It's all part of a military exercise that simulates going after a high-value target [...] the assault force demonstrates crucial military steps before capturing and eliminating him. Three weeks of U.S.-led counterterrorism exercises, known as Flintlock 2017, ended last month in Chad, which, along with surrounding countries, has been targeted in deadly violence by Boko Haram. The Flintlock exercises take place each year in a different African country.

Gulf nations are seeking to help their firms venture into Kenya in a renewed bid to grab a piece of the local economy and rebuild relations following moments of suspicion. Last week, President Uhuru Kenyatta hosted high-level delegations from Qatar and, later, Saudi Arabia, two of the oil-rich Middle East nations that have had mostly bad press in Kenya for suspected mistreatment of Kenyan domestic workers there.

The African continent has the world’s highest rate of girls leaving school to marry at a young age. Schools in Asian countries such as Laos have less female enrollment because society considers men the breadwinners and women the housekeepers. [...] A group of 21 international high school teachers gathered at the University of Massachusetts Lowell recently to tell their stories and discuss their nations’ efforts to decrease the gender gap in their education systems and workforce.

Medical diplomacy is the kind of foreign policy tool that the world’s most powerful nation should embrace. [...] Nations such as the United States that have the financial and logistical ability to respond to these epidemics should accept their moral responsibility to do so. In the case of the United States, “America first” does not mean “America only.” Spending a tiny fraction of this country’s wealth to save lives should be done without a second thought.

With global leaders heading to the United Nations for a major conference in June on the protection and sustainable use of the planet's oceans, the UN today announced that the inaugural World Ocean Festival will kick off the week-long event, with activists and enthusiasts taking to the streets - and waterways - of New York City to raise their voices to reverse the declining health of our oceans.

AFRICOM’s Multinational Cooperation Center and Strategic Outreach Division convened this event to educate elements of the command on irregular migration concerns across the African continent, from origin to transit and destination countries. “The purpose of the forum was to let the command have a better idea of how migration works both at the policy level but also at the practical, on the ground level,” 

Qatari-Ethiopian relations will begin a new phase of co-operation and co-ordination based on the common desire of the two friendly countries to establish a solid ground for stronger future prospects. The future of relations between Doha and Addis Ababa represents an integral model due to the advantages that both countries enjoy for the interests of the two countries’ people.