Category: Politics

Italy has become the latest country to join the U.S.-led Mineral Security Partnership that promotes ethical mining. The U.S. Undersecretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment, Jose Fernandez, made the announcement while attending the Investing in African Mining Indaba, or conference.

In his keynote address, Fernandez said members of the Mineral Security Partnership — which now include Italy, 11 other countries and the European Union — will soon announce details of their environmental, social and governance principles.

He said the aim of the partnership, announced in June last year, was to add ethical values to the entire critical minerals and batteries value chain.

“We want to involve the communities affected by potential projects and the decision-making process. And if you were to say that we’re doing this to protect our bottom line, you’d be partly right. We’ve seen too many instances around the world, some going on right now in South America, where community opposition has led to the closure of otherwise profitable mines,” he said.

But Fernandez said the MSP also wants to protect the environment. He said in their meetings with potential partners, it’s been clear that many companies want to do the right thing for the planet.

“They won’t make investments in projects that destroy precious rain forests, that are not committed to the remediation of mines, that require pay-offs to government officials. They just won’t do it. Their shareholders won’t allow it. Their customers will reject them and our laws will punish such conduct,” he said.

Fernandez said that’s why many companies have joined the United States Public Private Alliance on responsible minerals trading.

“Companies such as Tesla going into the mining business for nickel to ensure the stability and transparency of supply chains. General Motors has made public commitments to sustainable sources. Ford and other car makers have also made similar promises,” said Fernandez.

He said since beginning its work less than a year ago, the MSP has looked at 200 projects and chosen 12 to work on. He gave some examples of their work.

“Two east Asian countries are creating a critical minerals and metals cooperation center where one country will share critical expertise with the other. In the Pacific region, minerals production is booming and a couple of our partners are working together to develop battery materials and will work to attract transparent investment and trade in the Pacific. We’re also looking at mid-stream processing in two key countries, one in Africa, the other in Latin America that could in fact revolutionize their work force development. MSP partners are also assembling a public private consortium to develop state of the art processing facility in Latin America to form a complete value chain in that region,” he said.

Fernandez said that ethical conduct in this sector is critical as the world races to make an energy transition to stop rapid global warming.

Meanwhile, in his opening address at the event, South Africa’s Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy Gwede Mantashe stressed that South Africa is trying to end a long-running problem of frequent power outages. Daily power cuts have impacted mining production.

“It also impacts on the mood of the country. That’s why as the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy, we’ve put four points that we think need attention if we are going to overcome load-shedding within the next 12 months. This will give them space to work on long-term energy security for the country,” he said.

The Investing in African Mining Indaba ends on Thursday.

Source: Voice of America

BUJUMBURA (Burundi)— East African leaders called for an immediate ceasefire in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, at an extraordinary summit called to find ways of calming the raging conflict.

The Saturday talks were hosted in Burundi by the seven-nation East Africa Community (EAC), which is leading mediation efforts to end the fighting in the vast central African nation.

A resurgent rebel group known as the M23 has taken swathes of land in the mineral-rich east and fighting is continuing despite a peace roadmap hammered out in the Angolan capital in July last year and the deployment of an EAC force in November.

The heads of state called for an “immediate ceasefire by all parties” and the withdrawal of all armed groups, including foreign, in a statement issued after the summit.

They directed army chiefs to meet within a week to set timelines for the withdrawal, while also highlighting “the need for enhanced dialogue among all the parties”.

Both present in Burundi’s lakeside economic hub of Bujumbura were DRC President Felix Tshisekedi and President Paul Kagame of Rwanda.

Kigali has been accused of backing the M23 in a conflict that has sent many Congolese fleeing their homes and exacerbated regional tensions.

Tens of thousands of people are “caught in the vice of armed violence” in the face of the recent advance of M23 rebels in the east, the UN’s humanitarian coordination office in DRC said in a statement Saturday.

In a statement ahead of the summit, the Congolese presidency had called forthe EAC force to be made more “offensive” to tackle the rebels.

It protested that despite the terms of the Luanda roadmap the M23 and its allies had not withdrawn but rather “expanded their areas of occupation”.

Kagame’s visit, his first to Burundi since 2013, also suggested some rapprochement between the Great Lakes neighbours whose relations have long been frosty.

The EAC meeting took place shortly after a visit by Pope Francis to Kinshasa, where he met victims of the conflict and condemned the “inhumane violence” and “brutal atrocities” taking place.

Militias have plagued the mineral-rich eastern DRC for decades, many of them a legacy of regional wars that flared during the 1990s and the early 2000s.

Since November 2021, the M23 has seized chunks of territory and come within miles of the east’s main commercial hub Goma.

The EAC decided to create a military force to pacify eastern Congo in 2022, with the first troops arriving in Goma in November.

Kenya’s President William Ruto said the security situation remained “fragile and regressing as more and more civilians bear the burden of the conflict”.

He also said there was a need for action to protect the sovereignty of Congo’s mineral riches, a key source of its myriad conflicts.

The DRC is awash with minerals and precious stones, but the decades of war and chronic mismanagement mean that little of the vast wealth trickles down to the population of some 100 million.

Kinshasa’s accusations that Kigali is backing the M23 are supported by UN experts, the United States and other Western countries, but Kigali denies the charge.

Last week, Qatar had planned to host a meeting between Tshisekedi and Kagame, but diplomats said the Congolese leader refused to attend.

Tensions between the two countries were inflamed last week when Rwandan forces opened fire at a Congolese fighter jet they said had violated Rwandan airspace.

Kinshasa described it as an attack that amounted to “an act of war”.

Meanwhile, the leaders of Burundi and Rwanda greeted each other warmly in Bujumbura after years of tempestuous relations and accusations of interference in their internal affairs.

In 2020, Kagame urged the then newly elected President Evariste Ndayishimiye to reset diplomatic ties but his overture was rejected as “hypocritical”.

Burundi has accused Rwanda of harbouring those behind a failed 2015 coup that plunged the country into violent chaos.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

JOHANNESBURG — The European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell visited South Africa on Friday, urging Pretoria to use its ties with Russia to convince Moscow to stop its war on Ukraine.

Borrell’s trip to South Africa is the latest in a whirlwind week that has seen visits by both Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

Analysts say the flurry of diplomatic activity comes as the West and Russia both seek South Africa’s support regarding the war in Ukraine. Pretoria has strong historic ties with Moscow and has taken an officially neutral stance on the conflict, to the dismay of Washington and Brussels.

“I very much hope that South Africa, our strategic partner, will use its good relations with Russia and the role it plays in the BRICS group to convince Russia to stop this senseless war,” Borrell said at a press conference. BRICS is an informal group of states comprising the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

Borrell said South Africa could make an important contribution this way, but South African Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Naledi Pandor said it was the task of the world to make peace.

Earlier this week, Pandor gave Lavrov a warm welcome in Pretoria. Asked by a reporter whether she would repeat the call made by her ministry early last year for Russia to withdraw from Ukraine, she said she would not, noting the massive transfer of arms to Ukraine that had since occurred.

Next month, South Africa will host much-criticized military exercises with China and Russia. Borrell said Pretoria has the right to follow its own foreign policy, but he noted the drills were not what the EU “would have preferred.”

Source: Voice of America

The European Union’s top general said Friday that Russia is taking the war in Ukraine into a “different stage,” launching indiscriminate attacks against civilians and cities, as a reaction to recent decisions by NATO allies to send advanced armaments to Ukraine in support of its war effort.

Speaking at a news conference in Tokyo, European External Action Service Secretary-General Stefano Sannino, told reporters Russia is no longer focused on military targets but is making indiscriminate attacks on cities and people.

“I think that this latest development in terms of armed supply is just an evolution of the situation and of the way Russia started moving the war into a different stage,” he said.

“[Russian President Vladimir] Putin has moved from a concept of [a] special [military] operation to a concept now of a war against NATO and the West,” Sannino noted.

The comments came as Germany and the United States announced this week they will send advanced battle tanks to Ukraine, hoping to match the fire power Russia has on the ground.

Seemingly in response, Ukraine authorities report Russia launched new missile attacks on several Ukraine locations, killing 11 people Thursday and 10 more on Friday, wounding dozens of others.

The EU general said the new supplies from the West are not an escalation, but rather an effort to give Ukraine a chance to defend itself. He said the developments have forced Putin to change his initial narrative, in which he described the invasion as a “special operation” to free Ukraine from a Nazi regime.

“Now we are speaking about a war with NATO and the West. Different story,” Sannino said.

In his daily address to the nation Thursday, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed gratitude for the growing number of countries pledging advanced weaponry, including tanks, while at the same time pressing the need to hasten delivery of the promised weapons systems.

Zelenskyy said the only way to stop “this Russian aggression” is with “adequate weapons.” He emphasized, “The terrorist state will not understand anything else.”

The Ukrainian president also credited western supplies for added protection from the latest attacks. “Today, thanks to the air defense systems provided to Ukraine and the professionalism of our warriors, we managed to shoot down most of the Russian missiles and Shaheds,” Zelenskyy said in his address.

“Unfortunately, it is difficult to provide 100% protection with air defense alone. Especially when terrorists use ballistic missiles,” he added.

In a post to his Telegram social media account, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said, “Moscow’s forces continued to target Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in the depth of winter, an effort to demoralize Ukrainians. The main goal is energy facilities, providing Ukrainians with light and heat.”

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said one person was killed in the Ukrainian capital and two more were wounded when a missile hit a building. The state prosecutor general’s office said three people were killed in a Russian strike on infrastructure in Zaporizhzhia, where Europe’s biggest nuclear plant is located, and there were reports of strikes in the Vinnytsia region in western Ukraine and outside Odesa.

Source: Voice of America