Senegal votes for new president after years of crisis

Senegal votes for new president after years of crisis
People wait to cast their votes outside a polling station during the presidential elections, in Dakar, Senegal, Sunday, March 24, 2024. (AP)
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Updated 24 March 2024
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Senegal votes for new president after years of crisis

Senegal votes for new president after years of crisis
  • Around 7.3 million voters are registered in the West African nation
  • Senegal has traditionally been considered a beacon of democracy and stability in the coup-hit region

DAKAR: Senegal began voting Sunday for a new president in an unpredictable race following three years of turmoil and political crisis.
Around 7.3 million voters are registered in the West African nation where two favourites have emerged: the governing coalition's former prime minister Amadou Ba and anti-establishment candidate Bassirou Diomaye Faye.
They were both once tax inspectors but now appear to have little in common. Ba, 62, is offering continuity while the 43-year-old Faye promises profound change and left-wing pan-Africanism.
Both say they will claim a first-round victory -- but a second round looks probable with 15 other candidates in the field, including a sole woman, at a date yet to be decided.
Former Dakar mayor Khalifa Sall, 68, is considered to have an outside chance.
"It's a symbolic and historic day for me because it wasn't easy to hold these elections, it was gained through a great fight," voter Mohamed Bop, 42, told AFP in Dakar.
"So, I'm very relieved and proud," he added.
The eventual winner will be tasked with steering traditionally stable Senegal out of its recent troubles, and managing revenues from oil and gas reserves that are shortly to start production.
Voting will end at 1800 GMT and provisional results could be known overnight. The first official results are expected during the coming week.
Senegal has traditionally been considered a beacon of democracy and stability in the coup-hit region, where Russia is strengthening its influence.

Hundreds of observers will be out representing civil society, the African Union, the ECOWAS regional group and the European Union.
A raucous campaign, lasting just two weeks after being shortened, followed a dramatic last-minute delay to the election date, originally scheduled for February 25.
President Macky Sall's intervention to delay the presidential vote sparked unrest that left four people dead.
Sall, who won praise abroad last year by renouncing a possible third-term bid, said he called off the vote over fears it would not go smoothly.
After weeks of political crisis, the country's top constitutional body stepped in and forced him to reset the date to March 24, despite clashing with the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
Sall's hand-picked would-be successor Ba has positioned himself as a last bastion against "bandits" and urged people to vote "for experience and competence instead of entrusting the reins of the country to adventurers".
"We don't need officials who need two years of apprenticeship," Ba said at his final campaign rally on Friday.
"We need to consolidate what we have. We need to go even faster and further," he said, with a vow to create one million jobs in five years.
But he must also face the darker side of Sall's legacy that includes mass arrests, persistent poverty and 20 percent unemployment, and thousands of migrants setting off on the perilous voyage to Europe each year.

The recent unrest in Senegal was the latest chapter in episodes of violence since 2021, triggered partly by the stand-off between the firebrand opposition figurehead Ousmane Sonko and the state.
Economic and social tensions, as well as concerns that Sall would run for a third term, also fuelled the unrest that left dozens killed and hundreds arrested.
The election has also been fired up by a rapidly passed amnesty law that led to the March 14 release from prison of opposition leaders Faye and the charismatic Sonko.
Although Faye is Sonko's deputy, he is only on the ballot because Sonko has been barred from standing and in voters' eyes, they are a package deal.
Both have attacked Ba as "the greatest danger facing Senegal today".
They have also questioned where his wealth came from, branding him a "billionaire civil servant" who "will be the president of foreign countries".
Faye on Friday pledged to bring "radical reform" to Senegal, including renegotiations of mining, oil and gas and defence contracts, while at the same time offering assurances to foreign investors.
"Henceforth we will be a sovereign state, independent, which will work with everyone, but in win-win partnerships", he said.
The pair are hoping to harness Sonko's charisma and popular appeal in a country where half of the population is under 20.
Sonko has drawn a passionate following with Senegal's youth through his rhetoric on sovereignty, as well as attacks on elites, multinationals and colonial ruler France.
Experts have warned of the potential for tensions to flare on Sunday and after -- particularly if Ba wins in the first round, or Faye fails to reach the second.


African health agency says DRC fighting has spawned ‘health emergency’

Updated 38 sec ago
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African health agency says DRC fighting has spawned ‘health emergency’

African health agency says DRC fighting has spawned ‘health emergency’
  • The head of Africa’s health agency said the situation in the DRC city of Goma was a “full-scale public health emergency,” warning that the fighting there could fuel major pandemics
ADDIS ABABA: The head of Africa’s health agency said the situation in the DRC city of Goma was a “full-scale public health emergency,” warning that the fighting there could fuel major pandemics.
The Rwanda-backed M23 armed group has been advancing across the Democratic Republic of Congo’s volatile east, which has been the scene of numerous infectious disease outbreaks.
Earlier this week, M23 seized control of most of North Kivu’s capital Goma, a densely populated city of three million people, one million of whom are displaced.
Jean Kaseya, head of the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), said it was these “extreme conditions, combined with insecurity and mass displacement have fueled the mutation of the mpox virus.”
The clade 1b variant of mpox, which has been recorded in many countries across the world in recent months, first emerged in the neighboring South Kivu province in 2023.
“Goma has become the epicenter, spreading mpox across 21 African countries,” he said in a letter sent on Friday to African leaders.
“This is not only a security issue — it is a full-scale public health emergency,” Kaseya said.
“This war must end. If decisive action is not taken, it will not be bullets alone that claim lives — it will be the unchecked spread of major outbreaks and potential pandemics that will come from this fragile region... devastating economies and societies across our continent,” he said.
The conditions had also led to “widespread measles, cholera and other outbreaks, claiming thousands more lives.”
The conflict in the eastern DRC is a dramatic escalation in a region that has seen decades of conflict involving multiple armed groups, which over the past three decades have claimed an estimated six million lives.
International observers have sounded the alarm on the humanitarian impact of the escalating conflict.

Colombia offers to pay for repatriations from US

Colombia offers to pay for repatriations from US
Updated 15 min 23 sec ago
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Colombia offers to pay for repatriations from US

Colombia offers to pay for repatriations from US

BOGOTA: Colombia has offered to pay for the “dignified” deportation of its citizens from the United States, the foreign ministry said Friday, a week after a public spat between presidents Gustavo Petro and Donald Trump over the removal of migrants.
The two leaders had issued threats and counter threats of major trade tariffs of up to 50 percent, and Washington’s embassy in Bogota stopped issuing visas from Monday to Friday in retaliation for Petro’s refusal to allow US military planes to return Colombian migrants to their country.
Petro had accused the United States of treating the migrants like criminals, placing them in shackles and handcuffs.
Colombia’s foreign ministry said Friday it had proposed to Mauricio Claver-Carone, Trump’s special envoy for Latin America, that Bogota would “immediately assume the transfer of all citizens deported by the United States,” covering transportation costs for its nationals, according to a statement.
Petro has said his government would not allow expelled migrants to travel in handcuffs.
The Trump administration had announced this week a series of sanctions against Colombia, before backtracking, with the White House saying Bogota had accepted its conditions and reversed course.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, Colombian military and civilian aircraft repatriated the first groups of migrants to Bogota.
According to Petro, hundreds of Colombians, including several children, were returned to their country in “dignified” conditions. None of them were “confirmed criminals,” he added.
Colombia is expecting the return of around 27,000 migrants whose deportation orders have been signed in the last six months by the Trump administration or that of his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden, a Colombian presidential source told AFP.
Trump has pledged to carry out the largest deportation campaign in US history, vowing to expel millions of undocumented immigrants, many from Latin American nations.
The United States is Colombia’s largest trade partner and it has provided millions of dollars in aid over decades to fight drug trafficking and terrorism.


Rubio to make debut in Panama as Trump threatens to take canal

Rubio to make debut in Panama as Trump threatens to take canal
Updated 01 February 2025
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Rubio to make debut in Panama as Trump threatens to take canal

Rubio to make debut in Panama as Trump threatens to take canal
  • Marco Rubio’s travel comes the same day that Trump’s promised tariffs on the three largest US trading partners – Canada, Mexico and China – are set to come into effect
  • Rubio will travel later to four other small Latin American countries for an agenda focused on migration, a highly unusual first trip for the top US diplomat

WASHINGTON: Marco Rubio heads Saturday to Panama on his debut trip abroad as US secretary of state as he looks for how to follow up on President Donald Trump’s extraordinary threat to seize the Panama Canal.
Rubio’s travel comes the same day that Trump’s promised tariffs on the three largest US trading partners – Canada, Mexico and China – are set to come into effect, another step showing a far more aggressive US foreign policy.
Rubio will travel later to four other small Latin American countries for an agenda focused on migration, a highly unusual first trip for the top US diplomat, whose predecessors were more likely to start the job with language of cooperation with major allies.
Trump has refused to rule out military force to seize the Panama Canal, which the United States handed over at the end of 1999, saying that China has exerted too much control through its investment in surrounding ports.
In his inaugural address, Trump said that the United States will be “taking it back” – and he refused to back down Friday.
“They’ve already offered to do many things,” Trump said of Panama, “but we think it’s appropriate that we take it back.”
He alleged that Panama was taking down Chinese-language signs to cover up how “they’ve totally violated the agreement” on the canal.
“Marco Rubio is going over this talk to the gentleman that’s in charge,” Trump told reporters.
Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino, generally considered an ally of the United States, has ruled out opening negotiations after complaining to the United Nations about Trump’s threat.
“I cannot negotiate, much less open a process of negotiations on the canal,” Mulino said Thursday.
The issue “is sealed. The canal is Panama’s,” Mulino said.
Mulino’s government, however, has ordered an audit of CK Hutchison Holdings, the Hong Kong company that operates ports on both sides of the canal.
It remains to be seen if or how Rubio carries out the threat. Some experts believe that Trump was simply applying pressure and could declare a win by the United States ramping up investment in the canal – an outcome that most Panamanians would welcome.
Rubio has played down the military option but also not contradicted his boss.
“I think the president’s been pretty clear he wants to administer the canal again. Obviously, the Panamanians are not big fans of that idea,” Rubio told SiriusXM radio in an interview before the trip.
He acknowledged that Panama’s government “generally is pro-American” but said that the Panama Canal is a “core national interest for us.”
“We cannot allow any foreign power – particularly China – to hold that kind of potential control over it that they do. That just can’t continue,” Rubio said.
The canal remains the crucial link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and coasts, with 40 percent of US container traffic going through it.
Trump administration officials said they were blaming not Mulino but previous Panamanian president Juan Carlos Varela who in 2017 – during Trump’s first term as president – moved to sever ties with Taiwan in favor of China.
“It wasn’t just a diplomatic recognition. He literally opened the floodgates and gave strategic assets throughout the Canal Zone to China,” said Mauricio Claver-Carone, the US special envoy on Latin America.
He charged that Panama unfairly raised costs for US ships while also seeking assistance from the United States for canal upkeep. Panama attributes rising costs to the effects of a drought, exacerbated by climate change.
Trump has quickly made clear he will exercise swift pressure to bend other countries to his will, especially on his signature issue of deporting undocumented immigrants.
On Sunday, he threatened major tariffs against Colombia to force its president to back down after he insisted that repatriated migrants be treated in a more dignified way.


Plane with 2 aboard crashes in Philadelphia and sets multiple homes ablaze

Plane with 2 aboard crashes in Philadelphia and sets multiple homes ablaze
Updated 01 February 2025
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Plane with 2 aboard crashes in Philadelphia and sets multiple homes ablaze

Plane with 2 aboard crashes in Philadelphia and sets multiple homes ablaze
  • Jet Rescue Air Ambulance said its aircraft crashed with four crew members, one pediatric medical patient and the patient’s mother on board

A medevac plane crashed soon after takeoff in Philadelphia on Friday with a child and five others on board, the air ambulance company that operated it said, adding that it had not confirmed any survivors.

Jet Rescue Air Ambulance, based in Mexico and licensed to operate in the US, said its aircraft crashed with four crew members, one pediatric medical patient and the patient’s mother on board.

“At this time we cannot confirm any survivors,” the company said in a statement.

State and local officials said late on Friday they could not yet confirm how many people may have died on the ground after the plane slammed into a heavily populated portion of the city. Videos taken by witnesses of the crash clearly showed body parts strewn about the streets and inside nearby homes.

The Mexican government said all those on the plane were Mexican nationals, CNN reported.

The child was a girl on her way home with a final destination of Tijuana, Shai Gold, who works on corporate strategy with Jet Rescue Air Ambulance, told CNN. Her mother was also aboard, he said.

“We are terribly shocked by this tragic turn of events,” Gold said. “This was a very seasoned crew. We are a leading air ambulance company, we fly 600 to 700 times a year.”

He said the company had invested heavily in maintaining its aircraft to the highest international standards and that the plane that crashed had been in excellent flying condition.

“We really don’t know what happened,” Gold said.

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro told a press conference at the crash scene that “we know there will be loss in this region.”

“We want to offer our thoughts and our serious prayers for those that are grieving at this moment,” Shapiro said.

President Donald Trump wrote on social media that it was “so sad to see the plane go down in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. More innocent souls lost. Our people are totally engaged. First Responders are already being given credit for doing a great job.”

The crash follows this week’s collision of an American Airlines jet and a US Army Black Hawk helicopter over Washington, D.C., which killed 67 in the deadliest airplane crash in the US since 2009.

The Federal Aviation Administration said six people were on the Learjet 55 that crashed around 6:30 p.m. (0030 GMT) on Friday. Local media reported it was near the Roosevelt Mall in northeast Philadelphia and that there were multiple injuries on the ground.

Video aired on local TV stations showed the plane in a sharp dive before hitting the ground and exploding in a massive fireball.

Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker told a press conference at the scene that several houses and cars had been engulfed in flames. She said the situation is “all hands on deck, that’s where we are right now.”

Officials said it was not clear what led to the crash. The weather was cold and rainy and with low visibility when the plane went down.

The air ambulance had left Northeast Philadelphia Airport and was headed to Springfield-Branson National Airport in Missouri, about 1,800km to the southwest, the FAA said in a statement.

A large fire and several fire trucks were visible at the crash scene in images broadcast by the Philadelphia CBS affiliate. About two hours after the crash the fires were mostly out, according to TV images.

The Philadelphia police and fire departments did not respond to requests for comment.


Peace prospects look bleak in Myanmar as a civil war rages

Peace prospects look bleak in Myanmar as a civil war rages
Updated 01 February 2025
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Peace prospects look bleak in Myanmar as a civil war rages

Peace prospects look bleak in Myanmar as a civil war rages
  • Political situation remains tense with no negotiation space in sight between the military government and the major opposition groups
  • The UN Human Rights Office said the military ramped up violence against civilians last year to unprecedented levels

BANGKOK: Peace prospects look bleak in Myanmar as a civil war rages despite international pressure on the military four years after it seized power from an elected civilian government.
The political situation remains tense with no negotiation space in sight between the military government and the major opposition groups fighting against it.
The four years after the army’s takeover on Feb. 1, 2021, have created a profound situation of multiple, overlapping crises with nearly half the population in poverty and the economy in disarray, the UN Development Program said.
The UN Human Rights Office said the military ramped up violence against civilians last year to unprecedented levels, inflicting the heaviest civilian death toll since the army takeover as its grip on power eroded.
The army launched wave after wave of retaliatory airstrikes and artillery shelling on civilians and civilian populated areas, forced thousands of young people into military service, conducted arbitrary arrests and prosecutions, caused mass displacement, and denied access to humanitarians, even in the face of natural disasters, the rights office said in a statement Friday.
“After four years, it is deeply distressing to find that the situation on the ground for civilians is only getting worse by the day,” UN human rights chief Volker Turk said. “Even as the military’s power wanes, their atrocities and violence have expanded in scope and intensity,” he said, adding that the retaliatory nature of the attacks were designed to control, intimidate, and punish the population.
The United States, United Kingdom, European Union and others criticized the military takeover in a statement that also called for the release of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners.
They said nearly 20 million people need humanitarian assistance and up to 3.5 million people are displaced internally, an increase of nearly 1 million in the last year. They also expressed concern about increased cross-border crime in Myanmar such as drug and human trafficking and online scam operations, which affect neighboring countries and risk broader instability.
“The current trajectory is not sustainable for Myanmar or the region,” the countries said in the joint statement that also included Australia, Canada, South Korea, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland.
The status of the fighting
The military’s 2021 takeover prompted widespread public protests, whose violent suppression by security forces triggered an armed resistance that has now led to a state of civil war. Ethnic minority militias and people’s defense forces that support Myanmar’s main opposition control large parts of the country, while the military holds much of central Myanmar and big cities including the capital, Naypyidaw.
The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which keeps detailed tallies of arrests and casualties linked to the repression of the military government, said that at least 6,239 were killed and 28,444 were arrested since the takeover. The actual death toll is likely to be much higher since the group does not generally include deaths on the side of the military government and cannot easily verify cases in remote areas.
Aung Thu Nyein, director of communications for the Institute for Strategy and Policy-Myanmar think tank, told The Associated Press that Myanmar’s current situation is at its worst with peace and development being pushed back.
“What’s worse is that the sovereignty which ever-proclaimed by the military is losing, and the country’s borders could even shift,” Aung Thu Nyein said in a text message.
Myanmar’s army suffered unprecedented battlefield defeats over the past year, when a coalition of ethnic armed groups won victories in the northeast near the Chinese border and in the western state of Rakhine.
The ethnic rebels were able to quickly capture several towns, military bases and two important regional commands, and their offensive weakened the army’s grip in other parts of the country.
The ethnic minorities have been fighting for decades for greater autonomy from Myanmar’s central government and are loosely allied with the People’s Defense Force, the pro-democracy armed resistance formed after the army’s 2021 takeover.
The UN Human Rights Office and rights groups including Amnesty International also made rare allegations in recent statements that armed groups opposing the military have also committed human rights violations in areas under their control.
The status of election plans
In pursuit of a political solution, the military government is pushing for an election, which it has promised to hold this year. Critics say the election would not be free or fair as civil rights have been curtailed and many political opponents imprisoned and the election would be an attempt to normalize military control.
On Friday, the military government extended a state of emergency another six months because it said more time was needed to restore stability before the election, state-run MRTV television reported. No exact date for the polls was given.
Tom Andrews, a special rapporteur working with the UN human rights office, said it wasn’t possible to hold a legitimate election while arresting, detaining, torturing and executing leaders of the opposition and when it is illegal for journalists or citizens to criticize the military government.
“Governments should dismiss these plans for what they are – a fraud,” Tom Andrews said.