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NEW YORK: The failure of the peace process in South Sudan and the subsequent extension of transition deadlines will lead to further suffering of civilians and the inevitable outbreak of civil war, women’s activist Lilian Riziq warned a meeting of the UN Security Council on Friday.
Riziq, president of South Sudan Women’s Empowerment Network, was responding to a report delivered by Nicholas Haysom, the special representative of the secretary general for the UN Mission in South Sudan.
Haysom had told the meeting that the fundamentals of the agreement reached in 2018, taking South Sudan from conflict to peace, remained valid — but he said that while a ceasefire had held, the situation in the country remained highly volatile.
“(It is) four years after the signing of the peace agreement in 2018,” Riziq said.
“The power-sharing agreement has neither ended the violence nor delivered the needed reforms. The situation in South Sudan is unsustainable.”
Riziq said that the whole country was “breaking down,” adding that there was “rampant insecurity” and enforced displacement of civilians.
“Women and girls are routinely subjected to sexual violence,” she said.
She added that the recent graduation of unified security forces by the so-called revitalized transitional government had failed to bring about stability.
Riziq said that a joint human rights report, released on Sept. 6, 2022, “documented horrific violations and abuses of human rights in South Sudan.”
These violations included 131 cases of rape and gang rape, including girls as young as eight years old, and a nine-year-old girl who was gang-raped to death, she said.
“The current government has failed to carry out its mandate, including implementing the peace agreement and protecting civilians from state corruption and misuse of resources, especially oil revenue.”
“Therefore, extending the current government’s term despite its failure to engender peace, democracy and development will prolong the suffering of ordinary citizens.”
“In fact, the extension of the term of the government without an inclusive participation of civil society and other political and social groups will entrench the parties and encourage the government to remain in power.”
Riziq warned that delays would lead to violence and outbreak of a fully fledged war.
“The war will lead to a total collapse of South Sudan,” she said.
Riziq called on the international community to support calls for a “broad-based process to ensure the inclusivity of South Sudan’s transition to peace, democracy and development.”
“In this regard, we support the Fordham University initiative to convene a broad-based meeting on South Sudan as a follow-up to the roundtable discussion held in New York on June 3, 2023,” she said.
The initiative will seek to convene an inclusive political dialogue for South Sudanese stakeholders in the region, she said, adding that the goal was to help the South Sudanese reach a broad consensus on a roadmap for a new transitional government program.
Riziq said the nonpartisan initiative had the potential to influence and push representatives to engage in inclusive political dialogue and agree on a roadmap for a transitional program with a “specific mandate and timeline for free, fair and credible inclusive election.”
“We believe such a process will help the South Sudanese to get out of the vicious cycle of violence and political violence and build a society that will engage good governance, sustainable development and ensure justice and accountability,” she said.
In his report published to the UN on Tuesday, Haysom also revealed that scores of civilians had been killed in political clashes in South Sudan between February and May this year, with women and children exposed to brutal assaults, including gang rape.
In a meeting of the Security Council on Thursday, delegates heard that South Sudan was one of the most dangerous places to be an aid worker in 2021, with 319 violent incidents against humanitarian workers and assets in the country.
Additionally, five aid workers were killed in 2021 — five more have died since the beginning of this year.
Despite efforts by the UN Mission in South Sudan to bring about a sustainable peace, Haysom detailed continued outbreaks of inter-communal violence.
His report, published on Tuesday, accused all sides in the conflict of committing severe abuses, with pro-government forces and militias appearing to be “the main perpetrators of the human rights violations.”
Haysom said the violence caused 44,000 people to flee their homes across 26 villages, with a total of 131 cases of rape and gang-rape documented.
Haysom’s report noted the extension of the transitional period that previously held a February 2023 deadline.
And he said that as such signatory parties have agreed on a roadmap for completing the remaining tasks of the country’s transition through a set of revised benchmarks and timelines, with an extended transitional period of 24 months.
“Let me underscore that the roadmap is a waypoint, not an endpoint in South Sudan’s journey on the path to democratic transition,” Haysom said on Friday.
He said he had told the country’s rulers this, adding: “I encourage the parties to display tangible results by keeping to the strict deadlines of the roadmap calendar and to drive implementation in a manner that brings on board the other stakeholders to gain the confidence of the population.”
An essential aspect of the peace transition was the recent graduation of unified forces, which he said would help to bring about change.
SAN ANTONIO, Philippines: Thousands of American and Filipino forces pummeled a ship with a barrage of high-precision rockets, airstrikes and artillery fire in their largest war drills on Wednesday in Philippine waters facing the disputed South China Sea that would likely antagonize China.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. watched the American show of firepower from an observation tower in the coastal town of San Antonio in northwestern Zambales province — the latest indication of his strong backing of the Philippines’ treaty alliance with the US
Marcos has ordered his military to shift its focus to external defense from decades-long anti-insurgency battles as China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the South China Sea become a top concern. The shift in the Philippine defense focus falls in sync with the Biden administration’s aim of reinforcing an arc of alliances in the Indo-Pacific region to better counter China.
China has angered the Philippines by repeatedly harassing its navy and coast guard patrols and chasing away fishermen in the waters close to Philippine shores but which Beijing claims as its own. The Philippines has filed more than 200 diplomatic protests against China since last year, including at least 77 since Marcos took office in June.
Sitting beside US Ambassador MaryKay Carlson and his top defense and security advisers, Marcos used a pair of binoculars, smiling and nodding, as rockets streaked into the blue sky from the US High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, a multiple rocket and missile launcher mounted on a truck that has become a crucial weapon for Ukrainian troops battling Russian invasion forces.
The coastal clearing in front of Marcos resembled a smoke-shrouded war zone, which thudded with artillery fire as AH-64 Apache attack helicopters flew overhead.
“This training increased the exercise’s realism and complexity, a key priority shared between the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the US military,” Lt. Gen. William Jurney, commander of US Marine Corps Forces, Pacific, said.
“Together we are strengthening our capabilities in full-spectrum military operations across all domains,” said Jurney, the US director for the annual joint exercises called Balikatan, Tagalog for ”shoulder-to-shoulder.”
About 12,200 USmilitary personnel, 5,400 Filipino forces and 111 Australian counterparts were taking part in the exercises, the largest since Balikatan started three decades ago. The drills have showcased US warships, fighter jets as well as Patriot missiles, HIMARS and anti-tank Javelins, according to US and Philippine military officials.
The ship targeted by the allied forces was a decommissioned Philippine navy warship, which was towed about 18 to 22 kilometers out to sea.
Smaller floating targets, including empty drums tied together, were also used as targets to simulate a battle scene where a US Marine Corps command and control hub enabled scattered allied forces to identify and locate enemy targets then deliver precision rocket and missile fire.
Philippine military officials said the maneuvers would bolster the country’s coastal defense and disaster-response capabilities and were not aimed at any country. China has opposed military drills involving US forces in the region in the past as well as increasing US military deployments, which it warned would rachet up tensions and hamper regional stability and peace.
Washington and Beijing have been on a collision course over China’s increasingly assertive actions to defend its vast territorial claims in the South China Sea and Beijing’s goal of annexing Taiwan, by force if necessary.
In February, Marcos approved a wider US military presence in the Philippines by allowing rotating batches of American forces to stay in four more Philippine military camps. That was a sharp turnaround from his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte, who feared that a larger American military footprint could antagonize Beijing.
China strongly opposed the move, which would allow US forces to establish staging grounds and surveillance posts in the northern Philippines across the sea from Taiwan and in western Philippine provinces facing the South China Sea, which Beijing claims virtually in its entirety.
China has warned that a deepening security alliance between Washington and Manila and their ongoing military drills should not harm its security and territorial interests or interfere in the territorial disputes.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry has said that such military cooperation “should not target any third party and should be conducive to regional peace and stability.”
HONG KONG: Singapore on Wednesday executed a man accused of coordinating a cannabis delivery, despite pleas for clemency from his family and protests from activists that he was convicted on weak evidence.
Tangaraju Suppiah, 46, was sentenced to death in 2018 for abetting the trafficking of 1 kilogram of cannabis. Under Singapore laws, trafficking more than 500 grams of cannabis may result in the death penalty.
Tangaraju was hanged Wednesday morning and his family was given the death certificate, according to a tweet from activist Kirsten Han of the Transformative Justice Collective, which advocates for abolishing the death penalty in Singapore.
Although Tangaraju was not caught with the cannabis, prosecutors said phone numbers traced him as the person responsible for coordinating the delivery of the drugs. Tangaraju had maintained that he was not the one communicating with the others connected to the case.
At a United Nations Human Rights briefing Tuesday, spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani called on the Singapore government to adopt a “formal moratorium” on executions for drug-related offenses.
“Imposing the death penalty for drug offenses is incompatible with international norms and standards,” said Shamdasani, who added that increasing evidence shows the death penalty is ineffective as a deterrent.
Singapore authorities say there is a deterrent effect, citing studies that traffickers carry amounts below the threshold that would bring a death penalty.
The island-state’s imposition of the death penalty for drugs is in contrast with its neighbors. In Thailand, cannabis has essentially been legalized, and Malaysia has ended the mandatory death penalty for serious crimes.
Singapore executed 11 people last year for drug offenses. One case that spurred international concern involved a Malaysian man whose lawyers said he was mentally disabled.
The Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network condemned Tangaraju’s execution as “reprehensible.”
“The continued use of the death penalty by the Singaporean government is an act of flagrant disregard for international human rights norms and casts aspersion on the legitimacy of Singapore’s criminal justice system,” the statement said.
Relatives and activists had sent letters to Singapore’s President Halimah Yacob to plead for clemency. In a video posted by the Transformative Justice Collective, Tangaraju’s niece and nephew appealed to the public to raise concerns to the government over Tangaraju’s impending execution.
An application filed by Tangaraju on Monday for a stay of execution was dismissed without a hearing Tuesday.
“Singapore claims it affords people on death row ‘due process’, but in reality fair trial violations in capital punishment cases are the norm: Defendants are being left without legal representation when faced with imminent execution, as lawyers who take such cases are intimidated and harassed,” said Maya Foa, director of non-profit human rights organization Reprieve.
Critics say Singapore’s death penalty has mostly snared low-level mules and done little to stop drug traffickers and organized syndicates. But Singapore’s government says that all those executed have been accorded full due process under the law and that the death penalty is necessary to protect its citizens.
British billionaire Richard Branson, who is outspoken against the death penalty, had also called for a halt of the execution in a blog post, saying that “Singapore may be about to kill an innocent man.”
Singapore authorities criticized Branson’s allegations, stating that he had shown disrespect for the Singaporean judicial system as evidence had shown that Tangaraju was guilty.
Japanese startup ispace Inc. said its attempt to make the first private moon landing had failed on Tuesday after losing contact with its Hakuto-R Mission 1 (M1) lander, concluding it had most likely crashed on the lunar surface.
Final pings of data in the moments before the planned touchdown showed the lander’s speed rapidly increasing, leading engineers at mission control in Tokyo to determine a successful landing was “not achievable,” ispace said in a statement.
“We lost communication, so we have to assume that we could not complete the landing on the lunar surface,” founder and Chief Executive Takeshi Hakamada said on a company live stream shortly after communication from the spacecraft ceased.
Success would have been a welcome change from recent setbacks Japan has faced in space technology, where it aims to build a domestic industry, including a goal of sending Japanese astronauts to the moon by the late 2020s.
But a lunar landing would be an ambitious feat for a private firm. Only the United States, the former Soviet Union and China have soft-landed spacecraft on the moon, with attempts in recent years by India and a private Israeli company ending in failure.
The Japanese firm “determined that there is a high probability that the lander eventually made a hard landing.”
In disclosure to the Tokyo Stock Exchange, ispace said it did not expect an immediate impact on its earnings forecast. The startup delivers payloads such as rovers to the moon and sells related data. It does not expect to book any profit until around 2025.
Four months after launching from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a SpaceX rocket, the M1 lander appeared set to autonomously touch down at about 12:40 p.m. Eastern time (1640 GMT Tuesday), with an animation based on live telemetry data showing it coming as close as 90 meters (295 feet) from the lunar surface.
By the expected touchdown time, mission control had lost contact with the lander and engineers appeared anxious over the live stream as they awaited signal confirmation of its fate which never came.
“Our engineers will continue to investigate the situation,” Hakamada said at the time. “At this moment, what I can tell you is we are very proud of the fact that we have already achieved many things during this Mission 1.”
The lander completed eight out of 10 mission objectives in space that will provide valuable data for the next landing attempt in 2024, Hakamada said.
Roughly an hour before planned touchdown, the 2.3 meter tall M1 began its landing phase, gradually tightening its orbit around the moon from 100 km (62 miles) above the surface to roughly 25 km, traveling at nearly 6,000 km/hour (3,700 mph).
At such velocity, slowing the lander to the correct speed against the moon’s gravitational pull is like squeezing the brakes of a bicycle right at the edge of a ski-jumping slope, Chief Technology Officer Ryo Ujiie told reporters on Monday.
The craft was aiming for a landing site at the edge of Mare Frigoris in the moon’s northern hemisphere where it would have deployed a two-wheeled, baseball-sized rover developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Tomy Co. Ltd. and Sony Group Corp. It also planned to deploy a four-wheeled rover dubbed Rashid from the United Arab Emirates.
The lander was also carrying an experimental solid-state battery made by Niterra Co. Ltd. among other devices to gauge their performance on the moon.
WASHINGTON: The Taliban government has killed the alleged mastermind of a devastating suicide bomb attack at the Kabul airport during the chaotic withdrawal of US forces in 2021, the White House said Tuesday.
The bomber detonated among packed crowds at the airport’s perimeter as they tried to flee Afghanistan on August 26, 2021. The blast killed some 170 Afghans and 13 US troops who were securing the airport for the traumatic exit.
It was one of the deadliest bombings in Afghanistan in recent years, and prompted a wave of criticism of President Joe Biden for his decision to pull American forces out of the country nearly 20 years after the US invasion.
The leader of the Daesh cell that planned the attack was killed by Taliban authorities, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said in a statement.
“He was a key Daesh-K official directly involved in plotting operations like Abbey Gate, and now is no longer able to plot or conduct attacks,” Kirby said, referring to the spot outside the airport where the attacks took place.
ISIS-K refers to Daesh Khorasan, the branch of the group operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“He was killed in a Taliban operation,” Kirby added without giving any details of it.
The pullout, ending on August 30, 2021, saw Taliban fighters sweep aside Western-trained Afghan forces in just weeks, forcing the last US troops to mount the desperate evacuation from Kabul’s airport.
An unprecedented military airlift operation managed to get more than 120,000 people out of the country in a matter of days.
Biden has long defended his decision to leave Afghanistan, which critics have said helped cause the catastrophic collapse of Afghan forces and paved the way for the Taliban to return to power two decades after their first government was toppled.
Nothing “would have changed the trajectory” of the exit and “ultimately, President Biden refused to send another generation of Americans to fight a war that should have ended for the United States long ago,” the White House National Security Council said in a report to Congress earlier this month.
A recent Washington Post report citing leaked Pentagon documents said the United States believes that since the withdrawal, Afghanistan is becoming a “staging ground” for the Daesh group.
In his statement, Kirby said Tuesday, “We have made clear to the Taliban that it is their responsibility to ensure that they give no safe haven to terrorists, whether Al-Qaeda or Daesh-K.”
He added: “We have made good on the President’s pledge to establish an over-the-horizon capacity to monitor potential terrorist threats, not only from Afghanistan but elsewhere around the world where that threat has metastasized, as we have done in Somalia and Syria.”
The Taliban and Daesh have long engaged in a turf war in Afghanistan, and experts have pointed to the jihadist group as the biggest security challenge for the new Afghan government going forward.