Putin Welcomes African Peace Mission Bid – SA Leader

 South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin have spoken over the phone about the upcoming peace mission by six African leaders to Russia and Ukraine.

“President Putin has welcomed the initiative by African heads of state and expressed his desire to receive the peace mission,” a statement from the South African presidency said.

On Tuesday, the African leaders involved had held discussions “exploring ways of bringing an end to the conflict”, it added.
The other leaders in the peace bid are from the Comoros, Egypt, Senegal, Uganda and Zambia – and according to a statement from the presidency on Wednesday, all said they were available to travel in mid-June.

“The leaders agreed that they would engage with both President Putin and President [Volodymyr] Zelensky on the elements for a ceasefire and a lasting peace in the region.”
Their foreign ministers were now in the process of finalizing the elements of a road map to peace, it added.
Separately a Russia-Africa summit is scheduled to take place at the end of July in St Petersburg, the presidency said.

Source: BBC

……………………………………………………………

Nearly 300 Children Rescued From Sudan Orphanage

 Nearly 300 children have been safely rescued from an orphanage in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, aid agencies say.

They had been staying at the Mygoma Orphanage, where more than 70 children are reported to have died from hunger and illness since the conflict in Sudan broke out in mid-April.

The orphanage was in an area of the city “where the conflict has been raging”, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
Aged between one month and 15 years, the 297 children have been taken to Wad Madani, about 200km (125 miles) from Khartoum, it said.

They are now at a transit centre and the UN children’s agency (Unicef) says it is working with the relevant authorities in identifying foster families for them.
“The safe movement of these incredibly vulnerable children to a place of safety offers a ray of light in the midst of the ongoing conflict in Sudan,” said Mandeep O’Brien, a Unicef representative.

Source: BBC

………………………………………………………

Fuel subsidy cut will save Nigeria but impose burden: President

 The subsidy removal has angered Nigerian labour unions but they have suspended an indefinite strike after talks with the government.

Nigeria’s new President Bola Tinubu has said his decision to remove a popular petrol subsidy would impose an extra burden on citizens but would free up money for education, regular power supply, transport infrastructure and healthcare.

“I admit that the decision will impose extra burden on the masses of our people. I feel your pain,” Tinubu said on Monday in a broadcast to mark Democracy Day.

The subsidy had kept petrol prices cheap for decades in Africa’s biggest economy but it became increasingly costly for the country – the government spent $10bn last year – leading to wider budget deficits and driving up government debt.

Petrol prices have nearly tripled in Nigeria, angering unions and causing a spike in transport costs. It has also hit small businesses and millions of households who rely on petrol generators for power due to intermittent grid supply.

It was his first public comment since announcing the petrol subsidy removal after his swearing-in on May 29.

Nigerians, the president said, should bear the decision to “save our country from going under”.

“The government I lead will repay you through massive investment in transportation infrastructure, education, regular power supply, healthcare and other public utilities that will improve the quality of lives.”

He did not give a timeline of when this would happen.

The Nigerian government introduced an oil subsidy to cushion the effect of rising global oil prices in the 1970s. The Olusegun Obasanjo military regime formalised the subsidy in 1977 when it promulgated the Price Control Act which regulated prices of items including fuel.

Scrapping the fuel subsidy was among the top reforms that Tinubu promised during the presidential election campaign.

Subsidy became a national buzzword in January 2012 when then-President Goodluck Jonathan announced the subsidy removal. Fuel prices increased from 65 naira ($0.14) to 140 naira ($0.30) per litre and triggered almost two weeks of protests known as #OccupyNigeria.

This time, the subsidy removal angered labour unions but they have suspended an indefinite strike after talks with the government. The unions want a more than sixfold rise in the monthly minimum wage from 30,000 naira (about $65) among a raft of demands.

Rating agencies Fitch and Moody’s have said Tinubu’s readiness to confront the fuel subsidy and plans to unify the country’s multiple exchange rates was positive for the economy.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

……………………………………………………………

Saudi Arabia signs $5.6bn EV deal as it eyes closer China ties

Riyadh leads the Arab region in boosting trade ties with Beijing as it looks to diversify its economy away from oil.

Saudi Arabia has signed a $5.6bn deal with a Chinese company to manufacture electric vehicles as the kingdom is looking to lead the Arab world in expanding economic ties with Beijing.

The memorandum of understanding signed on Sunday with electric and self-driving car maker Human Horizons on the development, manufacture and sale of vehicles accounted for more than half of the $10bn in investments signed on the first day of a major business conference being held in the capital, Riyadh.

The 10th Arab-China Business Conference held under the patronage of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman aims to enhance a “strategic” partnership based around the Belt and Road Initiative, the Saudi Press Agency said.

More than 3,500 government officials, investors, business representatives and experts from 23 countries have reportedly participated in the event, co-organised with the Arab League and the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade.

As the world’s top exporter of oil, Saudi Arabia’s relations with China still largely revolve around energy, but as part of its Vision 2030 plan to diversify the economy, Riyadh is planning to boost investments in non-oil sectors, including in electric cars.

Human Horizons manufactures luxury EVs under the HiPhi brand in China but is looking to expand and make headway in Western markets as well. The company announced in March that it will enter European markets this year, with an eye on Western Europe or Scandinavia.

Saudi Arabia in October unveiled its own homegrown brand of electric cars, called Ceer, which it expects will churn out electric SUVs and sedans from 2025 through a manufacturing plant that is now under construction.

In addition to the $5.6bn EV deal, Saudi officials on Sunday announced billions of dollars worth of agreements in sectors spanning technology, renewable energy, agriculture, real estate, metals, tourism, and healthcare.

These included a $533m deal for establishing an iron factory in Saudi Arabia, and a $500m cooperation agreement on copper mining in the kingdom, a Saudi statement said.

The kingdom’s officials have said more announcements can be expected, with Energy Minister Abdulaziz bin Salman Al Saud saying more energy deals would be forthcoming. He also brushed off Western criticism of growing Saudi ties with China, saying the kingdom would prioritise its business interests.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, who addressed the conference as a keynote speaker, hailed growing links between China and the Arab world.

“Our meeting today is an opportunity to work and strengthen the historical Arab-Chinese friendship and to work on building a common future” that will benefit both sides, he was quoted as saying by Arab media.

Saudi officials told the conference that the total volume of trade between China and the Arab world reached a record $430bn in 2022, with Saudi Arabia accounting for about 25 percent with a massive bilateral trade volume of $106bn that jumped 30 percent over the previous year.

The conference comes shortly after Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Riyadh in December. He held a joint meeting with Arab leaders and signed a comprehensive strategic partnership agreement with Riyadh.

China has also been increasing its diplomatic foothold in the region, having brokered a landmark agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia in March that has led the two regional rivals to re-establish diplomatic relations after a seven-year rift.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

…………………………………………………………

Angolan economy minister fired amid fuel protests

 Angolan President João Lourenço has sacked the minister responsible for economic and social development following protests triggered by the government’s decision to end fuel subsidies

He replaced Manuel Nunes Júnior, a seasoned minister and economics professor, with the central bank governor, José de Lima Massano, a statement said.

The withdrawal of the subsidies – which Mr Nunes Júnior said was aimed at cutting government spending – came into effect on 1 June, leading into a steep rise in fuel prices.

The oil-rich nation has since experienced a wave of protests, with more expected over the weekend.

On Monday, five people died and eight were injured after police opened fire on a group of protesters the city of Huambo.

Angola is one of the largest oil exporters in sub-Saharan Africa.

Source: BBC

……………………………………………………

Former Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, Dies At 86

 Silvio Berlusconi, the former Italian PM who bounced back from sex scandals and corruption allegations, has died aged 86.

He died at the San Raffaele hospital in Milan, according to Italian media.
In April, Berlusconi was treated for a lung infection linked to a previously undisclosed case of chronic leukaemia.
A flamboyant billionaire media tycoon, Berlusconi first came to office in 1994 and led four governments until 2011.

He led the centre-right Forza Italia party which went into coalition under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni after elections in September, when he was elected to Italy’s upper house, the Senate.
Reacting to the news, Italy’s Defence Minister Guido Crosetto said Berlusconi’s death left a “huge void”.
“An era is over… Farewell Silvio,” Mr Crosetto wrote in a tweet, adding that he “loved” Berlusconi “very much”.

The former leader had been suffering from a rare form of blood cancer, chronic myelomonocyte leukaemia, doctors at San Raffaele told reporters earlier this year.
So far, there has been no official confirmation of the immediate cause of death. He has had repeated health problems since contracting Covid in 2020.

Born in 1936 in Milan, Berlusconi began his career selling vacuum cleaners, before setting up a construction company.
He went on to become one of Italy’s richest men, making his fortune through his TV channels.
He gained international recognition as the owner of legendary football club AC Milan – which he saved from bankruptcy in 1986 – before going into politics.

Source: BBC

………………………………………………………

A South Carolina woman mouthed ‘help me’ to a police officer during a traffic stop. Her passenger had just shot someone

 A South Carolina police officer is being praised for her attention to detail during a traffic stop that led to a shooting suspect’s arrest, according to authorities in North Myrtle Beach.

The police department recognized Officer Kayla Wallace’s quick response in a “Way-to-Go Wednesday”

Wallace pulled over a white Jeep that ran a red light along US Highway 17 shortly before sunrise on May 28, according to the North Myrtle Beach Police Department.

While speaking with the female driver and male passenger, Wallace reportedly noticed the woman appeared distressed, according to authorities.

“While the male passenger wasn’t looking at the driver, the female silently mouthed ‘help me’ repeatedly” to Wallace, North Myrtle Beach Police spokesperson Pat Wilkinson said in a statement to CNN.

Taking note of the driver’s discreet plea for assistance, Wallace removed the passenger from the Jeep and placed him in her patrol car’s back seat.

The officer returned to speak with the woman who was driving. The woman “frantically” told Wallace that the man sitting in her police vehicle had just shot a person, according to authorities.

Soon afterward, dispatchers sent a radio alert for officers to be on the lookout for a vehicle recently involved in a shooting in Horry County.

The arrested passenger was identified as Collins Bates, who is accused of shooting someone outside a sports bar in Myrtle Beach on May 28, according to CNN.

Bates, 29, forced a woman to drive him away from the bar after the shooting

Source: CNN

……………………………………………………

Six officers face trial in Switzerland for Nigerian man’s death

 A ‘homicide by neglect’ trial opens in Lausanne over the 2018 death of Mike Ben Peter, 39, from a heart attack during his arrest.

Six police officers face homicide charges in a Swiss court case that opens on Monday following the 2018 death of a Black man from a heart attack after he was pinned, facedown, for several minutes during arrest.

The officers, who were not named due to Swiss privacy laws, face charges of “homicide by neglect” in the case of Mike Ben Peter, a 39-year-old Nigerian man before a Lausanne criminal court.

They all contest the charges and will seek acquittal, their lawyers said.

The case, which has some similarities with the May 2020 killing of George Floyd in the United States, is one of four where Black men have died during police interventions in the canton of Vaud since 2016.

They have sparked protests and calls for reforms.

But unlike Floyd’s killing, for which officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of murder in 2021 partly based on mobile phone footage showing him kneeling on the victim’s neck, there is no footage of the incident that allegedly contributed to Ben Peter’s death.

A group of United Nations experts said last year Switzerland has systemic racism issues in a report that raised serious concerns about “excessive use of force and the expectation of impunity by police” and cited this case.

A government-mandated study released since admitted the problem was structural and said measures had so far been insufficient.

Simon Ntah, the lawyer for the family, said he was not hopeful for a ruling against the officers who face a maximum prison sentence of three years.

“As long as there isn’t a mechanism for independent investigations against the police we are stuck with the same problems,” he told the Reuters news agency, complaining about how the same public prosecutor who works with police on other criminal cases is placed in charge of cases like this one.

The indictment showed that Ben Peter drew the attention of officers during a Lausanne drug patrol after he collected a bag later shown to contain marijuana.

He did not comply with police requests and the officers used pepper spray and knee kicks to the ribs and crotch to handcuff him on the ground, it showed.

He continued to struggle as he was held facedown by several officers for three minutes, it said, until they noticed he appeared unconscious.

Ben Peter was later pronounced dead after a heart attack with multiple causes, the indictment said, including the fact that he was held on his stomach and subjected to stress.

SOURCE: REUTERS

………………………………………………………………

George Soros to pass control of his empire to son Alexander

Multibillionaire funder of democratic and liberal causes says 37-year-old has ‘earned’ job at helm of $25b empire.

Billionaire hedge fund manager turned philanthropist George Soros has decided to hand control of his $25bn philanthropic and financial empire to his son, Alexander.

A spokesperson for Soros, a major backer of liberal and democratic causes, confirmed the plan to the Reuters news agency after it was initially reported by the Wall Street Journal in an interview with Soros published on Sunday.

Soros, 92, said previously he did not want his Open Society Foundations (OSF) to be taken over by one of his five children.

But he told the Journal he had had a change of heart.

“He’s earned it,” the elder Soros said of his 37-year-old son who is known as Alex.

OSF is active in more than 120 countries and channels about $1.5bn annually towards strengthening civil society, advancing human rights and combating corruption, including Global Witness and the International Crisis Group.

Also interviewed by the newspaper, Alex described himself as “more political” than his father and said he planned to continue donating family money to left-leaning political candidates in the United States.

He told the Journal he would also broaden the foundation’s priorities from his father’s “liberal aims” to include voting and abortion rights as well as gender equity.

“As much as I would love to get money out of politics, as long as the other side is doing it, we will have to do it too,” Alex said.

The OSF board elected Alex as its chairman in December and he now directs political activity as president of Soros’s political action committee in the US.

George Soros was born in Hungary in 1930 and survived the Nazi occupation after his family secured false identity papers and helped other Jewish families to do the same. He has described the occupation as his most “formative experience”.

Soros went on to build a successful career as a financier and began his philanthropic work in 1979, giving scholarships to Black South Africans living under apartheid.

He later began working on issues related to freedom of thought and expression by funding academic visits to the West and supporting fledgling independent cultural groups beginning in Hungary.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, he created the Central European University in Budapest as a space to foster critical thinking.

Soros has long been a target of the right-wing and anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists in the United States, his native Hungary and elsewhere. OSF closed its Budapest office in 2018 and moved the CEU to Vienna after a “Stop Soros” campaign led by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his Fidesz party.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

……………………………………………………………

Angola and Congo exempt visas on diplomatic, service passports

Cabinda - The Angolan State has approved the visa waiver agreement on diplomatic and service passports signed between Angola and the Republic of Congo, as part of the strengthening of bilateral cooperation regarding joint migratory measures.

The information was provided Saturday, in the city of Cabinda, by the Angolan Foreign Affairs minister, Teté António, during the opening of the Bilateral Ministerial Meeting on Defence, Security and Border Management between both countries.

The Angolan official said that the meeting held in Cabinda took place at a time when Angola is preparing to host the IV Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), to take place in August this year, where issues related to the military, economic and social, political and security situation in the sub-region will be addressed.

Téte António recalled that the diplomatic and political relations between Angola and the Republic of Congo were made official in 1976 and currently there is a great enthusiasm, interest and willingness of the two countries to work to strengthen and expand cooperation in different areas of common interest.

The minister said also that on September 24, 1976, the historic Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation was signed by the two founding Presidents, Agostinho Neto and Marien Nguabi, which made possible the signing of a number of important agreements that establish a strong and indispensable legal basis for cooperation between the two countries.

The minister also said that on September 24, 1976, the historic Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation was signed by the two founding Presidents, Agostinho Neto and Marien Nguabi, which enabled the signing of a series of important agreements that establish a strong and indispensable legal basis for cooperation between the two countries.

"There are strong historical ties between Angola and Congo, ranging from cultural and ethno-linguistic, as well as a full identity of views dating back to the early days of the National Liberation Struggle”, he said.

Teté António also highlighted the good neighbourly relations between the two peoples and governments, given the fact that they share a vast common border with more than 200 kilometres, which imposes a need for the two countries to continue to cooperate in the most varied areas, with a view to protecting common interests.

In this regard, he informed that during the 8th session of the Congo and Angola Bilateral Commission, held in the city of Brazzaville in April of this year, the Angolan side submitted to the Congolese side for consideration a draft agreement for the establishment of a Permanent Joint Commission on Defence and Security between the two countries.             

The mentioned commission constitutes a privileged forum for the approach of points of mutual interest in the field of defence, state security and public safety.

"Thus, it is of every benefit that the parties make the necessary efforts to negotiate and conclude the aforementioned agreement”, he stressed.

He revealed that this is a sensitive area that has been claiming for a broad and effective cooperation between the two countries, because many outstanding issues of common interest, defence and security lack solution and could find a speedy deliberation within the scope of the joint commission.

Regarding bilateral meetings, Teté António emphasized the political will of both governments to realize the commitment made, in order to build and leverage the excellent relations, especially in this important area for both countries.

"On this occasion, we will try to identify models of intensified cooperation between the two countries, in order to prevent, preserve, control, and defend the security of the common border, joining efforts in the fight against illegal immigration, regulating the migratory flow, fighting the traffic of drugs and human beings, the fight against terrorism and environmental crimes that affect the communities”, he stressed.

He warned the defence and security bodies of both countries that, despite the operational measures taken by their defence and security bodies, related to the field of border crime prevention, security along the common border requires some some special care.

Téte António highlighted that, in recent times, there has been a reduction in crimes along the common border, as a result of the measures that the operational bodies have developed and in this scope, it is urgent to improve the definition of a baseline of the border, the adjustment of the frequency of meetings of the defence and security bodies and the joint operations and the fight against illegal immigration.

Highlighted commitment of the experts

As the chairman of the event, Angola's Interior minister, Eugénio Laborinho, at the bilateral meeting's closing ceremony, highlighted the commitment of experts from both countries for the consensual way in which they discussed the themes related to defence, security and border management, during three days.

He said that the determination of the experts demonstrates the mutual interest of the affected bodies in the protection, defence and security of the border, the guarantee of peace and stability, and the free movement of people and goods, on both sides.

The bilateral ministerial meeting on defence and security and border management between Angola and Congo was preceded by the meeting of experts who, for three days, worked in four subcommittees on defence, public security and state security.

Meanwhile, the objective was to assess the degree of compliance with the decisions taken at the bilateral ministerial meeting in the second largest city in the Republic of the Congo of Pointe-Noire in May 2022, on the identification of border landmarks, the definitions of the land, maritime, and river border lines, the increase of joint patrols in the fight against fuel smuggling, illegal immigration, goods traffic, and the movement of strange persons along the land border. PL/AC/MRA/jmc.