Musings From Abroad

Italian PM, Meloni to visit Tunisia as efforts to speed up IMF loan intensify

Published

1 year ago

June 5, 2023

Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni is hoping that her planned travel to the North African country, Tunisia will facilitate delayed talks about the loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

According to a source quoted by Reuters, Meloni will be visiting the North African country on Tuesday after recent travels to neighbours, Algeria and Libya.

There are concerns that the delay with the loan could deepen Tunisia’s financial crisis and escalate migrants’ crisis across the Mediterranean Sea in search of a better life in Europe.

Tunisia and the IMF have been negotiating a $1.9 billion loan for months, with Tunisian President, Kais Saied rejecting key terms of the proposed deal.

A few months ago, Tunisia’s General Labour Union (UGTT) expressed concern about the IMF’s proposed financial bailout. During the May Day celebrations, labour officials criticized what they called an “IMF government,” while protesters chanted “No to colonization.”

Last week, President Saied announced a regime of additional taxes which would be introduced as a stopgap measure ahead of an expected IMF loan.

Tunisia is indebted to the tune of roughly 80% of its GDP and received an agreement in principle from the IMF last year for a new loan of nearly $2 billion to assist it in overcoming its severe financial crisis.

In February, he directed security forces to deport all illegal immigrants, accusing them of plotting to change Tunisia’s demographics so that it became more African and less Arab. The crackdown fuelled an increase in migrant departures to Italy.

According to the latest United Nations data, approximately 26,555 of the 51,215 boat migrants who arrived in Italy by the first week of June this year had set sail from Tunisia, compared to 3,658 in the same period in 2022.

Related Topics:Featured IMF Italy Meloni Tunisia

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Musings From Abroad

UN Security Council deliberates stance on Sudan war

Published

4 days ago

November 13, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

The UN Security Council is discussing a British-drafted resolution calling on Sudan’s warring parties to stop hostilities and permit safe, quick, and unimpeded assistance supplies across borders and front lines.

The world’s largest relocation crisis began in April 2023 when the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces engaged in a power battle ahead of a planned transfer to civilian administration.

Waves of ethnically motivated violence have resulted, with the RSF mostly to blame. The RSF has blamed the action on rogue actors and denies causing harm to civilians in Sudan. Two RSF generals were named last week by a Security Council committee in the first U.N. sanctions levied during the ongoing conflict.

“Nineteen months into the war, both sides are committing egregious human rights violations, including the widespread rape of women and girls,” Britain’s U.N. ambassador, Barbara Woodward, told reporters at the start of this month as Britain assumed the Security Council’s presidency for November.

“More than half the Sudanese population are experiencing severe food insecurity,” she said. “Despite this, the SAF and the RSF remain focussed on fighting each other and not the famine and suffering facing their country.”

According to diplomats, Britain wants to vote on the draft resolution as soon as possible. A resolution must receive nine votes or more to pass and not be vetoed by the United States, France, Britain, Russia, or China.

Nearly 25 million people, or half of Sudan’s population, require aid, according to the U.N., since 11 million people have abandoned their homes and famine has spread to displacement camps. Of those, around 3 million have departed for other nations.

In its draft language, Britain “demands that the warring parties immediately cease hostilities” and “demands that the Rapid Support Forces immediately halt its offensives” throughout Sudan.

It also “calls on the parties to the conflict to allow and facilitate the full, safe, rapid, and unhindered crossline and cross-border humanitarian access into and throughout Sudan.”

Additionally, the draft urges that assistance deliveries continue to be made through the Adre border crossing with Chad “and stresses the need to sustain humanitarian access through all border crossings, while humanitarian needs persist, and without impediments.”

Sudanese authorities have permitted the U.N. and relief organisations to enter Darfur through the Adre border crossing for three months, ending in mid-November.

Musings From Abroad

South Africa worry Trump’s victory might affect climate fight

Published

1 week ago

November 10, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

South Africa’s environment minister has expressed concern about the potential effects of Donald Trump’s victory on climate change negotiations.

The demise of Germany’s coalition government this week and Trump’s election coincide with COP29 negotiations to address global warming, which experts credit for this year’s devastating hurricanes, floods, and heatwaves.

“We are concerned about America because we don’t know what they’re going to do … how (it) is going to approach COP,” South African Environment Minister Dion George told Reuters.

“Mr. Trump said that he would withdraw from the Paris Agreement, but we don’t know what will happen,” George added in a telephone interview on Friday.

International partners are concerned that the prospect of an administration led by Trump, who has called climate change a hoax, will de-motivate poor and middle-income countries who want rich nations to shoulder more of its financial burden.

South Africa, which is one of the world’s top 15 greenhouse gas emitters and accounts for 30% of the continent’s emissions, has accepted $11.6 billion from rich nations, mainly in loans, for a switch from coal to renewable energy.

This is seen as a potential model for other ‘Global South’ countries who say financing pledges of $100 billion, which took years to come through, are insufficient.

“It’s certainly not enough. We need another target,” George said. “But then the question is: as the voter base is shifting in developed economies, are they actually going to pay it?”

The South African minister said he had been reassured by German officials that Europe’s stance at the COP29 climate talks will not be hurt by Berlin’s political crisis.

George said that Jennifer Morgan, Germany’s state secretary for international climate action, had contacted him to say it will be up to the European Union to maintain leadership.

“Their position is not changed and that is how they will approach COP,” George said, adding: “They’re on Team Europe. The European Union and German have clearly set out their objectives.”