Tag: African Union

Morning Digest | African Union to join G-20 as Sherpas reach a deal; Delhi may turn venue for dialogue on reviving the Black Sea Grain Initiative, and more

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African Union to join G-20, as Sherpas reach a deal

The African Union (AU) is set to join the G-20 as negotiators agreed on clearing its membership, according to sources privy to the discussions at the Sherpa meeting at a resort on the outskirts of Delhi. This will mean the 55-member AU will join the European Union as the only two regional bodies in the G-20. While it still unclear whether the G-20 will be renamed as the “G-21” after the induction of the AU, Indian officials said the announcement would help “leave a lasting imprint” of the work the Indian Presidency has done in bringing in the Global South’s ambitions to the economic grouping.

Delhi may turn venue for dialogue on reviving the Black Sea Grain Initiative

As world leaders gather in Delhi on Friday ahead of the G-20 summit, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is on a mission to revive the Black Sea Grain Initiative (BSGI or BSI), in talks on the sidelines of the summit hosted by India. The deal that facilitates export of grain from Russia and Ukraine lapsed in July. Among those in Delhi, Turkiye President Recep Erdogan, who met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi earlier this week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, as well as leaders of European Union and UN officials will be trying to work a compromise that would give assurances to Russia, for an exchange that would allow grain export from blockaded Ukrainian ports to restart at the earliest, sources told The Hindu. 

At G-20, Japan backs India, not China, as bridge to Global South: Japanese experts

Beyond the immediate outcomes of the G-20 Summit, one key takeaway with longer term implications is the positioning of India as a key bridge to the “Global South” for Japan and the West, in the view of Japanese experts. “Japan sees a rivalry over the leadership of the ‘Global South’ between India and China, and it is in the interest of Japan and the G-7 that India plays a leading role in the ‘Global South’, not China,” said Hiroyuki Akita, Tokyo-based strategic affairs commentator at Nikkei, in an interview with The Hindu.

Modi, Biden to discuss trade issues, jet engine, drone deals during meet

Progress on the deal to jointly manufacture jet engines in India, purchase of MQ-9B armed drones, agreement on civil nuclear liability and trade are expected to be the top issues on the agenda as Prime Minister Narendra Modi and U.S. President Joe Biden hold bilateral talks late on Friday, a day before the G-20 summit. Further discussions as well as some of the deals are expected in January when Mr. Biden is likely to visit India and officials said India is looking to have the Quad leaders summit on January 26 or a day before possibly with the leaders as chief guests.

Bharat Jodo Yatra was a people’s movement: Congress

Calling the Bharat Jodo Yatra a people’s movement “unequalled” in history, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge on September 7 said the Yatra seeks to bring real issues like economic inequalities, price rise, unemployment, social injustice and subversion of the Constitution to the fore. Mr. Kharge also slammed the trend of “manufacturing headlines” to divert attention from the real issues of the people.

Assets worth over $1.8 billion recovered under Fugitive Economic Offenders Act in four years: Union Minister Jitendra Singh

Union Minister Jitendra Singh on Thursday said assets worth more than $12 billion had been attached since 2014 under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), while in the past about four years, assets worth over $1.8 billion had been recovered under the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act (FEOA). In his inaugural address at the first-ever International Day of Police Cooperation, after conferring police medals to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officials at an investiture ceremony at the agency headquarters, Dr. Singh said the FEOA was brought in by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Union government.

U.N. chief says ‘systematic repression’ crushing Myanmar democracy hopes

Hopes of a return to democracy in junta-ruled Myanmar are being crushed by “systematic repression”, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on September 7 at a summit in Indonesia with the United States, China and regional leaders. Myanmar has been ravaged by deadly violence since a 2021 military coup ousted Aung San Suu Kyi’s government, unleashing a bloody crackdown on dissent.

Indonesia warns against new conflicts as U.S., China, Russia attend ASEAN summit

Indonesia warned leaders including U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, Chinese Premier Li Qiang and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov against sharpening rivalries as they wrapped up an East Asia summit in Jakarta on Thursday. The meeting brought Washington and Beijing into contact a day after Mr. Li warned major powers must manage differences to avoid a “new Cold War”, and ahead of the G20 summit in New Delhi this week that Chinese President Xi Jinping will miss. Interactions between the officials from the world’s top two economies are being closely watched as they seek to control tensions that risk flaring anew over issues ranging from Taiwan to ties with Moscow and the competition for influence in the Pacific.

India keen on having Quad leaders as Chief Guests for 2024 Republic Day parade

India is discussing the possibility of inviting leaders of the Quad grouping, comprising of India, Australia, Japan and the U.S., to the Republic Day parade on January 26, diplomatic sources confirmed. The possibility of U.S. President Joe Biden being the Chief Guest for the parade, with the Quad summit held a day prior, on January 25, is also being looked into, but given that January 26 is observed as Australia Day, it would be extremely difficult for their Prime Minister to be in India on that day, an official source said.

Caste discrimination survey in IIT-Delhi commenced and withdrawn

After two Dalit students allegedly committed suicide at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Delhi in the past two months, a campus-wide survey on caste discrimination circulated by the institute’s Board of Student Publications (BSP) was been suspended within hours of commencing. As soon as the survey was shared, complaints said the survey’s design was “biased, insensitive, and problematic”, with the institute’s official Scheduled Caste (SC)/Scheduled Tribe (ST) Cell stating that it had not been consulted on the survey.

Authorities forced us off the streets in the name of G-20 security, say city vendors

While the city is all set to host the G-20 Summit, street vendors say the authorities have forced thousands of them to vacate public space over the past month. Shri Ram, a member of the town vending committee (TVC) of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), told The Hindu that around 50,000 people have been displaced. The TVC, which comprises representatives from the civic body, police, and street vendors, is responsible for assigning designated zones to the vendors.

Kings Cup 2023 | India lose to Iraq in penalty shootout after conceding debatable penalty, face Lebanon in bronze medal playoff

A Sunil Chhetri-less India conceded a late goal off a debatable penalty to miss out on their first ever win over higher-ranked Iraq, who won the King’s Cup semifinal clash via penalty shootout here on Thursday. India will take on Lebanon in the bronze-medal playoff, which will be followed by the summit clash between Iraq and Thailand on Sunday. In the other semifinal at the 700th Anniversary Stadium, Thailand defeated Lebanon 2-1.

Gukesh excited about the Asian Games, feels India has a fair chance

He was the undoubted star of last year’s Chess Olympiad in Chennai, and now D. Gukesh is excited about the Asian Games, beginning at Hangzhou later this month. Chess is making a comeback to the Asian Games after a gap of 13 years, just in time for the massively talented young Indians like Gukesh. “I am very excited about my first ever Asian Games,” he said at a media interaction here on Thursday. “It is a prestigious event and I look forward to watching athletes in other sports. I love badminton, and I would like to watch it if I could.” Gukesh, who recently broke into the World top 10, believes India has fair chances on the chessboard. “But there are other strong teams,” he said. “And we had a camp here with Boris Gelfand. It went off very well. It was very tiring, which is usually good. The camp was brilliant.”

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Death toll from Sudan fighting tops 180 as clashes in Khartoum enter third day

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As explosions and gunfire thundered outside, Sudanese in the capital Khartoum and other cities huddled in their homes for a third day Monday, while the army and a powerful rival force battled in the streets for control of the country.  

At least 185 people have been killed and over 1,800 wounded since the fighting erupted, UN envoy Volker Perthes told reporters. The two sides are using tanks, artillery and other heavy weapons in densely populated areas. Fighter jets swooped overhead and anti-aircraft fire lit up the skies as darkness fell.

The toll could be much higher because there are many bodies in the streets around central Khartoum that no one can reach because of the clashes. There has been no official word on how many civilians or combatants have been killed. The doctors’ syndicate earlier put the number of civilian deaths at 97.

The sudden outbreak of violence over the weekend between the nation’s two top generals, each backed by tens of thousands of heavily armed fighters, trapped millions of people in their homes or wherever they could find shelter, with supplies running low in many areas. 

Top diplomats on four continents scrambled to broker a truce, and the UN Security Council was set to discuss the crisis.

“Gunfire and shelling are everywhere,” Awadeya Mahmoud Koko, head of a union for thousands of tea vendors and other food workers, said from her home in a southern district of Khartoum.

She said a shell stuck a neighbour’s house Sunday, killing at least three people. “We couldn’t take them to a hospital or bury them.”

In central Khartoum, sustained gunfire erupted and white smoke rose near the main military headquarters, a major battle front.

Nearby, at least 88 students and staffers have been trapped in the engineering college library at Khartoum University since the start of fighting, one of the students said in a video posted online Monday.

One student was killed during clashes outside and another wounded, he said. They do not have food or water, he said, showing a room full of people sleeping on the floor. 

Even in a country with a long history of military coups, the scenes of fighting in the capital and its adjoining city Omdurman across the Nile River were unprecedented. The turmoil comes just days before Sudanese were to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting.

The power struggle pits Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, the commander of the armed forces, against Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, the head of the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group. The former allies jointly orchestrated an October 2021 military coup. The violence has raised the specter of civil war just as Sudanese were trying to revive the drive for a democratic, civilian government after decades of military rule.

Under international pressure, Burhan and Dagalo had recently agreed to a framework agreement with political parties and pro-democracy groups, but the signing was repeatedly delayed as tensions rose over the integration of the RSF into the armed forces and the future chain of command.

The US, the UN and others have called for a truce. Egypt, which backs Sudan’s military, and Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — which forged close ties to the RSF in recent years as it sent thousands of fighters to support their war in Yemen — have also called for both sides to stand down. 

But both generals have thus far dug in, demanding the other’s surrender and ruling out negotiations. 

Dagalo, whose forces grew out of the notorious Janjaweed militias in Sudan’s Darfur region, has portrayed himself as a defender of democracy and branded Burhan as the aggressor and a “radical Islamist.” Both generals have a long history of human rights abuses and their forces have cracked down on pro-democracy activists.

Heavy gunbattles raged in multiple parts of the capital and Omdurman, where the two sides have brought in tens of thousands of troops, positioning them in nearly every neighbourhood. At least six hospitals in Khartoum were shut down because of damage from fighting, nearby clashes or because they ran low on fuel, said Atiya Abdalla Atiya, secretary of the Sudan Doctors’ Syndicate.

Hadia Saeed said she and her three children were sheltering in one room on the ground floor of their home for fear of the shelling as gunfire rattled across their Bahri district in north Khartoum. They have food for a few more days, but “after that we don’t know what to do,” she said. 

Residents said fierce fighting with artillery and other heavy weapons raged Monday afternoon in the Gabra neighbourhood southwest of Khartoum. People were trapped and screaming inside their homes, said Asmaa al-Toum, a physician living in the area.

Fighting has been particularly fierce around each side’s main bases and at strategic government buildings — all of which are in residential areas.

The military on Monday claimed to have secured the main television building in Omdurman, fending off the RSF after days of fighting. State-run Sudan TV resumed broadcasting. 

On Sunday, the RSF said it abandoned its main barracks and base, in Omdurman, which the armed forces had pounded with airstrikes. Online videos Monday purported to show the bodies of dozens of men said to be RSF fighters at the base, strewn over beds, the floor of a clinic and outside in a yard. The authenticity of the videos could not be confirmed independently.

The military and RSF were also fighting in most major centers around the country, including in the western Darfur region and parts of the north and the east, by the borders with Egypt and Ethiopia. Battles raged Monday around a strategic airbase in Merowe, some 350 kilometers (215 miles) northwest of the capital, with both sides claiming control of the facility.

Only four years ago, Sudan inspired hope after a popular uprising helped depose long-time autocratic leader Omar al-Bashir. 

But the turmoil since, especially the 2021 coup, has frustrated the democracy drive and wrecked the economy. A third of the population — around 16 million people — now depends on humanitarian assistance in the resource-rich nation, Africa’s third largest.

Save the Children, an international charity, said it has temporarily suspended most of its operations across Sudan. It said looters raided its offices in Darfur, stealing medical supplies, laptops, vehicles and a refrigerator.

The World Food Program suspended operations over the weekend after three employees were killed in Darfur, and the International Rescue Committee has also halted most operations.

With the US, European Union, African and Arab nations all calling for an end to fighting, the UN Security Council was to discuss the developments in Sudan later Monday. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was consulting with the Arab League, African Union and leaders in the region, urging anyone with influence to press for peace. 

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry discussed the violence in separate phone calls with his Saudi and French counterparts, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said.

At a meeting of the Group of Seven wealthy nations in Japan on Monday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Sudanese “want the military back in the barracks. They want democracy. They want the civilian-led government, Sudan needs to return to that path.”

(AP)

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Violent power struggle continues in Sudan as army bombs paramilitary bases

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Sudan’s army appeared to gain the upper hand on Sunday in a bloody power struggle with rival paramilitary forces, pounding their bases with air strikes, witnesses said, and at least 59 civilians were killed including three UN workers.

The fighting erupted on Saturday between army units loyal to General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of Sudan‘s transitional governing Sovereign Council, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, who is deputy head of the council.

It was the first such outbreak since both joined forces to oust veteran Islamist autocrat Omar Hassan al-Bashir in 2019 and was sparked by a disagreement over the integration of the RSF into the military as part of a transition towards civilian rule.

Burhan and Hemedti agreed a three-hour pause in fighting from 4 pm local time (1400 GMT to 1700 GMT) to allow humanitarian evacuations proposed by the United Nations, the UN mission in Sudan said, but the deal was widely ignored after a brief period of relative calm.

As night fell residents reported the boom of artillery and roar of warplanes in the Kafouri district of Bahri, which has an RSF base, across the Nile river from the capital Khartoum.

Eyewitnesses told Reuters the army was renewing air strikes on RSF bases in Omdurman, Khartoum’s sister city across the Nile, and the Kafouri and Sharg El-Nil districts of adjacent Bahri, putting RSF fighters to flight.

The United States, China, Russia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the U.N. Security Council, European Union and African Union have appealed for a quick end to the hostilities that threaten to worsen instability in an already volatile wider region.

Efforts by neighbours and regional bodies to end the violence intensified on Sunday. Egypt offered to mediate, and regional African bloc Intergovernmental Authority on Development plans to send the presidents of Kenya, South Sudan and Djibouti as soon as possible to reconcile Sudanese groups in conflict, Kenyan President William Ruto’s office said on Twitter.

The eruption of fighting over the weekend followed rising tensions over the RSF’s integration into the military. Discord over the timetable for that has delayed the signing of an internationally-backed agreement with political parties on a transition to democracy after a 2021 military coup.

Clashes in Khartoum 

A statement by the army said there were ongoing clashes in the vicinity of military headquarters in central Khartoum, and said that RSF soldiers were stationing snipers on buildings, but that they were “monitored and being dealt with.”

Earlier on Sunday, witnesses and residents told Reuters that the army had carried out air strikes on RSF barracks and bases in the Khartoum region and managed to destroy most of the paramilitaries’ facilities.

They said the army had also wrested back control over much of Khartoum’s presidential palace from the RSF after both sides claimed to control it and other key installations in Khartoum, where heavy artillery and gun battles raged into Sunday.

RSF members remained inside Khartoum international airport besieged by the army but it was holding back from striking them to avoid wreaking major damage, witnesses said.

But a major problem, witnesses and residents said, was posed by thousands of heavily armed RSF members deployed inside neighbourhoods of Khartoum and other cities, with no authority able to control them.

“We’re scared, we haven’t slept for 24 hours because of the noise and the house shaking. We’re worried about running out of water and food, and medicine for my diabetic father,” Huda, a young resident in southern Khartoum told Reuters.

“There’s so much false information and everyone is lying. We don’t know when this will end, how it will end,” she added.

A protracted confrontation could plunge Sudan into widespread conflict as it struggles with economic breakdown and tribal violence, derailing efforts to move towards elections.

Energy-rich powers Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have sought to shape events in Sudan, seeing the transition away from toppled strongman Bashir’s rule as a way to roll back Islamist influence and improve stability in the region.

They have also pursued investments in sectors including agriculture, where Sudan holds vast potential, and ports on Sudan’s Red Sea coast.

Civilian casualties

The Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors reported at least 56 civilians had been killed and 595 people including combatants had been wounded since the fighting erupted.

Scores of military personnel were killed, the doctors’ committee said, without giving a specific number due to a lack of first-hand information from hospitals.

The UN World Food Programme said it had temporarily halted all operations in hunger-stricken areas of Sudan after three Sudanese employees were killed during fighting in North Darfur and a WFP plane was hit during a gun battle at Khartoum airport.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the killings and called for accountability.

“Those responsible should be brought to justice without delay,” Guterres said on Twitter. “Humanitarian workers are #NotATarget.”

Volker Perthes, UN special envoy for Sudan and head of its country mission, said in a statement he was appalled by reports of shelling and looting impacting UN and other humanitarian facilities.

Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan bin Al-Saud had separate phone calls with Burhan and Hemedti and called for an end to military escalation, Saudi state media said on Sunday. The minister affirmed Riyadh’s call for calm.

In a speech to an Arab League meeting on the crisis on Sunday, Sudan said the Sudanese should be allowed to reach a settlement internally without foreign interference.

The armed forces said it would not negotiate with the RSF unless the force dissolved. The army told soldiers seconded to the RSF to report to nearby army units, which could deplete RSF ranks if they obey.

RSF leader Hemedti, deputy head of state, called military chief Burhan a “criminal” and a “liar”.

State television cut its transmission on Sunday afternoon, a move employees said was meant to prevent propaganda broadcasts by the RSF after its forces entered the main state broadcaster building in Omdurman and started to air pro-RSF programming.

(REUTERS)

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