Day: June 17, 2022

Three times this year, South Africa has abstained from voting on United Nations resolutions condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Now, South Africa’s energy minister, Gwede Mantashe, has called for the country to purchase Russian crude oil, an act that would be a flagrant disregard of the sanctions against Vladimir Putin’s government put in place by the United States, United Kingdom and European Union.

Opposition Democratic Alliance lawmaker Kevin Mileham said Mantashe’s call is ridiculous.

“Frankly, Mr. Mantashe’s comments and calls for South Africa to buy oil from Russia are misguided,” Mileham said. “South Africa’s refining capacity is at an all-time low at the moment with the majority of our refineries shut down, so we have no way of refining oil purchased from Russia.”

Mileham said it’s easier and cheaper to purchase refined fuel from refineries overseas like Singapore, the Middle East, Nigeria, Europe.

“We’ve seen a massive jump in the fuel price hike because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” Mileham said. “That’s the first issue. The second is that the South African economy and the rand-dollar exchange rate is also unfavorable. And that’s something that is directly attributable to government.

“Government has failed to run our economy efficiently.”

Mileham added: “We’ve seen an average of our 1.5-percent growth per annum and as a result. We’re obviously an underperforming economy. And that’s reflected in the rand/dollar exchange rate.”

The South African government did not comment on Mantashe’s statement. The minister of international relations and cooperation, Naledi Pando, has repeatedly said South Africa is not indifferent to what is going on in Ukraine but thinks that as a matter of urgency, there must be a cessation of hostilities and that dialogue and diplomacy must be employed.

Foreign policy analyst Sanusha Naidu of the Institute for Global Dialogue said she doesn’t know what the solution to the high fuel price is, but the South African government should be doing more to avoid an economic crisis.

“The fact of the matter is that South Africa has not done what it should’ve done at a structural level in terms of improving refining capacity, improving our own kind of capabilities, etc. … We just haven’t woken up to the idea that we could have downstream, upstream activities because half of the problem is all politicized.” Naidu said. “It’s all about politicization, this is a problem, that’s an issue.”

Mining analyst Peter Major says Mantashe’s call to consider buying Russia’s crude oil is an inane comment that ignores the plight of the Ukrainians and could reflect poorly on South Africa.

“It actually could have detrimental effects,” Major said. “It could turn a lot of people’s good will away from us here if the party keeps making statements like that. I mean to be so biased, it’s just crazy. It doesn’t help the country. It doesn’t help the people.”

The Democratic Alliance is calling for taxes, which form part of the fuel price, to be reduced. Experts say the fuel price next month could reach an unprecedented $1.69 per liter.

Source: Voice of America

In Kenya, efforts are underway to better integrate refugees ahead of the planned closure of camps that house more than 400,000 people, mainly from Somalia, South Sudan and Congo. One project, backed by the International Rescue Committee, provides refugees with microloans to start small businesses.

Congolese refugee Enock Gatangi, 54, attends to customers at his small grocery shop in Nairobi’s Kayole neighborhood.

Gatangi fled conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2003 with his wife and child to Kenya’s Kakuma refugee camp, where they lived for 12 years.

They moved to Nairobi where he worked as a security guard while saving his money and dreaming of starting his own business.

But, like most refugees, Gatangi was unable to get even a small bank loan.

Then he joined the Rangers Family Group, a savings and loan association that in January lent him $170 to help finally open his shop.

I have so many customers, said Gatangi with a big smile, both Kenyans and Congolese. But most of my customers, he said, are Kenyans.

At their weekly meeting, the Rangers Family Group sings a traditional Congolese song to celebrate their savings.

They are one of 20 such groups supported by the International Rescue Committee in different poor neighborhoods in Nairobi.

The IRC program is called Refugees in East Africa: Boosting Urban Innovations for Livelihoods Development, or Re:Build.

It’s a 5-year project to empower 20,000 urban refugees with their own businesses in Nairobi and the Ugandan capital, Kampala.

The IRC says the micro-loans have already helped 260 refugees in Nairobi to become their own bosses.

Boniface Odhiambo is the Re:Build project manager.

“The fact that refugees themselves have faced challenges in terms of accessing financial products from the formal financial institutions, the project had to design innovative ways on how they can get access to financial services and also boost their economic livelihood initiatives,” Odhiambo said.

Under the program, refugees and locals form groups of 15 to 30 members who contribute shares.

The money is pooled in a mobile money application account that members can then borrow from as microloans to start and run a small business.

Members in Nairobi say the project has improved their economic well-being.

Shantal Zabibu chairs the Rangers Family Group in Kayole.

She said before the program they could not access funds for investment. But since they came together and pooled their resources, said Zabibu, if a member wants to borrow ten thousand Kenyan shillings ($90), they’ll get it. She said if another member wants five thousand ($45), they’ll get it. Zabibu said their lives have improved since the came together as a group.

Kenya hosts about 550,000 refugees and asylum-seekers, 87,000 of them based in cities.

Their participation in Kenya’s economy hinges on integration, said project manager Odhiambo.

“When we focus on economic empowerment, we are giving the vulnerable or voiceless opportunity to also have a feel and contribution in the national cake,” Odhiambo said.

With Kenya’s government planning to close the Kakuma and Dadaab refugee camps in July, all eyes are on the authorities to see what steps they will take.

Integrated refugees like Gatangi hope that if the camps close, those who reside in them, like he once did, will be ready and able to live in Kenyan communities.

Source: Voice of America

UN human rights chief won’t seek second term

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said Monday that she will step down when her term finishes at the end of August. The news was welcomed by China rights activists, who have criticized Bachelet for failing to more forcefully criticize Beijing’s incarceration of nearly 2 million Uyghurs in Xinjiang, including during her recent visit to China.

Activists Welcome UN Rights Chief’s Decision to Step Down

Truce eases Yemen violence, but hunger remains grave threat

U.N. officials said Tuesday that a temporary truce in place across Yemen since April 2 has eased some hardships, but the country is still facing a dangerous food crisis in which 19 million people are going hungry.

Hunger Stalks Yemenis as Truce Eases Some Hardships

UK cancels controversial deportation flight to Rwanda

On Tuesday night, Britain canceled its first deportation flight to Rwanda after a last-minute intervention by the European Court of Human Rights, which decided there was “a real risk of irreversible harm” to the asylum-seekers involved. U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi has been among critics of the plan. “This is all wrong,” Grandi told reporters Monday.

UK Cancels First Flight to Deport Asylum Seekers to Rwanda

In brief

— The heads of six U.N. humanitarian agencies called Thursday on the U.N. Security Council to renew the mandate allowing aid agencies to bring critical food and medical supplies into northwestern Syria from Turkey. The resolution authorizing the cross-border aid operation is due to expire on July 10. Russia has previously opposed renewing it and forced the council to gradually go from four crossing points to just one. The U.N. officials said the operation provides life-saving assistance to 4.1 million Syrians trapped in nongovernment-controlled areas. Damascus would like to see the cross-border operations end, saying all aid distribution should be through the government from inside the country. The U.N. has said such cross-line distribution is insufficient but would like to see it expanded.

— Senior U.N. officials continue to work with Kyiv and Moscow on getting some 20 million tons of Ukrainian grain blocked at a port in Odessa to international markets to ease the growing global food crisis. The drop in Ukrainian grain has particularly hurt parts of the Middle East and Africa and has dramatically driven up operating costs for the World Food Program. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told reporters Friday that alternative routes and methods are being sought, “but certainly they are much less efficient than using big ships through the ports.” U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Thursday at the U.N. that Washington is looking at helping Ukraine build temporary silos along its border to prevent Russian troops from stealing grain and to make space for the upcoming winter harvest.

— The head of the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, Deborah Lyons, concluded her post this week. In a farewell statement, she said that when she accepted the job two years ago she could not have imagined the Afghanistan she is now leaving. Lyons said she is heartbroken, especially for the millions of Afghan girls who have been denied their right to education and for the talented women told to stay at home by the Taliban authorities. Her replacement is expected to be named soon. On June 23, the Security Council will hold its regular meeting on the situation in Afghanistan.

Quote of note

“We have not seen a single genocide or Holocaust, or anything of that nature, that has happened without hate speech. People do not recognize that what Hitler did with his Ministry of Propaganda that was headed by [Joseph] Goebbels, that really was hate speech at the highest level you can imagine. Official hate speech.”

— Alice Nderitu, U.N. Special Adviser on Genocide, in remarks to reporters Friday ahead of the first International Day for Countering Hate Speech on June 18.

What we are watching next week

Monday, June 20, is World Refugee Day. The U.N. Refugee Agency, UNHCR, said this week in its Global Trends report that the war in Ukraine has pushed global displacement to over 100 million. Watch more here:

Source: Voice of America

Dozens of people were killed in fierce fighting between residents backed by Somali government forces and al-Shabab militants in the town of Adado in central Somalia, witnesses and regional officials told VOA on Friday.

Witnesses and Somali officials in the region said the fighting began when members of the terrorist group invaded the small town of Bahdo, about 60 kilometers east of Adado.

Somali military spokesman Yabal Haji Aden told VOA that the militants began their attack with a suicide vehicle-borne explosive, detonated near the entrance of the town. That set off an intense street battle between the militants and the town’s local militia, which was backed by units of Somali forces.

“They tried to detonate three explosives-laden vehicles … one of [which] detonated when our soldiers hit it with a rocket-propelled grenade,” the spokesman said. “They [then] abandoned the second one, and the third vehicle escaped.”

Galguduud regional Governor Ali Elmi Ganey said the joint forces killed about 47 fighters from the extremist group.

“The terrorists have tasted death, both inside and outside of the town. They left 47 dead bodies, guns and military ammunition,” he said.

Residents in the town and officials said three children, a well-known religious scholar and three soldiers were also killed during the fighting.

Bahdo is known to have been a base for moderate Islamist scholars, the governor said, explaining that fighters belonging to the moderate Sufi Islamist militia known as Ahlu-Sunna Wal-Jamaa — a group nominally aligned with Somalia’s military in viewing al-Shabab extremists as an enemy — were involved the fighting.

Ahlu-Sunna Wal-Jamaa began a war against al-Shabab militants in late 2008 over sectarian differences but has also clashed with government forces over political differences and control of the central Somali town.

In an interview with VOA, Ahmed Shire Falagle, information minister for Galmudug state, which includes the Galguduud administrative region, said the militants’ attack on the town did not come as a surprise.

“Our forces, those of Ahlu-Sunna and the residents, [were] tipped off prior to the al-Shabab attack,” he said, adding that al-Shabab suffered about 100 casualties, including the dead and injured.

After the fighting, local militia and government forces showed the bodies of some 30 dead militants.

Al-Shabab has been fighting for years to dislodge the country’s central government and has targeted moderate Islamist groups.

The group frequently carries out shootings and bombings at both military and civilian targets and has also attacked regional targets, especially in neighboring Kenya.

Analysts said Friday’s fighting was the deadliest in recent years for al-Shabab and came days after Somalia’s president appointed a new prime minister, who has called the fight against al-Shabab a priority.

Source: Voice of America