Hamas chief says close to truce agreement with Israel

The chief of Hamas told Reuters on Tuesday that the Palestinian militant group was near a truce agreement with Israel, even as the deadly assault on Gaza continued and rockets were being fired into Israel.

Hamas officials are "close to reaching a truce agreement" with Israel and the group has delivered its response to Qatari mediators, Ismail Haniyeh said in a statement sent to Reuters by his aide.

There were no more details about the terms of the potential agreement.

U.S. President Joe Biden said on Monday he believed an accord was near. "We're closer now than we've been before," White House spokesman John Kirby said of an agreement aimed at securing the release of some hostagesheld in Gaza and a pause in the fighting that would allow much needed aid into the besieged enclave.

Hamas took about 240 hostages during its Oct. 7 rampage into Israel that killed 1,200 people.

Mirjana Spoljaric, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), met Haniyeh in Qatar on Monday to "advance humanitarian issues" related to the conflict, the Geneva-based ICRC said in a statement. She also met separately with Qatari authorities.

The ICRC said it was not part of negotiations aimed at releasing the hostages, but as a neutral intermediary it was ready "to facilitate any future release that the parties agree to."

Talk of an imminent hostage deal has swirled for days. Reuters reported last week that Qatari mediators were seeking a deal for Hamas and Israel to exchange 50 hostages in return for a three-day ceasefire that would boost emergency aid shipments to Gaza civilians, citing an official briefed on the talks.

Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Herzog said on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday that he hoped for an agreement "in the coming days" while Qatar's Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani said that the remaining sticking points were "very minor."

A deal has appeared close before.

"Sensitive negotiations like this can fall apart at the last minute," White House deputy national security adviser Jon Finer told NBC's "Meet the Press" program on Sunday. "Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed."

Hamas' raid on Oct. 7, the deadliest day in Israel's 75-year-old history, prompted Israel to invade the Palestinian territory to target Hamas.

Since then, Gaza's Hamas-run government said at least 13,300 Palestinians have been killed, including at least 5,600 children and 3,550 women, by unrelenting Israeli bombardment.

Hamas said on its Telegram account on Monday that it had launched a barrage of missiles towards Tel Aviv. Witnesses also reported rockets being fired at central Israel.

HOSPITALS AT RISK

The Palestinian news agency WAFA said on Tuesday at least 17 Palestinians were killed in Israeli bombing of the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza at midnight.

There was no immediate comment from Israel.

Gaza's health ministry said on Monday that at least 12 Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded by firing into the Indonesian Hospital complex, which was encircled by Israeli tanks.

Health officials said 700 patients along with staff were under Israeli fire.

WAFA said the facility in the northeast Gaza town of Beit Lahia, funded by Indonesian organisations, had been hit by artillery rounds. Hospital staff denied there were any armed militants on the premises.

World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was "appalled" by the attack that he too said had killed 12 people, including patients, citing unspecified reports.

The Israeli Defence Forces said troops had fired back at fighters in the hospital while taking "numerous measures to minimise harm" to non-combatants.

Like all other health facilities in the northern half of Gaza, the Indonesian Hospital has largely ceased operations but is still sheltering patients, staff and displaced residents.

Twenty-eight prematurely born babies evacuated from Gaza's biggest hospital, Al Shifa, were taken into Egypt for urgent treatment on Monday.

Israeli forces seized Shifa last week to search for what they said was a tunnel network built by Hamas beneath the hospital. Hundreds of patients, medical staff and displaced people left Shifa at the weekend, with doctors saying they were ejected by troops and Israel saying the departures were voluntary.

 

AP

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Ukraine ‘concerned’ by Western push for Russia talks – security chief

The government in Kiev is worried that its Western backers are calling for peace out of an irrational fear of Russia, Aleksey Danilov, the head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said on Monday.

Danilov spoke via video link to the annual conference of the Halifax International Security Forum, a Washington, DC-based NGO funded in part by the Canadian government.

“Ukraine is concerned by the fact that discussions among certain partners have intensified regarding the need for negotiations, consultations, meetings with the Russians to discuss the issues of the war in Ukraine, a ceasefire, etc,” Danilov said, according to a transcript posted by his office.

He attributed this to a “rudimentary fear” of Russia and argued that the West should follow Ukraine’s example instead, as Moscow “only understands the language of force.”

According to Danilov, the current conflict is “a struggle between democracy and tyranny,” with the West and Ukraine on one side, and Russia, China, Iran and North Korea on the other. If Russia is not defeated, the world should expect a new “axis of evil” within 15-20 years that would include “some European countries” as well, he insisted. “Ukraine and the Ukrainian people will fight to the end. We are sure of our victory.”

President Vladimir Zelensky’s top security official described Ukraine’s ideal of victory as “controlled decomposition of Russia into several parts”leading not just to “regime change” in Moscow but the “de-sovereignization… denuclearization and demilitarization” of the neighboring country.

Meanwhile, he said, Ukraine needs more Western funding and support to restore its 1991 borders and become an economic powerhouse once more.

“Ukraine has every chance to become a strategic project of the West, which will demonstrate the full power of the vitality of democracy and the defense of universal values,” Danilov insisted. “The West must confirm that it is and remains the First, and a victorious Ukraine will serve as a convincing narrative in the modern confrontation between slavery and freedom!”

Earlier on Monday, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin arrived in Kiev to offer moral support for Ukraine, but had no new military assistance to announce. Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told the outlet CNBC that Ukraine is “utterly dependent” on US funding to keep paying the salaries of government workers, calling the continued funding of Kiev a “critical priority” for US national security.

Washington has blown through most of the congressionally approved funding for Ukraine and the White House has been trying to pressure Congress to pass more, so far with no effect.

 

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Ukraine says Russian troops focusing on Bakhmut in the east

Ukrainian forces were engaged in containing increasing Russian attacks on Monday around the shattered eastern town of Bakhmut, military officials said.

The officials said Ukraine's troops had also achieved some success after crossing to the east bank of the Dnipro River in southern Kherson region.

Russia has concentrated on Ukraine's eastern regions after failing to move on Kyiv in the early days after the February 2022 invasion. Their progress has been slow.

Ukrainian forces have also made marginal gains in a five-month-old offensive in the east and south.

Moscow's forces seized Bakhmut in eastern Donetsk region in May after months of heavy fighting that left the town in ruins.

Volodymyr Fityo, a spokesperson for Ukrainian ground forces, said Russian troops focused attacks on Klishchiivka, a nearby village on heights retaken by Ukrainian forces in September.

"Russian occupying forces have brought in the necessary reserves and gone on the attack," Fityo told national television.

"Eleven attacks have been repelled in the past 24 hours. The enemy is trying to dislodge our men from defensive positions around Klishchiivka."

Russian accounts said Moscow's forces had beaten back more than 30 Ukrainian attacks in and around Bakhmut in the past week. The Russian Defence Ministry reported more than two dozen attacks near Kupiansk in Ukraine's northeast in a week.

Reuters could not verify accounts from either side.

ASSAULTS ON AVDIIVKA

Fighting in the east has also centred on the equally devastated town of Avdiivka, still in Ukrainian hands 20 months into the war and after more than a month of Russian assaults.

Military analyst Serhiy Zgurets, writing on the Espreso TV media outlet website, said Russian forces were trying to launch a new offensive on the town, known for its vast coking plant.

"To be truthful, enemy's attempts to surround Avdiivka have resulted in significant losses for them," Zgurets wrote.

Maksym Morozov, an Interior Ministry major, told Espreso that recent rains had left the ground soft and unsuitable for enemy equipment near the town, where 1,500 residents remain from a pre-war population of 32,000.

Another military spokesperson, Andriy Kovaliov, said Ukrainian forces had "carried out several successful and effective actions" on the east bank of the Dnipro nearly a week after military officials acknowledged their presence there.

Russian forces were making up to 10 daily attempts to dislodge Ukrainian forces from positions on the eastern bank and were drafting in reserves, he told national television.

Russian troops left the western bank of the river and the region's main city, Kherson, a year ago, but have since been shelling their abandoned positions from areas across the river.

Ukrainian authorities earlier reported that Russian shelling had killed three people and damaged power lines and a gas pipeline in Kherson region and in central Dnipropetrovsk region.

Two drivers were killed when Russian forces shelled a private transport company parking lot in Kherson, regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin said.

A woman was killed and a man injured in a Russian artillery strike on Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk governor Serhiy Lysak said.

 

RT/Reuters

 

 

In July 1977, the Organisation of African Unity adopted a Convention for the Elimination of Mercenarism in Africa. It offered a definition of a mercenary to include someone who “is motivated to take part in hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain and in fact is promised by or on behalf of a party to the conflict material compensation.” The drafters of the Convention for the Elimination of Mercenarism in Africa probably did not foresee that it would encompass the conduct of judges.

Yet, at the beginning of this month, the immediate past president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Olumide Akpata, took to the floor of the International Bar Association (IBA) conference in Paris, the capital of France, to invite the association to take an active interest in a new species of judicial subornation in Nigeria, which can best be described as judicial mercenarism.

Carl von Clausewitz, the Prussian General, is credited with the insight that war is the continuation of policy by other means. The converse can also be true: that policy and politics could also be war by other means. Private military contractors, also known as mercenaries, are paid to fight in other people’s wars.

Judicial officers are ordinarily not politicians. So, when they choose to immerse themselves in the theatre of power politics, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that elements of mercenarism are involved.

This mercenarism can manifest itself in the form of judicial fornication, soliciting, or contumeliousness. Let’s begin with judicial fornication. In his memoir, The Accidental Public Servant, former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and recent governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, recounts that the Chief Judge of the FCT when he became minister, Lawal Hassan Gummi, had preceded him to Barewa College in Zaria. As Minister, he desired “to ensure the judiciary was fully on board with our reform directions.” Although advised by his staff to invite the Chief Judge to a “briefing” with the Minister, El-Rufai exultantly recalls that he overruled them because “our old boys’ protocol trumped all others they may have in the FCT.” So, in obedience to the supreme law of the Barewa Old Boys Association (BOBA), El-Rufai “visited Gummi, met with his team of senior judges and…. prayed for their support.”

The result, El-Rufai further exults, was that “the FCT judiciary supported us strongly throughout my tenure,” and the official pay-off was a ministerial decision “to budget an annual grant to support our judiciary to procure court recording and automation equipment.”

The reader may note two things. One is that in the narration of the Minister, the FCT judiciary became transformed from an institution established to hold a fair balance between different interests in society to one dedicated to servicing the Minister and his FCT administration. The second is that the judiciary thus became – in his telling – part and parcel of the government of the day, to be instrumentalised as the government dared, not an independent institution to hold the government to account. This was judicial fornication at ministerial beck-and-call.

After the publication of this book, some non-governmental organisations under the aegis of the Civil Society Network against Corruption (CSNAC), petitioned against Lawal Gummi to the then Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Aloma Mukhtar, who also chaired the National Judicial Council (NJC). In response, the CJN issued a disciplinary query to the Chief Judge of the FCT, “seeking explanation over an annual grant made to the FCT judiciary by the FCT administration during Nasir El Rufai’s administration.” Reluctant to be dragged through the process, Lawal Gummi took early retirement and promptly got translated to the stool of the Gummi Emirate in Zamfara State. 

One decade later, the current successor to the seat of the Chief Judge of the FCT, Husseini Baba-Yusuf, preferred to take matters a notch higher by showcasing his skills in judicial soliciting. Rather than have the Minister pay him a visit, the Chief Judge went to promenade for the Minister of the FCT instead, and took the opportunity to show off his plumes. Assuming the role of a judicial vuvuzela, he began by hailing the Minister as having “exceeded the level that people had thought you would perform”, before reminding him that “as the judiciary, we are part of the government and we expect that we should be able to do things that will make government work.”

In claiming that the judiciary is “part of the government,” the Chief Judge was fully aware that he was inviting the Minister into an intimate transaction.

So, the Chief Judge let it be known that he had issued directions to the judges under him that “all cases involving the FCT will only be assigned by the Chief Judge….” A suitably tingled Minister of the FCT happily nodded “thank you”, while the judges and sundry hangers-on accompanying the Chief Judge clapped uproariously in full expectation of full-on consummation.

While the conduct and verbiage of the current Chief Judge were even more egregious than those of his durable predecessor from one decade ago, few expect him to suffer anything like the consequences that followed the revelations in The Accidental Public Servant. The reason is because these days judicial mercenarism occurs in the full glare of the records.

Judicial decision making is ordinarily deliberative and its language, even in the pen or keyboard of the colourful, is usually clothed with dignity. These days, however, some judges in Nigeria are not shy about announcing which political side has penetrated their judicial orifices. They are not merely contumelious but choose to advertise it.

When it decided to nullify the election of Governor Ademola Adeleke of Osun State earlier in the year, for instance, T.A. Kume, who sat as part of the Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, relied on the high authority of Kizz Daniel’s popular single, Buga, to hold that Adeleke “cannot ‘go lo lo lo lo’ and ‘buga won’ as the duly elected governor of Osun State.

In the Kano State governorship election petition decided last September, Benson Anya, a judge on the tribunal, went one further. Relying on matters that were never in evidence or in dispute before the Tribunal, he describedone side to the case as “bandits in politics” and decided “to condemn the gang of Red Cap wearers (a reference to the supporters of the second respondent in the case) who, like a violent and terrorist cult, chased us out of Kano and put us in the fear of our lives. We believe that only Allah is the giver of power. Those who believe in Allah must bow to his (sic) will and submit to the authority of Governmental (sic) power.”

For the avoidance of doubt, the author of this insightful theological distraction is a Christian from Abia State in South-East Nigeria and no question about Allah or His supremacy was even remotely in contention in the case. It did not require any imagination to understand that the god under reference by Benson Anya existed entirely in his head, probably from vanities he harboured about the finality of the judicial vote in determining election outcomes.

It is no surprise that this kind of thing only happens in political and election disputes, where politicians chase judges with money and induce open trades in the outcome of judicial proceedings. This is why judicial mercenarism is often accompanied by unconcealed hubris. Just this past week, Yargata Nimpar, a Justice of Appeal, informed the appellants in the judicial contest over the governorship of Lagos State that they “came empty-handed and left empty-handed. They merely enjoyed their day in court.”

The courts no longer even pretend to tether their pronouncements to any sense of principle, precedent or proportion. To use an expression originated by our neighbours in Cameroon, judicial mercenarism now manifests itself in an open jurisprudence of “buy am; sell am.”

Over the years of educating parents, teachers and caregivers about early childhood development, we've received many questions about how to raiseemotionally intelligent kids.

Kids with high emotional intelligence have the tools they need to navigate their feelings and relationships in a healthy and secure way. Key components include self-awareness, self-regulation and motivation. But surprisingly, the most overlooked one is empathy.

Parents of the most emotionally intelligent children lead by example — and teach their kids four empathy skills at a young age:

1. How to take on different perspectives

Perspective taking does not mean having the same experience as someone else or deciding whether their experience is real.

When a child is pulling at their shirt and saying, "It's scratchy, I don't like it. I want a different shirt," we can model perspective taking by believing that their experience is true: "That shirt feels uncomfortable for you, and you want to change it."

It's not the parent's job to convince them that the shirt is perfectly comfortable and remind them that they've worn it before. It's their job to step outside of themselves and be a witness to their child's experience.

2. How to avoid judgement

This means practicing mindfulness of our biases and self-regulating so that we can see the child's experience without a biased lens.

So instead of responding with, "You don't need to be so upset. It's just a shirt. We can fix this," avoiding judgment is simply noticing what is: "You are really upset that it's so uncomfortable."

3. How to recognize emotions

Recognizing emotions is connecting with what your child is feeling, not whythey're feeling it.

So when your child comes to you upset, take a moment to articulate out loud what they are feeling. "Wow, you are disappointed, that's really tough."

Then recall and share a time when you dealt with the emotion they're expressing, so you can connect with them about how it feels.

This teaches them that if they know what disappointment feels like, they can choose to empathize with that feeling, regardless of the reason why someone else is feeling it.

4. How to communicate understanding

Communicating our understanding about the emotions is when connecting happens, when we have the opportunity to say: "I see you. I get it. That's so hard. Ugh, yeah, I understand that."

For example, you tell best friend: "I've been so tired the last couple of nights that the thought of us meeting for dinner tomorrow night feels exhausting. But I know we haven't seen each other in such a long time."

Good communicating of understanding from your friend might look like: "I get how exhausting that feels. Especially today looking at tomorrow." This is nice because she's not trying to convince you or minimize your experience. She's being present to your pain because she is really listening.

When your child sees you do this for people you care about, they absorb the valuable lesson of how to be a better friend and community member.

The secret to teaching empathy is to show it

Just as we build self-regulation skills by co-regulating with a child, we teach emotional intelligence by responding to children with empathy.

Connect with your child and imagine what the message underneath their behavior might be. Trust that they are kind humans and allow them to make mistakes. When you do this, you teach them that your love for them is conditional.

And lastly, remember to pause to say "I love you." It's impossible to spoil kids with love. We promise that you can never say those words too much.

** Alyssa Blask Campbell is a parenting and emotional development expert.

 

CNBC

Criticisms have trailed the sacking of Governor Caleb Mutfwang of Plateau State by the Court of Appeal, triggering reactions that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) was at work to run one-party system in Nigeria.

The sacking of Mutfwang was the third experience of the opposition in four days.

Last week, Iliya Damagum, Acting National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), raised the alarm that there was a plot to overturn the will of the people as expressed during the general elections.

Addressing a press conference at the party headquarters, Damagum alleged that there was a design by the APC to “cripple democracy, overthrow the democratic rights of Nigerians, suppress the Rule of Law and downgrade our nation to a fiefdom run by the whims of a cabal.”

Mutfwang of the PDP had 525,299 votes while his APC challenger, Nentawe Goshwe, polled 481,370 votes in the governorship election in March.

Goshwe challenged the victory at the tribunal saying that Mutfwang did not comply with the Electoral Act as he was not validly nominated and sponsored by his party.

The panel dismissed the petition for lacking merit, but Goshwe headed to the appellate court. In its judgment on Sunday, the appeal court headed by Elfrieda Williams-Dawodu sacked Mutfwang for not being validly sponsored by the PDP for election.

On Thursday, the appeal court sacked Governor Dauda Lawal of Zamfara State of PDP, declaring that the governorship election in March was inconclusive.

The following day, the same court nullified the election of the Kano State Governor, Abba Kabir Yusuf of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP).

These recent court rulings leading to the sacking of opposition governors have gotten Nigerians talking as they pointed to the APC as the mastermind.

Here are some of the reactions on Twitter:

Shehu Sani, a former senator, wrote: “The Court of Appeal Judgement against the electoral victory of the Plateau State Governor is unfortunate, unacceptable and condemnable. A broad daylight heist of the will of the people.The bench is becoming the coffin of democracy.”

@Rabsy_b: “APC can take over all the 36 states if they want ”

@authentic_malam: “It’s natural to question court rulings. I wonder why all our court verdicts seem to favor the APC, the ruling party, against the opposition. This trend could potentially harm the country’s political process. ”

@MikelegofGod wrote, “APC at work oo, they wanna turn Nigeria into a one-party system.”

ÄPC has turned Nigeria into something different o,” @Okey_Ego_Crypto wrote.

“APC-owned court sacks Plateau governor,” @Mary_dozie reacted.

“They are gradually sinking this country,” @ErcharuP lamented.

In his own reaction, @JayPeeGeneral said, “No justice in the courtrooms system anymore! Our judges have replaced susbstantail justice with technicalities.

“Court sits on Sundays,” @CheezyCharles queried.

“Miscarriage of justice, there is no law left in Nigeria anymore,” @EnergizeBen said.

@timibreaker_35 said, “APC came to finish Nigeria.”

@TheoAbuAgada: “APC should actually take it easy. It’s becoming annoying at this point.”

@Its_ereko: “Dem go still remove Governors for different states put APC. Mad money dey fly for Nigerian judges account this period. But Nigerians no go wake up ???? ”

@YundNedu∅1: “APC is just clearing everywhere with the help of our judiciary. Any small thing “go to court ” because they already have the judiciary on their payroll….”

@leroikris: “It is now glaring that Nigeria is an APC captured state.”

@Pauly257∅: “They have decided to snatch Plateau and allocate it to themselves. APC Department in charge of political allocation and distribution.”

@iam_samedohi: “America wonder. Nigeria is fast becoming a one-party country ????‍♂️????‍♂️????‍♂️”

 

Daily Trust

African governments are scrambling for dollars, and that’s creating a new dividing line for investors.

Amid a deepening shortage of hard currency on the continent, governments are turning to bartering, currency devaluations, central bank exchange controls, and help from the International Monetary Fund andMiddle East to shore up their balance sheets.

Investors are rewarding nations whose efforts to boost dollar liquidity are paying off. But they’re punishing those that can’t guarantee access to the currency they need to invest and repatriate returns, and are steering clear of countries without adequate reserves to cover import costs or debt repayments. African currencies are the worst performers in the world this year, with about a dozen sliding at least 15% against the dollar.

“Dollar holdings are part of the value proposition,” said Benedict Craven, country risk manager at the Economist Intelligence Unit. “Will investors be able to trade using foreign exchange from official sources? Will they be able to expatriate their dividends abroad? These questions are separating where investment is going.”

The dollar squeeze has played out most obviously in local currencies. Eurobond issuers who were forced to devalue this year include Egypt, Nigeria and Angola. Dwindling capital inflows have also seen the likes of Kenya’s shilling and Zambia’s kwacha weaken to record lows versus the greenback. The former has sizable dollar-debt repayments due next year, while the latter is in default on its eurobonds.

Kenya’s dollar bonds have handed investors losses of 2.1% since the beginning of July, when US Treasury rates started rising as the “higher-for-longer” interest-rate narrative took hold. That compares with the 1.7% average loss for emerging and frontier peers in a Bloomberg sovereign dollar bond index. Nairobi’s benchmark stock index has slumped 32% in 2023, the most among 92 global markets tracked by Bloomberg, while the shilling has declined 19%.

In Zambia, Mozambique and Nigeria, the inability to access foreign financing has forced governments to ramp up domestic issuance in shallow markets, pushing up the cost of borrowing. African sovereigns have been locked out of international debt capital markets since April 2022.

Nigeria’s longest-dated naira bond is trading at a record 18% yield. But higher domestic yields aren’t attracting foreign buyers, who worry about depreciating local currencies and difficulties in repatriating returns. In Zambia, for example, foreign holdings of domestic debt fell from 29% at the end of 2021 to around 22% currently, partly due to the restructuring process as well as liquidity issues.

IMF Rescue

In some cases, the IMF is coming to the rescue. It said last week it will expand financing to Kenya by $938 million to bolster its reserves, ahead of a $2 billion eurobond maturity in June. That sent yields on the 2024 notes tumbling almost 200 basis points in four days through Friday — though they remain well above 14%.

“The general perception is when a country trades above 10% in USD yields they are not able to issue in the USD market,” said Lars Krabbe, a portfolio manager at Coeli Frontier Markets AB. “This is of course not good for the general investment environment and debt sustainability in these countries and makes them highly dependent on concessional funding” such as IMF loans, he said.

On the other hand, countries with less pressing foreign-exchange needs are becoming more appealing.

“Countries with less punishing dollar-denominated loan amounts and bond repayments, and large stocks of foreign reserves, are most attractive,” said David Omojomolo, Africa economist at Capital Economics. “And more so those that have made large FX adjustments already.”

Egypt is one. Citigroup Inc. strategists were the latest to turn bullish on the North African nation’s dollar debt, as sales of state assets pick up and the government appears on track to meet targets set by the IMF. The central bank is close to securing as much as $5 billion in new deposits from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, al-Borsa reported last month.

Egypt’s eurobonds have handed investors returns of 8.7% in the second half of this year in dollar terms, compared to a loss for the average developing-nation peers in a Bloomberg sovereign credit index.

For Kaan Nazli, portfolio manager at Neuberger Berman Asset Management, investors are likely to prioritize sovereign issuers that had better access to alternative sources of financing, such as Ivory Coast and Senegal.

“Ivory Coast, for example, was able to rely on blended finance deals at reasonable cost over the last year,” he said.

The West African nation also secured an IMF loan, while its currency, the CFA franc, is pegged to the euro, leaving it less exposed to fluctuations. Regional peer Senegal is attracting investments to public-private partnerships in climate finance.

Losses in both Senegal and Ivory Coast’s eurobonds have been less severe than Kenya’s and narrower than the average since July. Month-to-date, their performance has exceeded peers.

Meanwhile, the dollar shortage is also hurting consumers and local businesses as import costs soar, fueling inflation.

In Nigeria, prices of prescription drugs for conditions such as hypertension and diabetes have tripled in the past year. One of Zimbabwe’s biggest retailers, OK Zimbabwe, said sales volumes are now below break-even point due to rising costs and an exchange rate which has driven customers to the informal sector. And in Malawi, the price of corn, a food staple, has more than doubled over the past year.

“The problem is there’s only so much you can do if you don’t have a vast trove of dollar reserves,” said Sonu Varghese, global macro strategist at Carson Group. “For investors, the risk that these countries remain on the verge of crisis hasn’t gone away.”

Rice consumption in the country has been on a steady rise, beyond the reach of local supply, leading to a supply gap of about two million metric tonnes annually, a new report has disclosed.

This has led to an over 37 per cent increase in the price of the commodity so far in 2023. This was revealed in ‘AFEX Wet Season Crop Production Report for 2023.

The firm said, “Rice consumption in Nigeria has been steadily increasing, aligning with the consistent growth of the rice market, nearly matching the annual population growth projection of 2.6 per cent at two per cent. This has led to a supply gap of about 2 million metric tonnes annually.”

So far, Nigeria has spent over $15bn in the past decade to meet its expanding rice consumption, despite its potential to be a net rice exporter, the firm stated.

Globally, rice prices reached their highest point in nearly 12 years in 2023, primarily due to India’s ban on rice exports and the potential impact of El Nino on production in key regions. These factors, along with rain-induced disruptions and variations in quality during Vietnam’s summer-autumn harvest have further contributed to the price surge.

It noted, “A similar trend is observed in Nigeria, where the price of rice has increased by over 37 per cent year-to-date, driven by reduced production in 2022 due to the effects of flooding during the wet season of that year.” The firm also blamed the increase in prices on flooding and the ripple effect of the international market dynamics.

It, however, expects an increase in production of rice by approximately 4 per cent, and a further increase in the price of paddy rice by up to around 32 per cent.

The firm declared that the production of milled paddy rice has seen a remarkable increase of over 35 per cent in the country, reaching an estimated output of 5.4 million metric tonnes in 2022, up from 3.9 million metric tonnes in 2015. While rice is cultivated across all of Nigeria’s agro-ecological zones, the Northwest region accounts for 72 per cent of the total rice production in the country.

 

Punch

Israel says soldier executed, foreign hostages held at Gaza's Shifa hospital

Israel stepped up accusations of Hamas abuses at the Gaza Strip's biggest hospital on Sunday, saying a captive soldier had been executed and two foreign hostages held at a site that has been a focus of its devastating six-week-old offensive.

At one point a shelter for tens of thousands of Palestinian war refugees, Al Shifa Hospital has been evacuating patients and staff since Israeli troops swept in last week on what they called a mission to root out hidden Hamas facilities.

Israel is also searching for some 240 people Hamas kidnapped to Gaza after an Oct. 7 cross-border assault that sparked the war.

One of these was a 19-year-old Israeli army conscript, Noa Marciano, whose body was recovered near Shifa last week. Hamas said she died in an Israeli air strike and issued a video that appeared to show her corpse, unmarked except for a head wound.

The Israeli military said a forensic examination found she had sustained non-life-threatening injuries from such a strike.

"According to intelligence information - solid intelligence information - Noa was taken by Hamas terrorists inside the walls of Shifa hospital. There, she was murdered by a Hamas terrorist," chief spokesperson Daniel Hagari said.

He did not elaborate.

In his televised briefing, Hagari said Hamas gunmen had also brought a Nepalese and a Thai, among foreign workers seized in the Oct. 7 raid, to Shifa. He did not name the two hostages.

CCTV video aired by Hagari appeared to show a group of men frog-marching an individual into a hospital, to the surprise of medical staff. A second clip showed an injured man on a gurney. Another man nearby, in civilian clothes, had an assault rifle.

Hamas did not immediately comment on Hagari's statements. The Palestinian Islamist group, which runs Gaza, has previously said it took some hostages to hospitals for treatment.

Separately on Sunday, the Israeli military published video of what it described as a tunnel, running 55 metres in length and dug by Palestinians 10 metres under the Shifa compound.

While acknowledging that it has a network of hundreds of kilometres of secret tunnels, bunkers and access shafts throughout the Palestinian enclave, Hamas has denied that these are located in civilian infrastructure like hospitals.

The video showed a narrow passage with arched concrete roofing, ending at what the military, in a statement, described as a blast-proof door.

The statement did not say what might be beyond the door. The tunnel had been accessed through a shaft discovered in a shed within the Shifa compound that contained munitions, it said. A second video showed an outdoor shaft-opening in the compound.

Mounir El Barsh, the Gaza health ministry director, dismissed the Israeli statement on the tunnel as a "pure lie".

"They have been at the hospital for eight days ... and yet they haven't found anything," he told Al Jazeera television.

 

Reuters

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Zelenskiy calls for rapid operations changes for soldiers, sacks commander

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Sunday demanded rapid changes in the operations of Ukraine's military and announced the dismissal of the commander of the military's medical forces.

Zelenskiy's move was announced as he met Defence Minister Rustem Umerov, and coincided with debate over the conduct of the 20-month-old war against Russia, with questions over how quickly a counteroffensive in the east and south is proceeding.

"In today's meeting with Defence Minister Umerov, priorities were set," Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address. "There is little time left to wait for results. Quick action is needed for forthcoming changes."

Zelenskiy said he had replaced Major-General Tetiana Ostashchenko as commander of the Armed Forces Medical Forces.

"The task is clear, as has been repeatedly stressed in society, particularly among combat medics, we need a fundamentally new level of medical support for our soldiers," he said.

This, he said, included a range of issues -- better tourniquets, digitalisation and better communication.

Umerov acknowledged the change on the Telegram messaging app and set as top priorities digitalisation, "tactical medicine" and rotation of servicemen.

Ukraine's military reports on what it describes as advances in recapturing occupied areas in the east and south and last week acknowledged that troops had taken control of areas on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River in southern Kherson region.

Ukrainian commander in chief General Valery Zaluzhniy, in an essay published this month, said the war was entering a new stage of attrition and Ukraine needed more sophisticated technology to counter the Russian military.

While repeatedly saying advances will take time, Zelenskiy has denied the war is headed into a stalemate and has called on Kyiv's Western partners, mainly the United States, to maintain levels of military support.

Ostashchenko was replaced by Major-General Anatoliy Kazmirchuk, head of a military clinic in Kyiv.

Her dismissal came a week after a Ukrainian news outlet suggested her removal, as well as that of others, was imminent following consultations with paramedics and other officials responsible for providing support to the military.

 

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Top Zelensky aide questions Ukraine’s ‘survival’

A senior aide to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky claimed in an interview with Ukraine’s Channel 24 television station on Friday that Kiev must seize all territories lost to Russia, including the Crimean Peninsula, or risk disappearing from the world’s map.

The aide, Mikhail Podoliak, opined that failure to push back Russian troops from the territory Kiev claims as its own could become a breaking point for the country. “Do we have an endgame in which we do not enter Crimea and which would clearly indicate that Ukraine has a historical perspective?” he asked.

According to Podoliak, the same concerns apply to the four other regions – the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, as well as Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions – that overwhelmingly voted to join Russia last autumn. “Do we have even a single chance to survive in historical terms for another ten to 15 years?” the official added. 

Podoliak also believes that Russia’s victory would be a significant setback for the West as it would “not be able to claim global leadership” while its “autocratic” rivals would have free reign to attack other territories. He also admitted that “the war is unpopular” in Ukraine but rejected any peace engagement with Russia, insisting that Moscow wants to “subjugate” Kiev.

Russian officials have repeatedly said they have never closed the door to talks with their Ukrainian counterparts.

Podoliak also attempted to justify unfulfilled predictions that Ukraine would seize Crimea during the past summer, noting that this assessment was based on an analysis of how many arms Kiev would receive from its Western backers and the impact of sanctions on Russia. According to the official, however, many Western companies remained in the Russian market, allowing the country’s government to receive “high taxes” and use this money to fund its military campaign.

Ukraine’s eventual takeover of Crimea was predicted twice this year by Ukrainian intelligence chief Kirill Budanov – first in the spring and later in the summer amid Kiev’s counteroffensive. Moscow has warned it would use“any weapon” in response to a potential Ukrainian attack on the peninsula.

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said last month that Kiev “is losing” while being unable to make any substantial progress on the battlefield. He also estimated Kiev’s losses at more than 90,000 service members since the start of the counteroffensive in early June.

 

Reuters/RT

A man is in critical condition after being shot in the head while preaching Wednesday on a street corner in a Phoenix suburb, United States.

Hans Schmidt, 26, was shot near Victory Chapel — the church where he serves as outreach director — at around 6:15 p.m. Wednesday before a service began, the church said. No arrests have been made, according to the Glendale, Arizona, police department.

“Family’s is just devastated. We all are fine,” said Victory Chapel Pastor Gary Marsh.

Victory Chapel is a Pentecostal church and its services draw about a hundred attendees, according to Marsh. At the time of the shooting, Schmidt had been preaching, asking people attend a service.

"We do believe in evangelism. That's why there's young men standing in the corner preaching the gospel," Marsh said.

Schmidt was in critical condition as of Friday, when the church posted an update saying his family "is encouraged by what they are seeing."

Police said Friday they believe there may be additional witnesses with information about the case.

Glendale is located about nine miles northwest of Phoenix.

Schmidt, who is also a former military combat medic, has a wife and two children, according to a post on the church's homepage calling for donations for medical expenses.

A man who works at a nearby automotive repair shop told The Republic that he often saw Schmidt preaching using a megaphone along with a couple other people from Victory Chapel.

"He wasn't being hateful," Paul Sanchez said.

 

USA Today