Niger

• Nigerien soldiers took to television to confirm they had indeed overthrown Pres. Bazoum in a coup. They closed the country's borders and imposed a curfew.
• Bazoum tweeted [or is it Xed, now that Twitter has rebranded as X?] that he intended to defend Niger's "hard-won" democracy, and West Africa's regional bloc - ECOWAS - sent a mission to mediate.

• Ukraine is ramping up its counter-offensive with thousands of Western-trained fresh troops. A senior U.S. official called this "the big test" of how the counter-offensive will fare.
• Ukraine's aim over the next one to three weeks is to cut Crimea and other Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine off from supply lines to Russia - "or to at least advance far enough to put the strategically important peninsula within range of Ukrainian artillery," per the NYT.

• Moldova's pro-Western government expelled 45 Russian diplomats and embassy personnel "so that there are fewer people trying to destabilize the country." (Pres. Sandu has been looking over her shoulder since February, when she accused Russian operatives of planning to overthrow her government.)
• Meanwhile, Pres. Putin promised the visiting leaders of Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, Somalia, Central African Republic, and Eritrea 25,000 to 50,000 tons of free grain each, delivered "in the next 3-4 months." At the high end of that range - 50,000 tons per country - that's still just 3% of its grain exports to Africa in the first half of 2023.

• A forthcoming U.S. government report concludes that the Taliban has "effectively infiltrated" UN aid flows, which it sees "as yet another revenue stream, one which their movement will seek to monopolize and centralize control over."
• The UN has sent around $2 billion to Afghanistan since the Taliban took control in mid-August 2021. That money hasn't exactly gone towards any measurable progress in advancing UN objectives like equal rights for women.
• The U.S. State Dept. is sending its Special Representative for Afghanistan and Special Envoy for Afghan Women, Girls, and Human Rights to meet a Taliban delegation led by Acting Foreign Minister Muttaqi in Doha this week. The U.S. delegation will certainly want to discuss the Taliban's erosion of women's rights.

• Guyana once again delayed the deadline for its first competitive oil block auction - this time to Sept. 12. This is the fourth delay for this auction, at which 14 offshore blocks are up for bids.

• The Federal Reserve had been worried about a looming recession but chairman Jerome Powell now thinks the risk of a downturn has passed. The Fed raised its benchmark interest rate a quarter-point to 5.5%.