Month: April 2021

Opposition leaders in Somalia welcomed a rare move by the African Union to condemn a term extension by Somali lawmakers for themselves and the president.The AU Peace and Security Committee expressed “deep concern” over the vote by Somalia’s lower house of parliament this month to extend the mandate of President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo.The organization said the move, which effectively postponed the country’s already-delayed elections, also undermines the unity and stability of the Horn of Africa state.Lawmakers extended Farmajo’s mandate for another two years after months of failed talks on holding parliamentary and presidential elections. Political leaders were unable to agree on the electoral process, despite heavy pressure from the AU, the United States, and European Union.Somalia’s Farmajo Signs Controversial Measure Extending Mandate by 2 YearsOpposition says measure is null and voidOn Friday, the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS) welcomed a renewed initiative by the African Union to facilitate talks on holding elections. But the FGS also blamed Kenya and Djibouti for engaging in what Information Minister Osman Dubbe described as a sinister campaign to derail the political process in Somalia through their influence in the commission.Dubbe said the Somali government will not accept interference by the African Union into its domestic affairs, and added intervention in internal affairs violates the founding principles of the continental body which Somalia was among the pioneers.Djibouti Government Minister for Economy and Finance Ilyas Mousa Dawaleh denied Somalia’s accusations, saying it undermines core values of peace and stability.However, Somali opposition Senator Ilyas Ali said he appreciated the AU’s intervention.”I applaud the condemnation made by the African Peace and Security Council over the lower house decision to extend its term and the term of the president, appreciate the African Union Peace and Security Committee seeing it the same way as we see,” he said. “I would like also to emphasis of course our desire to continue collaborating with African brothers for a better Somalia.”The African Union is expected to send a special envoy to oversee the efforts to resolve the stalemate over the polls.Somalia President Calls for African Union Mediation The leader seeks help in mediating dispute concerning county’s electionsPolitical analyst Mohamed Muse Aden predicts the AU intervention will bring the sides to end their differences.”The African Union involvement is very much significant, because of the trust deficit between the government and its rivals,” he said. “Therefore, breaching that gap African solutions for African problem is badly needed here. This will pave way for broad-based dialogue and eventually lead to broker a deal ending the political quagmire and electoral deadlock.”The international partners in Somalia, led by the U.S., also welcomed African Union mediation and urged Somalia’s leaders to agree to a way forward to resolve the electoral crisis urgently. 
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The sudden death of Chad’s president, Idriss Deby, this week has raised concerns about the country’s stability and the joint fight against regional terrorist groups, like Nigeria’s Boko Haram. Nigeria and Chad have long been allies against Islamist insurgents, but analysts say Deby’s death could complicate the picture.A state funeral held Friday in the capital, N’Djamena, was attended by many heads of state, including Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, despite warnings from rebel groups threatening attacks.Earlier in the week, Buhari tweeted, “I am deeply shocked and devastated.” President Idriss Deby died Monday, suffering from wounds he sustained while visiting frontline troops battling rebels in northern Chad. His sudden death raises concerns of stability in Chad and in the wider Sahel region, where Chadian troops contribute significantly to the fight against insurgent groups. Political analyst Rotimi Olawale said troops could be shifting focus to domestic issues first, and not regional security.”The first focus of the Chadian government will be consolidating power in Chad and therefore I will not be surprised that in the immediate term the focus will be on domestic security within Chad,” Olawale said. Last year, Nigeria, Chad and Niger started a joint operation to eliminate terrorist groups Boko Haram and its Islamic affiliates. Security expert Kabiru Adamu worries that Deby’s death could stall regional security progress.”Gaps will be created and these are the gaps that will likely lead to an escalation of the current security situation in several parts of the Sahel region,” he said. “Chad under president Deby was a stabilization force. What will happen in the long term is a bit uncertain.”But Olawale said other regional forces must work together to prevent an uptick in violence.”We hope that the regional actors especially Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger, Chad continue to work together to ensure terrorist groups do not explore loopholes within the security architecture,” he said.Nigeria this week beefed up border security to prevent an influx of people from Chad, said the country’s defense minister.The 68-year-old Deby ruled Chad for 30 years and was re-elected to a sixth term in office just days before his death.Chadian military authorities ignored the constitution and appointed his son, Mahanat Idriss Deby, to lead a ruling council for 18 months, until a new government is elected.
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The White House brought out the billionaires, the CEOs and the union executives Friday to help sell President Joe Biden’s climate-friendly transformation of the U.S. economy at his virtual summit of world leaders.
 The closing day of the two-day summit on climate change showcased Bill Gates and Mike Bloomberg, steelworker and electrical union leaders and executives for solar and other renewable energy.
“We can’t beat climate change without a historic amount of new investment,” said Bloomberg, who’s donated millions to promote replacing dirty-burning coal-fired power plants with increasingly cheaper renewable energy.
“We have to do more, faster to cut emissions,” Bloomberg said in his push for big investment.
Biden envoy John Kerry stressed the political selling point that the president’s call for retrofitting creaky U.S. infrastructure to run more cleanly would put the U.S. on a better economic footing long-term.
“No one is being asked for a sacrifice,” Kerry said. “This is an opportunity.”
It’s all in service of an argument U.S. officials say will make or break Biden’s climate agenda: Pouring trillions of dollars into clean-energy technology, research and infrastructure will speed a competitive U.S. economy into the future and create jobs, while saving the planet.
“Climate change is more than a threat,” Biden declared on Thursday’s opening day of his climate summit. “It also presents one of the largest job creation opportunities in history.”
The new urgency comes as scientists say that climate change caused by coal plants, car engines and other fossil fuel use is worsening droughts, floods, hurricanes, wildfires and other disasters and that humans are running out of time to stave off catastrophic extremes of global warming.
The event has featured the world’s major powers — and major polluters — pledging to cooperate on cutting petroleum and coal emissions that are rapidly warming the planet.
But Republicans are sticking to the arguments that former President Donald Trump made in pulling the U.S. out of the 2015 Paris climate accord. They point to China as the world’s worst climate polluter — the U.S. is No. 2 — and say any transition to clean energy hurts American oil, natural gas and coal workers.
It means “putting good-paying American jobs into the shredder,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said on the Senate floor Thursday in a speech in which he dismissed the administration’s plans as costly and ineffective.
“This is quite the one-two punch,” McConnell said. “Toothless requests of our foreign adversaries … and maximum pain for American citizens.”
In an announcement timed to his summit, Biden pledged the U.S. will cut fossil fuel emissions as much as 52% by 2030.
Allies joined the U.S. in announcing new moves to cut emissions, striving to build momentum going into November’s U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, where governments will say how far each is willing to go to cut the amount of fossil fuel fumes it pumps out.
Japan announced its own new 46% emissions reduction target, and South Korea said it would stop public financing of new coal-fired power plants, potentially an important step toward persuading China and other coal-reliant nations to curb the building and funding of new ones as well. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his nation would boost its fossil fuel pollution cuts from 30% to at least 40%.
Biden was scheduled to address the summit Friday at a session on the “economic opportunities of climate action.” Leaders from Israel, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, Kenya, Denmark, Norway, Poland, Nigeria, Spain and Vietnam also were scheduled to participate Friday, along with Biden’s transportation, energy and commerce secretaries and others.
Travel precautions under the coronavirus pandemic compelled the summit to play out on livestream, limiting opportunities for spontaneous interaction and negotiation. Its opening hours were sometimes marked by electronic echoes, random beeps and off-screen voices.
But the summit opening Thursday also marshaled an impressive display of the world’s most powerful leaders speaking on the single topic of climate change.
China’s Xi Jinping spoke first among the other global figures. He made no reference to disputes over territorial claims, trade and other matters that had made it uncertain until Wednesday that he would even take part in the U.S. summit.
“To protect the environment is to protect productivity, and to boost the environment is to boost productivity. It’s as simple as that,” Xi said.
The Biden administration’s pledge would require by far the most ambitious U.S. climate effort ever, nearly doubling the reductions that the Obama administration had committed to in the Paris climate accord.
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The death of Chad’s President Idriss Deby this week has raised concerns about stability in the country and throughout West Africa. While critics point out Deby’s authoritarian, 31-year rule, security experts say he was an essential ally in the fight against terrorism and are worried about what comes next.Déby presided over one of the largest and most well-resourced militaries in West Africa. His forces provided crucial support to international security efforts in the Lake Chad Basin and the Sahel, where Islamist militant groups have wreaked havoc in recent years.That’s likely why Western powers such as France and the U.S. turned a blind eye to the ever-mounting accusations of human rights abuses and to his habit of suppressing political opposition.“In terms of the struggle against jihadism, his death is a distinct setback,” said John Campbell, a former U.S. ambassador to Nigeria and a senior fellow for Africa Policy Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, a Washington-based think tank. “The Chadian army was probably the most efficient fighting force in West Africa, again, with the exception of the French. And the question will be whether the regime continues the effort or not.”Déby was killed by a Libyan-based rebel group while visiting troops on the front lines Monday. The event took place shortly after he was declared the winner of the April 11 elections, which were boycotted by opposition groups over accusations of political sidelining. The win would have marked the start of Déby’s sixth term.A transitional military council appointed Déby’s son, General Mahamat Idriss Déby, as interim leader until democratic elections can be held in 18 months.“There is uncertainty about the immediate future of Chad,” said Paul-Simon Handy, a senior regional advisor with the Institute of Security Studies in Dakar. “There’s uncertainty about the stability of the current interim arrangement by the military council. There’s uncertainty about unity within the ranks of the army. Islamist insurgents can actually use these opportunities to further destabilize Chad.”This could have ripple effects across West Africa.If Déby’s son does not earn the loyalty of Chad’s armed forces, the region could lose a key player in the fight against Islamic extremists.“There’s the possibility that command and control over the armed forces may falter,” said Daniel Eizenga, a research fellow with the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, a U.S. Defense Department research institution. “The fact that the military council has tried to take up control suggests that there’s a great deal of instability that may, in fact, lead to having a harder time contributing troops to those kinds of regional efforts in the Sahel or Lake Chad Basin.”Violent events linked to jihadist groups in the Sahel have increased sevenfold since 2017, according to the center, while the Lake Chad Basin saw a 60% increase in 2020 over the year prior.
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An Algerian court on Thursday convicted a high-profile university professor specializing in Islam of offending the Muslim religion and sentenced him to three years in prison.Said Djabelkhir was not immediately jailed and said he would appeal, according to a group of lawyers defending dozens of detained members of Algeria’s pro-democracy movement.”I am a professor and not an imam,” using “reason and critical thought,” he was quoted in the press as saying as he left the courtroom.Another university professor, joined by a group of lawyers, had filed suit against Djabelkhir for Facebook posts they deemed offensive to Islam.Before his conviction, Djabelkhir told the French daily Le Figaro that it is “the first time in the history of Algeria that a university professor is (being tried) for giving his opinion in his own domain of specialization.”Djabelkhir said he makes the distinction between history and myth in religious writing, but his detractors contend that “everything in the Quran is history, with a capital H.”The Algiers office of Amnesty International spoke of a “scandalous” ruling.”To punish someone for his analysis of religious doctrine is a flagrant violation of freedom of expression and religious liberty,” even if the comments are offensive to others, Amnesty said.The conviction appeared to be a message that defending Islam is also a judicial matter in Algeria.Some politicians, university teachers and journalists had expressed solidarity with the professor ahead of his trial, denouncing a “return of the Inquisition.”Djabelkhir, widely followed on social media, is known for putting into question some dogmas of Islam. He also opposes the head covering warn by many Muslims, saying that it is not a religious obligation and “nowhere affirmed (as such) in the Quran or the Sunna” — references to the Muslim holy book and tradition and practices of the prophet of Islam.
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Mozambique’s humanitarian crisis from the extremist insurgency in the country’s north is rapidly spiraling, with more than 950,000 people in urgent need of food aid, the U.N. World Food Program said Thursday.An estimated 50,000 people fled their homes amid the rebels’ five-day siege of Palma earlier this month, swelling the numbers of displaced and hungry.”People have scattered in many different directions since the recent attacks in Palma. Survivors are traumatized. They’ve had to flee, leaving behind all their belongings, and families have been separated,” said Antonella Daprile, WFP’s country director in Mozambique, who visited Pemba, the capital of Cabo Delgado province, where many of the displaced have sought safety.”We met a young mother who fled the violence with her two daughters. They walked for three days without food or water and have no idea whether the rest of their family survived,” Daprile said.Many have fled to Pemba on boats, making a treacherous trip in stormy seas, and thousands are still trapped in Palma and the nearby settlement of Quitunda. WFP said it is delivering food to those areas as well as to coastal islands.”This is the rainy season, the cyclone season, and northern Mozambique is in the eye of the storm,” said Shelley Thakral, WFP’s regional spokesperson for southern Africa. “I saw families huddled under flimsy tarpaulins for shelter.”Many of the displaced in Mozambique have been taken in by other families, who are already poor. The host families are also experiencing hunger, aid workers said.Children are worst affected by the rising rates of malnutrition. Almost 21% of displaced children under 5, and 18% of children of host families, are underweight, according to a recent survey by UNICEF and WFP. The rates of chronic malnutrition, which has lifelong consequences, are at an alarming 50% of displaced children and 41% of children from host communities, according to the survey.WFP’s emergency food distributions provide rations to feed a family for two weeks with supplies of high-energy biscuits, rice, pulses, vegetable oil, water, and canned foods such as sardines and beans.In response to the growing crisis, WFP is scaling up its response, with plans to assist 750,000 internally displaced people and vulnerable members of the local community across the provinces of Cabo Delgado, Nampula, Niassa and Zambezia.”This is an operation that requires funding to sustain food assistance and flights to deliver supplies to the hardest-hit, the hardest-access areas,” said Thakral. “We need $82 million until the end of the year to support the vulnerable.”
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