World

Tigray’s rebel authorities said Friday they would attend talks next week aimed at ending war in Ethiopia, as Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed vowed fighting “will end and peace will prevail”.

The government has also said it would participate in negotiations in South Africa being organised by the African Union on Monday, as diplomatic pressure mounts for a settlement to nearly two years of bloodshed.

“Our delegation will attend,” Kindeya Gebrehiwot, a spokesman for the rebel authorities in Tigray, told AFP in a text message when asked if they would join the table on October 24.

It comes ahead of a closed-door meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Friday to discuss the spiralling crisis in Africa’s second-most populous country.

The AU’s Peace and Security Council also convened Friday and was briefed by its Horn of Africa envoy Olusegun Obasanjo, who is expected to mediate the talks.

International pressure for a ceasefire has grown since the AU failed earlier this month to bring the warring sides to the negotiating table, and fighting has intensified in embattled Tigray.

The government this week vowed to seize airports and other federal sites from rebel control as Ethiopian forces and their Eritrean allies seized a string of towns in Tigray, sending civilians fleeing.

Abiy, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who sent the army into Tigray in November 2020 to oust the region’s dissident authorities, said the war “would end and peace will prevail.”

“Ethiopia will be peaceful, we will not continue fighting indefinitely,” he told an audience on Thursday at the opening of a civil project outside Addis Ababa.

“Ethiopia will be peaceful, we will not continue fighting indefinitely. I hope the day when we will stand with our Tigrayan brothers to work together for development is near.” 

– ‘Great concern’ –

Fighting resumed in August, shattering a truce and halting aid into Tigray, a region of six million that lacks food, medicine and other life-saving essentials.

In recent weeks combat has intensified, spurring alarm for civilians and aid workers trapped in the warzone, and global calls for a ceasefire.

A humanitarian source told AFP on Friday that heavy fighting was underway between the cities of Shire and Axum in northern Tigray.

US State Department spokesman Ned Price said the UNSC and AU meetings “demonstrate the international community’s great concern about the situation” and the need for violence to stop.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, he also renewed calls for a resumption of humanitarian aid to Tigray, and the withdrawal of Eritrean troops from Ethiopia.

The closed-door meeting of the AU’s 15-member Peace and Security Council was the first since violence exploded again in August.

The continent-wide bloc was “widely perceived as responding inadequately to this situation” but had been trying to ensure talks got underway next week as planned, the AU-focused Amani Africa think tank said Friday in a briefing note.

The aborted talks earlier this month were to be mediated by Obasanjo and supported by South Africa’s former deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka and former Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta.

Logistical problems were blamed for that meeting never taking place.

The conflict began nearly two years ago when Abiy accused the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the region’s ruling party which resisted central authority, of attacking army camps.

The TPLF dominated Ethiopia’s ruling political alliance for decades before Abiy took power in 2018 and sidelined the party.

Paris climate activists have found a new way to get across their message against energy waste in the City of Light — switching off store signs and advertising screens that are kept on all night even though the government has urged people to cut back electricity use.

At 9:00 pm on a recent evening, around 20 Extinction Rebellion members gathered for a tactical briefing before spreading out on another night-time raid.

If the police spot them “we absolutely don’t run”, says “Joad,” a 32-year-old veteran of the movement, detailing out the legal risks and advice for those who might be arrested.

“There are 12 million people going cold in France because they can’t heat their homes, and on the other hand we’re wasting this energy on advertising signs that are completely useless consumption,” he tells AFP.

After distributing posters and equipment, including telescopic poles to reach switches for outdoor lights, Joad’s team heads for the lively Marais district, a magnet for both Parisians and tourists, where dozens of retailers have outlets.

Click, and off goes a Levi’s sign. On other storefronts, the group tapes up posters saying “This isn’t Versailles!” — the scolding heard by generations of French children when they leave lights on needlessly.

The team targets opticians, jewellers, perfume boutiques and mattress stores as well as the numerous luminous billboards, prising open the frames to switch them off and replace ads with their own posters.

– ‘Political courage’ –

The government, under pressure as Russia crimps gas exports to Europe, has urged people to show energy “restraint” as winter approaches, notably by lowering home heating thermostats to 19 degrees Celsius (66 degrees Fahrenheit).

It has also issued a decree that illuminated signs and publicity must be turned off from 1:00 am to 6:00 am, starting in June 2023.

The city authorities in Paris have gone further, ordering lights out for signs and advertising from 11:45 pm to 6:00 am from December.

For the climate activists, that’s not soon enough.

“We know this is very symbolic because electricity used by illuminated signs is only a tiny fraction of the energy the country uses,” said “Pikou,” a 36-year-old who also used a pseudonym.

The bigger problem, for Pikou, is the government’s “double-speak”.

“What makes me angry, and that’s why I’m here tonight, is that the government asks ordinary people for restraint, with little gestures like turning their heating down or turning off Wi-Fi, but it doesn’t have the political courage to ask for the same restraint from businesses,” he said.

As the activists progress along the winding Marais streets, their actions often garner applause from passers-by.

“I completely agree with them,” says Federica, a tourist from Milan. Anna, who also stops to watch, call the illuminated signs “a disgrace”.

One store in particular draws the activists’ ire. It is a clothing boutique vaunting its environmental credentials with the slogan “Because there is no Planet B” — alongside three large advertising screens.

The screens are quickly covered with posters.

“This is phase one. It’s about raising awareness and prevention,” says Joad, adding that some store owners respond with messages of support and promises to turn the lights off.

“For those who keep the lights on and continue this wastage, we’ll advance to phase two, which will be a bit bolder, starting in December.”

Southeast Asian foreign ministers will hold emergency talks in Jakarta next week to discuss strife-torn Myanmar ahead of November’s ASEAN leaders’ summit, diplomatic sources said Friday.

Myanmar has been in chaos since a coup in February last year, with more than 2,300 killed in the military’s brutal crackdown on dissent, according to a local monitoring group.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has spearheaded so far fruitless efforts to resolve the crisis, and the bloc is frustrated by escalating human rights atrocities — including the execution of political prisoners and a recent airstrike on a school.

There has been little progress on a five-point plan from April last year, which called for an end to violence, increased humanitarian aid, as well as dialogue between the military and the anti-coup movement.

An Indonesian foreign ministry official said a meeting was scheduled for Thursday at the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta. 

The talks are expected to review progress on the plan.

“A special meeting is now needed as there are specific issues that will be looked into further before the leaders’ meeting,” the official told AFP.

“The Myanmar junta doesn’t show any desire or concrete steps for implementation (of the plan).”

The official noted that any potential suspension of Myanmar’s ASEAN membership would not be an easy process.

Another diplomatic source told AFP that article seven of the ASEAN charter, which allows the 10-country bloc’s leaders to address an emergency situation, would be the basis for action.

International Institute for Strategic Studies analyst Aaron Connelly said possible options included a de facto suspension and an expansion of the number of meetings that junta officials were not invited to attend. 

“They might for instance no longer attend the defence ministers’ meeting,” he said.

Cambodian Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn — who is a special envoy to Myanmar as part of his country’s role as host of the ASEAN summit — will chair Thursday’s meeting.

Chum Sounry, Cambodia’s foreign ministry spokesman, told AFP a team had been sent to Myanmar to discuss concrete action and the envoy’s third visit to the country — originally slated for September.

“We are now waiting for a response from the Myanmar side,” he said.

Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing has not been invited to the ASEAN leaders’ summit — for the second year in a row — and Myanmar’s top diplomat Wunna Maung Lwin was excluded from ministerial talks in February and August.

Google has been fined more than $160 million by India’s anti-trust watchdog after a probe found the tech behemoth was abusing its commanding position in the local smartphone market. 

The California-based company’s Android mobile operating system is by far the dominant player in India and is run on 95 percent of all the country’s smartphones, according to research agency Counterpoint.

But the Competition Commission of India (CCI) said the operating system was configured to unlawfully crowd out rivals to YouTube, web browser Chrome and other popular Google apps.

Android had a suite of Google apps pre-installed on its phones, including the company’s own search engine, “which accorded significant competitive edge to Google’s search services over its competitors”, a CCI statement said late Thursday. 

“Markets should be allowed to compete on merits and the onus is on (Google) that its conduct does not impinge this competition on merits,” it added. 

The commission levied a fine of 13.4 billion rupees ($162 million) and instructed the company to allow Android users to remove pre-installed Google apps. 

It also told Google not to enter into any agreement with smartphone makers that would encourage them to only sell Android-based devices or exclusively use its software.

The company said it would review the decision and weigh its next moves.

“The CCI’s decision is a major setback for Indian consumers and businesses, opening serious security risks for Indians… and raising the cost of mobile devices,” a spokesperson told AFP. 

Google faced a similar anti-trust ruling in the European Union that found the company had imposed “unlawful restrictions” on smartphone makers to benefit its search engine. 

Last month the EU’s second-highest court upheld a $4.1 billion fine against the company. 

Global regulators have followed suit, with Google facing a barrage of cases in the United States and Asia based on similar accusations.

India is home to the second-highest number of smartphone users in the world, after China.

Its smartphone market grew 27 percent year on year in 2021, according to Counterpoint, with annual sales exceeding 169 million units.

More than 60 percent of phones sold in the country come from leading Chinese manufacturers including Xiaomi and Oppo.  

Apple remains a minor player in the budget-conscious market but has seen some inroads in recent years, and the company last month announced plans to locally manufacture its flagship iPhone 14. 

Advancing Ukrainians have vowed to wrest back the southern city of Kherson from the Russians but analysts say Moscow may be reluctant to give up one of its biggest trophies since the February invasion.

On March 3, barely a week into the cross-border assault, Russian troops captured Kherson, the regional centre of the southern Ukrainian province of the same name.

It was the first major city to fall to Moscow’s forces, providing them with a bridgehead on the western banks of the Dnipro river from which Russian troops could launch attacks for more territory further west.

“It’s a strategic point. It’s a connexion point between the Dnipro and the rest of the country,” said Olga Chiriac, a researcher at the Middle East Institute.

But today a Ukrainian counteroffensive is creeping closer to the city, threatening to deprive Moscow of the only provincial capital it has occupied in the invasion.

Pro-Russian authorities in the city have ordered residents to evacuate. And on Friday they accused Kyiv’s forces of killing four people when they shelled a bridge linking both sides of the river, though a Ukrainian military spokeswoman denied that they had killed any civilians.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has in turn accused Russia of planning to destroy a hydroelectric dam upstream from the city, in what would amount to a “catastrophe on a grand scale”.

He said hundreds of thousands of people around the Dnipro would be in danger of flash flooding.

And cutting water supplies could also impact the cooling systems of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest.

– Russians ‘at a dead end’ –

It is not yet clear whether the Russians will hold on to Kherson or retreat eastwards across the river.

For the moment, Russia controls a strip around 140 kilometres (90 miles) long along the western bank of the Dnipro river.

It has bolstered its presence with a huge number of seasoned soldiers, who would have the advantage and be able to inflict terrible losses if the Ukrainians decided to attack the city.

But with a river within Ukrainian artillery range separating the Russians from their fall-back positions, they also risk being encircled.

In short, said former Romanian military intelligence officer Valentin Mateiu, Russia had troops that were competent “but at a dead end”. 

Its forces were at a “strategic disadvantage”, after Ukrainian soldiers managed to seize their own foothold beyond a Dnipro tributary to the north of the city, from which they might cut off Russian-held territory.

Ukrainians earlier in the war “systematically prepared the battlefield”, destroying bridges and command centres for example, he said, and could likely do the same again.

He and Chiriac nevertheless thought the Russians would do their best to hold on to the city.

“The Russians will try to avoid being encircled and turn Kherson into a centre of resistance,” Mateiu said.

– ‘Risk a new Mariupol’? –

Ukrainian analyst Mykhailo Samus said Moscow’s troops should have been evacuated “a long time ago”.

But he thought it was unlikely that the Ukrainians would want to attack the Russian-held city, where tens of thousands of residents remain.

“The Ukrainians won’t conduct any battle for Kherson. They don’t attack and destroy cities like Russia, like Mariupol,” he said, referring to the city pounded to rubble by the Russians earlier in the war.

Retired US general Ben Hodges agreed the Ukrainians were likely to avoid a “giant fight inside the city”.

Instead, they are “keeping these Russian troops fixed there so that they cannot escape, and at some point… they’ll be ready to bypass the Russians inside Kherson”, he said.

Pierre Grasser, a researcher tied to Paris’ Sorbonne University, said the Ukrainians were having to carefully weigh up their movements outside the city.

Any closer and “they will be entering the Kherson suburbs, and that could be dangerous”, he said.

“Urban warfare always leads to many deaths on the attacker’s side” and “it would risk a new Mariupol” in terms of damage.

Mateiu said the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, was facing a dilemma.

“The president wants this strategic victory”, especially since it would pave the way towards retaking Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014, he said. 

That leaves the army chief with what retired French general Michel Yakovleff described as a terrible choice — “besiege (the city) for as long as it takes or annihilate it and reduce it to rubble”.

Kremlin proxy officials said Friday they were building up defences and turning Ukraine’s southern city of Kherson into a “fortress” as Kyiv’s forces advance and Russia pulls residents from the region.

The claim came as Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said Moscow’s troops were preparing to destroy a hydroelectric dam in the southern Kherson region, in what would amount to a “catastrophe on a grand scale”.

Ukrainian forces in recent weeks — aided by Western weapons — have been advancing along the west bank of the Dnieper river towards the region’s main city, also called Kherson.

Kherson was the first major city to fall to Moscow’s troops since the February invasion began and retaking it would be a crucial prize in Ukraine’s counter-offensive.

Moscow-installed authorities in Kherson accused Kyiv’s forces of killing people by shelling a bridge.

“Four people were killed,” pro-Moscow official Kirill Stremousov said on Telegram. “The city of Kherson, like a fortress, is preparing for its defence.”

A Ukrainian military spokeswoman Nataliya Gumenyuk denied Kyiv’s forces were responsible, saying they do not target local populations.

Russian state-run media in recent days had aired footage showing civilians with bags taking ferries across the river from Kherson.

– Risks of disasters –

Kyiv has branded the organised movement of Kherson residents to Russia and other Moscow-controlled regions as “deportations” of Ukrainian citizens.

Zelensky said late Thursday that Russian forces had mined the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant with the intent of blowing it up.

Hundreds of thousands of people around the lower Dnipro River would be in danger of flash flooding if the dam was destroyed, Zelensky warned in a speech Thursday to European leaders.

He said cutting water supplies to the south could also impact the cooling systems of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest.

The nuclear facility is a key concern of Russia’s eight-month invasion with both sides regularly accusing the other of shelling near it and endangering operations.

Ukraine’s push in the south comes after a sweeping counter-offensive in the northeast Kharkiv region that has badly impaired Russia’s supply routes and logistics corridors in the eastern Donbas region.

But Russian forces have continued shelling the region’s largest city, Kharkiv, and the presidency said Friday that “industrial infrastructure” was hit in the city, wounding six.

The attack is the latest in a weeks-long barrage that has targeted infrastructure and particularly energy facilities.

Energy-saving measures were put in place across the country after Russian missile and drone strikes destroyed what Zelensky said was more than 30 percent of the country’s power stations in a week.

– Resilient Ukraine –

A 64-year-old Ukrainian, Vyacheslav, told AFP in Kyiv that the nation would make do, despite the restrictions.

“There are books to read. There battery-powered lights. I think we can hold out for a few hours. There are gas stoves so it will still be possible to cook,” he said, but declined to give his full name.

Kyrylo, a 27-year-old shop salesman, said that there had been a rush on power banks after Russian attacks began on the energy facilities in the capital.

“We don’t sell flashlights but regarding power banks, I can say that on the 10th, when the attack on Kyiv began, almost all available power banks were sold, and in general, the demand for power banks increased by 70 or 80 percent,” he added.

The Ukraine presidency said Friday that Russian forces were continuing to shell sections along the entire frontline of Donbas in east Ukraine and that two people were killed in the Donetsk region.