ETHIOPIAN WAR OF AGGRESSION

The biggest war today is not in Ukraine but Tigray, where WWI tactics are causing ‘unbelievable carnage’

Taz Ali - Yesterday 


While most global leaders’ attention is on the Ukraine war, the world’s bloodiest armed conflict continues to rage in the northern Ethiopian region of Tigray, where half a million people are thought to have died.


A soldier from the Ethiopian National Defence Force (ENDF) in Kombolcha, Ethiopia. An estimated one million troops are engaged in fighting in the war in Tigray, which has raged on for nearly two years (Photo: Amanuel Sileshi/AFP)© Provided by The i

The Ethiopian military and allies including troops from neighbouring Eritrea have been battling Tigray forces on and off for two years.

The conflict has displaced millions of people and a near total blockade of the Tigray region has left hundreds of thousands on the brink of famine.

On the battlefields, an estimated one million troops are engaged in the offensive, making it the biggest conflict in the world right now, according to Kjetil Tronvoll, an anthropologist and conflict professor at Oslo New University College in Norway.

That figure was also confirmed by General Tsadkan Gebretensae, one of the leading generals in Tigray, who claimed up to 75 per cent of fighting troops are Ethiopian and Eritrean forces.

According to Professor Tronvoll, whose more than 30 years of research and fieldwork has focused on Ethiopia and Eritrea, the military strategy used by Ethiopian troops mirrors that of the First World War: using infantry to push large “human waves” of soldiers to breach Tigrayan defence lines.

He said it was likely as many as 100,000 soldiers have been slaughtered in recent weeks.

“You have thousands of troops running over the field trying to reach the enemy line, and of course the first, second and third wave will be shot down,” Professor Tronvoll told i.

“But then when the fourth wave comes, the Tigrayan forces have run out of ammunition or are overrun.

“So they manage to advance some few hundred metres, this is what happened in the First World War on the continental battlefields, and we know the same tactics were used in the 1998-2000 war between Eritrea and Ethiopia.

“It’s a carnage of unbelievable proportions. This is the most bloody armed conflict happening in the world today.”

And the number of casualties could keep climbing, he argued, as Ethiopia gains the upper hand in the conflict after capturing the Tigrayan towns of Shire, Alamata and Korem.

The loss of the strategic town of Shire came as a blow to Tigrayan forces. It is one of the region’s biggest towns with an airport and road links to the regional capital Mekelle, which Ethiopian forces believe is within their grasp.

“They believe they can reach Mekelle and kill off thousands of the junta,” said Professor Tronvoll.

“One thing we know about the history of Tigray – and I have been studying that history for over 30 years – when they say this is an existential war and they will never give up, that is true, that is proven.”

Though there have been repeated condemnations from around the world and demands for humanitarian access into Tigray, Professor Tronvoll criticised the lack of meaningful action from the West.

He questioned why Western leaders are “playing the plausible deniability card” in not showing the same amount of care for Tigray as they are for Ukraine, and suggested targeting the Ethiopian economy – as the West has done with sanctions against Russia – to force it to accept a negotiation process.

Soaring inflation – which reached a 17-year high of 20.5 per cent in August – has crippled Ethiopia’s economy, driven by the rising cost of imports due to a shortage of foreign currency and increasing cost of production.

Ethiopia has sought help from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to restructure its debt, but progress has been delayed partly due to the civil war, Reuters reported.

The country’s finance minister, Eyob Tekalign Tolina, acknowledged the conflict was a key factor in the delay, but he said he hoped there would be peace talks in “the coming few weeks”.

The African Union (AU), consisting of 55 member states in the continent, has pursued peace negotiations but the group itself presents its own problems.

The Tigrayan regional government expressed reservations about the impartiality of General Olusegun Obasanjo, the former leader of Nigeria, who was “hand picked” by the Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to lead negotiations under the AU, Professor Tronvoll said.

The AU has scheduled peace talks between the warring parties in South Africa on Monday, having postponed a previous meeting on 8 October due to logistical and technical issues.

Professor Tronvoll is not convinced the peace talks will lead to a solution to end the war.

“They (Ethiopian and Eritrean forces) have had the upper hand in the past few weeks, they’re not interested at all to negotiate, they see that it is a possibility to win this by arms,” he argued.

“The West is happy to say that this is an AU-led process – AU and Ethiopia is projecting the slogan ‘African solutions to African problems’.

“It gives us (in the West) an excuse to say it is really the AU who is leading the process so we need to take the back seat.”

CAI XIA REFLECTS ON HER BREAK FROM

 THE PARTY

Posted by Alexander Boyd | Dec 4, 2020

A former professor at the powerful Central Party School, Cai Xia is now an unlikely dissident. After a secret speech in which she called the Party a “political zombie” went viral, Cai was expelled from the Party. She now lives in exile. At Foreign Affairs, Cai published an essay detailing her rise through (and rising disillusionment with) the Party apparatus until her final, dramatic, break this summer:

[…] My newly acquired understanding of the democratic transition in Spain, along with what I already knew about those in the former Soviet bloc, led me to fundamentally reject the Marxist ideology in which I once had unshakable faith. I came to realize that the theories Marx advanced in the nineteenth century were limited by his own intellect and the historical circumstances of his time. Moreover, I saw that the highly centralized, oppressive version of Marxism promoted by the CCP owed more to Stalin than to Marx himself. I increasingly recognized it as an ideology formed to serve a self-interested dictatorship. Marxism, I began to hint in publications and lectures, should not be worshiped as an absolute truth, and China had to start the journey to democracy. In 2010, when some liberal scholars published an edited volume called Toward Constitutionalism, I contributed an article that discussed the Spanish experience.

[…] More than a month before the 18th Party Congress of November 2012, when Xi would be formally unveiled as the CCP’s new general secretary, I was chatting with a veteran reporter from a major Chinese magazine and a leading professor at my school who had observed Xi’s career for a long time. The two had just wrapped up an interview, and before leaving, the reporter tossed out a question: “I hear that Xi Jinping lived in the Central Party School compound for a period of time. Now he’s about to become the party’s general secretary. What do you think of him?” The professor’s lip twitched, and he said with disdain that Xi suffered from “inadequate knowledge.” The reporter and I were stunned at this blunt pronouncement.

[…] In April 2016, the text of a speech I had given a few months earlier at Tsinghua University—in which I argued that if ideology violates common sense, it deteriorates into lies—was published on an influential website in Hong Kong. The timing was bad: Xi had just announced that some of the free inquiry taking place at the Central Party School had gone too far and urged greater supervision of its professors. As a result, in early May, I was called in again by the school’s disciplinary committee and accused of opposing Xi. From then on, the CCP blocked me from all media in China—print, online, television. Even my name could not be published.

[…] When I learned of this outcome [of Lei Yang’s case], I sat at my desk all night, overcome with grief and anger. Lei’s death was a clear-cut case of wrongdoing, and instead of punishing the police officers responsible, their superiors had tried to use the people’s hard-earned tax money to settle the matter out of court. Officials were closing ranks rather than serving the people. I asked myself, if the CCP’s officials are capable of such despicable actions, how can the Party be trusted? Most of all, I wondered how I could remain part of this system. [Source]

Some of China’s “statist” thinkers have also abandoned Marx, but this time in favor of a second German philosopher: Carl Schmitt. A former Nazi jurist and prominent conservative thinker, Schmitt argued that legal order is based on sovereignty, which rests in a dictator who can bring about “a total suspension of the law and then…use extra-legal force to normalize the situation.” PRC academics have increasingly cited Schmitt’s work to justify China’s sweeping, and ever continuing, crackdown on Hong Kong. In 2018, Peking University professor Chen Duanhong cited Schmitt to justify the need for a Hong Kong National Security Law: “The survival of the state comes first, and constitutional law must serve this fundamental objective.” At The Atlantic, Chang Che examined the rise of Schmitt in the Chinese academy and how his theories have driven China’s foreign policy:

China’s fascination with Schmitt took off in the early 2000s when the philosopher Liu Xiaofeng translated the German thinker’s major works into Chinese. Dubbed “Schmitt fever,” his ideas energized the political science, philosophy, and law departments of China’s universities. Chen Duanhong, a law professor at Peking University, called Schmitt “the most successful theorist” to have brought political concepts into his discipline. “His constitutional doctrine is what we revere,” Chen wrote in 2012, before adding, of his Nazi membership, “That’s his personal choice.” An alum of Peking University’s philosophy program, who asked not to be identified speaking on sensitive issues, told me that Schmitt’s work was among “the common language, a part of the academic establishment” at the university.

[…] Why has a Nazi thinker garnered such a lively reception in China? To some degree, it is a matter of convenience. “Schmitt serves certain purposes that Marxism should have done, but can no longer do,” Haig Patapan, a politics professor at Griffith University in Australia who has written on Schmitt’s reception in China, told me. Schmitt gives pro-Beijing scholars an opportunity to anchor the party’s legitimacy on more primal forces—nationalism and external enemies—rather than the timeworn notion of class struggle.

[…] One lesson from Chiang’s rule is that threats from abroad can stoke authoritarianism at home. And for almost a century, even as power transferred from Chiang’s Nationalists to Mao Zedong’s Communists, fear of “enemy” infiltration—the seedbed for fascism—lingered in China’s national psyche. “Who are our enemies? Who are our friends?” Mao asked in the very first line of his Selected Works. Later, from 1989 to 1991, 500 articles in the People’s Daily, the state-controlled paper, contained the phrase “hostile forces.” The perceived threat of invasion, or at minimum suspicion of outsiders, continues to inform contemporary politics. Such anxiety lends credence to the anti-liberal theories of Carl Schmitt, who once proclaimed that all “political actions and motives can be reduced to that distinction between friends and enemies.”

Other voices still speak in China’s rapidly narrowing public sphere. Activists like Xianzi and entrepreneurs like Sun Dawu have articulated different visions of China’s social order. Rights lawyer Xu Zhiyong, a prominent critic of Xi Jinping, and Geng Xiaonan, herself not an activist but rather “someone who provides practical succor to prisoners of conscience,” were both vocal in their dissent until their arrests. Tsinghua professor Xu Zhangrun has been an outspoken critic of Xi’s policies and was fired from his position and briefly detained as a result. At SupChina, Ian Johnson profiled Reading the China Dream, a website dedicated to translating and amplifying Chinese voices across the political spectrum:

“It’s obvious Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 wants to stifle plurality, but it’s not clear to me that he’s succeeding in broad terms or can keep it up,” Ownby said in an interview. “There are a lot of smart Chinese out there and they keep generating lots of material.”

[…] The thinkers are divided into categories according to a schema popularized by the thinker Róng Jiàn 荣剑: classic liberals (those who want a more open political system), Marxists (those defending something like the status quo), and traditionalists (those who look to the past, especially Confucianism, for answers).

[…] But Professor Chien from Taiwan said another reason for the lack of translation is that the world has “written China off as a totalitarian monolith.”

“This does not help positive interaction between intellectuals from the two sides,” Professor Chien said. “And the one-dimensional perception will overflow and affect public opinion in the West.”[Source]

Of course, Xi Jinping’s voice dominates all others. State-funding for social sciences research has skyrocketed under Xi. In 2018, 8% of those projects were tied directly to his ideology, with none tied to those of his predecessors Hu Jintao or Jiang Zemin. Xi’s ideological control means the language used to introduce him is exceptionally important within China, which makes a recent error repeated by both Xinhua and CCTV all the more curious. At China Media Project, David Bandurski explained why the title “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era and Xi Jinping Thought on a Strong Military” is a faux pas:

[…] As we have previously written, Xi’s banner term, “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” (习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想), which first appeared in October 2017 at the 19th National Congress of the CCP, is on a winding path toward formalization as the shortened and more potent “Xi Jinping Thought” (习近平思想), putting Xi on par with Mao Zedong. Despite some rather careless and premature references in academic literature and mainstream news reports outside China to “Xi Jinping Thought,” it is worth remembering that “Xi Jinping Thought” has in fact not yet emerged, not formally, and this is a distinction that certainly has not escaped Xi and his acolytes at senior levels, who are busy trying to achieve this transformation.

[…] But the point of Xi Jinping’s banner term is to subsume all of Xi’s ideas. There is meant to be one banner, the umbrella phrase under which all lesser banners fly. And any suggestion of equivalence between the lesser thoughts and their parent phrase would serve to diminish the gravity of “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.” This is the serious problem in the Xinhua article, the “and” drawing an equivalence between Xi’s banner term and “Xi Jinping Thought on a Strong Military.” [Source]

 

A Q&A with Cai Xia

Cai Xia was a professor of political theory at the Central Party School of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing between 1998 and 2012. But in late 2020, after her sharp critiques of the Party and its leader, Xi Jinping, began circulating online, she was expelled from the Communist Party. In this week’s Q&A with David Barboza, she talks about how Xi Jinping overturned the pillars of Marxism and destroyed the CCP’s ‘democratic centralism’; how the ‘princeling’ generation is different; and why reformists in China can’t succeed without pressure from the outside world.

Cai Xia Illustration by Kate Copeland

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CALL A GENERAL ELECTION!

Rishi Sunak one step closer to be elected UK PM on Diwali

PTI Updated: October 24, 2022 

By Aditi Khanna

London, Oct 24 (PTI) Rishi Sunak is one step closer as the clear frontrunner in the Conservative Party leadership race on Monday to be elected Britain’s first Indian-origin Prime Minister after his former boss, Boris Johnson, confirmed he would be pulling out of the contest.

With the former prime minister stepping aside on Sunday night saying it was “simply not the right time” for his comeback, the prospect of a Diwali victory for Sunak cannot be ruled out.
The 42-year-old former chancellor, who said he wanted to “fix our economy, unite our party and deliver for our country” when he declared his candidacy, has held a solid lead in the contest having comfortably surpassed the 100-MPs threshold to make the shortlist in time for the 1400 local time Monday deadline.

Leader of the Commons Penny Mordaunt, the only other contestant in the race, has much ground to cover to hit the 100-MPs mark, giving rise to the possibility that the former finance minister may well be declared the new leader as soon as Monday evening.

If Sunak and Mordaunt both make the final shortlist, they would go forward for an online vote of the 170,000 Tory membership and that result on Friday would prove less predictable.
A Sunak victory would mark a remarkable turnaround in political fortunes for the former finance minister, who lost out to outgoing Prime Minister Liz Truss just last month after his popularity among party colleagues did not translate in the wider Tory membership vote.

Truss on Thursday announced her resignation as the Prime Minister after just 45 days in office, following an open revolt against her leadership in the Conservative Party.

“I am asking you for the opportunity to help fix our problems,” said Sunak, in his latest campaign pitch, with reference to the economic turmoil he would be inheriting if he does go on to succeed Truss following a disastrous tax-cutting mini-budget last month.

“The United Kingdom is a great country but we face a profound economic crisis. That’s why I am standing to be leader of the Conservative Party and your next Prime Minister,” he said, promising “integrity, professionalism and accountability” at every level of the government that he would lead and to “work day in and day out” to get the job done.


The UK-born son of Indian-origin general practitioner father Yashvir and pharmacist mother Usha had spoken extensively of his migrant roots during the last campaign and also referenced making history by lighting Diwali diyas at 11 Downing Street as the first Indian-origin Chancellor of the Exchequer.

“Sixty years after my Naniji boarded a plane in East Africa, on a warm sunny evening in October, her great-grandaughters, my kids, played in the street outside our home, painted Rangoli on the doorstep, lit sparklers and diyas; had fun like so many other families on Diwali.
Except the street was Downing Street, and the door was the door to No. 11,” said Sunak, in his campaign video a few months ago.

That personal story also extended to a visibly emotional reference to his parents-in-law – Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy and Sudha Murthy – as he hit back at attacks on his wife Akshata Murthy’s family wealth.

“I'm actually incredibly proud of what my parents-in-law built,” he said, during heated television debates over the past few months.

As a devout Hindu, Sunak is a regular at the temple where he was born in Southampton and his daughters, Anoushka and Krishna, are also rooted in the Indian culture.
He recently shared how Anoushka performed Kuchipudi with her classmates for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations at Westminster Abbey in June.

But beyond the personal, he also faced down attacks from his opponents over his record as Chancellor until his resignation precipitated Johnson's exit.

He stood firm on his focus on inflation rather than any vote-winning tax cut promises to woo a traditionally low-tax favouring Conservative Party membership base.

“I will get taxes down in this Parliament, but I'm going to do so responsibly. I don't cut taxes to win elections, I win elections to cut taxes,” he declared.

His self-made credentials of working his way through a non-scholarship place at one of the UK’s best schools, Winchester College, to a coveted Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) from Oxford University and then an MBA from Stanford University as a Fulbright Scholar tick all the right boxes for the country’s highest political office.

His private sector experience at Goldman Sachs and as a hedge fund manager seem to lend him the aura of someone who can be trusted in the face of harsh economic headwinds, further bolstered by his prescient warnings over Truss’ unfunded tax cuts.

His political career began with winning a safe Tory seat of Richmond in Yorkshire in 2015 and from junior roles in the Treasury he was suddenly catapulted to the post of Chancellor of Exchequer when his former boss, Sajid Javid, resigned in February 2020.

He proved the doubters who feared his inexperience of high office would see him overpowered by his new boss, Johnson, wrong as he credibly led the economic response to the COVID pandemic.

He was constantly touted as the heir apparent to Johnson until that took a beating with some of his less popular tax hike policies in the wake of the pandemic and a partygate fine for attending a birthday event for his ex-boss in breach of lockdown rules.

In the latest chapter, the duo found themselves pitched for another face off for the top job in British politics.

This round seems to be firmly titled in favour of Sunak, and if he goes on to be elected the third British Prime Minister in three months, he faces the tough task of trying to unite a deeply divided Tory party at one of the most perilous times for the British economy. 

PTI AK VM VM

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)

Predictor of chaos: What Tory MPs think of leadership favourite Rishi Sunak

It's time for Tories to decide if time has come for one-time golden boy to shine as leader

British former chancellor of the exchequer Rishi Sunak. Reuters

Soraya Ebrahimi

Oct 23, 2022

Beta V.1.0 - Powered by automated translation

Many Conservatives believe former chancellor Rishi Sunak is the clear choice to steer Britain’s economy back towards stability, having largely predicted the turmoil unleashed by Liz Truss’s tax-cutting agenda.

To other MPs, Mr Sunak is still the traitor who brought down Boris Johnson, raising the question of whether he can unite a fractious Conservative Party.

Once the golden boy of the Tory party, Mr Sunak clearly believes he has a chance of convincing them he can, taking another tilt at No 10 just over six weeks after losing out last time.

READ MORE

Ready for Rishi? What Sunak would do if he becomes UK PM

He was defeated in the last Tory leadership race as the party membership picked rival Ms Truss, gathering 60,399 votes to her 81,326.

In that contest, Mr Sunak positioned himself as the candidate prepared to tell hard truths about the state of the public finances rather than “comforting fairy tales”.

He remained resolute in the view that his rival’s promises of unfunded tax cuts at a time of worsening inflation were irresponsible, dangerous and un-Conservative, predicting that they would lead to surging mortgage rates.

After Ms Truss took office, her disastrous mini-budget brought turbulence in the financial markets and forced the Bank of England to intervene, proving Mr Sunak right.

He kept a low profile as the chaos continued, staying away from the annual Tory conference, which was overshadowed by a retreat on a flagship policy to scrap the 45 per cent rate of income tax.

Accusations in the last leadership race that he represented “Treasury orthodoxy” and a “gloomster” mentality could speak in Mr Sunak's favour this time, as many will be reassured by his undoubted experience in handling the economy and his realist approach.

He gathered a string of endorsements from MPs before declaring he would run, with backers highlighting his “calm competence” and portraying him as a “serious person for serious times”.

At the start of the pandemic, he was the most popular politician in the country as he introduced an unprecedented furlough scheme that saved millions of jobs as the economy ground to a halt.

His ambitions had been scarcely concealed since the day he entered No 11, with personalised branding on carefully curated social media content to boost his public profile, along with a concerted campaign to woo MPs.

Mr Sunak's meteoric rise under Mr Johnson quickly made him the Cabinet minister tipped to be the most likely successor.

Everything you need to know about Rishi Sunak - video

Everything you need to know about Rishi Sunak

He was born in 1980 in Southampton, the son of parents of Punjabi descent. Mr Sunak’s father was a family doctor and his mother ran a pharmacy, where he helped her with the books.

After private schooling at Winchester College, where he was head boy, and a degree in philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford, he took an MBA at Stanford University in California where he met his wife, Akshata Murty, the daughter of India’s sixth richest man.

A successful business career, with spells at Goldman Sachs and as a hedge fund manager, meant by the time he decided to enter politics in his early 30s Mr Sunak was already independently wealthy.

In 2014 he was selected as the Tory candidate for the ultra-safe seat of Richmond in North Yorkshire — then held by William (now Lord) Hague — and was elected in the general election the following year.

In the 2016 Brexit referendum Mr Sunak supported Leave, to the reported dismay of David Cameron who saw him as one of the Conservatives’ brightest prospects among the new intake.

Given his first government post as a junior local government minister by Mr Cameron’s successor, Theresa May, he was an early backer of Mr Johnson for leader when she was forced out amid the fall-out over Brexit.

When Mr Johnson entered No 10 in July 2019, there was swift reward with a dramatic promotion to the Cabinet as treasury chief secretary.

An even bigger step up followed in February 2020 when Sajid Javid quit as chancellor after rejecting a demand to sack all his advisers and Mr Sunak was put in charge of the nation’s finances, at the age of just 39.

The increasingly rapid spread of Covid-19 meant his mettle was swiftly tested. Within a fortnight of his first Budget he was effectively forced to rip up his financial plans as the country went into lockdown.

Mr Sunak, who saw himself as a traditional small-state, low-tax Conservative, began pumping out hundreds of billions in government cash as the economy was put on life support.

But as the country emerged from the pandemic, some of the gloss began to wear off amid growing tension with his neighbour in No 10 and anger among Tory MPs over rising taxes as he sought to rebuild public finances.

To add to his woes, Mr Sunak was caught up in the “partygate” scandal, receiving a fine along with Mr Johnson, for attending a gathering to mark the prime minister’s 56th birthday, even though he claimed to have gone into No 10 only to attend a meeting.

There were more questions when it emerged his wife had “non-domiciled” status for tax purposes, an arrangement that reportedly saved her millions, while he had kept a US green card, entitling him to permanent residence in the US.

For a man known for his fondness for expensive gadgets and fashionable accessories, and who still has an apartment in Santa Monica, it all looked dangerously out of touch at a time when soaring prices were putting a financial squeeze on millions across the country.

Mr Sunak's frustrations with Mr Johnson’s chaotic style of government, and a deepening rift over policy, finally spilled over when he resigned, prompting the rush for the door by other ministers that forced the prime minister to admit his time was up.

Mr Sunak has been unrepentant over his decision to quit, even as he admitted it was a decision that may have damaged his standing among a grassroots that picked Mr Johnson as prime minister only a few years earlier.

It remains to be seen whether his colleagues, and the party faithful, are ready to forgive him for the slight, and whether the time has come for this one-time golden boy to shine.

Updated: October 23, 2022, 4:49 p.m.

Geological Society declares end to Tongan volcanic eruption

11:08 am today



Photo: Supplied

The Tonga Geological Society says the volcanic eruption on the Home Reef has stopped.

On Saturday its Volcano Watch team said the last eruption had taken place in the early hours of October 17.

The watch over Home Reef started on September 10 with multiple eruptions occurring until the last recorded one.

In its final report, the Volcano Watch team said hazard zones for mariners sailing near Home Reef have been lifted, but landing on the newly formed island is prohibited for public safety.

There are no risks to the Vava'u and Ha'apai communities.

Volcanic plume dispersed from the island has decreased and thinned within 1km of the island.

The aviation colour code has also returned to green.

Satellite imagery from last week showed the island had an approximate surface area of 15 acres.

Home Reef is located 25km southwest of Late Island, 22km northeast of Lateiki (Metis Shoal) and 75km northwest of Mo'unga'one Island.

Mount Kilimanjaro fire under control, say Tanzania authorities

A general view on Mount Kilimanjaro taken July 21, 2022 from the Amboseli National Park in Kenya. — AFP pic

Monday, 24 Oct 2022 

DAR ES SALAAM, Oct 24 — Tanzanian authorities said yesterday a fire on Mount Kilimanjaro was under control after flames burned Africa’s tallest mountain for more than 24 hours.

The blaze began on Friday evening near the Karanga site used by climbers ascending the famous peak, at about 4,000 metres altitude on its south side.

“The situation is generally under control and we believe it will completely tackled as time goes,” said a statement from the Natural Resources and Tourism Minister, Pindi Chana.

Earlier yesterday evening, a ministry statement had said that the situation had “to a large extent” been extinguished.

Local official Nurdin Babu told reporters “everything is under control... we have managed to control the fire to a great extent”.

The blaze left no victims in the tourist hotspot and Unesco World Heritage site in north-eastern Tanzania, where tens of thousands of climbers flock each year to conquer its snow-capped peak.

Hundreds of people including firefighters, national park staff and civilians were mobilised to fight the flames that were fanned by a strong wind.

Social media footage on Saturday showed huge flames consuming vegetation and bushes and giving off grey smoke.

The cause remains unknown but Sedoyeka on Saturday said a climber or honey hunters may have started it “carelessly”.

Herman Batiho, an official at Tanzania’s national parks authority, said he was “sure” human activity was to blame through illegal poaching or locals extracting honey.

The latest blaze comes two years after another fire raged for a week in October 2020 across 95 square kilometres. — AFP

Tanzania mobilizes over 600 firefighters to put out fire on Mt Kilimanjaro

CGTN

Tanzanian authorities have mobilized more than 600 firefighters to put out a fire on Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest mountain, an official said on Sunday.

Nurdin Babu, the Kilimanjaro regional commissioner, said that the firefighters have been drawn from the Tanzania Fire and Rescue Force, the Tanzania National Parks, police, scouts, members of the militia and the private sector.

The fire broke out on Friday night at about 4,000 meters altitude on the south side of the mountain and was quickly spread by strong winds, said Babu.

"We are hoping that the fire will be contained by tonight by the 600-plus strong team of firefighters," he said, adding that the cause of the fire and the damaged caused were yet to be established.

He said initially there were plans to request the Tanzania People's Defense Forces (TPDF) to help in fighting the fire but the plans were dropped after reports indicated that there was good progress in putting out the fire.

On Saturday afternoon, Babu said he flew over the mountain with a team of experts for aerial survey to assess damage caused by the fire but the mission was cut short due to heavy smoke and bad weather.

"We made another attempt on Saturday night and managed to see affected areas," he said, adding that there were no reported casualties.

In October 2020, a fire broke out on the mountain and destroyed 95.5 square kilometers of vegetation and 12 huts, two toilets and solar equipment used by tourists climbing the mountain.

Mount Kilimanjaro, with its snow-capped peak with about 5,895 meters above sea level, is one of Tanzania's leading tourist destinations.

Roughly 50,000 trekkers from across the world attempt to reach the summit of the mountain annually.

Source(s): Xinhua News Agency

Tanzania's iconic Mt. Kilimanjaro on fire

Fire fighters battling raging inferno, posing serious threat to flora, fauna surrounding Africa’s highest mountain peak

Kizito Makoye |12.10.2020


DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania

Firefighters and a legion of first responders in Tanzania are battling a raging inferno on Mt. Kilimanjaro, which has been spreading since Sunday evening, posing a serious threat to the flora and fauna surrounding Africa’s highest mountain peak.

The fast-spreading bushfire, believed to be fueled by soaring temperature and high winds, erupted near Whona camp – a stopover used by tourists and hikers – and efforts to contain it are underway, authorities said on Monday.

The Tanzania National Parks Authority (TANAPA), which manages the park within which the mountain is perched, said the roaring flames have destroyed a large part of the mountain forest near a resting camp for tourists who use Mandara and Horombo routes to climb.

Pascal Shelutete, TANAPA’s senior assistant commissioner, said in a statement that firefighters, emergency responders and volunteers from the College of African Wildlife Management (CAWMSO) have joined forces with local residents to battle the blaze, whose source is still unknown. No casualties have been reported so far.

“We are taking all necessary precautions to ensure the safety of our visitors and their property, without jeopardizing ongoing tourism activities in the area,” Shelutete said.

He did not say about the extent of the damage so far, promising to give more details later as authorities are still assessing the situation.


However, eyewitness reports suggest the fire may have been caused by illegal honey harvesters who often use smoke to scare away bees from the hives or tree holes.

Meanwhile, David Ponera, a representative of CAWMSO, said hundreds of students have been dispatched to help put out the blaze.

However, sources in Kilimanjaro said a lack of equipment and high altitude are hampering efforts to bring the blaze under control.

Climate change, human impact

Kilimanjaro, the world’s tallest free-standing mountain at 5,895 meters (19,341 feet) above sea level, is highly susceptible to the worsening impacts of climate change and increasing human activities.

The mountain, which attracts about 50,000 tourists every year, has frequently braved fire incidents.

Wildfire and rampant illegal logging have encroached on the ecosystem around the park and disturbed a forest belt around the mountain area, local authorities said.

According to Wilbad Meena, a local resident, a single wildfire in the mountain is capable of destroying hundreds of hectares of woods as well as killing many endangered animal species.

“I honestly cannot correctly assess the scale of forest destruction but it is big, I could see a plume of smoke rising into the sky from as far as Moshi,” said Meena.

Fire blazes on Africa's tallest peak: Mt. Kilimanjaro

Tom Odula
The Associated Press

Tuesday, October 13, 2020 

This satellite image taken by NASA on Monday, Oct. 12, 2020 shows 

Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. (NASA via AP)

NAIROBI, KENYA -- Tanzanian authorities say 500 volunteers have been trying to put out a fire on Africa's tallest peak, Mt. Kilimanjaro. The flames can be seen from miles away.

A Tanzania National Parks statement said the volunteers have managed to limit the fire's spread. Spokesman Pascal Shelutete said the area still burning is known as Kifunika Hill.

He said the cause of the fire is yet to be established.

Shelutete did not say how the fire that has been burning for more than a day has affected wildlife or vegetation, but he assured tourists of their safety. The mountain is popular with hikers and climbers.

Mt. Kilimanjaro is the highest single free-standing mountain in the world, with a height of 19,443 feet.