Outgoing US President Barack Obama has used his farewell speech to warn that the country’s  growing economic inequality and racial tensions pose a major threat to American democracy. Obama issued the warning as he said goodbye to the nation on Tuesday at the McCormick Place in Chicago, Illinois, the same place where he gave his presidential victory speech in 2008.

His farewell speech came following one of the most divisive presidential elections in US history and a deep sense that the poisonous political environment has set Americans against each other. Obama called on Americans to work together to protect democracy in their country and make it work. “Democracy is threatened whenever we take it for granted,” he said.

The outgoing president also warned about the dangers of extreme inequality and racism.“Our economy doesn’t work as well or grow as fast when a few prosper at the expense of a growing middle class. But stark inequality is also corrosive to our democratic principles,” he stated. “While the top one percent has amassed a bigger share of wealth and income, too many families, in inner cities and rural counties, have been left behind.” “The laid-off factory worker; the waitress and health care worker who struggle to pay the bills – convinced that the game is fixed against them, that their government only serves the interests of the powerful – a recipe for more cynicism and polarization in our politics,” he warned.

Speaking about the threat of growing racial tensions in the US, Obama said: “After my election, there was talk of a post-racial America. Such a vision, however well-intended, was never realistic. For race remains a potent and often divisive force in our society.” Further in his farewell speech, Obama spoke about the achievements during his eight-year presidency, including reforms in the US healthcare system as well as the landmark nuclear deal with Iran.

Obama also said his administration will do all it can to ensure the smoothest possible transition of power to Republican President-elect Donald Trump, who will take office on January 20. During Trump’s presidential campaign, he repeatedly claimed that the presidential election is being rigged and that he will not accept the result of the election if he loses, challenging a centerpiece of US democracy.

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Former soldiers in the Ivory Coast have taken control of the city of Bouake, causing a shutdown in the West African country’s second-largest metropolitan city. “The city is under the control of former soldiers,” said an unidentified army officer, media reported on Friday.

The demobilized soldiers, who had seized weapons from at least two police stations, took up positions at entry points into the city, according to reports. “It’s a mutiny by former fighters integrated into the army, who are demanding bonuses of five million CFA francs (8,000 dollars) each plus a house,” a soldier who asked to remain anonymous told media.

Residents reported heavy shooting at around 2 am (0200 GMT). Sporadic gunfire continued later into the morning. “There are many of them at the north and south entrances to the city. We are on alert and await instructions from the hierarchy,” said another source from Bouake.

Residents stayed inside and businesses in the city remained closed on Friday morning. “The city is deserted. Men in balaclavas are patrolling the city on motorcycles or in cars. They aren’t attacking residents… They told us to stay at home,” said Ami Soro, a teacher living in Bouake.

An officer speaking from the commercial capital, Abidjan, said reinforcements had been sent to Bouake. The city was the seat of a rebellion that resulted in the seizure of the northern half of the world’s top cocoa grower from 2002 until Ivory Coast was reunited following a civil war in 2011.

Meanwhile, gunfire was heard at a military camp in Daloa, another town in Ivory Coast, on Friday. “There is gunfire at the Second Battalion in Daloa. It’s young demobilized soldiers,” said a resident, speaking by telephone from a cocoa processing factory near the army camp.

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Gunmen have killed two Moroccan peacekeepers with a UN mission in the southeast of the Central African Republic (CAR). MINUSCA, or the Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic, said in a statement on Wednesday that the peacekeepers were attacked while they were escorting fuel trucks on Tuesday afternoon about 60 kilometers west of the town of Obo.

MINUSCA said two other peacekeepers were injured in the attack. The attackers “fled into the bush.” Parfait Onanga-Anyanga, the head of MINUSCA, denounced the attack, saying, “No claim can justify individuals directing their grievances against peacekeepers whose presence on CAR soil is only aimed at helping the country emerge from the cycle of violence.”

In March 2013, the Central African Republic toppled into chaos when then President Francois Bozize was ousted by the mainly Seleka rebel alliance and was replaced by Michel Am-Nondokro Djotodia, the first Muslim to hold the presidency in the generally-Christian nation.

The coup, however, caused a series of deadly retaliatory attacks between the Seleka rebels and the Christian militia known as anti-balaka, who reacted by engaging in large-scale attacks against the minority Muslims. Some 13,000 peacekeepers have been deployed to the country by the UN as part of MINUSCA. Civilians, however, say it does not do enough to protect them against scores of armed groups.

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The ringleader of the Nigeria-based Boko Haram Takfiri terrorist group has urged the militants to beef up extreme violence against people, denying recent claims by the government that the group has been crushed.

In a video posted on YouTube purportedly by Boko Haram on Friday, a man, standing in front of almost a dozen armed men and a couple of pickup trucks in an undisclosed location, identified himself as Abubakar Shekau, the leader of the terror group, and read a statement, calling on his fellow militants to “kill, slaughter and abduct all the infidels… and detonate bombs everywhere.” “I am here, well and alive,” he said, rejecting the Nigerian government’s earlier reports that he had been fatally wounded in anti-terror air raids.

He also denied that the army had ultimately defeated terrorists after it captured Boko Haram’s last major stronghold. “The battle is just beginning.” “You should not be telling lies to the people,” he said, referring to Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, who announced on Christmas Eve that the Takfiri group had been defeated and driven away from its last known bastion deep inside the thick Sambisa Forest in the northeastern volatile state of Borno.

President Buhari, who came to power in 2015, under the motto of crushing Boko Haram, also said the terrorists were on the run and no longer had a place to hide. The group, whose name means “Western education is forbidden,” has pledged allegiance to Daesh, a Takfiri terrorist group operating mostly in Iraq and Syria. Back in early August, Daesh reportedly terminated Shekau’s seven-year-long leadership by replacing him with Abu Musab al-Barnawi, a former spokesman for Boko Haram. Shortly after the announcement, Shekau released an audio message saying, “People should know we are still around,” apparently defying Daesh and the decision to oust him.

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Dozens of militants with the Takfiri Boko Haram terrorist group have surrendered to Nigerien authorities, less than a week after Nigeria announced that its troops captured the group’s last key bastion in the country’s northeast.

“Thirty one young people from Diffa, who were enrolled a few years ago in Boko Haram, decided to surrender,” Nigerien Interior Minister Bazoum Mohamed said. The troubled Diffa region, located in the southeasternmost part of Niger, borders Nigeria’s volatile Borno State, where Boko Haram hides in the dense Sambisa Forest.

One of the deserters appeared on a Nigerien public television program and recounted why they had decided to give themselves up to local authorities. “We have deserted Boko Haram because we found that what the organization stands for is not acceptable. We expect a pardon from the government so that we can participate in the development of the country and help us get rid of the trauma,” he said.

The Nigerien government has reportedly assured that it will grant an amnesty for all the deserters providing that they undergo a de-radicalization program, after which they will be enrolled in socio-economic reintegration projects.

Back in June, tens of thousands of people were forced to abandon their homes in Diffa as Boko Haram terrorists launched a sweeping offensive across the region, and in September, at least five Nigerien troopers were killed by the terror group near the village of Toumour, about 65 kilometers northeast of Diffa.

Niger has been one of the countries affected by the more than seven years of Boko Haram militancy in Nigeria. The Takfiri terrorist group has routinely launched attacks across Nigerian borders into Niger, Chad and Cameroon.

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Hundreds of Cameroonian servicemen and women from the Rapid Intervention Battalion have entered Nigerian territory. The troops were deployed at the request of President Buhari for a decisive and intense anti Boko Haram operation. Cameroon Concord News gathered that the soldiers operating under Operation Alpha are currently stationed at Goshe, a village in northeastern Nigeria about twenty kilometers from the Cameroonian town of Achigachia.

Ever since the beginning of this massive military campaign, the damage in the ranks of the Cameroonian army has been minimal. The only incident recorded occurred on the first day of the operation, when an army vehicle jumped on a mine and two soldiers’ sustained injuries.

Cameroon military sources say the operation was launched under the banner of the Joint Multinational Force and the offensive aims to reopen the Bama-Banki axis and resettle the Nigerian army in Goshe, which is said to be one of the strongholds of Boko Haram. The current operation is also taking place in a mountain sanctuary of Boko Haram located in Sambisa.

By Rita Akana