Security Council
Pentagon: US team going to Haiti to assess needs
A team of U.S. security and law enforcement experts is traveling to Haiti to determine what assistance Washington can provide following the assassination of the Haitian president last week, the Pentagon said on Sunday. “Today, an inter-agency team largely from the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI are heading down to Haiti right now to see what we can to do help in the investigative process,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told “Fox News Sunday.” “That’s really where our energies are best applied right now – in helping them get their arms around investigating this incident and figuring out who’s culpable … and how best to hold them accountable,” Kirby said in the interview. President Joe Biden will be briefed by the team when it returns and “then make decisions about the way forwa...
Haiti asks US, UN to send troops after president’s assassination
Haiti has asked Washington and the UN for troops to secure its ports, airport and other strategic sites after the assassination of President Jovenel Moise opened a power vacuum in the crisis-hit Caribbean nation, an official said Friday. The United States has already said it will send FBI and other agents to Port-au-Prince, two days after Moise was shot dead in his home. In the wake of the slaying “we thought that mercenaries could destroy some infrastructure to create chaos … During a conversation with the US secretary of state and the UN we made this request,” elections minister Mathias Pierre told AFP. The US State Department and Pentagon both confirmed receiving a request for “security and investigative assistance” and said officials remain in contact with Port-au-Prince, but did not s...
Morocco says Madrid seeks to ‘Europeanise’ its crisis with Rabat
Morocco’s foreign minister on Wednesday accused Spain of trying to turn a political crisis between the two countries into an EU problem by focusing on migration and ignoring the root causes. The row blew up in April after Spain admitted the leader of the Western Sahara independence movement, Brahim Ghali, for medical treatment without informing Rabat, which regards the disputed territory as its own. Morocco then appeared to relax border controls with Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta on May 17, leading to an influx of at least 8,000 migrants. Since then Spain and Morocco have traded accusations of violating good neighbourliness, with Spain saying Morocco used the migrants while Rabat says Spain acted in connivance with “adversaries” of its territorial integrity. “Spain tries to Europe...
Hamas official predicts ceasefire soon in Israel-Gaza conflict
A senior Hamas official predicted a ceasefire within days in the Israel-Gaza conflict, after U.S. President Joe Biden urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to seek a “de-escalation” in the fighting. Rocket fire into Israel died down overnight, a lull that stretched into Thursday morning. Israel was launching new air strikes in Gaza after daybreak, but, Israeli media said, at a slower pace than in past days. An Egyptian security source said the sides had agreed in principle to a ceasefire after help from mediators but details were still being negotiated in secret. “I think that the ongoing efforts regarding the ceasefire will succeed,” the Hamas political official, Moussa Abu Marzouk, told Lebanon’s al-Mayadeen TV. “I expect a ceasefire to be reached within a day or two, and the c...
African Union mission urges return to ‘constitutional order’ in Chad
An African Union mission recommended on Wednesday that Chad’s military share power with a civilian president, as one of three options towards restoring constitutional order following last month’s killing of president Idriss Deby. A military council led by Deby’s son Mahamat Idriss Deby seized power in April after his father was killed while visiting troops opposing a rebel insurgency. The African Union, which could suspend Chad over the military takeover, sent a fact-finding mission to develop strategies for a return to constitutional order and democratic governance. In a report, the mission recommended the AU’s security council could support the military transition as it stands, while appointing a special envoy to ensure the military keep their promise to organise elections with 18 months...
Rivers governor: We can’t succumb to secessionist agenda
The Governor of Rivers State, Chief Nyesom Wike, has declared that his state will not be cowed into secessionist agenda. This is just as Wike condemned the killings of seven police officers in the state. The governor in a statement by his Special Assistant on Media, Kelvin Ebiri, after an emergency meeting of the Security Council at the Government House, Port Harcourt on Saturday called for calm in the state. Wike, who presided over the meeting, condemned the attacks by the unidentified armed assailants on some police formations. He reiterated that no amount of intimidation or cruel resort to barbaric attacks will make the State succumb to the secessionist agenda of those who are bent on plunging Nigeria into another unwarranted crisis. However, Wike, on behalf of the Government of Rivers ...
Rivers governor imposes statewide curfew
Governor Nyesom Wike has imposed statewide curfew on Rivers based on the advice of the state security council. The Council gave the advice after an exhaustive deliberation at the Government House, Port Harcourt on Thursday based on threats of attack on the State, Governor Wike said in a broadcast on Thursday. He said, ” Security Council has imposed Consequently, a night curfew is hereby imposed on the entire 23 Local Government Areas of the State prohibiting any human and or vehicular movement within or any part of the State from 10.00 p.m. to 6.00 a.m. from today 29th April 2021 until further notice.” The governor recalled that on 28th April 2021, the State Security Council, in consideration of the recent murderous attacks on security personnel in Ikwerre and Abua/Odual Local Government A...
Southeast Asian leaders discuss Myanmar crisis with junta chief
Southeast Asian leaders began a crisis meeting on Myanmar on Saturday aiming to persuade Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, who led the military takeover that sparked turmoil in his country, to forge a path to end the violence. The gathering of leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Jakarta is the first coordinated international effort to ease the crisis in Myanmar, an impoverished country that neighbours China, India and Thailand. Myanmar is part of the 10-nation ASEAN. With participants attending in person despite the pandemic, Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said on Friday that the summit reflected the “deep concern about the situation in Myanmar and ASEAN’s determination to help Myanmar get out of this delicate situation”. It’s unusual for the leader o...
UN: 40 people killed in ethnic clashes in West Darfur
At least 40 people have been killed in Sudan’s West Darfur region after three days of ethnic clashes that have prompted the government to declare a state of emergency, the United Nations announced Monday. The clashes in El Geneina, which is close to the border with Chad, also left at least 58 people wounded. Fighting among members of the Arabi Rizeigat and Masalit tribes in El Geneina began after armed men shot two people and wounded two others in the Masalit tribe, according to the U.N. While authorities have yet to determine the cause of the shootings, gunfire exchanges between the two tribes continued into Monday, claiming at least 40 residents. Residents told Agence France-Presse they heard fresh gunfire accompanied by loud explosions at dawn Monday as the violence spread to the suburb...
More than 90 killed in Myanmar in one of bloodiest days of protests
Security forces killed more than 90 people across Myanmar on Saturday in one of the bloodiest days of protests since a military coup last month, news reports and witnesses said. The lethal crackdown came on Armed Forces Day. Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, the junta leader, said during a parade in the capital Naypyitaw to mark the event that the military would protect the people and strive for democracy. State television had said on Friday that protesters risked being shot “in the head and back”. Despite this, demonstrators against the Feb. 1 coup came out on the streets of Yangon, Mandalay and other towns. The Myanmar Now news portal said 91 people were killed across the country by security forces. A boy reported by local media to be as young as five was among at least 29 people killed in...
Lobbyist says Myanmar junta wants to improve relations with the West, spurn China
An Israeli-Canadian lobbyist hired by Myanmar’s junta said on Saturday that the generals are keen to leave politics after their coup and seek to improve relations with the United States and distance themselves from China. Ari Ben-Menashe, a former Israeli military intelligence official who has previously represented Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe and Sudan’s military rulers, said Myanmar’s generals also want to repatriate Rohingya Muslims who fled to neighboring Bangladesh. The United Nations says more than 50 demonstrators have been killed since the Feb. 1 coup when the military overthrew and detained elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy party won polls in November by a landslide. On Friday, a U.N. special envoy urged the Security Council to take action against t...
Yoruba group: Ban on Zamfara mining activities a double-edged sword
The Yoruba Ronu Leadership Forum yesterday raised the alarm that the ban on mining activities in Zamfara State by the national security council and the declaration of the state a no-fly zone area order are double-edged sword for peace. In a statement issued by the President of the group, Mr. Akin Malaolu, the group recalled that between 2006 and 2007 the then governor Sani Yerima displaced a large population of Fulanis from many mining sites and replaced them with Hausa youths to take charge. The statement noted that the displacement at that time caused both discomfort and death on the Fulani youths who then took to banditry. “If the government is placing ban, we hope they won’t cause new displacement that could re-enact same security challenges we are yet to surmount. “Our candid advice i...
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