He was speaking at the United Nations General Assembly in New York as the first of migrants started arriving in Rwanda.

Rwanda’s taking in the migrants as part of a deal with the African Union and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees.

Most of them are from the Horn of Africa.

Libya reached a deal with the European Union to keep the migrants from crossing the Mediterranean into their territory.

President Paul Kagame insists his efforts to end the migrants’ misery in Libya does not involve him  taking any money from the EU 

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He says negotiations with Ethiopia,  who have built the Grand Renaiassance Dam, have been unfruitful.

There’s no better place to draw attention to a subject than the UN General Assembly with all 193 members in attendance.

The Nile is absolutely vital to Egypt’s exisitence.

Upstream, Ethiopia will start next year generating electricity from a dam that will make it Africa’s biggest power producer.

Egypt wants guarantees about the flow of water and assurance of what will happen in drought years.

President AbdelFattah El Sisi calls on the international community to press Ethiopia to show greater flexibility in this matter

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The world organization’s special rapporteur on the right to housing says Nigeria’s unable to properly accommodate hundreds of thousands of its people.

UN Special Rapporteur On The Right To Housing, Leilani Farha says the Nigerian government’s  housing programs do not make a dent in the need to put rooves over the heads of the people in Africa’s most populous country.

Farha’s report will be particularly embarrassing to Nigeria as leaders gather in New York for the UN General Assembly.

She calls for an end to the forced evictions of whole communities – particularly in the capital Lagos.

Farha says arms, arson and arbitrary arrest are used to move thousands, mainly women and children, to build luxury housing complexes for the wealthy.  

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The wind picks up on the sea these late summer evenings, whipping up the waves. If one hopes  to navigate the Mediterranean with any safety in a small boat, it had best be before winter turns the water colder and rougher.

So this is a crucial time for those fleeing conflict and persecution back home – or simply wishing to feed a family – by crossing the Mediterranean and finding shelter in Europe.

Indeed it is crunch time for refugees everywhere as the spotlight is turned on them by the United Nations General Assembly starting in New York.

The bigoted Matteo Salvini , who aligned himself with United States President Donald Trump in making cruelty a policy for deterring migrants, has disappeared for now as Italy’s Interior Minister. 

The full effect of this has yet to be revealed.

But for now captains of rescue ships do not risk imprisonment by taking aboard those cynically thrown to their fate by people smugglers. 

Some relief then for those taking this route to Europe. Their numbers have dramatically diminished:About a tenth of the number crossing  three year ago. But the Mediterranean  claims proportionately more of their lives.

Thanks to the efforts of the United Nations High Commission on Refugees, fewer of them will be taken to Libya where they face detention in appalling conditions or worse.

The country rendered ungovernable after the fall of Muammar Gadaffi is no longer an easy option for European countries trying to reduce the migrant wave.

This does not mean European countries will take appreciably more people from Africa and the Middle East.

No more than the United States will welcome those from Central and South American countries seeking safer, better lives.

Indeed, South Africa will not be able to take in all those Africans coming  across the Limpopo and the Kruger National Park.

One must hope an international understanding can be reached that there is a universal responsibility to provide a refuge.

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The  United Nations Security Council has condemned the violence and noted the junta’s undertaking to investigate the massacre.

About to re-engage in dialogue with civilian leaders, Sudan’s Transitional Military Council says it regrets the error made in deploying the paramilitary Rapid Support Force, formerly known as the janjaweed,  against protestors.

Meeting in New York last night the UN Security Council emphasises the importance of protecting human rights in Sudan.

The junta has had a similar call from President Donald Trump’s most senior representative to Africa  Tibor Nagy who is in Sudan with Washington’s newly-appointed special envoy Donald Booth. 

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Recent events at the International Court of Justice in the Hague and the United Nations General Assembly remind us there is another: Britain’s continued administration of the Indian Ocean Chagos Archipelago.

Holding sway over the empire upon which the sun never set, Britain began calling the shots on  developments in the Indian Oceans around Mauritius from 1814.

Before giving that country independence in 1968, Britain paid four million pounds for the Chagos Archipelago and called it the British Indian Ocean Territory

In the mid sixties it leased one of the islands, Diego Garcia to the United States.

The Pentagon build a strategically importnat military base there, secure in the knowledge that it has tenure until 2035.

At Washington’s behest, Britain moved the  1800-odd islanders  off their home. They have never been allowed to return.

This type of behaviour might have been generally accepted in a bygone era of colonial administration..

It does not wash today – certainly not from a  country that has long passed the twilight of its global power.

Britain has set aside 40 million pounds to assist the displaced Chagoans who are mostly in Britain, the Seychelles and Mauritius.

Still not good enough.

The matter was brought to the United Nations’ top court that found in February that Britain had acted illegally by hiving off the archipelago to continue its occupation. The ICJ ruled this should end as soon as possible.

In the General Assembly this week, an African-sponsored motion was passed by 116 votes to six giving Britain six month to get off Chagos.

Britain’s ambassador to the world organization Dame Karen Pierce said candidly that this would not happen.

Britain is determined to continue its control of Chagos at least until 2036.

Not surprisingly the United States was one of the half-dozen opponents of the resolution.

It reminded the international community that operations from Diego Garcia protect the region from terrorists and pirates. The base is also used for humanitarian purposes like reducing tsunami victims.

Diego Garcia is not used to house terror suspects  but it is used as a refueling stop in transitioning them from points of capture to places of incarceration.

It was also used for US bombing raids on Iraq and Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington 18 years ago.

Neither the ICJ ruling nor the UNGA resolution is binding.

General Assembly resolutions cannot be enforced.

However the strongly reflects international opinion.

Flying in the face of it brings into question Britain’s commitment to the multilateral system of  governance.

With its military power having waned, Britain, like most other countries, has to rely on moral clout.

Mauritian Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth urged countries to support the General Assembly resolution, saying failure to do so would be endorsing colonialism.

He maintains the United States can lease its military base from his government, adding that Mauritius would find it deeply offensive if Washington did not regard it as a trusted security partner.

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The top officials of these two bodies accept in a communique after meeting in New York that there could be a  military presence in a transitional authority.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and AU Commission President Moussa Faki met at the third UN AU annual conference at UN headquarters in New York.

They reviewed progress towards establishing a civilian government in Sudan.

That country has a 60-day deadline to achieve this or face exclusion from the AU.

Faki and Guterres say they’re supporting a civilian-led mediation group proposing a ten-person transitional team that includes three generals.

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The Committee to Protect of Journalists also expressed indignation at South Africa’s Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Lindiwe Sisulu justifying the detention of Angela Quintal and Muthoki Mumo.

Executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists Joel Simon says Angela Quintal and Muthoki Mumo has visas to undertake a networking visit to Tanzania.

Their arrest was an attempt by Tanzanian authorities to harass and intimidate them.

Simon regrets that after all they did to secure the journalists’ release the South African authorities should repeat the Tanzanian falsehoods that the journalists had broken the law by working while travelling on tourist visas.

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He was speaking to staff of South African Airways following last week’s assertion by Finance Minister Tito Mboweni that the the loss-making airline should be closed down.

Pravin Gordhan says eight months into the corruption-fighting Presidency of Cyril Ramaphosa, the staff of  SAA is still protecting corrupt colleagues.

Gordhan does not agree with Mboweni  that South African taxpayer should not have to finance an airline the country can’t afford.

Mboweni has drawn flak for his remarks at a New York investor conference from the executive of the ruling African National Congress and the unions representing the airline’s 8000 employees.

Gordon tells the employees if they want SAA to survive they must clean out the corruption that has plagued it for years.

“One of the problems they have is  bad decisions. But they have also been badly affected by corruption in the past. This is a matter we have to deal with and expose. We still have a situation today where key parts of an aircraft were, for example, bought at a 50 to 100% premium through middle people rather than buying directly from the original equipment manufacturer. We cannot continue. On the one hand they say we want a bail out and on the other hand we want to carry on feeding pockets that should not be fed,” said Gordhan.

Head of the  SAA pilots association Grant Back welcomes Gordhan’s inspirational speech to them.

He recognizes that they will have to fight corruption and says the airline is in desperate need of  dynamic leadership.

The pilots hope the whole board of SAA will back the chief executive Vuyani Jarana’s turn around strategy to end seven consecutive loss-making years.

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If South Africa wants an airline, he told investors in New York, it should start afresh.

South African Airways has not made a profit since 2011.

It has been kept airborne by massive injections of cash that the state says it can no longer afford to pay.

No bank is prepared to step in and no investor would be prepared to take on SAA’s 1.3-billion euro debt.

The South African Government has fallen into the same trap as many African countries in believing the national carrier is a measure of prestige.

It has bought aircraft it cannot hope to fill and flown routes that could not possibly be profitable.

The new Finance Minister Tito Mboweni is adamant that there can be no holy cows in South African efforts to revitalize its faltering economy.

He accepts the future of SAA is not under his remit, and therefore he cannot make decisions about the airline.

“It’s loss making.It’s very clear to me that you are unlikely to sort out this situation. So my view would be: close it down.We have the case study of Swiss Air, which had to close down and start a new airline. The only thing I would request is: give us the colors. Why I said close it down is because it’s unlikely you are going to find an private sector partner would come and join this asset,” says Mboweni.

He says after closing SAA, the government could involve private equity partners and launch a joint venture airline.

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