LUANDA, Angola: The UN refugee agency on Sunday airlifted its first batch of relief supplies to the more than 11,000 people fleeing the latest violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo).
The UN said that more than a million civilians have been displaced inside the DR Congo since a brutal conflict broke out in the Kasai region in mid-2016, with about 25,000 asylum seekers crossing into Angola.
“Arrivals are in urgent need of life-saving assistance, including food, water, shelter and medical services,” the UN refugee agency’s (UNHCR) southern Africa representative, Sharon Cooper, said in a statement.
A cargo aircraft carrying mosquito nets, blankets and sanitary items flew in from Dubai and landed near Dundo, about 100km from the Angola-Congo border, where the UNHCR has set up makeshift centers sheltering refugees, the agency said.
The UN said it would send more relief items to Angola in the coming days.
The Kamuina Nsapu insurrection that erupted in the DR Congo’s Kasai-Central province last August has become the most serious threat to President Joseph Kabila’s 16-year rule, with lawlessness across Africa’s second-largest country inflamed by Kabila’s decision to remain in power after his mandate ran out in December. A UN team of investigators said this month that it had uncovered 40 mass grave sites and killings of more than 400 people in Kasai.
Memories of lost prosperity haunt town
In the Congolese town once home to the palm oil plantations of Anglo-Dutch conglomerate Unilever, memories of forced labor mingle with nostalgia for its lost decades of prosperity. Formerly known as Leverville, the town is now called Lusanga. Grass grows in the remains of villas, offices are abandoned and factories are in ruin, testament to the tumultuous history of this part of southwest Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo).
Back in 1911, while a Belgian colony, vast concessions of palm tree forests were granted to English entrepreneur William Lever, whose company Lever Brothers gave birth two decades later to Unilever, an international food and consumer products giant.
Today, former plantation workers and their descendents recall stories of suffering under the colonial yoke but also times of economic activity that vanished after Unilever pulled out of the region.
For a company that “began as a maker of soap on an industrial scale... to become the multinational Unilever, it owes that in part to Congo,” said Belgian historian David van Reybrouck in his book on the vast African country’s history. During the time of the Belgian Congo, palm oil production was based on a system of coercion.
Severin Mabanga, who worked in the industry in the 1970s, said colonial-era workers were recruited “by force with the complicity of the village chief to come and cut down the palm nuts.”
“They lit a fire at the foot of the palm tree so that the apprentice cutter wouldn’t try to climb down from the tree” before finishing his task, said Mabanga, 65, who now makes baskets for a living. Plantation workers were also forced to perform risky tasks like climbing the trunks of trees 10 meters (33 feet) high to pluck heavy bunches of palm nuts for starvation wages. When the palm oil industry was plunged into the global economic crisis of 1929, Unilever used wage cuts to partly compensate for its losses.
Anger over that move combined with strong resentment against the colonial administration in 1931 touched off the biggest revolt in the history of the Belgian Congo — which was crushed by a brutal crackdown that left hundreds dead.
After independence in 1960, the palm oil plantations suffered from declining productivity, competition from Southeast Asia and dictator Mobutu Sese Seko’s policy of confiscating foreign-owned businesses in the country he had renamed Zaire.
Unilever eventually recovered its palm oil production in 1977 and switched its focus to the domestic market with oil for cooking rather than for making soap. But it faced competition from homemade oils and dwindling profits.
Unilever began slowly to disengage from DR Congo and had left completely by 2009 after the country went through two civil wars between 1996 and 2003.
But there was a time during the 1970s and 80s in the era of the Lever Plantations of Zaire (PLZ) that “there was a lot of economic activity, people were happy,” said Thomas-Michel Mondenge, a regional administrative official.
Mabanga recalled that medical care was free and “we had the means to pay for the children’s schooling.”
But once the palm oil production foundered, so did the local economy.
Some former PLZ workers want to believe an economic miracle could still happen. They are counting on a promise to relaunch economic activity by a Colombian company, according to Mondenge.
While Lusanga recently inaugurated an arts center project to encourage production of arts and crafts in the region, it remains a town with no tap water, electricity or shops to buy basic goods. And today, the DR Congo imports huge amounts of palm oil.
UNHCR in its first batch of relief supplies to DR Congo refugees
UNHCR in its first batch of relief supplies to DR Congo refugees
Iran ‘categorically’ denies envoy’s meeting with Musk
TEHRAN: Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman on Saturday “categorically” denied The New York Times report on Tehran’s ambassador to the United Nations meeting with US tech billionaire Elon Musk, state media reported.
In an interview with state news agency IRNA, spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei was reported as “categorically denying such a meeting” and expressing “surprise at the coverage of the American media in this regard.”
The Times reported on Friday that Musk, who is a close ally of President-elect Donald Trump, met earlier this week with Iran’s ambassador to the UN, Amir Saeid Iravani.
It cited anonymous Iranian sources describing the encounter as “positive.”
Iranian newspapers, particularly those aligned with the reformist party that supports President Masoud Pezeshkian, largely described the meeting in positive terms before Baghaei’s statement.
In the weeks leading up to Trump’s re-election, Iranian officials have signalled a willingness to resolve issues with the West.
Iran and the United Stated cut diplomatic ties shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the US-backed shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.
Since then, both countries have communicated through the Swiss embassy in Tehran and the Sultanate of Oman.
Indian private university opens first international campus in Dubai
- Indian FM inaugurated the Dubai campus of Symbiosis International University on Thursday
- Under national education policy, New Delhi wants to internationalize Indian education system
New Delhi: A private Indian university has opened its first international campus in Dubai this week, marking a growing education cooperation between New Delhi and Abu Dhabi.
Symbiosis International University is a private higher education institution based in the western Indian city of Pune with at least five other campuses operating across the country, offering undergraduate, postgraduate and doctorate-level programs.
It is considered one of the top private business schools in the South Asian country, ranking 13th in management in the Indian Ministry of Education’s National Institutional Ranking Framework.
SIU’s Dubai campus, which will offer management, technology and media and communications courses, was officially inaugurated on Thursday by Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar and Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak, the UAE minister of tolerance and coexistence.
“I am sure that this campus will foster greater collaboration and research linkages between scholars of India and UAE, for mutual prosperity and global good,” Jaishankar said during the ceremony.
“(The) ceremony is not just an inauguration of a new campus; it is a celebration of the growing educational cooperation between our two countries. Right now, Indian curriculum and learning is being imparted through more than 100 International Indian Schools in UAE, benefitting more than 300,000 students.”
Under India’s National Education Policy 2020, New Delhi aims to internationalize the Indian education system, including by establishing campuses abroad.
Another top Indian school, the Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi, began its first undergraduate courses in September, after starting its teaching program in January with a master’s course in energy transition and sustainability.
Initially launched in September with more than 100 students, the SIU Dubai Campus is the first Indian university in Dubai to start operations with full accreditation and licensing from the UAE’s top education authorities, including the Ministry of Education.
“A university setting up a campus abroad is not just a bold step, but a concrete commitment to the goal of globalizing India. They certainly render an educational service, but even more, connect us to the world by strengthening our living bridges,” Jaishankar added as he addressed the students.
Dr. Vidya Yeravdekar, pro-chancellor of Symbiosis International University, said that the school’s establishment in Dubai was in line with the UAE’s education goals.
“Internationalization is central to the UAE’s educational vision,” Yeravdekar said on Friday.
“By opening our campus in Dubai, we are creating a gateway for students from around the world to engage in a truly global academic experience, where they can benefit from international faculty, real-world industry collaborations, and a curriculum that meets the needs of a changing world.”
Russia captures two villages in eastern Ukraine, defense ministry says, according to agencies
MOSCOW: Russian forces have captured the villages of Makarivka and Leninskoye in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, Russian news agencies reported on Saturday, citing the Russian Defense Ministry.
UN climate chief asks G20 leaders for boost as finance talks lag
- Negotiators at the COP29 conference in Baku struggle in their negotiations for a deal intended to scale up money to address the worsening impacts of global warming
BAKU: The UN’s climate chief called on leaders of the world’s biggest economies on Saturday to send a signal of support for global climate finance efforts when they meet in Rio de Janeiro next week. The plea, made in a letter to G20 leaders from UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell, comes as negotiators at the COP29 conference in Baku struggle in their negotiations for a deal intended to scale up money to address the worsening impacts of global warming.
“Next week’s summit must send crystal clear global signals,” Stiell said in the letter.
He said the signal should support an increase in grants and loans, along with debt relief, so vulnerable countries “are not hamstrung by debt servicing costs that make bolder climate actions all but impossible.”
Business leaders echoed Stiell’s plea, saying they were concerned about the “lack of progress and focus in Baku.”
“We call on governments, led by the G20, to meet the moment and deliver the policies for an accelerated shift from fossil fuels to a clean energy future, to unlock the essential private sector investment needed,” said a coalition of business groups, including the We Mean Business Coalition, United Nations Global Compact and the Brazilian Council for Sustainable Development, in a separate letter.
Success at this year’s UN climate summit hinges on whether countries can agree on a new finance target for richer countries, development lenders and the private sector to deliver each year. Developing countries need at least $1 trillion annually by the end of the decade to cope with climate change, economists told the UN talks.
But negotiators have made slow progress midway through the two-week conference. A draft text of the deal, which earlier this week was 33-pages long and comprised of dozens of wide-ranging options, had been pared down to 25 pages as of Saturday.
Sweden’s climate envoy, Mattias Frumerie, said the finance negotiations had not yet cracked the toughest issues: how big the target should be, or which countries should pay.
“The divisions we saw coming into the meeting are still there, which leaves quite a lot of work for ministers next week,” he said.
European negotiators have said large oil-producing nations including Saudi Arabia are also blocking discussions on how to take forward last year’s COP28 summit deal to transition the world away from fossil fuels.
Saudi Arabia’s government did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Progress on this issue has been dire so far, one European negotiator said.
Uganda’s energy minister, Ruth Nankabirwa, said her country’s priority was to leave COP29 with a deal on affordable financing for clean energy projects.
“When you look around and you don’t have the money, then we keep wondering whether we will ever walk the journey of a real energy transition,” she said.
Protesters’ biggest day expected at UN climate talks, where progress is slow
- Several experts have said $1 trillion a year or more is needed both to compensate for such damages and to pay for a clean-energy transition that most countries can’t afford on their own
BAKU: The United Nations climate talks neared the end of their first week on Saturday with negotiators still at work on how much wealthier nations will pay for developing countries to adapt to planetary warming. Meanwhile, activists planned actions on what is traditionally their biggest protest day during the two-week talks.
The demonstration in Baku, Azerbaijan is expected to be echoed at sites around the world in a global “day of action” for climate justice that’s become an annual event.
Negotiators at COP29, as the talks are known, will return to a hoped-for deal that might be worth hundreds of billions of dollars to poorer nations. Many are in the Global South and already suffering the costly impacts of weather disasters fueled by climate change. Several experts have said $1 trillion a year or more is needed both to compensate for such damages and to pay for a clean-energy transition that most countries can’t afford on their own.
Panama environment minister Juan Carlos Navarro told The Associated Press he is “not encouraged” by what he’s seeing at COP29 so far.
“What I see is a lot of talk and very little action,” he said, noting that Panama is among the group of countries least responsible for warming emissions but most vulnerable to the damage caused by climate change-fueled disasters. He added that financing was not a point of consensus at the COP16 biodiversity talks this year, which suggests to him that may be a sticking point at these talks as well.
“We must face these challenges with a true sense of urgency and sincerity,” he said. “We are dragging our feet as a planet.”
The talks came in for criticism on several fronts Friday. Two former top UN officials signed a letter that suggested the process needs to shift from negotiation to implementation. And others, including former US Vice President Al Gore, criticized the looming presence of the fossil fuel industry and fossil-fuel-reliant nations in the talks. One analysis found at least 1,770 people with fossil fuel ties on the attendees list for the Baku talks.
Progress may get a boost as many nations’ ministers, whose approval is necessary for whatever negotiators do, arrive in the second week.
