Army, paramilitaries clash near Sudan capital
Clashes erupted on Tuesday between the Sudanese regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in Omdurman, Khartoum's twin city, the army said, calling the fighting part of a 'large-scale' offensive.
An AFP correspondent said explosions rang out in the area, where the RSF had retreated after losing Khartoum in March. The army said the operation was aimed at driving the paramilitaries from their last positions in Khartoum state.
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Arab News
4 hours ago
- Arab News
The opportunity for a reimagination of GCC-Africa economic ties
The election last week of Dr. Sidi Ould Tah as the new president of the African Development Bank is more than a leadership succession at Africa's most important financial institution. It also marks a potential moment for geopolitical realignment, one that could finally realize deeper financial cooperation between Africa and Gulf Cooperation Council countries, as well as an opportunity for GCC states to take a leadership role and reinvent development finance. Tah, the former finance minister of Mauritania and, for the past decade, president of the now Riyadh-based Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa, steps into this role with a unique and timely experience to leverage. At the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa, he oversaw the transformation of the bank from a modest Arab-funded institution into a strategic regional lender. During his tenure, it quadrupled its capital base and earned an AAA rating, placing it among the top tier of global development institutions. In 2023, it pledged $50 billion in financing to Africa during the Saudi-Arab-African Economic Conference — a signal of rising Saudi and GCC interest in African development. Tah's election — making him only the fourth leader from an Arab African country to hold the post in the African Development Bank's 61-year history and the first in 20 years — comes at a time when the continent needs a catalyst for fresh financing models, including development, philanthropy and impact investment. As traditional donor countries tighten aid budgets and with major shifts underway globally with development finance, African economies are looking east and south for capital, cooperation, investment and leadership. The prospect of closer GCC-African cooperation is not novel, but it has rarely been bolstered with sustained political will and institutional follow-through. Tah's appointment changes that equation. He brings with him credibility in African policy circles and long-standing ties to Gulf financial institutions, sovereign wealth funds and Arab development agencies. African economies are looking east and south for capital, cooperation, investment and leadership. Matthew Miller Under his leadership, the African Development Bank could serve as a bridge between the GCC countries' economic diversification and Africa's need for reliable, large-scale financing for infrastructure, energy and digital transformation. Tah has already proposed a continental guarantee agency, designed to reduce both political and commercial risks that often deter private investment on the continent. Such a mechanism, if backed by Gulf capital and implemented effectively, could unlock billions in infrastructure investment across Africa. At the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa, Tah also helped coordinate more than $835 million in co-financed projects with the African Development Bank. That experience is a strong foundation for what he is now poised to build: a long-envisioned Arab-Africa Financial Consortium. The goal will be a formal platform for institutions from both regions to collaborate, co-finance and de-risk development projects. Under Tah's leadership, this idea, long conceptual, could finally coalesce — especially since it is precisely what he was working toward at the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa over the past decade. The African Development Bank, with its pan-African mandate and strong credit rating, is uniquely positioned to coordinate projects involving emerging powers, including the BRICS nations and partners in the GCC. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are both long-standing members of the African Development Bank and the African Development Fund, the latter being a critical source of concessional finance, administered by the African Development Bank, for the continent's poorest countries. The UAE is also a donor to the African Development Fund. South-South cooperation is critical. Earlier this year, the new US administration proposed cutting $555 million from its contribution to the African Development Fund. In his new capacity, Tah will be charged with raising capital from myriad sources beyond African member states, including a fresh appeal to the US and shareholders and donors including the BRICS, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, all in exchange for greater influence. GCC countries may find renewed incentives to deepen their engagement. Beyond capital, these nations bring project management capabilities, climate adaptation technologies and a strategic interest in economic diversification that aligns with Africa's own transformation goals. This could become the moment for GCC countries to expand both their soft power and impact across the continent. 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Tah's call for better land transport corridors and logistics infrastructure to support the African Continental Free Trade Area also reflects a strategic enabler for intracontinental growth and ambitious infrastructure projects. One example is the Egypt-Saudi Arabia causeway linking Africa and Asia that would certainly contribute to the realization of greater and more sustainable growth for Africa, as well as Saudi Arabia and the GCC. Africa's development financing challenges are vast and urgent, with a widening gap, and GCC-Africa relations have historically lacked institutional depth. Moreover, while South-South partnerships offer potential to close the gap, they are largely based around geopolitical calculations rather than the opportunity to create partnerships that are win-win. 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Arab News
4 hours ago
- Arab News
From Nigeria to Pakistan, TB testing ‘in a coma' after US aid cuts
LAGOS/JOHANNESBURG/MANILA: At a tense meeting in Nigeria's capital Abuja, health workers poured over drug registers and testing records to gauge whether US aid cuts would unravel years of painstaking work against tuberculosis in one of Africa's hardest hit countries. For several days in May, they brainstormed ways to limit the fallout from a halt to US funding for the TB Local Network (TB LON), which delivers screening, diagnosis and treatment. 'To tackle the spread of TB, you must identify cases and that is in a coma because of the aid cuts,' said Ibrahim Umoru, coordinator of the African TB Coalition civil society network, who was at the Abuja meeting. 'This means more cases will be missed and disaster is looming.' This desperate struggle to save endangered programs is being replicated from the Philippines to South Africa as experts warn that US aid cuts risk reviving a deadly infectious disease that kills around one million people every year. President Donald Trump's gutting of the US Agency for International Development has put TB testing and tracing on hold in Pakistan and Nigeria, stalled vital research in South Africa and left TB survivors lacking support in India. The World Health Organization says 'the drastic and abrupt cuts in global health funding' threaten to reverse the gains made by global efforts to fight the disease — namely 79 million lives saved since 2000 — with rising drug resistance and conflicts exacerbating the risks. In Nigeria, TB LON is in the firing line. The project was set up in 2020, during Trump's first term, and received $45 million worth of funding from USAID. The US development agency said at the time it was committed to a 'TB free Nigeria.' Five years later and with the same president back in charge but now with a more radical 'America first' agenda, USAID support for TB LON's community testing work was terminated in February, according to a TB LON official. The official did not want to be named because he was not authorized to speak on behalf of the project. 'HARD WORK IN JEOPARDY' TB kills 268 Nigerians every day and cases have historically been under-reported increasing the risk of transmission. If one case is missed, that person can transmit TB to 15 people over a year, according to the World Health Organization. The Thomson Reuters Foundation spoke to half a dozen health workers who collect TB test samples for TB LON but had stopped doing so in January due to the US aid freeze. Between 2020-2024, TB LON screened around 20 million people in southwestern states in Nigeria, and more than 100,000 patients were treated as a result. 'All that hard work is in jeopardy if we don't act quickly,' Umoru said, adding that non-profits working with TB LON had laid off more than 1,000 contract workers who used to do TB screening. Nigeria's health ministry did not respond to request for comment on the effect of the USAID cuts on TB programs. In March, First Lady Oluremi Tinubu declared TB a national emergency and donated 1 billion naira ($630,680) to efforts to eradicate the disease by 2030. In South Africa, medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said TB and HIV programs had been disrupted across the country, making patient tracking and testing more difficult, according to a statement sent to the Thomson Reuters Foundation. South Africa had a TB incidence rate of 427 per 100,000 people in 2023, government data showed, down 57 percent from 2015. TB-related deaths in South Africa dropped 16 percent over that period, the data showed. Minister of Health Aaron Motsoaledi said in May that the government would launch an End TB campaign to screen and test 5 million people, and was also seeking new donor funding. 'Under no circumstances will we allow this massive work performed over a period of more than a decade and half to collapse and go up in smoke,' he said at the time, referring to efforts to tackle TB and HIV. 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In the Philippines, US cuts have disrupted TB testing in four USAID-funded projects, and affected the supply of drugs, Stop TB Partnership, a UN-funded agency said. 'The country has a nationwide problem with recurrent drug shortages, which is leading to a direct impact on efforts to eliminate TB,' said Ghazali Babiker, head of mission for MSF Philippines. In Pakistan, which sees 510,000 TB infections each year, MSF said US cuts had disrupted TB screening in communities and other services in the hard-hit southeastern province of Sindh. 'We are worried that the US funding cuts that have impacted the community-based services will have a disproportionate effect on children, leading to more children with TB and more avoidable deaths,' said Ei Hnin Hnin Phyu, medical coordinator with MSF in Pakistan. 'We cannot afford to let funding decisions cost children's lives.'
Arab News
9 hours ago
- Arab News
UN convoy attacked on the way to Sudan's Al-Fashir, UNICEF says
GENEVA: A UN convoy delivering food into Sudan's Al-Fashir in North Darfur came under attack overnight, a spokesperson for the UN children's agency told Reuters on Tuesday, adding that initial reports indicated 'multiple casualties.' 'We have received information about a convoy with WFP and UNICEF trucks being attacked last night while positioned in Al Koma, North Darfur, waiting for approval to proceed to Al-Fashir,' UNICEF spokesperson Eva Hinds said in response to questions. She did not say who was responsible or elaborate on the reported casualties. Aid has frequently come under the crossfire in the two-year-old war between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, which has left more than half the population facing crisis levels of hunger. In a statement, the RSF's aid commission blamed an airstrike by the army, as did local activists. The army did not respond to a request for comment. Al Koma is controlled by the RSF, and earlier this week saw a drone strike that claimed several civilian lives, according to local activists. Famine conditions have previously been reported in Al-Fashir, the capital of North Darfur. The fighting and barriers to the delivery of aid put in place by both sides have cut off supplies. The attack is the latest of several assaults on aid in recent days. It follows the repeated shelling of UN World Food Programme premises in Al-Fashir by the RSF and an attack on El Obeid hospital in North Kordofan that killed several medics late last month.
