His office says the international peace negator and his wife Eeva, who has also tested positive, are doing well.

ends intro

Martti Ahtisaaari’s efforts as a United Nations diplomat and mediator in serious and long-lasting conflicts in Namibia, Indonesia, Kosovo and Iraq earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2008.

He was Finland’s President from 1994 until the year 2000.

Eight years ago he was named as a possible mediator in the Syrian conflict which has become the worst humanitarian crisis on the planet.

He asked to be excused that appointment.

It is not clear where the 82-year-old contracted COVID 19 and his office has asked that journalists respect his privacy 

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He was speaking on the eve of an African summit in Brazzaville on its oil-rich Mediterranean member.

ends intro

Emmanuel Macron says Turkish warships carrying Syrian mercenaries have been seen entering Libyan waters.

The French President calls this a clear violation of the Berlin agreement on Libya signed earlier this month urging non-interference in the country that has been as war since 2011.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has not responded to the French charge.

He has deployed military advisors in Tripoli as part of his support for the Government of National Accord.

In Algeria earlier this week he accused rebel leader Khalifa Haftar of breaking the Berlin Accord

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The groups is calling this revenge for the October killing in Syria of its leader and spokesperson .

The 56-second piece of footage released by the so-called ISIS news agency Amaq does not give the names of the 11 victims.

They are believed to be men captured in  Nigeria’s north-eastern Borno State in recent weeks.

The timing coincides with Christmas the most important Christian festival.

The Nigerian government has not been able to contain the Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram operating in the north east of the country which has substantial ties with other jihadi extremist militant groups like ISIS.

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The chief representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross in the diamond-rich dirt poor nation calls on all actors, including the  government, to live up to the expectations of the people.

ICRC delegation head Valerie Petitpierre tells a seminar in Pretoria the CAR poses the third worst humanitarian crisis on the planet behind Yemen and Syria.

“Two point nine million people depend on humanitarian assistance.One our of four people are displaced. Forty percent of the population is food insecure,” she says, adding that less than half the people have access to drinking water and more than three-quarters live in poverty.

There is hope after the February peace deal but government and other role players must see that the end of conflict also means an end to violence against civilians.

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Maltese naval vessels ferried the refugees ashore because the German-flagged vessel was not allowed into Valetta harbor

The migrants will be moved to Germany, France, Portugal and Luxembourg who agreed to take them in. They’ve come from Libya, where fighting around the capital Tunis has prevented naval operations curbing refugee boats starting the perilous crossing to Europe. So far this year, 356 migrants have drowned or gone missing on the Mediterranean.

Malta and Italy have barred rescue ships from their harbours.

The 67 aboard the Alan Kurdi, named after a three-year-old Syrian son of migrants who drowned in 2015, were in desperate straits on the overcrowded the vessel.

Two had already been evacuated because of  medical emergencies. 

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They’ve arrested 13 people in connection with the what the Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen calls a particularly bestial killing.

Danish and Norwegian authorities are still examining the video posted on social  media showing the beheading of 28-year-old Norwegian Maren Ueland and 24-year-old Dane Louisa Jespersen.

Their bodies were found in their tent in Morocco’s High Atlas mountains where they were hiking.

The social media posting claims the beheadings are revenge for Western anti-terror operations in Syria.

Of the four murder suspects being held, one has served a two-year-sentence for extremist related crimes.

All four have been shown on social media pledging allegiance to so called Islamic State.

A candlelit vigil was held in Rabat at the weekend by Moroccans apologizing for the killings.

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South Africa has twice proved the veracity of this.

In its first rotating term on the UN powerhouse between 2007 and 2008, the South African government – still in its heady days of President Nelson Mandela – appeared insensitive to human rights violations in Myanmar and Zimbabwe.

Eager to avoid a similar accusation in its second term between 2011 and 2012 South Africa voted for a resolution supporting “all necessary measures to protect civilians on the ground” from aerial against attacks by the forces of dictator Muammar Gadaffi. 

This led to military action that contributed to Gadaffi’s overthrow and killing which set off violence and insecurity from which the country still has not recovered.

South African protests that it never actually supported military action against Gadaffi drew chortles from observers who said it was dangerously naive of the South Africans not to realize their vote for a no-fly zone over Libya could possibly lead to anything else.

South Africa’s newly-acquired BRICS partners Brazil, Russia, India and China abstained in that vote.

Barak Obama’s U.S. Government reiterated that South Africa had merely done the right thing.

This was cold comfort for the African nations who insisted that Libya should have been left for the AU to sort out.

The Africans saw fit to put South Africa up for a third term in the diplomatic engine room.

Will South Africa be able to parlay this into eventually becoming the permanent African member on a reformed UN Security Council?

This will be the call not so much of fellow Africans but of the heavy hitters who would have to agree to the reforms.

The signs so far are rather ominous.

South Africa has sat so firmly on the fence on the fraught Ukraine issue that it has iron its soul.

In the year ahead, the Western powers on the Security Council are bound to take a tougher line against Russian aggression aimed at its western neighbour and its annexation of Crimea.

They will be looking for consistency from South Africa that has steadfastly cited moral grounds for standing against Moroccan aggression in north Africa and its invasion of Western Sahara.

European diplomats say South Africa’s decision to abstain in the UN General Assembly vote on human rights violations in Myanmar is disappointing.

There has been stronger language from Asian countries.

They are comparing South Africa’s refusal to vote in favor of human rights protection for Rohingya refugees with what they call discredited Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s abetting of genocide.

Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Lindiwe Sisulu has signaled there will be change in this stance and they are all eagerly awaiting the new position.

They will also look to South Africa to alter it abstention and actually support UN disarmament chief Izumi Nakamitsu’s call for an end to the use of chemical weapons by Syria.

Doing this would put South Africa at odds with Russia as it shows an increasing tendency to stay on-side with its BRICS partner.

In the vote for the new Interpol chief, for example, South Africa withdrew it’d candidate for the post and threw its support behind Russian Alexander Prokapchuk who eventually lost to South Korean Kim Yong Yan.

At stake over the next two years is more than merely irritating Western friends.

South Africa’s contributions and votes on the 15-nation Security Council will bring it directly into the cross-hairs of Donald Trump whose vengeful  petulance easily exceeds his short attention span.

If he doesn’t like something South Africa does it is easily within the realms of possibility that it might be made to pay by losing its favorable access to US markets via the American Growth and Opportunity Act or AGOA.

The Saharawi people, living under Moroccan occupation for 43 years,  will be grateful for having South Africa on the Security Council.Sisulu has promised South Africa will use its position to press for self-determination for the Western Sahara. By implication this means getting Morocco to quit the territory.

So, however we look at it, for the next two years South Africa will be playing high-stakes poker at the biggest game in town.

EndsIsumi

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The world’s most expensive peacekeeping mission will start taking personnel cuts next month.

It’s planned that the Somali forces will increasingly take responsibility for the country’s security.

The 22 000-strong AU force AMISOM is not sustainable as countries and outside contributors face budget cuts.

It’s doubtful that the Somali government, which hasn’t been able to exercise control over the Horn of Africa country since 1991, can take up the slack.

The ranks of the militant  group Al Shabaab are being swelled by fighters from so-called Islamic State driven out of Libya and Syria.

Last month, the deadliest terrorist attack in recent history killed more 500 people in Mogadishu.

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It’s calling on the continental organization codevelop cooperative mechanism to control the jihadis.

ends intro

Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmajid Teboune was speaking for his President Abdelziz Bouteflika who’s been made the AU coordinator against violent extremism and terrorism.

He says more than 5 000 young Africans have joined jihadi groups in Iraq, Syria and the Sahel.

Their radical and violent ideas  pose a danger to their own countries when they come home – as Algeria learned to its cost with militants returning from fighting Russians in Afghanistan a quarter of a century ago.

Bouteflika says Africa must cooperate to curb the extremists by limiting their movement with stricter controls on transport and tougher  border controls

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Officials say four members of the vessel’s crew are facing echarges of human trafficking and manslaughter.

Authorities in Cairo have also issued arrest warrants for five more people wanted in connection with the tragedy off the port city of  Rosetta on Wednesday.

They say they don’t have an exact number of people on board in the ill-fated boat, but 250-400 seems likely. 157 people were rescued.

An initial breakdown of the nationalities of the migrants shows t they included 111 Egyptians, mostly teenagers and men in their 20s.

There were also 25 Sudanese, while the rest were sub-Saharan Africans and Syrians.

The search for bodies continues.

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