World

South Africa’s ruling party on Monday warned it would not back any motion at an upcoming parliamentary debate that would lead to a vote for removing President Cyril Ramaphosa, under fire over a burglary scandal.

“Should parliament proceed tomorrow, the ANC will not support that vote,” African National Congress interim secretary-general Paul Mashatile told reporters after day-long talks among party leaders.

Parliament on Tuesday is set to debate a damning report by an independent panel probing allegations that Ramaphosa concealed a huge cash theft at his farm.

The three investigators questioned the source of the cash and said Ramaphosa “may have committed” serious violations and misconduct.

Tuesday’s sitting is a step that could lead to a vote on whether to impeach — remove — Ramaphosa from office.

To initiate an impeachment vote would require a simple majority in the National Assembly, where the ANC has 230 out of 400 seats. The impeachment vote itself would need a two-thirds majority to succeed.

Mashatile said “after a long debate” the ANC’s National Executive Committee resolved to vote “against the adoption of the report,” as the president had now launched a legal bid to annul its findings.

That means “the president continues with his duties as president of the ANC and the republic,” it said.

He said the ANC however agreed that Ramaphosa must “be held accountable” by the party and that investigations underway by the police and other organs should continue.

But the “president did not offer to resign nor did the NEC ask him to resign,” he added.

Earlier Monday, Ramaphosa filed a petition to the Constitutional Court seeking to have the investigative report “reviewed, declared unlawful and set aside,” according to papers made available to the media by his spokesman.

Ramaphosa also asked for any possible impeachment process to be blocked, saying “any steps taken by the National Assembly pursuant to the report are equally unlawful and invalid.”

Chile’s snow-capped Villarrica volcano has been shaken by earthquakes and is belching fire, placing authorities on alert for a possible eruption in a picturesque area beloved by tourists.

Since October, the 2,847-meter (9,300-foot)-high Villarrica has been the site of gas explosions and seismic events, with pillars of fire up to 220 meters high shooting out of its lava lake.

Alvaro Amigo, the head of the National Volcanic Surveillance Network, told AFP that “while we cannot predict when the volcano will erupt, the conditions are in place,” according to daily assessments of activity at the site.

The glacier-clad volcano overlooks the city of Pucon, with a population of around 28,000 people who live just 15 kilometers (10 miles) from the peak.

The region’s lakes and lush forests are a popular tourist draw and some 10,000 visitors climb Villarrica each summer, according to official figures.

“The thing about Villarrica is the risk, because many people are living in areas that are highly exposed” to potential damage from the volcano, said geophysicist Cristian Farias.

He warned that residents had forgotten the hazards of “what Villarrica can do.”

Amigo said the volcano was dangerous because its eruptions often cause perilous volcanic rock and mud flows “and because it has a large population and infrastructure around it.”

Experts compare the current level of activity to that seen before the previous eruption in 2015, when an explosion of lava, gas and ash shot up 1.5 kilometers into the air, causing no damage before the volcano quieted down again. 

Villarrica’s last major eruption was in 1984. 

The National Geology and Mining Service issued a yellow alert in November in four towns close to the peak, meaning no one can come within 500 meters of the crater. The body has also put in place emergency evacuation plans and real-time monitoring of volcanic activity.

A yellow alert is the step before an orange alert, which indicates imminent eruption.

Mining Minister Marcela Hernando said the idea was to reassure citizens that technology and experts are constantly keeping an eye on Chile’s 45 “most important volcanoes.”

At least 27 people were killed when a landslide engulfed a road in northwest Colombia, trapping people in a bus and other vehicles, said President Gustavo Petro on Monday.

“It is with sadness that I must announce that, so far, 27 people, including three minors, have lost their lives in the tragedy” that struck on Sunday in a remote area of the Pueblo Rico municipality, Petro wrote on Twitter.

On Sunday evening, the president reported three dead, as dozens of rescue workers searched for survivors.

One survivor said the driver of the bus managed to dodge the worst of the landslide.

“Part of it was coming down and the bus was a little bit back from that. The bus driver was backing up when it all came crashing down,” Andres Ibarguen told radio station Lloro Stereo.

The bus had set out from the city of Cali with 25 passengers, civil defense officials said.

The rainy season that began in August is Colombia’s worst in 40 years, according to the government, causing accidents that have left more than 270 people dead.

Sudan’s military and civilian leaders signed Monday an initial deal aimed at ending a deep crisis caused by last year’s military coup, prompting sceptical protesters to cry betrayal.

Army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan seized power in October 2021, derailing a rocky transition to civilian rule that began after the 2019 ouster of veteran autocrat Omar al-Bashir. 

The past year has seen near-weekly protests and a crackdown that pro-democracy medics say has killed at least 121, a spiralling economic crisis exacerbated by donors slashing funding, and a resurgence of ethnic violence in several remote regions.

Divisions among civilian groups have deepened since the coup, with some urging a deal with the military while others insist on “no partnership, no negotiation”.

The deal was signed by Burhan, paramilitary commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo and multiple civilian groups, most notably the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC) — the main civilian faction that was ousted in the coup.  

As the key players put pens to paper, hundreds of citizens rallied in Khartoum to protest against the deal, setting fire to tyres, erecting barricades and facing down water cannons.

“The settlement is betrayal” and the FFC “sold our blood,” demonstrators cried. 

“We reject this deal as it overlooked street demands for justice for the people killed since the coup,” said protester Mohamed Ali.

If the deal plays out as planned, the civilian signatories will agree on a prime minister who will steer the country through a 24-month transition.

– Thorny issues ahead –

UN special representative Volker Perthes said the signing was “a culmination of the sustained efforts of Sudanese stakeholders over the past year to find a solution to the political crisis and restore constitutional order”.

The initial deal was described as “welcome” by the United States and European Union in a joint statement from the “Friends of Sudan” group, which also included Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Norway and Saudi Arabia.

UN High Commissoner for Human Rights Volker Turk hailed the accord as an “important first step toward a political agreement.” 

During the signing ceremony, Dagalo reiterated the military’s purported commitment to exit the political scene, saying “it is essential to build a sustainable democratic regime”. 

Other signatories included the Islamist Popular Congress Party, a faction of the Democratic Unionist Party and some ex-rebel groups who signed a 2020 peace deal.

The agreement — based on a proposal by the Sudanese Bar Association — was negotiated in the presence of officials from the UN, Western diplomats as well as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, according to the FFC. 

Perthes urged Sudanese factions to “immediately” start the second phase to resolve the outstanding issues and reach a comprehensive deal. 

However, that part is far thornier, with observers questioning whether the military would be willing to give up economic interests — as stipulated — and wider powers that it views as its privileged domain.

Phase one of the deal “is a very low level commitment on Burhan’s part… allowing him to survive” politically, said Kholood Khair founder of the Confluence Advisory, a Khartoum-based think-tank.

But the signatories will likely face “a real political crisis as they start talking in earnest about security sector reforms, transitional justice (and) financial accountability,” she added. 

Monday’s signing comes months after Burhan pledged that the military would step aside and make way for factions to agree on a civilian government. 

Some of the former rebels who signed peace deals with Sudan in 2020 also voiced their opposition to Monday’s agreement.

Mohamed Zakaraia, spokesman for the ex-rebel Justice and Equality Movement, told AFP that it “will bring about dire consequences and further complicate the political scene”.

A new Netflix trailer released Monday for an upcoming six-part docuseries on Prince Harry and wife Meghan risked further deepening their feud with his family, with the royal calling life within it a “dirty game”.

The British royal family is bracing for a potentially highly damaging account of the couple’s grievances that led them to quit frontline duties and move to the United States.

In the clips, posted on Twitter, Harry accuses the family of using the press to undermine them while one of the couple’s supporters calls it a tale of “hatred” and “race”.  

The trailer opens with happy footage from the couple’s courtship, engagement and wedding, before Harry says “everything changed.”

“There’s a hierarchy of the family,” the former British army captain goes on to say of the institution. 

“There’s leaking and there’s also planting of stories.

“It’s a dirty game,” he concludes.

Volume one of the series will be aired on Thursday, with the second instalment arriving on the streaming service next week.

Netflix released the first trailer last week, coinciding with Harry’s brother William’s first trip to the US as Prince of Wales and heir to the throne.

That minute-long teaser featured intimate photographs of the couple, interspersed with a clip of Harry saying: “No one sees what’s going on behind closed doors” and images of Meghan wiping her eyes.

The second trailer suggests that more direct accusations will be levelled against the family, along with criticisms about how it treats women who marry into it.

Clips of Princess Diana are accompanied by audio of her son Harry highlighting “the pain and suffering of women marrying into this institution, the feeding frenzy”.

Meghan then appears to accuse the family of failing to protect her, before Harry says “I was terrified, I didn’t want history to repeat itself.”

Diana died in 1997 in a high-speed car crash as her vehicle was followed by paparazzi.

The prince signs off with the message “no one knows the full truth, we know the full truth.”

The family is also braced for more revelations from Harry’s autobiography “Spare”, which is due out in January.

The timing could barely be worse for the family after William was last week forced to part ways with one of his godmothers after she used racially charged language to a black British woman at a palace reception.

Harry and Meghan, a mixed-race former television actor, cited racism in the royal household as one of the reasons for their acrimonious departure almost three years ago.

Ukraine was targeted on Monday by a new wave of fatal Russian missiles, the latest attack to disrupt power across the country and pile pressure on its embattled critical infrastructure as temperatures plunge.

The attacks came just after Moscow shrugged off a Western-imposed price cap on its oil exports, warning that the move would not disrupt its military campaign in Ukraine.

Russian state-run media at the same time released footage of President Vladimir Putin driving a Mercedes car across the Crimea bridge that connects the annexed peninsula to the Russian mainland and was damaged in blast last month.

The head of the central Zaporizhzhia region, Oleksandr Starukh, said that Russian missiles had left two people dead. Officials in regions in the east and south announced disruptions to water, electrical and heating services.

“There are already strikes on energy infrastructure facilities and subsequently emergency power outages,” the national electricity provider Ukrenergo said in a statement.

Officials in the eastern region of Sumy and the southern regions of Odessa and Mykolaiv said residents were being subjected to disruptions in water, power or heating supplies as a result of the strikes.

Nearly half the country’s energy system has been damaged after months of systemic strikes on power infrastructure. Ukrainians have frequently been left in the cold and dark for hours at a time when the outdoor temperature has dropped below zero. 

“Charge power banks. Prepare reserves of water. And heads of enterprises of all forms of ownership: let people go home,” said the head of Kryvyi Rig military administration, Oleksandr Vilkul.

– Moscow vows to keep fighting –

The $60-per-barrel price cap agreed by the European Union, G7 and Australia aims to restrict Russia’s revenue while making sure Moscow keeps supplying the global market.

“Russia’s economy has all the necessary potential to fully meet the needs and requirements of the special military operation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, using Moscow’s term for the Ukraine offensive.

“These measures will not affect this,” he said.

Russia “will not recognise” the measures, which amounted to “a step towards destabilising the global energy markets” and would “change” oil prices, he added.

The cap is the latest in a number of measures spearheaded by Western countries and introduced against Russia — the world’s second-largest crude oil exporter — after Moscow sent troops into Ukraine over nine months ago.

The measure comes on top of an EU embargo on seaborne deliveries of Russian crude oil that came into force on Monday.

The embargo will prevent maritime shipments of Russian crude to the European Union, which account for two thirds of the bloc’s oil imports from Russia, potentially depriving Moscow of billions of euros.

The oil price cap aims to ensure that when Russia sells its crude to non-EU countries, who are not bound by the embargo, it is not sold at a price higher than $60 a barrel.

The market price of a barrel of Russian Urals crude is currently around $65 dollars, just slightly higher than the $60 cap agreed, suggesting the measure may have only a limited impact in the short term.

Kyiv, after initially welcoming the price ceiling, later said it would not do enough damage to Russia’s economy. 

– ‘Impossible to prepare’ –

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky this weekend described the move as “weak”.

He added that Russia had already caused “huge losses” by “deliberately destabilising” the global energy market.

The G7 nations — Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States — along with Australia have already said they are prepared to adjust the price ceiling if necessary.

In recent months, gas prices have skyrocketed since Moscow halted deliveries to the EU in suspected retaliation for Western sanctions and the bloc struggled to find alternative energy suppliers. 

In the Ukrainian town of Borodianka outside the capital, Kyiv, where snow has already coated the ground, locals recently gathered around old wood-fired stoves inside tents to keep warm and cook food during the blackouts.

“We are totally dependent on electricity… One day we had no electricity for 16 hours,” Irina, who had come to the tent with her child, told AFP. 

Volunteer Oleg said it was hard to say how Ukraine would manage in the coming winter months. 

“It is impossible to prepare for this winter because no-one has lived in these conditions before,” he said. 

A defendant on trial over the 2016 bombings in Brussels on Monday charged in court that the suspects were being “humiliated” by draconian security measures and threatened to remain silent unless conditions improved.

Ten men are on trial accused of directing or aiding suicide attacks on Brussels airport and a metro station near EU headquarters that killed 32 people, and which were claimed by the Islamic State (IS) extremist group.

Mohamed Abrini, a Belgian-Moroccan who decided against blowing himself up at the airport, asked to speak after the presiding judge said Belgium’s largest-ever criminal trial should not be “state vengeance”.

Evidential hearings began on Monday after jury selection kicked off last week.

“We are being humiliated!” Abrini told the court. “I have been subjected to vengeance for seven years,” he added.

He described the conditions of his transfer to the court as “pitiful,” marked by strip searches, blindfolds, and “deafening satanic music.”

He warned: “Things must change, otherwise I will stay silent until the end of the trial.”

Defence lawyers also criticised security conditions for the defendants.

“Every morning they examine the folds of my client’s anus. Is that dignified? What is going to come out of my client’s anus? A revolver?” said Jonathan De Taye, a lawyer representing another defendant, Ali El Haddad Asufi.

He asked that the justice ministry ease the measures.

The defendants are due to take the stand starting on December 19 and victims’ testimony is expected to begin mid-January.

Hundreds of travellers and transport staff were maimed in the March 22, 2016 attacks and six years on many victims, relatives and rescuers remain traumatised.

Investigators believe that the same Belgium-based cell also carried out the November 13, 2015 Paris attacks, which was also claimed by IS and which killed 130 people.

Five of the nine defendants in the dock in Belgium have already been convicted separately in France, including prime suspect Abdeslam Salah. 

He is serving life without parole in France and faces a further sentence in Belgium.

A tenth man is being tried in absentia, believed to have been killed in Syria.