Musings From Abroad

US wants more funding in response to Sudan conflict

Published

1 month 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

Prince Harry, Meghan treated to street-style dances in Nigeria as their trip winds down

Published

3 days ago

May 13, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

On Sunday, Prince Harry and his wife Meghan were treated to street-style dances in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, where they announced a partnership between their Archewell Foundation and the non-profit Giants of Africa, which utilizes sports to empower young people.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are making their first visit to Nigeria, where they were welcomed by the country’s chief of defence staff. The couple watched basketball practice at Ilupeju Senior Grammar School on Lagos Mainland, where Harry participated in ball-bouncing drills and shot a hoop.

“What you guys are doing here at Giants of Africa is truly amazing,” he said. “The power of sport can change lives. It brings people together and creates community and there are no barriers, which is the most important thing.”

The couple watched basketball practice at Ilupeju Senior Grammar School on Lagos Mainland, and Harry stepped on the court for some ball-bouncing drills and to shoot a hoop.

Former Toronto Raptors star Masai Ujiri, president of Giants of Africa, wished Meghan a happy Mother’s Day and said his organization was uniting communities and uplifting young people through sport, especially. Archewell Foundation and Giants of Africa will construct a basketball court in Nigeria’s capital Abuja.

“Talk about full circle again – never did I think we would be able to be here all those years later supporting the expansion of this incredible organization,” she said.
Harry and Meghan were set to round off their Lagos trip by attending a reception for a local charity. The couple live in the United States with their two children after Harry gave up working as a member of the royal family in 2020.

Musings From Abroad

Binance accuses Nigeria of setting dangerous precedent with detention of its executives

Published

1 week ago

May 7, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

After its executives were invited to Nigeria and subsequently arrested as part of a crackdown on cryptocurrencies, the CEO of cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, warned that the African nation was creating a dangerous precedent.

The largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, Binance, and two of its executives are being tried separately for tax evasion and money laundering, charges that the business is contesting.

CEO Richard Teng declared in a statement that it was time to voice opposition to the imprisonment of a US citizen and head of financial crime compliance at Binance, Tigran Gambaryan.

Former executive, Nadeem Anjarwalla, a British Kenyan who works as a regional manager for Africa, escaped detention in Nigeria last month. While in Nigeria, Anjarwalla and Gambaryan were arrested by the country’s anti-corruption body, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), after arriving on February 26, after which the country banned several websites that traded cryptocurrencies.

In a follow-up meeting on February 26, he stated that the authorities had declared the Binance concerns to be matters of national security and that they wanted the exchange to remove the naira from its site and disclose “granular-level” information on every Nigerian user. After that, Gambaryan and Anjarwalla were taken into custody.

“To invite a company’s mid-level employees for collaborative policy meetings, only to detain them, has set a dangerous new precedent for all companies worldwide,” Teng said, in his strongest comments yet since the case started in February.

“For spurious reasons,” Teng said that Gambaryan had been detained in Nigeria for almost two months. Early in March, Binance declared that it will no longer be accepting any new naira transactions.

“Our hope when we took this drastic step was that our colleagues would be released and Binance could continue to work with the Nigerian government to resolve any further concerns. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen,” said Ten.

He stated that Gambaryan ought to be permitted to return home while Binance and the Nigerian government work out any kinks. “We will continue engagement with Nigeria’s Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) on resolving potential historic tax liabilities,” he said.