JUBA – South Sudan yesterday said it had reached an agreement with warring parties for it to secure a key oil field in Sudan near the border after the site was seized by paramilitaries. Kordofan, where the Heglig oil field lies, has become the epicentre of the Sudanese civil war after the paramilitary Rapid Support...
OSLO – Venezuela’s opposition leader Maria Corina Machado is “safe” and will reach Oslo by Thursday at the latest, but will not accept her Nobel Peace Prize in person, Nobel officials said. Machado, who won the Nobel for challenging Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro’s grip on power, is in hiding after threats to her life and...
BANGKOK – Thailand launched air strikes yesterday on its neighbour, Cambodia, with both sides trading blame for renewed fighting on their disputed border that has killed four Cambodian civilians and a Thai soldier. Around 35,000 people in Thailand have been evacuated from border areas, the country’s second army region said in a statement. Five days...
VIENNA – The UN nuclear watchdog has said that the protective structure surrounding the exploded reactor at Chernobyl can no longer perform its main function of blocking radiation, after a Russian drone strike earlier this year. Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) began a rare visit to Ukraine on 1 December, to assess...
GENEVA – UN human rights commissioner Volker Turk yesterday said that he fears new “atrocities” in Sudan amid intense fighting between the army and paramilitary forces in the battleground Kordofan region. Fighting has intensified across the three states that make up Kordofan as the Sudanese army seeks to keep the rival Rapid Support Forces (RSF)...
GENEVA – The United Nations yesterday deplored an intensifying crackdown on the opposition and media in Uganda ahead of next month’s general election, urging impartial investigations into alleged arbitrary arrests, disappearances and “torture.” The UN rights office highlighted “credible reports” indicating that at least 550 people, including members and supporters of the main opposition National...
OSLO – Norway yesterday postponed the first licences to permit deep-sea mining in its Arctic waters for four years, a delay environmentalists hope signals the “nail in the coffin” of the plans. The country was the first in Europe aiming to commence the practice in its waters, but following thorny negotiations, Norway’s minority Labour government...
JOHANNESBURG – South Africa, Eswatini and Zambia were yesterday supposed to begin administering a groundbreaking new HIV-prevention injection in the drug’s first public rollouts in Africa, which has the world’s highest HIV burden. Lenacapavir, taken twice a year, has been shown to reduce the risk of HIV transmission by more than 99.9%, making it functionally...
PADANG – The toll in deadly flooding and landslides across parts of Asia climbed past 1 100 yesterday as hardest-hit Sri Lanka and Indonesia deployed military personnel to help survivors. Separate weather systems brought torrential, extended rainfall to the entire island of Sri Lanka and large parts of Indonesia’s Sumatra, southern Thailand and northern Malaysia...
LUANDA – European and African leaders gathered in Angola yesterday for a summit to deepen economic and security ties, with emergency talks on Ukraine also on the cards. France’s Emmanuel Macron, Germany’s Friedrich Merz and Kenya’s William Ruto are among dozens of European Union and African leaders expected in Luanda amid a US-European rift over...