PORT SUDAN – The United Nations yesterday accused Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces of blocking aid to the war-torn country’s famine-threatened Darfur region. The RSF, which has been at war with the regular army since April 2023, controls nearly all of Darfur, a western region the size of France. Since May, it has besieged North...
JERUSALEM – Israeli defence minister Israel Katz yesterday said he had ordered the army to formulate a plan to allow Palestinians to leave Gaza. “I have instructed the IDF (military) to prepare a plan to enable voluntary departure for Gaza residents,” he said in a statement. He specified that he had told the army to...
CAIRO – Egypt yesterday called for the swift reconstruction of Gaza and said Palestinians should not have to leave the territory, where the Palestinian Authority should “assume its duties”. Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty’s call came during pre-scheduled talks with Palestinian prime minister Mohammed Mustafa in Cairo, hours after a shock proposal from president Donald Trump...
PORT SUDAN – Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) are losing ground to the army due to strategic blunders, internal rifts and dwindling supplies, analysts say.The regular army has made major gains, seeming to reverse the tide of a nearly two-year conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted more than 12...
GENEVA – The UN Human Rights Council announced yesterday that it would hold an urgent session on the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which is gripped by violence.Friday’s special session will focus on “the human rights’ situation in eastern DRC”, council spokesman Pascal Sim told reporters in Geneva.He said the DRC requested the session...
JOHANNESBURG – President Cyril Ramaphosa vowed yesterday to continue providing support to the Democratic Republic of Congo in the face of nationwide calls to withdraw troops following the death of 14 South African soldiers. Rwanda-backed M23 fighters have made substantial gains in eastern DRC, taking the major city of Goma last week, and vowing to...
GOMA – Once crowded with white makeshift huts, the huge Kanyaruchinya camp for displaced people on the outskirts of Goma, in war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo, looked eerily empty on Sunday. Since Goma was taken by Rwanda-backed M23 fighters earlier this week, some 100 000 internally-displaced people have left the jam-packed hillside where they had...
JOHANNESBURG – President Cyril Ramaphosa rejected yesterday assertions by Donald Trump that South Africa was “confiscating” land, and said he was ready to explain his government’s land reform policy to his US counterpart. Trump’s comments appeared to be referring to a Land Expropriation Act signed by Ramaphosa last month which stipulates the government may, in...
PESHAWAR – The Pakistani Taliban claimed the killing of a police officer as he travelled yesterday to guard polio vaccinators on the first day of a nationwide immunisation effort after a year of rising cases. The officer was travelling to guard polio vaccinators in the area of Jamrud town in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province when...
JERUSALEM – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was set to begin talks yesterday on a second phase of the ceasefire with Hamas as he visits the new Trump administration in Washington. Before departing, Netanyahu told reporters he would discuss “victory over Hamas”, countering Iran, and freeing all hostages when he meets president Donald Trump today....