African Economies will Flourish in 2025

In October the IMF described a “two-track growth pattern” in sub-Saharan Africa. On one track are most of the 23 countries with sizeable exports of non-renewable commodities such as oil, gold or diamonds. These include Angola, Nigeria and South Africa. As prices for their exports sagged, their GDPs per person have dropped in the past decade. Most resource-rich countries have also been focused more on dividing the spoils of the boom years than on using the proceeds to build resilient economies.

COP29: Disappointment at Baku

The multilateral UN Framework on Climate Change, which was established to address climate change, once again revealed disappointing results from the pledges made by developed countries at its COP29 climate financing summit in Baku, Azerbaijan. The unsettling start from the Azerbaijani president’s stirring statement that fossil fuels are a “gift from God” kicked off the meeting drawing disparagement from figures such as Greta Thunberg who referred Azerbaijan as β€œan authoritarian petro-state.”

Hamas Sets a New War in West Asia

In this issue of Guns and Bullets newsletter, we take a quick roundup of US and Saudi Arabia negotiation deal to curb civil war in Sudan followed by the Cover Story of Israel-Hamas War and finally the ongoing Nagorno-Karabakh conflict