The White House will roll out the red carpet for the first African leader to be hosted for a state visit since 2008. Kenyan President William Ruto will get a lavish state dinner and some deals, the White House says. But also on the table are Nairobi’s aims to leverage Washington’s largesse and influence after Kenya offered to send a peacekeeping force to Haiti. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from the White House.
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Month: May 2024
Habari! White House to welcome Kenyan president
The White House — The White House gave three reasons for inviting Kenyan President William Ruto on Thursday to break the 16-year drought during which no African leader has been honored with a pomp-filled state visit.
Those include the two governments’ shared democratic convictions and their like-minded approach in leveraging the private sector to meet government aims.
But the primary reason, the administration’s new top Africa policymaker told VOA, is Kenya’s recent decision to assert itself globally by offering 1,000 peacekeepers for Haiti. The first tranche of boots on the ground are expected to hit Haitian soil this week.
“We chose Kenya for a few reasons,” Frances Brown, senior director for African affairs at the National Security Council, told VOA during her first media interview since taking the post. “No. 1 is the Kenya-U.S. partnership has really grown from a regionally focused one to a globally focused one. We’ve been really pleased by the way that Kenyans have stepped up to play leadership [roles] beyond their region.”
Analysts say a state visit is a big deal.
“It is the highest diplomatic honor that our president can bestow,” said Cameron Hudson, a senior fellow in the Africa program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“It’s typically an indicator of a very close and important bilateral relationship. And so, elevating Kenya to the level of, let’s say, a Japan, which was the most recent country to have a state visit, I think it is symbolic. And it’s important for all the reasons that I just described as far as Kenya being on a level that we would give it the same privileges as one of our oldest and longest security partners,” Hudson said.
Brown said the administration aims to use the visit to reach agreements in areas like technology, climate management, debt relief and health.
And on the Haiti mission, Washington has signaled its approval: with $300 million in support.
“We’ve been working really closely with them,” Brown said. “As you may know, there’s been planning underway for a number of months. It has included policing experts from around the world working to develop a concept of operations. Kenya is not going it alone.”
Other priorities
Meanwhile, the Kenyan leader says his focus is on debt restructuring, and activists in the East African nation are sounding the alarm over human rights concerns.
Ruto, in Atlanta for his first stop of his four-day U.S. visit, said he’d use his time in Washington to “make a case for many countries in Africa, including Kenya, seeking to adjust international financial architecture.”
“Many countries are in economic and debt distress occasioned by climate change and compounded by an unjust international financial architecture and also an imperfect multilateralism,” he said.
“We now run the escalating risk of democracy and free markets being associated with poverty, and lending credit to the widespread lamentation that democracy is or has been on the retreat in many parts of the world, including Africa,” Ruto added.
But human rights advocates in Nairobi told VOA they hope American leadership will also raise what they see as serious concerns, like reports of abuses by Kenyan police, who are taking the lead in the Haiti mission.
“We see this as a really excellent opportunity to focus on governance, human rights and rule of law, for many reasons,” Irungu Houghton, executive director for Amnesty International Kenya, told VOA. “Both the United States and Kenya are nations that projected themselves as essentially, nations that believe in these values, and the state dinner is an opportunity really to focus on that.”
Others highlight a tightening of public expression, especially over the hot-button issue of the Gaza war. Many African nations have criticized Israel’s behavior in the conflict, but Kenya’s government has kept largely quiet.
“Especially within the Muslim community in Kenya, we’ve had persons trying to protest them and to picket on this issue, but they had a very, very hard time having access to the streets, because every time they go out, the police arrest them,” said Demas Kiprono, who leads the Kenyan section of the International Commission of Jurists.
Others say they hope American leadership will voice concerns over a pending Kenyan law that they say targets sexual minorities.
“It’s criminalizing things even like pronouns. It’s criminalizing things like using [gender] neutral toilets. It’s a horrible, horrible law that is being financed by Family Watch International — that’s the same organization that financed the Uganda bill and all the (LGBTQ)-related bills basically in Africa and even in the U.S.,” said activist and organizer Yvonne Muthoni.
Family Watch International is a conservative Christian American lobbying group. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks extremist groups, says it “works within the United Nations and with countries around the world to further anti-LGBT and anti-choice stances.”
“We are looking at violence that is coming from this. Whether it’s online or physical violence, we are seeing a rise in the number of cases that are being reported, in the number of complaints, in the rallies that are being called for. So, it is quite a scary time for Kenya right now,” Muthoni said.
The view from here and there
At the White House this week, a large Kenyan flag was displayed alongside an American flag, each covering the height of an entire story of the hulking gray Eisenhower Executive Building. Workers erected massive white sails around the White House’s North Portico, where the Bidens plan to formally welcome the Rutos.
Meanwhile, the day after Ruto departed Nairobi — likely traversing the new Chinese-built superhighway that cuts the city in half and ends at the airport — one had to scroll far down on news to find mention of his American jaunt.
Instead, the nation’s prominent newspapers focused on issues that Kenyans wrestle with daily. The Standard’s front page wrote of 850,000 new jobs last year — close to the 900,000 the World Bank says is needed to sustain economic growth in the lower middle-income country.
That coverage mirrors Kenyans’ priorities, Houghton said.
“Most Kenyans are economically distressed,” he said. “They are very concerned about the cost of living. Thousands of them went onto the streets last year and almost rendered the country ungovernable in certain counties because they felt that the crippling number of taxes that had been introduced were essentially not making it possible for them to survive. We’ve seen a deterioration in terms of the services, education, health and otherwise. … So, there is a very clear disproportionate, I guess, energy around this visit.”
Farhad Pouladi contributed to this report from the White House.
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Blinken: Gaza cease-fire still possible, but ICC move complicates efforts
state department — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday that a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas militants in return for the release of hostages remains possible, but the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants for Israeli leaders hindered ongoing efforts.
“There’s been an extensive effort made in recent months to get that agreement. I think we came very, very close on a couple of occasions. Qatar, Egypt, others participating in the efforts to do this — we remain at it every single day. I think that there’s still a possibility,” Blinken told lawmakers during a hearing at the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.
But Blinken said the “extremely wrongheaded decision” by the ICC prosecutor to seek arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister, defense minister and three Hamas leaders in Gaza for war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with the Israel-Hamas war complicated the prospects of reaching such a deal.
On Monday, U.S. President Joe Biden denounced the ICC prosecutor’s decision to equate Hamas terror attacks and civilian abductions in southern Israel with Israel’s military practices in Gaza, calling the ICC prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants “outrageous.”
Blinken said he will be happy to work with the Congress “on an appropriate response.”
Some lawmakers are considering legislation to sanction ICC officials for prosecuting U.S. citizens or allies, including Israel.
The top U.S. diplomat began two days of congressional testimonies, which were immediately interrupted by protesters holding signs that read “war criminal.” They were escorted out of the hearing room by Capitol Police.
Military operation in Rafah
In the nearly three-hour hearing, Blinken also said the Biden administration remains “very concerned” about a major military operation by Israel in Rafah.
The U.S. has opposed a full-scale military assault by Israel in Rafah, situated in the southern part of Gaza. Such an operation would endanger the lives of 1.3 million civilians who evacuated from the northern and central areas of the territory to seek safety from Israel’s military response to Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel.
Israel’s military campaign has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians and wounded nearly 80,000, most of them civilians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The offensive was launched following a Hamas terror attack into Israel that killed 1,200 people.
US-Saudi defense pact
U.S. officials said the United States and Saudi Arabia are nearing a final agreement on a bilateral defense pact.
Once complete, it will be part of a broader deal presented to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who must decide whether to make concessions to his opposition regarding the establishment of a Palestinian state to secure normalization with Saudi Arabia.
On Tuesday, Blinken admitted that Israel might be reluctant to accept a normalization deal with Saudi Arabia if it requires them to agree to a Palestinian state.
In his testimony before the U.S. Congress, Blinken told Democratic Senator Chris Murphy “the overall package could not go forward, absent other things that have to happen for normalization to proceed.”
“And in particular,” he said, “the Saudis have been very clear that would require calm in Gaza. And it would require a credible pathway to a Palestinian state. And it may well be, as you said, that in this moment, Israel is not able or willing to proceed down that pathway.”
Blinken added that Israel must “decide whether it wants to proceed and take advantage of the opportunity” to achieve something that it has sought since its founding: normal relations with the countries in the region.
Netanyahu has rejected the two-state solution and the return of the Palestinian Authority controlling Gaza, demands that are widely supported by the international community.
The Saudis have demanded, as a prerequisite to normalizing ties with Israel, to see an Israeli commitment to the two-state solution.
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Women in Botswana watch from sidelines as country prepares for election
Gaborone, Botswana — As Botswana prepares for general elections in October, the number of women running for office remains low.
Political parties have finalized their list of candidates for the 2024 vote, and the majority of contestants are male. In the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP), out of nearly 200 candidates for the National Assembly, only 20 are women.
In the last general election, only 5% of women were elected to the National Assembly.
Gender activist Pamela Dube said the situation is concerning, especially given how few women were elected in 2019.
“The pertaining state of affairs in women’s political participation in Botswana is saddening. While statistically, women make [up] more than 50% of voters, women’s representation in elected positions remains very low,” Dube said. “I have serious doubt that we will see an improvement in the upcoming October elections.”
Botswana falls short of the framework established by the regional bloc the Southern Africa Development Community for achieving gender parity. The group’s policy advocates equal representation in political and decision-making positions.
Dube said the governing BDP should create gender quotas in order to push for legislated seat allocation.
“Botswana has no such laws, or even constitutional provisions. It is even sadder that the constitution review bill that is before parliament is silent in this regard,” Dube said.
Spokesperson for opposition coalition the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC), Moeti Mohwasa, said the country’s electoral laws do not favor women.
Botswana uses the first-past-the-post system, where voters choose a single candidate, as opposed to a list.
“You cannot expect the very same set-up or situation that is patriarchal, conservative to allow women to rise and occupy positions of authority,” Mohwasa said. “Our position is that you need to have the mixed system, which will have the current first-past-the-post and also the list system. If you look at countries that have the list systems, you realize that women are much more empowered.”
Maputo-based Women in Political Participation (WPP) programs officer Sifisosami Dube said Botswana should have amended its electoral laws under a recent constitutional review process.
“There is a need to handhold women in political leadership from the time they are campaigning, or when they are thinking about campaigning, to the time they will be in elections and to the time they are in political leadership positions. Because once they are in political offices, it is quite cold out there; they need to be continuously motivated,” WPP’s Dube said.
While Botswana struggles to get more women into politics, countries like Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania and Zimbabwe have more than 30% women representation in upper and lower houses of parliament.
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Biden and Trump compete for women’s votes
Women voters are more than half of the U.S. electorate. VOA Correspondent Scott Stearns reports on what presidential candidates Joe Biden and Donald Trump are doing to win women’s votes.
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UN official: ‘Real and growing’ risk of genocide in Sudan
New York — The U.N. special adviser on the prevention of genocide warned Tuesday that Sudan exhibits all the risk signs of genocide, and it may already have been committed.
“The protection of civilians in Sudan cannot wait,” Alice Nderitu said. “The risk of genocide exists in Sudan. It is real and it is growing, every single day.”
Nderitu addressed a meeting of the U.N. Security Council to mark the 25th anniversary of a resolution on the protection of civilians in armed conflict and the 75th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions.
She said many Sudanese civilians are targeted based on their identity.
“In Darfur and El Fasher, civilians are being attacked and killed because of the color of their skin, because of their ethnicity, because of who they are,” Nderitu said in a video briefing. “They are also targeted with hate speech and with direct incitement to violence.”
El Fasher is the capital of North Darfur, where fighting has recently escalated between the rival Sudanese Armed Forces, or SAF, based inside the city, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, who have now reportedly advanced into it.
El Fasher is the only city in the Darfur region that the RSF has not captured. More than 800,000 civilians are sheltering there, and a full-scale battle could unleash atrocities similar to those of the genocide carried out by Arab Janjaweed fighters against African Zaghawa, Masalit, Fur and other non-Arab ethnic groups in Darfur in the early 2000s.
Janjaweed fighters make up today’s RSF.
“Ethnically motivated attacks targeting these specific groups — the Masalit, and also the Fur and the Zaghawa — have been, and reportedly continue, being conducted primarily by RSF and allied armed Arab militias,” Nderitu said. “They are reported to act in patterns whereby attacks against specific locations and individuals tend to be announced in advance, which could constitute indication of clear intent to destroy.”
Intent to destroy is a key part of the crime of genocide.
Nderitu said attacks reported on villages around El Fasher appear intended to cause displacement and fear, rather than accomplish specific military objectives.
“It is imperative that all possible actions aimed at the protection of innocent civilian populations, in El Fasher as in the entire territory of Sudan, are expedited,” she said. “It is urgent to stop ethnically motivated violence.”
Nderitu visited refugees in neighboring Chad in October and said she saw camps set up there in the early 2000s to house civilians fleeing that genocide, side-by-side with camps for the new refugees.
In West Darfur, she said Masalit communities have been targeted, with many people killed as they fled to Chad or during the conflict.
She criticized both the RSF and SAF for ignoring international human rights and humanitarian law, for using heavy weaponry in densely populated areas, for arresting youth and men at checkpoints, and for using hate speech and inciting people to violence.
The special adviser expressed particular alarm about the use of rape and gender-based violence, the burning and looting of villages, the bombing of medical facilities and the lack of access to water and electricity.
Famine is also stalking parts of Sudan due to the 13-month-old war, and Nderitu said access to humanitarian assistance is urgent.
She told Security Council members they have a “special responsibility” to consider measures to prevent another genocide in Sudan.
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Rudy Giuliani pleads not guilty to felony charges in Arizona election interference case
Phoenix, Arizona — Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani pleaded not guilty Tuesday to nine felony charges stemming from his role in an effort to overturn Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss in Arizona to Joe Biden.
Giuliani appeared remotely for the arraignment that was held in a Phoenix courtroom. His trial will take place in October.
Former Arizona Republican Party chair Kelli Ward and at least 11 other people were also arraigned Tuesday for conspiracy, forgery and fraud charges in a Phoenix courtroom. She and nine others have so far pleaded not guilty. Her trial date is set for Oct. 17, about 3 weeks before the U.S. election.
During his remote appearance, Giuliani said he did not have an attorney at this time but will. When asked by the court whether he needed counsel appointed for the arraignment, Giuliani said: “No, no, I think I am capable of handling it myself.”
Giuliani said he received a summons but did not have a copy of the indictment. He said he is familiar with the charges, though, by reading about them.
Arizona authorities tried unsuccessfully over several weeks to serve Giuliani notice of the indictment against him. Giuliani was finally served Friday night as he was walking to a car after his 80th birthday celebration in Florida.
On Tuesday, in response to the prosecutors request for a $10,000 cash bond after outlining the difficulty in serving Giuliani in the case, Giuliani said: “I have a fair number of threats including death threats, and I don’t have security anymore …so I have very strict rules about who gets up and who doesn’t.”
The judge required Giuliani to post a secured appearance bond of $10,000 as well as appear in Arizona within the next 30 days for booking procedures.
Arizona authorities unveiled the felony charges last month against Republicans who submitted a document to Congress falsely declaring Trump, a Republican, had won Arizona. The defendants include five lawyers connected to the former president and two former Trump aides. Biden, a Democrat, won Arizona by more than 10,000 votes.
The indictment alleges Ward, a former state senator who led the GOP in Arizona from 2019 until early 2023, organized the fake electors and urged then-Vice President Mike Pence to declare them to be the state’s true electors. It says Ward failed to withdraw her vote as a fake elector even though no legal challenges changed the outcome of the presidential race in Arizona.
Last week, attorney John Eastman, who devised a strategy to try to persuade Congress not to certify the election, was the first defendant in the case to be arraigned, pleading not guilty to the charges.
Trump himself was not charged in the Arizona case but was referred to as an unindicted co-conspirator.
Arizona is the fourth state where allies of the former president have been charged with using false or unproven claims about voter fraud related to the election.
The 11 people who claimed to be Arizona’s Republican electors met in Phoenix on Dec. 14, 2020, to sign a certificate saying they were “duly elected and qualified” electors and asserting that Trump carried the state. A one-minute video of the signing ceremony was posted on social media by the Arizona Republican Party at the time. The document was later sent to Congress and the National Archives, where it was ignored.
Of eight lawsuits that unsuccessfully challenged Biden’s victory in the state, one was filed by the 11 fake Arizona electors, who had asked a federal judge to decertify the results and block the state from sending its results to the Electoral College. In dismissing the case, the judge concluded the Republicans had “failed to provide the court with factual support for their extraordinary claims.” Days after that lawsuit was dismissed, the 11 participated in the certificate signing.
Those set to be arraigned Tuesday are Ward; Tyler Bowyer, an executive of the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA; state Sen. Anthony Kern; Greg Safsten, a former executive director of the Arizona Republican Party; Robert Montgomery, a former chairman of the Cochise County Republican Committee; Samuel Moorhead, a Republican precinct committee member in Gila County; Nancy Cottle, who in 2020 was the first vice president of the Arizona Federation of Republican Women; Loraine Pellegrino, past president of the Ahwatukee Republican Women; Michael Ward, an osteopathic physician who is married to Ward; attorneys Jenna Ellis and Christina Bobb; and Michael Roman, who was Trump’s 2020 director of Election Day operations.
Arraignments are scheduled for June 6 for state Sen. Jake Hoffman; on June 7 for former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows; and on June 18 for Trump attorney Boris Epshteyn and for James Lamon, another Republican who claimed Trump carried the state.
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Behind Putin and Xi’s embrace, Russia is junior partner, analysts say
LONDON — Chinese President Xi Jinping is not known for public displays of affection.
So Xi’s double embrace of his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, last week — broadcast by Chinese and Russian state television — was widely seen as a calculated signal to the world of a blossoming personal and geopolitical relationship.
Putin’s visit to China underlined burgeoning economic ties between Moscow and Beijing as the two countries signed a series of agreements aimed at forging closer cooperation, even as the West tries to isolate Moscow following its invasion of Ukraine.
Personal warmth
The show of personal warmth was matched by a series of lavish state ceremonies, ostensibly marking the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations.
“It is a shared strategic choice of both countries to deepen strategic cooperation, expand mutually beneficial cooperation and follow the general historical trend of multipolarity in the world and economic globalization,” Xi told Putin during the talks in Beijing on May 16.
Putin praised increased bilateral trade between Russia and China, which had, he said, reached an annual $240 billion — and touted his ambitions to sell more oil and gas to Beijing.
“Russia is ready and capable of uninterruptedly and reliably supplying the Chinese economy, enterprises, cities, towns with environmentally friendly, affordable energy, light and heat,” Putin said following a visit to the northern Chinese city of Harbin.
Deepened cooperation
The Russian leader’s visit to China achieved its aims, according to Liana Fix of the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations.
“(Coming) shortly after Putin’s inauguration, it had a legitimizing effect for his fifth term as president on the international stage, demonstrating that even if the West does not accept his elections as free and fair, China sees him as the legitimate leader.
“Second, it served the purpose of deepening defense cooperation between these two countries, especially by circumventing U.S. sanctions on Chinese financial institutions for financing Russia‘s war effort, and by facilitating further Chinese deliveries to Russia‘s war machine,” Fix told VOA in an email.
European snub
Putin’s visit to China came days after Xi traveled to Europe, where EU leaders tried to persuade him to end support for Russia’s war on Ukraine. It’s clear they failed, said analyst Velina Tchakarova, founder of the FACE geopolitical consultancy.
“China provides the main lifeline for Russia. But China also practically set the stage for Russia to not get internationally isolated. Russia officially has announced that it’s going in the direction of a long war that it wants to win, and here we see clearly that China is taking the side of Russia,” Tchakarova told VOA.
That alliance — what Tchakarova calls the “DragonBear” — has ramifications beyond Ukraine.
“These kind of wars, as the one being waged right now in Europe [in Ukraine], and similarly the one in the Middle East [between Israel and Hamas], and obviously also the military tensions in the Indo-Pacific — these are hotspots, military conflicts and wars that are to be seen in this context of emerging ‘Cold War 2.0’ between the United States on the one hand, and China and Russia, or the ‘DragonBear’ on the other,” Tchakarova told VOA.
Democratic threat
Xi and Putin are united by geopolitical aims, and their autocratic ideals threaten democratic societies, according to author Anne Applebaum, a staff writer at The Atlantic magazine.
“What they have in common is their dislike of the democratic world, their dislike of democratic language, and the ideals of freedom and justice and rule of law and transparency,” Applebaum said. “And they are willing to join together to fight against them. It’s a full-on central challenge from the autocratic world to them, and it’s attacking both their citizens and their allies around the world, and we need to face it.”
Unbalanced relations
The relationship is tilted heavily in China’s favor, Applebaum said.
“They may have an interest in weakening Russia. A weaker Russia has to sell them oil and gas at lower prices. A weaker Russia is a more pliable ally, is a weaker player on the stage. And maybe they’re hoping for that. It’s pretty clear already that Russia is the junior partner in this alliance, which isn’t something that we would have thought possible a couple of decades ago,” she told VOA.
Putin is due to host Xi at the October BRICS summit in Russia, as both countries seek to galvanize global support for their vision of Beijing and Moscow as major players in a new, multipolar world.
VOA’s Russian Service contributed to this report.
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Behind Putin and Xi’s embrace, Russia is junior partner, analysts say
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to China last week underlined the burgeoning economic and geopolitical ties between Moscow and Beijing, amid Russia’s war on Ukraine. But as Henry Ridgwell reports, analysts say China could seek to exploit its relationship with a weakened and isolated Russia.
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African spelling bee cultivates students’ passion for reading
Children across Africa are competing for a spot in the finals of the African Spelling Bee, which will be held in Abuja, Nigeria, in December. We caught up with one hopeful speller at the recent South African regional finals. VOA’s Zaheer Cassim reports.
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Gunmen kill some 40 people in attack in north-central Nigeria
Lagos, Nigeria — Gunmen riding motorbikes killed around 40 people in a raid on a mining community in north-central Nigeria, opening fire on residents and torching homes, the local government said on Tuesday.
The attack late Monday in Wase district in Plateau state was the latest violence in an area that has long been a flashpoint for disputes over resources and outbreaks of intercommunal clashes.
Armed men invaded Zurak community, shooting sporadically and torching houses, Plateau’s state commissioner for information, Musa Ibrahim Ashoms, told AFP by telephone.
“As we speak, about 40 people have been confirmed dead. Zurak is a popular mining community,” he said.
Local youth leader Shafi’i Sambo said at least 42 people had been killed in the raid.
Wase has deposits of zinc and lead, while Plateau as a whole is known for its tin mining industry.
Sitting on the dividing line between Nigeria’s mostly Muslim north and predominantly Christian south, Plateau often sees outbreaks of violence sparked by disputes between nomadic herders and pastoral farmers.
Climate change has escalated tensions over grazing land, water access and other resources, such as the state’s metal reserves.
Parts of northwest and north-central Nigeria have also been terrorized by heavily armed criminal gangs, who raid villages to loot and carry out mass kidnappings for ransom.
In January, intercommunal clashes erupted in Plateau’s Mangu town that left churches and mosques burned, more than 50 people dead and thousands displaced.
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Samsung to expand chip output from Texas
The Biden administration last month announced $6.4 billion in direct funding to back South Korean tech giant Samsung’s new semiconductor cluster in central Texas. That means big changes for the town of Taylor. Deana Mitchell has our story
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Southern Africa seeks $5.5B in aid to fight El Nino effects
Gaborone, Botswana — Southern African leaders have launched a $5.5 billion humanitarian aid appeal as the region faces acute grain shortages due to El Nino-induced droughts.
Leaders from the region’s bloc, the Southern African Development Community (SADC), met Monday to deliberate on the crisis following widespread drought and flooding that has left millions without enough to eat.
In a communiqué released after the virtual meeting, leaders from 15 SADC member states agreed to launch an appeal to help affected populations.
The leaders said the SADC Regional Humanitarian Appeal will augment domestic resources in response to the impact of El Nino weather patterns.
El Nino resulted in warmer and drier conditions, leading to record-breaking droughts across the region in 2023 and the beginning of 2024.
SADC executive secretary Elias Magosi said the humanitarian appeal will be revised in August as more member states finalize their assessments on the impact of El Nino and look toward an expected change to the La Nina weather pattern later this year.
“Summit called member states to be proactive and strengthen anticipatory action programs to mitigate climate risks such as the La Nina phenomenon, which is projected for the 2024-2025 season,” Magosi said.
Magosi said the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the Food and Agriculture Organization have pledged a combined $43 million toward the humanitarian appeal.
Angolan President Joao Lourenco, who chaired the Monday meeting, appealed to the international community to respond.
“This is a very important step taken by the organization (SADC) by launching this humanitarian appeal and we hope that there will be good feedback on the part of the international community of support to help us overcome this difficult moment that the region is facing,” Lourenco said.
El Nino has resulted in widespread crop failure within Southern Africa and has resulted in national emergency declarations in Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
your ad hereUS expects South Korea and Japan to manage ties with China at summit amid growing differences
WASHINGTON — Ahead of a trilateral summit involving South Korea, Japan, and China this weekend in Seoul, Washington said it expects the event to be an opportunity for its two allies to manage their relations with Beijing.
“The United States respects the ability of nations to make sovereign decisions in the best interests of their people,” said a spokesperson for the State Department.
“Just as the United States takes steps to responsibly manage our relationship with the PRC, so do our partners and allies,” the spokesperson continued in an email to VOA’s Korean Service on May 15. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is China’s official name.
The summit would come amid a heightened tension between Washington and Beijing over trade and after China agreed with Russia to establish a “new era” partnership to create “a multipolar world order” during their summit last week.
The three East Asian countries are expected to hold their summit from May 26 to 27, but the official dates have not been announced. Chinese Premier Li Qiang is expected to attend in place of Chinese President Xi Jinping to meet with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
The meeting would be their first trilateral summit since December 2019.
Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told VOA on May 14 that Beijing, Tokyo and Seoul should be main drivers responsible for regional stability and security.
Pointing out what Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said after a trilateral foreign ministers meeting in November, Pengyu said the three countries need to “address differences and disputes in peaceful ways” and “act as front runner of East Asia cooperation.”
Seoul, Tokyo and Beijing are planning to discuss trade and investment, peace and security, and science and technology, among other items and include in a joint statement their cooperation on economic issues and infectious diseases, according to the Japan Times, citing Japanese government sources Sunday.
Former U.S. officials said while it will be important for the three countries to meet and talk at the summit, differences that Seoul and Tokyo have with Beijing on North Korea are unlikely to be resolved.
“With China determined to establish a new China-centric regional order and because of Beijing’s open-ended support for the DPRK, we should not expect progress on this issue,” said Evans Revere, a State Department official with extensive experience negotiating with North Korea.
North Korea’s official name is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).
“Nevertheless, it is important for South Korea and Japan to use this summit to convey their strong concerns,” Revere continued.
At a bilateral summit last week, Beijing and Moscow criticized Washington and its allies for their “intimidation in the military sphere” against North Korea.
Zhao Leji, who ranks third in the Chinese Communist Party, visited Pyongyang in April and agreed with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to boost cooperation on mutual concerns. It was the highest-level talks the two countries had held in years.
The upcoming summit comes after trilateral cooperation was agreed among Washington, Seoul and Tokyo at their Camp David summit in August 2023 to strengthen their deterrence against North Korean threats and to defend a free and open Indo-Pacific against Chinese aggressions.
Joseph DeTrani, who served as the U.S. special envoy for six-party denuclearization talks with North Korea from 2003 to 2006, said, “China will ask that the ROK and Japan not to align with the U.S. against China, an issue that wasn’t on the table in 2019.”
South Korea’s official name is the Republic of Korea (ROK).
DeTrani said Seoul and Tokyo will “try to get China to convince North Korea to cease providing arms to Russia for its war in Ukraine” and “to use its leverage” with Pyongyang “to halt ballistic missile launches.”
Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of Kim Jong Un, denied Pyongyang’s arms dealings with Moscow, according to state-run KCNA on Friday. The same day, North Korea launched a tactical ballistic missile, said KCNA.
Gary Samore, who served as the White House coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction during the Obama administration, said the summit will become “an opportunity for communication” among Seoul, Tokyo and Beijing to avoid conflict, but the differences that grew among them since 2019 will not be resolved as South Korea and Japan “leaned in the direction of cooperating with the U.S.”
Eunjung Cho contributed to this report.
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