Category: Misc

Al-Qaida’s affiliate in Mali claimed Monday it had killed four mercenaries from Russia’s private military firm, the Wagner Group, in an ambush around Bandiagara in central Mali.

The media unit for Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM), said in a statement its fighters clashed with the mercenaries Saturday in the Mopti region, according to a translation by the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist statements.

Wagner has no public representation and could not be reached for comment.

Mali is struggling to stem an Islamist insurgency that took root after a 2012 uprising and has since spread to neighboring countries, killing thousands and displacing millions across West Africa’s Sahel region.

Wagner began supplying hundreds of fighters last year to support the Malian military and has since been accused by human rights groups and local residents of participating in massacres of civilians — accusations it has not responded to.

The Russian government has acknowledged Wagner personnel are in Mali, but the Malian government has described them as instructors from the Russian military rather than private security contractors.

In July, JNIM claimed responsibility for an attack on Mali’s main military base, which it said was a response to governmental collaboration with Wagner.

Source: Voice of America

A Mali prosecutor says the 49 Ivory Coast soldiers held in Mali since July on accusations of being mercenaries have now been charged with undermining state security.

Mali’s prosecutor in the counterterrorism unit gave the update on the soldiers’ situation. Ivory Coast has been demanding the release of the soldiers since their detention July 10.

The soldiers are charged with “criminal association, attack and conspiracy against the government, undermining the external security of the state, possession, carrying and transportation of weapons of war and complicity in these crimes,” the specialized prosecutor Samba Sissoko said in a statement released Sunday. “Investigations will be carried out in order to establish the truth, identify all possible perpetrators, co-perpetrators and accomplices.”

The Ivorian soldiers were detained upon their arrival in Mali at the airport in Bamako, the capital. They were sent to Mali to secure a building belonging to an airline company that was carrying out a contract with the German contingent of peacekeepers with the United Nations mission in Mali. However, Mali’s ruling junta considers the Ivorian soldiers to be “mercenaries” because they are not directly employed by the U.N. mission and therefore are not “national support elements.”

Tensions between Mali and Ivory Coast have increased since the soldiers were arrested.

Source: Voice of America

A female journalist who was arrested in South Sudan’s capital earlier this month while covering a protest over high food prices has been released from detention.

Diing Magot, a freelance correspondent for the Voice of America, was arrested Aug. 7 at Konyo-konyo market along with six protesters for working without an identification document.

Last week, the U.S. Embassy in Juba demanded that Magot be released “immediately,” and stated that journalists have the right to do their work without interference or harm.

According to Magot’s lawyer, Seven Wani, Magot was released Monday on bail, pending further investigations into her case.

“The bail does not mean that this case has been dismissed,” her lawyer said. “Once the investigation is done, the matter will be transferred to court. This is to say that the case is still ongoing and all the accused … will be summoned to court if the matter is transferred to court.”

The release of the journalist brought much relief to her family.

“Ever since her arrest, as a family we have been trying to knock on doors, even doors of government officials, so that they are able to give an ear to her case and speedily remove her from detention,” said Diing Magot’s sister Ayen.

South Sudan is ranked 139th out of 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index. The index says journalists in South Sudan have faced harassment, arbitrary detention, torture, and even death in instances where they did not practice self-censorship.

Ayen Magot discussed the repercussions of journalist arrests in South Sudan, which she believes will dissuade young people from pursuing careers as journalists.

“This is a noble profession and there are young people out there who have dreams to become journalists,” she said. “What happens to them in such situations? They are looking, they are watching, they will be told, no, don’t enter, don’t enter this profession because it is risky.”

Oyet Patrick Charles, president of the Union of Journalists of South Sudan, confirmed the release of Diing Magot. He noted that she was detained beyond the hours permitted by the constitution, on the grounds that the state attorney requested more time to consider her case.

VOA’s public relations office on Monday said it was “elated” at the release of Magot and thanked the South Sudan Union of Journalists, Magot’s colleagues and others in Juba who “worked tirelessly for her release.”

Source: Voice of America

GUANGZHOU, China, May 27, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — During the 131^st Canton Fair, the China Foreign Trade Centre (CFTC) has signed cooperation agreements with the Lao National Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce and the Kuwait Chamber of Commerce and Industry, among other industrial and commercial institutions from the Belt and Road countries and the RCEP member countries, to expand the Fair’s trade promotion service for global partners old and new. In addition, the Centre has established a strategic partnership with the ASEAN Furniture Industries Council and has strengthened collaboration with industrial associations and media outlets around the world, with the goal of leveraging industrial resources and media channels to conduct more professional marketing.

CFTC has launched the Canton Fair Global Cooperative Partnership Program (CFGPP) since 2004. Based on the principles of equality, mutual benefit and win-win cooperation, CFTC has built cooperative partnerships with overseas official trade promotion offices and industrial and commercial institutions that boast friendships with China, strong professionalism, and great influence. CFGPP has favored pragmatic and efficient cooperation in marketing, publicity, mutual visits and information exchanges. By sharing and integrating resources, members of the Program have enjoyed coordinated development.

Up to now, CFTC has established cooperative relations for the Fair with 170 global partners from 93 countries and regions, including official trade promotion offices, industrial and commercial associations, foreign chambers of commerce in China, leading multinationals and trade service providers, with 78 from 50 Belt and Road countries and 40 from all 15 RCEP member countries.

Steadily, CFGPP will become more international, market-oriented and professional, providing more quality services for global buyers and exhibitors and assisting the Canton Fair in its role as a platform for all-round opening-up.

Visit https://www.cantonfair.org.cn/en-US for more opportunities.

Abu Dhabi, Emirates Steel recorded a nearly 50% increase over the past two years in the number of its export markets in Europe, America, Asia, and the Middle East and North Africa.

 

The expansion of Emirates Steel’s export footprint to 56 countries in 2021 compared to 38 in 2019 is part of the company’s strategy to diversify its sources of revenue through its marketing channels, improve its agility and enhance the competitiveness of UAE products under the unified brand identity of ‘Made in the Emirates.’ In 2021, Emirates Steel’s exports represented 45% of its total sales volumes, with the balance sold within the UAE, where the company maintains a 60% market share.

 

Emirates Steel has a capacity of 3.5 million tonnes per annum, which is enough to meet the domestic market’s needs of high-quality rebar, wire rod, heavy sections and sheet pile.

 

This allows Emirates Steel to contribute to the UAE’s sustainable industrial development and economic diversification by boosting its exports, the company said.

 

Emirate Steel’s expansion strategy is aligned with the objectives of the National Strategy for Industry and Advanced Technology ‘Operation 300bn’, which aims to increase the contribution of the industrial sector to the country’s GDP from AED 133 billion to AED 300 billion by 2031, it added.

 

“Expanding our exposure to global markets is a pillar of our robust growth strategy to fulfill the complex and evolving needs of steel customers around the world by providing quality, durable and customized products in such an ever-changing global supply chain environment. One of the main advantages that enabled Emirates Steel to successfully expand its markets is its extremely low carbon footprint production facilities,” said Group CEO of Arkan and CEO of Emirates Steel Saeed Ghumran Al Remeithi.

 

Emirates Steel is the largest producer of heavy and jumbo sections and the only producer of hot rolled sheet piles in the region. It is the fourth steelmaker in the world to receive the ASME accreditation to produce nuclear grade rebar.

 

Source: Bahrain News Agency

GENEVA, The World Trade Organization chief hailed a breakthrough between the EU, the United States, India and South Africa on waiving intellectual property rights on Covid-19 vaccines.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said the compromise was a big step forward in a bid to end the logjam at the global trade body.

However, she cautioned that some of the details on waiving WTO rules on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) still needed to be fleshed out — and it would need the backing of all WTO members to come
into force.

“This is a major step forward and this compromise is the result of many long and difficult hours of negotiations,” Okonjo-Iweala said.

“But we are not there yet. We have more work to do to ensure that we have the support of the entire WTO membership.”

Since October 2020, South Africa and India have called for IP rights to be temporarily lifted for coronavirus vaccines during the pandemic in order to boost production and address the gaping inequality in access between rich and
poor nations.

But the idea has met with fierce opposition from pharmaceutical giants and many of their host countries.

They have argued that patents are not the main roadblocks to scaling up production and warn the move could hamper innovation.

Okonjo-Iweala’s statement came hours after Adam Hodge, spokesman for the US Trade Representative Katherine Tai, announced that lengthy talks had resulted in a “compromise outcome that offers the most promising path toward
achieving a concrete and meaningful” result.

“No agreement on text has been reached and we are in the process of consulting on the outcome,” he added.

Okonjo-Iweala, a former Nigerian finance minister, said steps to widen the discussion to all 164 WTO members should start immediately.

Switzerland, home to several major pharmaceutical companies, has notably repeatedly voiced its unwillingness to budge.

A source close to France’s foreign trade minister Franck Riester said the agreement had been struck at a technical level but now needed a green light at the political level.

He said the compromise would only apply to developing countries accounting for less than 10 percent of global Covid-19 vaccine exports, excluding China.

He added the plan was intended to facilitate the granting of compulsory licensing deals, a provision already within the TRIPS system.

Compulsory licences give companies other than the patent holder authorisation to make a product, without the consent of the patent owner, subject to certain procedures and conditions being respected.

The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations, a big pharma lobby group, slammed the compromise, saying that weakening patents when supply constraints had eased was a mistake.

 

The IFPMA said 12 billion vaccine doses had been produced within a year of the first jab being authorised, and the industry was now pumping out more than a billion doses per month.

“The challenge now is how to get the vaccines into the arms of people who need them, rather than vaccine supply,” the group said.

“The TRIPS waiver is not only the wrong solution, it is also an outdated proposal, that has been overtaken by events.”

Max Lawson, co-chair of the People’s Vaccine Alliance coalition campaigning for wider access to Covid vaccines, said the TRIPS waiver proposal was a half-measure that did not address IP rights on Covid-19 treatments.

“Every barrier to accessing these crucial vaccines and treatments must be cleared away,” he said.

Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) welcomed the compromise, but stressed there were “key limitations” in the leaked text, saying it covered only vaccines and was geographically limited.

“(It) covers only patents and does not address other intellectual property barriers, such as trade secrets, which may cover critical information needed to facilitate manufacturing,” MSF said.

“WTO members should work together to ensure that any agreement tackles the current barriers to accessing all COVID-19 medical tools, including treatments and diagnostics.”

 

Source: Nam News Network

CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA — South African medical students, who were evacuated from Ukraine, are now looking for ways to complete their studies. South African universities are discussing options for the students, some of whom are still shaken by the attacks they witnessed and are fearful for teachers and classmates left behind.

Concerned students have already launched a “Save Our Studies” campaign with the goal of helping about 50 repatriated medical students find spots at South African universities.

Twenty-five-year-old Mandisa Malindisa, a fourth-year medical student who was studying at Kharkiv National Medical University, is one of those who wants to get placed.

Her studies were interrupted when Russian forces entered Ukraine in late February.

She says that after a few days of hearing bombs in Kharkiv, a city in northeastern Ukraine, she and five friends decided to flee by train to the Hungarian border.

The scene at the train station, she says, was pure chaos.

“Everybody’s losing their mind. Everybody’s trying to get on it. People have knives out. People are screaming. People are fighting. People are biting each other. You know, just trying to get onto this train. We looked, we were just watching. Cause we were like this is not our train. This train is going to Kyiv. This is not for us,” Malindisa recalled.

Eventually, a train that would take them to Lviv in western Ukraine did arrive, but much to their horror it stopped in Kyiv which they’d been hoping to avoid because it’s a high-risk area. They waited there for six hours.

“When we saw what Kyiv actually looks like, everything is just burning. There’s smoke. Everyone was just looking outside the window in just terror,” Malindisa said.

After 24 hours they reached Lviv and Malindisa made her way into Hungary, where she managed to book a flight home.

Sixth-year medical student Luphumlo Ntengu is also hoping to be able to continue his studies in South Africa. He was studying at Vinnytsia National Medical University in Ukraine. Safely home now in South Africa, he says he often thinks about those he left behind.

“Yes, I am very worried about my friends and my teacher you know. Ukraine has been my home for the past six years, they are like family to me. So, it’s so sad everything that is going on there. Right now, it feels like my own home that is being destroyed like that,” Ntengu said.

The chairperson of the South African Committee of Medical Deans, Professor Lionel Green-Thompson, confirmed that schools are discussing ways to help the repatriated students.

“Issues relating to students in the [sic] Ukraine have been brought to the attention of the South African Committee of Medical Deans. We have initiated conversations around this issue. The responses are complex and we continue to discuss these things,” Green-Thompson said.

But finding places may be problematic. The professor noted that many other South African students who returned due to the COVID-19 pandemic have also been seeking placement.

 

Source: Voice of America

The U.N. deputy secretary-general on Friday urged Ethiopians to cease fighting, rebuild trust and begin reconciliation, as the conflict in the country’s north continues to inflict unimaginable suffering on civilians.

“For me, trust has been broken in Ethiopia,” Amina Mohammed told reporters at the United Nations. “We need to find ways to support the country, the leadership, the people, find that pathway back to rebuilding that trust and, therefore, rebuilding peace for their people.”

Just back from Ethiopia, Mohammed said she got a sense from all the leaders she met in the north and in Addis Ababa that there is now more of an effort to find peace.

“Certainly, we are in a different place when I was there this week and over the weekend than we were even just a couple of months ago,” she said. “It’s how to sustain that, and how to accompany it, and to put pressure on the momentum for peace, and not to have it unravel, which it could, it’s very fragile.”

The federal government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has been fighting the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) since November 2020. A de facto government blockade on the TPLF’s stronghold of Tigray has left more than 5 million people there in dire need of humanitarian assistance; some may already be in famine conditions. The conflict has spread to neighboring Amhara and Afar, leaving an additional 4.2 million people in need of aid.

Mohammed said that the aid getting into besieged Tigray is insufficient.

“It’s a trickle,” she said.

The deputy U.N. chief attended the African Union summit in Addis Ababa last weekend and then visited the three northern conflict regions. She also went to the Somali region, which has been suffering from severe drought.

In Ethiopia’s north, she met with regional leaders and told them that “no one wins” in conflict, and she urged them to stop fighting.

“Our discussions really did focus on how to get to that path to peace: the humanitarian access, the cessation of hostilities, in some cases the lifting of the siege in Tigray,” she said. “But most importantly, the efforts they were making now at the national dialogue and how to get to that with the parties concerned.”

On December 29, the federal parliament voted to establish a commission for national dialogue. But it excludes key actors: the TPLF and the Oromo Liberation Army. They have both been declared terrorist groups by the federal government.

Local media reports say the legislature has shortlisted 42 individuals to be on the 11-person commission. The list includes academics and diplomats but only three women.

Survivors

The deputy secretary-general said it was heartbreaking to see how the social fabric has torn in northern Ethiopia. She expressed particular concern for the appalling abuses perpetrated against women.

“Ethiopian women, writ large, were affected in a way that is unimaginable,” she said. “In your worst nightmares you cannot imagine what has happened to the women in Ethiopia.”

She said atrocities have been committed across the north and she met many survivors of gang rape who shared horrific stories that affected not just herself, but the interpreters who were translating them.

She said it would be a lifelong healing process for many Ethiopian women, especially as so many have been rejected by their communities because of the violations they have endured.

“Men go to war and come home heroes, it doesn’t matter their injuries,” Mohammed said. “Women have been unimaginably injured. They are not heroes, they are outcasts. That has to stop.”

She noted that in the Afar region, where women are off-limits in conflict, the men were outraged at the abuses their women had been subjected to.

“Here, where they had witnessed their women being killed and being harmed, this is something I think they will find very difficult to get over,” she said. “The different aspects of where people feel the pain of this war, it has to be taken into that conversation of national dialogue.”

 

Source: Voice of America