NAIROBI, Kenya: The findings of the only human rights investigation allowed in Ethiopia’s blockaded Tigray region will be released Wednesday, a year after war began there. But people with knowledge of the probe say it has been limited by authorities who recently expelled a UN staffer helping to lead it.
And yet, with groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International barred from Tigray, along with foreign media, the report may be the world’s only official source of information on atrocities in the war, which began in November 2020 after a political falling-out between the Tigray forces that long dominated the national government and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s current government. The conflict has been marked by gang rapes, mass expulsions, deliberate starvation and thousands of deaths.
The joint investigation by the UN human rights office and the government-created Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, or EHRC, is a rare collaboration that immediately raised concerns among ethnic Tigrayans, human rights groups and other observers about impartiality and government influence.
In response to questions from The Associated Press, the UN human rights office in Geneva said it wouldn’t have been able to enter Tigray without the partnership with the rights commission. Although past joint investigations occurred in Afghanistan and Uganda, the UN said, “the current one is unique in terms of magnitude and context.”
But Ethiopia’s government has given no basis for expelling UN human rights officer Sonny Onyegbula last month, the UN added, and without an explanation “we cannot accept the allegation that our staff member ... was ‘meddling in the internal affairs’ of Ethiopia.”
Because of those circumstances, and the fact that the UN left the investigation to its less experienced regional office in Ethiopia, the new report is “automatically suspect,” said David Crane, founder of the Global Accountability Network and founding chief prosecutor for the Special Court for Sierra Leone, an international tribunal.
“What you need when you go into an atrocity zone is a clean slate so outside investigators can look into it neutrally, dispassionately,” Crane said. “You want to do these things where you don’t build doubt, distrust from the beginning,” including among people interviewed.
The investigation might be the international community’s only chance to collect facts on the ground, he said, but because of its setup, it may disappear “in the sands of time.”
People close to the investigation, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, asserted that the head of the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, Daniel Bekele, underplayed some allegations that fighters from the country’s Amhara region were responsible for abuses in Tigray and pressed instead to highlight abuses by Tigray forces.
That’s even though witnesses have said the perpetrators of most abuses were soldiers from neighboring Eritrea, Ethiopian forces and Amhara regional forces.
In response to AP’s questions, Bekele asserted his commission’s independence, saying it is “primarily accountable to the people it is created to serve.” Attempts to influence the investigation, he added, can come from ”many directions” in such a polarized environment.
Bekele said he and the commission have consistently cited “serious indications that all parties involved in the conflict have committed atrocities.”
Observers say a major shortcoming of the investigation is its failure to visit the scene of many alleged massacres in Tigray, including the deadliest known one in the city of Axum, where witnesses told the AP that several hundred people were killed.
Bekele said the investigation lacked the support of the Tigray authorities now administering the region after Tigray forces retook much of the area in June, about midway through the joint team’s work.
The UN human rights office, however, said the government’s subsequent severing of flights and communications from Tigray during the planned investigation period made it difficult to access key locations, both “logistically and from a security point of view.”
Even the interim Tigray authorities hand-picked by Ethiopia’s government to run the region earlier in the war rejected the joint investigation, its former chief of staff, Gebremeskel Kassa, told the AP.
“We informed the international community we wanted an investigation into human rights but not with the EHRC because we believe this is a tool of the government,” he said.
The UN has said Ethiopia’s government had no say in the report’s publication, though it was given the chance to read the report in advance and to point out “anything it believes to be incorrect.”
Late last week, Ethiopia’s government and a diaspora group released the results of their own investigations focusing on alleged abuses by Tigray forces after they entered the neighboring regions of Amhara and Afar four months ago in what they called an effort to pressure the government to end its blockade on Tigray.
The ministry of justice said it found 483 non-combatants were killed and 109 raped in parts of Amhara and Afar that were recaptured by federal forces in recent weeks. It also found “widespread and systematic looting” of schools, clinics, churches, mosques and aid groups’ offices.
A separate report by the Amhara Association of America said it found that 112 people were raped in several districts covered by the ministry’s findings. The diaspora group drew on data from offices of women’s and children’s affairs as well as interviews with witnesses, doctors and officials.
The diaspora group asserted that the Tigray forces “committed the rapes as revenge against ethnic Amharas, whom they blame as responsible for abuses in their home region.”
The spokesman for the Tigray forces, Getachew Reda, said the allegations aren’t worth “the paper they’re written on.” Accusations of rapes and killings by Tigray forces are “absolutely untrue, at least on a level these organizations are alleging,” he said.
Ethiopia tried to limit rare UN report on Tigray war abuses
https://arab.news/ry4b8
Ethiopia tried to limit rare UN report on Tigray war abuses
- Witnesses have said the perpetrators of most abuses were soldiers from neighboring Eritrea
- A report by the Amhara Association of America said it found that 112 people were raped in several districts covered by the ministry’s findings
Ten babies die in fire at Indian hospital’s neonatal unit
- The blaze broke out late on Friday at the Maharani Laxmibai Medical College in Jhansi district
The blaze broke out late on Friday at the Maharani Laxmibai Medical College in Jhansi district about 285 km (180 miles) southwest of Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh state.
Emergency responders rescued 38 newborns from the ward, which housed 49 infants at the time of the incident, said state Deputy Chief Minister Brajesh Pathak.
“Seventeen of the injured are receiving treatment in different wings and some private hospitals,” Pathak told reporters in Jhansi. Seven of the deceased infants have been identified, while the authorities are working to identify the remaining three, he said.
One infant remains missing, said a government official who asked not to be identified as he is not authorized to speak to media.
The cause of the fire remains unknown. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath ordered an inquiry into the incident.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed condolences over the “heart-wrenching” incident.
“My deepest condolences to those who lost their innocent children in this,” Modi posted on the X platform. “I pray to God to give them the strength to bear this immense loss.”
Xi, Biden to meet as Trump return looms
- Trump’s comeback has cast a cloud of uncertainty over efforts by Washington and Beijing to ease their tense relationship
Lima: US President Joe Biden and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping will meet for the last time Saturday, a day after both leaders warned of turbulent times ahead for the world as Donald Trump returns to the White House.
Their final encounter, taking place on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific summit in Peru, has been overshadowed by the prospect of fresh trade wars and diplomatic upheaval when Trump starts his second term.
Trump’s comeback has cast a cloud of uncertainty over efforts by Washington and Beijing to ease their tense relationship, launched in a historic meeting between Xi and Biden in California a year ago.
The White House said Saturday’s Xi-Biden meeting at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit would “mark the progress” in the relationship between the United States and an increasingly assertive Beijing.
But it was also aimed at getting through a “delicate period of transition” and ensuring that competition with China “doesn’t veer into conflict,” US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said.
Trump’s crushing election win over Kamala Harris has caused shock waves around the globe and dominated the two-day meeting of heads of state of the 21-member APEC group.
The billionaire Republican has in particular signaled a confrontational approach to Beijing, threatening to impose tariffs of up to 60 percent on imports of Chinese goods to even out what he says is a trade imbalance.
He has also named two major China hawks in his top team, including his pick for Secretary of State, Marco Rubio.
Xi and Biden, who are meeting for the third time overall, warned separately at the summit on Friday of choppy waters ahead.
The Chinese president raised concerns about “spreading unilateralism and protectionism” in a written speech to the forum, China’s state news agency Xinhua reported.
For his part, Biden said the world had “reached a moment of significant political change,” as he met the leaders of Japan and South Korea — key US allies in Asia.
Biden said US ties with the two countries were essential for “countering North Korea’s dangerous and destabilizing cooperation with Russia” as Pyongyang sends troops to fight in Ukraine.
And with Biden racing to salvage what he can of his foreign policy legacy from Trump, he said the three-way alliance he had pioneered was “built to last. That’s my hope and expectation.”
A senior administration official insisted that Trump’s name had not come up during the meeting with the South Korean and Japanese leaders.
The return of Trump’s “America First” policies, however, threatens alliances Biden has built on issues ranging from the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East to climate change and trade.
During his first term, Trump repeatedly threatened to cut US defense commitments to Asian and European allies if they did not pay a larger share of the financial burden for their protection.
Economists say Trump’s threat of punitive tariffs would harm not only China’s economy but also that of the United States and its trading partners.
It could also threaten geopolitical stability.
China is building up its military capacity while ramping up pressure on self-governed Taiwan, which it claims as part of its territory.
Sullivan said Xi and Biden were set to discuss Taiwan and tensions in the South China Sea, where Beijing claims large swathes of maritime territory, he said.
They would also focus on keeping communication channels open, particularly military-to-military hotlines restored last year.
The APEC summit will wrap up on Saturday but Trump’s shadow is still set to cloud the international diplomatic agenda at a G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro next week.
Biden will also be heading there as part of a swing through Latin America in what is likely to be his last major foreign tour.
He will stop in the Amazonian rainforest on Sunday to highlight the impact of climate change — another key policy area likely to be affected by Trump, who has promised to “drill, baby, drill” for fossil fuels.
Tens of thousands flee as Super Typhoon Man-yi nears Philippines
- Around 255,000 people have fled their homes ahead of Super Typhoon Man-yi
- It will be the sixth major storm to pummel the archipelago nation in the past month
MANILA: A powerful storm sweeping toward the Philippines intensified into a super typhoon on Saturday, the state weather forecaster said, warning of “significant to severe impacts” from the wind and “life-threatening” storm surges.
Around 255,000 people have fled their homes ahead of Super Typhoon Man-yi, which is expected to make landfall later Saturday or early Sunday, becoming the sixth major storm to pummel the archipelago nation in the past month.
With wind gusts of up to 230 kilometers per hour (about 140 miles per hour), Man-yi was on track to slam into the sparsely populated island province of Catanduanes as a super typhoon or “near peak intensity,” the weather service warned.
Up to 14-meter (46-feet) high seas were expected around Catanduanes, while “significant to severe impacts from typhoon-force winds are possible” in the hardest hit areas, along with a “high risk of life-threatening storm surges” exceeding three meters, the forecaster said.
At least 163 people died in the five storms that pounded the Philippines in recent weeks that also left thousands homeless and wiped out crops and livestock.
The government urged people Saturday to heed warnings to flee to safety.
“If preemptive evacuation is required, let us do so and not wait for the hour of peril before evacuating or seeking help, because if we did that we will be putting in danger not only our lives but also those of our rescuers,” Interior Undersecretary Marlo Iringan said.
In Albay province, Legazpi City grocer Myrna Perea was sheltering with her fruit vendor husband and their three children in a school classroom with nine other families after they were ordered to leave their shanty.
Conditions were hot and cramped — the family spent Friday night sleeping together on a mat under the classroom’s single ceiling fan — but Perea said it was better to be safe.
“I think our house will be wrecked when we get back because it’s made of light materials — just two gusts are required to knock it down,” Perea, 44, said.
“That’s why we evacuated. Even if the house is destroyed, the important thing is we do not lose a family member.”
Scientists have warned climate change is increasing the intensity of storms, leading to heavier rains, flash floods and stronger gusts.
About 20 big storms and typhoons hit the Southeast Asian nation or its surrounding waters each year, killing scores of people, but it is rare for multiple such weather events to take place in a small window.
Evacuation centers were filling up on Catanduanes island in the typhoon-prone Bicol region, with the state weather forecaster warning Saturday of “widespread incidents of severe flooding and landslides.”
More than 400 people were squeezed into the provincial government building in the capital Virac, with new arrivals being sent to a gymnasium, provincial disaster officer Roberto Monterola said.
Monterola said he had dispatched soldiers to force about 100 households in two coastal villages near Virac to move inland due to fears storm surges could swamp their homes.
“Regardless of the exact landfall point, heavy rainfall, severe winds, and storm surges may occur in areas outside the predicted landfall zone,” the forecaster said.
In Northern Samar province, disaster officer Rei Josiah Echano lamented that damage caused by typhoons was the root cause of poverty in the region.
“Whenever there’s a typhoon like this, it brings us back to the mediaeval era, we go (back) to square one,” Echano said, as the province prepared for the onslaught of Man-yi.
All vessels — from fishing boats to oil tankers — have been ordered to stay in port or return to shore.
The volcanology agency also warned heavy rain dumped by Man-yi could trigger flows of volcanic sediment, or lahars, from three volcanos, including Taal, south of Manila.
Man-yi will hit the Philippines late in the typhoon season — most cyclones develop between July and October.
Earlier this month, four storms were clustered simultaneously in the Pacific basin, which the Japan Meteorological Agency said on Saturday was the first time such an occurrence had been observed in November since its records began in 1951.
The United Nations faces uncertainty as Trump returns to US presidency
- In his first term, Trump suspended funding for the UN health and family planning agencies, withdrew from its cultural organization and top human rights body, and flaunted the WTO’s rulebook
UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations and other international organizations are bracing for four more years of Donald Trump, who famously tweeted before becoming president the first time that the 193-member UN was “just a club for people to get together, talk and have a good time.”
In his first term, Trump suspended funding for the UN health and family planning agencies, withdrew from its cultural organization and top human rights body, and jacked up tariffs on China and even longtime US allies by flaunting the World Trade Organization’s rulebook. The United States is the biggest single donor to the United Nations, paying 22 percent of its regular budget.
Trump’s take this time on the world body began taking shape this week with his choice of Republican Rep. Elize Stefanik of New York for US ambassador to the UN.
Stefanik, the fourth-ranking House member, called last month for a “complete reassessment” of US funding for the United Nations and urged a halt to support for its agency for Palestinian refugees, or UNRWA. President Joe Biden paused the funding after UNRWA fired several staffers in Gaza suspected of taking part in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack led by Hamas.
Here’s a look at what Trump 2.0 could mean for global organizations:
‘A theater’ for a conservative agenda
Speculation about Trump’s future policies has already become a parlor game among wags in Washington and beyond, and reading the signals on issues important to the UN isn’t always easy.
For example, Trump once called climate change a hoax and has supported the fossil fuel industry but has sidled up to the environmentally minded Elon Musk. His first administration funded breakneck efforts to find a COVID-19 vaccine, but he has allied with anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“The funny thing is that Trump does not really have a fixed view of the UN,” said Richard Gowan, UN director for the International Crisis Group think tank.
Gowan expects that Trump won’t view the world body “as a place to transact serious political business but will instead exploit it as a theater to pursue a conservative global social agenda.”
There are clues from his first term. Trump pulled the US out of the 2015 Paris climate accord and is likely to do it again after President Joe Biden rejoined.
Trump also had the US leave the cultural and educational agency UNESCO and the UN-backed Human Rights Council, claiming they were biased against Israel. Biden went back to both before recently opting not to seek a second consecutive term on the council.
Trump cut funding for the UN population agency for reproductive health services, claiming it was funding abortions. UNFPA says it doesn’t take a position on abortion rights, and the US rejoined.
He had no interest in multilateralism — countries working together to address global challenges — in his first term. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres calls it “the cornerstone” of the United Nations.
A new ‘Cold War’ world?
The world is a different place than when Trump bellowed “America First” while taking office in 2017: Wars have broken out in the Middle East, Ukraine and Sudan. North Korea’s nuclear arsenal has grown, and so have fears about Iran’s rapidly advancing atomic program.
The UN Security Council — more deeply divided among its veto-wielding permanent members Britain, China, France, Russia and the US — has made no progress in resolving those issues. Respect for international law in war zones and hotspots worldwide is in shreds.
“It’s really back to Cold War days,” said John Bolton, a former national security adviser at Trump’s White House.
He said Russia and China are “flying cover” for countries like Iran, which has stirred instability in the Middle East, and North Korea, which has helped Russia in its war in Ukraine. There’s little chance of deals on proliferation of weapons of mass destruction or resolving conflicts involving Russia or China at the council, he said.
Bolton, a former US ambassador to the UN, expects Stefanik will have a “tougher time” because of the range of issues facing the Security Council.
“What had been fairly sleepy during the first Trump term is not going to be sleepy at all in the second Trump term,” he said.
The Security Council has been impotent on Ukraine since Russia’s February 2022 invasion because of Russia’s veto power. And it has failed to adopt a resolution with teeth demanding a ceasefire in Gaza because of US support for Israel.
The Crisis Group’s Gowan said Republicans in Congress are “furious” about UN criticisms of Israeli policies in Gaza and he expects them to urge Trump to “impose severe budget cuts on the UN, and he will do so to satisfy his base.”
Possible impact on UN work
The day-to-day aid work of global institutions also faces uncertainty.
In Geneva, home to many UN organizations focusing on issues like human rights, migration, telecommunications and weather, some diplomats advise wait-and-see caution and say Trump generally maintained humanitarian aid funding in his first term.
Trade was a different matter. Trump bypassed World Trade Organization rules, imposing tariffs on steel and other goods from allies and rivals alike. Making good on his new threats, like imposing 60 percent tariffs on goods from China, could upend global trade.
Other ideological standoffs could await, though the international architecture has some built-in protections and momentum.
In a veiled reference to Trump’s victory at the UN climate conference in Azerbaijan, Guterres said the “clean energy revolution is here. No group, no business, no government can stop it.”
Allison Chatrchyan, a climate change researcher at the AI-Climate Institute at Cornell University, said global progress in addressing climate change “has been plodding along slowly” thanks to the Paris accord and the UN convention on climate change, but Trump’s election “will certainly create a sonic wave through the system.”
“It is highly likely that President Trump will again pull the United States out of the Paris agreement,” though it could only take place after a year under the treaty’s rules, wrote Chatrchyan in an email. “United States leadership, which is sorely needed, will dissipate.”
During COVID-19, when millions of people worldwide were getting sick and dying, Trump lambasted the World Health Organization and suspended funding.
Trump’s second term won’t necessarily resemble the first, said Gian Luca Burci, a former WHO legal counsel. “It may be more extreme, but it may be also more strategic because Trump has learned the system he didn’t really know in the first term.”
If the US leaves WHO, that “opens the whole Pandora’s box, — by stripping the agency of both funding and needed technical expertise — said Burci, a visiting professor of international law at Geneva’s Graduate Institute. “The whole organization is holding its breath — for many reasons.”
But both Gowan and Bolton agree there is one UN event Trump is unlikely to miss: the annual gathering of world leaders at the General Assembly, where he has reveled in the global spotlight.
In Milei’s latest drastic move, Argentina is sole UN holdout voting ‘no’ to ending gender violence
- The ‘no’ vote marked the latest in a series of dramatic foreign policy shifts under President Javier Milei, the most right-wing leader in Argentina’s 41 years of democracy
- Nearly a year into his presidency, the former Argentine TV pundit remains erratic and idiosyncratic in the global spotlight, in striking similarity to Trump
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina: The usual suspects abstained from voting on a seemingly uncontroversial United Nations resolution that denounced violence against women and girls on Thursday — Iran, Russia, North Korea.
But the country casting the sole vote against the nonbinding resolution, drafted by France and the Netherlands, took the world by surprise. It was Argentina, long considered one of Latin America’s most socially progressive countries.
Unleashing an avalanche of criticism across the political spectrum on Friday, the ‘no’ vote by Buenos Aires marked the latest in a series of dramatic foreign policy shifts under President Javier Milei, the most right-wing leader in Argentina’s 41 years of democracy.
It comes just days after Milei, an outspoken climate change skeptic, abruptly called Argentina’s negotiators home from the UN climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, stirring concerns that the radical economist might seek to emulate former US President Donald Trump in withdrawing Argentina entirely from the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
Not only has Milei transformed Argentine foreign policy in line with the United States and Israel, his government has also taken fringe positions on the global stage that fly in the face of the liberal, rules-based international order.
“It’s a big break with standard Argentine foreign policy, which has long been oriented toward making Argentina an integrated part of the Global South,” said Richard Sanders, a global fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and former State Department official in the region. “It’s a definitely a significant change in how Argentina relates internationally.”
Argentina’s vote at the UN Thursday recalled a similar clash last month when Argentina became the only member of all the Group of 20 nations to sign onto a statement adopting language about gender equality.
“Argentina votes alone, against the rest of humanity,” the conservative party of former President Mauricio Macri, an ally of Milei’s government, wrote on social media platform X Friday.
Another centrist party, the Unión Cívica Radical, joined the chorus of local condemnation.
“By fighting imaginary cultural battles we end up isolated from the world,” said Senator Martín Lousteau, president of the centrist party.
Lousteau denounced Argentina’s UN vote opposing an end to gender violence as a “disgrace.” Top official Guillermo Francos defended the decision, saying “neither commitments nor treaties will solve the issue of gender violence.”
Nearly a year into his presidency, the former Argentine TV pundit remains erratic and idiosyncratic in the global spotlight, in striking similarity to Trump. Milei became the first foreign leader since the US election to meet Trump, albeit informally, late Thursday at the president-elect’s private Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.
In a congratulatory phone call with Trump earlier this week, Miei’s spokesperson reported that Trump told the Argentine leader: “You’re my favorite president.” Trump has not confirmed the claim.
The Argentine presidency on Friday proudly released a stream of photos from Mar-a-Lago featuring Milei in a sharp suit beaming alongside Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk, with whom Milei has also publicly cultivated a bromance over their shared contempt for “wokeness,” gender issues and socialism.
In November 2023, an angry Argentine electorate fed up with sky-high inflation, debt defaults and bank runs handed the outsider a sweeping mandate to carry out an overhaul of Argentina’s crisis-stricken economy.
But along with Milei’s libertarian crusade has come a series of cultural battles — both at home, where the president eliminated Argentina’s women’s and environment ministries and scrapped the national anti-discrimination institute, as well as abroad, where Milei has sought to fashion himself as a far-right icon, raising the hackles of key allies like Brazil and Spain.
“Milei got into the presidency on the basis of his clearly stated libertarian views, it was all about the economy,” Sanders said. “But these other views are nothing he kept hidden.”
Tensions over Milei’s culture war escalated this month. When Argentina voted at the UN in favor of ending the American economic embargo against Cuba on Oct. 30, Milei fired then-Foreign Minister Diana Mondino over what he called her “unforgivable mistake” and swiftly replaced her with Gerardo Werthein, a wealthy businessman who had been Buenos Aires’ ambassador to the US.
This weekend, Milei and Werthein plan to meet Trump again at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida.
Experts say that Milei hopes to cash in on his friendship with Trump to help crisis-stricken Argentina secure a much-needed infusion cash infusion from the International Monetary Fund, to which Argentina owes over $44 billion. The US is the fund’s largest shareholder.
In recent weeks, Milei’s shock dismissal of Argentina’s top diplomat — a polished political performer who frequently worked to mend diplomatic relations strained by Milei’s profanity-laden fights with traditional allies — has sent shivers through Argentina’s diplomatic ranks.
Milei has vowed to purge his foreign ministry of so-called “traitors to the country” who have strayed from his stance, which includes rejecting the “Pact for the Future” adopted by the UN in September that promotes climate action, female empowerment and the regulation of artificial intelligence.
Local media has reported the forced resignations of at least seven diplomats in recent weeks who were perceived as critical of the president’s Trump-like attacks on the collective philosophy of the UN Milei accuses such multilateral forums of restricting members’ freedom.
Argentina’s left-leaning Peronist movement — which has dominated the country’s politics for decades — was seething Friday, with lawmakers aghast at what they saw as the unraveling of hard-won social gains like Argentina’s breakthrough legalization of abortion in 2020 and recent efforts to curb fossil fuels.
“For you, freedom is violence,” said Mayra Mendoza, a prominent Peronist politician on Friday, addressing Milei.
The libertarian has called abortion “murder,” climate change a “socialist lie” and the UN a “leviathan with multiple tentacles.”
