_campaign=Ukraine%E2%80%99s%20Hardest%20Winter&utm_content=20251111&utm_term=A

The map is very informative. It is evident that the maritime flows of cocaine into the US are very strong in the Pacific Ocean, but much less so along the Western Caribbean route, and even less so along the Eastern Caribbean route, the one that originates in Venezuela, the purported focus of the current American operation. Also, the map shows that there are US military presence of an undefined sort on the Dutch islands of Aruba and Curaçao, on the islands of Grenada and of Trinidad, to the northwest of Venezuela, and in three locations inside Colombia, those last three possibly tied to local anti-narcotic enforcement operations.

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7392273953601499136/

Given Beijing intent to build its own civilian aircraft industry, given the enormous stakes in the field of economic development, and given also Trump's recent cutoff in the flow of the Franco-American engine that is currently used to power the new C919 aircraft, it stands to reason that China will do the utmost to create its very own large aircraft engine, in order not to depend anymore on foreign engine manufacturers, especially Western ones. China presently enjoys the fruits of having created its own car making industry, with dozens of Chinese companies turning up millions of domestically made gas-powered and electricity-powered cars and trucks, whose production are only starting up and who are increasingly exported all over the planet. After the car making industry, the next logical step, for China to continue to go upscale in the manufacturing field, is the plane making industry. Comac is still an infant in the field of manufacturing civilian aircraft, compared with Boeing, Airbus or even Embraer, but it will likely not stay that way for long...

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3304271/development-chinese-engine-make-c919-truly-home-grown-progressing-well?share=tsxOoY979eIF40OEjF9XTC6feUsWgjhM%2Fbv2nVITY4JhK7uEft7fAfRMxAJobYLvonD9VBWBhpvTXjil8e%2BGb9uKqxIfr2o%2Buw8%2F6oU8VjqFBc%2FC%2Fpl%2BP3Mx76emBYVEoeOhOAH%2FMhe1PxW%2BIYIt2A%3D%3D&utm_campaign=social_share

À lire ce qui sort de sa plume, il n'est guère étonnant que Trump l'ait retenu comme ministre de l’Énergie. Il est vraiment malheureux de constater que les États-Unis, le plus riche et plus puissant pays du monde, aient choisi, à cause de Trump et de son étroitesse de vues, de marcher complètement à rebours du reste de la planète, au niveau de la transition énergétique et du changement climatique, deux domaines non seulement inextricablement liés mais tout simplement incontournables pour assurer notre avenir et celui de nos enfants, ainsi que des générations futures. L'Amérique trumpienne a fait son choix et... ce n'est pas le bon. Qu'elle en subisse les conséquences: le reste du monde se passera d'elle et la laissera se débrouiller comme elle peut.

https://legrandcontinent.eu/fr/2025/11/11/chris-wright-tsar-fossile-donald-trump/

Un texte très éclairant sur le trumpisme.

https://www.diploweb.com/Planisphere-Comment-decrypter-les-Etats-Unis-Avec-M-Kandel.html

This is a curious text, from a British source ("His Garden Maintenance") that is probably made up, with the apparent approval of Google, an American company. The goal of this article seems to prepare the public to a coming announcement that may create an unpleasant surprise to some English-speaking readers, at least at first. This text thus appears to be an attempt to soften on advance the potential blow concerning another European state that intend to switch its fighter procurement from the US-made F-35 to the French-made Rafale. If I had to guess about the identity of that still-secret state, it would be Germany. But then, I may be wrong, of course.

https://www.skillbuildltd.uk/15-11-2025/165583-confirm-another-european-nation-ready/

Une autre étape dans l'intégration économique des pays eurasiens, dont l'Iran, la Russie, le Kazakhstan et le Turkménistan. Les trois premiers font partie des BRICS et de l'OCS, deux organisations incluant aussi la Chine et l'Inde. Le Turkménistan suit une politique extérieure caractérisée par un haut degré d'indépendance, mais tout en demeurant économiquement lié aux pays qui l'environne au plan géographique.

https://interfax.com/newsroom/top-stories/114735/

It sounds as if Trumpian America is slowly becoming a police state, with the President concentrating as much power as possible into his own hands, to the point of creating his own private army. He may have some reason to, in his views, since the White House is located in a federal district that is overwhelmingly Black and Democratic, and surrounded by two Blue States, Virginia and Maryland. No wonder, then, that he feels the need to surround himself, in Washington, with what is in effect the equivalent of a Pretorian Guard, made up of National Guardsmen from Red States.

https://www.economist.com/interactive/united-states/2025/11/12/trumpforce

If true, it would mean that my theory about Hitler having been a victim of syphilis, contracted from a Jewish prostitute, is not grounded in fact and is just plain irrelevant. Is it possible, though, that he was ridiculed by one, enough to start hating all Jews? Something has to explained that visceral and irrational hatred of Jews...

https://www.newsweek.com/hitler-sexual-disorder-dna-analysis-11040358

A masterful analysis of the current geopolitical evolution of the many countries making up the Horn of Africa region, in relation with external forces.

https://addisstandard.com/ethiopias-maritime-bet-from-strategic-vision-to-diplomatic-hesitation-on-mou-with-somaliland/

Considering that the losing side of this Sudanese civil war has started building a full-range government after it lost control of Khartoum, that country's capital, it is quite possible that Sudan might be on track for another division, this time with Western Sudan splitting from the rest, with the whole of Darfur and, possibly, parts of Kordofan too.

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7394831003707670529/

C'est évidemment inquiétant. Trump se fout et contrefout des Palestiniens et de la bande de Gaza, rien ne l'intéresse en dehors de ses intérêts personnels et de ce qui touche Israël.

https://legrandcontinent.eu/fr/2025/11/13/le-plan-de-trump-va-t-il-laisser-place-a-une-partition-de-gaza/

The Sudanese Civil War could get even more complex, even more bloody and even more consequential if an open conflict start between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Many external actors might get drawn into such a conflict. On Eritrea’s side, the following would likely side with Asmara: Egypt, the eastern faction of the Sudanese Civil War, the Tigray militias, the Amhara militias, Saudi Arabia (possibly), and Russia, Eritrea’s protector. On Ethiopia's side, other actors would likely agglomerate around Addis Abeba: that country's federal forces, Oromia's militias, Somaliland (possibly), the United Arab Emirates (possibly), and the western faction of the Sudanese Civil War, among others.

https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2025/11/13/ethiopia-is-perilously-close-to-another-war

What about plan D? It may be that the best plan is the one not mentioned, Submarines built in South Korea, for many clients: that country, of course, but also Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. AUKUS will thus become irrelevant, at least its first pillar, since there is no need then to wait years and years and years to get nuclear submarines. By multiplying clients, overall cost per sub go down and productivity may improve, while maximising the use of Korean shipyards both advanced and used to mass produce ships of all kinds.

https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/seouls-submarine-scenarios/

A very interesting article. It raises many questions: what could be the effect downstream, along the Jordan River, and lower still, on the Dead Sea? Is it even possible that such a project may help reverse the steady shrinking of that large body of water? If so, what could be the consequences? And what does Jordan think about the whole thing?

https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel/environment/artc-israel-fills-the-sea-of-galilee-with-desalinated-seawater

It is to be hoped that Taiwan's special military budget will be ultimately voted down, and that the new Kuomintang leader will be able to make herself heard in that's political scene. Better a peaceful reunification without China than a forced one through a Chinese military invasion.

https://asia.nikkei.com/spotlight/policy-asia/taiwan-defense-buildup-can-t-ensure-security-new-kmt-boss-cheng-li-wun

An interesting development, in view of the Gazan War and its many consequences in the region, and on public opinion worldwide. The Middle East countries are obviously preparing and planning what should take place in that region, from now on. To best understand this article, the reader must remember many points:

- Israel is seen in the Middle East as a genocidal country, and also as the stooge of the United States;

- the BRICS countries wish to expand economic relations between Asia and Africa, notably through overland trade;

- given geographical realities, the only way to bypass completely Israeli territory is to build a bridge to the south of Eilat, between Egypt and Saudi Arabia, as mentioned in this article;

- such a structure will greatly improve the transport of goods and people between the Middle East and Africa, by trucks, cars and trains;

- Egypt has been a BRICS country for some years, and Saudi Arabia recently agreed to integrate that economic association, whose members also include China, India, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Russia, and Indonesia, among others;

- the Arab countries will probably continue to isolate Israel, politically and economically, until Jerusalem accepts to share the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea with the Palestinians.

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/menasource/moses-parts-the-red-sea-israels-strategic-challenges-as-new-routes-emerge/

This article probably means that no overt attack will be taken against Venezuela for the duration of the drills in question, from Monday to Friday, at the very least. That will enable the USS Ford to come closer to the potential theatre of operation and to take position there, somewhere in the waters opposite the Venezuelan coast. After that period of time, Trump will likely decide what to do...

https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/15/americas/us-military-drills-venezuela-intl?cid=android_app

Tandis que l'Amérique peine à conserver ses onze porte-avions, dans un contexte de vieillissement des bâtiments existants, de retards de construction et de dépassement de coûts, et alors que l'Inde songe à en bâtir un troisième, la Chine prépare déjà son quatrième porte-avion. Ce sera le tout premier porte-avions chinois à propulsion nucléaire, un type de navire dont les États-Unis et la France étaient jusqu'ici les seules puissances à savoir construire et à pouvoir disposer. Il est surprenant de voir à quel point la période actuelle fait penser aux décades qui ont précédé la Première guerre mondiale, alors que les empires de l'époque rivalisaient entre eux au plan naval, construisant des cuirassés toujours plus gros, plus armés et plus puissants, les dreadnoughts remplaçant les pré-dreadnoughts, avant d'être eux-mêmes remplacées par les super-dreadnoughts et ainsi de suite...

https://asiatimes.com/2025/11/chinas-emerging-nuke-carrier-built-to-break-us-naval-dominance/

There seems to be a trend here. Say yes to whatever Trump says, then do nothing and wait for him to start playing with another toy. That is what the Europeans are probably doing: say yes to increasing their NATO expenses to 5 % of their economy over ten years, then wait for him to leave the scene. They're also letting him believe that Europe will gave him hundreds of billions of protection money, for him to invest as he please and wherever he please, with him apparently thinking that they will thus force their companies to do so, even though they can't do that, meaning that the gigantic pile of money in question will never materialize. When the Trumpians keep bragging on Fox News about the 18 or 20 trillion of dollars that Trump has supposedly secured in coming investments on the future of America's industry, they do not seem to understand that most of those huge numbers are, in all likelihood, just so much empty promises. Trump is (quite literally) betting away the proverbial farm, here...

https://www.producer.com/news/will-china-really-buy-12-million-tonnes-of-u-s-soybeans/

What is not helping is the obtuse kind of White House leadership that afflict America these days. Because of Trumpian ineptitude, the US is now favoring fossil fuels in the field of energy production, as opposed to renewable forms of energy. With some foresight, and with the cost of wind power, and especially solar power, coming down dramatically in recent years, many of those data centers could have been powered by renewables, just like a great percentage of the gas-powered cars and trucks that are currently circulating in America could have been electric cars. But that was not to be. The Trumpians running the federal government are now rooting and pushing for the wrong kind of energy, just like they are weaponizing trade in a harmful way, not just for all the countries of the planet but for their own population too. Imperial America stinks.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/14/data-centers-are-concentrated-in-these-states-heres-whats-happening-to-electricity-prices-.html

Voici un appel à la raison qui tombe à point, alors que le fragile cessez-le-feu qui avait été conclu entre le gouvernement israélien et le gouvernement de facto de Gaza titube sous les tueries qui se poursuivent et que les colons israéliens continuent de massacrer les Palestiniens de Cisjordanie en toute impunité, avec l'appui plus ou moins discret de l'armée israélienne. Les États-Unis et Israël font partie du problème et, avec ce projet de résolution destiné au conseil de sécurité de l'ONU, ils veulent aussi faire partie de la solution et décider du destin du peuple palestinien, destitué et privé de ses terres depuis des décennies, depuis la guerre des Six-Jours, en 1967, voire la guerre d'indépendance d'Israël, en 1948, voire depuis la fin du XIXe siècle, avec l'arrivée des tout premiers sionistes. Les Palestiniens, à l'exception de ceux et celles vivant sur le territoire israélien, sont privés de droits politiques, ne peuvent voter, ni être représentés à la Knesset, ni former de partis politiques. À toutes fins pratiques, aux yeux de Jérusalem, les Palestiniens de Gaza, de la Cisjordanie et de Jérusalem-Est ne constituent rien de plus qu'une main-d’œuvre à bon marché pour l'économie israélienne et ne peuvent même pas être considérés comme des citoyens de seconde classe, puisqu'ils ne sont citoyens d'aucun pays... Justice pour les Palestiniens et les Palestiniennes!

https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/trumps-ploy-at-the-un-is-american-imperialism-masquerading-as-a-peace-process/

Well, now it seems that China is constructing two new carriers at the same time: a nuclear-powered one (its first) and a conventionally powered one (its fourth). If confirmed, this piece of news would mean that China would have five carriers in a few years, while America, with currently eleven carriers, is scheduled to retire one next year, failings to ten. Worse: the planned completion of two new nuclear carriers it is currently building keep getting delayed and delayed. Because of all that, it is certainly conceivable that the about-to-be-retired US carrier may possibly see its service life being extended a few more years...

https://en.defence-ua.com/news/china_is_building_two_more_aircraft_carriers_how_many_needed_to_surpass_the_us-16483.html

Latin American and Caribbean countries are now facing a choice: being Trumpian or being Untrumpian. To judge by this article, there seems to be no middle ground for an Imperial America retrenching inside what it sees as its own hemisphere.

• Trumpian countries: Argentina, El Salvador, Honduras, Ecuador, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Panama.
• Untrumpian countries: Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Colombia, Bolivia, Brazil.

For now, it is harder to tell for other countries, including major ones like Mexico, Chile or Peru. Also, for some of the Untrumpian countries, like Brazil or Colombia, their identity may be a matter of debate. Is being a member (or a partner) of the BRICS economic association reason enough to be seen as hostile by the US? What is sure is that it certainly was enough to be slapped with a 50 % tariff rate in the case of Brazil...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/11/15/trump-venezuela-latin-america/

This interesting account of the newly opened Simandou iron ore mine in Guinea (West Africa) gave important details about the evolution of the project since its inception, about its impact on global steelmaking manufacturing, and about its relationship with the implementation of the AUKUS alliance between the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3332581/why-first-simandou-iron-ore-shipment-china-marks-global-milestone?share=GcGxVgX58gqoOsm78nzkxpidv%2B4T9NB%2FXWM79EAulesQadpaRUhHuY78K60MtJPx2buEsCh7yp5ozukZJ3Vp5UKdEW1%2BtFuAXTG7%2F6dPGPkeUQSIi5%2BgHx9n%2FUQsybU3Mr6KvBrVePji%2FJXSkODG4g%3D%3D&utm_campaign=social_share

Things are obviously moving slowly toward the formation of tighter security arrangements linking the United States with Japan, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Australia and New Zealand, all forming a defensive line against a rising Chinese influence in East Asia.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3332807/how-japan-philippines-defence-pact-could-become-template-deter-china?share=yVh%2FCvtcnUUMp7I%2FB0tI1VXWgQ%2BLleu22s4IVbG0g39brK%2BON4DLTY7TxQ7gMdpIET1gYQlsjWxVtESUMEqQLqvREWJsnNS%2FVyQdntmogq14gBhE0qt1uWU5AVOlwIYAalT502ftAD4KirdbN5tvzw%3D%3D&utm_campaign=social_share

Passionnant. Certaines villes de l'Amérique du Nord ont aussi fait un choix écologique similaire, réhabilitant et ramenant au jour des cours d'eau autrefois engloutis sous des surfaces urbaines artificielles. Bravo!

https://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2025/11/16/a-rennes-un-chantier-de-demolition-hors-norme-pour-faire-reapparaitre-le-fleuve-vilaine_6653607_3244.html

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