World

US President Joe Biden threw his support Thursday behind a larger African role in the world as he also vowed to champion democracy in a continent where China and Russia have enjoyed rising clout.

“The United States is all in on Africa and all in with Africa,” Biden told nearly 50 African leaders who have spent three days in a wintry Washington summit that featured a gala White House dinner.

“Africa belongs to the table in every room — every room for global challenges that are being discussed,” Biden said. 

Biden, who in September called for an African permanent seat on the UN Security Council, backed a permanent African Union role in the Group of 20 economies and said he was planning a visit — the first by a US president since 2015 — to sub-Saharan Africa.

The summit is the first of its kind since African leaders came in 2014 to see Barack Obama, whose successor Donald Trump made no secret of his lack of interest in Africa.

China for the past decade has eclipsed the United States as an investor, and Russia in recent years has sent in mercenaries and sought diplomatic support against Western pressure.

Biden announced $2.5 billion in new assistance on food as price increases lead to hunger across the continent, especially in the drought-struck Horn.

“Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine has led to the disruption of food and energy supplies that affect all of our economies,” Vice President Kamala Harris told a luncheon.

She told African leaders that “international rules and norms are under threat — for example, sovereignty and territory integrity, unimpeded commerce and peaceful resolution of disputes.”

– Democracy in ‘DNA’ –

The Biden administration has been more veiled in its criticism of China, which has poured in funding for high-profile infrastructure projects and lent more than $120 billion across the continent since the start of the century.

The United States at the summit laid out $55 billion in projects over the coming three years including in green energy, training for health workers and modernization of internet networks, with the private sector also pledging $15 billion led by investment in technology.

In a contrast with China, which has been happy to do business with all African regimes, the United States has made a point of stressing democracy, even if Biden still invited leaders seen as authoritarian.

“The United States will always lead with our values,” Biden told the African leaders.

“Support for democracy, respect for the rule of law, commitment to human rights, responsible government, all are part of our DNA.”

Biden, while announcing $100 million for security, also said the United States would invest $75 million to counteract “democratic backsliding” including by strengthening electoral authorities and civil society.

On Wednesday, Biden met jointly with the leaders of six nations that hold elections next year including Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo, sub-Saharan Africa’s largest countries in population and size respectively, to seek promises on free elections.

Mark Green, a former congressman and head of the US Agency of International Development, said that the United States was focused on building self-reliance in Africa, while China was looking to “reinforce aid dependency.”

“If a Chinese investment in Africa leads to greater self-reliance, somebody in Beijing is going to lose his or her job,” said Green, now president of the Wilson Center.

China denies US accusations it is putting developing nations into a “debt trap” and in turn has called on Washington not to see Africa through the prism of geopolitical competition.

– Will not ‘dictate’ to Africa –

African leaders largely welcomed the summit. But the continent has also been reluctant to take sides among major powers.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking to reporters at the end of the summit, said: “America will not dictate Africa’s choices. Neither should anyone else.”

Senegalese President Macky Sall, the current chair of the African Union, welcomed US support for the institution and voiced appreciation for Biden’s summit.

But he also called for the United States to end longstanding rights sanctions on Zimbabwe and voiced alarm over a bill in the US Congress that would impose sanctions on African countries over dealings with Russia.

“This would be the first time in international relations that a whole continent is targeted,” Sall said.

Russian and NASA engineers were assessing a coolant leak on Thursday from a Soyuz crew capsule docked with the International Space Station (ISS) that may have been caused by a micrometeorite strike.

Dramatic NASA TV images showed white particles resembling snowflakes streaming out of the rear of the vessel for hours.

The coolant leak forced the last-minute cancellation of a spacewalk by two Russian cosmonauts on Wednesday and could potentially impact a return flight to Earth by three crew members.

Russia’s space corporation Roscosmos and the US space agency said the leak on the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft did not pose any danger to the astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the ISS.

“The crew members aboard the space station are safe, and were not in any danger during the leak,” NASA said.

It said ground teams were evaluating “potential impacts to the integrity of the Soyuz spacecraft.”

“NASA and Roscosmos will continue to work together to determine the next course of action,” NASA said.

The TASS news agency quoted Sergei Krikalev, a former cosmonaut who heads the crewed space flight program for Roscosmos, as saying that the leak may have been caused by a tiny meteorite striking Soyuz MS-22.

“The cause of the leak may be a micrometeorite entering the radiator,” TASS quoted Krikalev as saying. “Possible consequences are changes in the temperature regime.”

“No other changes in the telemetric parameters of either the Soyuz spacecraft or the (ISS) station on the Russian or American segments have been detected,” Krikalev said.

– Coolant pressure drop –

NASA later added that the crew on the station “completed normal operations Thursday, including… configuring tools ahead of a planned US spacewalk on Monday.”

Soyuz MS-22 flew Russian cosmonauts Sergei Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio to the ISS in September.

It is scheduled to bring them back to Earth in March and another vessel would have to be sent to the ISS if Soyuz MS-22 is unavailable.

Prokopyev and Petelin had been making preparations for a spacewalk on Wednesday when the leak was discovered.

“The crew reported the warning device of the ship’s diagnostic system went off, indicating a pressure drop in the cooling system,” Roscosmos said. “At the moment, all systems of the ISS and the ship are operating normally, the crew is safe.”

NASA said the leak had occurred on the “aft end” of Soyuz MS-22, which is secured to the space station.

There are currently four other astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the space station in addition to Rubio, Prokopyev and Petelin.

NASA astronauts Josh Cassada and Nicole Mann, Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata and Russian cosmonaut Anna Kikina were flown to the ISS in October aboard a SpaceX spacecraft.

Space has been a rare avenue of cooperation between Moscow and Washington since the start of Moscow’s assault on Ukraine in February, and ensuing Western sanctions on Russia that shredded ties between the two countries.

The ISS was launched in 1998 at a time of increased US-Russia cooperation following their Space Race competition during the Cold War.

A teenager was among the four people who died after a small boat packed with migrants capsized in freezing temperatures in the Channel, a regional official said on Thursday.

Britain’s coastguard and other emergency responders, as well as a fishing boat in the area early Wednesday, plucked 43 people from the frigid waters of one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

However four of those retrieved from off England’s south coast during the large-scale rescue operation, which continued until mid-afternoon Thursday, did not survive, UK officials have confirmed.

The leader of the council in Kent, southeast England — home to the stretch of coastline where most cross-Channel migrants arrive — told colleagues at a cabinet meeting that one of the victims was a teenager.

Conservative councillor Roger Gough also said that 12 of the 39 people who survived were lone migrant children who have now been taken into the council’s care, UK media reported.

He called the tragedy a “sobering reminder of the human costs of what is an ongoing crisis”, the reports said.

The UK interior ministry could not confirm the details, noting it would be for a coroner to formally confirm details of those who died.

The tragedy comes just over a year after at least 27 people died in the Channel in another incident.

A higher death toll appears to have been averted thanks largely to the crew of the fishing trawler Arcturus, who discovered the dozens of migrants clinging to stricken inflatable vessels and in the icy waters.

“It was like something out of a Second World War movie, there were people in the water everywhere, screaming,” the boat’s skipper Raymond Strachan told Sky News.

“I steamed towards the dinghy and we secured it with a rope to the side of the boat. We were trying to pull them off the dinghy.”

The crew are believed to have saved 31 of the 39 people rescued during the hours-long operation.

On Thursday evening, migrants rights groups in northern France were set to hold a rally in memory of the deceased.

It would also “denounce the policies at the border which are once again responsible for the deaths of people in exile,” organisers said.

In a joint statement issued late Wednesday, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin and British counterpart Suella Braverman said the incident was “a stark reminder of the urgent need to destroy the business model of people-smugglers”.

The UK government is trying to pass new laws to prevent the record numbers of migrants from attempting the Channel crossing, including making any such arrivals inadmissible for asylum claims.