Category World News

Catastrophic floods caused by torrential rains have forced thousands to flee their homes in Mozambique, with many residents trapped on rooftops amid rising waters, according to aid organisations and witnesses.

More than 620, 000 people have been directly impacted by the devastating floods, which have destroyed more than 72, 000 homes and severely damaged essential infrastructure including roads, bridges, and healthcare facilities, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), which is providing emergency aid.

“Rains are still expected to continue for the coming days, and the water dams are already at full capacity, so the situation could worsen, placing further people at risk”, IFRC Program and Operations Manager Rachel Fowler told the news agency Reuters from the capital Maputo.

Red Cross volunteers are using small fishing boats in rescue attempts, but access is increasingly challenging, Fowler added. South Africa has deployed an air force helicopter to assist with rescue operations.

Reporting from Manhica district in Maputo province in southern Mozambique, Al Jazeera’s Haru Mutasa said residents rescued by the helicopter were being offered medical assistance, food and temporary shelter.

Celeste Maria, a 25-year-old hospital worker, told Reuters her family fled their home in Chokwe in southern Gaza province after authorities issued flood warnings last week.

“Our home is now completely submerged … We left behind neighbours who are now telling us they are sheltering on rooftops as the water continues to rise”, she explained by phone from a resettlement centre.

Aerial images showed expansive flooded areas with only treetops visible above the water.

Officials have not yet released casualty figures from the latest flooding.

Mozambique has experienced repeated weather-related disasters that scientists link to climate change.

Heavy rainfall has also affected parts of South Africa, including the northeast, site of the famous Kruger National Park.

Flood damage to Kruger National Park will require years to repair at a cost of millions of dollars, Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment Willie Aucamp said in a statement on Thursday.

South African authorities temporarily closed the park last week after several rivers overflowed due to heavy rainfall. The park is a major attraction for both domestic and international tourists.

Fifteen tourist camps remain closed, with some completely inaccessible, Aucamp said. Hundreds were evacuated with no loss of life.

While assessment continues, repair costs are estimated to exceed 500 million rand ($30m).

US President Donald Trump told reporters that “war has to end” after meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Vladimir Putin and Trump are scheduled to meet in the coming hours.

On January 20, a court in Brussels, Belgium, convened a procedural hearing in the long-running case concerning the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The hearing did not revisit the full history of the killing, but was limited to determining whether the case should proceed under Belgian law.

At the centre of the proceedings stands Etienne Davignon, a 93-year-old former Belgian diplomat and senior state official. Federal prosecutors are seeking to prosecute Davignon on charges linked to Lumumba’s unlawful detention and degrading treatment in the months preceding his execution, allegations he denies. The case follows Belgium’s acknowledgement of moral responsibility for Lumumba’s death, and represents an incomplete, belated attempt to reckon with colonial violence through legal means.

That such a reckoning is taking place at all, however limited, raises a more uncomfortable question. While a former colonial power is revisiting aspects of its role in Lumumba’s killing, much of postcolonial Africa is still failing to confront the political vision for which he was eliminated. Lumumba’s assassination is mourned, but his analysis is rarely taken seriously. His name is invoked, but his demands are quietly set aside.

Lumumba is often remembered as an anti-colonial martyr and periodically rediscovered across Africa, but the substance of his political thought is rarely engaged. The questions he raised at the moment of independence, about sovereignty, land and the limits of political freedom in postcolonial Africa, remain largely unresolved.

That neglect is not accidental.

Many post-colonial African leaders have not honoured Lumumba’s legacy precisely because of the radical clarity of his critique, and what it would demand of those in power today, including governing coalitions that have learned to profit from the systems he sought to dismantle. To understand why his ideas still unsettle so many in Africa and abroad, it is necessary to return to the speech that announced his politics publicly, and to the reactions it provoked at the time.

On June 30, 1960, at the Palais de la Nation in Leopoldville, now Kinshasa, Lumumba addressed the official independence ceremony in the presence of Belgium’s King Baudouin. The speech has since been recognised as one of the most consequential political interventions of Africa’s decolonisation era. At the time, however, it was treated by much of the Western press as an act of provocation.

Writing the next day in The New York Times, foreign correspondent Harry Gilroy described Lumumba’s address as “militant” and claimed it had “marred” an occasion meant to celebrate independence in a spirit of colonial goodwill. Gilroy contrasted Lumumba unfavourably with a conciliatory address by President Joseph Kasa-Vubu, observed that “the Soviet diplomats present seemed to be enjoying the occasion”, and framed the moment through a Cold War lens that cast Lumumba as erratic and ideologically suspect. This framing was not incidental, but part of a broader Western media reflex that treated uncompromising anti-colonial speech as a threat to order rather than an assertion of political agency.

A special report by The Guardian on July 1, 1960, was equally revealing, if more detailed. The British paper described Lumumba’s speech as “pugnacious” and disruptive to royal dignity. Much attention was paid to etiquette, to the king’s discomfort, to the delay in the official programme and to the supposed embarrassment caused to Belgium on what was meant to be a ceremonial handover.

According to contemporaneous reporting, Baudouin nearly abandoned the independence ceremony altogether as officials scrambled to contain the fallout. What went largely unexamined in the West was the accuracy of Lumumba’s account and how it came into being.

Lumumba revised and expanded his remarks while seated inside the Palais de la Nation, after listening to Baudouin’s address, and without having been scheduled to speak at all. His address was not part of the official programme.

It was a response.

The gulf between the king’s self-congratulatory narrative and Lumumba’s prophetic speech could not have been clearer. Baudouin praised the “genius” of King Leopold II, under whose personal rule an estimated 10 million or so Congolese died through forced labour, violence and famine in the pursuit of rubber and ivory. He spoke of Belgium’s so-called civilising mission and presented independence as benevolent stewardship, without acknowledging the racial terror, dispossession or mass death it caused.

Lumumba rejected that framing outright.

“We have known ironies, insults and blows,” he said, speaking of a system that reduced Africans to subjects rather than citizens. He described land seized through racially discriminatory laws, political prisoners exiled within their own country and forced labour paid at wages that could not sustain human life. Independence, he insisted, was not a gift but the outcome of struggle, and it would be meaningless without dignity, equality and control over national wealth.

What unsettled Western observers was not that Lumumba was inaccurate. It was that he spoke plainly, in public, and in the presence of European power. Colonial self-vindication was acceptable. Anti-colonial truth-telling was not. Lumumba paid with his life for naming realities that others would later learn to manage, soften and profit from. The fixation on his tone, timing and supposed militancy functioned as an early delegitimisation of African political agency.

History would prove Lumumba’s diagnosis correct.

One of the central demands of his speech was that “the lands of our native country truly benefit its children”.

More than six decades later, the contradiction persists.

The DRC holds some of the world’s most strategic mineral reserves, including those essential to global energy transitions. Yet around three-quarters of the population lives in poverty, while mining revenues are dominated by foreign corporations. In the DRC, World Bank-backed reforms and liberalisation programmes, particularly from the 1980s onwards and formalised in the early 2000s, dismantled state control over mining, driving privatisation that returned cobalt and copper to foreign companies and weakened national control over strategic resources.

Resource extraction has continued alongside displacement, conflict, and environmental degradation, particularly in the east.

The same pattern is visible elsewhere.

In Nigeria, crude oil exports have generated hundreds of billions of dollars since the 1970s, yet more than 133 million Nigerians live in multidimensional poverty. Different national contexts, similar outcomes: political independence without economic sovereignty. Communities in the Niger Delta endure chronic pollution, underdevelopment and violence, while wealth flows outward.

Lumumba also spoke directly to political freedom.

He pledged to “stop the persecution of free thought” and to ensure that “all citizens enjoy to the fullest extent the basic freedoms provided for by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights”.

This, too, was not lofty speechmaking.

It was a warning.

Across the continent, elementary democratic commitments have been repeatedly broken through violence, repression and deeply compromised electoral processes, including in Uganda, Tanzania and Eritrea.

Militarisation has become a default mode of politics, with wars, coups and power struggles now recurrent features across the continent, from protracted conflicts in the Horn of Africa to repeated military takeovers elsewhere.

Lumumba cautioned explicitly against rule by force in Africa. “We shall institute in the country a peace resting not on guns and bayonets,” he said, “but on concord and goodwill.”

That vision has been steadily abandoned.

Africa is independent in form, not substance.

Corruption, repression and neocolonial systems continue to hollow it out.

The African Union estimates that Africa loses around $89bn annually through illicit financial flows, while CFA franc controls and debt conditionalities continue to impede socioeconomic progress. Courts can examine individual acts, but history judges systems, and the systems Lumumba warned against remain firmly in place. That is why the case unfolding in Belgium matters beyond its legal scope.

The Belgian courtroom process revisits the mechanics of Lumumba’s death, but it cannot resolve the deeper historical and political injury his killing represented.

Lumumba’s family, the DRC, and the continent are owed full accountability for his assassination, just as Africans deserve reparations for slavery and colonialism.

However, justice for the past is inseparable from responsibility in the present.

His legacy requires more than statues and memorials.

Continued failure to meet the standard Lumumba articulated has produced not stability or dignity, but extraction, inequality and recurring cycles of violence.

That remains the unfinished business of Patrice Lumumba’s life and death.

A teacher and his students in rural Argentina use music to raise the alarm about the dangers of pesticide spraying.

Days after opposing elements of the multilayered structure that Washington has proposed to govern the Palestinian territory, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has agreed to join US President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace” for the future of Gaza.

Given that the Israeli leader has played a significant part in the genocidal war in Gaza since October 2023, in which over 71, 450 people have died, the idea of Netanyahu serving on the board sparked criticism from many Palestinians and their supporters. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu over alleged war crimes committed in Palestinian territory.

However, many analysts think that what appears to be changing Israeli positions may have been a deliberate decision.

Netanyahu criticized the Gaza “executive board” just days before he accepted a seat on the multi-national board, claiming that its makeup “was not in line with Israel and goes against its policy.”

The US-led board, which includes representatives of nations close to Israel, former UK prime minister Tony Blair, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Jared Kushner, has a defined portfolio that includes “governance capacity-building, regional relations, reconstruction, investment attraction, large-scale funding, and capital mobilization,” according to the White House.

The Israeli army is also preventing entry to the enclave by the very people charged with rebuilding it at the same time that Netanyahu prepares to sit alongside them on the board.

Therefore, the Israeli government’s decision to join may serve as a ploy to sabotage upcoming efforts to control Gaza’s governance, according to analysts.

Trump will be able to veto all of the board’s decisions, but as chairman, he may be able to do so, which could lead to “negotiations” by Israel regarding these decisions.

Trump has clearly shown that he will make deals, according to Rami Khouri, a fellow at the American University of Beirut. “Israel does not have a veto,” Khouri said.

Trump is “long-term Zionist planner” intent on buying time, according to Khouri, who is transactional and eager to close the Iran deal.

According to Israeli media reports, Israel has already criticized Trump’s inclusion of Turkiye and Qatar on the board.

Yair Lapid, the leader of the Israeli opposition, reportedly told Netanyahu that Trump had made the board’s announcement “without your knowledge” in the Knesset. He claimed that the prime minister was being abused and that Hamas members in Istanbul and Doha were being given the task of managing Gaza.

Netanyahu acknowledged a “disagreement” with Washington regarding the advisory council, saying “there will be no Turkish or Qatari soldiers in Gaza.”

A “disruption” strategy

Analysts claim that the real deadlock is operational, despite the fact that the board members have been the focus of the diplomatic row so far.

A 15-person committee of politically independent Palestinian experts tasked with rebuilding and under the control of the Board of Peace, according to a report from Haaretz on Tuesday, Israel is refusing to let them enter the Gaza Strip via the Rafah crossing. This week, these “technocrats” were scheduled to take over the Strip’s civil administration.

Therefore, there appear to be divergences between the US and Israel regarding Gaza and the second phase of the ceasefire agreement, which this committee is a part of. However, according to analysts, the allies’ relationships don’t actually break down despite the rhetoric.

Expert on Israeli affairs Mohannad Mustafa told Al Jazeera, “I do not call it a clash, but rather a divergence.”

Israel will use tools to obstruct the committee’s work, including limiting their movement and keeping the Rafah crossing closed, because “Netanyahu cannot say “no” to Trump directly.

In the end, Israel wants to break up the ceasefire’s second “humanitarian phase” with its subsequent “withdrawal phase.”

According to Mustafa, “Israel will tell everyone to keep working with your committees, but we won’t withdraw.” They are currently extending their control of the Gaza Strip to 55 to 60%.

Security versus reconstruction: The “high-rise” threat

The Israeli military is already raising the alarm over Gaza’s reconstruction, which is at the top of the peace plan’s agenda.

According to Haaretz, Israeli military officials are concerned about the proposed “high-rise towers” in a new Gaza, specifically the physical reconstruction plans. They claim this would “unacceptable” because they would have a view of southern Israeli military installations and settlements.

Israel effectively freezes reconstruction by citing security threats and demanding a distinct demilitarization process that no international organization is capable of implementing.

This demonstrates the absurdity of “the US vision clashing with Israeli reality,” according to Mustafa.

“Imagine creating residential clusters in a region that Israel still has military control over.” The committee may begin overseeing the locations with an Israeli security clearance.

A compensation compliance pattern

Khouri contends that Israel’s “brinkmanship” appears to be a 75-year-old historical game, in which it only concedes to US demands after receiving a significant amount of compensation.

According to Khouri, “it will try to get guarantees in return,” citing precedents like the 1979 and 2000 withdrawals from Lebanon. It obtained guarantees of unprecedented levels of aid, support from the UN, and strategic defense collaborations, according to the US.

In order to make the Board of Peace function, Netanyahu is likely positioning himself to demand new security guarantees or perhaps access to cutting-edge weaponry by creating a crisis through the inclusion of Turkiye and Qatar or the construction of high-rise apartment blocks.

A pressure cooker at home

Netanyahu is negotiating with Trump in addition to ensuring his country’s political future.

According to a recent poll conducted by Channel 13, 53% of Israelis consider the Board of Peace’s participation by the Turkish-Qatari to be an “Israeli failure.” The US plan was condemned by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who described it as “a bad plan for Israel.”

Smotrich also claimed that nations like the UK and Egypt are hostile to Israel’s security, according to the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv. Instead of requesting Israel’s withdrawal, Motrich has continued to call for military rule over Gaza and the “voluntary migration” of its population.

According to Mustafa, “Netanyahu is in a political whirlwind.” He is being squeezed by the Americans, the settlers who want to return to Gaza, and the opposition.

The election is approaching.

The Israeli electoral calendar, which is likely to hold elections in October 2026, is the final variable.

This will be regarded as a failure, according to Mustafa, “if Israel withdraws from Gaza without Hamas being disarmed.” “Netanyahu will prefer to serve his own political goals to Trump’s approval.”

Despite Trump’s growing frustration, there hasn’t been a formal agreement on when Hamas’ disarmament will occur, despite the ceasefire agreement with Israel. He stated last week that he would push for the “comprehensive” demilitarization of Hamas, and he stated in a social media post that “they can do this the easy way or the hard way.”

Bottom line, according to Khouri is that Israel is terrified of losing “sole security control” of the Strip while US public opinion is shifting further into horror at the genocide in Gaza.