LUSAKA: A Zambian court on Friday jailed a former cabinet minister for two years in a corruption case that had prompted some Western donors to freeze aid to the southern African nation.
Britain, Finland, Ireland and Sweden withheld nearly $34 million in aid to Zambia’s social welfare and education sectors in 2018 because of concern over financial mismanagement.
Following the aid freeze, President Edgar Lungu fired former Community Development and Social Welfare Minister Emerine Kabanshi, who was in charge of the funds.
The case was a test of how Lungu is addressing corruption in a government that is struggling with slow economic growth, high debt and shrinking foreign currency reserves.
Handing down the sentence, magistrate Lameck Mwale said Kabanshi wilfully failed to follow procedures relating to the engagement of a state-owned company, which distributed social welfare funding for the poor.
The judge said Kabanshi also insisted on re-engaging Zambia Postal Services Corp. to continue managing the social welfare funds even when it was clear that the vulnerable beneficiaries were not receiving the funds.
Magistrate Mwale said Zambia Postal Services Corp. had used part of the money to buy vehicles for administrative use, against the terms of its contract with the government.
“There is a need to set an example for would-be offenders. I therefore sentence the convict to 24 months simple imprisonment effective today,” Mwale said after Kabanshi pleaded for leniency.
The offense carries a maximum sentence of up to 14 years in prison.
Zambians will be voting on Aug. 12 in presidential, parliamentary and local government elections, with the fight against corruption and the economy top among campaign issues.
There are 16 presidential candidates, with Lungu and the main opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema, whom he narrowly beat in 2016, the main contenders.
Zambia ex-minister jailed in graft case that led to aid freeze
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Zambia ex-minister jailed in graft case that led to aid freeze
- Following aid freeze, President Edgar Lungu fired former Community Development and Social Welfare Minister Emerine Kabanshi
- The case was a test of how Lungu is addressing corruption in a government
Up to 300 Afghans arrive in Philippines for US visa processing
- Action made despite domestic opposition in the Catholic-majority country over security and other concerns
- The Afghans could stay for no more than 59 days and would be ‘confined to their billet facility’ except for embassy interviews
The Philippines and the United States signed an agreement last July allowing possibly hundreds of Afghans to stay in Manila while their US Special Immigrant visas were being processed.
This was despite domestic opposition in the Catholic-majority country over security and other concerns.
“The DFA issued the appropriate Philippine entry visa to these applicants in line with current rules and regulations,” Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Teresita Daza said in a statement.
“All applicants completed extensive security vetting by Philippines national security agencies.”
A US State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, would not be specific about the number involved other than to say “up to 300.”
Under the deal, the US government will shoulder the cost of the Afghans’ stays in Manila, including food, housing, medical care, security and transportation, the Philippine DFA statement said.
The Afghans will stay at a facility operated by the US State Department’s Coordinator for Afghan Relocation Efforts, an earlier US Embassy statement said.
Daza had previously said the Afghans could stay for no more than 59 days and would be “confined to their billet facility” except for embassy interviews.
The applicants all underwent medical screening in Afghanistan.
Tens of thousands of Afghans fled their country in the chaotic evacuation of August 2021 as US and allied forces pulled out to end Washington’s longest war, launched after the attacks on September 11, 2001.
Many of those who had worked with the ousted Western-backed government arrived in the United States seeking resettlement under a special immigrant visa program, but thousands were also left behind or in third countries, waiting for their visas to be processed.
Blinken to meet Europeans on Syria pathway
- Senior US diplomat Barbara Leaf met Sharaa last month and said that the United States was lifting a bounty that has been on its head
Seoul: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet his European counterparts Thursday in Rome on Syria, as the West looks to engage the new Islamist-led leadership.
Blinken will “meet with European counterparts to advocate for a peaceful, inclusive, Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political transition,” a State Department statement said as he visited Seoul on Monday.
The State Department did not immediately specify the participants.
Blinken, on a trip that will also take him to Japan and France, will later join President Joe Biden as he pays a farewell visit to Rome that includes an audience with Pope Francis.
Islamist-led forces toppled longtime ruler Bashar Assad in a lightning offensive last month after 13 years of brutal war.
Western powers have since been cautiously hoping for greater stability in Syria, a decade after the war triggered a major refugee crisis that shook up European politics.
The French and German foreign ministers on Friday visited Syria, although the trip was overshadowed when new leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa shook the hand only of France’s Jean-Noel Barrot, a man, and not Germany’s Annalena Baerbock, a woman.
Senior US diplomat Barbara Leaf met Sharaa last month and said that the United States was lifting a bounty that has been on its head.
She also welcomed “positive messages” he has made, including on protection of minorities, and said he had promised that Syria would not pose a threat to neighboring countries, as Israel pounds Syrian military sites.
The quiet financier: Daesh’s elusive strongman
- Abdul Qadir Mumin is believed to be already Daesh’s general directorate of provinces from Somalia
- Born in Puntland in Somalia’s northeast, Sheikh Mumin lived in Sweden before settling in England, where he acquired British nationality
- In London and Leicester, he built a reputation in the early 2000s as a fiery preacher in radical mosques, but also in online videos
PARIS: His orange henna-dyed beard and striking eyewear would make him easy to pick out in a crowd, but Abdul Qadir Mumin has remained elusive.
The Somalian leader of the Daesh group has in all likelihood risen to the status of strongman of the entire organization, even if he lacks the official title, analysts say.
While observers wonder who is behind Daesh-designated caliph Abou Hafs Al-Hachimi Al-Qourachi — the would-be leader of all Muslims — or whether such a person actually exists, Abdul Qadir Mumin may already be running Daesh’s general directorate of provinces from Somalia.
“He is the most important person, the most powerful one, he is the one controlling the global Islamic State network,” said Tore Hamming, at the International Center for the Study of Radicalization (ICSR).
In this opaque structure where the leaders get killed one by one by the United States, Mumin is among the few “senior guys who managed to stay alive the entire time until now, which does give him some status within the group,” Hamming told AFP.
A few months ago it was thought that an American strike had killed him. But since there was never any proof of his demise, he is considered to be alive and active.
“Somalia is important for financial reasons,” said Hamming. “We know that they send money to Congo, to Mozambique, to South Africa, to Yemen, to Afghanistan. So they have a good business model going.”
The transactions are so shadowy that even estimating the amounts is impossible — as is determining the exact routes the money takes from place to place.
Born in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland in Somalia’s northeast, Sheikh Mumin lived in Sweden before settling in England, where he acquired British nationality.
In London and Leicester, he built a reputation in the early 2000s as a fiery preacher in radical mosques, but also in online videos.
He is said to have burned his British passport upon his arrival in Somalia, where he quickly became a propagandist for the Al-Shabab group, linked to Al-Qaeda, before announcing his defection to Daesh (or Islamic State) in 2015.
“He controls a small territory but has a big appeal. He distributes volunteers and money,” said a European intelligence official, who declined to be named, claiming that a Daesh attack in May in Mozambique “was carried out by Maghreb and African militants.”
Mumin also finances the Ugandan rebels of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) — affiliated with Daesh in the Democratic Republic of Congo — “who now number between 1,000 and 1,500,” the official said. With Mumin’s help, “they have recently turned to the jihad” seeking “radicalism, weapons, and funding.”
Some observers have described him as the caliph of the jihadist command structure. However, such an official designation would signal an ideological reversal for the group with deep roots in the Levant, the territory of the Daesh caliphate that lasted from 2014 to 2019 and spanned Iraq and Syria.
“That would create some kind of uproar within the community of supporters and sympathizers of Daesh,” said Hans-Jakob Schindler, director of the Counter-Extremism Project (CEP) think tank.
In theory, the caliph has to be an Arab from a tribe linked to the prophet. The supreme leader of a group so concerned with its ideological foundations “cannot be just any Somali with an orange beard,” Schindler told AFP.
Especially because leaders of operationally active Daesh affiliates, such as IS-K in Afghanistan or ISWAP in western Africa, could lay claim to the position.
While the Somalian does not meet traditional leadership criteria, his geographical location brings some advantages.
“The Horn of Africa may have offered welcome insulation from instability in the Levant and greater freedom of movement,” said CTC Sentinel, a publication on terrorism threats, at the West Point military academy.
“This profile of leadership parallels that of another jihadi leader — Osama bin Laden — who saw that funding his war was most central to winning it,” it said.
Mumin’s rise to the top, despite the small number of fighters under his command, also reflects two internal dynamics within Daesh.
The first, said Hamming, is that “the caliph is no longer the most important person in the Islamic State.”
And the second is that Daesh eeeeeis indeed pursuing a gradual strategic shift toward Africa.
“Ninety percent of violent images on jihad consumed in Europe come from Africa,” said the European intelligence official.
Nonetheless, the organization’s leadership remains centralized in the Middle East, wrote CTC Sentinel.
“In this sense, much is business as usual,” it said.
As he prepares to leave office, Biden urges incoming Democratic lawmakers to reach across the aisle
- “You don’t have to give up your principles to build relationships,” Biden said
- The new slate of roughly 30 Democratic lawmakers arrive prepared to be in the minority in the executive and legislative branches
WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden on Sunday called on incoming Democratic lawmakers who will govern in the minority to always be mindful of other people’s perspectives — even when they may be wrong.
At a reception meant to welcome new, mostly young, Democratic lawmakers to Washington, the nation’s oldest and outgoing Democratic president — reflective as he shared some war stories of his past and pointed to challenges ahead — urged the new generation of legislators to listen and work across the aisle.
“We don’t do that anymore,” he said in the White House State Room. “The single greatest loss we have is that we don’t know each other anymore.”
The new slate of roughly 30 Democratic lawmakers arrive prepared to be in the minority in the executive and legislative branches. Democrats faced a crushing loss in the 2024 general election — after Vice President and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris lost her bid for the presidency. Republicans also maintained control of the House in the November election and won a narrow majority in the Senate.
New incoming lawmakers on Sunday expressed hope they can make a difference.
California Rep. Sam Liccardo, a former San Jose mayor, told The Associated Press that while he expects limitations as a new Democratic member of Congress, he believes there will be opportunities to make change by focusing on common areas of agreement.
“I’m not expecting as a first-term member I will be the one to cut the deal on the border,” he said. “On the other hand, there are other issues like housing costs, low-income house tax credits, where there have been relative consensus to build a majority on.”
At the reception, Biden recalled his entry to Washington more than 50 years ago. He was just 29 when he was first elected to Congress in 1972, having ousted longtime incumbent Republican Caleb Boggs. At the time of his election, Biden didn’t meet the Senate’s minimum age requirement but turned 30 a couple of weeks after he won his race.
He talked about the importance of building relationships with lawmakers across the aisle. “You don’t have to give up your principles to build relationships,” Biden said.
He also talked about the challenges the US faces internationally and domestically. “We’re in an entirely new era, everything has changed. Our safety depends on who our partners are and who our allies are.”
New Democratic Arizona Rep. Yassamin Ansari, speaking on CNN on Sunday, said she’s hopeful to work on issues like housing affordability, climate issues and reproductive freedom. “These are issues that young people have said loud and clear are important to them.” “And I think, some of these issues, we can also work on in a bipartisan way.”
And while new Rep. Adam Gray, D-Calif., was elected to office, his district also voted for Trump over Harris by five points.
“I think what Americans want to see is border security,” Gray told CNN, “Obviously, the last Congress wasn’t serious enough, which is why the American people sent me here and sent a strong message that they want change. Status quo is not going to do it.”
Liccardo said Biden’s past experience shows that “he appreciates the importance of the passage of the torch.” The Sunday event “is an opportunity for him to bless and share a moment with the next generation of leaders in the country.”
Canada PM Trudeau to announce resignation as early as Monday: reports
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to announce as early as Monday that he will resign as Liberal Party Leader, The Globe and Mail reported on Sunday, citing three sources.
The sources told the Globe and Mail that they don’t know definitely when Trudeau will announce his plans to leave but said they expect it will happen before a key national caucus meeting on Wednesday.
The Canadian prime minister’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours.
It remains unclear whether Trudeau will leave immediately or stay on as prime minister until a new leader is selected, the report added.
Trudeau took over as Liberal leader in 2013 when the party was in deep trouble and had been reduced to third place in the House of Commons for the first time.
Trudeau’s departure would leave the party without a permanent head at a time when polls show the Liberals will badly lose to the Conservatives in an election that must be held by late October.
His resignation is likely to spur fresh calls for a quick election to put in place a government able to deal with the administration of President-elect Donald Trump for the next four years.
The prime minister has discussed with Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc whether he would be willing to step in as interim leader and prime minister, one source told the newspaper, adding that this would be unworkable if LeBlanc plans to run for the leadership.
