Musings From Abroad

US wants more funding in response to Sudan conflict

Published

3 weeks ago

April 11, 2024

The United States Special Envoy to Sudan says that Washington will push for more than $100 million in extra funding to help with the conflict in the North African country. Washington hopes to rally other donors at a conference this month for donors to talk about the humanitarian crisis.

Partners from around the world should give the Sudanese civil war more attention, according to Special Envoy Tom Perriello, who also hopes that more countries will show their support at a donor meeting in Paris on April 15.

The Sudanese Army (SAF) and the militia Rapid Support Forces (RSF) went to war on April 15, 2023. Since the terrible fighting in Sudan began in April 2023, more than a million people have fled to nearby countries. About 48,000 Chadians were forced to return to eastern Chad and about 378,000 Sudanese refugees are among them.

“The international response has been pitiful. We’re at 5% of the needed amount,” said Perriello, adding that the U.S. has already committed over a billion dollars in humanitarian relief to the conflict.

“We’ll be doing another nine-figure push around this,” he said, without elaborating.

Millions of people are now severely hungry because of the war, which has also caused the world’s biggest migration crisis and waves of killings and sexual violence based on ethnicity in the Darfur area of western Sudan.

Perriello said that the US will keep looking at what is happening on the ground and will take steps to make things more expensive as needed through sanctions and other methods. Because of the war, the US has put sanctions on the deputy head of the RSF, other big companies owned by both sides and other groups.

Perriello also said that peace talks probably wouldn’t start again on April 18, which is the date he had said before that Washington was looking at. Saudi Arabia and the US tried to make peace in Jeddah last year, but the talks did not go well.

“I don’t think we’ll see meetings in Jeddah on the 18th,” he said, adding that Washington is not waiting for formal talks to begin but that negotiations are happening every day.

“We would love frankly for the talks to have started last week. But what we know is the Saudis are committed to the talks, to talks that include a broader set of the key actors, and we are hoping that they will commit to a date.”

The UN says that 8 million people have left their homes and that 25 million people, or half of Sudan’s population, need help. The US says that both sides of the conflict have done crimes during the war.

Musings From Abroad

France willing to pay for Morocco’s 3GW power line to Western Sahara

Published

1 day ago

April 28, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

Bruno Le Maire, the French finance minister, said on Friday that France was ready to help pay for a 3 gigawatt power line that would connect Casablanca, Morocco, to Dakhla, Western Sahara.

Morocco claims Western Sahara as part of its southern provinces, but the Polisario Front, which Algeria backs, wants it to be its separate state.

“I confirm to you that we are ready to participate in funding this project,” Le Maire told a Moroccan-French business forum in Rabat.

After a time of diplomatic frost, France’s foreign minister Stephane Sejourne said in February that France supported Morocco’s investments in Western Sahara and reiterated its support for Rabat’s plan to give the territory its government. This was the first sign that relations between the two countries were warming up again.

In the same way that the US and many other Arab and African countries have, Morocco wants France to recognize its full authority over Western Sahara. Le Maire said that France is also ready to work with Morocco to develop nuclear power, solar power, wind power, and green hydrogen.

Le Maire said that the French development agency AFD would lend 350 million euros to help Morocco’s OCP, a big company that makes phosphates and fertilizers, with its efforts to cut down on carbon emissions.

At 8.2 billion euros ($8.75 billion), France has the most money invested in Morocco by a foreign country until 2022. Anglo-American turned down BHP Group’s $39 billion takeover offer on Friday, saying it was way too low for the London-listed company and its future.

Musings From Abroad

Nigeria loses $9.2 billion to foreign shipowners

Published

1 day ago

April 28, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

A group of maritime experts has revealed that Nigeria loses $9.2bn a year to foreign shipping lines that carry goods that the country’s fleet should be carrying.

Hassan Bello, who used to be the Chairman of the National Fleet Implementation Committee, said at the inauguration of the new leaders of the Shipowners Association of Nigeria in Lagos on Friday that the national fleet should be a private-sector project.

“$9.2bn lost annually to foreigners. This is trade that goes to foreign-owned shipping companies or carriers. You could imagine what that could do to our economy if we had a national fleet. The national fleet should be an initiative of the private sector but the government should encourage it,” Bello said.

Bello, who used to be the executive secretary of the Nigerian Shippers Council, said that all the money that was meant to come from Nigeria now goes to foreigners, giving them jobs. He said again how important it was for indigenous people to be able to trade with other countries.

“You know the significance of having indigenous participation in international trade. 90 per cent of international trade is done through the sea, carried by ships from one country to another.

“And we have been missing in action, that’s the whole problem. We need to be elusive, unequivocal, and deliberate in our efforts. And that is why it is important for this association. We will see it as one of the efforts to take us out of the dungeons,” he asserted.

A person who used to be the executive secretary of the Nigerian Shippers Council complained that Nigeria’s economy was based on exporting only one good, which was crude oil.

“We have to own and operate indigenous tonnage, purely private sector driven by providing incentives that are the function of a government, friendly operating climate, like tax holidays, and a wide range of very important incentives, which other countries have used. We have no time to do that. We are talking about tax holidays. We are talking about fiscal policies, legal, and the policy changes,” he stated.

Also, Dr. McGeorge Onyung, who was President of the SOAN right before he left, was upset that Nigeria wasn’t taking advantage of the $14tn ocean economy. Onyung, who is also the Managing Director of Jevkon Oil & Gas, said that when Nigeria brought materials and equipment from China for the Lagos-Calabar train line project, it made Chinese shipowners rich instead of keeping the freight money in Nigeria.

“The economy of this country would not improve if we don’t diversify into the ocean economy. The fact is very clear that without shipping, there is no shopping. If you don’t remember anything today, please remember that without shipping, there is no shopping.

“Now, we are building a railway from Lagos to Calabar. I don’t know how much that will cost. I don’t know how long it will take. But all the wagons and the rails must come from China, wherever, by sea. And it should be ships that should bring them in. So, we should start making the money before the railway is constructed,” he averred.