SPACE/COSMOS

International astronauts launch to ISS after NASA's first medical evacuation

“It turns out Friday the 13th is a very lucky day,”

Copyright AP Photo/John Raoux

By Pascale Davies & AP

Published on 13/02/2026 - EURONEWS

“It turns out Friday the 13th is a very lucky day,” SpaceX Launch Control radioed once the astronauts reached orbit.

A fresh team of astronauts launched toward the International Space Station on Friday aboard a SpaceX rocket, set to take over for crew members who had been brought back to Earth in what marked NASA's first medical evacuation from orbit.

NASA requested the expedited launch to quickly fill the positions left vacant by the evacuated astronauts.

The incoming crew—comprising astronauts from the United States, France, and Russia—is scheduled for an eight- to nine-month stay that will extend through until autumn. They arrive on Saturday and will restore the space station to its complete crew complement.

Once the spacecraft reached orbit, SpaceX Launch Control jokingly noted, "It turns out Friday the 13th is a very lucky day." Mission commander Jessica Meir responded with enthusiasm: "That was quite a ride."

During the month-long crew shortage, NASA suspended spacewalks and postponed various tasks while awaiting the replacements. Americans Meir and Jack Hathaway, alongside France's Sophie Adenot and Russia's Andrei Fedyaev, will now join the skeleton crew of three astronauts—one American and two Russians—who maintained station operations in the interim.

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• SpaceX puts Mars mission plans on ice and U-turns for Moon city instead

NASA said it saw no need for additional pre-launch medical screenings or specialised diagnostic equipment, expressing confidence in existing protocols aboard the station. However, an onboard ultrasound machine, typically used for research purposes, was pressed into urgent service on January 7 to examine the unwell crew member.

NASA has declined to identify the astronaut or disclose details about their condition. All four returning crew members were hospitalised immediately upon their Pacific Ocean splashdown near San Diego.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with a crew of four aboard the Dragon space craft lifts off from pad 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Feb 13 AP Photo/John Raoux

It marked the first instance in 65 years of human spaceflight that NASA terminated a mission early due to medical concerns.

Satisfied with medical procedures already in place, NASA ordered no extra checkups for the crew ahead of liftoff, and no new diagnostic equipment was packed.

An ultrasound machine already up there for research went into overdrive on Jan. 7 when used on the ailing crew member. NASA has not revealed the ill astronaut’s identity or health issue. All four returning astronauts went straight to the hospital after splashing down in the Pacific near San Diego.

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With missions becoming longer, NASA is constantly looking at upgrades to the space station’s medical gear, said deputy programme manager Dina Contella.

“But there are a lot of things that are just not practical, and so that’s when you need to bring astronauts home from space,” she said earlier this week.

In preparation for moon and Mars trips, where health care will be even more challenging, the new arrivals will test a filter designed to turn drinking water into emergency IV fluid, try out an ultrasound system that relies on artificial intelligence and augmented reality instead of experts on the ground, and perform ultrasound scans on their jugular veins in a blood clot study.

They will also demonstrate their Moon-landing skills in a simulated test.

Adenot is only the second French woman to launch to space. She was 14 when Claudie Haignere flew to Russia’s space station Mir in 1996, inspiring her to become an astronaut. Haignere travelled to Cape Canaveral to cheer her on.

“I thought it would have been a quiet joy with pride for Sophie, but it was so hugely emotional to see her with a successful launch," Haignere said.

Hathaway, like Adenot, is new to space, while Meir and Fedyaev are making their second station trip. Just before liftoff, Fedyaev led the crew in a cry of “Poyekhali" — Russian for “Let's Go” — the word uttered at liftoff by the world's first person in space, the Soviet Union's Yuri Gagarin, in 1961.

On her first mission in 2019, Meir took part in the first all-female spacewalk. The other half of that spacewalk, Christina Koch, is among the four Artemis II astronauts waiting to fly around the moon as early as March. A ship-to-ship radio linkup is planned between the two crews.

ESA satellite finds 'inside-out' planetary system that challenges formation theories

Copyright European Space Agency

By Roselyne Min with AFP

Published on 13/02/2026 - EURONEWS

A newly discovered planet orbiting a distant star may change scientists’ understanding of how planetary systems form.

Astronomers say they have discovered a distant planetary system with planets arranged in a surprising order, challenging long-standing ideas about how planets form.

In our Solar System, the four planets closest to the Sun are small and rocky, while the four farther away are large gas giants. Scientists have long believed this pattern — rocky planets near the star and gaseous planets farther out — was common across the universe.

However, a star called LHS 1903 discovered in the Milky Way's thick disc suggests otherwise.

In a collaborative effort involving researchers across Europe, astronomers analysing data from several telescopes had already identified three planets orbiting the red dwarf star, which is cooler and dimmer than our Sun.

The closest planet to the star was rocky, followed by two gas giants. That is the order scientists expect.

But digging into observations made by the European Space Agency (ESA)'s exoplanet-probing Cheops space telescope revealed a fourth planet farther from the star. Surprisingly, this outermost planet also appears to be rocky.

"That makes this an inside-out system, with a planet order of rocky-gaseous-gaseous-and then rocky again," Thomas Wilson, the lead author of the study and a planetary astrophysicist from the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom, said in a statement with ESA.

"Rocky planets don't usually form so far away from their home star," Wilson added.

One planet after another

Inner planets are expected to be small and rocky because intense radiation from the nearby star blasts most of the gas away from their rocky core.

But farther out in the cold reaches of the system, a thick atmosphere can form around cores, creating gas giants.

Trying to explain the unusual LHS 1903 system, researchers tested several possibilities before proposing a new idea: the planets may have formed one after another rather than all at once.

According to the currently most widely accepted theory, planets form simultaneously in a massive ring of gas and dust called a protoplanetary disc.

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This involves tiny dust grains clumping together, then snowballing into cores that eventually evolve into mighty planets.

But in this system, scientists believe LHS 1903 may have formed after most of the gas had already disappeared.

"Yet here is a small, rocky world, defying expectations," Wilson said.

"It seems that we have found the first evidence for a planet which formed in what we call a gas-depleted environment," he added.

Since the 1990s, astronomers have discovered more than 6,000 planets outside our Solar System, called exoplanets, mostly by spotting slight changes in brightness as they cross in front of their star.

"Historically, our planet formation theories are based on what we see and know about our Solar System," said Isabel Rebollido, a planetary disc researcher at ESA.

"As we are seeing more and more different exoplanet systems, we are starting to revisit these theories."

 

BNP likely to win a landslide in Bangladesh vote

/ Bornil Amin - Unsplash

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By bno Chennai Office February 13, 2026

Bangladesh’s parliamentary election points to a strong showing for the Bangladesh Nationalist Party(BNP) as counting continues after largely peaceful voting on February 12, 2026, in the country of about 170mn people.

The 300 seat Jatiya Sangsad requires 151 seats for a simple majority. More than 127mn citizens were eligible to vote, with turnout at 47.91% by 2pm local time and polling closing at 4:30pm, according to Bangladesh’s Election Commission as cited by The Daily Star in a report.

Former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, in exile in India, rejected the process and alleged widespread irregularities, including interference at polling stations and inducements to voters. She also disputed official participation levels and questioned the legitimacy of an election held without the Awami League after Bangladesh’s Election Commission cancelled the party’s registration.

Early tallies indicate the BNP has secured 135 seats, more than 100 ahead of the Jamaat-e-Islami-aligned bloc with 34, while other candidates have taken the remaining declared seats. The party’s chairman has won Dhaka-17 and Bogra-6 constituencies. Provisional trends show the BNP leading in more than 175 seats and its nearest rivals ahead in about 30.

Most media outlets in Bangladesh projecting exit polls are favouring the BNP to win in a landslide. BNP’s victory indicates that the Awami League’s removal has positioned it as the only dominant political force in the country with very little space for other actors like the Jamaat-e-Islami or the newly emergent Citizens National Party(CNP) but they may still form a credible opposition if not persecuted.

Voting included a parallel national referendum on adopting the July Charter, which proposes institutional reforms to strengthen governance, democracy and social justice. Ballots for the parliamentary poll were white, while referendum ballots were pink. More than 1,981 candidates contested the vote, including 109 women.

The interim administration led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus has pledged credible results, with investors watching for policy continuity and stability.

 

A hellish “hothouse world” looms as run-away warming tipping points approach

Global warming run-away heating will lead to a Hothouse Earth unless drastic action is taken. But surging wind and solar in China makes it one of the few countries where emissions are already falling. / bne IntelliNews

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By Ben Aris in Berlin February 13, 2026

The world is closer than ever to a new hellish “hothouse world” as it approaches a “point of no return” after which runaway global heating cannot be stopped, scientists warn, the Guardian reported on February 11.

The warning comes as China and India report the first sustained emissions decrease, years ahead of schedule, but the US continues to ignore its carbon budget limits set by the 2015 Paris Agreement and has significantly increased CO₂ emissions – double those of China and India combined.

As bne IntelliNews reported, all the warning signals are flashing red as a raft of tipping points approaches after which positive feedback loops kick in and cause run-away heating that can’t be stopped.

The problems are getting acute as extreme weather events have become an annual disaster season for the last three years. Consultants McKinsey said in a recent report that the world spent $190bn on climate damage last year, but that will rise to $1.2 trillion – more than a six-fold increase – by 2030, and will continue to rise from there. Ratings agency Fitch also warned that countries exposed to extreme weather or that remain heavily dependent on hydrocarbons face sovereign debt downgrades by several notches from 2035 onwards unless they take action to mitigate their exposure now in an environmental damage impact report released last week.

Scientists are becoming increasingly alarmed at the lack of action, especially after the last three UN COP conferences to address the Climate Crisis – COP28, COP29, and COP30 -- failed to take any action.

Failing to halt emissions and curb warming will lead to “a new and hellish “hothouse Earth” climate far worse than the 2-3°C temperature rise the world is on track to reach,” the Guardian reports.

As bne IntelliNews reported, the Climate Crisis is accelerating. The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says that the Paris Agreement goal of keeping temperature increases to less than 1.5°C-2°C above the pre-industrial benchmark has already been missed. Temperature increases are on course to reach a catastrophic 2.7C-3.1C by 2050. At that point extreme temperature events will become routine and large parts of the world will become uninhabitable as global warming becomes irreversible due to positive feedback loops. Currently global warming is accelerating faster than all the 30-plus climate models used at the Paris meeting to set the rates and volumes of emission reduction goals. That suggests those goals should be dramatically increased, yet countries like the US are ignoring even their modest Paris targets, with the notable exception of China that has become a global green energy champion.

This new climate, which could arrive as soon as the middle of this century, would be very different to the benign conditions of the past 11,000 years, during which the whole of human civilization developed and could cause hundreds of millions of deaths in the most climate-exposed or underdeveloped parts of the world. Heat stress already killed thousands of people in Europe last summer, but if “wet-bulb” conditions are reached (35°C, 100% humidity, for six hours) then no one without air conditioning can survive outdoors. Wet bulb conditions have already been observed in places like Pakistan and UAE last year, but not for the full six hours.

Last year, studies calculating the role of the climate crisis in what are now unnatural disasters show 550 heatwaves, floods, storms, droughts and wildfires have been made significantly more severe or more frequent by global heating.

A comprehensive database of hundreds of studies that analyse the role of global heating in extreme weather was compiled by the website Carbon Brief provides overwhelming proof that the climate emergency is here today, taking lives and livelihoods in all corners of the world, the Guardian reports.

Despite the mounting evidence of the annual catastrophes, the public and politicians remain largely unaware of the severity of the mounting crisis, said the scientists. The group, led by Dr Christopher Wolf, a scientist at Terrestrial Ecosystems Research Associates in the US, said they were issuing their warning because while rapid and immediate cuts to fossil fuel burning were challenging, reversing course was likely to be impossible once on the path to a Hothouse Earth, even if emissions were eventually slashed, the Guardian reports. The team also includes Prof Johan Rockström at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany and Prof Hans Joachim Schellnhuber at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria.

“Crossing even some of the thresholds could commit the planet to a hothouse trajectory,” said Wolf. “Policymakers and the public remain largely unaware of the risks posed by what would effectively be a point-of-no-return transition.

Romania’s emissions plunge 75% since communism

Some countries are stepping up to the challenge, although too few to reverse the accelerating warming trend. China and India stand out with Romania the best performer in Europe.

Romania has cut greenhouse gas emissions by 75% since the fall of communism, achieving one of the fastest decoupling’s of economic growth from carbon pollution in Europe even as parts of the transition have proved socially painful.

Net emissions intensity — the amount of greenhouse gases per dollar of economic output — fell by 88% between 1990 and 2023, meaning each dollar of activity now produces almost 10-times less warming pollution than at the end of the Nicolae Ceaușescu era. Over the same period, real GDP has doubled.

Once emblematic of heavy industry and low-grade lignite, Romania is now expanding renewables at pace. In southern Romania, workers are preparing to assemble what developers describe as Europe’s largest solar farm, a 760MW project comprising one million photovoltaic panels and battery storage. In the north-west, authorities have approved a 1GW plant. The country already hosts a major onshore windfarm near the Black Sea and operates the Cernavodă nuclear power plant on the Danube, whose lifetime is being extended by 30 years.

The initial collapse in emissions followed the violent end of Ceaușescu’s rule in 1989, when privatisation led to factory closures and a sharp contraction in heavy industry. But since then the government has embraced renewables as the cost of generation, and more recently battery storage tumbled, making green power the cheapest option available.

Accession to the European Union in 2007 imposed stricter environmental standards and integrated Romania into the bloc’s emissions trading system. Revenues from the EU’s modernisation fund supported grid upgrades and cleaner generation. In the 17 years after 1990, the carbon intensity of Romania’s power sector fell by 9.2%; in the following 17 years, it dropped by 52%.

Romania’s rapid decarbonisation highlights limits of ‘low-hanging fruit’ Romania’s sharp fall in greenhouse gas emissions since the end of communism offers a striking example of how quickly economies can decouple growth from carbon, but analysts warn that much of the easiest progress may already have been made.

If industrialised countries could decouple as rapidly as Romania — while avoiding the social dislocation it endured — the task of limiting climate breakdown “may not seem so hopeless”, The Guardian reported.

An analysis by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) found that countries representing 92% of the global economy have either fully decoupled economic growth from emissions, including those embedded in imports, or achieved relative decoupling, where emissions rise more slowly than output.

Yet the pace remains insufficient to meet international targets. A 2023 study of 36 advanced economies found that 11 had fully broken the link between GDP and CO₂ emissions, but none had reduced emissions quickly enough to align with their share of the Paris Agreement goal of limiting warming to 1.5C.

Much of the early progress has come from the power sector, where coal-fired generation has been replaced by renewables and gas. However, progress has faced several major setbacks. The US has withdrawn from the Paris Agreements and is accelerating fossil fuels exploitation. The EU has also begun to roll back elements of its Green Deal in the face of economic stagnation and higher energy costs after Russian gas imports were cut off.

The ECIU identified nine countries that had absolutely decoupled in the decade before the 2015 Paris agreement but reversed progress in the following decade. Among them are Latvia and Lithuania, whose post-Soviet trajectories resembled Romania’s initial industrial contraction followed by EU-driven expansion. Russia, by contrast, increased emissions after the collapse of the Soviet Union, doubling down on the large extractive oil and gas sector, coupled with a highly inefficient use of those resources domestically.

 

China maintains the lead

China remains head and shoulders above the rest of the world in progress towards decarbonisation. Emissions have been flat for 21 months in a row thanks to a surge in clean power curbs coal use, as rapid growth in solar, wind and nuclear power displace coal generation in the world’s largest emitter, according to analysis published by Carbon Brief.

Solar power “increased by 43% year-on-year, wind by 14% and nuclear 8%, helping push down coal generation by 1.9%.” The expansion of low-carbon electricity has coincided with a slowdown in power-sector emissions growth, despite rising demand from industry and electrification.

The analysis notes that “Energy storage capacity grew by a record 75 gigawatts (GW), well ahead of the rise in peak demand of 55GW).” The build-out of battery storage has improved grid flexibility, enabled higher penetration of intermittent renewables and reduced reliance on coal-fired peaking plants.

But despite the progress, the race is still on. China’s key climate commitments for the next five-year period until 2030 are to peak CO₂ emissions and to reduce carbon intensity by more than 65% from 2005 levels. The latter target requires limiting CO₂ emissions at or below their 2025 level in 2030.

The record clean-energy additions in 2023-25 have barely sufficed to stabilise power-sector emissions, showing that if rapid growth in power demand continues, meeting the 2030 targets requires keeping clean-energy additions close to 2025 levels over the next five years.

China’s central government continues to telegraph a much lower level of ambition, with the national plan setting a target of “around” 30% of power generation in 2030 coming from solar and wind, up from around 22% in 2025, Carbon Brief reports.

If electricity demand grows in line with the State Grid forecast of 5.6% per year, then limiting the share of wind and solar to 30% would leave space for fossil-fuel generation to grow at 3% per year from 2025 to 2030, even after increases from nuclear and hydropower. But even that level of increase would mean missing China’s Paris commitments for 2030.

Nevertheless, every part of the Chinese economy is reducing emissions, with the exception of the chemical sector as it seeks to go up the value chain. Even though chemical-industry emissions are small relative to other sectors – at roughly 13% of China’s total – the pace of expansion is creating an outsize impact.

Without the increase from the chemicals sector, China’s total CO₂ emissions would have fallen by an estimated 2%, instead of the 0.3% reported by Carbon Brief.

The most important signal will be whether the top-level five-year plan for 2026-30, due in March, sets a carbon intensity target aligned with the 2030 Paris commitment. Officially, China is sticking to the timeline of peaking CO₂ emissions “before 2030”, which was announced by president Xi Jinping in 2020.

Complementing China’s trend, India has also recorded a fall in power-sector emissions, marking the first simultaneous decline in electricity-related carbon output in the two countries in more than five decades. Reuters reported on January 27 that power-sector emissions in China and India “declined simultaneously for the first time in 52 years”, citing a report by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA).

“The fall in emissions in China and India in 2025 is a sign of things to come, as both countries added a record amount of new clean-power generation last year, which was more than sufficient to meet rising demand,” said Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at CREA. Despite their status as leading emitters, both China and India remain inside the allowances for emissions granted in their carbon budgets by the Paris Accords, while the US has used up more than double its allotment. Between them, the three largest emitters — China, India and the US — account for about 60% of global power-sector emissions, which themselves represent roughly 35% of total greenhouse gas output.

Over the decade to 2024, however, power plant emissions rose 3.4% annually on average in China and 4.4% in India, underlining the structural reliance on coal in both economies.

China remains heavily dependent on coal, which still accounts for roughly 60% of electricity generation, according to official data. However, the scale and pace of clean energy deployment are reshaping the country’s power mix. China installed more solar capacity in 2023 and 2024 than the rest of the world combined, driven by falling module costs, supportive industrial policy and energy security concerns.

The flattening of emissions follows a period of volatility linked to post-pandemic economic reopening and drought conditions that constrained hydropower output. Analysts at Carbon Brief attribute the sustained plateau primarily to structural changes in the energy system rather than cyclical weakness.

Beijing has pledged to peak carbon emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. The recent data suggest the peak in power-sector emissions may arrive earlier than expected if renewable additions continue to outpace demand growth.

However, heavy industry, including steel and cement, remains carbon intensive, and coal approvals surged in 2022 and 2023 amid concerns over energy security. Whether the current emissions plateau marks a definitive turning point will depend on continued clean energy deployment and policy support during China’s next five-year plan period.

 

 

 

 

 

PETRO-IMPERIALISM

The UAE’s ascendancy in Africa

/ bne IntelliNews

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By Brian Kenety February 12, 2026

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has stepped up the size and scale of commercial and strategic investment activity across Africa in recent months, with initiatives spanning ports and logistics, renewable energy, digital infrastructure and financial services, as Emirati state-backed groups and corporates look for growth markets – and influence – beyond the Gulf. 

The federation of seven emirates has long used its sovereign wealth funds and state-owned companies to drive investments, focusing on long-term economic stability and securing supply chains. The UAE rapidly emerged as a dominant economic and security actor in Africa, investing over $110bn in new projects between 2019 and 2023. It has also become a key security partner for over two dozen African nations, focusing on the Horn of Africa, North Africa, and the Sahel, making it a significant player in regional geopolitics.

“The United Arab Emirates has quietly but decisively positioned itself as one of Africa’s most consequential economic partners. Through its Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) program, the UAE is reshaping how trade, investment, and mobility between the Gulf and Africa are structured,” wrote Seade Caesar, Executive Director, Africa Global Policy and Advisory Institute.

“What began as a diversification strategy away from oil has evolved into a sophisticated form of economic diplomacy, anchored in bilateral agreements that go far beyond tariff reduction.”

CEPAs include tariff liberalisation, but their main value lies in services trade, investment protection, business mobility, and regulatory cooperation. For the UAE, Caeser argues, they serve three interconnected goals:

1) to diversify away from hydrocarbons by guaranteeing steady access to food, raw materials, and intermediate goods; 2) to lower regulatory barriers for UAE firms in logistics, finance, construction, aviation, and digital services; and, 3) beyond commerce, using CEPAs as instruments of economic diplomacy to reinforce its role as a global trade hub linking Africa, Asia, and Europe.

“Africa fits this strategy well. Its demographic growth, urbanization, and continental market integration offer scale, while its infrastructure and financing gaps create space for Gulf capital and expertise,” Caeser writes.

Alongside CEPA agreements, a key new plank of its current investment drive in Africa is digital infrastructure. In November 2025, the UAE announced a $1bn “AI for Development Initiative” aimed at expanding AI infrastructure and services across Africa, framing the programme around public services and climate and development priorities.

While that’s a long-term project yet to bear tangible fruit, a spate of deals in transport and trade sectors have been announced in 2026 that are set to make a more immediate and visible impact, while cementing the UAE’s position among the continent’s biggest investors.

Transport, trade and logistics

Dubai-owned DP World, a global ports and logistics operator, has continued to position Africa as a priority market. The company said in January its $442mn investment in Somaliland’s Berbera port remains on track despite regional political tensions over the breakaway Somalian territory’s status.

(In 2026, the UAE is strengthening its partnership with the African Union to support peace, security, and sustainable development, with a specific focus on water initiatives.  But its involvement has also faced scrutiny regarding its role in regional conflicts, such as the war in Sudan, where it has been accused of backing the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a notorious paramilitary group fighting government forces since April 2023).

Abu Dhabi’s AD Ports Group (ADX: ADPORTS), a state-backed ports, maritime and logistics developer, has been expanding its African footprint in Tanzania, Angola and the Republic of Congo. It is now exploring infrastructure opportunities in Nigeria, as part of a broader agenda tied to the country’s Lagos–Calabar corridor and other strategic transport assets across West Africa. A formal agreement with the Nigerian authorities is under discussion that could see UAE capital deployed into port and trade infrastructure projects.

In Egypt, AD Ports has disclosed plans to increase its stake in Alexandria Container & Cargo Handling, a key operator at Egypt’s Mediterranean gateway. The move, announced in late 2025, is part of a strategy to expand international terminals portfolio and strengthen links between Gulf and Mediterranean trade routes.

Egyptian transport authorities have also highlighted growing cooperation with UAE-linked logistics firms in Red Sea and Suez Canal corridor developments.  Water Alliance Ventures, a consortium comprising UAE-based renewable energy developer AMEA Power and Spain’s Cox Water (MSE: COXG), has held talks with Egyptian authorities to explore cooperation and investment opportunities in seawater desalination projects across Egypt.

Nigeria, meanwhile, has also deepened trade and investment ties directly with the UAE. Earlier this year, the two countries signed a CEPA intended to boost trade facilitation and investment flows across sectors including machinery, construction equipment, cocoa and export-oriented manufacturing. The UAE’s Minister of Investment Mohamed H. Alsuwaidi, has projected that the government and private sector of the federation will invest over $10bn into the Nigerian economy alone within the coming years. 

First Abu Dhabi Bank (ADX:FAB), the UAE’s largest lender, is preparing to open a representative office in Lagos as part of a strategy to expand its presence in sub-Saharan Africa, marking its first physical entry into West Africa. First Abu Dhabi Bank already has exposure to Nigeria through its involvement with the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) in financing infrastructure. The lender participated in funding Phase 1, Section 2 of the Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway project, contributing $1.126bn. It currently operates in Egypt and Libya, and the addition of Nigeria will expand its international network to 22 countries.

The UAE has also deepened formal economic ties with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) through the signing of a CEPA in early January. The agreement is expected to support trade, logistics cooperation and investment flows, with Congolese authorities highlighting mining and agriculture as priority sectors. The deal reflects Abu Dhabi’s interest in securing supply-chain relationships in critical minerals while expanding its commercial presence in Central Africa.

The UAE and Sierra Leone in mid-February also signed a CEPA aimed at expanding trade, investment and private sector cooperation between the Gulf and West Africa, with a focus on high -value sectors, including minerals, iron ore, bauxite and agriculture. Bilateral non-oil trade reached $153mn in 2025. The agreement is expected to accelerate that growth by opening additional channels for private sector participation and long-term investment partnerships.

“As 2026 unfolds, attention is shifting to the next wave of African partners. Among the most discussed are Ghana and Rwanda. Both countries occupy strategic positions within Africa’s political economy, and both align closely with the UAE’s long-term objectives in logistics, services, finance, and regional market access. This examines why these countries matter, what the UAE is seeking, and what African policymakers should be prioritizing as CEPA talks deepen,” wrote Caesar of the Africa Global Policy and Advisory Institute.

Beyond infrastructure, private capital flows from the UAE to Africa are broadening. A Dubai-based company recently committed around $1.6bn in investments across Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya in AI infrastructure and agricultural land projects over the next two years, including data centre and farm assets aimed at food security and digital capacity.

Green energy, regional power

In Angola, meanwhile, Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar) signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) for the 150MW Quipungo solar project, adding to its pipeline in African power markets where EV and industrial electrification agendas are gaining traction.

The contract represents the primary phase of "Project Royal Sable," a broader 500MW green energy scheme spanning three distinct locations, and is seen as a critical step for Angola as it seeks to fix chronic power shortages in its southern regions and reduce its heavy dependence on traditional hydroelectric plants by tapping into the country's vast, underused solar potential.

Through its Infinity Power partnership, Masdar currently manages 1.3GW of clean energy across Egypt, South Africa, and Senegal. With a massive 13.8GW development pipeline, the Angolan venture supports the company’s global ambition to reach a 100GW capacity by 2030.

Meanwhile, Gabon has signed three memoranda of understanding with the UAE covering the mining, digital and logistics sectors, as the country seeks to accelerate economic transformation and attract foreign investment. The agreements are intended to boost local value creation and enhance Gabon’s appeal to international investors, the presidency said in a statement outlining the outcomes of the Abu Dhabi visit.

In mining, the MoU focuses on the exploration, development and commercialisation of gold projects in mineral-rich regions of the country. Gabon has been seeking to diversify its resource base beyond oil, with gold and other minerals identified as priority growth areas.

In the digital sector, Gabon renewed its partnership with Presight (ADX:PRESIGHT), an artificial intelligence and data analytics firm that is a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi-based technology group G42. Presight specialises in AI-driven big data analytics and digital transformation solutions for governments and enterprises.

The renewed cooperation aims to support the digital modernisation of Gabon’s public administration and key government services through artificial intelligence, advanced analytics and big-data systems, according to the statement.

UAE investment is not limited to commerce. The Gulf state’s development foundations and finance vehicles also back regional projects, while bilateral trade has grown significantly: the UAE’s trade with Africa reached roughly $107bn in 2024, reflecting expanding commercial linkages, according to government figures.

The UAE’s prime objectives 

Taken together, the recent flow of announcements points to a UAE strategy that pairs infrastructure-heavy investments (ports, logistics, power) with enabling platforms (AI/data capacity and financial services).

“Understanding the UAE’s motivations is essential for effective negotiation. The UAE is not primarily seeking access to African consumer markets for finished goods. Instead, itis focused on three deeper objectives,” writes Caesar: control and efficiency of trade corridors, services leadership in strategic sectors, and long-term investment in strategic assets.

“The UAE prioritizes securing and optimizing ports, airports, shipping lanes, and logistics hubs that link Africa to global markets. By investing in corridor infrastructure, the UAE reduces supply-chain risk, shortens delivery times, and positions itself as an indispensable transit and re-export gateway for African trade.

“Rather than competing on manufactured goods, the UAE seeks dominance in high-values ervices such as finance, logistics, construction, aviation, and digital platforms. CEPAs open regulatory space for Emirati firms to operate, scale, and embed themselves deeply within African economies.

“The UAE targets assets tied to food security, energy transition, minerals, and industrial inputs. Through CEPAs, it secures predictable investment conditions, aligns projects with sovereign wealth strategies, and ensures stable access to resources critical for long-term economic resilience.”