Musings From Abroad

Blinken commends Angola’s construction of Lobito rail corridor

Published

10 months ago

January 25, 2024

The United States Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, who is currently on an African tour, has commended the progress in the construction of the Lobito Corridor in Angola.

Blinken, during a visit to Angola on Thursday, hailed the project as a rail link key to metals exports from the central African Copper Belt.

The project, which connects the resource-rich Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Zambia to the port of Lobito in Angola, has received funding from the US in order to get around logistical obstacles in South Africa that have been impeding copper and cobalt exports.

“I had a chance today to see some of the dramatic progress that’s already been made in building out this corridor. It is moving faster and further, I think, than we might have imagined,” Blinken told a news conference, standing alongside Angolan Foreign Minister, Tete Antonio.

He said the United States had taken the initial steps to build out an additional 800 km of rail line and had pledged financing to renovate the current 1,300 km (800 miles) of rail service. According to Blinken, the corridor’s extension would protect vital supply networks for minerals and encourage investment in telecommunications, agriculture, and other sectors.

“We maintain the dream of linking the Atlantic and Indian Ocean through that specific corridor,” Antonio said.
Blinken praised Angolan President Joao Lourenco’s efforts to de-escalate tensions between Rwanda and the DRC and said he had talked to Lourenco about ways to “move the diplomatic track forward”.

The US is keen to reclaim its waning influence in the continent in order to highlight the significance of Africa and counter any risks China and Russia may pose to US interests in this crucial region.

Blinken’s four-nation tour of Africa has also included stops in Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, and Nigeria. This is his final trip. Talking about U.S.-African collaborations in trade, climate change, infrastructure, health, and security was the trip’s declared goal.

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.”