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ADDIS ABABA, The Chairperson of the African Union Commission (AUC) Moussa Faki Mahamat has appointed Mohammed El-Amine Souef, of the Union of Comoros, as his Special Representative to Somalia and Head of the AU Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS).

This new appointment is effective from Sept 1.

Until his appointment as Special Representative of the Chairperson of the Commission (SRCC), Souef served as the Head of the Regional Office in Gao of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA).

A former Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of the Union of Comoros, Souef also worked as the Head of Regional Office with the Head African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID).

In pursuit of his mandate as SRCC to Somalia and Head of ATMIS, Souef will maintain close and constant interaction with the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS) and other Somali stakeholders in supporting the implementation of the Somali Transition Plan and broader state-building processes in Somalia.

He will also work closely with the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and its Member States, as well as with relevant bilateral and multilateral partners, including the United Nations (UN) and the UN Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM) and the European Union (EU).

In a similar vein, the Chairperson extended his deep appreciation to Francisco Caetano Jose Madeira from Mozambique, the immediate past SRCC to Somalia and Head of AMISOM/ATMIS, for his meritorious service to the AU during his over 6-year tenure.

While wishing the new SRCC and Head of ATMIS, a successful tenure, the Chairperson calls on all relevant national, continental and international actors, to closely collaborate with Souef in promoting peace and stability in Somalia.

Source: Nam News Network

UNITED NATIONS, The UN General Assembly is back in person after the pandemic disruption but in a world as full of crises as ever, with the war in Ukraine set to pit the West against Russia.

Some 150 world leaders will descend on New York for a week of diplomacy, with all required to come in person to speak save one — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, granted an exception as he leads the fight against Russian invaders.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, speaking ahead of the summit that formally begins Tuesday, said that the world’s divisions “are the widest they have been since at least the Cold War.”

“Our world is blighted by war, battered by climate chaos, scarred by hate and shamed by poverty, hunger and inequality,” Guterres said.

“As fractures deepen and trust evaporates, we need to come together around solutions.”

The General Assembly voted Friday to let Zelensky speak by video. Seven nations voted against including Russia, saying that the right should be extended to all leaders, with Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as Chinese President Xi Jinping, not planning to travel to New York.

Several US adversaries are expected, however, including Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, defying loud protests from their opponents in the United States.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday will co-chair a summit on food security with the African Union, European Union and Spain as high global prices — worsened by the invasion of major grain producer Ukraine — bring new hunger around the world.

French President Emmanuel Macron’s office said that he will seek “dialogue with our partners from the South to avoid planting this idea that it’s the West against the rest.”

And with Covid concerns lingering, the United Nations is still limiting the size of delegations and requiring the wearing of masks in the towering headquarters on the East River.

Prime Minister Liz Truss, who took office two days before the death of Britain’s longest-reigning monarch, will fly after the funeral to the United Nations on her first foreign trip since taking office.

The UN summit will also mark a fresh occasion to build momentum on global action on climate change, amid mounting signs that the planet is descending into dangerous levels of warming.

“We have run out of time to waste,” said Ambassador Walton Webson of Antigua and Barbuda, heading the Alliance of Small Island States.

“Our islands are being hit with more severe and more frequent climate impacts and recovery comes at the cost of our development,” he said.

Guterres said he will use the week to speak frankly with leaders amid guarded hopes for further progress on climate during the next climate summit, COP27, in Egypt in November.

Source: Nam News Network

Hundreds of Boko Haram jihadists have fled a forest enclave in northeast Nigeria, escaping air strikes by the military and floods from torrential rains to seek shelter on Niger’s side of Lake Chad, sources told AFP.

Northeast Nigeria is facing a 13-year armed insurgency by jihadist groups that has killed more than 40,000 people and forced about 2 million from their homes.

The violence has spilled into neighboring Niger, Chad and Cameroon, with the jihadists maintaining camps in the vast Lake Chad region straddling the four countries.

A Nigerian security source said Boko Haram militants have been leaving the Sambisa forest since last month because of sustained bombing of their hideouts.

Nigeria has also recorded a more intensive rainy season, which usually runs from May through September, and floods have hit almost every part of the country.

“The exodus of the Boko Haram terrorists has increased in recent days as the bombardments have intensified, coupled with the floodings that have submerged many of their camps,” said the security source in the region who asked not to be identified.

On Monday, a convoy of more than 50 trucks carrying Boko Haram fighters and their families passed through villages on a route linking Sambisa with Lake Chad, several residents in the region said.

The fighters are believed to be loyal to Bakura Buduma, a Boko Haram factional leader, the sources said.

“The Boko Haram convoy is definitely heading to the islands on Lake Chad in the Bosso area of Niger where the group has camps,” said a fisherman named Kallah Sani who said he was familiar with Boko Haram movements in the region.

Niger authorities could not immediately confirm the movement.

Source: Voice of America

The death of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II last week has sparked renewed debate in many Commonwealth countries, most of them former British colonies, about their future ties to the monarchy.

Britain wasn’t alone in proclaiming a new king upon the death of Elizabeth. Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Jamaica are among 14 other nations where King Charles III is the new head of state. Echoing the ceremonies in London, proclamation ceremonies were held in several capitals, from Nassau in the Bahamas to Suva in Fiji.

Fifty-six countries are members of the Commonwealth, an association of mostly former British colonies. In 2018, the organization agreed to appoint Charles as its head upon the death of Queen Elizabeth II, prompting anger among some members, especially in the Caribbean.

“The death of Queen Elizabeth absolutely will mark a turning point,” said Sonjah Stanley Niaah of the University of the West Indies in Jamaica, in an interview with VOA on Wednesday.

“Many countries have really been considering their own role, their own place in the commonwealth. And I think that now that Queen Elizabeth has passed, there is going to be certainly more of a move to disassociate themselves from the commonwealth,” Niaah said.

Republicanism

Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, an avowed republican who was elected in May, wants a referendum on removing the British monarch as head of state in the next parliament.

“It’s not appropriate now … to talk about constitutional change. What is appropriate right now is to commemorate the life of service of Queen Elizabeth II,” Albanese told reporters this week.

Antigua and Barbuda, as well as St. Lucia, both in the Caribbean, have expressed similar plans. For the first time, the government of the Bahamas this week said such a referendum was possible.

“The only challenge with us moving to a republic is that I can’t, as much as I would wish to do so, I can’t do it without you all to consent. I would have to have a referendum and hear what the people have to say to me … it is our people who will have to decide,” Bahamian Prime Minister Philip Davis said September 9.

A poll taken in August, before the queen’s death, showed that 56% of Jamaicans are in favor of removing the British monarch as head of state.

In November last year, the Caribbean Island of Barbados became a republic, severing ties with the British monarchy. Guy Hewitt, a former high commissioner to the U.K., told VOA he did not believe the Barbadian people disliked the monarchy.

“I make the point that Barbados’ journey to a republic was not a rejection of the queen or of monarchy, but more so an affirmation of a right toward self-determination,” Hewitt said.

New members

This year Togo and Gabon, both former French colonies in Africa, joined the Commonwealth – evidence the organization is not in decline, Hewitt said.

“What we have seen is in the post-independence era, rather than the commonwealth getting smaller, it’s actually getting bigger. Charles, as the new head of the commonwealth, worked closely with his mother as the Prince of Wales, traveled extensively around the commonwealth in his own right, championing causes like sustainable development and environmental protection,” Hewitt said.

“It has started to feel somewhat antiquated, and it may be that King Charles is able to inject – as his mother did – some dynamism some new direction and a new sense of purpose for the Commonwealth of nations,” Hewitt added.

Slavery

Intrinsic to the debate is the legacy of colonial rule. Britain and other European nations enslaved millions of Africans until the 19th century, forcing them to work on plantations in the Caribbean and the Americas. Critics argue the monarchy’s wealth is partly based on profits from the slave trade.

“This commonwealth of nations, that wealth belongs to England. That wealth is something we never shared in. So, for us in Jamaica, the monarchy is a harsh reminder of our unfortunate past,” Bert Samuels of the Reparation Council of Jamaica told Associated Press.

The monarchy has expressed sorrow over colonial abuses, but Britain has not formally apologized. Visiting Jamaica earlier this year, Prince William addressed the issue at a gala dinner hosted by Jamaican governor-general. “Slavery was abhorrent, and it should never have happened,” William told the audience.

Reparations

That does not go far enough, said Sonjah Stanley Niaah of the University of the West Indies. “An apology is necessary. We must see remorse and we must see a time when reparations become important in the ways in which we move forward as former colonies.”

“There is a critical mass of us in in the former colonies who are aware that a relationship in terms of the Commonwealth means very little to the real day-to-day conditions of persons who dwell in these countries. And so, I think that there is more awareness about reparatory justice, there is more awareness about the role that that slavery still plays in today’s society,” Niaah told VOA.

That apology should come from the British government, Hewitt said.

“Yes, there is a need for those colonial powers to take responsibility for what they have done. But in the case of the head of the Commonwealth or the king of the United Kingdom and its other realms, that is not their constitutional responsibility.”

“The discussion around reparations is not one that I think can be taken to the doorstep of Buckingham Palace. It is one that has to be taken to Downing Street,” Hewitt said.

Source: Voice of America

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, is releasing $100 million from its Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to assist millions of people in what it calls “forgotten emergencies.”

OCHA reports money for 11 humanitarian operations in Africa, Asia, the Americas and the Middle East has dried up, putting the lives and livelihoods of millions of people at risk.

The United Nations says it needs $49.5 billion this year to assist 204 million people threatened by conflict, climate shocks, hunger and forced displacement.

To date, only $17.6 billion of this total amount has been received. While this is a large amount of money, OCHA deputy spokesman Jens Laerke said the funding gap is nearly $32 billion, the largest it has ever been.

He said the release of $100 million is meant to shrink this critical funding gap and address the problem head on.

“It may seem like a drop in the bucket and if you look at it from that perspective, it is a drop in the bucket,” he said. “But, the CERF funds, a key criterion is it has to go to lifesaving projects. So, it is the worst of the worst that we are trying to address with the CERF funding. And I guarantee you, for those whose lives are hanging by a thread, it means something.”

Laerke said the consequences for hundreds of millions of vulnerable people will be many and very severe, if money to assist them at this time of greatest need is not forthcoming.

“That can range from loss of life to victims of or survivors of gender-based violence who receive no support,” he said. “Children who do not get the vaccines that they need and so on and so forth.”

Laerke said the $100 million will help scale up lifesaving operations in the 11 countries, which include Yemen, South Sudan, Myanmar, and Venezuela.

He noted that CERF has allocated a record $250 million dollars so far this year to countries that are in a desperate state, but largely overlooked.

Source: Voice of America

Despite lingering doubts about the usefulness of so-called decapitation strikes, U.S. operations to kill senior terrorist leaders are paying dividends, according to one of Washington’s top counterterrorism officials.

Both the Islamic State terror group and al-Qaida have been forced to stay in “survival mode” following the deaths of their leaders as a result of U.S. actions this year, National Counterterrorism Center Director Christine Abizaid said Thursday.

Islamic State, in particular, she said, has been forced to refocus following the death of former emir Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, also known as Hajji Abdallah, following a U.S. special forces raid in northwestern Syria in February.

At the time, senior U.S. military officials described Abu Ibrahim’s death as a “significant blow,” an assessment that has been borne out in the way IS has carried out operations in recent months.

“What’s important about it is it’s not just him,” Abizaid told an intelligence and security conference outside Washington, responding to a question submitted by VOA.

“It’s that he is the last in a long line of leaders who are no longer trying to attack the United States and trying to rout Syria and regain territorial control in a way that, I think, has really reflected a major talent loss in ISIS senior leadership,” Abizaid said, using another acronym for the terror group. “[It] has caused them to focus on kind of branch expansion that has diffused the threat and, again, made the focus on the United States less acute than we had seen in prior years.”

The U.S. airstrike that killed longtime al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri at the end of July has, likewise, resulted in a cascading effect on the terror organization.

“I think about now how important it was not just for the threat that he posed, but for the tie that he created across the al-Qaida network,” Abizaid said. “That tie is weaker today because he’s not on the battlefield.

“And the weaker and the more diffuse that al-Qaida network is, I think, the better for U.S. national security,” she added.

Abizaid’s assessment seems to reflect a shift in U.S. thinking, especially when it comes to Islamic State.

For years, even in the aftermath of the collapse of Islamic State’s self-declared caliphate in Iraq and Syria, U.S. and Western military and counterterrorism officials warned that IS and its key affiliates had structured themselves in such a way that for every key leader who was killed, there was an understudy ready to take his place.

And a recently declassified intelligence assessment written in May 2020 predicted IS was “organizing for a prolonged insurgency while rebuilding many key capabilities that are likely to expand its global reach and the threat it poses to U.S. and Western interests.”

But recent intelligence estimates suggest IS’s hold among its followers in Iraq and Syria may be waning.

While there are still areas that serve as key communication and financial hubs, like the al-Hol displaced persons camp in northeast Syria, the terror group’s fighters have been dispersed across remote areas. And its cadre of fighters, numbering as many as 16,000 last year is now estimated to be fewer than 10,000.

The U.S. and its allies have also pointed to a series of operations following the raid on Abu Ibrahim that have whittled away at IS’s core leadership, including U.S. drone strikes and the arrests of senior IS leaders in Syria and Turkey.

A recent report by the United Nations, based on member state intelligence, went as far as to caution that al-Qaida was poised to surpass IS as the world’s preeminent jihadist terrorist organization, due in part to “a rapid succession of [IS] leadership losses since October 2019, with an as yet unknown impact on its operational health.”

Meanwhile, there are growing questions about the ability of the al-Qaida core to remain relevant and influential with al-Zawahiri gone.

“This is challenging for al-Qaida,” a former Western counterterrorism official told VOA following al-Zawahiri’s death, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss recent intelligence assessments.

Those assessments from the U.S., as well as those from several other countries that were shared with the United Nations, caution there are perhaps only a handful of al-Qaida core officials still in Afghanistan, long the group’s base of operations.

Al-Zawahiri’s likely successor, Saif al-Adel, meanwhile, is believed to be in Iran along with the next most senior al-Qaida official, and there are questions as to whether Tehran will let them leave.

Al-Qaida’s other top leaders are based in Africa, and intelligence officials say they may be more interested in the fortunes of their particular affiliates than in the broader concerns of the terror group.

Source: Voice of America