Welcome to “Women This Week,” a series that highlights noteworthy news related to women and U.S. foreign policy.

On September 21, the military junta that overthrew the Mali government of President Ibrahim Keita announced a transitional government. It is headed by retired Colonel Bah N'Daw, with junta leader Colonel Assimi Goïta as his vice president.

Despite the crowd’s jubilation in Bamako, the arrest of President Ibrahim B. Keita, Prime Minister Boubou Cisse, and other government officials seems unlikely to result in fundamental change in Mali.

Nigerian Major General Ibrahim Manu Yusuf, commander of the Multinational Joint Task Force (MJTF) fighting the Boko Haram Islamist insurgency in the Lake Chad Basin, announced that 109 Boko Haram fighters and their prisoners had defected in Cameroon.

The year 2019 marked four hundred years since the first enslaved people from West Africa arrived in the United States. The president of Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo, declared the anniversary the Year of Return.

While at prayer on April 13, 2007, the prominent Salafi scholar, Shaikh Jaafar Mahmud Adam, was assassinated at his mosque in Kano. At the time, the murder made a deep impression on mainstream Muslims, many of whom revered Adam. The murder took place in the final days before the 2007 presidential elections, and many observers, including those at the U.S. embassy, thought that the murder was somehow related. But it now seems more likely that Adam was assassinated by a vengeful former member of the Nigerian Taliban. His murder was an early manifestation of the deadly battles among Boko Haram’s competing factions that continue up to the present.

On February 19, 2020, Senator Ibrahim Gaidam, the former governor of Yobe State, introduced legislation to create the National Agency for Deradicalization, Rehabilitation, and Reintegration of Repentant Insurgents. Gaidam represents Yobe state, which borders Borno and has been affected by the insurgency. The bill’s purpose is to rehabilitate Boko Haram defectors and prevent violent extremism in Nigeria.

The opening of Northeastern University's Roux Institute in Portland, Maine is a crucial first step in bringing the innovation economy to states that have historically been overlooked by venture capit…

The annual budget in India and Chinese investments in Pakistan were two major opportunities to reverse declining economic fortunes in South Asia. This week's articles explain how both fell short of e…

Nigeria and South Africa are the giants of Africa, with the two largest economies on the continent.  Both have had long-term relationships with Iran, though South Africa’s has been the closer. Thus far, the official reaction to Soleimani’s death from Nigeria and South Africa has been muted or non-existent, reflecting caution. Though the Nigerian inspector general of police has put his forces on “red alert,” likely fearing action by the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) or other alleged Iranian proxies, there has been no apparent word from the government. In South Africa, the fiercest reaction came from the African National Congress (ANC), while Naledi Pandor, the South African foreign minister, called for calm.