France said Tuesday it was expelling 12 Algerian diplomatic officials a day after Algeria announced the expulsion of the same number of French officials in escalating tensions between the two countries.

Algeria said Monday that its expulsion of 12 French officials was over the arrest of an Algerian consular official by French authorities in a kidnapping case, but relations between the two sides have been deteriorating since last summer.

That’s when France shifted its position to support Morocco’s autonomy plan for Western Sahara – a disputed territory claimed by the pro-independence Polisario Front, which receives support from Algeria.

Tensions further peaked in November after Algeria arrested French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, who is an outspoken critic of Islamism and the Algerian regime. He has since been sentenced to five years in prison – a verdict he subsequently appealed.

In addition to what French officials called the “symmetrically” calibrated expulsion of 12 Algerian officials, France’s ambassador to Algiers also was being recalled home for consultations, a statement from the French presidential palace said Tuesday.

It said Algerian authorities were responsible for “a brutal deterioration in our bilateral relations.”

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said on X that Algeria’s decision was “unjustified” and that dialogue “cannot go one-way.”

French counterterrorism prosecutors said three Algerian nationals in total were arrested last week and handed preliminary charges of “kidnapping or arbitrary detention … in connection with a terrorist undertaking.”

The group is allegedly involved in the April 2024 kidnapping of an Algerian influencer, Amir Boukhors, or Amir DZ, a known critic of the Algerian government with 1.1 million followers on TikTok.

The Algerian foreign affairs ministry said the arrest of the consular official as part of the kidnapping case aimed to “humiliate Algeria, with no consideration for the consular status of this agent, disregarding all diplomatic customs and practices, and in flagrant violation of the relevant conventions and treaties.”

The latest surge in acrimony followed a brief easing of tensions about two weeks ago when French President Emmanuel Macron called Algerian counterpart Abdelmadjid Tebboune. French officials said at the time that they had agreed to revive bilateral relations.

An Israeli fighter jet dropped a bomb near an Israeli community on the Gaza border on Tuesday night as a result of what the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) called a “technical malfunction.”

The bomb fell near the Nir Yithzak kibbutz adjacent to southern Gaza, which sits approximately two miles from the border.

“A short while ago, a munition fell from an IDF fighter jet that was on its way to a mission in the Gaza Strip. The munition landed in an open area near Nir Yitzhak due to a technical malfunction,” the Israeli military said in a short statement.

The IDF did not say what type of bomb it was.

There are no injuries as a result of the bomb falling, the military said, and the incident is now under review.

A spokesman for Nir Yitzhak said the bomb landed in the village’s farm area.

The kibbutz is in contact with military officials and expects a thorough investigation, the spokesman said.

According to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, Nir Yitzhak has a population of approximately 550 people.

It was one of the villages that came under attack in the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023.

According to an interview in Israel’s YNet news in February, about half of the kibbutz has returned to live in the community.

The incident is extraordinarily rare, but not entirely unprecedented.

Last May, an Israeli fighter jet accidentally dropped a bomb on the community of Yated, which neighbors Nir Yitzhak.

The munition did not explode and was collected by Israeli forces.

One month later, an Israeli tank shell fired in southern Gaza deviated from its target and impacted near the border fence, according to the IDF.

Shrapnel damaged a car in southern Israel as a result of the impact.

Peru’s former First Lady Nadine Heredia requested asylum at the Brazilian Embassy in Lima on Tuesday, the same day she and her husband, former President Ollanta Humala, were sentenced to 15 years in prison on money laundering charges.

The embassy informed Peru that Heredia had arrived Tuesday morning, according to a statement from the Peruvian Foreign Ministry. It’s unclear if she entered the facility before or after the sentence was announced by the Peruvian Judiciary.

The trial relates to alleged illicit contributions to Humala’s election campaigns in 2006 and 2011.

Prosecutors had alleged that Humala’s Nationalist Party received illicit contributions from the Venezuelan government and the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht to finance his campaigns.

Humala and his wife had previously denied any wrongdoing.

Humala was in attendance as a judge read out the verdict on Tuesday, three years after the trial began. Heredia did not attend.

Moments after the ruling was announced, the judiciary ordered Humala to start serving his sentence immediately and be sent to prison.

“The panel has said that the illegality of the crimes can be verified along the way – that is inadmissible. Here, in oral trial and in sentencing, affirmations must be made, no longer presumptions,” he argued.

Prosecutors were seeking 20 years in prison for the former president and 26 years for the former first lady.

Ecuador has been requesting foreign military support for months, saying that its fight against gangs is a “transnational war” that requires the contribution of multiple countries.

Noboa said that while his administration “would love to have” US forces in Ecuador, he insisted that they would not be out patrolling the streets. Instead, they would play a supportive role in Ecuador’s security operations.

“We would like to cooperate with US forces, and I think there are many ways that we can do that, especially in monitoring illegal operations that move out of Ecuador, but the control of the operations will be in the hands of our military and our police,” he said.

The US has previously carried out operations in that area. From 1999 to 2009, it ran surveillance flights targeting drug routes in the eastern Pacific at the now-defunct Manta Air Base.

He said the US had been waiting until the outcome of Sunday’s election to resume talks. Noboa won the vote decisively against leftist lawyer Luisa González, having campaigned on a promise to restore security with a hardline approach and revitalize the economy.

Noboa, who was born and educated in the United States, has been trying to boost cooperation with Washington on various issues – from trade to migration. On the latter issue, he says he wants to improve living conditions at home to incentivize Ecuadorians to remain in the country, instead of migrating to the US.

Asked whether his relationship with US President Donald Trump is comparable to the one Trump has cultivated with El Salvador’s strongman President Nayib Bukele – who has agreed to take in deported migrants from the US accused of violent crimes – Noboa said his situation is different.

“My case is different than El Salvador’s case. And we both respect each other. We both support each other, but at the same at the same time, different realities. And we need to view things according to each country and each country,” he said, noting that he has invited both Trump and Bukele to his inauguration on May 24.

Asked whether another meeting with US officials was on the horizon, he replied, “Yes, I think sooner (rather) than later.”

The national police says the start to the year has been the most violent in the country’s history, with more than 2,500 homicides. Data from organized crime research center InSight Crime suggests Ecuador now has the highest homicide rate in Latin America, with nearly twice as many killings as Mexico. The surge has been fueled by drug trafficking routes, turf wars and alliances between local gangs and foreign cartels.

In March, Noboa also announced a “strategic alliance” to fight organized crime with Erik Prince, the founder of the controversial private defense contractor formerly known as Blackwater.

Africa’s electric vehicle (EV) market is accelerating. But so far, one particular group of potential users — rural women — has largely been left behind, with investors favoring electric motorbike start-ups that serve a predominantly urban and male clientele. One company thinks it has the answer: electric tricycles.

“The boys with the two-wheelers get all the money,” said Shantha Bloemen, founder of Mobility for Africa, a Zimbabwean start-up with a 77% female customer base and one of a handful of EV companies in Africa operating solely in rural areas. Bloemen exclusively supplies tricycles, generally preferred by female riders in rural areas due to their non-straddling seat and greater stability on uneven roads. “Three-wheelers mean you’re inclusive of women,” she said.

Bloemen sees tricycles as the key to unlocking for rural women the potential of Africa’s EV market, which is expected to grow to $28.3 billion by 2030, according to data from Mordor Intelligence. She wants the continent to follow in the footsteps of Asia-Pacific, where tricycles are popular. “I want to be everywhere,” she said, “I want to be the queen of tricycles.”

For her customers, the vehicles, designed to cope with the unsurfaced roads, are transformative. “It has changed (our) way of life,” said Beauty Simango, 33, resident of the Zimbabwean village of Hauna and, since May last year, one of more than 300 people to lease or buy an electric tricycle from Mobility for Africa.

Simango no longer spends hours each day walking to fetch water or deliver crops to the market. By transporting goods and running a taxi service, her weekly income has increased from $30 to $150, although she now pays $65 towards her lease and regular battery swapping. Within 12 months, she will have paid off the price of the vehicle ($2,340). With her weekly profit, Simango pays her children’s school fees and funds farming projects. “It has helped our self-esteem as women,” she added.

But Mobility for Africa has struggled with a lack of investment. While Bloemen has raised a total of $6 million since 2019, half of which is from grants, including $380,000 from the Toyota Mobility Foundation, companies selling motorbikes in cities have been far more successful. Ampersand in Rwanda, whose clientele is, according to CEO Josh Whale, “overwhelmingly” male, raised over $21 million in a single year ending in August 2024. Spiro, the giant of the sector, has tens of millions of dollars in financing.

Most EV companies are focused on urban areas due to greater population density, said Tom Courtright, research director at the Africa E-Mobility Alliance think tank. Currently, most electric bikes and trikes must regularly swap their batteries at purpose-built facilities (Mobility for Africa currently has six such facilities) — but the cost of building and running these facilities can deter investors in areas with low populations. Currently, Courtright said, “urban areas are a better bet.”

For now, women in rural Africa must wait for the EV revolution to reach them. “Things are definitely moving in that direction,” said Ampersand’s Whale, “it’s just that the low hanging fruit is in the cities.”