Category World News

Days after he rebuffed threats of military action against Iran over a alleged crackdown on anti-government protests, President Donald Trump said a “big force” of US warships are “going towards Iran.”

Last week, South Africa reportedly launched an investigation into Iran’s participation in joint naval exercises with BRICS nations against President Cyril Ramaphosa’s orders.

BRICS is a group of 10 countries: Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates. Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa were the first nations to use the acronym BRICS.

The group, formed in 2006, initially focused on trade, but has since expanded its mandate to include security and cultural exchanges.

On January 16, a week of joint naval drills in South African waters came to an end. The drills have caused controversy in the country and drawn the ire of the United States.

The most recent maritime training comes as the US and many of the group’s members are at increased odds, particularly Iran, which up until last week was grappling with widespread, deadly protests at home. Although South Africa regularly conducts drills with Russia and China.

Pretoria said the exercise, named Will for Peace 2026, was essential for ensuring maritime safety and international cooperation. The South African military’s statement reads before the exercises that “brings together navies from BRICS Plus countries for joint maritime safety operations]and] interoperability drills.”

However, US President Donald Trump’s administration, which has previously accused BRICS of being “anti-American” and has threatened its members with tariffs, has strongly criticised the naval exercises.

What we know about the exercises and why they were contentious:

What were the drills for?

On January 9 through 16th, South Africa hosted the BRICS naval exercise, which included warships from participating nations.

China led the training, which took place near the southwestern coastal city of Simon’s Town, which is home to a major South African naval base.

According to the Chinese Ministry of National Defense, technical exchanges and exercises in rescue, maritime strike, and other activities were planned. All BRICS countries were invited.

At the opening ceremony, South Africa’s joint task force commander, Captain Nndwakhulu Thomas Thamaha, stated that the operation was a declaration of intent by the BRICS nations to form closer alliances with one another.

“It is a demonstration of our collective resolve to work together”, Thamaha said. Cooperation like this is not a viable option in an increasingly complex maritime environment. It is essential”.

He claimed that the goal was to “assure the safety of shipping lanes and maritime economic activities.”

South African Deputy Defence Minister Bantu Holomisa told journalists that the drills had been planned before the current tensions between some BRICS members and the US.

Holomisa stated that some BRICS nations “are not our enemies,” even though some might have issues with Washington.

How and by whom did it happen?

China and Iran deployed destroyer warships to South Africa, while Russia and the United Arab Emirates sent corvettes, traditionally the smallest warships.

The host nation, South Africa, sent a frigate.

Indonesia, Ethiopia and Brazil joined the exercises as observers.

The group’s current chair, India, opted not to participate and distanced itself from the war games.

“We clarify that the exercise in question was entirely a South African initiative in which some BRICS members took part”, India’s Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement. “Neither all BRICS members nor a regular BRICS activity nor did they participate in it. India has not participated in previous such activities”.

Why are the drills causing US criticism in South Africa?

The US is angry that South Africa allowed Iran to participate in the drills at a time when Tehran was accused of launching a violent crackdown on antigovernment protests that had spread across the country.

In late December, shopkeepers in Tehran staged protests against inflation and the waning rial, and the protests broke out. These protests swelled into a broader challenge to Iran’s rulers, as thousands of people took to the streets nationwide to demonstrate over a few weeks.

According to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s statement on Saturday, security forces in some areas retaliated against the crowds, killing “several thousands.” While activists said thousands of protesters were killed, the Iranian government said this was an exaggeration and claimed police officers and security service members formed a significant chunk of those&nbsp, who were killed.

The Iranian government also claimed that “terrorists” were funded and armed by the US and Israel to stoke the protests. They said agents affiliated with foreign powers, and not state forces, were responsible for the deaths of civilians, including protesters.

The country’s largest uprising has been since the Iranian Revolution of 1979, which was one of the most disruptive. Tens of thousands of people are believed to have been arrested.

According to a report from the South African newspaper Daily Maverick, the US warned South African President Cyril Ramaphosa that Iran’s participation would have a negative impact on his nation before the BRICS drills.

Ramaphosa subsequently ordered Iran to withdraw from the exercises on January 9, the paper reported.

Three Iranian vessels that had already been stationed in South Africa were all still present.

In a statement on January 15, the US embassy in South Africa accused the South African military of defying orders from its own government and said it was “cozying up to Iran”.

It is particularly unjustifiable that Iranian security forces were applauded for their peaceful political activism, which South Africans had waged for themselves by shooting, injuring, and torturing, according to the statement.

“South Africa can’t lecture the world on ‘ justice ‘ while cozying up to Iran”.

Washington was merely looking for reasons to criticize South Africa for bringing a genocide case against Israel before the International Court of Justice for its conflict in Gaza, according to political analyst Reneva Fourie.

“The US is looking for an entry point”, she said.

The US is “affected by more militarisation, increased militarisation, and increased infringements on freedom of expression and association.” The US should focus on its own dire state instead of meddling in the affairs of others”.

The US and Iran’s most recent points of disagreement are merely the military drills’ latest source of conflict.

During the 12-day war between Iran and Israel in 2025, Washington sided with Israel, and on June 22, the US bombed three nuclear sites in Iran. All three had been severely damaged, according to initial assessments from US officials. Iran retaliated by bombing a military base in Qatar where US troops are positioned, in what was largely seen as a face-saving exercise.

Which other BRICS nations are at odds with the US?

Nearly all members of BRICS have problems with the current US government.

South Africa is engaged in a conflict of narratives with the Trump administration, which claims that the country’s minority white population is being systematically subjected to a “genocide.” In 2025, Trump established a refugee programme for white Afrikaners wishing to “flee” to the US.

In December 2023, the US has also condemned South Africa’s decision to bring Israel before the International Court of Justice.

The US currently levies tariffs on South African exports of up to 40 percent as a result.

China and the US have engaged in a contentious trade dispute for more than a year. After slapping each other with tariffs exceeding 100 percent early last year, these were suspended pending trade talks. Before the two sides reached an agreement in late October, under which China agreed to “pause” restrictions on the export of some metals, Trump threatened to impose more tariffs on some of its rare earth metals, which are needed for technology crucial for defense.

Russia is also on Washington’s radar because of its war in Ukraine.

Due to US sanctions against both nations, the US seized a Venezuela-linked Russian oil tanker in the North Atlantic just three days before the drills began.

On January 3, the US military abducted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, from the capital, Caracas. In a federal court in New York City, both defendants are currently facing drug and weapons charges. In September, the US had begun a campaign of air strikes on Venezuelan boats in the Caribbean, claiming they were trafficking drugs to the US, but providing no evidence.

India’s exports to the US have received 50% tariffs, partly as retaliation for keeping its oil from Russia.

This month, the US withdrew from the India-led International Solar Alliance, although this withdrawal was part of a broader move to pull the US out of several international bodies.

For India, avoiding the naval drills was “about balancing ties with the US,” according to Harsh V. Pant, a geopolitical analyst at the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation think tank.

Pant added that in India’s opinion, “war games” were never part of the BRICS mandate.

Despite being an economic bloc, the BRICS now has a stronger mandate that includes security.

What has South Africa’s response been?

Ramaphosa’s government has also faced some backlash over the drills at home.

Former opposition party that now makes up the ruling coalition and largely supports the white minority, the Democratic Alliance (DA) criticized Minister of International Relations Ronald Lamola for failing to hold the Department of Defense accountable.

Lamola is from the African National Congress (ANC) party, which, until 2024, governed South Africa alone.

The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) has effectively outsourced South Africa’s foreign policy, according to the DA in a statement two days after the exercises began, allowing the Department of Defense to proceed unchecked in these military exercises, which exposes the nation to serious diplomatic and economic risk.

“South Africa is now perceived not as a principled non-aligned state, but as a willing host for military cooperation with authoritarian regimes”.

What is the current position of the South African government?

South African officials have shifted from initially justifying the drills to distancing themselves from the Iran debacle.

Ramaphosa eventually appeared to bow to US pressure and ordered Iran to be excluded on January 9, according to local media reports from the initial statements from officials that the drills would proceed as planned.

Those instructions do not seem to have been followed by the South African Defence Department or the military, however.

Ramaphosa’s instructions were “clearly communicated to all parties involved, agreed upon, and adhered to as such,” according to Defence Minister Angie Motshekga’s office in a statement released on January 16.

The statement went on to say that the minister had established an inquiry board “to look into the circumstances surrounding the allegations and establish whether the instruction of the President may have been misrepresented and/or ignored as issued to all”.

Friday is expected for a report on the investigation.

This is not the first time South Africa has been criticised for its military relations with Iran.

General Rudzani Maphwanya, the country’s military chief, declared that South Africa and Iran share “common goals” in August, provoking the DA to express his anger.

His statement came just weeks after the Iran-Israel war. While in Tehran, he reportedly had a negative opinion of Israel.

In its genocidal war against the Palestinian enclave, Israel has waged more than two years of aggression against Gaza. More than 70, 000 Palestinians have been killed and the majority of Gaza’s population has been left with subpar food, medicine, and shelter as a result of it.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who the International Criminal Court has detained for crimes committed in Gaza, joined US President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace,” which was established to oversee the reconstruction and governance of Gaza.

It raises the question of what Netanyahu and Israel actually want from the Palestinian territory, whether they want the area to be rebuilt or just to keep the status quo.

According to observers, the road ahead of Netanyahu is a challenging one. He must appear to the world and the Israeli people as having US ambitions for Gaza as the election season draws nearer.

However, he also needs to keep his governing coalition, which rely on Bezalel Smotrich, his finance minister, to oppose the ceasefire in a region where he and his allies, as religious Zionists, believe they are divinely obligated to settle.

Things don’t seem to be going in Netanyahu’s favor entirely right now. Despite Hamas’s refusal to disarm, he has not prevented the transition to Trump’s three-phase ceasefire plan’s second phase. Next week, Gaza’s Rafah crossing will open in both directions, allowing residents to enter and leave the enclave, despite his objections. Additionally, it appears that the US has overruled his protests against Turkiye and Qatar joining the Board of Peace and possibly deploying forces to Gaza as part of a proposed International Stabilization Force.

Settlement or security

The Netanyahu government’s internal dialogue on Gaza continues. Smotrich called for the destruction of the US base in southern Israel on Monday, not only condemning the proposals as “bad for Israel,” but also calling for the destruction of the US base there. Despite this, other members of the Israeli parliament have primarily focused on the upcoming elections and have attempted to rally their political base regardless of ideology.

The Israeli military is attempting to raze territory along the Gaza border, creating a buffer zone deep into the coastal enclave, and Netanyahu insists that Hamas will be disarmed.

Hamas has been weak, and pushing Palestinians farther away from the Israeli border gives the Israeli government the opportunity to portray its population as secure.

The Israeli public, who is exhausted from the conflict for more than two years, largely hides the negative effects of Israel’s actions in national media.

American-Israeli pollster Dahlia Scheindlin claimed that the public is “deeply divided on Gaza and the Board of Peace.” The majority of Israeli society is splintered, despite the existence of a minority group opposed to resettling Gaza. The events of October 2023 are primarily responsible for the perception of Gaza with a mix of fear and a need for security in it. They don’t trust outsiders to handle it, and they want Israel to stay in Gaza in some way. There is also a sense of hope that US involvement will accomplish something that two years of conflict failed to.

However, Scheindlin said, “Almost everyone starts with the same idea: Anything is better than going back to war.”

According to Israel’s leaders, peace activist Gershon Baskin said, “They don’t have a strategy, and everything is chaos.” They only speak to their base while running for office. Yesterday, I visited the Knesset. It’s similar to watching lunatics scurry into a madness house. It’s a disaster, really.

Palestinians remain invisible to the majority of the population. They are indistinguishable. The majority of Israelis are ignorant of what is happening on the other side of the border, despite the fact that Israel has probably killed more than 100 000 people. Even so, Baskin claimed, “We even dispute that there is a border; it’s just ours.” “It’s not even on television,” he said. They only play old clips continuously. On social media, you can find images of Gaza, but you must go searching for it.

The majority of Israelis don’t, they say.

divided politics

There won’t be a Palestinian state, claim the leaders of Israel.

It is up to interpretation how to accomplish that goal, or the details that come with it, and how Gaza fits into it all.

Israel will continue to support a territory, Gaza, whose population it is accused of genocide, regardless of the outcome of the US-backed ceasefire process. According to analysts in Israel, there is currently only the unspoken suspicion that outside powers, particularly the US, are incompetent to determine how best to achieve coexistence.

Even Israel’s commitment to US plans is in doubt as Netanyahu frames the second phase of the ceasefire as a “declarative move” rather than the “definite sign of progress” that US envoy Steve Witkoff described as being “ascertain of progress.”

The genocide has continued, he said. According to Israeli lawmaker Ofer Cassif, “it’s continuing; it’s just moved from active to passive.” Israel is no longer bombing Gaza, but it is now starving and causing the area’s residents to die. This does not occur by itself. Government policy is used here.

Israeli leaders’ capacity for long-term planning was questioned by a large number of analysts, including political economist Shir Hever.

Hever claimed that domestic politics and overarching strategy were the primary factors in decisions like the ones about the attacks on Iran and Qatar. For instance, the June attack in Iran was a coincidence with a pending vote of no confidence in the government, and he claimed that the Qatari strike in September attempted to reshape Netanyahu’s ongoing corruption trial.

There isn’t a strategy, they say. According to those who have told Al Jazeera, Israeli governments do not operate on long-term planning. There is no long-term strategy for Smotrich and others, who want to settle Gaza and expel Palestinians. Everything is “short-term.”

Uncertainty in the future

A new factor in play is in play, he continued, referring to the US decision to override Israeli objections to entering phase two before Hamas’ disarmament, the inclusion of Qatar and Turkiye in the Board of Peace, and the decision to open the Rafah crossing. “Baskin, whose mediation between Israel and the PLO in the 1990s proved pivotal during the Oslo Accords,” he continued.

Cassif had a low sense of optimism. He said, “I don’t believe in this Board of Peace,” and I believe it is now government policy to continue thwarting and putting off plans to create a stabilization force, with the intention of letting people die while doing so.

He said, “I wish I didn’t have to say them at all, but I’m not supposed to for political cynical reasons, but that’s not true.”

He continued, “And it’s painful to me as a Jew and not just as a humanist and socialist.”

Nireayo Wubet, 88, recently spends a lot of his days burying friends and family members in Tigray, Ethiopia. As he grieves, he worries about whether there will be anyone left to offer him a decent burial when the time comes, as severe hunger ravages a large swath of his village in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region.

The octogenarian laments that his frailty appearance in his village of Hitsats, close to the Eritrean border, is similar to that of many others. “We have little humanitarian support,” he laments. He asserts that famine is the cause of conflict rather than conflict.

After fleeing conflicts and ethnic strife that had caused him and others in the area to flee, Wubet fled to Hitsats four years ago, where he was once a proud farmer from Humera, which is currently a disputed area in the Amhara region.

He was first displaced in the middle of the Tigray war, which started in 2020, killing thousands of people and displacing millions more. Even after the conflict ended in 2022, he was unable to come home and reclaim his life.

A desolate village known as Hitsats is now supported primarily by humanitarian organizations, including USAID, which was once Ethiopia’s main source of humanitarian aid.

But that changed abruptly a year ago when US President Donald Trump took office and promptly demolished the agency’s work and cut funding across the globe.

Up to 80% of Tigray province’s population needs emergency assistance, according to humanitarian organizations like the World Food Programme (WFP). However, the USAID cuts mean that overall, there is less humanitarian funding available, and what remains are frequently directed to disasters and conflict areas that are viewed as worse emergencies.

Medical aid organisation Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, which assists vulnerable populations in Ethiopia and across the Horn of Africa region, notes that the US cuts “upended global health and humanitarian programs around the world” in 2025.

In a statement released this week, MSF stated that “the human costs [around the world] have been catastrophic.

According to the report, aid failures in Somalia caused shipments of therapeutic milk to halt for months, leading to a rise in child malnutrition cases at the MSF clinic there. In Renk in South Sudan, funding cuts caused a hospital staff to stop supporting maternity care, and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the destruction of USAID caused the cancellation of an order for 100, 000 post-rape kits, which included medication for preventing HIV.

In Ethiopia, which used to be the largest recipient of USAID funds in sub-Saharan Africa prior to Trump’s cuts, the funding shortfalls have created critical gaps and put more pressure on other organisations.

According to Joshua Eckley, MSF’s head of mission for Ethiopia, “donor funding cuts have put additional strain on an already fragile public health system.”

The most vulnerable are having less access to medical care, water, and sanitation services as aid organizations reduce or suspend operations in the area as a result of budget constraints, while overall humanitarian needs are continuing to outnumber the collective capacity.

Like pouring a glass of water into a lake.

Wubet and others in his community are still dealing with the effects of the humanitarian aid cuts, which have caused even more destruction to already struggling communities.

Terfuneh Welderufael was displaced from the town of Mai Kadra during the Tigray war.

Since 2022, the 71-year-old has resided in Hitsats. He claims that the village suffers from severe hunger and that it’s unusual to find anyone who hasn’t intermented a loved one in the past year.

Abraha Mebrathu, the coordinator of a government-run camp housing about 1, 700 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Hitsats, says he has witnessed minimal humanitarian aid entering the village. He acknowledges that many civilians are dying and that there appears to be little support for those who continue to suffer.

He claims that because the death toll rate is too high, they no longer collect data on the victims, and that their main concern is now to advocate for those who are still alive.

“We have had little support, and the need is overwhelming”, he told Al Jazeera. The majority of the land is not arable, and people who have been displaced are unable to cultivate food there. He claims that the majority of people are “waiting for their turn to pass away.”

To make matters worse, many local humanitarian workers have not been paid for the last year, and Mebrathu says most are starving like many of their neighbours.

Due to budget cuts as a result of USAID’s reduced role in Ethiopia, the situation in Hitsats has been worsened by the WFP office’s abrupt closure, which is home to one of the largest IDP populations in the country.

Many claim little has been done to areas like Tigray, whose economies, as well as population, remain devastated by years of conflict, despite the US government’s suspension of USAID in Ethiopia.

“While little support is starting to come to Hitsats, with close to 2, 000 people in dire and urgent need, it’s like pouring a glass of water in a lake”, Mebrathu says.

Watching people “die from a distance”

In the absence of USAID support, some Ethiopians decided they wanted to help.

Online influencers from Tigray’s provincial capital Mekelle and Addis Ababa launched a wave of support for internally displaced and vulnerable civilians last month.

The Ethiopian government, however, warned citizens against raising money and making direct donations to those affected there, including Hitsats, and that they were already sending plenty of resources there. The government has yet to officially acknowledge that there is a severe hunger crisis occurring. According to observers, the main goal of the project is to portray Ethiopia as a positive, aspirational nation while avoiding narratives that might portray it as dependent or helpless.

Adonay, a popular influencer, had joined others to raise money for the Hitsats residents, but their effort was cut short because they feared reprisal from the authorities.

Another influencer involved in the fundraiser, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Al Jazeera, “We went to the area most affected by the famine, we had the will and ability to save lives and collect scarce resources, and it hurts that we cannot do that and we are forced to watch them die from a distance”.

The Ethiopian government maintains that the Horn of Africa country has adapted to feed its impoverished populations, but critics object to this claim.

While WFP claimed that more than 10 million Ethiopians were in famine, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed told parliamentarians in 2024 that “there are no people dying due to hunger in Ethiopia.”

Last year, Abiy announced the creation of EthioAid, similar to USAID, to help neighbouring nations facing famine, including war-torn Sudan, which received $15m from the Ethiopian government.

The Ethiopian Disaster Risk Management Commission, a federal agency tasked with coordinating disaster relief, has refuted reports of widespread starvation in towns like Hitsats and other parts of the country. More than 15 million Ethiopians are in need of emergency food aid in spite of the shrinking international humanitarian aid, according to the most recent forecasts from the Famine Early Warning Systems Network.

The government agency said it recently distributed food aid worth the equivalent of $1.8m to the Tigray provincial government, blaming them for misappropriation and distribution problems. However, the provincial government disputes this assertion.

Gebrehiwot Gebre-Egziahber, the head of the Tigray Disaster Risk Management Commission, claimed that the provincial government had been forced to slash funding for humanitarian aid in the region’s most extreme locations, primarily in rural areas where a large population is severely infected.

Despite Addis Ababa’s insistence that the situation is stable, with dwindling international humanitarian aid and an overwhelming hunger crisis causing people to flee in desperation, this month the government belatedly announced that it will soon launch a new tax system on fuel and telecommunications to help fund local initiatives to curb the impending famine that many say is in Ethiopia’s future.

Not enough burial space available

Almaz Gebrezedel, 71, has lived in Hitsats for four years. She searches the neighborhood for any assistance from strangers and the few organizations that have assisted her. She competes for what is readily available, which is primarily leftovers from nearby restaurants because there are so few resources in the village.

She says many people are just falling like leaves, with little humanitarian support in the village aside from small donations from local organisations with little financial means.

In a makeshift shelter underneath a torn tent, her next-door neighbor, Marta Tadesse, is bedridden, ill, and hungry.

The 67-year-old widow claims she has HIV, that her children abandoned her when they sought better opportunities elsewhere, and that she has been forced to live on her own.

Her HIV medication was provided to her courtesy of PEPFAR, the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which was initiated in 2003 by former President George W Bush. Millions of people worldwide are now receiving the aid thanks to it, but Tadesse and millions more do not.

Tadesse claims that her top priority is now food because hunger has become a constant issue, but she also mentions that she has medical needs as well.

Tadesse predicts she will die a silent death amid her neighbours, who are facing a desperate and deteriorating situation.

The burial sites are being quickly filled up, according to a deacon in a church with a view over the village, Yonas Hagos.

It’s obvious that we will soon be running out of space, he says, “with the many residents who are dying constantly, mostly as a result of hunger.”