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Month: February 2024
Sudan Authorities Block Cross-Border Aid to Stricken Darfur
Port Sudan, Sudan — Authorities loyal to the army in war-ravaged Sudan have blocked cross-border aid to the western Darfur region, a move decried by aid workers and the United States.
The vast Darfur region, bordering Chad, has been one of the hardest hit parts of Sudan since war began 10 months ago between the Sudanese Armed Forces and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
RSF are descendants of the Janjaweed militia, which began a scorched earth campaign in Darfur more than two decades ago.
In their current battle against the army, which started last April, the RSF have taken over four out of the five Darfur state capitals.
More than 694,000 people have fled over the border to Chad, according to the International Organization for Migration, but many more remain trapped in Darfur and in need of assistance.
The United Nations has had to limit its work in Darfur to cross-border operations from Chad, but last week the U.N.’s World Food Program (WFP) country director Eddie Rowe told reporters that “authorities have restricted the Chad cross-border operation.”
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Friday the United States is deeply concerned by the army’s “recent decision to prohibit cross border humanitarian assistance from Chad and reports that the SAF is obstructing assistance from reaching communities in areas controlled by the RSF.”
Sudan’s foreign ministry, loyal to the army, expressed “confusion and rejection” of the “false accusations” by Washington.
The ministry said the Sudan-Chad border “is the main crossing point for weapons and equipment” used to commit “atrocities” against the Sudanese.
A United Nations experts’ report in January cited credible evidence that the United Arab Emirates was funneling “military support” through Chad to the RSF. The UAE has denied the allegations.
Miller, of the State Department, also expressed concern about RSF “looting homes, markets and humanitarian assistance warehouses.”
In Brussels, Rowe said his agency was “engaging with the authorities to ensure this critical lifeline” from Chad remains operational.
It is essential, an international aid worker told AFP on Sunday from Darfur, requesting anonymity so as not to jeopardize their mission.
“Children and babies are already dying from hunger and malnutrition. There will be an immense human impact… and quite possibly large-scale mortality rates,” the aid worker said.
“The highest levels of diplomacy need to unblock this situation immediately because millions of lives hang in the balance,” the aid worker said, calling it “a huge region already facing an imminent and immense food security crisis on top of a civil war, ethnic violence and state service collapse.”
The war has killed thousands, including up to 15,000 in the West Darfur city of El Geneina alone, according to the U.N. experts.
Washington has accused both sides of war crimes and said the RSF also carried out ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.
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Gunmen Kill at Least 15 Worshippers at Burkina Church
Abuja, Nigeria — At least 15 Catholic worshippers were killed in a Burkina Faso village on Sunday when gunmen attacked a community as they gathered for prayers in the country’s conflict-hit northern region, Church officials said.
The violence in the village of Essakane was a “terrorist attack” that left 12 of the Catholic faithful dead at the scene, while three others died later as they were being treated for their wounds, according to a statement issued by Abbot Jean-Pierre Sawadogo, vicar-general of the Catholic Diocese of Dori, where the attack happened.
No further details were provided about the attack, which no group claimed responsibility for. But suspicion fell on jihadis who have frequently attacked remote communities and security forces, especially in the northern region.
“In this painful circumstance, we invite you to pray for the rest in God for those who have died in faith, for the healing of the wounded and … for the conversion of those who continue to sow death and desolation in our country,” Sawadogo said in a statement.
About half of Burkina Faso is outside government control as jihadi groups have ravaged the country for years. Fighters have killed thousands and displaced more than 2 million people, further threatening the stability of the country that had two coups in 2022.
The country’s junta has struggled to restore peace in violent hot spots. Since the first coup in January 2022, the number of people killed by jihadis has nearly tripled compared with the 18 previous months, according to a report by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies in August.
In addition to the junta’s limited capacity, the security situation also has been worsened by the country’s porous borders with Mali and Niger, both of which are also run by juntas and which struggle with security crises.
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Belarus’ Lukashenko to Run for Seventh Presidential Term in 2025
Moscow — Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko said he would run for president again in 2025, Belarusian state news agency BelTA reported Sunday.
Lukashenko made his comments after voting in parliamentary and local council elections, denounced by the United States as a sham. The ex-Soviet state’s top election official dismissed the criticism and told Washington to look after its own affairs.
BelTA said Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994, told journalists: “Tell them (the exiled opposition) that I’ll run. No one, no responsible president would abandon his people who followed him into battle.”
Lukashenko, 69, is one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest allies and allowed the Kremlin to use his country’s territory to launch its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
“We’re still a year away from the presidential election. A lot of things can change,” he said in response to a follow-up question, BelTA reported.
“Naturally, I and all of us, society, will react to the changes that will take place in our society and the situation in which we will approach the elections in a year’s time,” Lukashenko said.
The U.S. State Department condemned what it called the “sham” elections in Belarus Sunday.
“The elections were held in a climate of fear under which no electoral processes could be called democratic,” department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement.
The chairman of Belarus’ Central Election Commission, in comments quoted by BelTA, said it was not up to the United States to comment on the election.
“We don’t denounce their elections. We make no statements, even if they had over
there a lot of questions for all to see, even in their last presidential election,” Igor Karpenko was quoted as saying.
“They work according to the principle that we are bigger and can therefore tell everyone what to do. I think we can manage quite nicely conducting elections in our own country,” Karpenko said.
Election commission officials said voter turnout stood at just below 73% by mid-evening.
Lukashenko’s reelection to a sixth term in 2020 sparked unprecedented protests by opponents alleging mass vote-rigging. Putin offered support to Lukashenko and the demonstrations died out after mass roundups and detentions of protesters by police.
Lukashenko told reporters the role of parliament would be bolstered in his country.
“People are beginning to understand that in Belarus, for example, a president is not a tsar or a god. It is very hard work,” BelTA quoted him as saying. “Parliament’s role will be expanded, every month, every year.”
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Facing Chinese EV Rivals, Europe’s Automakers Squeeze Suppliers on Costs
London — Europe’s automakers and their already-stretched suppliers face a tough year as they race to cut costs for electric models to counter leaner Chinese rivals which are bringing cheaper vehicles to challenge them on their home turf.
A big question is how much more Europe’s automakers can squeeze out of suppliers that have already started laying off workers, with many smaller companies hard hit by supply chain issues during the pandemic.
The difference between Europe’s legacy automakers and more EV-focused Chinese manufacturers will be on stark display this week at the Geneva car show, which is returning after a four-year hiatus due to the pandemic.
The only major companies holding media events are France’s Renault and China’s SAIC Motors and the BYD Company — two of several of the country’s automakers that have set their sights on Europe.
Renault is launching its electric R5 and SAIC’s MG brand will unveil its M3 hybrid. Meanwhile, BYD’s Seal sedan is shortlisted for the Car of the Year award. If it wins, it would be the first Chinese model to get the prestigious award.
“They really are like chalk and cheese,” Nick Parker, a partner and managing director at consulting firm AlixPartners, said of the legacy European automakers and their Chinese rivals.
Unlike European automakers that are reliant on external suppliers with separate supply chains for fossil-fuel and electric, their Chinese rivals are highly vertically integrated, producing almost everything in-house and keeping costs down.
That helps them undercut their European rivals. In Britain, BYD’s electric Dolphin hatchback starts at 25,490 pounds ($32,300), about 27% less than Volkswagen’s equivalent ID.3 model. Tesla works in the same way.
Chasing those rivals means European automakers’ profit margins could be “heavily challenged” moving forward because there is only so much they can squeeze out of external suppliers, AlixPartners’ Parker said.
The challenge has been made more difficult by a slower-than-expected shift to EVs, leaving legacy automakers stuck with their dual supply chains. Data this week showed EU fully-electric car sales in January fell 42.3% from December.
Both Renault and Stellantis have stressed their EV cost-cutting efforts this month while Mercedes toned down expectations for EV demand and said it will update its traditional lineup well into the next decade.
Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares has gone further, telling suppliers that with 85% of EV costs related to purchased materials, they need to bear a proportionate burden in reducing costs.
“I am translating that reality to my partners: If you don’t do your part of the job, then you exclude yourself,” he said.
Nickel and aluminum prices have also risen this week as Western countries expanded sanctions lists against Moscow, highlighting the lingering risks to raw materials prices even though there was no mention of the two metals.
Job cuts
Many legacy suppliers are already feeling the strain of cost cuts with FORVIA, Continental and Bosch all recently announcing or warning of layoffs, with more expected.
To preserve their profits, automakers focused production on higher-margin models during the recent semi-conductor shortage, but that meant less revenue and less upside for their suppliers.
Now industry experts say well-capitalized larger suppliers can adapt to the new reality but warn that plenty of smaller ones are teetering on the edge, like Germany’s Allgaier which filed for insolvency in July.
That means Europe’s automakers face a delicate balancing act between cutting costs to fend off Chinese rivals and avoiding pushing their suppliers too far. Philip Nothard, insight director at dealer services firm Cox Automotive, says automakers may even have to step in to bailout struggling suppliers.
“The risk is if (European automakers) try and screw those suppliers down too much, they’ll either push them into administration or they’ll push them into seeking different markets,” he said.
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Biden, Utah’s Governor Call for Less Bitterness, More Bipartisanship in Politics
Washington — President Joe Biden and Utah Gov. Spencer Cox disagree on many issues but they were united Saturday in calling for less bitterness in politics and more bipartisanship.
“Politics has gotten too personally bitter,” said Biden, who has practiced politics since he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972. “It’s just not like it was.” The Democratic president commented while delivering a toast to the nation’s governors and their spouses at a black-tie White House dinner in their honor.
Biden said what makes him “feel good” about hosting the governors is “we have a tradition of doing things together. We fight like hell, we make sure that we get our points across. At the end of the day, we know who we work for. The objective is to get things done.”
Cox, a Republican and chairman of the National Governors Association, preceded Biden to the lectern beneath an imposing portrait of Abraham Lincoln above the fireplace in the State Dining Room.
The Utah governor said the association “harkens back to another time, another era, when we did work together across partisan lines, when there was no political danger in appearing with someone from the other side of the aisle and we have to keep this, we have to maintain this, we cannot lose this,” he said.
Cox leads an initiative called “Disagree Better” that aims to reduce divisiveness. He had joked earlier in the program that he and Biden might be committing “mutually assured destruction” by appearing together at the White House since they’re both up for reelection this year.
He told Biden that as state chief executives, governors “know just a very little bit of the incredible burden that weighs on your shoulders. We can’t imagine what it must be like, the decisions that you have to make, but we feel a small modicum of that pressure and so, tonight, we honor you.”
Biden said he remembered when lawmakers would argue by day and break bread together at night. He is currently embroiled in stalemates with the Republican-controlled House over immigration policy, government funding and aid for Ukraine and Israel.
Cox went on to say that his parents taught him to pray for the leader of the country.
“Mr. President, I want you to know that our family prays for you and your family every night,” he said. “We pray that you will be successful because if you are successful that means that United States of America is successful and, tonight, we are always Americans first, so thank you.”
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat who is the association’s vice chairman, also offered a toast.
“We have a lot more in common and a lot more that brings us together as Americans for love of country and love of the people of our country,” he said.
Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, were among Cabinet secretaries and White House officials who sat among the governors. The group included North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who in December ended his bid to become the Republican presidential nominee and challenge Biden.
Guests dined on house-made burrata cheese, an entree choice of beef braciole or cod almandine and lemon meringue tart with limoncello ice cream for dessert.
After dinner, the program moved to the East Room for a performance by country singer Trisha Yearwood.
The governors, in Washington for their annual winter meeting, heard from Biden and Harris on Friday during a separate session at the White House.
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‘One Love’ Gets More Box Office Love, No. 1 for Second Week
Los Angeles — For a second straight week, biopic “ Bob Marley: One Love” continues to exceed expectations by claiming the No. 1 spot at the box office, overcoming two debut films and Sony’s “Madame Web” that’s still producing subpar numbers.
The Paramount film starring Kingsley Ben-Adir pulled in $13.5 million during its second week of release. The project, which was produced for about $70 million, already eclipsed that mark, grossing nearly $72 million domestically in North America.
It’s an impressive achievement for the Reinaldo Marcus Green-directed Marley’s musical biopic that’s focused on the Rastafarian legend’s story during the making of his 1977 album “Exodus” while leading up to his impactful concert in his native Jamaica.
“Some of his greatest hits came out nearly 50 years ago, but his music still resonates through this film,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for data firm Comscore.
“One Love” drew nearly $2 million more than “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba – To the Hashira Training” which placed No. 2. The latest installment in the Japanese anime series from Crunchyroll and Sony debuted with $11.7 million.
“Demon Slayer” scored the impressive opening number from only 1,949 locations — far less than “One Love” with 3,597 and 3,020 for “ Ordinary Angels ” — a faith-based Lionsgate film starring Hilary Swank that placed third at the box office with an estimated $6.5 million.
“There might not be any huge blockbuster films recently, but there some real gems out there for moviegoers to see,” Dergarabedian said.
All three of those films outperformed better than “Madame Web,” which has struggled to find its footing after the superhero movie flopped last week. It was thought the Spider-Man spinoff would draw strong numbers — especially with Dakota Johnson starring as the film’s lead Marvel character.
But so far, it hasn’t lived up to the hype, producing just $6 million in its second week and grossing a little more than a disappointing $35 million.
After its 10th weekend, Universal’s animated “Migration” rounded out the top five with $3 million, bringing its domestic total to $120 million. “Argylle” placed sixth with $2.8 million barely outpacing “Wonka,” which reeled in $2.5 million. Paul King’s musical starring Timothee Chalamet as a young Willy Wonka has grossed more than $214 million in 11 weeks.
The Ethan Coen-directed “Drive-Away Dolls” debuted eighth with $2.4 million ahead of “The Beekeeper” and “The Chosen” season four, a Christian series focused on Jesus Christ.
Dergarabedian called this past week a slow one. But next week, he expects it’ll pick up greatly with the highly anticipated “Dune: Part Two” making its long-waited debut, which should end the top spot reign by “One Love.”
“It’s the calm before the sandstorm,” he said.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
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“Bob Marley: One Love,” $13.5 million.
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“Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba – To the Hashira Training,” $11.5 million.
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“Ordinary Angels,” $6.5 million.
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“Madame Web,” $6 million.
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“Migration,” $3 million.
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“Argylle,” $2.8 million.
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“Wonka,” $2.5 million.
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“Drive-Away Dolls,” $2.4 million.
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“The Beekeeper,” $1.9 million.
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“The Chosen,” Episodes 4-6, $1.7 million.
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Corruption Scandals Cast Shadow Over Portugal’s Early General Election
LISBON, Portugal — The official two-week campaign period before Portugal’s early general election began Sunday, with the country’s two moderate mainstream parties once again expected to collect the most votes but with the expected rise of a populist party potentially adding momentum to Europe’s drift to the right.
The center-left Socialist Party and center-right Social Democratic Party have alternated in power for decades. But they are unsure of how much support they might need from smaller rival parties for the parliamentary votes needed to form a government after the March 10 vote.
Corruption scandals have cast a shadow over the ballot. They have also fed public disenchantment with the country’s political class as Portugal prepares to celebrate 50 years of democracy, following the Carnation Revolution that toppled a rightist dictatorship on April 25, 1974.
The election is being held after a Socialist government collapsed last November following a corruption investigation. That case brought a police search of Prime Minister António Costa’s official residence and the arrest of his chief of staff. Costa hasn’t been accused of any crime.
Also in recent weeks, a Lisbon court decided that a former Socialist prime minister should stand trial for corruption. Prosecutors allege that José Sócrates, prime minister between 2005-2011, pocketed around 34 million euros ($36.7 million) during his time in power from graft, fraud and money laundering.
The Social Democratic Party has also been tainted by corruption allegations.
During the recent weeks of unofficial campaigning, a graft investigation in Portugal’s Madeira Islands triggered the resignation of two prominent Social Democrat officials.
The scandal erupted on the same day the Social Democratic Party unveiled an anti-corruption billboard in Lisbon that said, “It can’t go on like this.”
A housing crisis, persistent levels of low pay and unreliable public health services are other areas where the records of the two main parties are at issue.
Hot-button topics that have driven political debate and encouraged populist parties elsewhere in Europe, such as climate change, migration and religious differences, have largely been absent in Portugal’s campaign.
A five-year-old populist and nationalist party called Chega! (in English, Enough!) has made the fight against corruption one of its political banners. “Portugal needs cleaning out,” one of its billboards declares.
The party’s leader, 41-year-old lawyer André Ventura, has been riding in third place in opinion polls and could become a kingmaker if his political influence grows. His party got just 1.3% of votes in the 2019 election but jumped to 7.3% in 2022. It could collect more than double that this time, polls suggest, if a protest vote materializes.
A key question is whether the Social Democrats will end up needing the votes of Chega! to make up a parliamentary majority after eight years in opposition.
The Socialist Party could, as in the past, forge parliamentary alliances with the Portuguese Communist Party or Left Bloc party to take power.
Socialist leader Pedro Nuno Santos, his party’s candidate for prime minister, is a lawmaker and a former minister for housing and infrastructure. Santos, 46, quit the previous government under a cloud over his handling of bailed-out flag carrier TAP Air Portugal and a dispute over the site of a new Lisbon airport.
Luís Montenegro, the 51-year-old Social Democrat leader aiming to become prime minister, has been a lawmaker for more than 20 years. He heads the Democratic Alliance, a grouping with two smaller right-of-center parties formed for the election.
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9 Killed in South Africa Crash After Attending ANC Election Rally
Cape Town — Nine people were killed in a road crash in South Africa on Sunday after attending an election rally by President Cyril Ramaphosa and his ruling African National Congress party.
The ANC supporters were traveling on a bus back to their home province of Mpumalanga the morning after Saturday’s rally in the eastern city of Durban, the ANC said in a statement. The bus left the road and overturned, police said.
Emergency services said 17 people were hurt in the crash near the small town of Paulpietersburg, around 360 kilometers (223 miles) north of Durban.
The ANC said that some of the injured were in critical condition. Provincial ANC officials were traveling to the crash scene and to the hospitals where the injured had been taken, the party said.
The ANC officially launched its election manifesto at Durban’s Moses Mabhida Stadium on Saturday in front of tens of thousands of supporters.
The May 29 national election could be the biggest threat yet to the ANC’s 30 years in government in South Africa, with opinion polls predicting the party could lose its majority for the first time since it came to power in 1994 following the end of apartheid.
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Polish Farmers Block Key Road Into Germany
Warsaw, Poland — Polish farmers on Sunday blocked a major highway into Germany in the latest such protest against EU regulations and taxes.
Farmers across Europe have been protesting for weeks over what they say are excessively restrictive environmental rules, competition from cheap imports from outside the European Union and low incomes.
On Sunday, farmers from Poland blocked the A2 motorway near Slubice, in the east on the border with Germany.
“The blockade began at 1:00 pm (1200 GMT). Both sides of the A2 motorway have been stopped,” Ewa Murmylo, a spokeswoman for local police, told AFP.
Initially the farmers had been planning a 25-day blockade but reduced it following talks with local representatives, businesses and transporters.
They have decided “to unblock the road probably tomorrow,” Monday, said Dariusz Wrobel, one of the Polish farmer organizers.
“This will depend on things that we can’t predict,” he told AFP. “We need to start taking ourselves seriously”.
On Monday, EU agriculture ministers are due to meet in Brussels.
They are to discuss new European Commission proposals aiming to change regulations at the heart of the discontent, for example reducing the number of checks on produce.
Polish farmers say they are targeting the European Union’s so-called Green Deal on energy, transportation and taxation, which is an element of the 27-nation’s bid to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
They say they have been especially hit by increased taxes and other rules.
The farmers have also blocked crossing points at Poland’s border with non-EU member Ukraine border to denounce what they say is unfair competition from their war-torn neighbor’s cheaper produce.
On Friday, Polish officials snubbed a delegation led by Ukraine’s prime minister seeking to resolve tensions caused by weeks-long Polish farmer protests at the shared border.
Polish authorities said they had never agreed to a border meeting over the demonstrations, which Ukraine says threaten its exports and are holding up deliveries of crucial weapons for its war against Russia, now entering its third year.
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Consumers Pushing Back Against Price Increases — And Winning
Washington — Inflation has changed the way many Americans shop. Now, those changes in consumer habits are helping bring down inflation.
Fed up with prices that remain about 19%, on average, above where they were before the pandemic, consumers are fighting back. In grocery stores, they’re shifting away from name brands to store-brand items, switching to discount stores or simply buying fewer items like snacks or gourmet foods.
More Americans are buying used cars, too, rather than new, forcing some dealers to provide discounts on new cars again. But the growing consumer pushback to what critics condemn as price-gouging has been most evident with food as well as with consumer goods like paper towels and napkins.
In recent months, consumer resistance has led large food companies to respond by sharply slowing their price increases from the peaks of the past three years. This doesn’t mean grocery prices will fall back to their levels of a few years ago, though with some items, including eggs, apples and milk, prices are below their peaks. But the milder increases in food prices should help further cool overall inflation, which is down sharply from a peak of 9.1% in 2022 to 3.1%.
Public frustration with prices has become a central issue in President Joe Biden’s bid for re-election. Polls show that despite the dramatic decline in inflation, many consumers are unhappy that prices remain so much higher than they were before inflation began accelerating in 2021.
Biden has echoed the criticism of many left-leaning economists that corporations jacked up their prices more than was needed to cover their own higher costs, allowing themselves to boost their profits. The White House has also attacked “shrinkflation,” whereby a company, rather than raising the price of a product, instead shrinks the amount inside the package. In a video released on Super Bowl Sunday, Biden denounced shrinkflation as a “rip-off.”
Consumer pushback against high prices suggests to many economists that inflation should further ease. That would make this bout of inflation markedly different from the debilitating price spikes of the 1970s and early 1980s, which took longer to defeat. When high inflation persists, consumers often develop an inflationary psychology: Ever-rising prices lead them to accelerate their purchases before costs rise further, a trend that can itself perpetuate inflation.
“That was the fear — that everybody would tolerate higher prices,” said Gregory Daco, chief economist at EY, a consulting firm, who notes that it hasn’t happened. “I don’t think we’ve moved into a high inflation regime.”
Instead, this time many consumers have reacted like Stuart Dryden, a commercial underwriter at a bank who lives in Arlington, Virginia. On a recent trip to his regular grocery store, Dryden, 37, pointed out big price disparities between Kraft Heinz-branded products and their store-label competitors, which he now favors.
Dryden, for example, loves cream cheese and bagels. A 12-ounce tub of Kraft’s Philadelphia cream cheese costs $6.69. The store brand, he noted, is just $3.19.
A 24-pack of Kraft single cheese slices is $7.69; the store label, $2.99. And a 32-ounce Heinz ketchup bottle is $6.29, while the alternative is just $1.69. Similar gaps existed with mac-and-cheese and shredded cheese products.
“Just those five products together already cost nearly $30,” Dryden said. The alternatives were less than half that, he calculated, at about $13.
“I’ve been trying private-label options, and the quality is the same and it’s almost a no-brainer to switch from the products I used to buy a ton of to just the private label,” Dryden said.
Alex Abraham, a spokesman for Kraft Heinz, said that its costs rose 3% in the final three months of last year but that the company raised its own prices only 1%.
“We are doing everything possible to find efficiencies in our factories and other parts of our business to offset and mitigate further price increases,” Abraham said.
Last week, Kraft Heinz said sales fell in the final three months of last year as more consumers traded down to cheaper brands.
Dryden has taken other steps to save money: A year ago, he moved into a new apartment after his previous landlord jacked up his rent by about 50%. His former apartment had been next to a relatively pricey grocery store, Whole Foods. Now, he shops at a nearby Amazon Fresh and has started visiting the discount grocer Aldi every couple of weeks.
Samuel Rines, an investment strategist at Corbu, says that PepsiCo, Kimberly-Clark, Procter & Gamble and many other consumer food and packaged goods companies exploited the rise in input costs stemming from supply-chain disruptions and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to dramatically raise their prices — and increase their profits — in 2021 and 2022.
A contributing factor was that millions of Americans enjoyed solid wage gains and received stimulus checks and other government aid, making it easier for them to pay the higher prices.
Still, some decried the phenomenon as “greedflation.” And in a March 2023 research paper, the economist Isabella Weber at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, referred to it as “seller’s inflation.”
Yet beginning late last year, many of the same companies discovered that the strategy was no longer working. Most consumers have now long since spent the savings they built up during the pandemic.
Lower-income consumers, in particular, are running up credit card debt and falling behind on their payments. Americans overall are spending more cautiously. Daco notes that overall sales during the holiday shopping season were up just 4% — and most of it reflected higher prices rather than consumers actually buying more things.
As an example, Rines points to Unilever, which makes, among other items, Hellman’s mayonnaise, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and Dove soaps. Unilever jacked up its prices 13.3% on average across its brands in 2022. Its sales volume fell 3.6% that year. In response, it raised prices just 2.8% last year; sales rose 1.8%.
“We’re beginning to see the consumer no longer willing to take the higher pricing,” Rines said. “So companies were beginning to get a little bit more skeptical of their ability to just have price be the driver of their revenues. They had to have those volumes come back, and the consumer wasn’t reacting in a way that they were pleased with.”
Unilever itself recently attributed poor sales performance in Europe to “share losses to private labels.”
Other businesses have noticed, too. After their sales fell in the final three months of last year, PepsiCo executives signaled that this year they would rein in price increases and focus more on boosting sales.
“In 2024, we see … normalization of the cost, normalization of inflation,” CEO Ramon Laguarta said. “So we see everything trending back to our long-term” pricing trends.
Jeffrey Harmening, CEO of General Mills, which makes Cheerios, Chex Cereal, Progresso soups and dozens of other brands, has acknowledged that his customers are increasingly seeking bargains.
And McDonald’s executives have said that consumers with incomes below $45,000 are visiting less and spending less when they do visit and say the company plans to highlight its lower-priced items.
“Consumers are more wary — and weary — of pricing, and we’re going to continue to be consumer-led in our pricing decisions,” Ian Borden, the company’s chief financial officer, told investors.
Officials at the Federal Reserve, the nation’s primary inflation-fighting institution, have cited consumers’ growing reluctance to pay high prices as a key reason why they expect inflation to fall steadily back to their 2% annual target.
“Firms are telling us that price sensitivity is very much higher now,” Mary Daly, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and a member of the Fed’s interest-rate setting committee, said last week. “Consumers don’t want to purchase unless they’re seeing a 10% discount. … This is a serious improvement in the role that consumers play in bridling inflation.”
Surveys by the Fed’s regional banks have found that companies across all industries expect to impose smaller price increases this year. The New York Fed says companies in its region plan to raise prices an average of about 3% this year, down from about 5% in 2023 and as much as 7% to 9% in 2022.
Such trends suggest that companies were well on their way to slowing their price hikes before Biden’s most recent attacks on price gouging.
Claudia Sahm, founder of SAHM Consulting and a former Fed economist, said, “consumers are more powerful than President Biden.”
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Belarusians Vote in Tightly Controlled Election; Opposition Calls for Boycott
TALLINN, Estonia — Polls opened Sunday in Belarus’ tightly controlled parliamentary and local elections that are set to cement the steely rule of the country’s authoritarian leader, despite calls for a boycott from the opposition, which dismissed the balloting as a “senseless farce.”
President Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus with an iron hand for nearly 30 years, accuses the West of trying to use the vote to undermine his government and “destabilize” the nation of 9.5 million people.
Most candidates belong to the four officially registered parties: Belaya Rus, the Communist Party, the Liberal Democratic Party and the Party of Labor and Justice. Those parties all support Lukashenko’s policies. About a dozen other parties were denied registration last year.
Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who is in exile in neighboring Lithuania after challenging Lukashenko in the 2020 presidential election, urged voters to boycott the elections.
“There are no people on the ballot who would offer real changes because the regime only has allowed puppets convenient for it to take part,” Tsikhanouskaya said in a video statement. “We are calling to boycott this senseless farce, to ignore this election without choice.”
Sunday’s balloting is the first election in Belarus since the contentious 2020 vote that handed Lukashenko his sixth term in office and triggered an unprecedented wave of mass demonstrations.
Protests swept the country for months, bringing hundreds of thousands into the streets. More than 35,000 people were arrested. Thousands were beaten in police custody, and hundreds of independent media outlets and nongovernmental organizations were shut down and outlawed.
Lukashenko has relied on subsidies and political support from his main ally, Russia, to survive the protests. He allowed Moscow to use Belarusian territory to send troops into Ukraine in February 2022.
The election takes place amid a relentless crackdown on dissent. Over 1,400 political prisoners remain behind bars, including leaders of opposition parties and renowned human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022.
The opposition says the early balloting that began Tuesday offers fertile ground for the vote to be manipulated, with ballot boxes unprotected for five days. Election officials said Sunday that over 40% of the country’s voters cast ballots during the five days of early voting. Turnout stood at 43.64% by 9 a.m. on Sunday, an hour after polls formally opened, according to the Belarusian Central Election Commission.
The Viasna Human Rights Center said students, soldiers, teachers and other civil servants were forced to participate in early voting.
“Authorities are using all available means to ensure the result they need — from airing TV propaganda to forcing voters to cast ballots early,” said Viasna representative Pavel Sapelka. “Detentions, arrests and searches are taking place during the vote.”
Speaking during Tuesday’s meeting with top Belarusian law enforcement officials, Lukashenko alleged without offering evidence that Western countries were pondering plans to stage a coup in the country or to try to seize power by force. He ordered police to beef up armed patrols across Belarus, declaring that “it’s the most important element of ensuring law and order.”
After the vote, Belarus is set to form a new state body — the 1,200-seat All-Belarus Popular Assembly that will include top officials, local legislators, union members, pro-government activists and others. It will have broad powers, including the authority to consider constitutional amendments and to appoint election officials and judges.
Lukashenko was believed a few years ago to be considering whether to lead the new body after stepping down, but his calculus has apparently changed, and now few observers expect him to step down after his current term ends next year.
For the first time, curtains were removed from voting booths at polling stations, and voters were banned from taking pictures of their ballots. During the 2020 election, activists encouraged voters to photograph their ballots in a bid to prevent authorities from manipulating the vote in Lukashenko’s favor.
Belarusian state TV aired footage of Interior Ministry drills in which police detained a purported offender who was photographing his ballot and others who created an artificial queue outside a polling station.
Belarus for the first time also refused to invite observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to monitor the election. Belarus is a member of the OSCE, a top trans-Atlantic security and rights group, and its monitors have been the only international observers at Belarusian elections for decades.
Since 1995, not a single election in Belarus has been recognized as free and fair by the OSCE.
The OSCE said the decision not to allow the agency’s monitors deprived the country of a “comprehensive assessment by an international body.”
“The human rights situation in Belarus continues to deteriorate as those who voice dissent or stand up for the human rights of others are subject to investigation, persecution and frequently prosecution,” it said in a statement.
Observers noted that authorities have not even tried to pretend that the vote is democratic.
The election offers the government an opportunity to run a “systems test after massive protests and a serious shock of the last presidential election and see whether it works,” said Artyom Shraibman, a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. “The parliament will be sterile after the opposition and all alternative voices were barred from campaigning. It’s important for authorities to erase any memory of the protests.”
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Why Aid Groups Are Warning of New Humanitarian Crisis in Eastern DR Congo
CAPE TOWN, South Africa — Aid organizations fear a new humanitarian crisis in the restive eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the armed rebel group M23 is in the midst of a new advance that threatens to cut off a major city and leave millions of people struggling for food and medical help.
Eastern Congo has been beset by conflict for years, with M23 among more than 100 armed groups vying for a foothold in the mineral-rich area near the border with Rwanda. Some have been accused of carrying out mass killings.
There’s been an upsurge in fighting in recent weeks between M23 rebels and Congo army forces, and it comes as the United Nations plans to withdraw peacekeepers from the region by the end of the year.
Tensions are also rising between Congo and Rwanda, with them blaming each other for supporting various armed groups. Congo accuses Rwanda of backing M23.
This weekend, the U.S. State Department condemned what it called the “worsening violence.” A group of aid agencies has estimated that 1 million people have already been displaced by fighting in the last three months.
Who are M23?
The March 23 Movement, or M23, is a rebel military group mainly made up of ethnic Tutsis that broke away from the Congolese army just over a decade ago. They staged a large offensive in 2012 and took over the provincial capital of Goma near the border with Rwanda, the same city they are threatening again.
The conflict has regional complications, with neighboring Rwanda also accused by the U.S. and U.N. experts of giving military aid to M23. Rwanda denies that but effectively admitted on Monday that it has troops and missile systems in eastern Congo. Rwanda said that is to safeguard its own security because of what it claims is a buildup of Congo army forces near the border. Rwanda has rejected calls from the U.S. to withdraw.
There are also ties to the Rwandan genocide of 30 years ago, with M23 and Rwanda saying separately that they are fighting a threat from a Congolese rebel group that is connected to the Congo army and partly made up of ethnic Hutus who were perpetrators of the 1994 genocide.
Congo-Rwanda tensions
Relations between Congo and its eastern neighbor have been fraught for decades. Hundreds of thousands of Rwandan Hutu refugees had fled to Congo, then Zaire, in the aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Among them were soldiers and militiamen responsible for the slaughter of 800,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
Two years after the genocide, Rwanda and Uganda invaded eastern Congo to try and root out what remained of those genocide perpetrators, which led to the toppling of then Congo President Mobutu Sese Seko.
Tensions between Congo and Rwanda escalated in 2021 with the resurgence of M23 attacks on Congolese soldiers after nearly a decade of relative inactivity due to a 2013 peace deal. The presence of so many armed groups is believed to be connected to illegal mining, with eastern Congo rich in gold and other minerals.
What’s happened in recent weeks?
M23 launched new attacks late last year and has ramped them up in recent weeks. The group is now threatening to take the key town of Sake, about 27 kilometersmwest of Goma. That could cause food and aid supplies to be cut off from Goma, which had a population of around 600,000 a few years ago, but now holds more than 2 million people, according to aid agencies, as people flee violence in surrounding towns and villages.
The advance of rebels on Sake “poses an imminent threat to the entire aid system” in eastern Congo, the Norwegian Refugee Council said. It said 135,000 people were displaced in just five days in early February.
The violence has also sparked protests from the capital, Kinshasa, to Goma, with angry demonstrators saying the international community is not doing enough to push back against M23 and not taking a hard enough stance against Rwanda.
What’s at stake?
The new fighting could lead to an escalation of regional tensions and involve more countries. As the U.N. winds down its 25-year peacekeeping mission in eastern Congo, a multi-national force under the southern African regional bloc is set to step in. That force will include soldiers from regional power South Africa, Malawi and Tanzania. They will help the Congo army forces, but it might put them in direct conflict with Rwanda.
There’s also the humanitarian cost. The International NGO Forum in Congo, a group of non-governmental organizations working in the region, said the escalation in fighting has involved artillery attacks on civilian settlements, causing a heavy toll and forcing many health and aid workers to withdraw.
Eastern Congo already had one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with nearly 6 million people previously displaced because of conflict, according to the U.N. Refugee Agency.
There are concerns a new disaster could largely go unnoticed because of the attention on the war in Gaza and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
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Productivity Surge Helps Explain US Economy’s Surprising Resilience
Washington — Trying to keep up with customer demand, Batesville Tool & Die began seeking 70 people to hire last year. It wasn’t easy. Attracting factory workers to a community of 7,300 in the Indiana countryside was a tough sell, especially having to compete with big-name manufacturers nearby like Honda and Cummins Engine.
Job seekers were scarce.
“You could count on one hand how many people in the town were unemployed,” said Jody Fledderman, the CEO. “It was just crazy.”
Batesville Tool & Die managed to fill just 40 of its vacancies.
Enter the robots. The company invested in machines that could mimic human workers and in vision systems, which helped its robots “see” what they were doing.
The Batesville experience has been replicated countlessly across the United States the past couple of years. Worker shortages have led many companies to invest in machines. They’ve also been training the workers they do have to use advanced technology so they can produce more with less.
The result has been an unexpected productivity boom, which helps explain a great economic mystery: How has the world’s largest economy stayed so healthy, with brisk growth and low unemployment, despite brutally high interest rates that are intended to tame inflation but that typically cause a recession?
To economists, strong productivity growth provides an almost magical elixir. When companies roll out more efficient technology, their workers can become more productive: They increase their output per hour. A result is that companies can often boost profits and raise pay without having to jack up prices. Inflation can remain in check.
The Fed’s aggressive streak of rate hikes — 11 of them starting in March 2022 — managed to bring inflation from a four-decade high of 9.1% to 3.1%. But, to the surprise to the economists who’d forecast a recession, the higher borrowing costs have caused little economic hardship.
Perhaps the likeliest explanation is the greater efficiencies that companies like Batesville Tool & Die have managed to achieve. Before productivity began its resurgent growth last year, a rule of thumb was that average hourly pay could rise no more than 3.5% annually for inflation to stay within the Fed’s 2% target. That would mean that today’s roughly 4% average annual pay growth would have to shrink. Higher productivity means there’s now more leeway for wage growth to stay elevated without igniting inflation.
The productivity boom marks a shift from the pre-pandemic years, when annual productivity growth averaged a tepid 1.5%. Everything changed as the economy rocketed out of the 2020 pandemic recession with unexpected vigor, and businesses struggled to re-hire the many workers they had shed.
The resulting worker shortage sent wages surging. Inflation jumped, too, as factories and ports buckled under the strain of rising consumer orders.
Desperate, many companies turned to automation. The efficiency payoff began to arrive almost a year ago. Labor productivity rose at a 3.6% annual pace from last April through June, 4.9% from July through September and 3.2% from October through December.
At Reata Engineering & Machine Works, “efficiency was kind of forced on us,” CEO Grady Cope said. With the job market roaring, the company, based in Englewood, Colorado, couldn’t hire fast enough. Meantime, its customers were starting to balk at paying higher prices.
So Reata installed robots and other technology. Software allowed it to automate the delivery of price quotes to customers. That process used to require two weeks. Now, it can be done in 24 hours.
Many economists and business people say they’re hopeful that the productivity boom can continue. Artificial intelligence, they note, is only beginning to penetrate factory floors, warehouses, stores and offices and could accelerate efficiency gains.
Automation raises fears that machines will replace human workers, killing jobs. Some workers supplanted by robots do often struggle to find new work and end up settling for lower pay.
Yet history suggests that in the long run, technological improvements actually create more jobs than they destroy. People are needed to build, upgrade, repair and operate sophisticated machines. Some displaced workers are trained to shift into such jobs. And that transition is likely to be eased this time by the retirement of the vast baby boom generation, which is causing labor shortages.
Some of today’s productivity gains may be coming not just from advanced technology but also from more satisfied workers. The tight labor markets of the past three years allowed Americans to change jobs and find others that pay better and make them happier and more productive.
Justin Thompson, of Kalamazoo, Michigan, felt burned out by his job as a police officer, with its 16-hour workdays .”I was literally running myself into the ground,” he said.
Thompson’s wife saw a job posting for operations manager at a charter airline. Even without airline experience, his wife felt he could use skills he gains as a Marine Corps infantryman — handling logistics for missions — during tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.
She was right. Omni Air International hired him in 2019.
Thompson, 43, loves the new job, which allows him to work from home when he’s not traveling. And his Marine experience — which included developing ways to improve efficiency — has proved invaluable.
Other workers have switched from low-skill jobs to those that allow them to be more productive.
At Reata Engineering, staffers were trained to use new sophisticated equipment.
“The whole point is not to lay people off,” said Cope, the CEO of Reata Engineering. “The point is to make people do jobs that are more interesting” — and pay better, too.
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Former President Trump Beats Former UN Ambassador Haley in Her State
Former US President Donald Trump won the Republican Presidential Primary in the Southern state of South Carolina on Saturday, defeating former US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley in her home state. But Haley vowed to continue her campaign through Super Tuesday in early March, when a block of US states will have their say in who runs against President Joe Biden in November. VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson has more.
Camera: Henry Hernandez and Ostap Yarysh
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Police Find 10th Body in Charred Spanish Apartment Block
VALENCIA, Spain — The death toll from a dramatic fire that left two residential buildings charred in the Spanish city of Valencia rose to 10 Saturday after authorities announced they had located the remains of what they believed was the last missing person.
Forensic police found the 10th victim inside the scorched building, national government delegate in Valencia Pilar Bernabé told journalists. Police will proceed with DNA testing to confirm the identities of all the victims, she said.
While there were no other missing persons reported, Bernabé stressed that police and firefighters would continue the “complex” work of combing through the building debris in search of any other possible victim.
It was not immediately known how many people were in the two buildings when the fire broke out, but the complex had some 140 apartments.
The blaze that appeared to begin in one home Thursday afternoon engulfed the rest of the 14-story apartment block in less than an hour, raising questions about whether construction materials used on the façade may have contributed to the fire spreading so furiously.
Neighbors described seeing the rapid evolution of the flames, with residents stuck on balconies and children screaming. Those left homeless from the fire, including many Ukrainian refugees who lived in the large residential complex, were initially given refuge in city hotels but were expected to be moved to other accommodation over the weekend.
Experts suggested that a type of cladding might have made the blaze spread faster. However, Valencia Mayor María José Catalá said the fire’s cause was still unknown and that it was too early to comment on whether some materials used in the construction of the modern complex might have worsened it.
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Republican Trying to Block Party From Paying Trump’s Legal Bills
COLUMBIA, S.C. — At least one member of the Republican National Committee is working to slow Donald Trump’s attempted takeover of the organization by pushing to keep the committee neutral until Trump is officially the presidential nominee and avoid picking up his legal bills.
Two draft resolutions are being circulated by Henry Barbour, a national committeeman from Mississippi, for consideration at the RNC’s upcoming March meeting in Houston. Barbour said support for the resolutions among RNC members is growing but he does not yet have the needed co-sponsors, and any resolutions would ultimately be nonbinding.
The effort comes after Trump last week publicly called to replace the RNC’s current leaders and install one of his senior campaign advisers and his daughter-in-law Lara Trump in top roles. Lara Trump suggested earlier in the week that GOP voters would support the committee paying her father-in-law’s legal bills as he faces a raft of criminal and civil indictments.
Trump senior campaign adviser Chris LaCivita, whom the former president wants to install as the party’s chief operating officer, told reporters Friday night that the RNC would not pay Trump’s legal bills.
In a statement on Saturday, LaCavita said “the primary is over and it is the RNC’s sole responsibility to defeat Joe Biden and win back the White House.”
“Efforts to delay that assist Joe Biden in the destruction of our nation,” he said. “Republicans cannot stand on the sidelines and allow this to happen.”
One of Barbour’s proposed resolutions says that the RNC and its leadership will stay neutral throughout the presidential primary and not take on additional staff from any of the active campaigns until a candidate has the needed delegates to be the nominee.
The second resolution says the organization will not pay the legal bills of any candidate for federal or state office but will instead focus its spending on efforts directly related to the 2024 election.
“The RNC has one job. That’s winning elections,” Barbour said. “I believe RNC funds should be spent solely on winning elections, on political expenses, not legal bills.”
The RNC was paying some of Trump’s legal bills for New York cases that started while he was president, The Washington Post reported. But current RNC Chairperson Ronna McDaniel said in November 2022 that the RNC would stop p
aying once Trump became a candidate again and started running for the 2024 presidential election.
Trump is spending millions on lawyers in civil cases and four criminal cases, but he also has legal debts that top half a billion dollars.
Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who is Trump’s last major challenger in the GOP primary, said a family member or campaign manager should not be leading the RNC.
“I would hope that the people in the RNC know that they have a responsibility, a responsibility to put in people in the RNC who are going to look out in the best interest of all of the Republican Party, not just one person,” Haley said.
The resolutions were first reported by The Dispatch on Saturday.
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New York City Owl Flaco Dies After Crashing Into Building
NEW YORK — Tributes poured in Saturday for Flaco, the beloved Eurasian eagle-owl that became a feel-good New York story after escaping its Central Park Zoo enclosure and flying free around Manhattan.
Flaco was found dead on a New York City sidewalk Friday night after apparently flying into a building. It was a heartbreaking end for the birders who documented the owl’s daily movements and the legions of admirers who eagerly followed along.
“Everybody feels the same, they’re devastated,” said Nicole Blair, a New York City artist who devoted much of her feed on the X platform to photos and memes featuring the celebrity owl with checkerboard black and brown feathers and round sunset-hued eyes.
Staff from the Wild Bird Fund, a wildlife rehabilitation center, declared Flaco dead shortly after the collision. A necropsy was expected Saturday.
Flaco was freed from his cage at the zoo a little over a year ago by a vandal who breached a waist-high fence and cut a hole through a steel mesh cage. The owl had arrived at the zoo as a fledgling 13 years earlier.
Flaco sightings soon became sport. The owl spent his days perched on tree branches, fence posts and fire escapes and nights hooting atop water towers and preying on the city’s abundant rats.
Like a true celebrity, the owl appeared on murals and merchandise. A likeness occupied a spot on Blair’s New York City-themed Christmas tree, right next to “Pizza Rat,” the infamous rodent seen in a YouTube clip dragging a slice down a subway stairwell.
“I got to see him on my birthday,” Blair said of her encounter with Flaco in Central Park in the fall. “It was kind of an unbelievable situation, and I’m like, this is the best birthday present ever.”
But she and others worried when Flaco ventured beyond the park into more urban sections of Manhattan, fearing the owl would ingest a poisoned rat or encounter other dangers.
“The vandal who damaged Flaco’s exhibit jeopardized the safety of the bird and is ultimately responsible for his death,” the zoo said in a statement Friday. “We are still hopeful that the NYPD which is investigating the vandalism will ultimately make an arrest.”
Flaco fans shared suggestions Saturday for a permanent bronze statue overlooking New York City. One requested that the owl’s remains be buried in Central Park.
“Flaco the owl was, in many ways, a typical New Yorker — fiercely independent, constantly exploring, finding ways to survive ever-changing challenges,” read a post on the X platform, reflecting a common sentiment. “He will be missed.”
David Barrett, who runs the Manhattan Bird Alert account, suggested a temporary memorial at the bird’s favorite oak tree in the park.
There, he wrote in a post, fellow birders could “lay flowers, leave a note, or just be with others who loved Flaco.”
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West Africa’s ECOWAS Bloc Lifts Sanctions on Junta-Led Niger
abuja, nigeria — The West African regional bloc said on Saturday it would lift strict sanctions on Niger as it seeks a new strategy to dissuade three junta-led states from withdrawing from the political and economic union, a move that threatens regional integration.
Leaders of the Economic Community of West African States met to address a political crisis in the coup-hit region that deepened in January with military-ruled Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali’s decision to exit the 15-member bloc.
After closed-door talks, ECOWAS said it had decided to lift Niger sanctions including border closures, the freezing of central bank and state assets, and the suspension of commercial transactions immediately.
In a statement, it said this was done for humanitarian reasons, but the move will be seen as a gesture of appeasement as ECOWAS tries to persuade the three junta states to remain in the nearly 50-year-old alliance. Their planned exit would bring a messy disentanglement from the bloc’s trade and services flows, worth nearly $150 billion a year.
The bloc “further urges the countries to reconsider the decision in view of the benefits that the ECOWAS member states and their citizens enjoy in the community,” it said.
It also said it had lifted certain sanctions on junta-led Guinea, which has not said it wants to leave ECOWAS but like other junta states has not committed to a timeline to return to democratic rule.
ECOWAS Commission President Omar Touray said some targeted sanctions and political sanctions remained place for Niger, without giving details.
Strategy rethink
Earlier, ECOWAS Chairman and Nigeria President Bola Tinubu said the bloc had to rethink its strategy in its bid to get countries to restore constitutional order. And he urged Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea “not to perceive our organization as the enemy.”
ECOWAS closed borders and imposed the strict measures on Niger last year after soldiers detained President Mohamed Bazoum on July 26 and set up a transitional government, one of a series of recent military takeovers that have exposed the bloc’s inability to halt democratic backsliding.
The sanctions have forced Niger, already one of the world’s poorest countries, to slash government spending and default on debt payments of more than $500 million.
In its statement, ECOWAS repeated its call for the release of Bazoum and its request for the junta to provide an “acceptable transition timetable.”
Niger’s coup followed two each in neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso over the past three years, leaving a swath of territory in the hands of military governments that have also moved to distance themselves from former colonial ruler France and other Western allies. The military also seized power in Guinea in 2021.
ECOWAS also imposed sanctions on Mali in a bid to hasten its return to constitutional order, although they were lifted in 2022.
The three countries have called ECOWAS’s sanctions strategy illegal and grounds for their decision to leave the bloc immediately without abiding by usual withdrawal terms.
The three have started cooperating under a pact known as the Alliance of Sahel States and sought to form a confederation, although it is not clear how closely they plan to align political, economic and security interests as they struggle to contain a decade-old battle with Islamist insurgents.
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South Africa’s ANC Launches Election Manifesto, Ramaphosa Lauds Party’s Gains
DURBAN, South Africa — South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa on Saturday highlighted the achievements of his African National Congress, which has ruled the country for all its 30 years of democracy, as it heads into a tight race in May’s election.
Ramaphosa delivered the party’s manifesto to thousands of ANC supporters at the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban on Saturday. The rally came as South Africa faces increasing poverty, unemployment and crime and a crippling electricity crisis.
Party supporters dressed in yellow, green and black party regalia packed the stadium and sang struggle songs praising Ramaphosa and the ANC, while others took advantage of the event to sell food, refreshments and party merchandise to the thousands attending.
A procession of motorbikes with bikers waving ANC flags was among the first displays to entertain the crowd before Ramaphosa arrived to the delight of supporters.
However, the tension surrounding this year’s elections was laid bare when some supporters entered the stadium grounds carrying a caricature coffin bearing the name of the uMkhonto we Sizwe political party, a new political organization formed by former ANC President Jacob Zuma.
The party is set to compete in this year’s elections after Zuma denounced the ANC.
In what has become somewhat of a popularity contest between parties to show who can pull in the biggest crowds to their election rallies, thousands of ANC supporters were bussed in from various parts of the country to ensure the stadium was full as early as possible.
The ANC also brought in popular musicians to entertain supporters. They performed after Ramaphosa’s speech, concluding with ANC slogans and colorful fireworks and confetti.
However, millions of South Africans will likely be more interested in whether the ANC can deliver on its promises and address the many challenges the country faces. These include stagnant economic growth, rising levels of poverty, unemployment, crime and a crippling electricity crisis that has resulted in rolling power blackouts.
According to Ramaphosa, the ANC plans to create more than 2.5 million job opportunities in the next five years. He said some of these would come from South Africa’s transition from coal-based power generation to cleaner energy.
“Our strategy will also meet the new global challenges of climate change. A balanced just transition to a cleaner, greener future can lead to new jobs and secure the competitiveness of our exports,” he said.
Ramaphosa dismissed the opposition parties looking to unseat the ANC in this year’s elections. “We are the only organization that can take South Africa forward,” he said.
The ANC manifesto attributes some of the challenges faced by the country to the COVID-19 pandemic, the electricity crisis, global political conflicts, the July 2021 unrest and climate change.
It also points out that the country’s economy has grown since 1994, that the ANC continues to provide social welfare and housing for millions of poor South Africans.
South Africa’s elections are expected to be highly contested, with some opposition parties joining forces to form a coalition if the ANC receives less than 50% of the national vote.
Over the last few weeks opposition parties have also launched their manifestos, promising to create jobs and bring an end to the electricity crisis, among other promises.
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UK Lawmaker Suspended After Accusing London Mayor of Being Controlled by Islamists
london — The U.K.’s governing Conservative Party has suspended ties with one if its lawmakers after he accused London Mayor Sadiq Khan of being controlled by Islamists, as tensions over the Israel-Hamas war roil British politics.
The party said Saturday that Lee Anderson was suspended after he refused to apologize for remarks made about Khan in a television interview Friday. The action means that Anderson, a deputy chairman of the Conservatives until last month, will sit in Parliament as an independent.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and other senior Conservative leaders had come under increasing pressure to reject the comments, which the chairwoman of the opposition Labor Party called “unambiguously racist and Islamophobic.”
The controversy comes as the Israel-Hamas war fuels tensions in British society. Pro-Palestinian marches in London have regularly drawn hundreds of thousands of demonstrators calling for an immediate cease-fire, even as critics describe the events as “antisemitic hate marches.” Figures released over the last week show that both anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim incidents have risen sharply since Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7.
That anger has spilled over into Parliament, where some lawmakers say they fear for their safety after receiving threats over their positions on the conflict in Gaza.
In his interview with GB News, Anderson criticized the police response to pro-Palestinian demonstrations in London, leveling the blame on Khan.
Anderson said he didn’t “actually believe that the Islamists have got control of our country, but what I do believe is they’ve got control of Khan and they’ve got control of London.”
Khan flatly rejected the allegations, telling the BBC that all forms of hatred need to be rejected, including antisemitism, Islamophobia and misogyny.
“My concern is there’ll be people across the country, people who are Muslim, or look like Muslims, who’ll be really concerned about entering into politics because they know if these are the sorts of comments that are said against me by a senior Conservative, what chance do they have?” he said.
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