AFP Asia Business

Tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump on dozens of countries have so far not affected container ship traffic through the Panama Canal, its administrator said Thursday.Allies and adversaries alike are facing higher levies on exports to the United States as Trump’s long-threatened “reciprocal” tariffs go into effect over trade practices he considers unfair.Analysts have …

Trump’s tariffs have not reduced Panama Canal traffic — yet Read More »

Wall Street stocks finished little changed Thursday as markets absorbed a disappointing inflation report, while oil prices shot higher on the eve of a US-Russia summit on Ukraine.After a negative start, major US indices worked their way back up to even following July wholesale price data.The producer price index rose 0.9 percent on a month-on-month …

Oil prices rise ahead of US-Russia summit as stocks digest inflation data Read More »

The United Nations warned Israel and Russia on Thursday that their militaries faced being listed as parties suspected of committing sexual violence in conflict in light of credible evidence of violations.UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres’s report said the two countries risked being added to a list of parties thought to use sexual violence including rape in conflict that includes Myanmar’s military, Sudan’s army and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.”Due to significant concerns regarding patterns of certain forms of sexual violence perpetrated by Israeli armed and security forces and Russian armed and security forces and affiliated armed groups, these parties have been put on notice for potential listing in the next reporting period,” said the annual report. “These concerns relate primarily to violations recorded in detention settings.”In the case of Israel, the report alleges “credible information” military and security forces perpetrated patterns of sexual violence including “genital violence, prolonged forced nudity and repeated strip searches conducted in an abusive and degrading manner.”In February, the Israeli army said it had charged five soldiers for abusing a Palestinian detainee at a site used to hold Palestinians following the start of the war in Gaza in the wake of the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas.Among the charges was an allegation that the accused had stabbed a man with a sharp object “which had penetrated near the detainee’s rectum.”The report said there was “credible” evidence of violations “against Ukrainian prisoners of war, in 50 official and 22 unofficial detention facilities in Ukraine” and Russia.”These cases comprised a significant number of documented incidents of genital violence, including electrocution, beatings and burns to the genitals, and forced stripping and prolonged nudity, used to humiliate and elicit confessions or information,” it said.In 2024, the human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine documented 209 cases of conflict-related sexual violence, including rape, the report added.Israel has cooperated with a special representative on the issue of sexual violence in conflict, whereas Russia has not, the report said.The report said however that Israel’s refusal to grant access to inspectors had frustrated her ability to determine patterns and trends.Israel rejected the report’s findings and called a letter that accompanied it from Guterres “unusual.” “The UN must focus on the shocking war crimes and sexual violence of Hamas and the release of all hostages,” Israel’s ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said.”Israel will not shy away from protecting its citizens and will continue to act in accordance with international law.”Russia’s embassy to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment.

Cholera has claimed at least 40 lives in Sudan’s Darfur region over the last week as the country weathers its worst outbreak of in years, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on Thursday.At a cholera isolation tent at a Sudanese displacement camp, an AFP journalist saw women and a young girl receiving intravenous fluids, while exhausted and weak patients sprawled on camp beds.Citing rising cases of cholera which “exacerbate the worst effects of malnutrition”, the European Union called on all parties to “urgently” allow in international aid.Medical charity MSF said the vast western region, which has been a major battleground over more than two years of fighting between the regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, had been hardest hit by the year-old outbreak.”On top of an all-out war, people in Sudan are now experiencing the worst cholera outbreak the country has seen in years,” MSF said in a statement. “In the Darfur region alone, MSF teams treated over 2,300 patients and recorded 40 deaths in the past week.”The NGO said 2,470 cholera-related deaths had been reported in the year to August 11, out of 99,700 suspected cases.Cholera is an acute intestinal infection that spreads through food and water contaminated with bacteria, often from faeces.It causes severe diarrhoea, vomiting and muscle cramps.Cholera can kill within hours when not attended to, though it can be treated with simple oral rehydration, and antibiotics for more severe cases.There has been a global increase in cholera cases, which have also spread geographically, since 2021.MSF said mass displacements of civilians sparked by the war in Sudan had aggravated the outbreak by denying people access to clean water for essential hygiene measures, such as washing dishes and food.The delivery of humanitarian aid has become almost impossible.”This cannot continue,” the EU said, in a joint statement with several countries including Britain, Canada and Japan. “Civilians must be protected, and humanitarian access must be granted.”- No other choice -“The situation is most extreme in Tawila, North Darfur state, where 380,000 people have fled to escape ongoing fighting around the city of El-Fasher, according to the United Nations,” MSF said.”In Tawila, people survive with an average of just three litres of water per day, which is less than half the emergency minimum threshold of 7.5 litres needed per person per day for drinking, cooking, and hygiene.”At a cholera isolation centre in a tent at a Tawila displacement camp, an AFP journalist watched met patients suffering in the latest outbreak.”We mix lemon in the water when we have it and drink it as medicine,” said Mona Ibrahim, who has been living for two months in a hastily erected camp in Tawila.”We have no other choice,” she said. “We don’t have toilets — the children relieve themselves in the open,” she added.According to the World Health Organization, between January of 2023 and July of this year, Sudan had the highest number of cholera deaths of any country in the world.Sudan’s mortality rate from cholera, at 2.1 percent, is more than 2.5 times higher than the global average.- Contaminated water -Since forces loyal to the regular army recaptured the capital Khartoum in March, fighting has again focused on Darfur, where the paramilitaries have been attempting to take El-Fasher.The besieged pocket is the last major city in the western region still under the army’s control and UN agencies have spoken of appalling conditions for the remaining civilians trapped inside.”In displacement and refugee camps, families often have no choice but to drink from contaminated sources and many contract cholera,” said Sylvain Penicaud, MSF project coordinator in Tawila.”Just two weeks ago, a body was found in a well inside one of the camps. It was removed, but within two days, people were forced to drink from that same water again.”MSF said that heavy rains were worsening the crisis by contaminating water and damaging sewage systems, while the exodus of civilians seeking refuge was spreading the disease.”As people move around to flee fighting, cholera is spreading further, in Sudan and into neighbouring Chad and South Sudan,” it said.MSF’s head of mission in Sudan, Tuna Turkmen, said the situation was “beyond urgent”.”The outbreak is spreading well beyond displacement camps now, into multiple localities across Darfur states and beyond,” he said.”Survivors of war must not be left to die from a preventable disease.”burs-raz/dc

A series of pro-Palestinian protests targeting an Israeli cruise ship around Greece have irritated a conservative government walking a diplomatic tightrope with Middle Eastern powers during the Gaza war.At the crack of dawn on Thursday at the port of Piraeus outside Athens, dozens of riot police armed with truncheons, tear gas and shields sealed up a cruise terminal from hundreds of demonstrators.Their ire was directed at the “Crown Iris”, a hulking Israeli tourist ship that has attracted protests at each of its stops in the country since last month.Tourism is a pillar of the Greek economy, but pro-Palestinian activists say the visitors “whitewash” Israel’s devastating war in Gaza that was sparked by the unprecedented 2023 Hamas attack.According to the All Workers Militant Front (PAME), a communist-affiliated union that called the rally, the Crown Iris was carrying Israeli soldiers.”We cannot tolerate people who have contributed to the genocide of the Palestinian people moving amongst us,” protester Yorgos Michailidis told AFP in Piraeus.”We want people everywhere to see that we don’t only care about tourism and the money they bring,” the 43-year-old teacher said.For Katerina Patrikiou, a 48-year-old hospital worker, the visitors “are not tourists — they are the slaughterers of children and civilians in Gaza”.- ‘Useful idiots’ -Greece traditionally maintained a pro-Arab foreign policy, but governments of different political stripes have in recent years woven closer ties with Israel in defence, security and energy.Athens has carefully tried to protect both relations during the war, accusing the left-wing opposition of undermining the strategic Israel alliance aimed at counterbalancing the influence of historic rival Turkey in the eastern Mediterranean.”The useful idiots for Turkey have been in our ports, where their extreme actions seriously damage Greece’s image in Israel,” Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis wrote on X last month.”We must protect this alliance as the apple of our eye and isolate these fools… Those who exhibit antisemitic behaviour act against Greece’s interests.”Before joining the ruling conservative party in 2012, Georgiadis was a prominent member of far-right party Laos, which had a history of anti-Semitic statements. When first named health minister a year later, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) had urged the government to reconsider, noting that Georgiadis had made “troubling remarks” about Jewish people and had promoted an anti-Semitic book.In 2017, he publicly apologised for having “coexisted with and tolerated the opinions of people who showed disrespect to my Jewish compatriots”.Several protests each rallying hundreds of people attempted to prevent the Crown Iris from docking at Mediterranean islands including Rhodes, Crete and Syros last month, with occasional scuffles between demonstrators and police.According to The Times of Israel, the ship’s owners decided to skip Syros after 200 people protested as the vessel approached.Israel’s ambassador to Greece, Noam Katz, condemned an “attempt to harm the strong relations between our peoples, and to intimidate Israeli tourists” in Syros.Greece’s Minister of Citizen Protection Michalis Chrisochoidis has said that anyone who “prevents a citizen of a third country from visiting our country will be prosecuted” for racism.- ‘Whitewash crimes’ -PAME accused the government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis of using antisemitism allegations “to whitewash the crimes of the murderer state, suppress any reaction, and any expression of solidarity with the Palestinian people”.”Nobody is racist, nobody has a problem with Jewish identity… Our problem is the people who support genocide,” Michailidis said at Thursday’s rally.The October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Gaza’s Hamas rulers resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures.Palestinian militants also took 251 hostages that day, with 49 still held in Gaza, including 27 who the Israeli army says are dead.Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 61,000 Palestinians, mainly civilians, according to figures from Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry which the United Nations considers reliable.An Israeli aid blockade has exacerbated already dire humanitarian conditions in the devastated strip and plunged its more than two million inhabitants into the risk of famine.

Cholera has claimed at least 40 lives in Sudan’s Darfur region over the last week as the country weathers its worst outbreak of the illness in years, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on Thursday.The medical charity said the vast western region, which has been a major battleground over more than two years of fighting between the regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, had been hardest hit by the year-old outbreak.”On top of an all-out war, people in Sudan are now experiencing the worst cholera outbreak the country has seen in years,” MSF said in a statement. “In the Darfur region alone, MSF teams treated over 2,300 patients and recorded 40 deaths in the past week.”The NGO said 2,470 cholera-related deaths had been reported in the year to August 11, out of 99,700 suspected cases.Cholera is an acute intestinal infection that spreads through food and water contaminated with bacteria, often from faeces.It causes severe diarrhoea, vomiting and muscle cramps.Cholera can kill within hours when not attended to, though it can be treated with simple oral rehydration, and antibiotics for more severe cases.There has been a global increase in cholera cases, which have also spread geographically, since 2021.MSF said mass displacements of civilians sparked by the war in Sudan had aggravated the outbreak by denying people access to clean water for essential hygiene measures, such as washing dishes and food.- No other choice -“The situation is most extreme in Tawila, North Darfur state, where 380,000 people have fled to escape ongoing fighting around the city of El-Fasher, according to the United Nations,” MSF said.”In Tawila, people survive with an average of just three litres of water per day, which is less than half the emergency minimum threshold of 7.5 litres needed per person per day for drinking, cooking, and hygiene.”At a cholera isolation centre in a tent at a Tawila displacement camp, an AFP journalist saw women and a young girl receiving intravenous fluids, while around them exhausted and weak patients were sprawled out on camp beds.”We mix lemon in the water when we have it and drink it as medicine,” said Mona Ibrahim, who has been living for two months in a hastily-erected camp in Tawila.”We have no other choice,” she said. “We don’t have toilets — the children relieve themselves in the open,” she added.According to the World Health Organization, between January of 2023 and July of this year, Sudan had the highest number of cholera deaths of any country in the world.Sudan’s mortality rate from cholera, at 2.1 percent, is more than 2.5 times higher than the global average.- Contaminated water -Since forces loyal to the regular army recaptured the capital Khartoum in March, fighting has again focused on Darfur, where the paramilitaries have been attempting to take El-Fasher.The besieged pocket is the last major city in the western region still under the army’s control and UN agencies have spoken of appalling conditions for the remaining civilians trapped inside.”In displacement and refugee camps, families often have no choice but to drink from contaminated sources and many contract cholera,” said Sylvain Penicaud, MSF project coordinator in Tawila.”Just two weeks ago, a body was found in a well inside one of the camps. It was removed, but within two days, people were forced to drink from that same water again.”MSF said that heavy rains were worsening the crisis by contaminating water and damaging sewage systems, while the exodus of civilians seeking refuge was spreading the disease.”As people move around to flee fighting, cholera is spreading further, in Sudan and into neighbouring Chad and South Sudan,” it said.MSF’s head of mission in Sudan, Tuna Turkmen, said the situation was “beyond urgent”.”The outbreak is spreading well beyond displacement camps now, into multiple localities across Darfur states and beyond,” he said.”Survivors of war must not be left to die from a preventable disease.”