Several hundred years after the height of transatlantic slavery, African leaders believe they may finally be on a path towards justice.

At a recent African Union summit, reparations for the mass human trafficking, colonialism and apartheid were designated as a flagship priority of the Union. The move marks a significant moment in a long-running effort to coordinate Africa’s position on one of the gravest chapters in global history.

Ghana has been tasked with leading the development of a unified proposal. Situated on the West African coast, Ghana - like several neighbouring countries - became a major hub in the trafficking of enslaved Africans. Hundreds of thousands of men, women and children were forcibly taken from its shores and transported across the Atlantic in appalling conditions.

For decades, there was little international consensus about how to address this history. Many of the countries responsible sought to frame slavery as a closed chapter. Some African states prioritised other urgent post-independence challenges. Caribbean nations, whose populations include many descendants of enslaved Africans, developed their own approaches shaped by different political and economic realities.

Now, however, the African Union is attempting to bring together African states and the wider diaspora behind a common position.

The JF-17 Thunder built in Pakistan with Chinese technology saw action against India last year. That episode, which reportedly saw the Indian airforce soundly beaten, has prompted a surge in interest in the cut-price fighter jet. Capable of aerial combat as well as attacking targets on the ground, the plane is in demand from air forces across the Middle East and Africa looking to modernise their kit.

At the World Economic Forum, something unexpected happened.

African presidents, former heads of state, and global institutions didn’t gather to ask for more aid — they asked whether aid itself has become the problem.

This conversation had a name: The Accra Reset.

From the Congolese president’s call for economic sovereignty, to Nigeria’s vice president rejecting dependency, to blunt warnings from institutions that aid is shrinking, this episode examines a historic shift in Global South thinking — from gratitude to leverage, from dependency to coordination.

The question is no longer whether aid will end.
It’s whether the Global South will be ready when it does.

In this episode of World Reframed, Ismail Akwei explores:

• Why resource-rich countries remain aid-dependent

• How control of value chains determines real sovereignty

• Why fragmented economies stay vulnerable

• And whether the Global South can act together — before choices are made for it

This isn’t rebellion.
It’s reckoning.

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The departure of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso dented ECOWAS' status. Its efforts to protect democracy ended in failure. Attempts to introduce a single currency have stalled. So the bloc needed a boost to end the year and an agreement to cut a large chunk off flying costs for its 450 million consumers could deliver it.

US forces have been bombing and detaining boats, threatening aircraft and massing in force off the coast of Venezuela. Their declared targets are drug gangs.

World Reframed episode 22 explores how the drugs ecosystem in Colombia and Venezuela functions; why it is deadly, but not so much to Americans; and what the politics around the issue means.

The Russian president's trip to India has received similar coverage in the international media to any meeting he attends - a focus on the war in Ukraine. But there are many takeaways from the event which will have even more profound consequences for the world.

World Reframed 18 discusses the widely dismissed claim that Roman shipbuilding techniques were borrowed from Malay fleets and why the claim has been getting so much attention.

World Reframed 17 looks at the Madlanga Commission and why corruption in South Africa is so hard to root out.

With seven players - China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and the Philippines - contesting the valuable waters off their coastlines, devious tactics are commonplace. From fake fishermen to fake islands, boat chases and beached ships each side is trying to get the upper hand. Duncan Hooper talks to Logan Zapanta about the fierce competition underway

Protests from Nepal to Madagascar have toppled governments accused of corruption and elitism. Mohammed Elnaiem of the Decolonial Centre says that they are the latest chapter in a long-running battle against a system designed to ensure the world's powerful nations can meet their desire for raw materials.

He talks about the role of technology and multilateral institutions in maintaining this system as well as the potential to defeat it.