Edgar Lungu: Zambia's former president dies aged 68
Zambia's former President Edgar Lungu has died at the age of 68, his party has said in a statement.He had "been receiving specialized treatment in South Africa" for an undisclosed illness, the Patriotic Front said confirming the news.Lungu led Zambia for six years from 2015, losing the election to the current President Hakainde Hichilema by a large margin.After that defeat he stepped back from politics but later returned to the fray and appeared to have ambitions to run for the presidency again.
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Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
Jeremy Hunt vs Allister Heath: ‘Starmer's EU sell-out is Gordon Brown's gold scandal on steroids'
I've visited plenty of poky parliamentary offices in my time, some little larger than cubby holes and designed without any interest in ergonomics. Jeremy Hunt's digs are something else. They are palatial, as befits a former holder of two of the greatest offices of state, and a runner-up in the contest to become Tory leader. A Spectator magazine cover takes pride of place on the wall. I can't avoid doing a double take. The cartoon depicts a triumphant Hunt and a defeated Boris Johnson, with the headline marvelling at the political upset of the century. Hunt notes my surprise at this extraordinary historical revisionism. He explains that it was an unpublished draft produced just in case and gifted to him by the Speccie's former editor Fraser Nelson, following his defeat in the 2019 Conservative leadership contest. I like Hunt, even though we have jousted over the years and despite his conviction that I'm an incorrigible purveyor of declinism. A former chancellor, foreign secretary and health secretary, he is now on a mission to convince Britain not only that our country can be great again, but that we retain far more power, wealth and influence than we realise. He believes the world needs us to be successful and engaged, fighting for free trade, defence, the environment and human rights. I wanted to read Hunt's new book to find out which kind of optimist he is. The good news is that he is no Panglossian, convinced, like Candide's glib tutor in Voltaire's masterpiece, that all is already for the best in the best of all possible worlds. Centrist dad types often fall into that delusional category, citing long-run GDP figures or life-expectancy data to lecture us that we have no right to moan about anything. Instead, Hunt can best be described as a rational optimist, to adapt a phrase coined by British writer Matt Ridley, somebody who accepts that the world is in a bad place but who is aware of what is still going right and believes that what has gone wrong can be repaired. His book, Can We Be Great Again? Why a Dangerous World Needs Britain, is extremely readable, and an excellent, nuanced contribution to what the UK's role should be in today's multipolar world. 'Because I put up taxes, there was this view that I was happy for taxes to go up' Given that title, I point out, if Britain isn't great today, that must in part be the fault of his government. 'If I was going to look back over 14 years, were we as transformative as Margaret Thatcher?' Hunt responds. 'No, but in our defence, we had to deal with three global shocks: the financial crisis, Covid and a 1970s-style energy shock. We did the one thing everyone expects from Conservative governments, which is to take the tough decisions to right the economic ship,' he says. As a result, 'There were lots of other things that we didn't do.' He is proud that, during his tenure as Chancellor, inflation fell back dramatically, and that he managed to increase defence spending. He also has regrets: 'My biggest disappointment was that we didn't go further, faster on welfare reform and getting taxes down. My biggest personal failure was not getting a message across that the Conservatives really did want to bring down the tax burden. Because I put up taxes, there was this view that I was happy for taxes to go up.' That is to profoundly misunderstand his belief system, Hunt maintains. He highlights his reductions to National Insurance, and his introduction of full expensing for corporate capital spending. 'I am a small-state conservative for principled reasons to do with the fact that governments should expropriate the minimum possible for its citizens, but also because of the practical reason that the fastest-growing economies are the ones with the lowest tax rates.' The language is noteworthy: many of his colleagues aren't interested in political philosophy, and have become unused to talking about economics, preferring to focus exclusively on culture wars. Unlike many Tories, Hunt isn't scared to argue that the better off should be levied less too. 'I would like to bring down all levels of tax. I'm very worried about the flight of millionaires,' he says. He highlights the absurdity caused by the tapering of the personal allowance on incomes between £100,000 and £125,000 a year, an unfashionable cause but one that is hammering the incentives of professionals. 'There are lots of anomalies in the tax system, such as having [an effective] marginal rate of tax of 62 per cent over £100,000 a year. People on lower incomes also need to see that their tax bill is going down. Nigel Lawson brought down everyone's taxes.' Many on the Right – Tories, as well as, increasingly, Reform – are scared to discuss cutting spending, partly because of the realignment that has sent so many lower-income voters their way. Not so Hunt: 'Welfare reform and lower taxes are the only way that we are going to change this country, culturally, economically and fiscally.' Spending could be cut drastically. 'There were lots of problems in the benefits system in 2019, but even if we just turn the clock back five years for working-age adults, getting the benefits bill to where it was before the pandemic, we would save just under £50 billion a year.' He believes Rachel Reeves should have focused on a comprehensive reform of the benefits system rather than on the now-derailed attempt at removing pensioners' winter fuel allowance. 'The Government has used up all the capital that it might have had on what is, in Treasury terms, a relatively trivial amount of money, [saving] around £1 billion, when they could have taken the same hit for £50 billion, and would have improved work incentives.' 'We need to start trying to be the country that I know we can be' Hunt is a born-again Brexiteer, and embraces an open, Singapore-style future of globally competitive businesses and free trade. 'I didn't vote for Brexit, but I've never had any doubt that we can make a huge success of it. I see no reason why we couldn't be a completely independent, sovereign country like Canada or Australia.' He believes Keir Starmer's 'reset' was a political catastrophe. 'I cannot understand why the Government is agreeing to pay money into the EU. The Government cunningly didn't tell us how much they're going to pay, but it's going to be billions. They're going to have to justify cutting benefits for pensioners at the same time as increasing payments to the EU.' Starmer's sell-out will have cut-through, Hunt believes. 'It is going to be Chagos on steroids, Gordon Brown's gold scandal on steroids. It's a very big political mistake. Why would a sovereign country pay to do a reciprocal trade deal? Canada wouldn't do that. Australia wouldn't do that. The United States wouldn't do that. It betrays a mentality that we are the junior partner.' This is where Hunt's rational optimism shines through. 'We have the top military in Europe, the top universities in Europe, the top tech sector in Europe. We have more hard and more soft power than any other European country. We are an equal partner.' This goes to the heart of Hunt's thesis. 'We need to get back our self-confidence. The world is in an incredibly dangerous state. We've got Ukraine, Taiwan, we've got an unpredictable president in America. We've got a migration crisis. We've got so many things that are going wrong. Countries that have power or influence need to use it. Do we just hold our hands up and say we're screwed and there's nothing we can do about it because we're such a weak and ineffective country, or do we look at the facts, which are that on every single major global issue, we are one of the top 10 most powerful countries on the planet, and if we choose to, we can have a decisive influence in solving problems? We need to start trying to be the country that I know we can be.' Hunt thinks defence spending should increase. 'Three per cent is the minimum. America spends 3.4 per cent, so you probably want something along those lines.' It is usually a cliché to describe somebody as irrepressible, but that is Hunt. Nothing seems to drag him down, even irritating journalists such as myself, who spent 15 years accusing him of being too Left-wing. He always bounces back, and can take almost any criticism. He is energetic, repeatedly running the London marathon. He tries to marshal reason and facts to convince his critics, a counter-cultural approach in an era of social media attack dogs and demagogues. The son of an admiral and a father of three, 58-year-old Hunt attended Charterhouse School and was president of the Oxford University Conservative Association during Thatcherism's heyday. He had a buccaneering streak and, after a couple of years in consultancy, headed to Japan, where he learnt the language and taught English. On his return, he founded several businesses, making millions. His eyes bulge when he makes important points, a trait his enemies have mocked but that, in private, merely underlines his earnestness. Many critics of the historic catastrophe that was Britain's Covid lockdowns point to Sweden or Florida as role models. Hunt looks instead to Korea and Taiwan. 'Korea had a much more effective test and trace scheme, and quarantined people who had the virus quickly. They avoided any lockdowns at all in the first year, all the restaurants stayed open for the whole of the first year, and there was much less economic damage.' He doesn't believe lockdowns reduced the number of deaths and blames them for destroying the work ethic. This is a core Huntian value: he believes in hard work, in self-reliance, in upward mobility and in ensuring tax and red tape don't discourage it. 'The real problem with lockdowns was a cultural one. They got us out of the habit of hard work. Working from home has become a virus which is incredibly damaging to our work ethic,' he argues. He adds of lockdowns, 'They created a mentality that if there's any big problem, the state will always step in, and we are still paying the price, and the worst place of all we're paying that price is the benefits system.' He's a fan of Iain Duncan Smith's welfare reforms. The issue is that at around the same time, 'Britain passed a law saying there had to be parity of esteem between mental and physical health. This was a good thing for the NHS, because it needed to treat mental illness more seriously. But it was a terrible thing for the benefits system, because people realised they could increase their points and therefore their likelihood of qualifying for disability benefits or higher levels of Universal Credit. By drawing attention to mental illness, we create an incentive, not just for people to use mental illness to qualify for benefits, but for people not to get better.' Hunt is passionate about the scandal of Britain's exploding numbers of adults on out-of-work benefits. 'It is not just economically barmy. It is immoral. About half the people who are signed off having to look for work are now done so primarily for mental health reasons. If you are mentally ill, one of the most important things is social contact. The last thing you want is to condemn them to a life of daytime TV. If you have mild depression, it is likely to make it severe depression and far worse. We are doing a massive disservice to these people.' 'Which EU country would dare oppose reforms that give people control of their borders? There is a point in the life of a Tory politician when they undergo a metamorphosis. They go to bed one evening as an ex-Cabinet minister and wake up the next morning as a grandee. Hunt has completed that process, though he may not have realised it yet. Being a grandee confers a number of advantages upon the beholder. They are given a fairer hearing, and that is something Hunt certainly deserves. He was treated abominably when he was health secretary, demonised by imbeciles who should have known better. The NHS will never be well managed – it is impossible for anybody to effectively run a gigantic socialist behemoth – but it was vastly better when Hunt was at its helm than it is today. I ask him whether the NHS can still be saved as a universal, state-owned, taxpayer-funded system that is free at the point of use. 'There are a lot of social insurance systems in Europe that have better outcomes and sometimes for less money than the NHS costs us,' Hunt says. 'But I don't believe that any party will ever persuade the British people to switch to it, because the principle of the social insurance system is that everyone gets bronze-level insurance, and that's paid for by the state. But those who can pay [can opt for] silver- and gold-level insurance.' I put it to him that the NHS is in fact a bronze-level system already. He deflects my trouble-making, offering two suggestions to ensure we 'get as good a result as they get in the Netherlands or Israel on our system'. First of all, 'We've got to get rid of these national targets that have made the NHS the most centralised, micromanaged healthcare system in the world. Stalin would be proud.' His second reform would be to regionalise the NHS, making it report to locally elected mayors. More generally, Hunt's solution for economic rebirth is radical devolution. The current model hands some spending power to local authorities but does not make them responsible for raising funds, creating mismatched incentives. Power must come with accountability. 'It needs to be about local empowerment, civic leadership, giving local mayors and elected authorities the power to pull themselves up by the bootstraps.' Hunt 'favours elected mayors with four-year terms' in place of local authorities. He does not want to spread the 'grievance model' promoted by the SNP in Scotland or Sadiq Khan in London. He describes himself as a 'passionate supporter of free trade'. He says, 'Britain basically invented free trade, and the British Empire laid the foundations of the global free trade system. But we didn't make sure the benefits were spread evenly. The average wage in Manchester is some £10,000 pounds lower than the average wage in London. Boris was absolutely right to champion levelling up. The bit that was missing is that levelling up should not just be about Westminster doling out cash to left-behind regions.' Hunt, whose wife, Lucia, is Chinese-born, has a nuanced grasp of the immigration debate. 'Immigrants living here are among the strongest voices for controlling migration, partly because they are worried about social instability,' he points out. Hunt agrees the Conservatives proved too liberal on immigration. 'We allowed companies to increase their workforce by hiring cheap foreign labour, which allowed them to ignore the six million adults of working age in the UK who are not in work. That is expensive for the state and a morally bankrupt position.' His views on asylum and refugees have shifted. 'The ECHR and the 1951 Refugee Convention were written for a different age and urgently need reform, because they make it too hard to stop people coming here and too hard to get people out who shouldn't be here. Keir Starmer, a human rights lawyer, could do that with extraordinary credibility. Which European country is going to dare to oppose reforms that give people proper control of their borders? It is that kind of energy we need to see when it comes to Britain's place in the world.' In the absence of reform of the ECHR and Refugee Convention, withdrawal is the only solution. 'In the end, if we can't reform them, I would support leaving them. But the trouble with just leaving them is that you don't stop thousands of boats crossing the Mediterranean, let alone the Channel.' Ever the optimist, Hunt isn't one of those who think the Tories are about to be supplanted by Reform: 'I don't believe the Conservative Party is extinct. Our share price is low at the moment, but we'll come back because we are the only party that really understands and cares about wealth creation.' I wonder whether Hunt, who chose to step down from the shadow cabinet, may yet feel the hand of history tapping on his shoulder one more time, especially if the Tory party were to implode after next May's elections. Stranger things have happened, including when Hunt, who was preparing to wind down his career, was contacted out of the blue by Liz Truss. A message from an unrecognised number stated simply, 'Liz Truss here. Please can you give me a call.' He thought it was a trick. 'Was the prime minister really trying to contact me? Surely not. It was mid-October 2022 and she had been in Downing Street for a little over a month,' Hunt recalls. He told Lucia, 'Someone just tried to message me pretending to be Truss. I can't believe how naive people think I am. It's probably a radio show host trying a hoax call.' It was indeed the prime minister, and he was appointed Chancellor the next day. Ultra-experienced politicians who pen policy books are rarely content with becoming pundits shouting from the sidelines. Hunt is highly supportive of Kemi Badenoch and was effusive about her performance at Prime Minister's Questions on the day we met. I don't doubt his sincerity. Yet Hunt wouldn't be human if he didn't think that maybe – just maybe – he could still have something valuable to contribute to his country at the highest level.
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Bill Maher reveals why there will be no winners in the battle between Trump and Elon Musk
Bill Maher sounded off on the feud between Donald Trump and Elon Musk, with the comedian joking that there would be dire consequences for whomever won. Since the former 'First Buddy' departed his role as the head of DOGE last week, Musk has become brutally honest about where he disagrees with Trump - specifically, the president's 'big, beautiful bill.' Musk referred to the law as an 'abomination' and then went off a firestorm on X, going so far as accusing Trump of being in the Epstein files. Liberal comic Maher was practically chomping at the bit to tee off on the breakup of what he termed 'the richest man in the world vs. the most powerful man in the world.' He admitted he couldn't pretend he could 'think about anything other than the Trump/Elon thing.' On HBO 's Real Time Friday, he called the Trump-Musk breakup 'like Godzilla vs. King Kong if Godzilla was on ketamine and King Kong had a combover.' He joked that he'd even given the pair a couple name 'like Brangelina or Bennifer... E-lump.' After repeating what had set off the tussle, he exaggerated ways in which the pair could set each other off, joking that Trump told Musk that 'Mars is a s***hole planet' and that Musk said Trump is 'not the same man I used to heil.' Ultimately, Maher believes there will be no winners of the Trump-Musk feud, with terrible consequences tying in to another infamous feud for whomever comes out victorious. 'The stakes are so high because the winner faces Blake Lively,' he quipped. Republicans far-and-away are on President Donald Trump's side amid his very public break-up with former DOGE leader Elon Musk. In new Daily Mail polling conducted by J.L. Partners and released Friday, 59 percent of Republicans sided with the U.S. president, while just 12 percent chose Musk. Another 28 percent said they were unsure. During Thursday's dust-up, Musk suggested he had more political staying power than Trump, pointing out the president had just three and a half more years in office. Musk also said he backed Trump being impeached - and replaced by 40-year-old Vice President J.D. Vance. On Thursday Trump and Musk took part in a spectacular public spat, which included cameos by dead serial pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and anti-Semitic rapper Kanye West. The fallout between Trump and Musk - who were political allies for a little less than a year - started in recent weeks when the billionaire started resisting Republicans' 'big, beautiful bill,' arguing that the spending wiped out DOGE's cost-cutting efforts. Then, on Thursday, when Trump was supposed to be hosting the new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in the Oval Office, he was asked about Musk's recent criticism. From there the dam broke. 'Elon and I had a great relationship. I don't know if we will any more, I was surprised,' Trump told reporters. The president suggested that Musk was angry - not over the bill ballooning the deficit - but because the Trump administration has pulled back on electric vehicle mandates, which negatively impacted Tesla, and replaced the Musk-approved nominee to lead NASA, which could hinder SpaceX 's government contracts. 'And you know, Elon's upset because we took the EV mandate, which was a lot of money for electric vehicles, and they're having a hard time the electric vehicles and they want us to pay billions of dollars in subsidy,' Trump said. 'I know that disturbed him.' Over the weekend, Trump pulled the nomination of Jared Isaacman to lead NASA. Isaacman had worked alongside Musk at SpaceX. 'He recommended somebody that I guess he knew very well, I'm sure he respected him, to run NASA and I didn't think it was appropriate and he happened to be a Democrat, like totally Democrat,' Trump continued. 'We won, we get certain privileges and one of the privileges is we don't have to appoint a Democrat.' Musk posted to X as Trump's Q&A with reporters was ongoing. 'Whatever,' the billionaire wrote. 'Keep the EV/solar incentive cuts in the bill, even though no oil & gas subsidies are touched (very unfair!!), but ditch the MOUNTAIN of DISGUSTING PORK in the bill,' he advised. 'In the entire history of civilization, there has never been legislation that [is] both big and beautiful. Everyone knows this!' Musk continued. 'Either you get a big and ugly bill or a slim and beautiful bill. Slim and beautiful is the way.' The spat quickly turned personal with Musk then posting that Trump would have lost the 2024 election had it not been for the world's richest man - him. Musk had publicly endorsed Trump on the heels of the July 13th assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania and poured around $290 million of his fortune into the Republican's campaign. The billionaire also joined Trump on the campaign trail when he returned to the site of the Butler shooting in early October, a month before Election Day. Trump said in the Oval that he likely still would have won Pennsylvania without Musk's help and because Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris didn't choose the state's governor, Josh Shapiro, to be her running mate. Even with Shapiro on the ticket, Trump claimed, 'I would have won Pennsylvania, I would have won by a lot.' Musk said that was laughable. 'Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate,' Musk claimed. 'Such ingratitude,' the billionaire added. The 53-year-old Musk also asserted he had more staying power than the 78-year-old president. 'Oh and some food for thought as they ponder this question: Trump has 3.5 years left as President, but I will be around for 40+ years,' Musk said Thursday afternoon, responding to a post from MAGA agitator Laura Loomer. Loomer said she was reporting from Capitol Hill and that Republican lawmakers were trying to determine if it was better to side with Trump or Musk. After his meeting with Merz, Trump continued to throw punches online. Trump asserted that he had asked Musk to leave his administration and said the billionaire went 'CRAZY!' 'Elon was "wearing thin," I asked him to leave, I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted (that he knew for months I was going to do!), and he just went CRAZY!' Trump wrote. The president then threatened to pull SpaceX and Tesla's government contracts. 'The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon's Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn't do it!' Trump wrote. Musk then taunted Trump to act. 'This just gets better and better,' he wrote. 'Go ahead, make my day …' In a follow-up post, Musk said he would 'begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately.' The Dragon is how NASA astronauts currently travel to the International Space Station - and how supplies make it there. As the fight continued, Tesla shares plummeted. Anti-semitic rapper Kanye West even got involved. 'Broooos please noooooo. We love you both so much,' West wrote. And Musk threw the Epstein bomb. '@RealDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public,' Musk wrote. 'Have a nice day, DJT!' Epstein is a serial child sex offender who died in prison in 2019. Trump pledged to release the files related to Epstein, with Attorney General Pam Bondi releasing some pages in February, but most of that information was already in the public domain. 'Mark this post for the future. The truth will come out,' Musk added. Trump didn't directly respond to Musk's Epstein charge, instead posting what amounted to a shrug on Truth Social, while also continuing to back the 'big, beautiful bill.' 'I don't mind Elon turning against me, but he should have done so months ago,' Trump wrote. 'This is one of the Greatest Bills ever presented to Congress.' Later he ignored shouted questions from reporters on Musk's Epstein charge as he hosted the National Fraternal Order of Police executive board in the State Dining Room. Asked for comment, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told the Daily Mail in a statement: 'This is an unfortunate episode from Elon, who is unhappy with the One Big Beautiful Bill because it does not include the policies he wanted.' 'The President is focused on passing this historic piece of legislation and making our country great again,' Leavitt added. Trump didn't directly respond to Musk's Epstein charge, instead posting what amounted to a shrug on Truth Social, while also continuing to back the 'big, beautiful bill.' 'I don't mind Elon turning against me, but he should have done so months ago,' Trump wrote. 'This is one of the Greatest Bills ever presented to Congress.' Later he ignored shouted questions from reporters on Musk's Epstein charge as he hosted the National Fraternal Order of Police executive board in the State Dining Room. A source familiar pointed out to the Daily Mail that 'everyone knows President Trump kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his Palm Beach Golf Club.' 'The Administration itself released Epstein files with the President's name included. This is not a new surprise Elon is uncovering. Everyone already knew this,' the source continued. The source also mused, 'If Elon truly thought the President was more deeply involved with Epstein, why did he hangout with him for 6 months and say he "loves him as much as a straight man can love a straight man?"' It was less than a week ago that Trump gave Musk a golden key and a DOGE send-off from the Oval Office.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
‘The US was our El Dorado': Africans on Trump's travel bans and taxes
When Essi Farida Geraldo, a Lomé-based architect, heard about partial restrictions on travel to the US from Togo as part of the travel bans announced by Donald Trump on Thursday, she lamented losing access to what many young Togolese consider to be a land of better opportunities. 'The United States was the Togolese's El Dorado,' Geraldo said. 'Many people go to work in the US to save money and support their families or projects in Africa … This will force the country to really develop stronger partnerships that exclude the US.' Trump's order, which is to come into effect on Monday, prohibits people from seven African countries – Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Libya, Somalia and Sudan – from entering the US, making Africa the worst-affected continent. People from another three African countries – Burundi, Sierra Leone and Togo – will be subject to partial restrictions, meaning they will not be able to travel to the US on certain visas. For Geraldo, an alumnus of the Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders programme instituted by the Obama administration, the new restrictions compound the harm from Trump's foreign aid cuts, which made it harder for her to access funding for social projects in the tiny west African state. Mikhail Nyamweya, a political and foreign affairs analyst, said the new travel bans and restrictions would 'bring about a pattern of exclusion' and 'may also institutionalise a perception of Africans as outsiders in the global order'. 'In the short term, they will restrict access to education, innovation and professional mobility. In the long-term, they risk alienating African partners,' he said. The White House deputy press secretary, Abigail Jackson, said the countries on the list 'lack proper vetting, exhibit high visa overstay rates or fail to share identity and threat information'. 'President Trump is fulfilling his promise to protect Americans from dangerous foreign actors that want to come to our country and cause us harm,' she said on X, adding that the restrictions were 'commonsense'. This interpretation was firmly rejected by Abby Maxman, the president and CEO of Oxfam America, who said the ban 'deepens inequality and perpetuates harmful stereotypes, racist tropes and religious intolerance'. She said: 'This policy is not about national security. It is about sowing division and vilifying communities that are seeking safety and opportunity in the US.' The policy has deepened a cloud of uncertainty in the affected countries, especially after the US government announced in May that visa appointments for students wishing to study in its universities had been suspended pending expanded social media vetting. There is also fear across Africa about a proposed tax on remittances under Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which is under parliamentary review. If passed into law, the 3.5% tax could severely dent the GDP of many nations, for whom diaspora remittances are a huge contribution. Geoffrey Gichohi, a 34-year-old nurse working in Minnesota, recently sent money to his mother in Kenya – which is not covered by the travel ban – via an app to pay for a concrete wall and a metal gate at their home. Like many Africans abroad, he regularly sends money to his family members back home who rely on it for school fees, healthcare and other basic needs. A new tax – on top of sending and withdrawal fees – would make it more difficult, he said. 'The parents back at home in Kenya are the ones who will suffer because they'll have limited resources,' he said. 'Personally, I hope the bill doesn't get passed.' Human rights activists have criticised the restrictions and planned tax, saying they unfairly target citizens of countries in the global south. Other experts say the moves could further damage US-Africa ties in an era of rising anti-western sentiments on the continent. Feelings of despair are not universal, however. According to Jalel Harchaoui, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London, many people in Libya will be unbothered by the new policies as the US is not a major travel destination for them. 'It's not good, but it's not noticed as something catastrophic,' he said. 'People are barely paying attention to [the travel ban] or the [proposed] remittance tax … if the same thing had happened to the UK it would be a major event, but not for the US.' Authorities in many of the affected countries are yet to respond. However, on Thursday afternoon the president of Chad, Mahamat Idriss Déby, suspended the issuance of visas to US citizens, citing the need for reciprocal action. 'Chad has no planes to offer, no billions of dollars to give, but Chad has his dignity and pride,' he said in a Facebook post, referencing Qatar's controversial gift to the Trump administration. Over the last year, US and French troops have been forced to withdraw from military bases in Chad, which was previously a key ally in the Sahel for many western nations. The reaction from Sierra Leone, another US ally in west Africa, was much mellower. 'We have taken note of this proclamation,' said the information minister, Chernor Bah. 'Our understanding is that the decision is based exclusively on visa overstay rates and that it does not reflect the broader state of US-Sierra Leone relations, which remain from our perspective strong and productive.'
