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Musings From Abroad

US Vice President, Kamala Harris to visit 3 African countries as new scramble continues

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The scramble for Africa between the global South and West has continued as the United States continues to push to have its place in Africa re-established.

The US Vice President, Kamala Harris has begun a weeklong visit to Africa to pitch against China and Russia both of which have invested heavily in the continent over several decades.

During the visit, Harris will be in Ghana from March 26-29, then in Tanzania from March 29-31. Her final stop is Zambia, on March 31 and April 1.

She will meet with the three countries’ presidents and plans to announce public- and private-sector investments.

The United States lately has been on a quest to revamp its relations with Africa as China and Russia’s influence continues to grow in the country. Russia has been India’s largest weapons supplier since the Soviet Union days.

One of Harris’s destinations is Zambia, which was the first African country to default on its sovereign debt during the COVID-19 pandemic, and is working with its creditors, including China, to reach an agreement.

According to senior U.S. officials said, the US is concerned about China’s engagement in technology and economic issues in Africa as well as its involvement in debt restructuring.

“We’re not asking our partners in Africa to choose,” said a senior official, describing the competition with China, although he added that the U.S. has “real concerns about some of China’s behavior in Africa” and its “opaque” business dealings.

The US is strengthening relations, in 2022 President Biden announced at US-Africa Business Forum, announced over $15 billion in two-way trade and investment commitments, deals, and partnerships that advance key priorities, including sustainable energy, health systems, agribusiness, digital connectivity, infrastructure, and finance.

Musings From Abroad

RSF to join as US invites Sudan’s warring parties for talks

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US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, announced Tuesday that the Sudanese army and Rapid Support Forces will participate in U.S.-mediated peace talks in Switzerland on Aug. 14.

RSF head Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo said early Wednesday they will constructively participate in discussions to achieve “a comprehensive ceasefire across the country and facilitate humanitarian access to all those in need.”

“We reaffirm our firm stance … which is the insistence on saving lives, stopping the fighting, and paving the way for a peaceful, negotiated political solution that restores the country to civilian rule and the path of democratic transition,” Dagalo said in a statement.

Blinken announced that the African Union, Egypt, UAE, and UN will observe the negotiations. Saudi Arabia will co-host the talks, he said.

“The scale of death, suffering, and destruction in Sudan is devastating. This senseless conflict must end,” Blinken said, calling on the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to attend the talks and approach them constructively.

South Sudan’s economy is struggling due to intercommunal warfare. The 2013–2018 civil war reduced crude oil export revenue, and the Sudanese conflict has disrupted exports.

International Organization for Migration (IOM) reports that the RSF’s southeast expansion recently displaced about 150,000 people from Sennar state. Following RSF raids on residences and markets in the state’s small towns and villages, many of these people were rehoused again.

The April 2023 Sudanese war has displaced almost 10 million people, caused famine warnings, and started ethnically-driven violence blamed on the RSF. Last year, US-Saudi Arabia-sponsored army-RSF talks in Jeddah collapsed.

On Tuesday, State Department spokeswoman Matthew Miller told reporters that the meetings in Switzerland were meant to build on Jeddah and go forward.

“We just want to get the parties back to the table, and what we determined is that bringing the parties, the three host nations and the observers together is the best shot that we have right now at getting the nationwide cessation of violence,” Miller said.

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Musings From Abroad

UK Conservatives planned 10 billion pounds for Rwanda migrant scheme, official reveals

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Britain’s new interior minister has accused the Conservative administration of hiding the cost of an abandoned proposal to deport thousands of asylum seekers to Rwanda, which was estimated to cost 10 billion pounds ($13 billion).

After winning a comfortable election this month, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s new government ended the plan. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told parliament that taxpayers had spent 700 million pounds on charter flights that never took off, Rwandan government payments, and public workers’ hours.

Two weeks after becoming home secretary, she evaluated the “policies, programmes and legislation that we have inherited”. She declared, “It is the most shocking waste of taxpayers’ money I have ever seen.”

For many Britons, leaving the EU in 2016 meant reclaiming control of Britain’s borders and curbing immigration, but reports suggest the issue persists. Already this year, 6,265 persons have been found, about 25% more than last year.

Former PM Boris Johnson approved the plan in April 2022. Illegal immigrants to Britain after January 1, 2022, are sent to Rwanda, 4,000 miles (6,400 km).

The former Conservative government declared in 2022 that it would send undocumented asylum seekers to Rwanda. In 2022, the Conservative administration declared it would send undocumented asylum seekers to Rwanda.

However, legal issues stopped anyone from being transferred to East Africa except for four voluntary migrants.

In March, Parliament’s budget inspector estimated that deporting 300 migrants to Rwanda would cost at least 600 million pounds, a small fraction of the 15,000 asylum seekers who have arrived on England’s southern coast this year.

Former Conservative home secretary James Cleverly accused Cooper of using “made-up numbers” in parliament without evidence or alternative costings.

Cooper also said that tens of thousands of asylum seekers at risk of deportation will have their petitions processed.

She added the government would also lift an Illegal Migration Act ban on asylum for illegal immigrants since March 2018.

Instead, the administration promised to halt asylum seekers’ pricey hotel stays and clear the claims backlog.

Cooper believed the reforms would save taxpayers 7 billion pounds over 10 years.

The election campaign focused on stopping French asylum seekers from crossing the Channel.

The former Conservative administration said this proposal would eliminate human traffickers, but detractors called it immoral and unworkable.

After the UK Supreme Court ruled last November that Rwanda was not a safe third country, the government passed another bill to overturn the ruling.

 

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