Nairobi,Dec 01,2020: “The camps will have now run out of food supplies – making hunger and malnutrition a real danger, a warning we have been issuing since the conflict began nearly a month ago. We are also alarmed at unconfirmed reports of attacks, abductions and forced recruitment at the refugee camps.” Wednesday marks a month since Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced that fighting had erupted in the Tigray region between federal forces and regional ones, as each government now regards the other as illegitimate due to a dispute over holding elections during the pandemic. Communications and transport links to the Tigray region of 6 million people have been severed, and the U.N. and others have pleaded for access to deliver badly needed food, medicines and other supplies.
Abiy, last year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, has rejected the idea of dialogue with the Tigray regional leaders, who are on the run but say they continue to fight even after Abiy over the weekend declared victory in the deadly conflict. Ethiopia’s government has said it will create and manage a “humanitarian corridor” for the delivery of aid, but the U.N. wants access that is neutral and unhindered.
The U.N. has said some 2 million people in Tigray now need assistance — a doubling from the number before the fighting — and some 1 million people are displaced, including more than 45,000 Ethiopians who have fled into Sudan as refugees. The 96,000 Eritrean refugees are in an especially precarious position. They are in camps in Ethiopia near the border of their homeland, Eritrea, which they fled, and reports of have emerged that some have been attacked or abducted.
The U.N. refugee chief has warned that, if true, any such actions “would be major violations of international norms.” Eritrea has remained almost silent as the Tigray leaders accuse it of joining the conflict at Ethiopia’s request, which Abiy’s government has denied. “For almost two decades, Ethiopia has been a hospitable country for Eritrean refugees but now we fear they are caught in the conflict,” Baloch said. “UNHCR appeals to the government of Ethiopia to continue to fulfill its responsibility in hosting and protecting Eritrean refugees and allow humanitarians to access people who are now desperately in need.”
Washington DC , December 1,2020: The United States and Europe must decide how they will ensure the international system will adhere to its values in the face of China’s unfair trading practices, murky investment, and political interference, according to a report by the chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“The United States and Europe on the one hand, and China on the other, have very different visions of what the world should look like. This competition of ideas and of systems touches on our political and cultural values, our economic prosperity, and our security,” said the US Senate report titled ” A Concrete Agenda for Transatlantic Cooperation on China.”
“The United States and Europe must decide how we will ensure the international system maintains its commitment to its values, even in the face of China’s unfair trading practices, murky and corrupt investment, and political interference to advance its authoritarian ends,” the report added.
This report comes as experts have suggested that the incoming Joe Biden administration might impose sanctions thus affecting the Chinese economy next year.
David Li Daokui, a professor at Tsinghua University and a former adviser to China’s central bank, according to South China Morning Post warned that economic planners should not rule out the possibility of a Trump comeback in 2024 and added that President-elect Biden might “continue Trump’s hard-line approach to China.”
Further talking about the growing Chinese threat, the US Committee report said that “Neither side of the Atlantic can respond to the challenges China poses alone. The only way forward is to work together. Transatlantic security and prosperity require that we renew our commitment to each other and pledge to use all of our combined tools to succeed.”
It also states that the degree to which China can dominate the Indo-Pacific will have a direct impact on its ability to project power globally.
“As a result of the region’s growing economic and political weight, the opportunities presented by robust alliances and partnerships, and China’s more assertive and coercive regional posture, the United States has determined that the Indo-Pacific is a top foreign policy priority,” the report said.
This report by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee comes amid China’s growing belligerence in its neighborhood and beyond. Tension has been rising over the issue of Hong Kong security legislation, trade, Beijing’s military aggression, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tehran [Iran], December 1 ,2020: Days after Iran’s nuclear arms program scientist was assassinated, a senior commander in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards has been killed in a drone strike near the Syria-Iraq border.
According to media reports cited by Haaretz, three more were killed along with the commander, who has been identified as Muslim Shahdan.
The Iraqi intelligence sources have been quoted as saying that Shahdan’s car was targeted while he was crossing into Syria. Despite reports confirming Shahdan’s death, Hezbollah-affiliated organization has denied the report.
Last week, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, Iran’s top nuclear scientist was killed in an apparent assassination that the Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif linked to Israel.
However, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has not commented on the incident. Fakhrizadeh was head of the research center of new technology in the elite Revolutionary Guards.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Saturday accused Israel of being behind the assassination of nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.
The President said that the incident will not disrupt the “scientific growth” of the country and will only make young scientists more determined “to continue the path of this precious martyr”, Sputnik reported.
In January this year, the United States assassinated Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force responsible for military activity outside Iran, Haaretz reported
Tension started to re-build in the Middle East region after the US unilaterally withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal agreement and unleashed sanctions on Iran. Thereafter, Tehran started to withdraw from its nuclear commitments in 2019.
Tehran, Dec 1,2020: Iranian authorities said on Monday that they firmly believe that Israel and an exiled opposition group were behind the assassination of their top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, but that they used a remote-control weapon to kill him on Friday.
Security chief Ali Shamkhani, while speaking at the funeral of Fakhrizadeh said the attackers had “used electronic equipment” when Fakhrizadeh’s car was fired upon east of the capital Tehran, BBC reported.
Iranian versions of what happened have changed significantly but it appears that Fakhrizadeh was mortally wounded when his car was sprayed with bullets in the town of Absard, to the east of Tehran.
During the attack a bomb in a Nissan pickup truck is also reported to have exploded.
Pictures on social media show a road strewn with wreckage and blood, and a bullet-riddled vehicle.
First the defence ministry had reported a gunfight between Fakhrizadeh’s bodyguards and several gunmen.
Then Iranian media said the scientist had in fact been killed by a “remote-controlled machine gun” or weapons “controlled by satellite”.
And on Monday, Rear Admiral Shamkhani, who heads the Supreme National Security Council, confirmed it had been a remote attack, using “special methods” which he did not specify.
Israel has so far not made any kind of comment on the Iranian allegations that they were responsible for Fakhrizadeh’s assassination.
Fakhrizadeh had played a crucial role developing in Iran’s nuclear programme and was accused by Israel of being responsible for developing Iran’s nuclear weapon’s programme. The Iranian government has always insisted that its nuclear activities are entirely for peaceful purposes.