Category World News

At least 60 people have been killed while attending a funeral in the conflict-ridden eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in an ISIL (ISIS)-affiliated group attack carried out by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), officials said.

“The ADF attack caused around 60 deaths, but the final toll will be given later this evening because the territory has just deployed services to the area to count the number of beheaded people,” Col Alain Kiwewa, local administrator of the Lubero territory in Ntoyo, North Kivu, where the attack took place, told The Associated Press news agency on Tuesday.

Macaire Sivikunula, another local administrator, said the victims were “caught off guard at a mourning ceremony” Monday night, and that the majority of them were “killed with machetes” while others were shot.

The mineral-rich Kivu region has been a flashpoint for months as the DRC and allied groups have been battling the Rwanda-backed M23 group, and has dozens of armed groups operating there. ADF has taken advantage of the volatile security situation to expand its operations.

ADF has carried out a series of deadly attacks this year. At the end of July, it attacked a Catholic church, killing more than 40 people and kidnapping between 12 and 14.

In another attack in August, the rebel group killed 52 people, carrying out “kidnappings, looting, the burning of houses, vehicles, and motorcycles, as well as the destruction of property”, according to the United Nations peacekeeping force stationed there.

Gross rights violations, possibly including war crimes and crimes against humanity, may have been committed by the Rwanda-backed M23 militia and the Congolese military and its affiliates in eastern DRC, UN investigators said last week.

A fact-finding mission by the UN Human Rights Office said on Friday that it has determined that all sides in the devastating conflict had committed abuses since late 2024, including summary executions and rampant sexual violence in the provinces of North and South Kivu.

The ADF group is believed to be made up of about 1,000 to 1,500 members, according to UN experts, and includes foreign fighters who rely on light arms, machetes, mortars and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to carry out their attacks.

“They aren’t strong enough to hold territory, but they are strong enough to survive,” Stig Jarle Hansen, an expert on al-Qaeda and ISIL in Africa, told Al Jazeera.

As a result, to evade detection by the DRC’s authorities and neighbouring Uganda, which has been fighting the group, too, they “tend to be mobile” and enter villages to “carry out attacks for recruits and to establish their dominance”, Hansen added.

“They take children after these mass casualty attacks, through forced recruitment.”

ADF emerged in the 1990s during internecine disputes within Uganda’s Muslim community, initially known as the Ugandan Muslim Freedom Fighters. The group wanted to overthrow the Ugandan government, but was pushed back into the DRC.

It remained in the DRC’s rural areas near the Ugandan border until a change of leadership. The group’s founder, Jamil Mukulu, was arrested in Tanzania in 2015, and replaced by Musa Seka Baluku, who tied the ADF’s fate to ISIL in 2017 when he pledged allegiance.

In 2019, it was recognised as part of the group, becoming one half of the Central Africa Province, the other being in Mozambique. The United States designated it a terror organisation in 2021.

China’s state-led investment in clean energy is now the main determining factor in how quickly the world decarbonises, according to a report by London-based think tank Ember.

“Within China there is a realisation that the old development paradigm centred on fossil fuels has run its course, and is not fit for 21st century realities,” says the report, published on Tuesday. “The government’s aim to establish an ‘ecological civilisation,’ which simultaneously delivers on economic, social and environmental goals, is the response, embedded in the Constitution since 2018.”

China produces 60 percent of global wind turbines and 80 percent of global solar panels, driving cost reductions for everyone else, Ember’s Sam Butler-Sloss told Al Jazeera.

“Since 2010, the cost of solar modules has come down over 90 percent … and China has been responsible for three quarters of the cumulative solar manufacturing in that period,” she said.

“Now, we’re at a point where solar modules are sub-10 cents per watt. Batteries are coming in at sub-$70 per kilowatt hour. And this is enough … to profoundly change the economics of energy around the world.”

China’s decisions were partly driven by economic realities, according to the report.

Its vast manufacturing industry consumes energy, much of which it imports in the form of oil and gas. China sought to remain competitive and energy-secure by becoming autonomous.

That brought a powerful added benefit. Beijing has financed a domestic market for electric technologies and invested in a growing patent gap with the rest of the world.

In 2020, it was responsible for 5 percent of global energy patent applications. That figure is now 75 percent.

In bringing about this transformation, it is becoming the hub of a global market supply chain.

“Today, in solar and batteries, China’s manufacturing capacity is greater than global demand,” said Butler-Sloss. Unlike China’s overinvestment in real estate in the last decade, which harmed parts of its financial system, she believes this bet is a winner because batteries and solar panels can be exported.

“You get some people using language, like oversupply. I think the uptake market is more dynamic and responsive, and we’re seeing that oversupply meets these emerging markets,” she said.

China yet to tackle greenhouse gas emissions

China helped ensure this uptake by investing beyond its borders.

“Chinese battery and [electric vehicle] firms have invested about $80bn in facilities in emerging markets and around the world. And this is the technology, know-how, and the finance to build up these industries … in different countries,” she said.

Last year, China invested almost a third of the global total in renewable energy capacity – $625bn, while Europe invested $426bn and the US $409bn. Its return was triple the investment.

China’s clean energy sector – led by the “new three” industries of solar panels, batteries and electric vehicles – expanded three times faster than the rest of the economy, adding $1.9 trillion to China’s output.

The US and Europe have watched on with alarm because China’s state-subsidised industries have undercut everyone else’s.

When dedicating hundreds of billions of dollars to the rollout of solar and wind energy in his Inflation Reduction Act, Joe Biden, the former US president, marked that money strictly for investments on US soil.

Even so, said Ember’s lead on the report, Biden was still benefitting from Beijing because its investment stimulated other countries to develop.

“If China had not made these investments, then where would we be now?” said editor Richard Black. “Would we have seen the same scale of investments in any particular country or region?”

“My own personal opinion is probably that we wouldn’t have done,” Black said. “The Chinese government, in collaboration with the major companies, realised some time ago that there was going to be an enormous export market here and invested accordingly in a strategic way, bringing together deployment policies … manufacturing policies and export policies. And I’ve never really seen any other country trying to do that.”

Europe remains competitive on some metrics. For example, whereas electricity accounts for a third of China’s energy mix versus one-quarter in Europe, Europe’s electricity is cleaner, with three in 10 gigawatts coming from renewables, compared with China’s two in every 10.

And for all its investment, China has yet to show a reduction in its greenhouse gas emissions, which is, after all, the main objective of the energy transition. According to the International Energy Agency, emissions from the European Union and the US have been falling since the turn of the century.

The Israeli military has dropped leaflets on Gaza City, ordering a forced evacuation of an area where up to one million people are taking shelter. While thousands have fled, many say they don’t know where to go, as nowhere is safe.

Videos show Nepal’s parliament on fire as protests continue, with Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli and other top ministers resigning over mass anti-corruption unrest that left at least 19 people dead.

The 80th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) begins this week in New York City, bringing together world leaders for a spectacle of speeches as the institution faces mounting scrutiny over its role on the global stage.

The annual gathering comes at a time of particular reckoning, not least marked by internal handwringing over unsustainable funding, ossified outrage over Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza, and increased urgency for non-Western countries to wield more influence.

Already sparking dismay ahead of this year’s event has been a decision by the United States, under the administration of President Donald Trump, to withhold or revoke visas for Palestinian Authority and Palestinian Liberation Organization officials to attend the gathering.

That comes as France and Saudi Arabia are set to host a conference on Israel and Palestine, promising to join several European countries in recognising a Palestinian state.

All told, according to Richard Gowan, the UN director at the International Crisis Group, the gathering comes during a year when “illusions have been rather stripped away”.

“It’s now very, very clear that both financially and politically, the UN faces huge crises,” he said. “Now the question is, is there a way through that?”

Here’s what to know as the UNGA session begins:

When does it start?

The proceedings officially start on Tuesday when the incoming president, former German Minister for Foreign Affairs Annalena Baerbock, is set to present her agenda for the coming session, which will run through September 8, 2026.

This year’s theme has been dubbed, “Better Together: 80 years and more for peace, development and human rights.”

The first week will be largely procedural, but will be followed by the organisation’s most prominent event, the so-called “high-level week”. That begins on September 22 at 9am local time (13:00 GMT), with a meeting to commemorate the UN’s 80th anniversary and to consider “the path ahead for a more inclusive and responsive multilateral system”.

On Tuesday, September 23, the “General Debate” begins, with at least 188 heads of state, heads of government, or other high-ranking officials preliminarily set to speak through September 29.

An array of concurrent meetings – focusing on development goals, climate change and public health – is also scheduled. Customary flurries of sideline diplomacy are in the forecast, too.

What does the UNGA do?

The UNGA is the main deliberative and policy-making body of the UN. It is the only body in the organisation where all 193 member countries have representation. Palestine and the Holy See have non-member observer status.

Under the UN Charter, which entered into force in 1945, the body is charged with addressing matters of international peace and security, particularly if those matters are not being addressed by the UN Security Council (UNSC), a 15-member panel with five permanent, veto-wielding members: France, China, Russia, the United Kingdom and the US.

The UNGA also debates matters of human rights, international law and cooperation in “economic, social, cultural, educational, and health fields”.

Operationally, the UNGA approves the UN’s sprawling annual budget, with one of its six main committees managing the funding of 11 active peacekeeping missions around the world.

Will more countries recognise Palestinian statehood?

Israel’s war in Gaza, which began in the wake of the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, largely defined last year’s gathering.

With Israel’s constant attacks, and atrocities continuing to mount, the war is expected to again loom large, with anticipation focusing on several countries that have recently recognised or pledged to recognise a Palestinian state.

Last week, Belgium became the latest country to pledge to do so at the UNGA, following France and Malta. Other countries, including Australia, Canada and the UK, have announced conditional recognition, but it has remained unclear if they will do so at the gathering.

While recognition of Palestine as a full member of the UN would require UNSC approval, a move almost surely to be vetoed by the US, the increased recognition will prove symbolically significant, according to Alanna O’Malley, a professor of UN studies in peace and justice at Leiden University in the Netherlands.

“France’s recognition will be important, because it means that the only European member of the Security Council in a permanent seat is now recognising Palestinian statehood,” O’Malley told Al Jazeera, noting that 143 UN member states had already recognised a Palestinian state ahead of the most recent overtures. 

“I think it puts pressure on the US, and then, in that regard, increases pressure on Israel,” she said. “But, of course, it also reveals that the European countries are far behind the Global South when it comes to the Palestinian issue and when it comes to cohesive action to combat the genocide.”

Multilateralism challenged from inside and out?

Despite UN leadership seeking to strike a celebratory tone as the institution marks its 80th year in existence, the last decade has been punishing for the global cooperation the body has long spearheaded.

During Trump’s first term, from 2017 to 2021, he withdrew the US from the landmark Paris Climate Accord, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Human Rights Council. Former US President Joe Biden then reversed his predecessor’s actions only to see Trump repeat them upon taking office in January this year.

The Trump administration has undertaken widespread cuts to foreign aid, including hundreds of millions to UN agencies and caps on further spending. The US remains far and away the largest funder of the UN, providing about $13bn in 2023.

“The US funding caps have put the UN in an incredibly bad financial situation,” the International Crisis Group’s Gowan said.

Further adding to that instability have been questions over UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s campaign to streamline and refocus the UN as part of what he has dubbed the “UN80 Initiative”.

Proposals under the initiative, which will appear in a preliminary budget later this month, have been opposed by some UN member states and staff, with employees in Geneva passing a motion of no confidence against the UN chief earlier this year.

“Guterres will be talking about his efforts to save money,” Gowan said. “But I think there’s going to be a lot of people asking if the UN really can continue at scale without very major institutional changes, because it just doesn’t have the cash any longer.”

A chance for new influence?

But this year’s gathering may also be marked by efforts by traditionally marginalised countries to take on a bigger role at the UN, according to Leiden University’s O’Malley.

While no country has shown a willingness or capability to fill the US’s financial commitments, China has for years sought more influence within the UN, particularly through funding peacekeeping missions.

Countries like South Africa and Jamaica have also leaned into UN mechanisms, notably its International Court of Justice (ICJ), to seek accountability for Israeli abuses in Gaza and climate change, respectively.

“I think a lot of Global South countries, especially those like Brazil and India, and South Africa and Indonesia, to a certain extent, are looking at this not as a crisis of multinationalism,” O’Malley said.

“This is an opportunity to remake the system of global governance to suit their ends more precisely, and also to serve their people more directly, since they represent most of the world’s population.”

This has, in turn, refreshed energy towards long-sought reforms, including expanding the number of permanent members on the UNSC, O’Malley said, while noting a clear pathway for such a reform still does not exist.

History-making moments?

The first weeks of the UN General Assembly are known for history-making moments: Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez calling George HW Bush “the devil”; Muammar Gaddafi’s 100-minute screed in 2009 against the “terror and sanctions” of the UNSC; Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s literal drawing of a red line under Iran’s nuclear programme.

That also includes Trump’s inaugural speech in 2017, when he first took the podium, pledging to, among other aims, “totally destroy” North Korea.

The bellicose speech was met with chortles from the foreign delegations gathered. The tone is likely to be much different this time around, as world leaders have increasingly embraced flattering the mercurial US leader.

At the same time, with rumblings of lower attendance due to Trump’s restrictions on foreign travel, it is not out of the question that this year’s event could be a swan song for the long-held tradition of kicking off the UNGA in the US, the International Crisis Group’s Gowan said.

“I do think that, down the road, when people are organising big events around the UN, they are going to say ‘Should we do this in Geneva or Vienna or Nairobi?’” he said.