Russia denies Ukraine push in Bakhmut, UK to send cruise missiles

The UK announced it will provide Storm Shadow long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine for its defence against Russia’s invasion.

Russia has denied that Ukrainian forces have made a breakthrough in the bloody battle for the city of Bakhmut while the United Kingdom has become the first country to supply Ukraine with long-range cruise missiles.

Ukraine has for months requested long-range missiles from its Western allies but has only received shorter-range weapons as supporters feared more advanced weapons would be used to strike targets inside Russian territory and further escalate the conflict.

UK Defence Minister Ben Wallace said on Thursday that Storm Shadow cruise missiles – which have a range of more than 250km (150 miles) compared with the US-provided HIMARS range of some 80km (50 miles) – will be sent to Ukraine.

“We will simply not stand by as Russia kills civilians,” Wallace told members of parliament when announcing that Storm Shadow missiles are being provided to Kyiv.

Wallace said the cruise missiles are being sent for use within Ukrainian territory, implying he had received assurances from Kyiv that they will not be used to hit targets inside Russia.

The Kremlin previously said that the UK’s provision of such missiles would require ”an adequate response from our military”.

Russia’s Defence Ministry on Thursday was forced to deny reports that Ukrainian troops had made advances in the months-long fight for Bakhmut.

“The individual declarations on Telegram about a ‘breakthrough’ on several points on the front line do not correspond to reality,” the ministry said in a statement.

Pro-Moscow military bloggers have suggested that Ukraine’s long-awaited counteroffensive has quietly started while the head of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said this week that Russian troops had withdrawn from some areas of Bakhmut and that Ukrainian forces had advanced north and south of the city in what he also said was the start of the offensive.

In a video released on the Telegram messaging app on Tuesday, Prigozhin said Russian troops were fleeing positions in Bakhmut because of the “stupidity” of their commanders.

“Today, everything is being done so that the front line crumbles,” he said

Russia’s Defence Ministry said in the statement that Moscow’s forces had repulsed several Ukrainian attacks in the course of the day, adding that the ongoing battle occurred near Malynivka in the eastern Donetsk region and involved both air power and artillery. Russian forces were “continuing to liberate the western parts” of Bakhmut city, it added.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said the reactions of Prigozhin and Russia’s Defence Ministry to Ukraine’s movements in Bakhmut “reflect increased panic in the Russian information space” about the long-awaited Ukrainian counteroffensive.

“The deployment of low-quality Russian forces on the flanks around Bakhmut suggests that the Russian MoD [Ministry of Defence] has largely abandoned the aim of encircling a significant number of Ukrainian forces there,” the think tank said.

Amid speculation that Ukraine’s counteroffensive may have already started, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was reported as saying that Ukraine needed more time before beginning the operation against Russia.

“Mentally we’re ready…” Zelenskyy told the BBC. “In terms of equipment, not everything has arrived yet,” he said.

“With [what we have] we can go forward and be successful. But we’d lose a lot of people. I think that’s unacceptable. So we need to wait. We still need a bit more time,” he was quoted as saying on Thursday.

Patrick Bury, a senior lecturer in security at the University of Bath in the UK, said he was not surprised by Zelenskyy’s comments.

“If you are Zelenskyy, you are doing everything you can to make sure you get everything you need” before launching the offensive, he said.

“On the other hand, I would not be surprised at all if it started in the next couple of weeks, depending on the mud. … As of last week it was still one of the wettest springs they’ve had over there in years … It’s just not favourable,” Bury said.

Ukrainian military analyst Oleksandr Musiyenko said Kyiv’s allies needed to understand that a counteroffensive “may not result in the complete eviction of Russian troops and the definitive defeat of Russia in all occupied areas”.

“We have to be ready for the war to continue into next year – or it could end this year,” Musiyenko told Ukrainian NV Radio.

“It all depends on how the battles develop. We can’t guarantee how the counteroffensive will develop.”

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

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One dead, 30 injured in new wave of unrest in Senegal

Protesters have taken to the streets in capital Dakar against what they call an increasingly repressive state.

Violence during protests in the Ngor neighbourhood of the Senegalese capital, Dakar, has killed one teenager and wounded 30 people as young protesters took to the streets against an increasingly “repressive state”.

The city witnessed violent protests on Tuesday night when schoolchildren demanding a high school to be built instead of a police station were confronted by police in full gear.

“The government is not listening to us, the president is not listening to us, no one wants to help us, so we are expressing ourselves as we can,” a protester who did not want to give his full name told Al Jazeera.

Checkpoints and security officers were placed to prevent other residents and journalists from entering Ngor. Al Jazeera correspondent Nicolas Haque was harassed and stopped for a few hours before he could resume reporting.

“We have to maintain operations to keep law and order to protect the population,” said Senegal’s government spokesperson Abdou Karim Fofan. “People should be able to demonstrate but people should also be able to go to work and to schools without being stopped by demonstrations,” Fofan said.

But residents of Ngor said police stormed their homes while they were sleeping to arrest and beat dozens of people, Haque reported after he could manage to enter the neighbourhood.

“This is not a political protest, and what is happening is incomprehensible to us we don’t understand. All we want is a high school, not a police station,” Souley Mbengue, deputy mayor of Ngor, told Al Jazeera.

The protest happened hours after a call by Senegalese opposition figure Ousmane Sonko for civil disobedience by his supporters following a court ruling that threatens his candidacy in upcoming presidential elections.

A court on Monday suspended Sonko’s sentence in a libel case that could make the popular politician ineligible to stand in the 2024 presidential vote – the latest twist in a long-running legal saga that has stoked further tensions in Dakar, already shaken by days of unrest.

Sonko rejected the court ruling, pledging instead to pursue his candidacy and calling for a mass protest against President Macky Sall.

Senegal’s constitution allows only two presidential terms, but some fear Sall will use a recent tweak to the constitution to reset his mandate, which ends in 2024, allowing him to run again.

“Nobody can prevent me from being a candidate,” Sonko said in a speech streamed online on Tuesday. “What happened yesterday is not a travesty of justice but judicial banditry.”

“I repeat my call for resistance and ask the Senegalese to stand up and face Macky Sall,” he said.

The authorities have rejected Sonko’s allegations that the justice system is being used to shut him out of the presidential race. The tense standoff has triggered protests and sometimes violent clashes between security forces and his supporters in recent years.

Sonko did not say if he planned to appeal the court ruling at the Supreme Court within the six-day deadline, but called on supporters to attend an opposition rally scheduled for Friday in Dakar.

“We want the 12th [of May] to be a protest like nothing the country has ever seen,” he said.

Friday’s rally is being organised by the F24 platform, a large group of civil society organisations. Members wish to show their opposition to a third term by Sall and allege that the authorities have misused the justice system for political ends.

Aside from the libel case, Sonko is also charged with raping a beauty salon employee in 2021 and making death threats against her. He denies any wrongdoing, but the outcome of that case could also affect his electoral eligibility. The next court hearing is scheduled for May 16.

Tuesday’s deadly demonstration and Sonko’s call for protests on Friday have further heightened tensions and poked holes in the longstanding image of a country largely viewed as one of the most stable democracies in West Africa.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

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UK court rules in favour of Shell in Nigerian oil spill case

 The case is one of a series of legal battles Shell has been fighting in London courts, mounted by residents of Nigeria’s oil-producing Niger Delta.

The United Kingdom’s Supreme Court has ruled that it was too late for a group of Nigerian claimants to sue two Shell subsidiaries over a 2011 offshore oil spill.

On December 20, 2011, an estimated 40,000 barrels of crude oil leaked when a tanker was loaded at Shell’s Bonga oilfield, 120km (75 miles) off the coast of Nigeria’s Niger Delta.

Shell disputed the allegations and said the Bonga spill was dispersed offshore and did not impact the shoreline.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court upheld rulings by two lower courts that found the plaintiffs had brought their case after the six-year legal expiry date.

Spilled crude oil laps at the shores of the Niger Delta in the village of Bodo in Nigeria’s oil-producing Ogoniland 

A panel of five Supreme Court justices unanimously rejected the claimants’ argument that the ongoing consequences of the pollution represented a “continuing nuisance”.

According to the Reuters news agency, the court did not look at the evidence supporting either side’s assertions or make a ruling on the issue. It only decided the legal point of nuisance.

“The Supreme Court rejects the claimants’ submission. There was no continuing nuisance in this case,” Justice Andrew Burrows said as he delivered the ruling.

“The leak was a one-off event or an isolated escape. The oil pipe was no longer leaking after six hours,” he said.

A group of 27,800 people and 457 communities living in the delta have been trying to sue Shell, saying the leftover oil slick polluted their lands and waterways and damaged farming, fishing, drinking water, mangrove forests and religious shrines.

The average life expectancy in the region is 41 years, 10 years lower than the national average.

UK courts have previously ruled against Shell in another case involving pollution in the Niger Delta.

Chief Fidelis Oguru, left, and Friday Alfred Akpan, representatives of fishermen and farmers from Nigeria, attend a court hearing in The Hague on October 11, 2012, after taking Shell to court, accusing the company of polluting their lands and waters 

In February 2021, the Supreme Court allowed a group from the Ogale and Bille communities to sue Shell over spills, and that case is currently through the High Court.

At that time, Shell said it was not responsible for most of those spills and said they were caused by illegal third-party interference.

“We believe litigation does little to address the real problem in the Niger Delta: oil spills due to crude oil theft, illegal reining and sabotage, with which SPDC [Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary] is constantly faced and which cause the most environmental damage,” a Shell spokesperson said.

In a separate case in 2015, Shell agreed to pay 55 million pounds ($70m) to the delta’s Bodo community in compensation for two spills after a legal battle in London.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

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UK tabloid publisher apologises in Prince Harry trial

Harry is one of several high-profile claimants bringing damages against Mirror Group Newspapers over allegations of unlawful information gathering, including phone hacking.

The publisher of United Kingdom tabloid The Mirror, accused by Britain’s Prince Harry and other celebrities of unlawful information gathering, has apologised at the opening of a trial in London.

Harry has been involved in several legal cases against British newspaper publishers since moving to California in the United States and stepping down from royal duties in early 2020.

He is one of several high-profile claimants bringing damages against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) over allegations of unlawful information gathering, including phone hacking. The group publishes titles including The Mirror, the Sunday Mirror and Sunday People.

At the start of the trial on Wednesday, the publisher admitted “some evidence” of unlawful information gathering and assured that “such conduct will never be repeated”.

The group admitted that a private investigator was instructed by a journalist at The People to unlawfully gather information about Harry’s activities at a London nightclub one night in 2004. It apologised to Harry “unreservedly” and said he was entitled to “appropriate compensation” without providing further details.

But MGN lawyer Andrew Green said voicemail interception was denied. He also argued that some of the claims were brought too late, with some of the stories in question dating back more than 20 years.

Lawyer David Sherborne, representing Harry and other claimants, submitted that the use of unlawful information gathering by journalists from the titles of MGN was happening “at an industrial scale”.

Harry, who was not present for the start of the hearing, has been selected as one of four test cases for the seven-week trial and is due to give evidence himself in person in early June, the first British royal to do so since the 19th century, according to local media.

“Prince or not, the blatantly unlawful and illegal methods that were used by the defendant to get every piece of information about his life away from royal duties was quite frankly appalling,” Sherborne told the court on Wednesday. “No one should have been subjected to that.”

“It was a flood of illegality,” Sherborne said, adding that “this flood was being authorised and approved of by senior executives”.

Harry, 38, has had a difficult relationship with the media, particularly since he and his wife Meghan Markle, who is American, left the royal family in early 2020.

He is also pursuing claims against two other media companies, the publisher of The Sun and, separately, the publisher of the Daily Mail. Those cases will be decided later this year.

Harry holds the media responsible for the death of his mother Princess Diana, who was killed in a car crash in Paris in 1997 after being pursued by paparazzi photographers.

SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES

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Missing organs in Kenya cult case – police

 A court document filed by police investigating Kenya cult deaths says autopsies showed some organs were missing from bodies exhumed from shallow graves.

“Post-mortem reports have established missing organs in some of the bodies of victims who have been exhumed,” chief inspector Martin Munene said in an affidavit filed to a Nairobi court.

It said that “it is believed that trade on human body organs has been well co-ordinated involving several players”.

But chief government pathologist Johansen Oduor had earlier ruled out organ harvesting following autopsies on 112 bodies in his final report on Friday.

Interior minister Kithure Kindiki said on Tuesday that “on the issue of missing body parts theory, I think investigations are still going on… I’m advised by the experts that we should not pre-empt the investigations…it’s a theory we are investigating”.

Most of the victims, including children, died of starvation but some were strangled, beaten, or suffocated, according to the pathologist.

The main suspect in the case, Pastor Paul Mackenzie, is alleged to have encouraged his followers to fast to death in order to go to heaven. He has previously denied to have forced them into the fast.

A fresh round of exhumations in the expansive 800-acre forest in the coastal Kilifi county resumed on Tuesday in an exercise supervised by the interior minister.

The Kenyan Red Cross says that 360 people had been reported missing, while the authorities say at least 60 others have been rescued alive.

Source: BBC

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Zimbabwe’s new gold-backed digital currency: All you need to know

 Zimbabwe’s gold-backed digital currency comes a year after the country launched gold coins to stabilise its rapidly devaluing currency.

Harare, Zimbabwe –  On Monday, Zimbabwe released a gold-backed digital currency for peer-to-peer and peer-to-business transactions as well as to act as a store of value as the country’s currency continues to lose ground against major currencies.

“Holders of physical gold coins, at their discretion, will be able to exchange or convert, through the banking system… into gold-backed digital tokens,” the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe said in a statement inviting individual and corporate entities to use the digital currency that can be bought either in Zimbabwean dollars or foreign currency.

The southern African country now joins other African states like Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa that have introduced digital currencies, even as several others have plans in the works.

But the digital currency, the first ever by the country’s central bank, hit the market Monday to lukewarm reception from economists and ordinary Zimbabweans.

Here’s all you need to know about the new currency.

Backed by a certain amount of gold, which helps keep its value stable, this currency is tied to the market value of the gold – unlike a fiat currency.

The Zimbabwe gold-backed digital currency will be used as legal tender and a store of value alongside the Zimbabwean dollar and bond notes.

Users can buy and sell it using Zimbabwean dollars and other foreign currencies.

Ideally, backing a digital currency with gold involves having a certain measure of gold reserves and depends on the current market value of gold.

According to state-owned media reports, Zimbabwe in April had 350kgs (12,346 ounces) of gold in reserves valued at $22.80m at the current price and intends to build reserves to around $100m.

Zimbabwe’s gold-backed digital tokens have a vesting period of 180 days, have a prescribed asset status, and are acceptable as collateral for loans, too.

Zimbabwe, where hyperinflation has been a recurring economic feature over the last two decades, uses both the United States dollar and the Zimbabwe dollar for transactions.

The latest move to introduce gold-backed coins is part of a wider plan by the central bank to stabilise the country’s local unit, which has been faltering against the US dollar, by mopping up excess liquidity in the market.

The Zimbabwe dollar is currently trading at $1 US for every $2,000 on the black market.

Historically, there have been major policies around currencies as legal tender in the Southern African country, including the 2009 adoption of the US dollar after hyperinflation decimated the value of the local currency.

Here’s how that unfolded:

Timeline of major policies on legal tender in Zimbabwe

• 1980: The Rhodesian dollar is renamed the “Zimbabwe dollar” in 1980 after independence from Britain.
• 2003: Zimbabwe issues the first series of low-denomination bearer cheques to ease cash shortages.
• 2006: The country issues a second series of higher-denomination bearer cheques until 2008 with as much as 10 trillion dollar notes being issued as inflation ravages the economy.
• 2009: A multi-currency system involving the US dollar and other major currencies – such as the euro, the British pound and the South African rand – is adopted to end hyperinflation.
• 2009: The Zimbabwe dollar is demonetised (struck off as legal tender) as the use of multi-currencies takes precedence.
• 2016: The bond note, a currency the central bank claims has the same value as the US dollar, is introduced in December.
• 2018:  Zimbabwe again reintroduces the Zimbabwe dollar, also known as the real time gross settlement (RTGS) dollar.
• 2019: The US dollar is outlawed in local transactions.
• 2022: Zimbabwe launches gold coins to stabilise faltering currency.
• 2023: Zimbabwe introduces gold-backed digital currency.

 

Some are of the view that recent developments are part of a wider strategy towards an ongoing re-dollarisation process. Zimbabwe was forced to abandon the use of US dollars after greenbacks vanished from circulation. To fix the problem, the country’s central bank introduced bond notes in 2016, a currency it said had the same value as the greenback.

Last June, Zimbabwe introduced gold coins to stabilise the currency. But this has not slowed down the rapid devaluation of the Zimbabwe unit against the US and other major currencies.

The Zimbabwean dollar – which is currently trading at $1US: $2,000 – was $1US: $650 on the black market in June last year, when coins were introduced.

“These are financial instruments designed to give an investment alternative to gold coins and other asset classes,” Clive Mphambela, the chief director of communications in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, told Al Jazeera.

But economists are not convinced by projections for the e-currency.

Godfrey Kanyenze, economist and founder of the Labour and Economic Development Research Institute of Zimbabwe (LEDRIZ), lauded the introduction of the digital currency but said it would not solve Zimbabwe’s currency woes.

“While the idea of launching digital coins is noble as it mops up excess liquidity and stabilises the local unit, this is no different from the gold coins introduced by the central bank last year that have failed to stem the money supply growth,” Kanyenze told Al Jazeera.

He said Zimbabwe was currently grappling with a “confidence and trust deficit emanating from legacy issues such as when the country experienced hyperinflation that ended in 2009 where people lost their money and savings.”

“The reality is that while the gold-backed digital coins are good, they … cater to the rich and are exclusionary,” Kanyenze said. “Ordinary people don’t have savings and face extreme poverty, which is at least 40 percent. It’s necessary but the gold coins also did not go far in solving the problems.”

Former Finance Minister Tendai Biti attacked the new digital currency, saying the central bank should instead establish market stability by floating the Zimbabwe dollar.

“The introduction of the gold-backed digital currency is therefore a psychopathic exercise in self-delusion,” he said. “The Zimbabwe dollar has failed because of the absence of trust in the regime. The digital currency will suffer the same brutal fate that the local dollar faces.”

Others said a lack of trust in the e-currency could hinder progress.

Steve Hanke, a professor of applied economics at John Hopkins University in the US, said the gold coins are bound to fail like the gold coins before them.

“After making inaccessible gold coins legal tender in 2022, Zimbabwe is trying to salvage the Zim dollar with another bizarre idea: introducing a digital currency next month,” Hanke said. “Enough is enough. Zim must mothball the Reserve Bank & officially adopt the USD.”

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA

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Kenyan president sets up inquiry into religious cult deaths

The commission of inquiry was announced on Friday by presidential spokesman Hussein Mohamed even as cult leader Paul Mackenzie remained in custody.

Kenyan President William Ruto on Friday appointed a commission of inquiry into the deaths of more than 100 people believed to have starved themselves to death, while a court ordered that the cult leader remain in prison.

The commission of inquiry, announced on Friday by presidential spokesman Hussein Mohamed, will examine whether administrative or intelligence lapses contributed to the deaths.

Kenyan authorities have said the dead were members of the Good News International Church led by Paul Mackenzie, who they said predicted the world would end on April 15 and instructed his followers to kill themselves to be the first to go to heaven.

The death toll stands at 111 but could rise further, in one of the worst cult-related disasters in recent history.

Mohamed said Ruto had also appointed a task force to review regulations governing religious organisations.

Mackenzie has not commented publicly on the accusations against him nor has he been required to enter a plea to any criminal charge. His lawyer George Kariuki told the press on Tuesday that his client could face “possible terrorism charges”.

Mackenzie appeared in court in the port city of Mombasa on Friday, where prosecutors asked a judge to hold him for an additional 90 days as their investigation continued.

The judge said he would deliver a ruling next Wednesday on the prosecution’s request and ordered that Mackenzie remain in custody until then.

Mackenzie, who was wearing a black and pink jacket and holding his two-year-old daughter during the hearing, told journalists at the court that he and some of his supporters were being refused food in prison. Prosecutors denied this and his lawyer had told the press on Tuesday that his client was eating.

“He eats and drinks,” Kariuki said. “He is healthy. I have met him personally. There have been rumours that he has refused to eat, and that is not true.”

In March, Mackenzie was arrested earlier this year on suspicion of the murder of two children by starvation and suffocation but was then released on bail.

Relatives of his adherents say that after he was freed, he returned to the forest where they lived and brought forward his predicted world’s end date – which had previously fallen in August – to April 15.

This has led to criticism by some Kenyan lawmakers that security services missed opportunities to prevent the mass deaths.

SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES

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