Good morning.

🇨🇦 Canadians vote on Monday (although a record number have already voted early) and the BBC has a neat summary of how the two parties compare on key issues. Unsurprisingly, both reject President Trump’s idea that Canada become America’s 51st state.

🤷 Bloomberg notes that the significant impact of Trump’s on-again, off-again tariff vacillations is global uncertainty for both governments and businesses. [More - Bloomberg]

Remember, I mentioned the AI forecasting tournament?

It turns out that the bots are doing quite well. Read to the bottom for more.

Africa Stability Ratings and News Summary

More Unstable

🇩🇿 Algeria, 🇧🇯 Benin, 🇧🇫 Burkina Faso, 🇧🇮 Burundi, 🇨🇲 Cameroon, 🇨🇫 Central African Republic, 🇹🇩 Chad, 🇰🇲 Comoros, 🇨🇩 Democratic Republic Of The Congo, 🇩🇯 Djibouti, 🇬🇶 Equatorial Guinea, 🇪🇷 Eritrea, 🇸🇿 Eswatini, 🇪🇹 Ethiopia, 🇬🇦 Gabon, 🇬🇭 Ghana, 🇬🇳 Guinea, 🇬🇼 Guinea-Bissau, 🇨🇮 Ivory Coast, 🇰🇪 Kenya, 🇱🇸 Lesotho, 🇱🇷 Liberia, 🇲🇬 Madagascar, 🇲🇼 Malawi, 🇲🇱 Mali, 🇲🇷 Mauritania, 🇲🇺 Mauritius, 🇲🇦 Morocco, 🇲🇿 Mozambique, 🇳🇪 Niger, 🇳🇬 Nigeria, 🇨🇬 Republic of the Congo, 🇸🇱 Sierra Leone, 🇿🇦 South Africa, 🇸🇸 South Sudan, 🇸🇩 Sudan, 🇹🇿 Tanzania, 🇹🇬 Togo, 🇺🇬 Uganda, 🇪🇭 Western Sahara, 🇿🇼 Zimbabwe

More Stable

No countries were more stable over this period

Unchanged

🇦🇴 Angola, 🇧🇼 Botswana, 🇨🇻 Cape Verde, 🇳🇦 Namibia, 🇷🇼 Rwanda, 🇸🇳 Senegal, 🇸🇴 Somalia, 🇸🇹 São Tomé and Príncipe, 🇬🇲 The Gambia, 🇿🇲 Zambia

Regional News Summary

Political tensions are escalating in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as the government has banned the People's Party for Reconstruction and Democracy (PPRD), led by former President Joseph Kabila, due to alleged connections with the M23 rebel group. This significant move is likely to hinder Kabila's political ambitions and reshape the DRC's political landscape [SOURCE - BBC].

In a related context, Bangladesh has called on the United Nations to increase troop deployments for peacekeeping missions, including in the DRC. This request underscores the international community's commitment to fostering stability in the region [SOURCE - The Daily Star].

Meanwhile, Algeria is making strides in its pharmaceutical sector as Bangladesh's One Pharma plans to export drugs to the country, enhancing trade relations. Additionally, Algeria has been identified as having the fourth-largest gold reserves globally, despite lacking operational gold mines, presenting a unique economic scenario [SOURCE - The Daily Star] [SOURCE - DNA India].

In South Africa, the economy faces mixed signals. While the business cycle indicator showed a 0.9% rise in January 2025, the International Monetary Fund has issued warnings regarding potential growth setbacks due to tariffs imposed during the Trump administration [SOURCE - Citizen]. Additionally, the automotive sector is set to receive a boost as Chery, a Chinese automaker, prepares to launch electrified car models in the country [SOURCE - TechCentral].

However, South Africa's political landscape is fraught with challenges. Politicians are under scrutiny for their handling of the ongoing water crisis, with calls for more drastic measures like water shutdowns, which some view as an admission of failure [SOURCE - Citizen]. Furthermore, Floyd Shivambu's controversial visit to a self-proclaimed prophet has raised questions about respect for the legal system [SOURCE - The South African].

In Nigeria, the security situation is deteriorating, with gunmen recently killing 17 people in separate attacks, raising the death toll from similar incidents to 56. The violence is attributed to clashes between herders and farmers, exacerbated by the Islamic State in West Africa Province's (ISWAP) involvement in these attacks [SOURCE - The Sun] [SOURCE - France 24].

Sudan continues to grapple with a severe humanitarian crisis, exacerbated by ongoing civil war and displacement. The UN has reported that over 15 million people require assistance, making it the largest humanitarian crisis globally [SOURCE - Forbes]. The situation is dire, with civilians fleeing conflict zones and facing significant challenges in accessing aid [SOURCE - Yahoo News].

In Zambia, the government is facing scrutiny over a new cyber-security law that has raised concerns about surveillance and data privacy. The US has warned its citizens about potential risks associated with the law, while the Zambian government claims it has been misinterpreted [SOURCE - Zambia: News Diggers!].

Lastly, Senegal is making significant progress in socio-economic development, with the African Development Bank approving a $122.6 million loan to support an electrification project aimed at increasing electricity access from 64% to 75% by 2025. The country is also promoting entrepreneurship through the "Senegal Startup Act," which provides support for startups and small businesses [SOURCE - African Development Bank]

Weekend Diversions

 🤖 The Decis bots are working hard at the Metaculus AI forecasting tournament (and doing quite well too - see the leaderboard below). So I thought I should pull my weight and will be digging into this paper on The Hard Problem of Prediction for Conflict Prevention. There’s a lot of similar methodology between their approach and how the Decis agents consider country stability, but conflict has its own challenges, and I’m curious to see how they approach these.

If you haven’t already, it’s worth trying Google Gemini’s deep research capability. I’m finding this is very good for factual research without additional reasoning which is creeping into other services. I’m planning to give this some projects to tackle this weekend and the nice thing is you can task the agent and then leave it to chug away in the background. (And if you know anyone at Google, an API for this would be amazing…)

Have a great weekend.

Carpe tomorrow!