The Southern African regional bloc has said it will conclude its troop deployment in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), having decided on a “phased withdrawal”.
Leaders from the 16-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) – which has lost at least a dozen soldiers in the eastern DRC since January – held a virtual summit on Thursday to discuss the ongoing conflict in an area that has seen three decades of unrest.
The meeting comes a day after Angola announced that peace talks between the DRC and the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group would begin next week.
In a communique released after the summit, the group said DC’s mission in the DRC (also known as SAMIDRC) would be “terminated … and directed the commencement of a phased withdrawal of SAMIDRC troops”.
M23 has seized swaths of the mineral-rich and volatile eastern DRC, including the key cities of Goma and Bukavu, in a lightning advance since January.
The Congolese government says at least 7, 000 people have died since then.
While officials did not comment on the size of the military deployment, the bulk of SAMIDRC troops come from South Africa, which is estimated to have sent at least 1, 000 soldiers.
South Africa lost 14 soldiers in the eastern DRC conflict in January. Most were part of the SADC mission, but at least two were deployed as part of a separate United Nations peacekeeping mission. Elsewhere, three Malawian troops in the SADC deployment were also killed.
The mission was sent to the eastern DRC in December 2023 to help the government restore peace and security amid attacks by armed groups including M23.
‘ Timely ‘ meeting
Opening Thursday’s summit, SADC chairperson and Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa called for a “greater sense of urgency” to end the fighting, which he said has caused instability beyond the DRC’s borders.
Inclusive dialogue was essential, he said, adding that a review of the mandate in DRC was “timely”.
Angola’s presidential office announced late on Wednesday that direct talks between the DRC and M23 would begin next week.
“Following the steps taken by the Angolan mediation … delegations from the DRC and the M23 will begin direct peace talks on March 18 in the city of Luanda”, it said.
Angolan President Joao Lourenco had earlier met Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi, who had previously refused to engage in dialogue with M23, as demanded by Rwanda. Kinshasa previously said it would talk to Kigali, which it accuses of backing M23.
On Thursday, two Congolese government sources told the Reuters news agency that the latest Angolan proposal was being seriously considered.
“This is a process that is beginning. Kinshasa wants it to be short but it could be long, and it will be up to the head of state to decide on the people who will represent the government side”, one of the sources said, speaking anonymously.
“Even if there is direct contact with M23, this will not exclude Kigali’s responsibility”, said another source, also speaking anonymously.
The announced withdrawal of the SADC deployment, which was helping DRC fight rebel groups, is a potential further blow to Tshisekedi who has faced criticism of his handling of M23’s latest advance.
Rwanda’s Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe told Reuters on Thursday the withdrawal was “a good decision that will contribute to peace” in eastern DRC.
Borodyanka, Ukraine – Days after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a 500-kilogramme high-explosive bomb dropped from a fighter jet collapsed a section of Mariya Vasylenko’s apartment building.
During the March 1, 2022, attack that levelled or damaged dozens more houses in this once-tranquil town, 40 kilometres (25 miles) northwest of Kyiv, Vasylenko and her neighbours were hiding in an ice-cold basement.
They rushed outside to see how the heatwave turned the air blue, melted snow and ignited cars, leafless trees and frozen blades of grass around the building.
“Have you ever seen hell? That’s what it was”, Vasylenko, 80, told Al Jazeera.
Disoriented and deafened, she could not find her daughter Olena, a 41-year-old nurse, and her son-in-law Serhiy Khukhro, a 37-year-old construction worker, who were hiding in the basement under the collapsed section.
Their crushed bodies remained in the flooded basement while Vasylenko was evacuated to central Ukraine with their young children, Milena and Bohdan.
Meanwhile, Russian soldiers moved into Vasylenko’s apartment for a month, leaving rubbish, excrement and graffiti with Soviet symbols, and plundering all valuables when Moscow ordered a retreat from around Kyiv and northern Ukraine.
Mariya Vasylenko (right) and Hanna Ryashchenko (left) say Russian bombs destroyed their apartments in Borodyanka]Mansur Mirovalev/Al Jazeera]
‘ She doesn’t smile any more ‘
Weeks later, Vasylenko returned to Borodyanka to bury what was left of Olena and Serhiy.
Her grandchildren were sent to safety in Poland. She could not bear to tell Milena about her parents ‘ deaths for more than a year until they returned to Ukraine.
Milena is 12 now. She returned to Borodyanka with Vasylenko – and is deeply traumatised.
“She doesn’t smile any more”, Vasylenko said, sitting on a bench next to a community centre where she and her neighbour sing in an amateur choir.
“She can’t bear to see parents hugging and kissing her classmates after school because her mum and dad never will”, the 79-year-old neighbour, Hanna Ryashchenko, told Al Jazeera.
Both women and their relatives live in tiny rooms in a dormitory donated by Poland with communal bathrooms and kitchens.
Excavators started removing the debris from around Vasylenko’s building only two weeks ago.
From hell to limbo
At least 300 civilians were killed in Borodyanka, according to survivors, Ukrainian officials and human rights groups.
Russian forces bombed Borodyanka even though it never hosted a military base or plants producing weaponry.
Amnesty International, a rights monitor, concluded that the bombings “were both disproportionate and indiscriminate under international humanitarian law, and as such constitute war crimes”.
Russian soldiers operating tanks and artillery shelled apartment buildings point blank.
They also shelled shops and malls just to crack their doors or walls open and loot what was inside. The soldiers shot at anyone they saw without warning – and threatened to gun down those who tried to retrieve bodies from the streets or rescue survivors from under collapsed buildings, residents said.
For its part, Moscow has continually denied targeting civilians.
Workers renovate an apartment building near the bullet-riddled bust of national Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko]Mansur Mirovalev/Al Jazeera]
“I preferred to remain at home and starve”, Volodymyr Robovyk, a 69-year-old retired factory worker, told Al Jazeera.
Most of the trapped civilians, including children, were buried alive as they froze to death or starved.
Only one woman managed to save a family of eight by sneaking food and water into a tiny crevice at night.
Fifty-five apartment buildings, hundreds of houses, shops and offices have been destroyed or damaged, rendering thousands homeless and jobless, officials said.
A slow restoration
A dozen apartment buildings have been fully restored or retrofitted with heat-saving padding, plastic doors and windows, residents say.
But many more remain untouched.
“They dug this hole and are doing nothing”, Robovyk said, pointing at a construction pit on the Tsentralnaya (Central) street once named after Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin.
Behind the fence was a brand new excavator that tumbled into the pit and lay upside down.
Robovyk’s tiny, shell-damaged house was patched up by volunteers in the autumn of 2022, but the renovation of larger buildings is far from over.
“The end of reconstruction is December 2024”, a plastic sign on the side of Valentyna Illyshenko’s five-storey apartment building reads.
But the house is still encapsulated in scaffolding as workers finish covering it with heat-saving plastic that also hides bullet and shrapnel holes.
Illyshenko fled her apartment with her husband and their six-year-old son on February 28, 2022, when Russian tanks and armoured vehicles entered Borodyanka or roared by on their way to Kyiv.
She said Russian soldiers occupied their apartment – and drank all the alcohol, destroyed every family photo and stole each electronic device.
At least one of the unwanted guests was a sniper who nestled in the kitchen and cut a hole in the drapes, she said.
The soldiers left the refrigerator and the washing machine only because they were too heavy to be carried down from the fourth floor, she said.
All heavy household appliances have been taken out of apartments on lower floors, and the Russians left Borodyanka with trucks loaded with stolen goods, Illyshenko and other locals said.
“Hatred is what I still feel”, she told Al Jazeera. “I could choke them with my own hands”.
Having escaped the occupation’s hell, she lives in a reconstruction limbo with the noise, the dust and the dirt.
Turf wars
Her explanation as to why the renovation progresses so slowly is simple – she blames Ukraine’s endemic corruption and the dismissal of Oleksander Sakharuk, a community head elected in 2020.
“They don’t let him work”, Illyshenko said.
Sakharuk was a member of the Platform for Life, a pro-Moscow party that was banned in 2022 and whose members were barred from holding elected jobs.
Even though many Platform for Life members in Russia-occupied areas began collaborating with Moscow, some remained staunchly pro-Ukrainian – including Sakharuk, several Borodyanka residents told Al Jazeera.
He got his job back in June 2023 and last October after court rulings, but both times the justice ministry overturned the decisions.
“When he’s back to work, things are moving. When they fire him again, things stop”, Vitalii Sydorenko, a 47-year-old war veteran, told Al Jazeera.
Sakharuk did not respond to requests for comment.
Ukraine’s ubiquitous corruption scandals have also delayed Borodyanka’s renovation.
Last December, anti-monopoly officials cancelled a contract to restore the apartment building where Vasylenko’s daughter and son-in-law died because of the construction company’s alleged corruption ties.
Vasylenko also spent several months and hundreds of dollars to restore the deed on her apartment and other documents destroyed by the bombing.
United States President Donald Trump’s second term in office has launched with a whirlwind of changes to the status quo in Washington, DC, and to US relations with the world.
The rapid pace of departures from the norm – from targeting Canada, the US’s most steadfast ally, with larger tariffs than China, and floating the US occupation of Gaza, to the threat to annex Greenland and the decision to reach out to Russian President Vladimir Putin to try to end the war in Ukraine – is overwhelming, and intentionally so.
Trump’s tariffs may not be the most shocking foreign policy overture of his second administration, but they may well end up being the most consequential in the long run.
Like all his headline-generating foreign policy moves, his plan for tariffs is also part of his overreaching game plan to reshape the US economy. He says he will be imposing tariffs on Europe, China and everyone else that trades with the US to bring manufacturing back home, and “Make America Great Again”.
But in this instance, Trump’s boldness is unlikely to bring him closer to his long-term goals due to the inadvertent impact these tariffs will eventually have on the US dollar.
Manufacturing costs in the US are far higher than they are even in Europe, let alone Asia, and thus the immediate effect of his tariffs and threats of tariffs would inevitably be to raise inflation expectations as well as begin a new cycle of US dollar strength versus other leading currencies. While it may seem that a stronger dollar would weaken inflation, tariffs and the threat thereof add additional costs to trade, which minimise this potential benefit. Additionally, the US Federal Reserve has paused its rate-cutting cycle even as other top central banks, such as the Bank of England and the European Central Bank, push ahead with their cuts, as their fears of renewed inflation have been supplanted by the need to stimulate growth in the face of trade threats.
The structure of the international monetary system in which the US dollar already dominates, however, means that higher yield expectations for US assets will only further strengthen the dollar.
For so long, global demand for the US currency has meant that its primary export has been its currency and related financial products. This unique “exorbitant privilege” is what has enabled Washington to run both trade and fiscal deficits without any major drag on the economy.
Trump has increasingly realised the importance of protecting this system, threatening 100 percent tariffs and other action against countries that seek to de-dollarise and embrace the Russia and China-backed “BRICS” organisation.
Trump today sees his task as not just one of reordering fiscal policy to support US domestic manufacturing, but one of establishing new rules of the international monetary order as well. Put simply, the president wants to ensure that the US dollar can trade at a weaker value compared with other currencies while not undermining the centrality of the currency – and in particular US government securities – in the international monetary system.
This has led to a discussion of whether the Trump administration is aiming to reach new dollar stabilisation deals with other governments and their central banks akin to those the Reagan administration made in the 1980s, known as the Plaza Accord and the Louvre Accord. Indeed, that the Trump administration is trying to reach a so-called “Mar-a-Lago” accord has become a frequent talking point amongst economists.
Yet such a move will be extremely difficult because, in contrast to the Reagan-era dollar stabilisation accords, where the focus was on Japan, today any such accord would have to focus on China. Back then, the US saw the perceived weakness of the Japanese yen as a threat to its interests and acted to correct it. This was not a big challenge as Tokyo was – and still is – a close US ally. China, however, is nothing of the sort. It is far less interested in any such negotiations, and the legacy of those 1980s ‘ deals – in Japan, the strengthening of the yen as a result of those accords is more often than not seen as a core factor in the country’s subsequent “lost decades” – is frequently cited by Beijing as an example of why strengthening its currency against the dollar would carry significant risks.
Trump is willing to weaponise this system to secure concessions and achieve its long-term goals, even when they have nothing to do with trade. Even the most steadfast US allies must prepare for threats that go far beyond tariffs. This was foreshadowed in his late January threat of “treasury, banking and financial sanctions” against Colombia if it did not accept military aircraft delivering deportees – moves typically reserved for rogue states like North Korea, Iran, and Russia.
Such threats portend far more economic devastation than tariffs precisely because of the US dollar, its government securities, and the wider financial system’s centrality to the global economy.
Yet the Trump administration’s willingness to use such threats against allies means that it has little hope of entering any negotiations with China with its allies supporting it economically. Beijing and other supporters of eroding the dollar system will seek to exploit these weaknesses. For example, for Putin this is an even more important goal than weakening NATO – he has mentioned the dollar system nearly one and a half times as frequently as he has mentioned the military alliance since his full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Trump is trying to reorder the international monetary system to the US benefit, but so far his actions signal that his understanding of it is sophomoric at best. Never was this more evident than when asked about NATO spending levels in Spain shortly after his inauguration, he mislabelled the country as a member of the BRICS bloc.
The US dollar system has never been entirely an American one. It was in large part birthed in Europe, where banks began to issue loans in dollars in the 1950s to meet regional financing needs and demand. As such, by upending the foreign policy unity between the US and Europe supposedly to “Make America Great Again”, Trump may end up inadvertently upending the dollar system that has been responsible for much of America’s power and greatness for decades.
The major difference between those countries that are members of the BRICS bloc and European states like Spain is that BRICS members are almost all massive earners of international trade surpluses, exporting more than they import, while they also almost always maintain significant capital controls.
Europe’s trade strength, on the other hand, is not enough to sustain levels of government expenditure in most of the European Union or the United Kingdom. Nor is it in Japan, whose debt-to-GDP figure is well in excess of any other leading economy. In turn, after the US, these historic allies are the main borrowers on international capital markets, while capital from the surplus-earning nations, such as many BRICS members, are those who seek to invest in them. This is why China is the number one holder of US treasuries despite the Washington-Beijing geopolitical rivalry.
Trump’s moves – such as tariffs and annexation threats directed at allies – tend to undermine this system. His geopolitical threats that aim to reorder the monetary system may be targeted at Beijing, but his approach risks not just breaking the political alignment between the US and its historic allies, but also their economic alliance.
Were Trump to be successful in his approach, it likely would have some benefits for US manufacturing. Growth from manufacturing’s current 10.2 percent of US gross domestic product would certainly appeal to his base. But the risk is that in aiming to do so, he blows up the US dollar system. And that would be devastating for the US economy, likely triggering not only major inflation but also a dramatic recession.
Heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk has been ordered to start negotiations to defend his World Boxing Organization (WBO) heavyweight title against Joseph Parker.
The order could end British fighter Daniel Dubois’s hopes of a rematch with the Ukrainian.
The WBO announced on Thursday that Usyk, who also holds the World Boxing Council (WBC) and World Boxing Association (WBA) belts, has 30 days to “reach terms” for a mandatory title defence against New Zealand’s Parker or the governing body will call for purse bids.
Parker defended his WBO interim title in Riyadh last month with a second-round stoppage of Martin Bakole, a late replacement after Dubois withdrew because of illness.
Rather than reschedule his bout against Parker, International Boxing Federation (IBF) champion Dubois had hoped for a return clash with Usyk, who defeated the Briton by ninth-round knockout in August 2023.
Dubois, 27, was understood to be in talks to face Usyk in a fight that would see all four major world heavyweight titles up for grabs, but the WBO’s announcement has complicated the picture in a sport where the lack of a single global governing body means there are often multiple world champions in the same weight class.
Usyk defeated Britain’s Tyson Fury in May 2024 to become the first undisputed world heavyweight champion in almost 25 years. But he vacated his IBF belt before the rematch, with Dubois elevated to full champion.
Former undisputed world cruiserweight champion Usyk, 38, extended his perfect professional record to 23 wins in as many bouts, with 14 stoppages, after defeating Fury in a rematch in December that meant he retained the unified WBC, WBA and WBO championships.
While Usyk was speaking immediately after being declared the winner by unanimous decision, Dubois entered the ring and interrupted the London 2012 gold medallist’s interview to demand a bout.
But it appears Parker, who held the WBO title from 2016 to 2018 and is on a six-fight winning streak since losing to Joe Joyce in 2022, has overtaken Dubois as the next contender to face Usyk.
In February, Usyk said he planned to have two more fights before retiring.
Joseph Parker could soon be in the ring against Oleksandr Usyk for the WBO world heavyweight title]File: Richard Pelham/Getty Images]
US President Donald Trump has said Palestinians in Gaza are not going to be expelled, backtracking on comments in February when he announced a plan for the US to take over the territory and move people to neighbouring countries.
Russia has yet to make any response , to a 30-day ceasefire proposal agreed by the United States and Ukraine after representatives from both countries engaged in talks in Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah on Tuesday.
National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, who attended the Jeddah talks, said during a news conference afterwards: “I will talk to my Russian counterpart in the coming days”.
On Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin, clad in military fatigues, visited Kursk for the first time since Ukraine’s incursion last year, hailing Russian war efforts.
But experts say it is unlikely that Russia would accept the US-Ukraine proposal without demands of its own being met.
So what is in the ceasefire proposal and what could Russia push back on?
What are the ceasefire terms agreed by the US and Ukraine?
Following the Jeddah talks, US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy released a joint statement outlining the terms of a ceasefire.
The statement said the two countries had agreed on an “immediate, interim 30-day ceasefire”. It added that as a result, the US has lifted the pause on military aid and intelligence sharing for Ukraine.
The document also stated that the Jeddah discussion underscored the importance of humanitarian efforts during the ceasefire period. These include “the exchange of prisoners of war, the release of civilian detainees, and the return of forcibly transferred Ukrainian children”.
However, the proposal makes no mention of sanctions on Russia or security guarantees for Ukraine. Nor does it mention Ukraine withdrawing troops from Russia’s Kursk region.
Trump has previously rejected the idea of the US offering security guarantees, leaving that issue to Ukraine’s European allies.
However, under the proposal agreed between the US and Ukraine, the latter states that it wants its European partners to be “involved in the peace process”. Some of Ukraine’s European allies, such as the United Kingdom and France, are in the process of discussing security guarantees for the country.
On Wednesday, the Kremlin said it would review the details of the proposal from the US before making an assessment.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia would not rush to a decision, Al Jazeera’s Dorsa Jabbari reported from Moscow.
Speaking with Irish Taoiseach Micheal Martin at the White House on Wednesday, Trump said: “Our people are going to Russia right now as we speak. And hopefully we can get a ceasefire from Russia”. Trump added he had received “positive messages” about the ceasefire, but “a positive message means nothing”.
Multiple media outlets have reported that Trump’s special envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, will visit Russia to speak to Putin in the coming days.
How could Russia respond to the ceasefire proposal?
It is unlikely that Russia would accept the ceasefire as it is, multiple analysts say.
“I think]Russia] rejecting the deal will be unwise politically, diplomatically, but accepting it right now as it is, it’s not going to happen”, Marina Miron, a post-doctoral researcher at the defence studies department at King’s College London, told Al Jazeera.
Keir Giles, a senior consulting fellow at the London-based Chatham House think tank, said: “It would be strange and out of character if Russia were to agree to the current proposition without presenting additional demands”.
“Moscow might accept some form of ceasefire, but I don’t see the Kremlin changing its fundamental strategic goal of subjugating Ukraine and having the world accept and validate its brutal aggression”, Mikhail Alexseev, a professor of political science at San Diego State University, told Al Jazeera. “If Russia is seriously interested in a lasting peace, it would quickly agree with the ceasefire and proceed to negotiations on its troop withdrawal from at least some of Ukraine’s occupied territories”.
What could Russia demand in return for a ceasefire?
Lifting of sanctions and security guarantees
Giles said Russia has “every incentive” to press for “permanent restrictions on security guarantees given to Ukraine” and a lifting of sanctions, among other potential demands.
Since the Ukraine war began in 2022, the US and other allies of Ukraine have imposed at least 21, 692 sanctions on Russia, targeting individuals, media organisations, the military sector, energy sector, aviation, shipbuilding and telecommunications, among other sectors.
Alexseev said a lifting of sanctions would help Russia “rebuild, regroup, and resume the war when it’s ready and when it sees the attention and resources of other major powers diverted elsewhere”.
Withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from Kursk
Another demand Russia could make is for the Kursk region to be cleared of Ukrainian troops, Miron said. On August 6, 2024, Ukrainian forces launched a surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk, seizing territory inside Russia.
Ukraine has since been losing ground in Kursk and the Russian army has announced rapid gains. Valery Gerasimov told Putin during his Wednesday visit that Russian forces had gained 1, 100 square km (425 square miles) of Kursk.
Miron added: “Until the ceasefire is implemented and everybody is on the same page, time will pass, which will probably give the Russians the necessary time to at least get Kursk back so that it removes any potential negotiating bonuses for Ukraine”.
US backing for Russia’s demands
“If past performance is any guide,]Russia’s] demands , will be backed by the US”, Giles said.
