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Straits Times
11 hours ago
- Business
- Straits Times
Vatican-backed report seeks financial reform to avert decades of lost development
FILE PHOTO: A woman carries sack of charcoal, as she walks down a busy street, in Jamestown in Accra, Ghana December 6, 2024. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra/File Photo LONDON - A commission launched by the late Pope Francis has outlined financial reforms it says could help to avert decades of lost development in poor countries that face onerous repayments as global public debts reach record levels. The Jubilee Commission report is published ahead of the once-a-decade United Nations Financing for Development Conference that takes place in Seville, Spain, later in June. The environment for this jubilee-year campaign could hardly be more different from the last - 25 years ago - that yielded billions in historic debt forgiveness. Mariana Mazzucato, a University College London professor and member of the commission, said today's debt crisis was symptomatic of "a broken investment model". "The solution has to be public investment strategies that build productive capacity, domestic value added and sustainable fiscal space," she said. The report recommends measures including more debt suspension initiatives and steps to ensure money from institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, does not end up flowing from countries to private creditors. It also urges legal changes in London and New York - the jurisdictions for most bond contracts - to disincentivise creditors from refusing to take part during debt restructurings. After the debt forgiveness that followed the previous jubilee campaign, many developing countries, freed of their existing debt, turned to more expensive private lending, and China's lending ballooned. As a result, countries including Sri Lanka, Zambia and Ghana slid into default. A wave of sovereign defaults unleashed by the COVID-19 pandemic - and exacerbated by the pressure of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and a global rate-hiking cycle that boosted borrowing costs - largely crested last year. But the commission said dozens of countries are still squeezing spending to repay debt - with long-term implications for development and social cohesion. Average interest costs for developing countries as a share of tax revenues has almost doubled since 2014, while 3.3 billion people - and more than half of Africans - live in countries that spend more on debt service than health. The system, the commission's leaders said, traps countries in a cycle in which private lenders send cash when times are good - but quickly shut off access when global risk re-emerges. When lenders of last resort, such as the IMF, send money, the commission said that money often goes towards repaying creditors to avoid default. Martin Guzman, commission co-chair and Argentina's ex-Economy minister, said that created a problem for both creditors and debtors. "They don't come to the table with the right conditions for engaging timely and sustainable restructurings, and that aggravates the development crisis," he said. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
The Star
10-06-2025
- Politics
- The Star
US wants Rwandan troops out of Congo before peace deal signed, sources say
FILE PHOTO: A labourer carries a sack of ore at the Rubaya coltan mine, in the town of Rubaya, which is controlled by M23 rebels, in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo March 24, 2025. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra/File Photo (Reuters) -The United States is promoting a deal that would require Rwanda to pull troops from eastern Congo before the two sides sign a peace agreement, sources say, a condition that is sure to rankle Kigali, which describes Congo-based armed groups as an existential threat. U.S. President Donald Trump's administration is holding talks to end fighting in eastern Congo and bring billions of dollars of Western investment to the region, which is rich in minerals including tantalum, gold, cobalt, copper and lithium. Massad Boulos, Trump's senior adviser for Africa, told Reuters in May that Washington wanted a peace agreement finalised "within about two months", an ambitious timeline for resolving a conflict with roots in the Rwandan genocide more than three decades ago. A draft peace agreement seen by Reuters says a condition for signature is that Rwanda withdraws troops, weapons and equipment from Congo. The authenticity of the document, which is undated, was confirmed by four diplomatic sources, who said it was written by U.S. officials. The draft goes beyond a declaration of principles that the two countries' foreign ministers signed at a ceremony in Washington in April with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. That document said the two sides would address any security concerns in a manner that respected each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty. LIGHTNING ADVANCE Rwanda has sent between 7,000 and 12,000 soldiers to eastern Congo to support M23 rebels, analysts and diplomats told Reuters earlier this year, after the rebel group seized the region's two largest cities in a lightning advance. Rwanda has long denied providing arms and troops to M23, saying its forces are acting in self-defence against Congo's army and ethnic Hutu militiamen linked to the 1994 genocide that killed around 1 million people, mostly ethnic Tutsis. Rwanda had not responded to the U.S.-produced draft agreement as of last week, two sources told Reuters. Rwandan Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe told Reuters that experts from Congo and Rwanda would meet this week in Washington to discuss the agreement. The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A senior official in the office of Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi accused Rwanda of "dragging their feet" on the draft and said Rwanda's withdrawal was necessary for the peace process to move forward. "We demand the total withdrawal of Rwandan troops as a precondition for signing the agreement, and we will not compromise," the source said. QATAR-HOSTED TALKS The U.S.-produced draft agreement also calls for a "Joint Security Coordination Mechanism" that could include Rwandan and "foreign military observer personnel" to deal with security issues, including the continued presence in Congo of Rwandan Hutu militias. Analysts say the most commonly cited group, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, no longer poses much of a threat to Rwanda, though President Paul Kagame's government still describes it as a serious threat. The draft agreement also says Congo would commit to allowing M23 to participate in a national dialogue "on equal footing with other DRC non-state armed groups" - a major concession for Kinshasa, which sees M23 as a terrorist group and Rwandan proxy. Congo is engaged in separate direct talks with M23 over a possible deal to end the latest cycle of fighting. The draft agreement says Rwanda "shall take all possible measures to ensure" M23 withdraws from territory it controls, in line with terms agreed in Doha. A source briefed on that process told Reuters last week that Qatar had presented a draft proposal to both delegations which would consult their leaders before resuming talks. A rebel official, though, said there had been little progress towards a final deal that would see M23 cede territory. (Writing by Sonia Rolley; Editing by Robbie Corey-Boulet and Alex Richardson)
Japan Today
03-06-2025
- General
- Japan Today
More than 4 million refugees have fled Sudan civil war, U.N. says
FILE PHOTO: A Sudanese woman, who fled the conflict in Geneina in Sudan's Darfur region, talks to her relative through a fence next to makeshift shelters, in Adre, Chad August 5, 2023. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra/File Photo By Emma Farge The number of people who have fled Sudan since the beginning of its civil war in 2023 has surpassed four million, U.N. refugee agency officials said on Tuesday, adding that many survivors faced inadequate shelter due to funding shortages. "Now in its third year, the 4 million people is a devastating milestone in what is the world's most damaging displacement crisis at the moment," U.N. refugee agency spokesperson Eujin Byun told a Geneva press briefing. "If the conflict continues in Sudan, thousands more people, we expect thousands more people will continue to flee, putting regional and global stability at stake," she said. Sudan, which erupted in violence in April 2023, shares borders with seven countries: Chad, South Sudan, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Central African Republic and Libya. More than 800,000 of the refugees have arrived in Chad, where their shelter conditions are dire due to funding shortages, with only 14% of funding appeals met, UNHCR's Dossou Patrice Ahouansou told the same briefing. "This is an unprecedented crisis that we are facing. This is a crisis of humanity. This is a crisis of ... protection based on the violence that refugees are reporting," he said. Many of those fleeing reported surviving terror and violence, he added, describing meeting a seven-year-old girl in Chad who was hurt in an attack on her home in Sudan's Zamzam displacement camp that killed her father and two brothers and had to have her leg amputated during her escape. Her mother had been killed in an earlier attack, he said. Other refugees told stories of armed groups taking their horses and donkeys and forcing adults to draw their own family members by cart as they fled, he said. © Thomson Reuters 2025.
Straits Times
03-06-2025
- General
- Straits Times
More than 4 million refugees have fled Sudan civil war, UN says
FILE PHOTO: A Sudanese woman, who fled the conflict in Geneina in Sudan's Darfur region, talks to her relative through a fence next to makeshift shelters, in Adre, Chad August 5, 2023. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra/File Photo GENEVA - The number of people who have fled Sudan since the beginning of its civil war in 2023 has surpassed four million, U.N. refugee agency officials said on Tuesday, adding that many survivors faced inadequate shelter due to funding shortages. "Now in its third year, the 4 million people is a devastating milestone in what is the world's most damaging displacement crisis at the moment," U.N. refugee agency spokesperson Eujin Byun told a Geneva press briefing. "If the conflict continues in Sudan, thousands more people, we expect thousands more people will continue to flee, putting regional and global stability at stake," she said. Sudan, which erupted in violence in April 2023, shares borders with seven countries: Chad, South Sudan, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Central African Republic and Libya. More than 800,000 of the refugees have arrived in Chad, where their shelter conditions are dire due to funding shortages, with only 14% of funding appeals met, UNHCR's Dossou Patrice Ahouansou told the same briefing. "This is an unprecedented crisis that we are facing. This is a crisis of humanity. This is a crisis of ... protection based on the violence that refugees are reporting," he said. Many of those fleeing reported surviving terror and violence, he added, describing meeting a seven-year-old girl in Chad who was hurt in an attack on her home in Sudan's Zamzam displacement camp that killed her father and two brothers and had to have her leg amputated during her escape. Her mother had been killed in an earlier attack, he said. Other refugees told stories of armed groups taking their horses and donkeys and forcing adults to draw their own family members by cart as they fled, he said. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
The Star
03-06-2025
- General
- The Star
More than 4 million refugees have fled Sudan since war began, UN says
FILE PHOTO: A Sudanese woman, who fled the conflict in Geneina in Sudan's Darfur region, talks to her relative through a fence next to makeshift shelters, in Adre, Chad August 5, 2023. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra/File Photo
