GOMA, Congo: Fighting with M23 rebels in eastern Congo has left at least 13 peacekeepers and foreign soldiers dead, United Nations and army officials said Saturday.
M23 has made significant territorial gains in recent weeks, encircling the eastern city of Goma, which has around 2 million people and is a regional hub for security and humanitarian efforts.
The UN Security Council moved up an emergency meeting on the escalating violence to Sunday morning (10 am EST). Congo requested the meeting, which had originally been scheduled for Monday.
On Saturday, Congo’s army said it fended off an M23 offensive toward Goma with the help of its allied forces, including UN troops and soldiers from the Southern African Development Community Mission, also known as SAMIDRC.
“The Rwandan-backed M23 is clearly exploiting the presidential transition in the US to advance on Goma — putting thousands more civilians at risk,” Kate Hixon, advocacy director for Africa at Amnesty International US, told the Associated Press.
Congo, the United States and UN experts accuse Rwanda of backing M23, which is mainly made up of ethnic Tutsis who broke away from the Congolese army more than a decade ago.
Rwanda’s government denies the claim, but last year acknowledged that it has troops and missile systems in eastern Congo to safeguard its security, pointing to a buildup of Congolese forces near the border. UN experts estimate there are up to 4,000 Rwandan forces in Congo.
The burning wreckage of a white armored fighting vehicle carrying UN markings could be seen on a road between Goma and Sake on Saturday, where much of the fighting was concentrated in recent days.
Two South African peacekeepers were killed Friday, while a Uruguayan Blue Helmet was killed Saturday, a UN official told The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak on the matter publicly.
Additionally, three Malawian peacekeepers were killed in eastern Congo, the United Nations in Malawi said Saturday.
Seven South African soldiers from the SAMIDRC were also killed during clashes with M23 over the last two days, South Africa’s department of defense said in a statement.
Uruguay’s military in a statement issued Saturday identified its member killed in Congo as Rodolfo Álvarez, who was part of the Uruguay IV Battalion. The unit, according to the statement, is working “uninterruptedly to comply with the United Nations mandate, as well as to guarantee the evacuation of non-essential civilian and military personnel from the city of Goma.”
“Various measures have been taken to improve the security of our troops, who are operating in adverse conditions,” the military said. It added that four Uruguayan peacekeepers were also injured. Three of them remained in Goma while a fourth one was evacuated to Uganda for treatment.
Since 2021, Congo’s government and allied forces, including SAMIDRC and UN troops, have been keeping M23 away from Goma.
The UN peacekeeping force, also known as MONUSCO, entered Congo more than two decades ago and has around 14,000 peacekeepers on the ground.
South Africa’s defense minister, Angie Motshekga, was visiting the country’s troops stationed in Congo as part of the UN peacekeeping mission the day the soldiers were killed.
International peacekeepers killed as fighting rages around eastern Congo’s key city
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International peacekeepers killed as fighting rages around eastern Congo’s key city
- M23 has made significant territorial gains in recent weeks, encircling the eastern city of Goma, which has around 2 million people
- Congo, the US and UN officials accuse Rwanda of backing M23, which is mainly made up of ethnic Tutsis who broke away from the Congolese army
South Korea discovers two tonnes of suspected cocaine on board ship
- Korea Customs Service and Coast Guard found 57 boxes of the suspected drug on a bulk ship docked at Gangneung city port
- The ship started its voyage in Mexico and traveled via Ecuador, Panama and China before reaching Gangneung
Korea Customs Service and Coast Guard found 57 boxes of the suspected drug on a bulk ship docked at Gangneung city port on the east coast of the Korean Peninsula, the customs service said in a statement.
They searched the ship after receiving information from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and Homeland Security Investigations, South Korean authorities said.
The ship started its voyage in Mexico and traveled via Ecuador, Panama and China before reaching Gangneung, the statement said.
The customs agency had earlier estimated the weight of the suspected drugs at about one ton, but doubled it after weighing the boxes.
The suspected cocaine haul easily outweighs South Korea’s previous record for smuggled drugs, which was 404 kilograms of methamphetamine found in 2021, a customs spokesperson said.
South Korea has tough drug laws, and crimes are typically punishable by at least six months in prison or up to 15 years or more for repeat offenders and dealers.
EU plans countermeasures to new US tariffs, says bloc’s chief
- Ursula von der Leyen: ‘We are already finalizing the first package of countermeasures in response to tariffs on steel’
- ‘And we’re now preparing for further countermeasures to protect our interests and our businesses if negotiations fail’
BRUSSELS: European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen described US Donald Trump’s universal tariffs as a major blow to the world economy and said the European Union was prepared to respond with countermeasures if talks with Washington failed.
“We are already finalizing the first package of countermeasures in response to tariffs on steel,” she said in a statement read out in Uzbek city Samarkand on Thursday, ahead of an EU-Central Asia partnership summit.
“And we’re now preparing for further countermeasures to protect our interests and our businesses if negotiations fail.”
She did not provide any details of future EU measures. The EU plans to impose counter tariffs on up to €26 billion ($28.4 billion) of US goods this month in response to US steel and aluminum tariffs that took effect on March 12.
Trump on Wednesday unveiled a 10 percent minimum tariff on most goods imported to the United States — with a higher 20 percent rate for the European Union — kicking into high gear a global trade war that threatens to drive up inflation and stall US and worldwide economic growth.
Von der Leyen said she deeply regretted the US move and warned of “immense consequences” for the global economy, including vulnerable countries facing some of the highest US tariffs.
“Uncertainty will spiral and trigger the rise of further protectionism,” she said, pointing to higher consumer costs for groceries, medication and transport and disruption for businesses.
“What is more, there seems to be no order in the disorder, no clear path to the complexity and chaos that is being created as all US trading partners are hit,” she continued.
Von der Leyen said she agreed with Trump that others had taken unfair advantage of global trade rules and was ready to support efforts to reform them.
“It is not too late to address concerns through negotiations,” she said.
Danish prime minister visits Greenland as Trump seeks control of the Arctic territory
- Greenland is a mineral-rich, strategically critical island that is becoming more accessible because of climate change
- It is geographically part of North America, but is a semiautonomous territory belonging to the Kingdom of Denmark
Frederiksen announced plans for her visit after US Vice President JD Vance visited a US air base in Greenland last week and accused Denmark of underinvesting in the territory.
Greenland is a mineral-rich, strategically critical island that is becoming more accessible because of climate change. Trump has said that the landmass is critical to US security. It’s geographically part of North America, but is a semiautonomous territory belonging to the Kingdom of Denmark.
After her arrival Wednesday, Frederiksen walked the streets of the capital, Nuuk, with the incoming Greenlandic leader, Jens-Frederik Nielsen. She is also to meet with the future Naalakkersuisut, the Cabinet, in a visit due to last through Friday.
“It has my deepest respect how the Greenlandic people and the Greenlandic politicians handle the great pressure that is on Greenland,” she said in government statement announcing the visit.
On the agenda are talks with Nielsen about cooperation between Greenland and Denmark.
Nielsen has said in recent days that he welcomes the visit, and that Greenland would resist any US attempt to annex the territory.
“We must listen when others talk about us. But we must not be shaken. President Trump says the United States is ‘getting Greenland.’ Let me make this clear: The US is not getting that. We don’t belong to anyone else. We decide our own future,” he wrote Sunday on Facebook.
“We must not act out of fear. We must respond with peace, dignity and unity. And it is through these values that we must clearly, clearly and calmly show the American president that Greenland is ours.”
For years, the people of Greenland, with a population of about 57,000, have been working toward eventual independence from Denmark.
The Trump administration’s threats to take control of the island one way or the other, possibly even with military force, have angered many in Greenland and Denmark. The incoming government chosen in last month’s election wants to take a slower approach on the question of eventual independence.
The political group in Greenland most sympathetic to the US president, the Naleraq party that advocates a swift path toward independence, was excluded from coalition talks to form the next government.
Peter Viggo Jakobsen, associate professor at the Danish Defense Academy, said last week that the Trump administration’s aspirations for Greenland could backfire and push the more mild parties closer to Denmark.
He said that “Trump has scared most Greenlanders away from this idea about a close relationship to the United States because they don’t trust him.”
A wary Europe awaits Rubio with NATO’s future on the line
WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio travels this week to a gathering of top diplomats from NATO countries and is sure to find allies that are alarmed, angered and confused by the Trump administration’s desire to reestablish ties with Russia and its escalating rhetorical attacks on longtime transatlantic partners.
Allies are deeply concerned by President Donald Trump’s readiness to draw closer to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who sees NATO as a threat, amid a US effort to broker a ceasefire in Ukraine. Recent White House comments and insults directed at NATO allies Canada and Denmark — as well as the military alliance itself — have only increased the angst, especially as new US tariffs are taking effect against friends and foes alike.
Rubio arrives in Brussels on Thursday for two days of meetings with his NATO counterparts and European officials, and he can expect to be confronted with questions about the future US role in the alliance. With him on the trip will be newly confirmed US ambassador to NATO Matt Whitaker.
For 75 years, NATO has been anchored on American leadership, and based on what they have seen and heard since Trump took office in January, European officials have expressed deep concerns that Trump may upend all of that when he and other NATO leaders meet for a June summit in the Netherlands.
Can Rubio reassure allies?
As Rubio did last month at a meeting of foreign ministers from the Group of 7 industrialized democracies, America’s top diplomat, who is regarded by many overseas as a more pragmatic and less dogmatic member of Trump’s administration, may be able to salvage a watered-down group consensus on the war in Ukraine.
That’s even as Trump said this week that Ukraine “was never going to be a member of NATO” despite leaders declaring at last year’s summit that the country was on an “irreversible” path to join.
But Rubio will be hard-pressed to explain Washington’s unprovoked verbal attacks on NATO allies Canada, which Trump says he wants to claim as the 51st state, and Denmark, whose territory of Greenland he says the US should annex. Both have been accused of being “bad allies” by Trump and Vice President JD Vance.
“It’s pretty clear neither territory has any interest in joining a Trumpian America,” said Ian Kelly, US ambassador to Georgia during the Obama and first Trump administrations and now an international studies professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.
“There’s going to be a lot of very anxious Euros about what Trump is going to call for and what announcements he’s going to make,” he said. “If he isn’t already, Rubio is going to be in a mode of trying to reassure European allies that we are not, in fact, not dependable.”
Yet, in just under two months, NATO has been shaken to its core, challenged increasingly by Russia and the biggest land war in Europe since 1945 from the outside, and by the Trump administration from within, breaking with decades of relatively predictable US leadership.
Trump has consistently complained about NATO members’ defense spending and even raised doubts about the US commitment to mutual defense in the alliance’s founding treaty, which says an attack on one NATO member is considered an attack on all.
Europeans taking on more security guarantees
Since Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned last month that US security priorities lie elsewhere — in Asia and on its own borders — the Europeans have waited to learn how big a military drawdown in Europe could be and how fast it may happen.
In Europe and Canada, governments are working on “burden shifting” plans to take over more of the load, while trying to ensure that no security vacuum is created if US troops and equipment are withdrawn from the continent.
These allies are keen to hear from Rubio what the Trump administration’s intentions are and hope to secure some kind of roadmap that lays out what will happen next and when, so they can synchronize planning and use European forces to plug any gaps.
At the same time, NATO’s deterrent effect against an adversary like Russia is only credible when backed by US firepower. For the Europeans and Canada, this means that US nuclear weapons and the 6th Fleet must remain stationed in Europe.
“America is indispensable for credible deterrence,” a senior NATO diplomat told reporters on condition of anonymity to speak ahead of the meeting.
Around 100,000 US troops are deployed across the continent. European allies believe at least 20,000 personnel sent by the Biden administration after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine three years ago could be withdrawn.
Another priority for US allies is to understand whether Trump believes that Russia still poses the greatest security threat. In their summit statement last year, NATO leaders insisted that “Russia remains the most significant and direct threat to Allies’ security.”
But Trump’s receptiveness to Putin and recent favorable remarks by some US officials have raised doubts. The question, diplomats say, is why allies should spend 5 percent of their gross domestic product on their defense budgets if Russia is no longer a threat.
At the same time, the Europeans and Canada know they must spend more — not least to protect themselves and keep arming Ukraine. At their next summit in June, NATO leaders are expected to raise the alliance’s military budget goal from at least 2 percent to more than 3 percent.
Rubio “is in a very difficult position,” said Jeff Rathke, president of the American-German Institute at Johns Hopkins University. Trump “has tried to convince allies that a US realignment with Russia is in the best interests of the US and presumably Europe, and at the same time tell them that they need to double their defense spending to deal with threats posed by Russia,” he said. “The logical question they will ask is ‘why?’”
Britain’s PM urges nations to smash migrant smuggling gangs ‘once and for all’
- The UK government is struggling to stop undocumented migrants embarking on dangerous boat journeys across the Channel from France
- Delegates from more than 40 nations for the two-day London meeting, including countries from where would-be asylum seekers set out
LONDON: UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer urged dozens of countries to collaborate to dismantle migrant smuggling gangs “once and for all” when he opened an immigration crime summit on Monday.
Starmer is seeking to crack down on would-be asylum seekers arriving in England on flimsy small boats and has brought together delegates from more than 40 nations for the two-day London meeting.
The interior ministers of France and Germany were among those attending the Organized Immigration Crime Summit. China and the United States also sent representatives.
The UK government is struggling to stop undocumented migrants embarking on dangerous boat journeys across the Channel from France.
“This vile trade exploits the cracks between our institutions... and profits from our inability at the political level to come together,” Starmer said.
He argued that resources and intelligence must be shared and that governments need to “tackle the problem upstream at every step of the people-smuggling routes.”
“There’s nothing progressive or compassionate about turning a blind eye to this,” Starmer added.
Britain’s Home Office (interior ministry) billed the gathering as “the first major international summit in the UK to tackle the global emergency of illegal migration.”
Representatives from across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, as well as North America were due to attend.
In a video message played to delegates, Italy’s far-right prime minister Giorgia Meloni hailed her country’s agreement with Albania to process asylum claims at detention centers in the non-European Union country.
She claimed that countries “criticized (it) at first but that then has gained increasing consensus.”
Italian judges have repeatedly refused to sign off on the detention in Albania of migrants intercepted by Italian authorities at sea, ordering them to be transferred to Italy instead, and the European Court of Justice is reviewing Rome’s policy.
Joint action plan
The summit is designed to build on talks interior minister Yvette Cooper held in December with her counterparts from Belgium, Germany, France and the Netherlands.
The five countries signed a joint action plan designed to boost cooperation to dismantle migrant smuggling gangs.
Also attending were delegates from countries from where would-be asylum seekers set out, such as Vietnam and Iraq, and countries they transit, such as those in the Balkans.
It also brings together the heads of UK law enforcement agencies and their counterparts from Interpol, Europol and Afripol.
The Home Office said the summit would discuss the equipment, infrastructure and fraudulent documents that organized criminal gangs use to smuggle people.
They would also look at how supply routes work and discuss how to tackle the online recruitment of migrants, including with representatives from social media platforms Meta, X and TikTok.
The UK announced on Sunday it was launching adverts on Zalo, the Vietnamese instant messaging system, to warn people of the dangers of people smugglers.
Vietnamese nationals are among the top nationalities making the perilous sea voyage across the Channel to Britain.
Similar UK campaigns have already been launched in Albania and Iraqi Kurdistan.
UK officials are also keen to speak to China about how it can stop exporting engines and other small boats parts used in crossings.
According to the Home Office, the UK’s National Crime Agency and global law enforcement partners have seized 600 boats and engines since July.
‘No right to be here’
Starmer told the meeting that since his Labour government took power in July, more than 24,000 people with “no right to be here” had been returned.
But the number of would-be asylum seekers arriving across the Channel set a new record last week for the first three months of the year — at more than 6,600.
At least 10 people are dead or missing after attempting the treacherous crossing so far this year, according to the International Organization for Migration.
More than 157,770 people have been detected trying to enter Britain in dinghies since successive governments began collecting data in 2018.
In February, Starmer’s government announced it was toughening immigration rules to make it almost impossible for undocumented migrants who arrive on small boats to later receive citizenship.
On Sunday, it said it would tighten rules to legally require UK gig economy employers to carry out right-to-work checks.
Starmer is under pressure, in part from rising support for Nigel Farage’s anti-immigration Reform UK party, which won roughly four million votes at July’s general election — an unprecedented haul for a hard-right party.
Rights group Amnesty International stresses: “Seeking asylum is a human right. This means everyone should be allowed to enter another country to seek asylum.”
“The people are not the problem,” it says on its website. “Rather, the causes that drive families and individuals to cross borders and the short-sighted and unrealistic ways that politicians respond to them are the problem.”
