NAIROBI, Kenya: The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) on Saturday welcomed calls for “restraint and dialogue,” days after fresh clashes erupted between local and federal forces in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region.
TPLF, a leading opposition party, once ran the whole of Ethiopia until it was displaced by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, and remains banned from engaging in political activities.
Hostilities flared in recent days in Tsemlet, western Tigray — an area claimed by forces from the neighboring Amhara region — raising fears of a renewed conflict between local fighters and federal troops.
The fighting has drawn concerns from the African Union, which called on “all parties to exercise maximum restraint.”
In a letter to the AU, the TPLF said it endorsed “the call for restraint and dialogue,” adding that it was ready “to engage constructively in any dialogue initiative facilitated by the African Union.”
This comes after two drone attacks in central Tigray on Saturday morning targeted trucks and killed a driver, according to Dimtsi Woyane television — a media outlet close to the Tigrayan authorities.
The fresh clashes come barely three years after the volatile region emerged from a brutal war between Ethiopian forces and TPLF that the AU says killed at least 600,000 people.
Flights to Tigray have been suspended since Thursday following the recent clashes.
Ethiopia’s federal army has yet to respond to AFP requests for comment on the situation in the region.
A statement from the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres’s office said he was “closely following” developments in the region.
“He is deeply concerned about the potential impact on civilians and the risk of a return to a wider conflict in a region still working to rebuild and recover,” the statement added.
Guterres called on “all parties to exercise restraint,” said the statement.
The European Union also warned on Saturday that any renewed conflict would have “serious consequences for civilians and regional stability.”
Tension has been brewing in northern Ethiopia for several months as Amhara and Eritrean forces remain present in violation of the peace deal.
Last year, the head of Tigray’s interim administration established by Addis Ababa was forced to flee Mekele, the regional capital, amid growing divisions within the TPLF.
Addis Ababa accuses the group of forging ties with neighboring Eritrea and “actively preparing to wage war against Ethiopia.”
Tigray party calls for ‘restraint and dialogue’ in restive Ethiopian region
https://arab.news/pp8p7
Tigray party calls for ‘restraint and dialogue’ in restive Ethiopian region
- Hostilities flared in recent days in Tsemlet, western Tigray
- Fighting has drawn concerns from the African Union
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.
