Pirates boarded the Hellas Aphrodite, a Malta-flagged vessel carrying gasoline, as it was headed from India to South #Africa. The EU’s naval force said one of its vessels was near the incident and closing in.

#Trump says U.S. to boycott #G20 in South Africa, repeating allegations about treatment of white #farmers.

Trump had already announced he would not attend the annual summit for heads of state from the globe’s leading and emerging economies. U.S. Vice President JD Vance had been scheduled to attend in Trump’s place, but a person familiar with Vance’s plans who was granted anonymity to talk about his schedule said Vance would no longer travel there for the summit.

“It is a total disgrace that the G20 will be held in South Africa,” Trump said on his social media site.

In his post, Trump cited “abuses” of Afrikaners, including violence and death as well as confiscation of their land and farms.

The Trump administration has long accused the South African government of allowing minority white Afrikaner farmers to be persecuted and attacked.

But the government of South Africa has said it is surprised by the accusations of discrimination, because white people in the country generally have a much higher standard of living than its Black residents, more than three decades after the end of the apartheid system of white minority rule.

The country’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has said he’s told Trump that information about the alleged discrimination and persecution of Afrikaners is “completely false.”

Nonetheless, the administration has kept up its criticisms of the South African government. Earlier this week during an economic speech in Miami, Trump said South Africa should be thrown out of the Group of 20.

Earlier this year, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio boycotted a G20 meeting for foreign ministers because its agenda focused on diversity, inclusion and climate change efforts.

Seung Min Kim And Michelle L. Price, The Associated Press

‘Everyone abandoned us’: Sudanese-Canadians plea for help as crisis in Sudan spirals ‘out of control’.

His home in Markham, On., is more than 10,000 kilometres from Sudan, but Ashraf Ahmed’s thoughts are almost always on his home country.

“The number of killed people, displaced (people) make the war in Sudan the biggest tragedy in recent history,” he says.

Ahmed is one of many Sudanese-Canadians worried about loved ones stuck in the middle of a more than two-year long conflict that has killed thousands of civilians and left nearly 25 million facing acute hunger, according to the United Nations.

“I have six or seven uncles. I have 20-something cousins. All of them, no exceptions are displaced within the country, within Sudan,” he says. His parents and in-laws were all able to escape Sudan but are stuck in Saudi Arabia as they wait for visas to travel to Canada, a process that has taken more than two years. His mother-in-law passed away last year.

“Her grandchildren, my children were not able to see her,” Ahmed says.

The war between Sudan’s military and the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF) began in 2023 and has escalated dramatically over the last week with the RSF taking control of the city of El Fasher in North Darfur.

Tens of thousands of people were forced to flee the city on foot, with survivors describing scenes of horror: fighters going house-to-house shooting civilians, women being raped and hundreds killed inside a hospital.

“We can see blood from the satellite images,” says Sadia Araa, a pharmacy technician who lives in Ottawa and is originally from El Fasher. In addition to showing blood in the sand, satellite images have also shown evidence that RSF fighters may be digging mass graves.

Hunger monitor says parts of South Sudan face famine threat after months without aid.

JUBA, South Sudan — No food aid has reached a conflict-hit area of South Sudan this year despite growing fears that it is headed toward famine, international food security analysts said Tuesday.

The report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a global monitor, estimates that 28,000 people in Nasir and Fangak counties face “catastrophic food insecurity,” the most severe level of hunger.

“An immediate and large-scale response” is required, it says.

Both counties have been historically controlled by the SPLM-IO opposition party led by suspended First Vice President Riek Machar.

Machar has been charged with treason and other crimes that he denies over an attack by a local militia on a military garrison in Nasir that South Sudan’s government says killed 250 soldiers. Government-led military operations, including dozens of aerial bombardments, have targeted opposition forces and allied militias in Nasir throughout much of the year.

After months of clashes, Nasir is now effectively partitioned between the opposition, which controls large swathes of the county, and government forces. Heavy fighting and airstrikes have displaced tens of thousands of people into dozens of informal sites along the Sobat river, a major Nile tributary.

The violence, which has only recently calmed, has presented a major obstacle for aid groups to deliver food.

Mary-Ellen McGroarty, the South Sudan director for the World Food Program, said in an emailed statement that fighting and access restrictions had “significantly limited” the ability to reach areas of eastern Nasir county along the Sobat corridor since February.

But McGroarty said a WFP-led mission last month had verified the location of civilians and secured access assurances from authorities. “This will be our first time reaching these populations this year,” she said.

Lam Paul Gabriel, a SPLM-IO spokesperson, accused the government of blocking the flow of aid into opposition-controlled areas to punish civilians living there and encourage movement into government-controlled zones.

But Stephen Kueth, chairperson of South Sudan’s Relief and Rehabilitation Commission, denied that aid groups had been blocked.

“We are making it clear that food cannot be used as a weapon of war,” he said.

Kueth said the government had worked with a private U.S. company to conduct airdrops into Nasir earlier in the year. The operation received criticism from aid groups and opposition officials for targeting areas said to be largely abandoned by civilians but occupied by the military.
The threat of famine

The IPC is the only globally recognized framework for declaring a famine.

It considers an area to be in famine when three things occur: Deaths from malnutrition-related causes reach at least two people, or four children under age four, per 10,000; at least one in five people or households severely lack food and face starvation; and at least 30 per cent of children under age five suffer from acute malnutrition based on a weight-to-height measurement — or 15 per cent based on upper-arm circumference.

Famine declarations are rare. The last famine in South Sudan was declared in 2017 during the country’s civil war.

Now, more than half the country’s population is expected to face severe hunger in 2026, according to the IPC.

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Joseph Falzetta, The Associated Press

#Nigeria pushes back after Trump claims country’s Christians face ‘existential threat’.

The president also warned that he “will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria.”

“If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the U.S.A. will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, `guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities,” Trump posted on social media. “I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action. If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians!”

The warning came after Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu earlier on Saturday pushed back on Trump announcing a day earlier that he was designating the West African country “a country of particular concern” for allegedly failing to rein in the persecution of Christians.

In a social media statement on Saturday, Tinubu said that the characterization of Nigeria as a religiously intolerant country does not reflect the national reality.

“Religious freedom and tolerance have been a core tenet of our collective identity and shall always remain so,” Tinubu said. “Nigeria opposes religious persecution and does not encourage it. Nigeria is a country with constitutional guarantees to protect citizens of all faiths.”

Trump on Friday said “Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria” and “radical Islamists are responsible for this mass slaughter.”

Trump’s comment came weeks after U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz urged Congress to designate Africa’s most populous country as a violator of religious freedom with claims of “Christian mass murder.”

Nigeria’s population of 220 million is split almost equally between Christians and Muslims. The country has long faced insecurity from various fronts including the Boko Haram extremist group, which seeks to establish its radical interpretation of Islamic law and has also targeted Muslims it deems not Muslim enough.

Attacks in Nigeria have varying motives. There are religiously motivated ones targeting both Christians and Muslims, clashes between farmers and herders over dwindling resources, communal rivalries, secessionist groups and ethnic clashes.

While Christians are among those targeted, analysts say the majority of victims of armed groups are Muslims in Nigeria’s Muslim-majority north, where most attacks occur.

Kimiebi Ebienfa, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, reiterated the commitment of Nigeria to protect citizens of all religions.

“The Federal Government of Nigeria will continue to defend all citizens, irrespective of race, creed, or religion,” Ebienfa said in a statement on Saturday. “Like America, Nigeria has no option but to celebrate the diversity that is our greatest strength.”

Nigeria was placed on the country of particular concern list by the U.S. for the first time in 2020 over what the State Department called “systematic violations of religious freedom.” The designation, which did not single out attacks on Christians, was lifted in 2023 in what observers saw as a way to improve ties between the countries ahead of then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit.

Dyepkazah Shibayan, The Associated Press

#Tanzanian President Hassan wins disputed election with more than 97% of vote, official results show.

Hassan appeared at an event in the administrative capital, Dodoma, to receive the winner’s certificate from electoral authorities. In remarks afterward, she said it was notable that Tanzanians voted overwhelmingly for a female leader.

After the election, “it’s time to unite our country and not destroy what we’ve built over more than six decades,” she said. “We will take all actions and involve all security agencies to ensure the country is peaceful.”

Hassan took power in 2021. As vice president, she was automatically elevated when her predecessor, John Pombe Magufuli, died months after the start of his second term.

The result is likely to amplify the concerns of critics, opposition groups and others who said the election in Tanzania was not a contest but a coronation. Tundu Lissu, leader of the Chadema opposition group, has been jailed for months, charged with treason after he called for electoral reforms that he said were a prerequisite for free and fair elections. Another opposition figure, Luhaga Mpina of the ACT-Wazalendo group, was barred from running.

The Oct. 29 election was marred by violence as demonstrators took to the streets of major cities to protest the poll and stop the counting of votes. The military was deployed to help police quell riots. Internet connectivity has been on and off in the East African nation, disrupting travel and other activities.

The protests spread across Tanzania, and the government postponed the reopening of universities, which had been set for Nov. 3.

There was a tense calm in the streets of Dar es Salaam, the commercial capital, on Saturday. Security forces manning roadblocks asked to see the identity cards of those who went out.

Tanzanian authorities have not said how many people were killed or injured in the violence. A spokesman for the U.N. human rights office, Seif Magango, on Friday told a U.N. briefing in Geneva by video from Kenya that credible reports of 10 deaths were reported in Dar es Salaam, alongside Shinyanga and Morogoro towns.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Friday he was concerned by the situation in Tanzania and urged all parties to “prevent further escalation.”

The foreign ministers of the U.K., Canada and Norway in a joint statement cited “credible reports of a large number of fatalities and significant injuries, as a result of the security response to protests.”

At stake for the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi, or CCM, party was its decades-long grip on power amid the rise of charismatic opposition figures who hoped to lead the country toward political change.

Still, a landslide victory is unheard of in the region. Only President Paul Kagame, the authoritarian leader of Rwanda, regularly wins by a landslide.

Rights groups including Amnesty International warned of a pattern of enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests and extrajudicial killings in Tanzania ahead of the polls.

In June, a United Nations panel of human rights experts cited more than 200 cases of enforced disappearance since 2019, saying they were “alarmed by reports of a pattern of repression” ahead of elections.

Hassan oversaw “an unprecedented crackdown on political opponents,” the International Crisis Group said in its most recent analysis. “The government has curbed freedom of expression, ranging from a ban on X and restrictions on the Tanzanian digital platform JamiiForums to silencing critical voices through intimidation or arrest.”

The political maneuvering by Tanzanian authorities is remarkable even in a country where single-party rule has been the norm since the advent of multi-party politics in 1992.

Government critics point out that previous leaders tolerated opposition while maintaining a firm grip on power, whereas Hassan is accused of leading with an authoritarian style that defies youth-led democracy movements elsewhere in the region.

A version of the governing CCM party, which maintains ties with the Communist Party of China, has ruled Tanzania since its independence from Britain in 1961, a streak that Hassan extends with her victory.

CCM is fused with the state, effectively in charge of the security apparatus and structured in such a way that new leaders emerge every five or 10 years.

The orderly transitions within CCM have long sustained Tanzania’s reputation as an oasis of political stability and relative peace, a major reason for the party’s considerable support across the country, especially among rural voters.

Clashes erupted after President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s disputed victory and opposition bans.

#Nigerian Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka says U.S. visa revoked.

The United States consulate in Lagos has revoked the visa of Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka, the Nobel laureate said Tuesday.

“I want to assure the consulate... that I’m very content with the revocation of my visa,” Soyinka, a famed playwright and author who won the 1986 Nobel Prize for Literature, told a news conference.

Soyinka previously held permanent residency in the United States, though he destroyed his green card after Donald Trump’s first election in 2016.

He has remained critical of the U.S. president, who is now serving his second term, and speculated that his recent comments comparing Trump to former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin might have struck a nerve.

Soyinka said earlier this year that the U.S. consulate in Lagos had called him in for an interview to re-assess his visa.

According to a letter from the consulate addressed to Soyinka, seen by AFP, officials cited U.S. State Department regulations that allow “a consular officer, the Secretary, or a Department official to whom the Secretary has delegated this authority... to revoke a nonimmigrant visa at any time, in his or her discretion”.

Reading the letter aloud to journalists in Lagos, Nigeria’s economic capital, Soyinka said that officials asked him to bring his passport to the consulate so that his visa could be cancelled in-person.

He jokingly called it a “rather curious love letter from an embassy”, while telling any organisations hoping to invite him to the United States “not to waste their time”.

“I have no visa. I am banned,” Soyinka said.
‘Like a dictator’

The Trump administration has made visa revocations a hallmark of its wider crackdown on immigration, notably targeting university students who were outspoken about Palestinian rights.

The U.S. embassy in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, did not respond to a request for comment.

“Idi Amin was a man of international stature, a statesman, so when I called Donald Trump Idi Amin, I thought I was paying him a compliment,” Soyinka said.

“He’s been behaving like a dictator, he should be proud.”

The 91-year-old playwright behind “Death and the King’s Horseman” has taught at and been awarded honours from top U.S. universities including Harvard and Cornell.

Soyinka spoke at Harvard in 2022 alongside American literary critic Henry Louis Gates.

His latest novel, “Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth”, a satire about corruption in Nigeria, was published in 2021.

Asked if he would consider going back to the United States, Soyinka said: “How old am I?”

He however left the door open to accepting an invitation should circumstances change, but added: “I wouldn’t take the initiative myself because there’s nothing I’m looking for there. Nothing.”

Ivory Coast is voting in a presidential election on Saturday with incumbent and strong favourite Alassane Ouattara, 83, claiming credit for nearly 15 years of economic growth and relative stability while hinting it will be his final campaign.

#Amnesty urges World Bank to push #Uganda to repeal anti-gay law, Amnesty International said Tuesday that the resumption of World Bank funding to Uganda, cut after the country implemented a strict anti-gay law, was an opportunity for the agency to push Kampala into repealing the legislation.

Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act is one of the most severe in the world, with harsh sentences for same-sex relations or “promoting” homosexuality, including the death penalty in some cases.

After longtime President Yoweri Museveni signed it into law in May 2023, the World Bank halted all new loans to Uganda, saying projects it financed had to adhere to its non-discriminatory policies.

But on Monday, a Uganda finance ministry official said in a statement that the country would receive $2 billion from the World Bank, distributed over three financial years.

The World Bank has not commented.

Roland Ebole, a Uganda and Tanzania researcher at Amnesty International, told AFP that while the NGO did not make calls for conditions on aid, it believed the resumption of World Bank funds presented an opportunity.

“What we are saying is that now that they are reinstating the funding, can they then also push that discriminatory practices... should basically be stopped,” he said.

He said the “powerful” World Bank was in a position to push “to make sure that no government agenda, no government programmes, actually discriminate against the LGBTQI community”.

A spokesperson for British charity Open for Business, which promotes economic inclusion and diversity, said it was “disappointed” by the decision “as we know this goes against the ask of civil society”.

It follows the World Bank saying in June that it would resume lending to the country.

A spokesperson told AFP at the time that it “cannot deliver on its mission to end poverty and boost shared prosperity on a liveable planet unless all people can participate in, and benefit from, the projects we finance”.

Uganda has lost an estimated $586 million to $2.4 billion a year because of the anti-LGBTQ law, notably because of frozen financing, Open for Business said last year.