UNITED NATIONS: Russia on Wednesday accused the United States of ‘destructive’ meddling in Nicaragua’s affairs for calling a UN Security Council meeting on the crisis in the Central American country.
Human rights groups say more than 300 people have died in Nicaragua during four months of anti-government unrest that have seen police and the military open fire on protesters opposed to President Daniel Ortega’s rule.
Russia, China and Bolivia opposed the US-chaired meeting, but US Ambassador Nikki Haley said the top UN body “should not — it cannot — be a passive observer as Nicaragua continues to decline into a failed, corrupt and dictatorial state.”
“The Security Council is being transformed into something of a judge over Nicaragua,” Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the meeting, the first to be held by the council since large-scale protests erupted in April.
Nebenzia described the US decision to raise Nicaragua at the UN council as a “glaring and grim example of destructive foreign intervention” and accused Washington of stoking division in the country.
“Following today’s discussion, polarization in Nicaragua will only worsen. The initiators are indeed seeking to achieve that.”
Russia argued that the situation was “stabilizing” and that differences between the government and its opponents should be resolved “through direct peaceful dialogue, with pressure from abroad.”
Haley drew a parallel with Venezuela, arguing that the economic and political crisis there was caused by the failed policies of President Nicolas Maduro.
“Daniel Ortega and Nicolas Maduro are cut from the same corrupt cloth. They are both students of the same failed ideology. And they are both dictators who live in fear of their own people,” said Haley.
More than 25,000 Nicaraguans have fled to Costa Rica since the start of the crisis, and others have found refuge in Honduras, Panama and Mexico, she said.
China, Russia and Bolivia argued that the crisis in Nicaragua did not pose a threat to international peace and security, which, according to the UN charter, would make it a matter to be addressed by the Security Council.
Nicaragua’s Foreign Minister Denis Moncada told the council that “this meeting is a clear interference in the internal affairs of Nicaragua” and a violation of the UN charter.
Ortega kept it simpler. He told thousands of supporters later that “if the United States wants to help the Nicaraguan people, to contribute to peace, the best thing they can do is not mess with Nicaragua!“
A UN human rights mission last week released a report detailing serious abuses in Nicaragua including disproportionate use of force by police, which resulted in killings, disappearances, detentions and torture.
That four-member mission was forced to leave Nicaragua on Saturday at the government’s request.
Russia at UN accuses US of ‘destructive’ meddling in Nicaragua
Russia at UN accuses US of ‘destructive’ meddling in Nicaragua
World copper rush promises new riches for Zambia
CAPE TOWN: Five years after becoming Africa’s first Covid-era debt defaulter, Zambia is seeing a dramatic turnaround in fortunes as major powers vie for access to its vast reserves of copper.
Surging demand from the artificial intelligence, green energy and defense sectors has exponentially boosted demand for the workhorse metal that underpins power grids, data centers and electric vehicles.
The scramble for copper exposes geopolitical rivalries as industrial heavyweights — including China, the United States, Canada, Europe, India and Gulf states — compete to secure supplies.
“We have the investors back,” President Hakainde Hichilema told delegates at the African Mining Indaba conference on Monday, saying that more than $12 billion had flowed into the sector since 2022.
The politically stable country is Africa’s second-largest copper producer, after the conflict-ridden Democratic Republic of Congo, and the world’s eighth, according to the US Geological Survey.
The metal, needed for solar panels and wind turbines, generates about 15 percent of Zambia’s GDP and more than 70 percent of export earnings.
Output rose eight percent last year to more than 890,000 metric tons and the government aims to triple production within a decade.
Mining is driving growth that is forecast by the International Monetary Fund to reach 5.2 percent in 2025 and 5.8 percent this year, which places Zambia among the continent’s faster-growing economies.
“The seeds are sprouting and the harvest is coming,” Hichilema said, touting a planned nationwide geological survey to map untapped deposits.
But the rapid expansion of the heavily polluting industry has also led to warnings about risks to local communities and concerns of “pit-to-port” extraction, in which raw copper is shipped directly abroad with little domestic refining.
’Dramatic new chapter’
“We need to be aware of the potential for history to repeat itself,” said Daniel Litvin, founder of the Resource Resolutions group that promotes sustainable development, referring to the colonial-era scramble for Africa’s resources.
There is a risk that elites will be enriched at the expense of the broader population, while “narratives of partnership” offered by major powers can mask underlying self-interest, he said.
Chinese firms have long dominated the sector in Zambia and control major stakes in key mines and smelters, cementing Beijing’s early-mover advantage.
Another major player is Canada’s First Quantum Minerals, Zambia’s largest corporate taxpayer.
Investors from India and the Gulf are expanding their footprint, and the United States is returning to the market after largely pulling out decades ago.
Washington, which has been stockpiling copper, this month launched a $12 billion “Project Vault” public-private initiative to secure critical minerals, part of an effort to reduce reliance on China.
In September, the US Trade and Development Agency announced a $1.4 million grant to a Metalex Commodities subsidiary, Metalex Africa, to expand operations in Zambia.
“We are at the beginning of what is going to unfold to be a dramatic new chapter in the way that the free world sources and trades in critical minerals,” US energy secretary adviser Mike Kopp said at Mining Indaba.
Sweeping US tariffs introduced last year helped send copper prices soaring to record highs, as companies rushed to buy both semi-finished and refined stocks.
Cost of rush
“The risk is that this great power competition becomes a race to secure supply on terms that serve markets and not the people in producer countries,” said Deprose Muchena, a program director at the Open Society Foundation.
Despite its mineral wealth, more than 70 percent of Zambia’s 21 million people live in poverty, according to the World Bank.
“The world is waking up to Zambia’s copper. But Zambia has been living with copper and its consequences for a century,” Muchena told AFP.
Environmental damage caused by mining has long plagued Zambia’s copper belt.
In February 2025, a burst tailings dam at a Chinese-owned mine near Kitwe, about 285 kilometers (180 miles) north of Lusaka, spilled millions of liters of acidic waste.
Toxins entered a tributary feeding the Kafue, Zambia’s longest river and a major source of drinking water. Zambian farmers have filed an $80 billion lawsuit.
“Whether this boom is different depends on whether governance, rights, and community agency are at the center, not just supply chain security,” Muchena said.
