World

PRISTINA  — The latest tensions between Serbia and Kosovo is the worst regional crisis in a decade, with Serbia boosting its military presence on their border.

The main issues revolve around on the sensitive position of Kosovo’s ethnic Serb minority, which refuses loyalty to the authorities in Pristina.

Here are the five things to know about the ongoing dispute, a major obstacle for both sides’ ambitions for European Union membership.

The root of the problem? 

Ethnic-Albanian majority Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, a decade after a war between Serbian forces and ethnic Albanian guerillas.

Since then, Kosovo has been formally recognised by roughly a hundred countries — but not by Serbia, and most of the 120,000 remaining Kosovo Serbs remain loyal to Belgrade.

In Kosovo’s Serb-majority north bordering Serbia, they fly the Serbian flag, use its currency and refuse to pay taxes and utilities.

Local Serbs resist every attempt by Pristina to exercise its authority in northern Kosovo, leading to constant tension.

What sparked the crisis? 

Officially, the latest crisis was over registration plates.

Kosovo banned drivers with Serbian plates from entering the country unless they took provisional Kosovar ones — which Serbia has required of Kosovar vehicles for years.

Hundreds of outraged ethnic Serbs blocked the roads leading to the two border crossings, and set up camps.

They were further outraged when Pristina deployed special police forces to the border.

Kosovo police have authority throughout country’s territory, but special units are rarely seen in the tense north as local Serb leaders interpret their presence as a provocation.

Serbia’s army responded by deploying combat vehicles with their guns pointed towards Kosovo, and flew fighter jets nearby — its first time show of military power since the war.

Will there be a war? 

According to some experts, not this time.

Although Belgrade has threatened to “react within 24 hours” if violence is used against ethnic Serbs, a government-led conflict is not considered likely.

After retreating in 1999 in the face of a NATO campaign of air strikes, Serbia signed a treaty prohibiting their armed forces from Kosovo soil. Violating that would put Serbia on a collision course with NATO again.

The 3,500 NATO-led peacekeepers deployed in Kosovo, the KFOR mission, have stepped up patrols following the latest tensions.

“There is no risk of radicalising the situation”, military analyst Aleksandar Radic told local media.

“The mere presence of KFOR is signalling that neither side can do anything beyond what’s tolerable”.

Who benefits? 

Political elites — both ethnic Albanian and Serb — apparently.

While the Kosovo Serb leaders do not recognise Pristina’s authority, they stand for election. Under Kosovar law, they have 10 parliament seats guaranteed, even a minister in the government.

Some analysts argue the latest tensions have been orchestrated for political ends in the run-up to the country’s mid-October municipal elections.

“The escalation of the crisis in the north... has an electoral background,” political analyst from Pristina Lulzim Peci told AFP.

Belgrade-based analyst Dusan Janjic took the same view.

“Parading armoured vehicles and flying the fighter jets is part of that marketing campaign which will eventually stop, in order to hold the elections,” he said.

What now?

Even if this is just posturing by both sides, the situation remains volatile. An incident on the ground could lead to an escalation, says experts.

The European Union, with Washington’s support, is trying to get both sides to the table, but a decade’s worth of EU mediation between two sides has brought little progress.

Belgrade has stressed Kosovo must pull back its special police from the north before things can get back to normal.

Serbia’s key ally Russia has also called on Kosovo government to pull back its special forces, after Russian ambassador visited Serbian army bases near Kosovo border over the weekend.

GENEVA — The World Health Organisation(WHO) unveiled a plan on Tuesday to bring meningitis under control by 2030, slashing the 250,000 annual deaths caused by the debilitating disease.

Launching the first-ever global strategy to tackle the illness, the WHO said it wanted to eliminate epidemics of bacterial meningitis — the most deadly form.

By doing so, it hopes to halve the number of cases and reduce deaths by 70 per cent. It also wants to significantly reduce disability caused by the disease.

“Wherever it occurs, meningitis can be deadly and debilitating; it strikes quickly, has serious health, economic and social consequences, and causes devastating outbreaks,” said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

“It is time to tackle meningitis globally once and for all — by urgently expanding access to existing tools like vaccines, spearheading new research and innovation to prevent, detect and treat the various causes of the disease, and improve rehabilitation for those affected.”

Meningitis is a dangerous inflammation of the membranes that surround the brain and spinal cord, predominantly caused by infection with bacteria, and other pathogens including viruses and fungi.

Meningitis caused by bacterial infection tends to be the most serious form as it can spark fast-spreading epidemics.

It kills one in 10 of those infected — mostly children and young people.

It also leaves one in five with long-lasting disability, such as seizures, hearing and vision loss, neurological damage and cognitive impairment.

Over the last 10 years, epidemics have most commonly occurred in the so-called “Meningitis Belt”, spanning 26 countries across sub-Saharan Africa from Senegal to Ethiopia.

Outbreaks can severely disrupt health systems and create vast expenditures for households and communities.

The WHO said there was an “urgent need for innovation, funding and research to develop more meningitis-preventive vaccines”.

Several vaccines protect against certain meningitis types, but many countries are yet to introduce them into their national immunisation programmes.

Research is also under way to develop vaccines for other causes of meningitis, such as Group B Strep bacteria.

The WHO’s Global Roadmap to Defeat Meningitis by 2030 called for high immunisation coverage and improved strategies to prevent outbreaks and respond to them.

It also called for efforts to strengthen early diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation.

The plan says meningitis will not be eliminated but it aims to get as close to that point as possible by reducing case numbers and then keeping them low.

By Amaury Hauchard
Agence France-Presse

INGALL, Niger — For Veli Rabo, a 28-year-old Nigerien, the idea of finding a job has almost become a joke.

His time is spent being “completely unemployed — I am even too unemployed!” he says with a laugh.

A member of the Fulani community, also called Peuls, he is among thousands of young nomads who cannot find work, living on the front line of a complex and entrenched conflict.

Around one young person in four in northern Niger is out of work, the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank estimated in 2018. And joblessness, poverty and drift are powerful recruiting sergeants for terrorists.

At an annual nomad festival in the oasis town of Ingall in mid-September, young men spoke to AFP about the bloody campaign that has ravaged their country for half a dozen years.

“Alhamdulillah [praise be to Allah], with us everything is fine,” said Rabo.

But he added: “The truth is, if people sit around doing nothing and they have to provide food for their family, many might say ‘yes’ to a friend who comes along and suggests doing something bad in exchange for some help.”

Rabo gets by with his motorbike taxi, which earns him between 1,000 and 2,000 CFA francs (1.5 to three euros/up to $3.60) a day to “feed the little family”, he says, his head wrapped in a blue scarf.

But the young man from the village of Foudouk has no other source of income.

Further handicapping nomadic peoples such as the Fulani is their scant access to education and healthcare.

And prospects seem increasingly dim with booming population growth alongside relentless desertification.

The young men went to school in Agadez, the regional capital, leaving at age 14 or 15. Out of their class of 40 pupils, only a handful are working today, they say.

So, “a lot of people don’t do anything”, says Rabo’s friend Bidgi Gaya, also 28, describing idle hours of chatting over tea.

Others have returned to their villages, wondering how their peers fare in other countries.

‘Future is scary’ 

The high rate of youth unemployment worries the local authorities.

President Mohamed Bazoum, during a meeting with traditional chiefs at the nomad festival, said terrorists linked to the Daesh group have a strategy of “targeting [these] young people, indoctrinating them and using them as cannon fodder”.

Nigerian terror group Boko Haram has recruited many youths in the Diffa region of south-eastern Niger bordering on Nigeria.

The same is true in the Tillaberi tri-border area where Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger converge.

The government is trying to raise awareness among nomadic youths, urging them to shun militants and consider joining the army instead.

At the festival in Ingall, Niger’s traditional gateway to the Sahara, the authorities made a point of meeting with youths.

One of them was Doula Dokao, a 48-year-old Wodaabe Fulani, who set up a local awareness-raising association 14 years ago.

The aim was “to talk to young people to convince them that there are positive sides and opportunities”, he said.

But villagers are sceptical of the government’s many promises. “Out of 100 per cent of the things it funds, we see 5 per cent in the village,” Dokao sums up. A relative adds that the rest is undoubtedly lost in the twists and turns of corruption on the way.

For the young people of Foudouk, the village chief Nassamou Malam urges patience.

“Otherwise, they will take a different path, and it will not be a good one,” he warned. “The future is scary.”

BERLIN — Germany slipped Monday into a period of political unpredictability after the Social Democrats narrowly won a general election but faced a rival claim to power from outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative camp.

For a country synonymous with stability after 16 years of Merkel's steady leadership, the coming weeks and months promise to be a rocky ride as both Finance Minister Olaf Scholz's SPD and the conservatives led by Armin Laschet scramble for coalition partners.

The power struggle risks putting Germany out of play on the international scene for some time, even though the upcoming COP26 climate summit will be demanding action from the world's biggest powers.

Europe’s largest economy will also hold the presidency of the G-7 club of rich nations next year, and will need a government capable of setting the international agenda.

European markets nevertheless heaved a sigh of relief, climbing after the tight results, predicting that a government led by either the SPD or the CDU would bring continuity in economic policy.

Preliminary official results showed that the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) narrowly won the vote at 25.7 per cent, while Merkel’s centre-right CDU-CSU bloc sunk to a historic low of 24.1 per cent.

The Green Party placed third at 14.8 per cent, its best result yet but still short of expectations.

Laschet, 60, took responsibility for his side’s poor showing and vowed “renewal in all areas”.

But he insisted that “no party” — not even the SPD — could claim a mandate to govern from Sunday’s outcome, as he said he was ready to head a coalition.

Scholz, 63, said the conservatives belonged in the opposition.

“The CDU and CSU have not only significantly lost votes, but they have essentially received the message from citizens — they should no longer be in government, but should go into the opposition,” he said.

Shrugging off the uncertainties in the quest for a governing majority, Scholz said Germany will not be thrown off by the power struggle that lies ahead.

“You should know that Germany always has coalitions, and it was always stable,” he said, adding that he aimed to pull together his coalition by Christmas.

From Paris, French minister for European affairs Clement Beaune stressed that France “has an interest to have a strong German government in place”, urging “swift” action from German parties.

The Kremlin said it hoped for “continuity” in Moscow’s ties with Berlin.

‘Fresh start’ 

While Germany will keep plodding along with a caretaker government still led by Merkel, analysts warn that Berlin will be paralysed on the international stage.

“Although it keeps managing all dossiers, it loses the legitimacy to shape international initiatives or domestic legal acts,” Christian Moelling of the German Council on Foreign Relations said.

“Until political leadership again becomes available, bureaucracy will get relatively stronger as it aims to conserve the status quo. Given the fragility of the international environment, this is not good news.”

In the fractured political landscape of the post-Merkel era, the most likely outcome will be a three-way alliance, ending the post-war tradition of two-party coalition governments.

Both Scholz and Laschet are wooing the Greens and the liberal, pro-business FDP Party (11.5 per cent) to cobble together a parliamentary majority.

The two kingmakers however are not natural bedfellows, diverging on issues like tax hikes and public investment in climate protection.

Green chancellor candidate Annalena Baerbock, whose party hoped to do better with the climate crisis a top voter concern this year — stayed vague about her preferred tie-up, but said it was time for “a fresh start” in the country of 83 million people.

FDP leader Christian Lindner has signalled a preference for a coalition with the CDU-CSU and the Greens, dubbed “Jamaica” in a nod to the colours of each party’s logo — black, green and gold — which are the same as the Jamaican flag.

Legacy 

Ironically, the outgoing right-left coalition has enough support to form Germany’s next government, but under the leadership of the SPD.

However, the Social Democrats have gone into the race with the clear aim of avoiding a repeat of the partnership with Merkel’s conservatives.

No party will team up with the far-right Alternative for Germany, whose score fell to 10.3 per cent from nearly 13 per cent at the last election in 2017.

Should the complex coalition talks last beyond December 17, Merkel would overtake Helmut Kohl as Germany’s longest-serving chancellor since World War II.

REYKJAVIK — Iceland on Sunday became the first country in Europe to have more women than men in parliament, a day after a general election that saw the left-right coalition win a clear majority.

Of the 63 seats in the Althing parliament, 33 were won by women, or 52 per cent, projections based on the final results showed on Sunday.

No other European country has had more than 50 per cent women lawmakers, with Sweden coming closest at 47 per cent, according to data compiled by the World Bank.

Around the world, five other countries currently have parliaments where women hold at least half the seats, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union: Rwanda (61 per cent), Cuba (53 per cent), Nicaragua (51 per cent) and Mexico and the United Arab Emirates (50 per cent).

Unlike some other countries, Iceland does not have legal quotas on female representation in parliament, though some parties do require a minimum number of candidates be women.

The Nordic country has long been a pioneer in gender equality and women’s rights, and has topped the World Economic Forum’s ranking of most egalitarian countries for the past 12 years.

Iceland was the first country to elect a woman as president in 1980.

“I am 85, I’ve waited all my life for women to be in a majority... I am really happy,” Erdna, a Reykjavik resident, told AFP.

PM’s future in doubt 

While Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir’s left-right coalition won a majority in Saturday’s vote, it remained to be seen whether the three parties would continue to govern together.

The coalition has brought Iceland four years of stability after a decade of political crises, but Jakobsdottir’s Left-Green Movement emerged weakened after losing ground to its right-wing partners, which both posted strong showings.

The Left-Green Movement, the conservative Independence Party and the centre-right Progressive Party together won 37 of 63 seats in parliament, up from the 33 they held before the vote.

But the Left-Green Movement itself won only eight seats, three fewer than in 2017, raising questions about Jakobsdottir’s future as prime minister.

The largest party remained the Independence Party, whose leader Bjarni Benediktsson — the current finance minister and a former prime minister — has been eyeing Jakobsdottir’s job.

It won almost a quarter of votes and hung on to its 16 seats.

But the election’s big winner was the centre-right Progressive Party, which gained five seats, to 13.

After four years of concessions on all sides to keep the peace within the coalition, it is conceivable that the two right-wing parties may want to try to form a government without the Left Greens.

Speaking to private broadcaster Stod 2 on Sunday, Jakobsdottir refused to be drawn on the coalition’s future discussions, saying only that her government had received “remarkable” support in the election.

Strange bedfellows 

Progressive Party leader Sigurdur Ingi Johannsson and Independence Party leader Benediktsson meanwhile both said Sunday they were open to discussing a continuation of the coalition, citing voters’ strong support.

Benediktsson told Stod 2 it was “normal for parties that have worked together for four years and had good personal relations” to try to continue together, but told public broadcaster RUV he wasn’t certain they would succeed.

He also wouldn’t necessarily push for the post of prime minister, he said.

The unusual coalition mixing left and right came about after the 2017 elections, in a bid to bring stability to the nation after years of political upheaval.

Deep public distrust of politicians amid repeated scandals sent Icelanders to the polls five times from 2007 to 2017.

This is only the second time since 2008 that a government has made it to the end of its four-year mandate on the sprawling island, and the first time since 2003 that a government has retained its majority.

Broadly popular during her four-year term, Jakobsdottir has introduced a progressive income tax system, increased the social housing budget and extended parental leave for both parents.

She has also been hailed for her handling of the COVID-19 crisis, with just 33 deaths in the country of 370,000.

GLENWOOD, United States — After seeing photos of black-clad Afghan women in full face veils at a pro-Taliban rally in Kabul, Bahar Jalali, an Afghan-American historian, launched a campaign highlighting the vibrant colours of traditional Afghan dresses.

“I was very concerned that the world would think that those clothing worn by those women in Kabul was traditional Afghan clothing, and I don’t want our heritage and culture to be misrepresented,” said Jalali, who lives in Glenwood, Maryland, about an hour’s drive from Washington.

Jalali, 46, created the social media hashtags #DoNotTouchMyClothes and #AfghanistanCulture, which quickly became popular, with women posting photos of themselves wearing colourful, embroidered Afghan clothing and smiling for the camera.

“Afghan women don’t wear hijab,” Jalali told AFP.

“We wear a loose chiffon headscarf that reveals the hair. And anybody who’s familiar with Afghanistan history, culture, knows that the clothing worn by those women have never been seen before in Afghanistan,” she said, referring to demonstrators at the pro-Taliban protest at a university lecture in Kabul earlier this month.

About 300 women — covered head-to-toe in all black in accordance with strict new dress policies for women in education under the Taliban — waved Taliban flags, as speakers railed against the West and expressed support for the hardline Islamists.

“Afghan women don’t dress that way. Afghan women wear the colourful dresses that we showed the world.”

Women’s rights in Afghanistan were sharply curtailed under the Taliban’s 1996-2001 stint in control, but since returning to power last month, they have claimed they will implement a less extreme rule.

Women will be allowed to attend university, as long as classes are segregated by sex or at least divided by a curtain, and women must wear an abaya robe and niqab, which cover the whole body and face, save for a slit for the eyes.

Jalali moved to the United States when she was seven.

She remembers Afghanistan under secular rule, with some women wearing short skirts and sleeveless dresses on the streets of Kabul, while others choosing to wear headscarves.

In 2009, Jalali returned to Afghanistan to teach history and gender studies at the American University in Kabul, in what was the country’s first gender studies programme.

After 8.5 years there, she returned to the United States and now teaches Middle Eastern history at Loyola University Maryland.

“My students were very passionate about gender equality, male and female students,” she recalled.

“So I really can’t imagine how this new generation of Afghanistan that has never witnessed Taliban rule that has grown up in a free and open society, is going to be able to adjust to this dark period that Afghanistan has now entered.”

AACHEN, Germany — Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday urged Germans to give her would-be successor Armin Laschet the vote to shape Germany's future, in a last-ditch push to shore up his beleaguered campaign 24 hours before Germans vote.

Laschet, 60, has been trailing his Social Democrat challenger Olaf Scholz in the race for the chancellery, although final polls put the gap between them within the margin of error, making the vote one of the most unpredictable in recent years.

Merkel had planned to keep a low profile in the election battle as she prepares to bow out of politics after 16 years in power. But she has found herself dragged into the frantic campaign schedule of the unpopular chairman of her party, Laschet.

In the last week of the campaign, Merkel took Laschet to her constituency by the Baltic coast and on Friday headlined the closing rally gathering the conservatives' bigwigs in Munich.

Merkel tugged at the heartstrings of Germany's predominantly older electorate on Friday, calling on them to keep her conservatives in power for the sake of stability — a trademark of Germany.

"To keep Germany stable, Armin Laschet must become chancellor, and the CDU and CSU must be the strongest force," she said.

A day before the vote, she travelled to Laschet's hometown and constituency Aachen, a spa city near Germany's western border with Belgium and the Netherlands, where he was born and still lives.

"It is about your future, the future of your children and the future of your parents," she said, urging strong mobilisation for her conservative alliance.

She underlined that climate protection will be a key challenge of the next government, but said this would not be achieved “simply through rules and regulations”.

“For that we need new technological developments, new procedures, researchers, interested people who think about how that can be done, and people who participate,” she said.

Laschet is a “bridge-builder who will get people on board” in shaping Germany to meet those challenges, she said.

Hundreds of thousands of people had descended on the streets on Friday urging change and greater climate protection, with a leading activist calling Sunday’s election the vote “of a century”.

‘Could backfire’ 

With the clock ticking down to the election, Scholz was also staying close to home at the other end of the country to chase down last votes.

Scholz will be holding “dialogues on the future” with voters in his constituency of Potsdam, a city on the outskirts of Berlin famous for its palaces that once housed Prussian kings.

Scholz, currently finance minister in Merkel’s coalition government, has avoided making mistakes on the campaign trail, and largely won backing as he sold himself as the “continuity candidate” after Merkel in place of Laschet.

Also on the campaign trail on Friday, Scholz demanded a “fresh start for Germany” and “a change of government” after 16 years under Merkel.

Described as capable but boring, Scholz has consistently beaten Laschet by wide margins when it comes to popularity.

As election day loomed, Laschet’s conservatives were closing the gap, with one poll even putting them just one per centage point behind the SPD’s 26 per cent.

Laschet went into the race for the chancellery badly bruised by a tough battle for the conservatives’ chancellor candidate nomination.

Nevertheless, his party enjoyed a substantial lead ahead of the SPD heading into the summer.

But Laschet was seen chuckling behind President Frank-Walter Steinmeier as he paid tribute to victims of deadly floods in July, an image that would drastically turn the mood against him and his party.

As polls showed the lead widening for the SPD, the conservatives turned to their greatest asset — the still widely popular Merkel.

Yet roping in the chancellor is not without risks, said political analyst Oskar Niedermayer of Berlin’s Free University.

“Merkel is still the most well-liked politician. But the joint appearances can become a problem for Laschet because they are then immediately being compared to each other,” he said.

“And it could therefore backfire because people could then think that Merkel is more suitable than Laschet.”