Dec 15 – The Rwanda-backed M23 group has captured hundreds of Burundian soldiers during its latest offensive in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a rebel official said, as clashes continued despite a warning from the Trump administration.
Last week M23 entered the strategic town of Uvira near the border with Burundi, less than a week after the presidents of Congo and Rwanda met in Washington with U.S. President Donald Trump and affirmed their commitment to a peace deal known as the Washington Accords.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Saturday that Rwanda’s actions in eastern Congo violated the Washington Accords and vowed to “take action to ensure promises made to the President are kept”.
Rwanda denies supporting M23 and has blamed Congolese and Burundian forces for the renewed fighting. A United Nations group of experts report published in July said Rwanda exercised command and control over the rebels.
“We have several hundred Burundian soldiers with us whom we captured during combat, and we intend to return them home,” Patrick Busu Bwa Ngwi, the M23-appointed governor of South Kivu province, told a press conference on Saturday.
Busu Bwa Ngwi said Burundi should send an official request for their return, and that M23 wants all Burundian forces “to leave our territory and return home in peace.”
There was no immediate response on Monday from Burundi, which has had troops in eastern Congo for years.
REBELS THREATEN TO PUSH FURTHER SOUTH
M23 staged a lightning offensive in January, quickly seizing eastern Congo’s two biggest cities in fighting that has killed thousands of people while displacing hundreds of thousands more.
The insurgents have since worked to establish a parallel administration in the east, potentially setting the vast Central African country up for an enduring fracture.
Congo is rich in minerals, supplying about 70% of the world’s cobalt as well as significant volumes of tin, tantalum and tungsten.
The Trump administration hopes that an eventual peace deal could clear the way for significant Western investments in mining in eastern Congo.
Busu Bwa Ngwi, the M23-appointed South Kivu governor, said on Saturday the rebels would not hesitate to push south to Katanga province, which has heavy cobalt and copper deposits, in order to stop alleged abuses of civilians by Congolese forces.
A local official appointed by the government in Kinshasa told Reuters on Monday that Congo’s military and allied forces had withdrawn from Makobola, 12 km south of Uvira, and were reorganising to try to take back lost territory. A source within M23 told Reuters that the rebels were in Makobola.
Global charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) said on Friday it was suspending activities in Baraka, about 100 km south of Uvira, “in response to escalating violence and threats posed by the conflict”.
(Reporting by Congo newsroom and Sonia Rolley in Paris; Writing by Robbie Corey-Boulet)
-The presidents of Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda will travel to Washington next week to sign a peace deal and meet with U.S. President Donald Trump, three sources told Reuters, as the U.S. tries to broker peace in war-hit eastern Congo and attract Western mining investments to the region.
Two diplomatic sources and Tina Salama, spokesperson for Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi, told Reuters the meeting would take place on December 4.
A spokesperson for Rwandan President Paul Kagame and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday.
A White House official told Reuters last week that the Trump administration “continues to work with both parties, and looks forward to welcoming them to the White House at the appropriate time.”
The Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group staged a lightning advance in eastern Congo this year, seizing the region’s two largest cities and raising fears of a wider war that could draw in more of Congo’s neighbours. The latest cycle of fighting has killed thousands of people and displaced hundreds of thousands more.
LITTLE PROGRESS ON GROUND DESPITE DEALS
The meeting next week is expected to build on a U.S.-brokered peace deal reached in June and signed by the two countries’ foreign ministers, and a Regional Economic Integration Framework agreed earlier this month.
The heads of state are expected to ratify both, Salama said.
“The president has always desired regional integration, but respect for sovereignty is non-negotiable and a prerequisite for regional integration,” she said.
The Trump administration has talked of facilitating billions of dollars of Western investment in a region rich in tantalum, gold, cobalt, copper, lithium and other minerals.
In September, Congo and Rwanda agreed to implement security measures outlined in the June deal by the end of the year.
These include operations to eliminate the threat from Congo-based armed group Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) and facilitate the withdrawal of Rwandan troops.
So far there has been no significant progress on the ground.
Rwanda denies backing M23, but a group of United Nations experts said in a July report that Rwanda exercises command and control over the rebels.
Qatar has hosted separate talks between Congo and M23, and this month the two sides signed a framework agreement for a peace deal, but many details have yet to be negotiated.
Tshisekedi told members of the Congolese diaspora in Serbia that he would go to Washington, according to a post on X published on Friday by his office.
But he also said Rwandan troops must withdraw from eastern Congo for there to be true regional economic integration.
(Reporting by Ange Adihe Kasongo and Giulia Paravicini; Additional reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Writing by Robbie Corey-Boulet; Editing by Nia Williams)
THE HAGUE (Reuters) -The United Nations war crimes tribunal on Friday ruled that a geriatric Rwandan genocide suspect, who has been found unfit to stand trial, is also not fit to travel to Rwanda and will need to remain in a U.N. detention unit as no states will accept him.
In their ruling, U.N. judges called on European states to take in nonagenarian Felicien Kabuga who is now wheelchair-bound and largely confined to the detention centre’s hospital unit.
In 2023, the U.N. court said that Kabuga would not have to stand trial on genocide charges due to his dementia. Kabuga is in his early nineties, though his precise date of birth is disputed. He was arrested in France in 2020 after more than 20 years on the run.
The former businessman and radio station owner was one of the last suspects sought by the tribunal prosecuting crimes committed in the 1994 genocide, when ruling Hutu majority extremists killed more than 800,000 minority Tutsis and Hutu moderates in 100 days.
Prosecutors say Kabuga promoted hate speech through his broadcaster, Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM), and armed ethnic Hutu militias.
(Reporting by Stephanie van den Berg; Editing by Sharon Singleton)
NEW YORK (AP) — When the Trump administration froze foreign assistance overnight, urgent efforts began to figure out how to continue critical aid programs that could be funded by private donors.
Multiple groups launched fundraisers in February and eventually, these emergency funds mobilized more than $125 million within eight months, a sum that while not nearly enough, was more than the organizers had ever imagined possible.
In those early days, even with needs piling up, wealthy donors and private foundations grappled with how to respond. Of the thousands of programs the U.S. funded abroad, which ones could be saved and which would have the biggest impact if they continued?
“We were fortunate enough to be in connection with and communication with some very strategic donors who understood quickly that the right answer for them was actually an answer for the field,” said Sasha Gallant, who led a team at the U.S. Agency for International Development that specialized in identifying programs that were both cost effective and impactful.
Working outside of business hours or after they’d been fired, members of Gallant’s team and employees of USAID’s chief economist’s office pulled together a list that eventually included 80 programs they recommended to private donors. In September, Project Resource Optimization, as their effort came to be called, announced all of the programs had been funded, with more than $110 million mobilized in charitable grants. Other emergency funds raised at least an additional $15 million.
Those funds are just the most visible that private donors mobilized in response to the unprecedented withdrawal of U.S. foreign aid, which totaled $64 billion in 2023, the last year with comprehensive figures available. It’s possible private foundations and individual donors gave much more, but those gifts won’t be reported for many months.
For the Trump administration, the closure of USAID was a cause for celebration. In July, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the agency had little to show for itself since the end of the Cold War.
“Development objectives have rarely been met, instability has often worsened, and anti-American sentiment has only grown,” Rubio said in a statement.
Going forward, Rubio said the State Department will focus on providing trade and investment, not aid, and will negotiate agreements directly with countries, minimizing the involvement of nonprofits and contractors.
Some new donors were motivated by the emergency
Some private donations came from foundations, who decided to grant out more this year than they had planned and were willing to do so because they trusted PRO’s analysis, Gallant said. For example, the grantmaker GiveWell said it gave out $34 million to directly respond to the aid cuts, including $1.9 million to a program recommended by PRO.
Annie, right, and her husband Jacob Ma-Weaver are photographed in San Francisco, Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)
Annie, right, and her husband Jacob Ma-Weaver are photographed in San Francisco, Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)
Others were new donors, like Jacob and Annie Ma-Weaver, a San Francisco-based couple in their late-thirties who, through their work at a hedge fund and a major tech company respectively, had earned enough that they planned to eventually give away significant sums. Jacob Ma-Weaver said the U.S. aid cuts caused needless deaths and were shocking, but he also saw in the moment a chance to make a big difference.
“It was an opportunity for us and one that I think motivated us to accelerate our lifetime giving plans, which were very vague and amorphous, into something tangible that we could do right now,” he said.
The Ma-Weavers gave more than $1 million to projects selected by PRO and decided to speak publicly about their giving to encourage others to join them.
“It’s actually very uncomfortable in our society —maybe it shouldn’t be — to tell the world that you’re giving away money,” Jacob Ma-Weaver said. “There’s almost this embarrassment of riches about it, quite literally.”
Private donors could not support whole USAID programs
The funds that PRO mobilized did not backfill USAID’s grants dollar for dollar. Instead, PRO’s team worked with the implementing organizations to pare down their budgets to only the most essential parts of the most impactful projects.
For example, Helen Keller Intl ran multiple USAID-funded programs providing nutrition and treatment for neglected tropical diseases. All of those programs were eventually terminated, taking away almost a third of Helen Keller’s overall revenue.
Shawn Baker, an executive vice president at Helen Keller, said as soon as it became clear that the U.S. funding was not coming back, they started to triage their programming. When PRO contacted them, he said they were able to provide a much smaller budget for private funders. Instead of the $7 million annual budget for a nutrition program in Nigeria, they proposed $1.5 million to keep it running.
Another nonprofit, Village Enterprise, received $1.3 million through PRO to continue an antipoverty program in Rwanda that helps people start small businesses. But they were also able to raise $2 million from their own donors through a special fundraising appeal and drew on an unrestricted $7 million gift from billionaire and author MacKenzie Scott that they’d received in 2023. The flexible funding allowed them to sustain their most essential programming during what CEO Dianne Calvi called seven months of uncertainty.
That many organizations managed to hold on and keep programs running, even after significant funding cuts, was a surprise to the researchers at PRO. Since February, the small staff supporting PRO have extended their commitment to the project one month at a time, expecting that either donations would dry up or projects would no longer be viable.
“That time that we were able to buy has been absolutely invaluable in our ability to reach more people who are interested in stepping in,” said Rob Rosenbaum, the team lead at PRO and a former USAID employee. He said they have taken a lot of pride in mobilizing donors who have not previously given to these causes.
“To be able to convince somebody who might otherwise not spend this money at all or sit on it to move it into this field right now, that is the most important dollar that we can move,” he said.
Other donors may wait to see what is next
Dean Karlan, former USAID chief economist, poses at his home, Friday, Sept. 19, 2025, in Evanston, Ill. (AP Photo/Matt Marton)
Dean Karlan, former USAID chief economist, poses at his home, Friday, Sept. 19, 2025, in Evanston, Ill. (AP Photo/Matt Marton)
Not all private donors were eager to jump into the chasm created by the U.S. foreign aid cuts, which happened without any “rhyme or reason,” said Dean Karlan, the chief economist at USAID when the Trump administration took over in January.
Despite the extraordinary mobilization of resources by some private funders, Karlan said, “You have to realize there’s also a fair amount of reluctance, rightly so, to clean up a mess that creates a moral hazard problem.”
The uncertainty about what the U.S. will fund going forward is likely to continue for some time. The emergency funds offered a short term response from interested private funders, many of whom are now trying to support the development of whatever comes next.
For Karlan, who is now a professor of economics at Northwestern University, it is painful to see the consequences of the aid cuts on recipient populations. He also resents the attacks on the motivations of aid workers in general.
Nonetheless, he said many in the field want to see the administration rebuild a system that is efficient and targeted. But Karlan said, he hasn’t yet seen any steps, “that give us a glimpse of how serious they’re going to be in terms of actually spending money effectively.”
Smaller donors also responded
Other emergency funds used a different approach than Project Resource Optimization to respond to frozen foreign assistance. The group, Unlock Aid, which advocated for major reforms to the U.S. Agency for International Development before the cuts, launched their Foreign Aid Bridge Fund in mid-February and closed it at the end of April after raising $2 million from 400 donors and foundations. Their fund accepted applications while prioritizing frontline groups that had diverse revenue sources. They closed the fund after donations slowed and it became clear that the U.S. funding freeze would become a funding cut. Two other groups, Founders Pledge and The Life You Can Save, launched a joint Rapid Response Fund that raised $13 million. Their fund did not accept applications but worked closely with PRO to fund some of the programs they had identified. PRO also directed smaller donors to give through the Rapid Response Fund, which had the infrastructure to take both small and large gifts. In all, 1,300 individuals gave to the Rapid Response Fund, the groups said. Katrina Sill, the global health and development lead at Founders Pledge, said most of the 13 grants the fund made went to programs that benefit children. “This is a time to not forget [that] a very small amount of money can make an enormous impact,” she said.
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Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.
“After so many years of unceasing war and endless danger, today the skies are calm. The guns are silent. The sirens are still. And the sun rises on a holy land that is finally at peace,” Trump said.
He then upped the number of wars he claims to have ended in his first eight months in office, saying, “Yesterday I was saying seven, but now I can say eight.”
But Trump’s claim is exaggerated. Much work remains before an end to the war between Israel and Hamas can be declared. That’s also true in other countries where Trump claims to have ended wars.
Here’s a closer look:
Israel and Hamas
While the ceasefire and hostage deal is a major achievement, it is still an early and delicate moment in the path to a permanent end to the war, let alone a two state solution.
The first steps of the agreement Trump brokered included the release of hostages in Gaza, the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israel, a surge of humanitarian aid and a partial pullback by Israeli forces from Gaza’s main cities.
But major elements remain to be worked out.
After his stop in Israel, Trump gathered with other world leaders in Egypt for a “ Summit of Peace ” to discuss the ceasefire plan. Trump acknowledged that leaders had taken the “first steps to peace” and urged leaders to build on the breakthrough. Trump and other leaders signed a document that he said would “spell out a lot of rules and regulations and lots of other things, and it’s very comprehensive,” though details were not immediately available.
At least some, if not all, of those elements need to be worked out, and negotiations over those issues could break down. Trump envoy Steve Witkoff said on Monday that he and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, were “already working” on implementation issues.
In June, Israel launched attacks on the heart of Iran’s nuclear program and military leadership, saying it wanted to stop Tehran from building a nuclear weapon. Iran has denied it was trying to do that.
Trump negotiated a ceasefire after directing American warplanes to strike Iran’s Fordo, Isfahan and Natanz nuclear sites.
Evelyn Farkas, executive director of Arizona State University’s McCain Institute, said that Trump should get credit for ending the war.
“There’s always a chance it could flare up again if Iran restarts its nuclear weapons program, but nonetheless, they were engaged in a hot war with one another,” she said. “And it didn’t have any real end in sight before President Trump got involved and gave them an ultimatum.”
Lawrence Haas, a senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the American Foreign Policy Council who is an expert on Israel-Iran tensions, agreed the U.S. was instrumental in securing the ceasefire. But he characterized it as a “temporary respite” from the ongoing “day-to-day cold war” between the two countries that often involves flare-ups.
Egypt and Ethiopia
This could be described as tensions at best, and peace efforts, which do not directly involve the United States, have stalled.
Egypt and Sudan oppose the dam. Although the vast majority of the water that flows down the Nile originates in Ethiopia, Egyptian agriculture relies on the river almost entirely. Sudan fears flooding and wants to protect its own power-generating dams.
During his first term, Trump tried to broker a deal between Ethiopia and Egypt. He could not get the countries to agree and suspended aid to Ethiopia over the dispute. In July, he posted on social media that he helped the “fight over the massive dam (and) there is peace at least for now.” But the disagreement persists, and negotiations between Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan have stalled.
“It would be a gross overstatement to say that these countries are at war,” Haas said. “I mean, they’re just not.”
Trump has claimed that the U.S. brokered the ceasefire, which he said came about in part because he offered trade concessions. Pakistan thanked Trump, recommending him for the Nobel Peace Prize. India has denied Trump’s claims, saying there was no conversation between the U.S. and India on trade in regards to the ceasefire.
Although India played down the Trump administration’s role in the ceasefire, Haas and Farkas believe the U.S. deserves some credit for helping stop the fighting.
“I think that President Trump played a constructive role from all accounts, but it may not have been decisive. And again, I’m not sure whether you would define that as a full-blown war,” Farkas said.
Serbia and Kosovo
The White House lists the conflict between Serbia and Kosovo as one Trump resolved. But there has been no threat of a war between the two neighbors during Trump’s second term or any significant contribution from the Republican president this year to improve relations.
Kosovo is a former Serbian province that declared independence in 2008. Tensions have persisted since, but never to the point of war, mostly because NATO-led peacekeepers have been deployed in Kosovo, which has been recognized by more than 100 countries.
During his first term, Trump negotiated a wide-ranging deal between the countries, but much of what was agreed on was never carried out.
Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Trump has played a key role in peace efforts between the African neighbors, but he is hardly alone and the conflict is far from over.
Eastern Congo, rich in minerals, has been battered by fighting with more than 100 armed groups. The most potent is the M23 rebel group. It is backed by neighboring Rwanda, which claims that it is protecting its territorial interests and that some of those who participated in the 1994 Rwandan genocide fled to Congo and are working with the Congolese army.
The Trump administration’s efforts paid off in June, when the Congolese and Rwandan foreign ministers signed a peace deal at the White House. The M23, however, was not directly involved in the U.S.-facilitated negotiations and said it would not abide by the terms of an agreement that did not involve it.
The final step to peace was meant to be a Qatar-facilitated deal between Congo and M23 that would bring about a permanent ceasefire as well as a final agreement to be signed separately between Congo and Rwanda as facilitated by the administration. However, talks have stalled between the different parties amid setbacks, and deadly fighting continues in eastern Congo.
The agreements were intended to reopen key transportation routes and reaffirm Armenia’s and Azerbaijan’s commitment to signing a peace treaty. The treaty’s text was initialed by the countries’ foreign ministers at that meeting, which indicated preliminary approval. But the two countries have yet to sign and ratify the deal.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have been in a bitter conflict over territory since the early 1990s, when ethnic Armenian forces took control of the Karabakh province, known internationally as Nagorno-Karabakh, and nearby territories. In 2020, Azerbaijan’s military recaptured broad swaths of territory. Russia brokered a truce and deployed about 2,000 peacekeepers to the region.
In September 2023, Azerbaijani forces launched a lightning blitz to retake remaining portions. The two countries have worked toward normalizing ties and signing a peace treaty ever since.
Cambodia and Thailand
Officials from Thailand and Cambodia credit Trump with pushing the Asian neighbors to agree to a ceasefire in this summer’s brief border conflict.
Cambodia and Thailand clashed in the past over their shared border. The latest fighting began in July after a land mine explosion along the border wounded five Thai soldiers. Tensions had been growing since May, when a Cambodian soldier was killed in a confrontation that created a diplomatic rift and roiled Thai politics.
Both countries agreed in late July to an unconditional ceasefire during a meeting in Malaysia.
Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim pressed for the pact, but there was little headway until Trump intervened. Trump said on social media that he warned the Thai and Cambodian leaders that the U.S. would not move forward with trade agreements if the hostilities continued. Both countries faced economic difficulties and neither had reached tariff deals with the U.S., though most of their Southeast Asian neighbors had.
According to Ken Lohatepanont, a political analyst and University of Michigan doctoral candidate, “President Trump’s decision to condition a successful conclusion to these talks on a ceasefire likely played a significant role in ensuring that both sides came to the negotiating table when they did.”
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Associated Press writers Michelle Price, Chinedu Asadu, Melissa Goldin, Jon Gambrell, Grant Peck, Dasha Litvinova, Fay Abuelgasim, Rajesh Roy, and Dusan Stojanovic contributed to this report. ___
KINSHASA (Reuters) -A military court in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Tuesday sentenced former president Joseph Kabila to death in absentia, convicting him of crimes including war crimes.
Lieutenant-General Joseph Mutombo Katalayi, who presided the military tribunal in the capital, told the court that Kabila was convicted of various crimes including treason, crimes against humanity, murder, sexual assault, torture and insurrection.
Kabila spent almost two decades in power and only stepped down after deadly protests against him. Since late 2023, he has been residing mostly in South Africa, though he did appear in rebel-held Goma in eastern Congo in May.
(Reporting by Adihe Kasongo and Congo newsroom; Writing by Ayen Deng Bior; Editing by Robbie Corey-Boulet and Bate Felix)
In recent weeks, President Trump has repeatedly claimed he deserves credit for ending six or seven wars during his first months in office, arguing that he should receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his work.
“I stopped seven wars, and they were, they’re big ones too,” Mr. Trump said Friday.
“I’ve settled six wars, and a lot of people say seven because there’s one that nobody knows about,” he said in an August 19 interview.
A White House official provided a list of seven conflicts the president is referencing: Israel and Iran, Rwanda and Democratic Republic of the Congo, Armenia and Azerbaijan, Thailand and Cambodia, India and Pakistan, Egypt and Ethiopia, and Serbia and Kosovo.
“There has been more progress towards peace than ever before because of this President’s leadership,” the official wrote.
The recipient of the 2025 Nobel Peace prize is expected to be announced next month.
Over 100 people have received the award since the 19th-century chemist Alfred Nobel created the prize to honor a “person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”
Four U.S. presidents have been past laureates, most recently Barack Obama who received the prize for supporting nuclear nonproliferation and international diplomacy.
Foreign policy experts say that while Mr. Trump has helped broker ceasefires, including one between Israel and Iran, several of the foreign conflicts cited by the administration were not full-scale wars — and many remain unresolved. The White House did not respond to a request for clarification on why the president has repeatedly labeled all seven conflicts as settled wars.
Some of these peace efforts involved limited U.S. involvement, and in other instances, it remains unclear whether Mr. Trump’s role was decisive.
Here’s a look at the conflicts:
Israel and Iran
After Israel attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities in June, a 12-day conflict resulted in the deaths of about 28 Israelis and hundreds of Iranians before a ceasefire was reached with U.S. and Qatari involvement. Mr. Trump claimed credit, saying he had ordered U.S. airstrikes on Iran’s uranium enrichment sites and pressed Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to hold back from further strikes.
Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at Brookings, said Mr. Trump deserves some credit for this ceasefire. “He managed to use a combination of a good relationship with Netanyahu, but also a willingness to put a little pressure on Netanyahu that I think contributed to the at least temporary cessation of hostilities,” O’Hanlon said.
But other foreign policy experts said tensions between the nations are far from resolved, and Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in early July that the Defense Department estimated the U.S. strikes likely delayed Iran’s nuclear program by “one to two years.”
Larry Haas, a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council said, “I very strongly disagree with the notion that the president brought peace to Iran and Israel. We may be in a quiet period in terms of direct confrontation, but Iran right now is trying to regroup.”
Rwanda and Democratic Republic of the Congo
In June, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo announced a peace deal after multiple days of talks in Washington mediated by President Trump and Qatar.
The deal aimed to end three decades of fighting over Congo’s mineral reserves. Yet the violence has continued, with both sides accusing each other of violating peace terms. Human Rights Watch reported that M23, an armed group that U.S. officials believe is backed by Rwanda, killed over 140 civilians in eastern Congo in July.
“It’s a premature declaration of success, when in fact we are just getting to the starting line,” O’Hanlon said.
Armenia and Azerbaijan
In August, Mr. Trump helped negotiate an agreement aimed at normalizing relations and reopening transportation routes between Armenia and Azerbaijan, which have spent decades fighting for control of the Karabakh region.
O’Hanlon and Haas agreed the Trump administration pushed the deal forward in part by inviting both leaders to the White House. Leaders of both countries also credited Mr. Trump for the agreement, saying he should receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
But the deal is not a formal peace agreement and requires ratification. One remaining sticking point is that Azerbaijan wants Armenia to remove any mention of territorial claims to Azerbaijan’s land from its constitution before officials sign a final deal. Armenia’s prime minister has expressed willingness to change the constitution but has not specified a date for a referendum.
Thailand and Cambodia
In late July, Thailand and Cambodia agreed to a ceasefire after an outbreak of fighting killed at least 35 people. President Trump said that he had pressured both sides to come to the table by threatening trade consequences.
The U.S. is a top importer for bothcounties, and foreign policy experts CBS News spoke to said Mr. Trump’s tariff threats played a significant role in securing a ceasefire. “He helped move things along with economic pressure,” Haas said.
The border dispute is continuing, though, with Thai officials accusing Cambodia of laying new landmines. Cambodia denied doing so.
India and Pakistan
India and Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire in May after weeks of cross-border missile and drone strikes. The deal ended the latest flare-up in their long-running dispute over Kashmir, which both nuclear-armed nations claim as their territory.
Pakistan credited the Trump administration’s efforts in U.S.-led talks, and nominated him for the Nobel Peace prize. But India insisted its own pressure on Pakistan, not U.S. diplomacy, drove the deal.
Josh Kurlantzick, a senior fellow for Southeast Asia and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, said it’s a stretch to call the dispute over Kashmir settled.
“There is no real ending to this conflict,” he said, noting that future negotiations could be complicated by Mr. Trump’s decision to impose steep tariffs on India, a key partner.
Egypt and Ethiopia
Mr. Trump also claims he brokered peace between Ethiopia and Egypt, which have disagreed about Ethiopia’s decision to construct a hydroelectric dam in the Nile.
During his first term, Mr. Trump tried to broker a deal between the countries and suspended some aid to Ethiopia because of a lack of progress. In June, the president mentioned the dispute on Truth Social, writing, “There is peace, at least for now, because of my intervention, and it will stay that way!”
No deals have been announced, however. Ethiopia still plans to officially open its dam in September over Egypt’s objections that it will restrict the flow of water to its country. And while Egypt previously threatened to go to war over the dam, this conflict has remained a diplomatic one.
O’Hanlon said of the dispute, “I would not call the Egypt-Ethiopia interaction a war.”
Serbia and Kosovo
In 2020, President Trump helped negotiate a deal between Serbia and Kosovo to help normalize economic ties, but progress stalled afterwards.
Talks have continued with European leaders, but no breakthroughs have emerged. Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia in 2008, which Serbia still does not recognize.
“His deal-making, to the extent that it existed, actually occurred in his first term, and he really hasn’t stopped what’s going on,” Haas said.
Article II of the Convention defines genocide as any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
1932-1933 – Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union inflict a famine upon Ukraine after people rebel against the imposed system of land management known as “collectivization,” which seizes privately owned farmlands and puts people to work in collectives. An estimated 25,000-33,000 people die every day. There are an estimated six million to 10 million deaths.
December 1937-January 1938 – The Japanese Imperial Army marches into Nanking, China, and kills an estimated 300,000 Chinese civilians and soldiers. Tens of thousands are raped before they are murdered.
1938-1945 – Nazi Germany, under Adolf Hitler, deems the Jewish population racially inferior and a threat, and kills six million Jewish people in Germany, Poland, the Soviet Union and other areas around Europe during World War II.
1944 – The term “genocide” is coined by lawyer Raphael Lemkin.
December 9, 1948 – The United Nations adopts the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide.
January 12, 1951 – The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide enters into force. It is eventually ratified by 142 nations.
1975-1979 – Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot’s attempt to turn Cambodia into a Communist peasant farming society leads to the deaths of up to two million people from starvation, forced labor and executions.
1988 – The Iraqi regime under Saddam Hussein attacks civilians who have remained in “prohibited” areas. The attacks include the use of mustard gas and nerve agents and result in the death of an estimated 100,000 Iraqi Kurds.
1992-1995 – Yugoslavia, led by President Slobodan Milosevic, attacks Bosnia after it declares its independence. Approximately 100,000 people – the majority of whom are Muslims, or Bosniaks, – are killed in the conflict. There are mass executions of “battle-age” men and mass rape of women.
1998 – The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) establishes the precedent that rape during warfare is a crime of genocide. In Rwanda, HIV-infected men participated in the mass rape of Tutsi women.
1998 – The first genocide conviction occurs at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Jean Paul Akayesu, the Hutu mayor of the town, Taba, is convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity.
July 1, 2002 – The International Criminal Court (ICC) opens at The Hague, Netherlands, as the first permanent war crimes tribunal, with jurisdiction to try perpetrators of genocide. Previously, the UN Security Council created ad hoc tribunals to try those responsible for genocide in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda.
2008 – Fugitive Radovan Karadzic, former Bosnian Serb leader, is arrested. He is charged with genocide in connection with the Srebrenica massacre of 1995. On March 24, 2016, Karadzic is found guilty of 10 of the 11 charges against him, including one count of genocide. He is sentenced to 40 years in prison. Three years later, the sentence is changed to life in prison by appeal judges at a UN court in the Hague, Netherlands.
March 4, 2009 – The ICC issues an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes.
June 4, 2013 – The ICTR unseals a 2012 updated indictment against Ladislas Ntaganzwa. The former mayor of a town in south Rwanda is indicted on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and other violations of international humanitarian law during the 1994 killings in Rwanda.
August 2014 – ISIS fighters attack the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar, home of a religious minority group called the Yazidis. A Yazidi lawmaker says that 500 men have been killed, 70 children have died of thirst and women are being sold into slavery.
December 9, 2015 – The arrest of Ntaganzwa is announced. On May 28, 2020,Ntaganzwa is convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and other serious violations of international humanitarian law by the High Court Chamber for International Crimes in Rwanda. He is sentenced to life in prison for his role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
London — The British parliament passed a law late Monday that will mean asylum seekers arriving on British shores without prior permission can be sent to Rwanda and forbidden from ever returning to the U.K. The British government says the law will act as deterrent to anyone trying to enter the U.K. “illegally.”
The contentious program was voted through after the U.K.’s Supreme Court ruled it to be unlawful, and it has been condemned by human rights groups and the United Nations refugee agency.
King Charles III, who now must give the Rwanda bill his royal ascent to make it an official law, reportedly criticized the plan as “appalling” almost two years ago as it took shape.
Hours after the law was passed, French officials said at least five people drowned, including a child, in the English Channel during an attempt to make it to the U.K. on an overcrowded small boat.
Why would the U.K. send asylum seekers to Rwanda?
The Rwanda plan was put together by Britain’s Conservative government in response to a number of migrant and asylum seeker arrivals on British shores in small boats from France.
With local asylum programs underfunded and overwhelmed, the government has been housing asylum seekers in hotels, where they are effectively trapped and unable to work until their claims are processed, which can take years. These hotels cost the government around 8 million pounds — almost $10 million in taxpayer money — every day to rent, according to CBS News partner BBC News.
A protester holds a placard mocking the government’s Rwanda plan for asylum seekers during a demonstration in Parliament Square, London, March 13, 2024.
Vuk Valcic/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government says the Rwanda policy will act as a deterrent to prevent migrants and asylum seekers from trying to reach the U.K. in the first place.
What is the U.K.’s Rwanda law?
The new policy will give Britain’s immigration authorities power to send any asylum seeker entering the U.K. “illegally” after January 2022 to Rwanda. Those individuals can also be forbidden from ever applying for asylum in the U.K.
It will apply to anyone who arrives in the U.K. without prior permission — anyone who travels on a small boat or truck — even if their aim is to claim asylum and they have legitimate grounds to do so.
These people can, under the new law, be immediately sent to Rwanda, 4,000 miles away in East Africa, to have their asylum claim processed there. Under the law they could be granted refugee status in Rwanda and allowed to stay.
What are the issues with the Rwanda law?
The law has been the subject of intense controversy and political wrangling.
In November 2023, the U.K. Supreme Court ruled the program was unlawful and violated the European Convention on Human Rights, because it said genuine refugees would be at risk of being deported back to their home countries, where they could face harm. The judgment also cited concerns with Rwanda’s human rights record.
The final legislation passed late Monday orders the court to ignore parts of the Human Rights Act and other U.K. and international rules, such as the Refugee Convention, that would also block the deportations to Rwanda, the BBC reported.
Rights groups have said they will launch legal challenges against deporting people to Rwanda as quickly as possible. This could delay any removal flights.
DAVOS, Switzerland — It feels like the 1930s all over again but with Russian leader Vladimir Putin playing the role of Hitler, U.K. Foreign Secretary David Cameron told POLITICO.
The war in Ukraine remains Cameron’s “absolute number one priority,” he told POLITICO’s Power Play podcast during an interview on Wednesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
“This is the challenge for our generation,” Cameron said. “This is like being a foreign minister or a leader in Europe in the 1930s, we have got to not appease Putin. We have got to stand up to the evil that his invasion represents.”
The former U.K. prime minister’s remarks come as the West scrambles to keep Ukraine topped up with high-tech weaponry to fend off Russia’s full-scale invasion, while bracing for the potential return of NATO-skeptic Donald Trump to the White House.
“One thing we can do is demonstrate during the course of this year that Putin isn’t winning,” Cameron said.
Israel’s war on Hamas
Turning to Israel’s war on Hamas in the Middle East, Cameron defended Britain’s refusal to call for an immediate cease-fire, as the Israel Defense Forces bombard Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
“I think that just wouldn’t have worked because if you want a two-state solution, if you want a sustainable cease-fire, you can’t ask the Israelis to have a two-state solution with the people who perpetrated 7th October in command in Gaza, still able to launch rockets into their country,” he said.
Cameron said he felt “deeply moved” by the suffering on both sides of the conflict. “I have been to a kibbutz in the south of Israel and seen the results of what happened on 7th October and the true horror of it,” he said.
“I’ve also listened to [accounts from British Embassy staff in Cairo] coming out of Gaza and what they’ve seen, what they’ve experienced, and the loved ones they’ve lost, and the family members they’ve seen killed,” Cameron added. “You know, a life is a life. I feel deeply about this, but I’m a very practical person and I want to know how do we bring this to an end?”
Cameron also kept open the door for future airstrikes against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, who have been attacking commercial and Western naval vessels in the Red Sea, resulting in a major bombing retaliation from an allied coalition last week.
“I think it is important ultimately to show you are prepared to follow up words with actions,” Cameron warned the Houthis, adding, “bear in mind when you make warnings, you have to be prepared to take action.”
Rwanda policy strife
On the domestic front, Cameron said he is “absolutely” behind Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s attempts to tackle undocumented migration by sending asylum seekers to Rwanda.
Cameron defended the policy despite describing it as “unorthodox” and “out-of-box thinking.” Asked whether he would have devised the policy when he was prime minister, Cameron said: “Yes, my heart is absolutely in it.”
After passing a crucial stage in the House of Commons on Wednesday, the legislation is expected to go on to meet stiff resistance in Britain’s upper chamber, the House of Lords, where Cameron now sits as a peer.
Reflecting on his return to front-line politics compared to his time as prime minister, Cameron said “it certainly makes you think a lot about how about making decisions, about trying to find the time to think through decisions. It’s still very, very difficult.”
Cameron said: “You can’t determine how people see you,” in response to a question on whether he was sensitive to personal criticism.
“I remember once bumping into Steve Bell, the Guardian cartoonist, and saying, ‘why do you always portray me with this sort of condom over my head? What is it I’ve done to deserve this?’ And he roared with laughter and said, ‘oh, you’re just too smooth.’ And that’s the only way I could put it. Strange way of putting it, but there we are. You have to take the rough of with the smooth in this job,” Cameron said.
BRUSSELS — Western leaders are grappling with how to handle two era-defining wars in the Middle East and in Ukraine. But there’s another issue, one far closer to home, that’s derailing governments in Europe and America: migration.
In recent days, U.S. President Joe Biden, his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak all hit trouble amid intense domestic pressure to tackle immigration; all three emerged weakened as a result. The stakes are high as American, British and European voters head to the polls in 2024.
“There is a temptation to hunt for quick fixes,” said Rashmin Sagoo, director of the international law program at the Chatham House think tank in London. “But irregular migration is a hugely challenging issue. And solving it requires long-term policy thinking beyond national boundaries.”
With election campaigning already under way, long-term plans may be hard to find. Far-right, anti-migrant populists promising sharp answers are gaining support in many Western democracies, leaving mainstream parties to count the costs. Less than a month ago in the Netherlands, pragmatic Dutch centrists lost to an anti-migrant radical.
Who will be next?
Rishi Sunak, United Kingdom
In Britain, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is under pressure from members of his own ruling Conservative party who fear voters will punish them over the government’s failure to get a grip on migration.
U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak speaks during a press conference in Dover on June 5, 2023 in Dover, England | Pool photo by Yui Mok/WPA via Getty Images
Seven years ago, voters backed Brexit because euroskeptic campaigners promised to “Take Back Control” of the U.K.’s borders. Instead, the picture is now more chaotic than ever. The U.K. chalked up record net migration figures last month, and the government has failed so far to stop small boats packed with asylum seekers crossing the English Channel.
Sunak is now in the firing line. He made a pledge to “Stop the Boats” central to his premiership. In the process, he ignited a war in his already divided party about just how far Britain should go.
Under Sunak’s deal with Rwanda, the central African nation agreed to resettle asylum seekers who arrived on British shores in small boats. The PM says the policy will deter migrants from making sea crossings to the U.K. in the first place. But the plan was struck down by the Supreme Court in London, and Sunak’s Tories now can’t agree on what to do next.
Having survived what threatened to be a catastrophic rebellion in parliament on Tuesday, the British premier still faces a brutal battle in the legislature over his proposed Rwanda law early next year.
Time is running out for Sunak to find a fix. An election is expected next fall.
Emmanuel Macron, France
The French president suffered an unexpected body blow when the lower house of parliament rejected his flagship immigration bill this week.
French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace in Paris, on June 21, 2023 | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images
After losing parliamentary elections last year, getting legislation through the National Assembly has been a fraught process for Macron. He has been forced to rely on votes from the right-wing Les Républicains party on more than one occasion.
Macron’s draft law on immigration was meant to please both the conservatives and the center-left with a carefully designed mix of repressive and liberal measures. But in a dramatic upset, the National Assembly, which is split between centrists, the left and the far right, voted against the legislation on day one of debates.
Now Macron is searching for a compromise. The government has tasked a joint committee of senators and MPs with seeking a deal. But it’s likely their text will be harsher than the initial draft, given that the Senate is dominated by the centre right — and this will be a problem for Macron’s left-leaning lawmakers.
If a compromise is not found, Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally will be able to capitalize on Macron’s failure ahead of the European Parliament elections next June.
But even if the French president does manage to muddle through, the episode is likely to mark the end of his “neither left nor right” political offer. It also raises serious doubts about his ability to legislate on controversial topics.
Joe Biden, United States
The immigration crisis is one of the most vexing and longest-running domestic challenges for President Joe Biden. He came into office vowing to reverse the policies of his predecessor, Donald Trump, and build a “fair and humane” system, only to see Congress sit on his plan for comprehensive immigration reform.
U.S. President Joe Biden pauses as he gives a speech in Des Moines, Iowa on July 15, 2019 | Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
The White House has seen a deluge of migrants at the nation’s southern border, strained by a decades-old system unable to handle modern migration patterns.
Ahead of next year’s presidential election, Republicans have seized on the issue. GOP state leaders have filed lawsuits against the administration and sent busloads of migrants to Democrat-led cities, while in Washington, Republicans in Congress have tied foreign aid to sweeping changes to border policy, putting the White House in a tight spot as Biden officials now consider a slate of policies they once forcefully rejected.
The political pressure has spilled into the other aisle. States and cities, particularly ones led by Democrats, are pressuring Washington leaders to do more in terms of providing additional federal aid and revamping southern border policies to limit the flow of asylum seekers into the United States.
New York City has had more than 150,000 new arrivals over the past year and a half — forcing cuts to new police recruits, cutting library hours and limiting sanitation duties. Similar problems are playing out in cities like Chicago, which had migrants sleeping in buses or police stations.
The pressure from Democrats is straining their relationship with the White House. New York City Mayor Eric Adams runs the largest city in the nation, but hasn’t spoken with Biden in nearly a year. “We just need help, and we’re not getting that help,” Adams told reporters Tuesday.
Olaf Scholz, Germany
Migration has been at the top of the political agenda in Germany for months, with asylum applications rising to their highest levels since the 2015 refugee crisis triggered by Syria’s civil war.
The latest influx has posed a daunting challenge to national and local governments alike, which have struggled to find housing and other services for the migrants, not to mention the necessary funds.
The inability to limit the number of refugees has put German Chancellor Olaf Scholz under immense pressure | Michele Tantussi/Getty Images
The inability — in a country that ranks among the most coveted destinations for asylum seekers — to limit the number of refugees has put German Chancellor Olaf Scholz under immense pressure. In the hope of stemming the flow, Germany recently reinstated border checks with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland, hoping to turn back the refugees before they hit German soil.
Even with border controls, refugee numbers remain high, which has been a boon to the far right. Germany’s anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party has reached record support in national polls.
Since overtaking Scholz’s Social Democrats in June, the AfD has widened its lead further, recording 22 percent in recent polls, second only to the center-right Christian Democrats.
The AfD is expected to sweep three state elections next September in eastern Germany, where support for the party and its reactionary anti-foreigner policies is particularly strong.
The center-right, meanwhile, is hardening its position on migration and turning its back on the open-border policies championed by former Chancellor Angela Merkel. Among the new priorities is a plan to follow the U.K.’s Rwanda model for processing refugees in third countries.
Karl Nehammer, Austria
Like Scholz, the Austrian leader’s approval ratings have taken a nosedive thanks to concerns over migration. Austria has taken steps to tighten controls at its southern and eastern borders.
Though the tactic has led to a drop in arrivals by asylum seekers, it also means Austria has effectively suspended the EU’s borderless travel regime, which has been a boon to the regional economy for decades.
Austria has effectively suspended the EU’s borderless travel regime, which has been a boon to the regional economy for decades | Thomas Kronsteiner/Getty Images
The far-right Freedom Party has had a commanding lead for more than a year, topping the ruling center-right in polls by 10 points. That puts the party in a position to win national elections scheduled for next fall, which would mark an unprecedented rightward tilt in a country whose politics have been dominated by the center since World War II.
Giorgia Meloni, Italy
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni made her name in opposition, campaigning on a radical far-right agenda. Since winning power in last year’s election, she has shifted to more moderate positions on Ukraine and Europe.
Meloni now needs to appease her base on migration, a topic that has dominated Italian debate for years. Instead, however, she has been forced to grant visas to hundreds of thousands of legal migrants to cover labor shortages. Complicating matters, boat landings in Italy are up by about 50 per cent year-on-year despite some headline-grabbling policies and deals to stop arrivals.
While Meloni has ordered the construction of detention centers where migrants will be held pending repatriation, in reality local conditions in African countries and a lack of repatriation agreements present serious impediments.
Italy’s Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni at a press conference on March 9, 2023 | Tiziana Fabi/AFP via Getty Images
Although she won the support of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for her cause, a potential EU naval mission to block departures from Africa would risk breaching international law.
Meloni has tried other options, including a deal with Tunisia to help stop migrant smuggling, but the plan fell apart before it began. A deal with Albania to offshore some migrant detention centers also ran into trouble.
Now Meloni is in a bind. The migration issue has brought her into conflict with France and Germany as she attempts to create a reputation as a moderate conservative.
If she fails to get to grips with the issue, she is likely to lose political ground. Her coalition partner Matteo Salvini is known as a hardliner on migration, and while they’re officially allies for now, they will be rivals again later.
Geert Wilders, the Netherlands
The government of long-serving Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte was toppled over migration talks in July, after which he announced his exit from politics. In subsequent elections, in which different parties vied to fill Rutte’s void, far-right firebrand Geert Wilders secured a shock win. On election night he promised to curb the “asylum tsunami.”
Wilders is now seeking to prop up a center-right coalition with three other parties that have urged getting migration under control. One of them is Rutte’s old group, now led by Dilan Yeşilgöz.
Geert Wilders attends a meeting in the Dutch parliament with party leaders to discuss the formation of a coalition government, on November 24, 2023 | Carl Court/Getty Images
A former refugee, Yeşilgöz turned migration into one of the main topics of her campaign. She was criticized after the elections for paving the way for Wilders to win — not only by focusing on migration, but also by opening the door to potentially governing with Wilders.
Now, though, coalition talks are stuck, and it could take months to form a new cabinet. If Wilders, who clearly has a mandate from voters, can stitch a coalition together, the political trajectory of the Netherlands — generally known as a pragmatic nation — will shift significantly to the right. A crackdown on migration is as certain as anything can be.
Leo Varadkar, Ireland
Even in Ireland, an economically open country long used to exporting its own people worldwide, an immigration-friendly and pro-business government has been forced by rising anti-foreigner sentiment to introduce new migration deterrence measures that would have been unthinkable even a year ago.
Ireland’s hardening policies reflect both a chronic housing crisis and the growing reluctance of some property owners to keep providing state-funded emergency shelter in the wake of November riots in Dublin triggered by a North African immigrant’s stabbing of young schoolchildren.
A nation already housing more than 100,000 newcomers, mostly from Ukraine, Ireland has stopped guaranteeing housing to new asylum seekers if they are single men, chiefly from Nigeria, Algeria, Afghanistan, Georgia and Somalia, according to the most recent Department of Integration statistics.
Ireland has stopped guaranteeing housing to new asylum seekers if they are single men, chiefly from Nigeria, Algeria, Afghanistan, Georgia and Somalia | Jorge Guerrero/AFP via Getty Images
Even newly arrived families face an increasing risk of being kept in military-style tents despite winter temperatures.
Ukrainians, who since Russia’s 2022 invasion of their country have received much stronger welfare support than other refugees, will see that welcome mat partially retracted in draft legislation approved this week by the three-party coalition government of Prime Minister Leo Varadkar.
Once enacted by parliament next month, the law will limit new Ukrainian arrivals to three months of state-paid housing, while welfare payments – currently among the most generous in Europe for people fleeing Russia’s war – will be slashed for all those in state-paid housing.
Justin Trudeau, Canada
A pessimistic public mood dragged down by cost-of-living woes has made immigration a multidimensional challenge for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
A housing crunch felt across the country has cooled support for immigration, with people looking for scapegoats for affordability pains. The situation has fueled antipathy for Trudeau and his re-election campaign.
Trudeau has treated immigration as a multipurpose solution for Canada’s aging population and slowing economy. And while today’s record-high population growth reflects well on Canada’s reputation as a desirable place to relocate, political challenges linked to migration have arisen in unpredictable ways for Trudeau’s Liberals.
Political challenges linked to migration have arisen in unpredictable ways for Trudeau’s Liberals | Andrej Ivanov/AFP
Since Trudeau came to power eight years ago, at least 1.3 million people have immigrated to Canada, mostly from India, the Philippines, China and Syria. Handling diaspora politics — and foreign interference — has become more consequential, as seen by Trudeau’s clash with India and Canada’s recent break with Israel.
Canada will double its 40 million population in 25 years if the current growth rate holds, enlarging the political challenges of leading what Trudeau calls the world’s “first postnational state”.
Pedro Sánchez, Spain
Spain’s autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla, in Northern Africa, are favored by migrants seeking to enter Europe from the south: Once they make it across the land border, the Continent can easily be accessed by ferry.
Transit via the land border that separates the European territory from Morocco is normally kept in check with security measures like high, razor-topped fences, with border control officers from both countries working together to keep undocumented migrants out.
Spain’s autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla, in Northern Africa, are favored by migrants seeking to enter Europe | Pierre-Philippe Marcou/AFP
But in recent years authorities in Morocco have expressed displeasure with their Spanish counterparts by standing down their officers and allowing hundreds of migrants to pass, overwhelming border stations and forcing Spanish officers to repel the migrants, with scores dying in the process.
The headaches caused by these incidents are believed to be a major factor in Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s decision to change the Spanish government’s position on the disputed Western Sahara territory and express support for Rabat’s plan to formalize its nearly 50-year occupation of the area.
The pivot angered Sánchez’s leftist allies and worsened Spain’s relationship with Algeria, a long-standing champion of Western Saharan independence. But the measures have stopped the flow of migrants — for now.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Greece
Greece has been at the forefront of Europe’s migration crisis since 2015, when hundreds of thousands of people entered Europe via the Aegean islands. Migration and border security have been key issues in the country’s political debate.
Human rights organizations, as well as the European Parliament and the European Commission, have accused the Greek conservative government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis of illegal “pushbacks” of migrants who have made it to Greek territory — and of deporting migrants without due process. Greece’s government denies those accusations, arguing that independent investigations haven’t found any proof.
Mitsotakis insists that Greece follows a “tough but fair” policy, but the numerous in-depth investigations belie the moderate profile the conservative leader wants to maintain.
In June, a migrant boat sank in what some called “the worst tragedy ever” in the Mediterranean Sea. Hundreds lost their lives, refocusing Europe’s attention on the issue. Official investigations have yet to discover whether failures by Greek authorities contributed to the shipwreck, according to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
In the meantime, Greece is in desperate need of thousands of workers to buttress the country’s understaffed agriculture, tourism and construction sectors. Despite pledges by the migration and agriculture ministers of imminent legislation bringing migrants to tackle the labor shortage, the government was forced to retreat amid pressure from within its own ranks.
Nikos Christodoulides, Cyprus
Cyprus is braced for an increase in migrant arrivals on its shores amid renewed conflict in the Middle East. Earlier in December, Greece sent humanitarian aid to the island to deal with an anticipated increase in flows.
Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides has called for extra EU funding for migration management, and is contending with a surge in violence against migrants in Cyprus. Analysts blame xenophobia, which has become mainstream in Cypriot politics and media, as well as state mismanagement of migration flows. Last year the country recorded the EU’s highest proportion of first-time asylum seekers relative to its population.
Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides has called for extra EU funding for migration management | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images
Legal and staffing challenges have delayed efforts to create a deputy ministry for migration, deemed an important step in helping Cyprus to deal with the surge in arrivals.
The island’s geography — it’s close to both Lebanon and Turkey — makes it a prime target for migrants wanting to enter EU territory from the Middle East. Its complex history as a divided country also makes it harder to regulate migrant inflows.
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Tim Ross, Annabelle Dickson, Clea Caulcutt, Myah Ward, Matthew Karnitschnig, Hannah Roberts, Pieter Haeck, Shawn Pogatchnik, Zi-Ann Lum, Aitor Hernández-Morales and Nektaria Stamouli
In some African cultures, the combination of rain and sunshine means that a leopard and a lioness have given birth to a cub.
I was hoping that this was the case as we traversed Kenya’s Maasai Mara National Reserve in a four-wheel drive jeep in the midst of a sunny downpour.
In the seven years that I’ve been a travel journalist in Africa, the game drive experience has always been one of my favorites. Wildlife is Africa’s treasure, and tourists revel in watching the animals — particularly the cats — in their natural habitats.
Travel journalist Harriet Akinyi watches a herd of elephants in a game drive at Mugie Conservancy, Kenya.
Source: Harriet Akinyi
There are 10 countries in Africa that have a strong wildlife focus: Kenya (my motherland), Tanzania, South Africa, Uganda, Mozambique, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Namibia and Rwanda.
For more than 25 years, professional safari guide Geoff Mayes has taken tourists to the best parks in Africa. He believes that many choose Kenya — and in particular, Maasai Mara — for their first trip to Africa because it’s safe and fairly accessible.
Known as one of the eight wonders of the world because of the wildebeest migration, Masaai Mara is one of Africa’s most renowned parks, said travel journalist Harriet Akinyi.
Wldavies | E+ | Getty Images
“It’s easier to catch flights to Kenya, making it high on peoples’ bucket list,” he said. “Also a game drive experience in Kenya will be able to meet the travelers’ expectations in terms of catching ‘the Big Five.'”
Less than an hour flight from the capital city of Nairobi is Nairobi National Park, where there’s a good chance of seeing lions and rhinos, he said.
And “if you come to the Maasai Mara, you’ll see the elephants and leopards and lions,” he explained as we drove through it.
In total, Kenya has 25 national parks and 16 national game reserves with countless private conservancies, which are smaller, private-owned wildlife reserves.
Amboseli National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is known for its massive elephant population and spectacular views of Mount Kilimanjaro.
Harriet Akinyi having a bush breakfast with a view of the rhinos after a game drive in Solio Conservancy in Kenya.
Source: Harriet Akinyi
Tsavo National Park, Kenya’s biggest park, is one of the world’s largest game sanctuaries. It was highlighted by President Barack Obama in the five-part Netflix docuseries “Our Great National Parks.”
Kenya is not the only country where I’ve gone on game drives.
South Africa is another and is home to some of the oldest and most iconic national parks in Africa. It’s a year-round safari destination, but the best game-viewing conditions are in the cooler winter months from May to September.
A game drive at Kruger National Park, South Africa.
Luis Davilla | Photodisc | Getty Images
There are 20 national parks, including the world–famous Kruger National Park — which has Africa’s “Big Five” game animals: lions, leopards, elephants, rhino and buffaloes.
There’s also Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, near the border of Botswana, and Pilanesberg National Park. The latter is about 150 kilometers (93 miles) from Johannesburg. It’s smaller than Kruger, but rich in wildlife — and, fascinatingly, it’s inside the crater of an ancient volcano believed to be some 1.2 billion years old.
Another highlight, Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park,has the “Big Five” as well as a thriving population of African wild dogs.
I’ve also been to Addo — the biggest park in the Eastern Cape and third-largest in South Africa — which is famous for its elephants. According to Ncediso Headman Nogaya, a game guard at Addo, October to April is the best time to visit.
“We are more likely to receive rains from May to September and while the season is great because it gives food to the wildlife … it might be a slippery drive and muddy,” he noted.
Uganda is known for its diverse wildlife and stunning landscapes in its 10 national parks and 12 game reserves. Of the national parks, seven are located on savannahs and three in forests. In those three, one can track mountain gorillas in Mgahinga National Park and Bwindi Impenetrable National Park.
Around 1,000 mountain gorillas exist today, more than half which live in Uganda, according to the Uganda Wildlife Authority.
Jason Edwards | Photodisc | Getty Images
My favorite memories at Queen Elizabeth National Park are of tracking chimpanzees in Kyambura Gorge, watching tree-climbing lions and a herd of elephants walking majestically on the plains, and observing buffaloes, warthogs, hippos and Nile crocodiles while cruising the Kazinga Channel.
Another park to consider is the Kidepo Valley National Park, with its sweeping plains and valleys overshadowed by the brooding Mount Morungole. The mountain is sacred to the Ik tribe, one of the smallest tribes in Uganda. The park ranks among the best birding safari destinations in the country too.
I loved my game drive experience at Lake Mburo National Park, even though it’s one of the smallest national parks in the country.
It’s the only park where travelers can enjoy boat cruises, walking safaris and horseback riding, tour operator Dennis Kahungu told CNBC Travel.
A group of big horn Ankole Cattle in Lake Mburo National Park, Uganda.
Christopher Kidd | Photodisc | Getty Images
Plus “it’s the only national park in Uganda with the impalas,” he said. “It’s also where you will find the big horned Ankole cows.”
Located in eastern Rwanda, Akagera National Park is a protected wetland and the last remaining refuge for savannah-adapted species in Rwanda. Park visitors can take boat safaris along Lake Ilhema, the second largest lake in Rwanda, for wildlife and birdwatching.
Weaver birds and nests over Lake Ihema, Rwanda.
Inti St. Clair | Photodisc | Getty Images
Travelers in search of mountain gorillas usually go to Volcanoes National Park in the northern part of the country. It’s also home to golden monkeys, and well regarded for hiking and mountain climbing.
Recently inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, Nyungwe National Park is another part to explore and is situated in southwest Rwanda and is known for its chimpanzees and colobus monkeys. It’s also popular for canopy walks on a suspended bridge some 70 meters (230 feet) above the forest floor.
While the parks can be visited all year round, it’s best to avoid April, as that’s when Rwanda typically receives heavy rains.
Botswana is a fast-emerging ecotourism destination — visitors are drawn to the vast elephant herds of Chobe National Park and the canoe-based wildlife safaris in the Okavango Delta.
A herd of elephants at Chobe National Park, Botswana.
Williececogo | Moment | Getty Images
One can also see the “Big Five” at Moremi Nature Reserve, Nxai Pan National Park, Makgadikgadi Pans National Park as well as Central Kalahari Game Reserve.
Apart from the renowned Hwange National Park, I have also visited Matobo National Park, which has a wide diversity of fauna and plenty of white rhinos. The area around Matobo Hills is home to the remains of early settlements and the graves of historical figures like Cecil Rhodes.
The rock formation in Matobo National Park in Zimbabwe, Africa, which is home to the grave of Cecil Rhodes.
Westend61 | Getty Images
The best time to visit the parks is during the dry season, from June to October. That’s when the bush is thinner — making wildlife easier to spot.
Mayes said the best time for safaris in Kenya and Tanzania is, of course, during the migration season. But he recommends visiting Zimbabwe and Zambia from July to October.
In other parts of the continent, months like February, June and September can be very rewarding too.
“The wildlife is fantastic and there are fewer vehicles around,” he said. “And you can often benefit from a low season price structure which of course is always nice.”
Felicien Kabuga, who is nearly 90 and has dementia, is accused of encouraging and bankrolling the Rwanda genocide.
Survivors of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda have criticised a call by appeals judges at a United Nations court to indefinitely halt the trial of an alleged financer and supporter of the massacre due to the suspect’s ill health.
The ruling on Monday sends the matter back to the court’s trial chamber with instructions to impose a stay on proceedings, which likely means that Felicien Kabuga, who is nearly 90 and has dementia, will not be prosecuted.
Appeals judges at the court also rejected a proposal to set up an alternative procedure that would have allowed evidence to be heard but without the possibility of a verdict.
The UN court’s chief prosecutor, Serge Brammertz, said the ruling “must be respected, even if the outcome is dissatisfying”.
Kabuga, who was arrested in France in 2020 after years as a fugitive from justice, is accused of encouraging and bankrolling the mass killing of Rwanda’s Tutsi minority. His trial came nearly three decades after the 100-day massacre left 800,000 dead.
‘Extremely disturbing’
Kabuga has pleaded not guilty to charges including genocide and persecution. He remains in custody at a UN detention unit in The Hague, but could be released as a result of Monday’s ruling.
“I think the world does not mean good for us. What mattered to us survivors following Kabuga’s arrest was at least justice,” said Francine Uwamariya, a genocide survivor, who told the Associated Press news agency that she lost her entire family at the hands of Kabuga’s henchmen.
“The trial should have continued even without Kabuga. He was the planner and financer of the genocide. The court appears to be on the side of the killer, when it should be neutral,” Uwamariya said.
Uwamariya’s sentiment was echoed by Naphtal Ahishakiye, another genocide survivor and executive secretary of Ibuka, a Rwanda survivors’ organisation, who said there was enough evidence to convict Kabuga.
“It’s extremely disturbing on the side of survivors, who will see Kabuga walking free. Justice should be felt by those wronged,” Ahishakiye said.
Ibuka has filed a case against Kabuga in Kigali, seeking court permission to sell off all of his properties to fund reparations and help survivors.
Brammertz expressed solidarity with victims and survivors of the genocide.
“They have maintained their faith in the justice process over the last three decades. I know that this outcome will be distressing and disheartening to them,” he said. “Having visited Rwanda recently, I heard very clearly how important it was that this trial be concluded.”
Brammertz said that his team of prosecutors would continue to help Rwanda and other countries seek accountability for genocide crimes and pointed to the arrest in May of another fugitive, Fulgence Kayishema, as an example that suspects can still face justice.
Kayishema was indicted by a UN court for allegedly organising the slaughter of more than 2,000 ethnic Tutsi refugees – men, women and children – at a Catholic church on April 15, 1994, during the first days of the genocide. He is expected to be tried in Rwanda.
Brammertz said his office will significantly boost assistance to Rwanda’s prosecutor general, “including through the provision of our evidence and developed expertise, to ensure more genocide fugitives stand trial for their alleged crimes”.
Rwanda’s government has commuted the sentence of Paul Rusesabagina, who inspired the film “Hotel Rwanda” for saving hundreds of countrymen from genocide but was convicted of terrorism offenses years later in a widely criticized trial.
U.S. officials confirmed Friday evening that Rusesabagina, a 68-year-old U.S. resident and Belgian citizen, was released and said he will will travel to Qatar and then to the United States in the next few days.
Rwandan government spokesperson Yolande Makolo told The Associated Press earlier that the 25-year sentence was commuted by presidential order after a request for clemency. Under Rwandan law, commutation doesn’t “extinguish” the conviction, she added.
Nineteen others also had their sentences commuted.
Paul Rusesabagina arrives at a court in Kigali, Rwanda, in a February 17, 2021 file photo.
Xinhua/Cyril Ndegeya/Getty
“Rwanda notes the constructive role of the U.S. government in creating conditions for dialogue on this issue, as well as the facilitation provided by the state of Qatar,” Makolo said. President Paul Kagame earlier this month said discussions were under way on resolving the issue.
“I welcome today’s release of Paul Rusesabagina by the Government of Rwanda,” President Biden said in a statement Friday night. “Paul’s family is eager to welcome him back to the United States, and I share their joy at today’s good news.”
Biden also thanked the Qatari government “for facilitating Paul’s release and return” to the U.S.
The case had been described by the U.S. and others as unfair. Rusesabagina disappeared in 2020 during a visit to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and appeared days later in Rwanda in handcuffs. His family alleged he was kidnapped and taken to Rwanda against his will to stand trial.
He was convicted on eight charges including membership in a terrorist group, murder and abduction. But the circumstances surrounding his arrest, his limited access to an independent legal team and his reported worsening health drew international concern.
Rusesabagina has asserted that his arrest was in response to his criticism of Kagame over alleged human rights abuses. Kagame’s government has repeatedly denied targeting dissenting voices with arrests and extrajudicial killings.
In a signed letter to Kagame dated Oct. 14 and posted on the justice ministry’s website, Rusesabagina wrote that “if I am granted a pardon and released, I understand fully that I will spend the remainder of my days in the United States in quiet reflection. I can assure you through this letter that I hold no personal or political ambitions otherwise. I will leave questions regarding Rwandan politics behind me.”
Rusesabagina was credited with sheltering more than 1,000 ethnic Tutsis at the hotel he managed during Rwanda’s 1994 genocide in which over 800,000 Tutsi and Hutus who tried to protect them were killed. In 2005, President George W. Bush honored him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his efforts.
He became a public critic of Kagame and left Rwanda in 1996, first living in Belgium and then the U.S.
Rusesabagina’s family last year filed a $400 million lawsuit in the U.S. against Kagame, the Rwandan government and other figures for allegedly abducting and torturing him.
Human Rights Watch said he had been “forcibly disappeared” and taken to Rwanda. But the court there ruled he wasn’t kidnapped when he was tricked into boarding a chartered flight.
Rwanda’s government asserted that Rusesabagina had been going to Burundi to coordinate with armed groups based there and in Congo.
Rusesabagina was accused of supporting the armed wing of his opposition political platform, the Rwandan Movement for Democratic Change. The armed group claimed some responsibility for attacks in 2018 and 2019 in southern Rwanda in which nine Rwandans died.
Rusesabagina testified at trial that he helped to form the armed group to assist refugees but said he never supported violence – and sought to distance himself from its deadly attacks.
Rusesabagina also has said he was gagged and tortured before he was jailed, but Rwandan authorities denied that. His attorney, Felix Rudakemwa, asserted that Rusesabagina’s legal papers were confiscated by prison authorities.
After his sentence, Belgium’s then-foreign minister, Sophie Wilmes, said that “it must be concluded that Mr. Rusesabagina has not been given a fair and equitable trial.”
Last year, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Kagame in Rwanda and discussed the case. “We still have conviction that the trial wasn’t fair,” Blinken told journalists.
As the news spread on Friday, his family in a statement said that “we are pleased to hear the news about Paul’s release. The family is hopeful to reunite with him soon.”
American actor Don Cheadle, who played Rusesabagina in the move “Hotel Rwanda,” posted a news story about the commutation on his Instagram account, followed by three heart emojis.
Don Cheadle (nominated as a leading actor) and Sophie Okonedo (nominated as supporting actress) star as husband and wife Paul and Tatiana Rusesabagina in “Hotel Rwanda.”
British Home Secretary Suella Braverman arrived in Rwanda on Saturday to discuss a controversial agreement which will see the UK deport asylum seekers deemed to have arrived illegally to the African nation.
The scheme is mired in legal difficulties – no one has yet been deported – and Braverman’s visit has been criticized as she invited journalists from right-wing titles to accompany her, excluding liberal ones.
Braverman landed in Rwanda’s capital Kigali where she was greeted by the permanent secretary to Rwanda’s foreign ministry Clementine Mukeka, and the British high commissioner to Rwanda Omar Daair.Later, she visited a housing estate intended to provide accommodation for migrants in the future.
The trip comes 11 months after the UK government outlined its plan to send thousands of migrants considered to have entered the country illegally to Rwanda to have their asylum claims processed.
The government argues the program is aimed at disrupting people-smuggling networks and deterring migrants from making the dangerous sea journey across the Channel to England from France.
The plan, which would see the UK pay Rwanda $145 million (£120 million) over the next five years, has faced backlash from NGOs, asylum seekers and a civil service trade union which questioned its legality, leading the government to delay its execution.
No flights have taken place yet, after the first scheduled flight to Rwanda was stopped at the eleventh hour back in June, due to an intervention by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), followed by months of legal challenges which have since stalled the program.
Before departing Braverman reaffirmed her commitment to the scheme, saying it would “act as a powerful deterrent against dangerous and illegal journeys,” PA reported.
But Sonya Sceats, chief executive of the charity Freedom from Torture, told CNN this is “profoundly misguided.”
“Policies of deterrence do not work when you are trying to target people who are fleeing torture, war and persecution,” Sceats said.
She added that the decision to invite only government-friendly media on the trip “confirms that they’ve stopped even pretending that they are speaking to the entire country on this issue.”
The UK government has made stopping migrants arriving in small boats on its shores a top priority.
The Illegal Migration Bill, which is being debated in Parliament, hands the government the right to deport anyone arriving illegally in the UK. In many cases, there are no safe and legal routes into the UK, meaning many asylum seekers can only arrive illegally.
Under this bill, people arriving in the UK “won’t be admissible to have their asylum claim assessed even if they are refugees coming from war torn societies,” said Alexander Betts, Director of the University of Oxford Refugee Studies Center.
Instead, they will face immediate removal either to their country of origin, or a third country, like Rwanda.
But there are concerns that the proposed legislation is illegal.
“When you open up the bill, on the first page there’s a big red flag which says: This might be in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights,” Betts told CNN.
He added that the proposed bill is of “historical significance,” since it amounts to “a liberal, democratic state abandoning the principle of the right to asylum.”
The United Nations Court of Human Rights has warned that the bill, if enacted, would be a “clear breach” of the Refugee Convention.
There are also concerns that the bill is unworkable. The Rwandan government has indicated that it can only process 1,000 asylum seekers over the initial five-year period.
By contrast, 45,755 people are estimated to have arrived in the UK via small boats taken across the English Channel in 2022 alone.
The DRC’s Minister of Communications, Patrick Muyaya, on the fighting in his country and Rwanda’s role in the conflict.
Continuing fighting in the resource-rich Democratic Republic of the Congo, between the army and the Mouvement du 23 Mars, or M23, has left hundreds dead and millions displaced in the country’s eastern provinces.
The DRC government blames neighbouring Rwanda for supporting M23, an allegation Kigali has denied, despite evidence documented by the United Nations and Human Rights Watch among others.
As fighting intensifies, many fear the conflict could escalate into war between the two countries.
So what’s in store for the Congolese people? And is there a path towards peace?
On UpFront, DRC Minister of Communications and government spokesperson, Patrick Muyaya, joins Marc Lamont Hill to discuss the conflict in his country and address regional fears that the fighting could spill across DRC’s borders.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — On the packed streets of Nairobi, Cyrus Kariuki is one of a growing number of bikers zooming through traffic on an electric motorbike, reaping the benefits of cheaper transport, cleaner air and limiting planet-warming emissions in the process.
“Each month one doesn’t have to be burdened by oil change, engine checks and other costly maintenance costs,” Kariuki said.
Electric motorcycles are gaining traction in Kenya as private sector-led firms rush to set up charging points and battery-swapping stations to speed up the growth of cleaner transport and put the east African nation on a path toward fresher air and lower emissions.
But startups say more public support and better government schemes can help further propel the industry.
Ampersand, an African-based electric mobility company, began its Kenyan operations in May 2022. The business currently operates seven battery-swapping stations spread across the country’s capital and has so far attracted 60 customers. Ian Mbote, the startup’s automotive engineer and expansion lead, says uptake has been relatively slow.
“We need friendly policies, taxes, regulations and incentives that would boost the entry into the market,” said Mbote, adding that favorable government tariffs in Rwanda accelerated its electric transport growth. Ampersand plan to sell 500 more electric motorbikes by the end of the year.
Companies say the savings of switching to electric and using a battery-swap system, rather than charging for several hours, are key selling point for customers.
“Our batteries cost $1.48 to swap a full battery which gives one mobility of about 90 to 110 kilometers (56 to 68 miles) as compared to the $1.44 of fuel that only guarantees a 30 to 40 kilometer ride (19 to 25 miles) on a motorcycle,” Mbote said.
Kim Chepkoit, the founder of electric motorbike-making company Ecobodaa Mobility, added that “electricity costs are going to be more predictable and cushioned from the fluctuation of the fuel prices.”
Ecobodaa’s flagship product is a motorcycle with two batteries, making it capable of covering 160 kilometers (100 miles) on one battery charge. The motorcycle costs 185,000 shillings ($1,400) without the battery, about the same as a conventional motorbike.
Other cleaner transport initiatives in the country include the Sustainable Energy for Africa program which runs a hub for 30 solar-powered charging stations for electric vehicles and battery-swapping in Kenya’s western region.
Electric mobility has a promising future in the continent but “requires infrastructural, societal and political systemic changes that neither happen overnight nor will be immune to hesitance,” said Carol Mungo, a research fellow at the Stockholm Environment Institute.
The move to electric transport “will require African governments to rethink how they deliver current services such as reliable and affordable electricity” and at the same time put in place adequate measures to address electric waste and disposal, Mungo added.
Some financial incentives are on the way.
Earlier in February the African Development Bank announced that it will provide $1 million in grants for technical assistance in Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and South Africa.
The African continent records a million premature deaths annually from air pollution, according to a soon-to-be-released study by the U.N. environment agency, Stockholm Environment Institute and the African Union obtained by The Associated Press.
Studies by the Climate and Clean Air Coalition say a reduction of short-lived climate pollutants can cut the amount of warming by as “much as 0.6 degrees Celsius (1.1 degrees Fahrenheit), while avoiding 2.4 million premature deaths globally from annual outdoor air pollution.”
But Mungo warned that cleaning up transport is just one step of many toward better air quality.
“There are so many emission factors in cities,” she said. “E-mobility, however, looks broadly beyond the transport sector to infrastructure development and urban planning, which in the end can solve complex pollution issues on in Africa.”
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The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Tuesday denounced Rwanda’s accusation that a Congolese fighter jet violated Rwandan airspace, alleging the aircraft was attacked by Rwandan forces in a “deliberate act of aggression that amounts to an act of war.”
Rwanda’s government communications office released a statement on Twitter Tuesday which said: “Today at 5:03 pm, a Sukhoi-25 from DR Congo violated Rwanda airspace for the third time. Defensive measures were taken. Rwanda asks the DRC to stop this aggression.”
The Congolese government later issued a statement disputing Kigali’s version of events, alleging the jet was “attacked while it was beginning its landing on the runway of Goma’s international airport.”
“The Rwandan fire was directed at a Congolese aircraft, flying inside Congolese territory. It did not fly over Rwandan airspace. The aircraft landed without major material damage.”
It continues to say “the Government considers this umpteenth attack by Rwanda to be a deliberate act of aggression that amounts to an act of war” with the “sole objective of sabotaging” ongoing efforts to restore peace in eastern DRC, where a rebel insurgency has fractured relations between the two countries.
CNN cannot independently verify either version of events.
A video shared widely on Congolese social media showed a projectile shooting toward an airborne military plane, before exploding in the air near the plane, which continued to fly. CNN could not immediately verify the video.
Rwanda is accused by the Congolese government, the United Nations, and Western allies of supporting the notorious armed M23 rebel group in its violent insurgency in eastern DRC, which Kigali denies.
Regional leaders brokered an agreement in November under which the Tutsi-led group was meant to withdraw from recently seized positions by Jan. 15 as part of efforts to end the fighting that has displaced at least 450,000 people.
Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi said last week that the rebels had not fully withdrawn from those areas.
In December, Rwanda said another fighter jet from Congo had briefly violated its air space.
An unarmed Congolese warplane also briefly landed at a Rwandan airport in November while on a reconnaissance mission near the border, in what Congo said was an accident.
John Williams Ntwali, one of Rwanda’s few journalists who published stories critical of the government, has died.
Ntwali was the sole fatality in a car accident in Kigali on Wednesday, police spokesman John Bosco Kabera told Reuters. The driver of the other vehicle has been arrested and “the accident file is being processed for onward transmission to prosecution,” Kabera said.
Numerous human rights organizations called for an independent investigation into his death, as numerous journalists, advocates, and critics of President Paul Kagame and his ruling party have mysteriously disappeared, been found dead, or been jailed.
Human Rights Watch said he “joins a long list of people who have challenged the government and died in suspicious circumstances.”
“John Williams Ntwali was a lifeline for many victims of human rights violations and often the only journalist who dared report on issues of political persecution and repression,” said Lewis Mudge, Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch.
In Rwanda, the media environment is oppressive, tightly controlled, and dangerous. During the last two decades, 17 journalists have been killed, according to data collected by the Committee to Protect Journalists. As the editor of the newspaper The Chronicles, Ntwali investigated high-profile political trials, corruption cases, and other sensitive issues. He often posted items on his social media feed and YouTube channel critical of the government’s approach. On Jan. 10, Ntwali posted on his Twitter account a report that the Rwandan government was meddling in religious administration.
He had been arrested numerous times throughout his career and spoke often about fearing for his life and safety.
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The UK’s controversial policy to deport some asylum seekers to Rwanda was deemed lawful by the country’s High Court on Monday.
A group of NGOs, asylum seekers and a civil service trade union had questioned the legality of the scheme, which would see asylum seekers deemed to have entered the UK illegally sent to Rwanda to have their asylum claims processed.
The court deemed the government is able to make those arrangements. But it also criticized Home Secretary Suella Braverman for failing to properly assess the circumstances surrounding individual people set to be moved under the scheme.
Braverman “must decide if there is anything about each person’s particular circumstances which means that his asylum claim should be determined in the United Kingdom or whether there are other reasons why he should not be relocated to Rwanda,” Lord Justice Lewis said in his ruling.
She “has not properly considered the circumstances of the eight individual claimants whose cases we have considered,” the judge continued. Those eight cases will be sent back to the Home Office for Braverman to reassess, he said.
The UK government’s partnership with the East African country has been the subject of fierce criticism since it was announced by former UK Home Secretary Priti Patel in April.
It has been backed by ex-Prime Minister Boris Johnson, his successor Liz Truss and current leader Rishi Sunak, along with most of the ruling Conservative party.
But it has a host of critics, including dozens of refugee rights groups, international agencies, British lawmakers on both sides of the House of Commons, the head of the Anglican church and some Rwandan opposition politicians.
The first flight to Rwanda was set to take off on June 14, but the European Court of Human Rights stepped in at the eleventh hour, and months of legal challenges have stalled the program in the months since.
The UK says it will pay Rwanda £120 million ($145 million) over the next five years to finance the scheme.
Braverman welcomed the Monday verdict, saying in a statement that she is “committed to making this partnership work.
“My focus remains on moving ahead with the policy as soon as possible and we stand ready to defend against any further legal challenge,” she said.
But the ruling was met with disappointment from campaigners, who have long contended that the plan is unethical and ineffective.
“We are very disappointed in the outcome of this case. If the Government moves ahead with these harmful plans, it would damage the UK’s reputation as a country that values human rights and undermine our commitment to provide safety to those fleeing conflict and oppression, as enshrined in the 1951 Refugee Convention,” Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said in a statement.
“Treating people who are in search of safety like human cargo and shipping them off to another country is a cruel policy that will cause great human suffering,” Solomon added. “The scheme is wrong in principle and unworkable in practice.”
The number of people making dangerous journeys across the English Channel in small boats has spiked in recent years, with 2022 once again seeing record highs despite the government insisting that the Rwanda policy would work as a deterrent.
It remains to be seen whether the policy will now operate effectively; the prospect of individual claims on behalf of migrants still threatens to scupper Sunak’s plans to get the policy off the ground.
But the ruling will be welcomed by the government, which has sunk in popularity and lost the faith of most voters on a number of issues, according to opinion polls.
