Algeria’s Tebboune re-elected president for second term

People walk past posters of Algeria’s President Abdelmajid Tebboune outside an election campaign headquarters in Algiers on September 8, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 08 September 2024
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Algeria’s Tebboune re-elected president for second term

  • Watchdog Amnesty International said earlier this week Algerian authorities were continuing to “stifle civic space by maintaining a severe repression of human rights”

ALGIERS: Algeria’s incumbent President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has been re-elected with almost 95 percent of the vote, the country’s electoral authority ANIE said Sunday.
More than 5.3 million people voted for Tebboune, accounting for “94.65 percent of the vote,” ANIE head Mohamed Charfi told reporters.
ANIE said it only counted the number of voters who cast a ballot for one of the candidates, excluding blank votes.
Tebboune, 78, has been heavily favored to secure a second term, in the race against moderate Islamist Abdelaali Hassani, 57, who won 3.17 percent of the vote and socialist candidate Youcef Aouchiche, 41, who won 2.16 percent.
While Tebboune’s re-election was certain, his main focus was to boost voter participation in Saturday’s poll after a record-low abstention rate of over 60 percent in 2019.
That year, Tebboune became president amid widely boycotted elections and mass pro-democracy Hirak protests that later died out under his tenure with ramped-up policing and hundreds put in jail.
More than 24 million Algerians were registered to vote. But it remained unclear how many people in total had turned out to cast their ballot.
Earlier Sunday, Hassani’s campaign denounced attempts to “inflate the results.”
It said there had been a “failure to deliver vote-sorting records to the candidates’ representatives” and that it recorded “instances of proxy group voting.”
ANIE, which extended the vote by one hour on Saturday after reporting an “average” turnout, has yet to give the final rate of participation in the election.
“The president has been keen to have a significant turnout,” Hasni Abidi, an Algeria analyst at the Geneva-based CERMAM Study Center, told AFP. “It’s his main issue.”
Tebboune’s win Sunday was still “a victory” although he failed to win the vote of young people, who represent half of Algeria’s 45-million-strong population, Abidi said.
As a result, Abidi said, the re-elected president has been “weakened.”
All three candidates have courted the vote of young people, with promises to improve living standards and reduce dependence on hydrocarbons.
After voting in Algiers Saturday morning, Tebboune did not mention turnout, unlike Aouchiche who called for an end to the “boycott” and Hassani who said more voters would make the election “credible.”
Voters meanwhile expressed hopes that the election would transform things on the ground.
“We want this election to result in a real change... a change for the better,” said voter Hassane Boudaoud, 52.
Seghir Derouiche, 72, told AFP that not voting was “ignoring one’s right.”
Two women, Taous Zaiedi, 66, and Leila Belgaremi, 42, said they were voting to “improve the country.”
Ibrahim Sendjak Eddine, a day laborer, said Algerians “are looking for stability, job opportunities, work and housing.”
Yet Tebboune has touted economic successes during his first term, including more jobs and higher wages in Africa’s largest exporter of natural gas.
Although Algeria’s economy has grown at an annualized rate of about four percent over the past two years, it remains heavily dependent on oil and gas to fund its social assistance programs.
He has pledged to create 450,000 jobs and increase social assistance programs if re-elected.
Many “wondered what was the point of voting when all predictions were in favor of the president,” said Abidi.
“Not voting does not mean political opposition,” he added. “Rather, it means people did not see themselves as part of the electoral game.”
The analyst said Tebboune should now address the major deficit in political and media freedoms, with Algerians having “divorced current politics” after the Hirak protests ended.
Watchdog Amnesty International said earlier this week Algerian authorities were continuing to “stifle civic space by maintaining a severe repression of human rights.”
Five years after the Hirak protest movement, Algeria has seen “new arbitrary arrests” while authorities maintain “a zero tolerance approach to dissenting opinions.”
Dozens remain behind bars or are still being prosecuted due to their activism, according to prisoners’ rights group CNLD.


Hezbollah’s capabilities still intact despite Israeli claims: group’s deputy chief

Updated 15 min 46 sec ago
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Hezbollah’s capabilities still intact despite Israeli claims: group’s deputy chief

  • Naim Qasim says the group supports ceasefire efforts
  • Hezbollah’s deputy chief vows to displace settlers from northern Israel

BEIRUT: Hezbollah’s deputy chief Naim Qasim said in a televised speech on Tuesday that the Iran-backed group’s capabilities were still intact and fighters were pushing back ground incursions inot Lebanon despite Israel’s claims and “painful blows.” 
Vowing to continue the “resistance”, Qasim said more Israelis will be displaced from nothern Israel as the militant group expands its rocket fire.
“We are firing hundreds of rockets and dozens of drones. A large number of settlements and cities are under the fire of the resistance,” he added in his address the day after the first year anniversary of the October 7 attacks which prompted the Israeli bombardment of Gaza and later Lebanon killing thousands and displacing millions. “Our capabilities are fine and our fighters are deployed along the frontlines."
He said, “Israel said it will return its settlers to northern Israel, but we vow to displace thousands more.” 
Qasim noted that the displacement of one million Lebanese people amid the escalating violence was a “burden and sacrifice for the resistance.” 
“The enemy thinks that it will weaken us by targeting innocent civilians, so the only solution for us is to resist and persist,” said Qasim. 

He also said Israeli forces have not been able to advance after launching a ground incursion into Lebanon last week. The Israeli military said a fourth division is now taking part in the incursion, which has expanded to the west, but operations still appear to be confined to a narrow strip along the border.

Support for ceasefire efforts
Qasim stressed that the group supported the efforts of Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri - a Hezbollah ally - to secure a ceasefire. 

“In any case, after the issue of a ceasefire takes shape, and once diplomacy can achieve it, all of the other details can be discussed and decisions can be taken,” Qasim said.
“If the enemy (Israel) continues its war, then the battlefield will decide,” he added.

While the group has replaced its slain commanders, Qassim said electing a new secretary general to succeed Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli strike on Beirut last month, had been challenging due to the war, but “we will announce it once it has been done.” 
“No positions are vacant. All our roles are filled,” said the leader. 
He noted that the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel was a war about who cries first, and the militant group would not cry first.
Praising Iran’s support to the “resistance”, Qasim accused the US of being an essential partner of the crimes in Gaza. 

“The battle is not a battle for Iranian influence, but to help the Palestinians,” said Qasim.
He noted that Lebanon had always been a target for Israel even before its support for Gaza after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed to want to form a new Middle East. “We were always the target but the time had never come,” he said. 
“But for 11 months, our rockets have drained Israel,” said Qasim as he vowed victory. 
The regional tensions triggered a year ago by Palestinian armed group Hamas’ attack on southern Israel have spiraled to a series of Israeli operations by land and air over Lebanon and direct attacks by Iran onto Israeli military installations.
Iran warned Israel on Tuesday against any attacks on the Islamic Republic, a week after Tehran fired a barrage of missiles on it, putting the Middle East on edge.


EU’s Borrell says situation in Lebanon is getting worse by the day

Updated 08 October 2024
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EU’s Borrell says situation in Lebanon is getting worse by the day

  • A World Food Programme official also voiced concern about Lebanon’s ability to feed itself

BRUSSELS: The situation in Lebanon is getting worse by the day, the European Union’s foreign chief Josep Borrell told the European Parliament on Tuesday, adding a ceasefire should be achieved.
According to figures, some 20 percent of the Lebanese population had been forced to move, he said.

A World Food Programme official also voiced concern on Tuesday about Lebanon’s ability to feed itself, saying thousands of hectares of farmland across the country’s south has burned or been abandoned amid escalating hostilities.
“Agriculture-wise, food production-wise, (there is) extraordinary concern for Lebanon’s ability to continue to feed itself,” Matthew Hollingworth, WFP country director in Lebanon, told a Geneva press briefing, adding that harvests will not occur and that produce is rotting in fields.
At the same briefing, World Health Organization official Ian Clarke in Beirut warned that there was a much higher risk of disease outbreaks among Lebanon’s displaced population.

Last week, Israel launched what it called a limited ground operation into southern Lebanon after a series of attacks killed longtime Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and most of his top commanders. The fighting is the worst since Israel and Hezbollah fought a month-long war in 2006.
Beirut’s skyline lit up again late Sunday with new airstrikes, a day after Israel’s heaviest bombardment of the southern suburbs known as the Dahiyeh since it escalated its air campaign on Sept. 23.


Palestinian prime minister announces national team to reconstruct Gaza

Updated 08 October 2024
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Palestinian prime minister announces national team to reconstruct Gaza

RAMALLAH: Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa has announced the formation of a national team to reconstruct Gaza.

In a live broadcast from Ramallah on Tuesday, Mustafa said the state had already provided more than 400,000 people in Gaza with aid so far and would continue to do so.

The cost of reconstructing the Gaza Strip could reach $50 billion, according to a UN Development Program official.

Abdullah Al-Dardari, director of the UNDP Regional Office for Arab States, highlighted the critical situation following any potential ceasefire.

He emphasized that the most dangerous phase would be the day after a ceasefire, as displaced individuals and those who had lost their homes anxiously awaited the start of the reconstruction process.

War in Gaza broke out after Hamas provoked Israel on Oct. 7. Israel’s military assault on Gaza has killed nearly 42,000 Palestinians since, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

It has also displaced nearly all of the enclave’s 2.3 million residents, prompted a hunger crisis and led to genocide allegations at the World Court that Israel denies.

The war in Gaza has spread through the region, drawing in Iran-backed groups in Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq.

Israel has escalated ground and air offensives in recent weeks in Lebanon, killing hundreds, wounded thousands and displaced over a million.

Israel says it is attempting to dismantle Lebanese Iran-backed Hezbollah militants.

Iran launched a barrage of missiles against Israel this week to which Israel has not yet responded.

Israeli operations have also escalated in the Israeli-occupied West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza.

The Israeli military said on Tuesday it had launched targeted raids against Hezbollah in southwest Lebanon, expanding its ground operations along the country’s coastline after deploying more troops.

Last week, Israel launched what it called a limited ground operation into southern Lebanon after a series of attacks killed longtime Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and most of his top commanders. The fighting is the worst since Israel and Hezbollah fought a month-long war in 2006.

Beirut’s skyline lit up again late Sunday with new airstrikes, a day after Israel’s heaviest bombardment of the southern suburbs known as the Dahiyeh since it escalated its air campaign on Sept. 23.

Over the past year, the scale of the killing and destruction in Gaza has drawn some of the biggest global protests in years, including in the US, that saw weeks of pro-Palestinian college campus encampments.

Advocates have raised concerns over alarming antisemitic and Islamophobic rhetoric in some protests and counter-protests related to the conflict. Rights advocates have warned about rising threats against Muslims and Jews around the world.


Turkiye says will evacuate citizens from Lebanon on Wednesday

Updated 08 October 2024
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Turkiye says will evacuate citizens from Lebanon on Wednesday

  • Turkiye is estimated to have 14,000 citizens registered with its consulate in Lebanon

ISTANBUL: Turkiye is sending ships to evacuate around 2,000 of its citizens from Lebanon on Wednesday, the foreign ministry said.
Two Turkish navy ships will leave a port in southern Turkish province of Mersin for Beirut on Tuesday, the ministry said in a statement.
Turkiye is estimated to have 14,000 citizens registered with its consulate in Lebanon.
Turkish officials said they had drawn up contingency plans to evacuate their citizens from Lebanon because of the deteriorating security situation on the ground.
Last week, the foreign ministry said guidelines for the evacuation of third countries’ citizens via Turkiye have also been determined, adding that necessary preparations were underway in cooperation with nearly 20 countries that have requested support.


Sudan’s warring sides target local aid volunteers fighting famine

Updated 08 October 2024
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Sudan’s warring sides target local aid volunteers fighting famine

  • Arrests and looting hinder Sudan’s community kitchens
  • Some have stopped serving meals for weeks in areas at risk of famine
  • Donors have ramped up support, but volunteers say this is making them a target for troops

KHARTOUM: Local volunteers who have helped to feed Sudan’s most destitute during 17 months of war say attacks against them by the opposing sides are making it difficult to provide life-saving aid amid the world’s biggest hunger crisis.
Many volunteers have fled under threat of arrest or violence, and communal kitchens they set up in a country where hundreds are estimated to be dying of starvation and hunger-related diseases each day have stopped serving meals for weeks at a time.
Reuters spoke with 24 volunteers who manage kitchens in Sudan’s central state of Khartoum, the western region of Darfur and parts of the east where millions of people have been driven from their homes since fighting erupted between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
International humanitarian agencies, which have been unable to get food aid to parts of Sudan at risk of famine, have ramped up support for such groups. But that has made them more of a target for RSF looters, 10 of the volunteers told Reuters by phone.
“We were safe when the RSF didn’t know about the funding,” said Gihad Salaheldin, a volunteer who left Khartoum city last year and spoke from Cairo. “They see our kitchens as a source of food.”
Both sides have also attacked or detained volunteers on suspicion of collaborating with their opponents, a dozen volunteers said.
Most of the volunteers spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
One volunteer in Bahri, a city that together with Khartoum and Omdurman makes up Sudan’s greater capital, said troops in RSF uniforms stole the phone he used to receive donations via a mobile banking app along with 3 million Sudanese pounds ($1,200) in cash intended for food in June.
It was one of five incidents this year in which he says he was attacked or harassed by paramilitary troops who control neighborhoods where he oversees 21 kitchens serving around 10,000 people.
Later that month, troops burst into a home housing one of the kitchens in the middle of the night and stole sacks of sorghum and beans. The volunteer, who had been sleeping there, said he was bound, gagged and whipped for hours by troops who wanted to know who was funding the group.
Reuters could not independently verify his account, but three other volunteers said that he reported the events to the rest of the group at the time.
The frequency of such incidents increased as international funding for communal kitchens picked up heading into the summer, according to eight volunteers from Khartoum state, which is mostly controlled by the RSF.
Many kitchens do not keep data on attacks, while others declined to provide details for fear of drawing more unwanted attention. However, volunteers described to Reuters 25 incidents targeting their kitchens or volunteers in the state since July alone, including more thefts and beatings and the detention of at least 52 people.
Groups that run kitchens there have announced the deaths of at least three volunteers in armed attacks, including one they said was shot and killed by RSF troops in Khartoum’s SHajjarah neighborhood in September. The identities of the other assailants were not immediately clear, and Reuters could not verify the accounts.
“Community kitchens in Sudan are a lifeline for people who are trapped in areas with ongoing conflict,” said Eddie Rowe, the UN World Food Programme’s country director in Sudan.
“By supporting them, WFP is able to get food into the hands of hundreds of thousands of people at risk of famine, even in the face of severe access constraints,” he told Reuters, saying the safety of aid workers must be guaranteed.
The RSF and Sudanese Armed Forces did not respond to questions for this article. However, the RSF has previously denied targeting aid workers and said any rogue elements who did so would be brought to justice.
The military has also said it does not target aid workers, but anyone who collaborates with the “rebellious” RSF is subject to arrest.

Marauding troops
UN officials say more than half of Sudan’s population – 25.6 million people – are experiencing acute hunger and need urgent assistance. In the worst-hit areas, residents displaced by fighting or under siege in their homes have resorted to eating dirt and leaves.
Local volunteers founded hundreds of kitchens early in the war that served hot meals — typically a meagre porridge of sorghum, lentils or beans — once or twice a day. But as food prices soared and private donations dwindled, some had to close or reduce services to as little as five times a month.
In North Darfur state, a group that runs kitchens in a camp housing half a million people displaced by ethnically driven violence has repeatedly had to stop serving meals due to insufficient funds, a volunteer there said. A global authority on hunger crises said in August that the conflict and restrictions on aid deliveries have caused famine in the Zamzam camp.
Many communal kitchens are operated by a loose network of community groups known as emergency response rooms, which have tried to sustain basic services, such as water and power, and distribute food and medical supplies.
Both the army and RSF distrust these groups, in part because they include people who were members of grassroots “resistance committees” that led pro-democracy protests during the uprising that toppled former autocrat Omar Al-Bashir in 2019. The volunteers who spoke to Reuters said the objectives of the emergency response rooms are purely humanitarian.
The army joined forces with the RSF to derail the political transition that followed Bashir’s ouster by staging a military coup two years later, but rivalries between them erupted into open warfare in April 2023.
In the worst-hit areas, local volunteers said they were now being targeted weekly or every few days by marauding troops, compared to roughly once a month earlier in the year. Some have started hiding food supplies at different locations to avoid being cleaned out by a single raid.
Reuters spoke to nine volunteers who fled various parts of the country after being targeted by the warring sides.
“These attacks are having a huge negative impact on our work,” Salaheldin said from Cairo. “We are losing our volunteers who are serving their communities.”
In areas where the army retains control, six volunteers described arrests and surveillance that they said drove away people who had helped run kitchens, reducing their capacity to operate.
A UN fact-finding mission discovered that, of 65 cases tried by army-convened courts against alleged “commanders and employees” of the RSF as of June, 63 targeted activists and humanitarian workers. They included members of emergency response rooms, the mission said in its report.
Both sides have deployed siege-like tactics to prevent food and other supplies reaching their opponents, according to relief workers. The RSF and allied militias have also looted aid hubs and plundered harvests, they say.
The warring parties have traded blame for delays in the delivery of food relief, while the RSF has denied looting aid.
Military chief General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo both said in September that they were committed to facilitating the flow of aid.

Donor reticence
As hunger spreads, emergency response rooms have set up 419 kitchens that aim to serve over 1 million people daily in Khartoum state alone, said Abdallah Gamar, a state organizer. But volunteers have struggled to secure the $1,175,000 needed every month. In September, they received around $614,000, Gamar told Reuters.
In the beginning, most of their support came from the Sudanese diaspora, but the resources of these donors have been depleted, Gamar said.
Aid workers said many foreign donors hesitated to fund kitchens because the groups running them are not registered with the government and often use personal bank accounts.
“There’s a lot of risk aversion when it comes to supporting unregistered platforms,” said Mathilde Vu, the Norwegian Refugee Council’s advocacy manager for Sudan.
Her organization began supporting local responders in Sudan last year, she said. “Now we have seen that a lot of NGOs, UN agencies and donors are starting to realize that we cannot do any humanitarian response — we can’t save lives — without them.”
Some donors are now working through registered intermediaries to get funding to communal kitchens. The WFP, for example, began partnering with local aid groups in July to help some 200 kitchens provide hot meals to up to 175,000 people daily in greater Khartoum, spending more than $2 million to date, said spokesperson Leni Kinzli.
Volunteers welcomed the support but said it can take weeks for money to filter down to kitchens through intermediaries. Cumbersome reporting requirements add to the delays, they said.
“The kitchens work in a sporadic way — there’s no consistent funding,” said Mohamed Abdallah, spokesperson for an emergency response room south of Khartoum. He said his group sometimes has only enough money to provide meals once a week, including in neighborhoods at risk of famine.
Justin Brady, who heads the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Sudan, said donors need safeguards to ensure funds are used for their intended purpose but have taken steps to simplify the process.
Meanwhile, needs continue to grow.
The arrival of the rainy season over the summer brought flash floods and a heightened risk of deadly diseases such as cholera and malaria, stretching resources even thinner, volunteers said.
Sudan’s currency has fallen around 300 percent against the dollar on the parallel market during the war, and food prices have risen by almost as much, according to WFP surveys.
“In neighborhoods where we had one kitchen, we now need three more,” said Hind Altayif, spokesperson for volunteers in Sharq Al-Nil, a district adjacent to Bahri where she said several people were dying of hunger each month. “As the war goes on, we’ll see more people reaching rock bottom.”
In one Bahri neighborhood, people line up twice a day with bowls and buckets to collect ladles of gruel prepared over a fire in the courtyard of a volunteer’s home. Standing among them are teachers, traders and others cut off from livelihoods.
“We don’t have any food at home because we don’t have the money,” said a 50-year-old housewife, who like others interviewed requested anonymity for safety. “We rely on the community kitchen ... We don’t have an alternative.”