World

Warring sides in the brutal two-year conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray on Wednesday declared they had set the goal of “permanently” ending the fighting, agreeing to a truce backed by a programme of disarmament and integration of rebels.

“We have agreed to permanently silence the guns and end the two years of conflict in northern Ethiopia,” the Ethiopian government and Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) said in a joint statement after marathon talks in South Africa.

The breakthrough was announced by the African Union’s mediator, former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo. 

“The two parties in the Ethiopian conflict have formally agreed to the cessation of hostilities as well as the systematic, orderly, smooth and coordinated disarmament,” he said at a press conference in Pretoria.

The agreement marked a new “dawn” for Ethiopia, he said. 

The joint statement said the two sides “concluded a peace agreement” following “intensive negotiations.”

They notably agreed on a programme of “disarmament, demobilisation, and reintegration for TPLF combatants, taking into account the security situation on the ground,” it said.

The more than week-long talks marked the first formal dialogue for ending a war that has killed hundreds of thousands and unleashed a humanitarian crisis.

The Tigrayan rebels hailed the deal and said they had made “concessions.”

“We are ready to implement and expedite this agreement,” said the head of their delegation, Getachew Reda.

“In order to address the pains of our people, we have made concessions because we have to build trust.”

“Ultimately, the fact that we have reached a point where we have now signed an agreement speaks volumes about the readiness on the part of the two sides to lay the past behind them to chart a new path of peace,” said Getachew. 

The conflict erupted on November 4, 2020, when Addis Ababa sent troops into Tigray after accusing the TPLF, the regional ruling party, of attacking federal army camps.

According to US estimates, as many as half a million people have died in the war.

The conflict also triggered a humanitarian crisis, forcing well over two million people from their homes.

“We’ve agreed that the government of Ethiopia will further enhance its collaboration with humanitarian agencies to continue expediting aid towards those in need of assistance,” the joint statement said.

Denmark’s left-wing Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen on Wednesday kicked off the process of forming a new, broader government one day after scoring a narrow election victory.

The Social Democrats, the largest party in parliament with 50 of 179 seats and accustomed to leading minority governments, now want to govern across the political divide after Frederiksen secured their strongest election score since 2001.

“It will be very, very difficult. We don’t know if it will be possible, but we will try our utmost”, she told a party debate on Wednesday.

Earlier in the day, the prime minister formally presented the resignation of her outgoing government to Queen Margrethe.

The monarch then tasked her with trying to form a government, after individually meeting the leaders of Denmark’s 11 other parties in parliament.

The negotiations to build a government are to begin on Friday, Frederiksen said, and are expected to last several weeks.

She said a heavy workload awaited the future government.

“We need an emergency plan for the Danish healthcare system so that we can reduce waiting times. We need a long-term plan for the welfare system, and work must continue with the green transition”, she told reporters.

Her left-wing bloc, which includes five parties plus three seats from the autonomous territories Greenland and the Faroe Islands, won a majority of 90 seats in the election, compared to 73 for the right and far right, and 16 for the centre.

It was the Social Democrats’ best election outcome in two decades, gaining two seats and securing over 27 percent of the vote, and allows Frederiksen to enter negotiations from a position of strength. 

Frederiksen’s photo-finish win scuppered the hopes of former two-time prime minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, who founded a new Moderates party just months earlier, of becoming kingmaker in the new administration.

– Broken dreams –

The Moderates won more than nine percent of votes and Lokke Rasmussen insisted he wanted to be “the bridge” between the left and right, but daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten concluded that “in theory, Mette can do without Lars Lokke”. 

While the Moderates will be part of negotiations, political scientist Rune Stubager, a professor at Aarhus University, expressed doubt they would be willing to “compromise sufficiently” to secure posts in the cabinet.

A “more realistic” plan for Frederiksen would be a coalition government with parties on the left, he told AFP.

While Frederiksen’s government was largely hailed for handling the Covid-19 pandemic, the election was triggered by the country’s so-called mink crisis.

The affair erupted after the government decided in November 2020 to cull the country’s 15 million minks over fears of a mutated strain of the novel coronavirus.

The decision turned out to be illegal, and the Social Liberal party propping up Frederiksen’s minority government threatened to topple it unless she called early elections to regain voters’ confidence.

The Social Liberals paid a price for the gamble, losing nine of their 16 seats and on Wednesday their party leader resigned.

– ‘Zero refugees’ –

To rule, the Social Democrats will still depend on support from the Social Liberals, which has made clear it will not support another minority one-party government.

Broad consensus for Denmark’s restrictive migration policy left the issue largely absent from the election campaign, but it could resurge in government negotiations.

Advocating a “zero refugee” policy, the outgoing government had worked on setting up a centre to house asylum seekers in Rwanda while their applications are processed.

The Social Liberals oppose the plan.

“It will be very difficult for the Social Democrats to turn soft or to the left on immigration, because that has been a very pivotal point in their strategy over the past five, six years,” Stubager said.

“To give up on that would have dramatic consequences for them.”

The far-right has heavily influenced Danish politics in recent decades, but three populist parties together won just 14.4 percent of votes and are not expected to play a key role in the upcoming negotiations.

The anti-immigration Danish People’s Party, which hovered above 20 percent a few years ago, fell to 2.6 percent, its worst result since entering parliament in 1998. 

A new party founded by former immigration minister Inger Stojberg, the Denmark Democrats, instead won 8.1 percent, on a platform of less centralisation, less influence from Europe and fewer immigrants.

Thousands of Jair Bolsonaro’s supporters called Wednesday for the Brazilian military to intervene and keep the right-wing president in power after he lost re-election over the weekend to leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

After days of silence, Bolsonaro on Tuesday gave a short speech in which he neither accepted defeat nor congratulated Lula on his win, though his chief of staff took the podium afterward to say the president had “authorized” the transition to a new government.

Since then, his supporters have rallied in front of military installations in Brazil’s major cities to call for action. 

“Federal intervention now!” chanted some of the thousands who gathered in front of the Southeastern Military Command in the Latin American country’s biggest city, Sao Paulo, on Wednesday. 

“We want a federal intervention because we demand our freedom. We do not admit that a thief governs us,” Angela Cosac, 70, told AFP, next to a sign reading “SOS Armed Forces”. 

Another demonstration along Sao Paulo’s Paulista Avenue was also planned for later in the day.

Thousands also gathered in the capital, Brasilia, chanting “civil resistance.” In rainy downtown Rio de Janeiro, demonstrators were filmed by Brazilian media chanting: “Lula, thief, your place is in prison.”

– Blockades –

Protesters also maintained road blockades across the country for the third consecutive day, though the number decreased from 271 on Tuesday to 167 Wednesday, according to police.

In Sao Paulo, military police used tear gas to disperse a blockade on the main highway connecting the state with the central-west region of the country, after the Supreme Federal Court ordered the use of “all necessary measures” to open the roads.

Trucks sounded their horns while demonstrators, wearing yellow football jerseys, waved flags in front of passing vehicles, according to scenes broadcast on local television.

The blockades have caused disruptions across the country. The main airport in Sao Paulo, Guarulhos, cancelled 48 flights due to the protests, according to its press office.

The National Confederation of Industry warned on Tuesday of an “imminent risk of fuel shortages” if the roads were not quickly unblocked.

Infrastructure minister Marcelo Sampaio had asked late Tuesday for protesters to unblock the highways to allow medicine, supplies and fuel to circulate.

Bolsonaro on Tuesday said the roadblocks were “the fruit of indignation and a feeling of injustice at how the electoral process took place.”

“Peaceful protests will always be welcome,” he said.

That was interpreted by some supporters as a call to maintain the demonstrations.

“The dream is still alive,” said a message by one supporter on Tuesday on Telegram. “Fill the streets tomorrow.” 

Bolsonaro’s comments Tuesday broke his two days of silence on the election results, which had fanned fears he would not accept the outcome.

In a speech that lasted just over two minutes, the far-right incumbent did not mention Lula’s name, but promised to “comply” with the constitution.

His chief of staff then told the gathered press that the president had “authorized” the start of the transition.

Lula’s Workers’ Party announced Tuesday that his vice-president-elect Geraldo Alckmin would lead the transition process, which would begin on Thursday.

Lula, who served as president from 2003 to 2010, will be inaugurated for his third term on January 1.

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama lambasted the British government on Wednesday for allegedly “discriminating” against Albanians, after a top UK official singled out the nationality for their role in illicit migration to the country.

Small-boat crossings of the Channel from mainland Europe have become a political headache for UK ministers, who vowed that Brexit would lead to tighter immigration controls.

Official statistics in the UK have stated that Albanians are now the largest single group making small-boat crossings of the Channel.

In a series of messages posted on his personal Twitter account Rama said UK officials have been actively “discriminating” against Albanians.

“Targeting Albanians (as some shamefully did when fighting for Brexit) as the cause of Britain’s crime and border problems makes for easy rhetoric but ignores hard fact,” Rama tweeted.

“Albanians in the UK work hard and pay tax. UK should fight the crime gangs of all nationalities and stop discriminating… to excuse policy failures,” he added.

Britain’s Home Secretary Suella Braverman was recently panned for her choice of language during a heated Commons debate, when she alleged that there is an “invasion” of England by migrants.

Braverman has also pointed the finger at Albanian asylum seekers, saying that many Albanian adult males who seek asylum in the UK have posed as children, a practice she intended to “clamp down” on.

British MPs were told recently that 12,000 Albanians had arrived in the country after crossing the Channel so far this year, compared to only 50 in 2020.

The number of migrant arrivals have reached record levels, causing delays in asylum applications and increasing costs in terms of housing and other social services.

Albanian organised crime gang groups are believed to be among the main players in smuggling migrants across the Channel to Britain from northern Europe.

Earlier this week, British and Belgian law enforcement officers said they had arrested three people suspected of being part of an Albanian people-smuggling ring.

The new United Nations rights chief voiced deep concerns Wednesday over a swelling “pushback” on women’s rights across much of the world.

During his first press conference as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk said he was deeply worried to see rises in misogynistic attitudes and efforts to reverse the rights of women and girls in many countries.

There has been “a real pushback, and that’s very worrying and it affects women and girls in many parts of the world in a way that is unparallelled,” he told reporters.

Turk, who became the UN rights chief two weeks ago, did not point to specific country situations.

His comments however came as Iran continues to be rocked by over six weeks of deadly protests following the death of Mahsa Amini after she was arrested by the morality police in Tehran over the way she was wearing her headscarf.

Protests are also continuing, albeit on a much smaller scale, in Afghanistan, where the Taliban have issued a slew of restrictions controlling women’s lives since they returned to power in August 2021.

They have also blocked girls from returning to secondary schools and barred women from many government jobs.

Turk meanwhile hinted that there was a much broader trend of pushbacks against women’s rights “both in the global north and in the global south”.

– ‘Very divided world’ –

The Austrian national, who has spent most of his career within the UN system, voiced alarm at a growing “strongman mentality” and “autocratic tendencies” in a number of places.

This was contributing to an erosion of civic space and “the repression of and the silencing of dissent,” with particular impacts for women and girls, he said.

Slamming “the rise in misogyny and misogynistic attitudes”, he insisted that this was not something we should need to “even deal with … in the 21st century”.

More broadly, Turk voiced deep concern about the deepening geopolitical divisions at a time when the world is still wallowing in the Covid crisis and reeling from the conflict in Ukraine.

“I am taking up my function in a world where we see a lot of geopolitical tensions, where we see a lot of fragmentation within the international system,” he said.

“We face incredible challenges… We are in a very divided world.”

Turk warned that countries’ refusal to cooperate towards resolving those challenges was taking a dire toll on the respect for human rights “which we cannot afford”.

Vice President Kamala Harris vowed Wednesday that the United States would work to remove Iran from a UN body on women’s rights as she saluted the “bravery” of women-led protests against the clerical state.

Harris said that the United States would work with other nations to oust Iran from the UN Commission on the Status of Women, whose members are elected to four-year terms.

“Iran has demonstrated through its denial of women’s rights and brutal crackdown on its own people that it is unfit to serve on this Commission,” Harris said in a statement.

“Iran’s very presence discredits the integrity of its membership and the work to advance its mandate,” she said.

Iran is witnessing some of the most significant protests since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in the wake of the September 16 death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old who had been detained by the notorious “morality police” that enforces strict codes on women’s dress.

“To all of those protesting I say again, we see you and we hear you. I am inspired by your bravery, as are people around the world,” Harris said.

The United States and European allies have imposed a series of sanctions on Iran over the protests and worked to help restore internet access disrupted by authorities.

Nations on the women’s commission are elected by the UN Economic and Social Council, whose members in turn are voted on by the General Assembly.

Iran, ruled by Shiite Muslim clerics, was elected to a term that ends in 2026. The United States is serving through next year.

Other nations on the body include Afghanistan although the country is not represented at the United Nations by the Taliban, who stormed back to power last year and have banned women from government jobs and forbidden secondary education for girls.