Day: May 20, 2024

South Africa’s highest court ruled on Monday that former president Jacob Zuma cannot stand as a candidate in next week’s general election on the grounds that a 2021 conviction for contempt of court has disqualified him.

The Constitutional Court ruled that Zuma’s sentence of more than 12 months in prison had made him ineligible to stand.

His former party, the ruling African National Congress (ANC), suspended Zuma, 82, in January. He has since founded a new party, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) and intended to stand as chairman of the party in the May 29 elections.

The Constitutional Court ruling reverses an earlier ruling by a lower court allowing Zuma to stand in the elections.

The elections are seen as the most significant since freedom fighter and later president Nelson Mandela led the country to democracy in 1994. Polls indicate that the ANC could for the first time lose its absolute majority and be forced to seek a coalition partner.

Under the constitution, the president is appointed by parliament and not di
rectly elected.

President from 2009 to 2018, Zuma was forced from office on grounds of corruption. In 2021 he was handed a 15-month prison term after refusing to give evidence to a committee investigating nepotism and corruption during his period in office.

His arrest provoked riots in which some 350 people were killed and hundreds of businesses were looted and firebombed.

Zuma served less than eight weeks in prison before being released on grounds of poor health.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Incumbent Luis Abinader has been re-elected in the first round of the presidential election in the Dominican Republic.

The candidate of the Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM) received over 57% of the vote, the electoral office announced on Monday after almost all the votes had been counted.

Former president Leonel Fernández, who governed in 1996-2000 and again in 2004-08, received around 29% of the vote, while the former mayor of the second largest city Santiago, Abel Martínez, received around 10%. Both have conceded defeat.

All three candidates can be assigned to the centre-left camp.

‘We have already travelled part of the way. Now it is time to deepen the changes and reforms in order to consistently continue on the path of development,’ Abinader said after his election victory, according to a report in the Listin Diario newspaper.

The election campaign in the Caribbean state was dominated by the crisis in neighbouring Haiti, with which the Dominican Republic shares the island of Hispaniola.

Powerful gan
gs have brought the state there to the brink of collapse. Abinader recently said that the crisis in Haiti poses a direct threat to the stability and security of the Dominican Republic. His government is currently building a wall along the approximately 400 kilometre-long border.

The Dominican Republic is the most popular tourist destination in the Caribbean. The beach paradise has recovered from the slump in tourism caused by the coronavirus pandemic, and last year recorded more than 10 million visitors for the first time. The economy has been one of the fastest growing in Latin America on average for decades.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Israel intends to expand its military operation in Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip to defeat Hamas and to free the hostages the militant organization is still holding, despite US concerns, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on Monday.

Gallant was speaking during a meeting with US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan in Tel Aviv, according to Israeli radio. Israeli Chief of the Defence Staff Herzi Halevi also attended the meeting.

Gallant’s office said he had briefed Sullivan ‘on developments in the war against the Hamas terrorist organization in Gaza, as well as the various efforts made to ensure the return of 128 hostages held by Hamas.’

Gallant also presented humanitarian aid plans for the population of the Gaza Strip. ‘This includes significant efforts to evacuate the civilian population in Rafah, facilitating the provision of humanitarian services, and operating in a precise manner to avoid harm to uninvolved civilians,’ the statement said.

The tensions on Israel’s border with Lebanon were als
o discussed. Gallant accused the Lebanese Hezbollah militia of refusing to reach a diplomatic agreement on the withdrawal of its fighters from the border area, risking ‘a significant escalation.’

Sullivan had earlier repeated that the United States continued to reject a widescale offensive in the overcrowded city of Rafah in talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog in Jerusalem on Sunday.

According to the White House, Sullivan nevertheless showed understanding for Israeli efforts to locate Hamas leaders in the Gaza Strip.

The White House statement said that Sullivan had reaffirmed ‘the need for Israel to connect its military operations to a political strategy that can ensure the lasting defeat of Hamas, the release of all the hostages, and a better future for Gaza.’

According to estimates from the United Nations, around 800,000 Palestinians have fled Rafah since the start of the operation two weeks ago. Many of them are refugees from other parts of the Gaza Strip who had sou
ght refuge in its southernmost point.

The White House said that Sullivan had provided information on discussions with Egypt to secure its border with Rafah and to secure the continued flow of humanitarian assistance through the Kerem Shalom crossing from Israel into the southern Gaza Strip.

Kerem Shalom has become key to supplying humanitarian aid following the closure of the Rafah crossing by Israeli forces at the start of the month. Hamas has recently attacked the crossing and Israeli settlements with rockets.

According to media reports, Egypt has indicated it will not coordinate aid transports through Rafah until the Israeli forces withdraw. Talks on reopening the crossing are reported to be continuing.

Following his talks with Sullivan in Jerusalem, Netanyahu posted on the X messaging service that the continuation of the war in Gaza, with an emphasis on Rafah, were discussed, along with ‘increasing the humanitarian effort in the Strip.’

According to the White House, Sullivan and the Israelis discusse
d ways of ensuring that humanitarian workers could safely deliver aid to those in need and establish fixed corridors inside Gaza to ensure aid is able to reach all those in need.

Aid has also been arriving by sea at a temporary pier constructed off the Gazan coast by the US Navy.

Reflecting a rise in tensions within the Israeli government, Gallant has demanded the creation of a political alternative to Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Benny Gantz, a fellow cabinet member, threatened over the weekend to resign if a plan was not in place by June 8 to set up a civilian administration to run the Gaza Strip.

Israeli military operations continued in other parts of the Gaza Strip. The Hamas-controlled health authority reported the deaths on Sunday of at least 24 Palestinians in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the centre of the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli army confirmed that a senior Hamas police officer had been killed in a targeted attack and that another Hamas commander and five activists had been killed in a separate attac
k in Nuseirat.

Tunnels on the border to Egypt had also been discovered and destroyed.

Source: Ghana News Agency

The chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court said on Monday that he is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and top leaders from Palestinian extremist group Hamas over war crimes committed in Israel and Gaza.

Prosecutor Karim Khan said he is requesting warrants for Netanyahu and his Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the Gaza Strip beginning on October 8, a day after Hamas militants launched their unprecedented attack on Israel.

Among the allegations are ‘starvation of civilians as a method of warfare’ and ‘intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population,’ a statement from Khan’s office said.

Warrants have also been requested for Yehya al-Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, along with Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri, the head of the group’s military wing, and Ismail Haniyeh, who sits atop Hamas’ political bureau and is seen as the group’s overall leader.

They were accused by Khan of bearin
g responsibility for murders, rapes, hostage-takings, torture and other inhumane acts from at least October 7.

Fighters from Hamas and other militant groups from Gaza killed some 1,200 people in the unprecedented massacre on communities in southern Israel on October 7. They also injured and raped countless others and took some 250 hostages back to Gaza.

Israel responded by sealing off the Palestinian territory and launching a massive aerial campaign to eliminate Hamas. At the end of October, Israeli ground troops were sent in and much of the coastal strip has since been rendered uninhabitable.

More than 35,000 Palestinians are said to have been killed in the fighting so far, while thousands of others are threatened by famine.

In his statement, Khan said that evidence gathered by his office ‘shows that Israel has intentionally and systematically deprived the civilian population in all parts of Gaza of objects indispensable to human survival.’

This was achieved, among other things, ‘through the imposition
of a total siege over Gaza,’ including the closure of border crossings from October 8 ‘for extended periods and then by arbitrarily restricting the transfer of essential supplies – including food and medicine – through the border crossings after they were reopened.’

Khan said his office ‘submits that these acts were committed as part of a common plan to use starvation as a method of war and other acts of violence against the Gazan civilian population as a means to (i) eliminate Hamas; (ii) secure the return of the hostages which Hamas has abducted, and (iii) collectively punish the civilian population of Gaza, whom they perceived as a threat to Israel.’

Regarding the Hamas leaders, Khan said evidence showed that al-Sinwar, al-Masri and Haniyeh ‘planned and instigated the commission of crimes on 7 October 2023, and have through their own actions, including personal visits to hostages shortly after their kidnapping, acknowledged their responsibility for those crimes.’

‘We submit that these crimes could not h
ave been committed without their actions.’

He added that there were also ‘reasonable grounds to believe that hostages taken from Israel have been kept in inhumane conditions, and that some have been subject to sexual violence, including rape.’

The International Criminal Court prosecutes individuals for alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Israel does not recognize the court, but the Palestinian territories are a state party, so the prosecutor is authorized to investigate.

Legally, an ICC arrest warrant against the persons concerned would mean that states that have signed the ICC statutes would be obliged to arrest these persons and hand them over to the court if they enter the territory of these states.

A year ago, the court also issued international arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, the Russian commissioner for children’s rights. Both are accused of war crimes in connection with the abduction and forced adoption of Ukrainian children to Russ
ia.

At the end of April, Netanyahu slammed the prospect of a possible arrest warrants against him and other Israelis by the ICC as an ‘unprecedented anti-Semitic hate crime.’

Such a step would violate Israel’s right to self-defence following the Hamas massacre on October 7 last year, he said in a video address.

Source: Ghana News Agency