This content was published on Jun 24, 2023 – 09:37. Jun 24, 2023 – 9:37 am

Freetown, June 24 (EFE). – The head of the United Nations Office for West Africa and the Sahel (UNOWAS), Leonardo Santos Simaõ, today called for “peaceful elections” in Sierra Leone, a country where he is voting this Saturday at the ballot box for its next president.

“(Simaõ) calls on all parties to refrain from any action, speech or statement that may undermine the integrity of the process,” UNOWAS said in a brief statement.

In doing so, Simaõ reaffirmed “the commitment of the United Nations”, in coordination with ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States), the African Union (AU) and “members of the international community”, “to support Sierra Leone in its consolidation efforts”. Peace, Democracy and Development”.

Sierra Leone is today celebrating its fifth general election since the end of its bloody civil war (1991-2002) that devastated the country and claimed more than 50,000 lives.

Although general and local elections are also taking place, the race for the presidency is centered on two candidates with a chance of winning: current President Julius Maada Bio, 59 and leader of the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP); and Samura Kamara, 72, leader of the opposition All Peoples Congress (APC).

Authorities expect around 3.4 million Sierra Leoneans – out of a population of 8.5 million – will vote at more than 3,630 polling stations across the country.

As EFE has been able to verify, Freetown, the country’s capital, has woken up to long lines of people patiently waiting their turn to cast their votes, even before polling stations close for 07:00 local time (same GMT ) are opened. .

The votes are still taking place in the shadow of the August 10 high-cost-of-living protests, which were harshly repressed by security forces and have left at least 27 civilians and six police officers dead, and Sesay’s allegations of an alleged “conspiracy”. condemned by the SLPP for “rigging the elections” on June 24.

In addition, on Wednesday, Sierra Leonean authorities broke up demonstrations called by the APC in different parts of the country after describing them as “illegal”.

Following the protests, the ambassadors of the European Union, the United States, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Ireland called on all parties to “renounce violence, respect the political choices of others and reject the language of division and hatred”. .

The AU and ECOWAS issued a similar statement on Thursday, also voicing their “concerns” about “violence and intimidation” in the country. EFE

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Ukraine comes for her counter-offensive against invading Russian troops according to their own statements.

The armed forces advanced south forward, said Deputy Secretary of Defense Hanna Malyar on Friday on Ukrainian television. The offensive is going as planned there.

At the east they would have russian attacks on cities kupyansk It is Lyman repelled.

➤ Read more: Wagner boss Prigozhin: Moscow is spreading lies about the situation at the front

Not very fast offensive

Ukrainian troops are advancing gradually and steadily, even if they are hampered by Russian minefields. “You shouldn’t expect the offensive to be something very fast,” he said. maljar. The main blow is yet to come. Some reserve units would not be deployed until later.

In the south, focus in the direction Melitopol It is Berdyansk. However, the main cities mentioned by Maljar are still a long way from the Russian-occupied interior front in southern Ukraine. Despite the proclaimed progress, the Ukrainian military apparently did not take more cities.

➤ Read more: Counteroffensive: Zelensky spots progress

In any case, there is no corresponding information in Maljar’s report. The officer was always one of the first to report the receipts for the eight settlements recaptured so far.

According to Ukraine, it has recaptured eight villages in the south in the past two weeks. The advances in heavily fortified and mined areas under Russian control, while small, are the biggest since November. The leadership in Kiev has been preparing the counteroffensive for months, which they hope will mark a turning point in the war.

However, it has imposed a news blackout and independent reporting is sparse. But they say there were heavy casualties on both sides. According to experts, the majority of Ukrainian troops have yet to be deployed, some of which have been trained and equipped by the West.

➤ Read more: What Ukraine intends to do with its counter-offensive

Zelensky demands the evacuation of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant

The President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky renewed his accusations of terrorism against Moscow and called for the withdrawal of Russian troops from the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant.

“Complete evacuation of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant is necessary,” he said in his daily video message late on Thursday.

The world must increase pressure on Moscow to avoid a nuclear catastrophe. Radioactivity knows no neutrality, he told countries that have yet to take a stand in the conflict.

Zelensky repeated the accusation that Moscow was planning an attack on the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, which it then cynically “hoped to hide under this or that catastrophe”. He informed representatives of major Western industrialized nations (G7) and industrialized and emerging countries (G20) as well as international organizations about the danger.

Zelensky has not provided concrete evidence for his accusations against Moscow. Instead, he referred to the destruction of the Kachowka Dam.

After it was damaged, the Kakhovka reservoir was depleted and large parts of the Kherson region in southern Ukraine were flooded. Kiev and the West hold Moscow responsible for this. Russia denies blowing the dam.

UN report: Russia is responsible for the deaths of 136 children

The United Nations accuses Russia of serious crimes against children. This emerges from an internal UN report.

UN secretary general Antonio Guterres blamed Russia for the deaths of 136 children last year and expressed “shocked”. The Russian army has been included on a UN list of organizations that commit serious crimes against children in armed conflict. At the same time, the UN also accused Ukraine of being responsible for the deaths of children.

According to the UN, 477 children were demonstrably killed in Ukraine last year. 136 deaths are attributed to Russian forces and allies, 80 to Ukrainian troops. Neither party to the conflict can be blamed for the remaining victims with certainty. Children were mostly killed by air strikes, he said.

Russian forces carry out such attacks on Ukrainian cities and towns. The UN emphasized that there is a high “undeclared number” due to strict guidelines for verifying such cases.

Russia extends custody to American journalists

Meanwhile, Russia’s judiciary confirmed the extended detention of American reporter Evan Gershkovich, who had been arrested for alleged espionage. A court in Moscow on Thursday dismissed a complaint by Gershkovich’s lawyers, the Interfax news agency reported.

The 31-year-old works for the American newspaper “Wall Street Journal”. The reporter was arrested by the FSB secret service in March in the Ural city of Yekaterinburg. He is accused of collecting classified information about Russia’s military-industrial complex for US agencies.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Vladimir Putin, Presidents of Ukraine and Russia. Photo: Ian Langsdon/Pool/AFP

The West can end the war in Ukraine immediately. All it takes is an agreement between France, Germany and Italy to stop arms supplies to Kiev, forcing it to go to the negotiating table with the Russians. Because without European weapons, NATO is partially paralyzed in its efforts to keep the war going. Against this background, Ukraine was unable to continue the US “proxy war” against Russia, which Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov calls it.

However, this would only be possible through a prior agreement with Moscow in the sense that it would also be brought to the negotiating table. It would not be so difficult if the price of suspending the bombing was also the lifting of Western sanctions against Russia, leading to the formalization of a mutual security treaty with a permanent commitment that neither Russia nor Ukraine use their territories as a base for warlike or virtual attacks on each other.

In this context, the Americans would have the final say on the end of the war. They could continue to supply Kiev with arms, despite the withdrawal of Europeans from a leading position in the conflict. But it would be a disaster for her. They would have to continue investing billions of dollars to keep the war going in northern Europe despite growing resentment from the European people who are being sacrificed to its economic and social consequences with no end in sight.

In addition, the US Treasury Department is being weakened. If, as during the Vietnam War, it adheres to financing the costs of the war in Ukraine simply by issuing money, without straining to increase production, then there will continue to be a strong tendency to inflation in the country itself and a devaluation of the dollar abroad. As a result, the Chinese are having to gradually withdraw from investments abroad, particularly in the US, around $3.2 trillion that they have in reserves!

International financial relations would falter and become unbalanced. And the transition of world economic hegemony from the USA to China, which has already been initiated by Chinese productive power, would be accelerated. Washington had nowhere to run. The American people would suffer brutal consequences in the form of rising inflation at the hands of a war not theirs, but at the hands of an irresponsible clown president who invented the conflict because of his obsession with joining NATO.

Of course, if France, Germany and Italy withdraw funds from Kiev, NATO will explode. The world will return to the point where Mikhail Gorbachev, when he accepted the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, intended to continue international relations from 1999 onwards. He was betrayed by George Bush. The American president, who added to his pretentious speech about the end of the USSR that the US had “won” the Cold War, cynically ignored Russia’s contribution to the peace process.

However, the explosion of NATO is essential to save the West and the world. Western Europe is being rocked by three crises: the war in the north, the social migration crisis and the climate change crisis. Only the former is still somewhat under control should it withdraw its military support from Ukraine. It might have some control over the others, but to a limited extent, only in the medium or long term. And that depends on immediate and responsible economic decisions.

The most important is in the economic area. In a previous article I pointed out that the global challenge today is to replace war with peace based on fair economic and trade relations between peoples. To this end, there are plans to establish a permanent trade, business and services fair in Latin America in Brazil called LatinRio, to be replicated as a franchise in the form of the BRICS International Trade Belt and beyond. this block.

This belt, combined with China’s Belt and Road Initiative, has the potential to become the most powerful tool of global economic development of our time. In this way, Western Europe will be paved a way to face the challenge of the monstrous legacy of colonialism, the migratory flows that are now mainly from France, Germany and Italy the very countries that hold the key to blowing up NATO the clog urban habitats.

This is because today’s migrations of Africans and Asians to Europe stem from the miserable conditions of the peoples who were previously colonized in the former European metropolises. Europe owes them compensation for the political humiliations and processes of extreme economic exploitation to which they have been subjected for centuries. Without it, they will have to live with the aftermath of the hunger they left in their wake after colonialism was forced to end after World War II.

Therefore, a mutual solution to the European migration problem presupposes the economic and social development of the formerly colonized peoples. Since decent economic and social conditions prevail in the countries of origin, there is no migration pressure from outside. So let Europe replace its war actions with peace initiatives. And let’s start by ending our harmful interference in the war in Ukraine and promoting peaceful initiatives with Lula, Xi Jinping and the Pope.

The third challenge, this global one, must also be met with strong economic instruments. It’s about climate change. This will not be possible without energy conversion and environmental protection measures and will cost a lot of money. To achieve this goal, poor and developing countries must be helped, as they do not have the resources of their own to address it comprehensively. The primary responsibility rests with the rich, who if they don’t respond will perish with the world.

A concentrated scientific effort and a responsible global economic alliance should drive the clean and renewable energy transition in the oil industry, automotive industry, steel industry and other industrial processes and services with high carbon emissions. It is imperative that economic coercion goes beyond rhetoric to ensure that the goals set by the United Nations to tackle climate change are met.

In this case, too, the international trade belt of the BRICS countries, which extends around the world, can play an extremely important role. The permanent exhibitions it envisages are intended to disseminate antipollution technologies and practices that favor preventive measures that can, in this and other ways, influence the slowing down of climate change. This will be the objective ballast of subjective responsibility in the quest for a world with less risk for humanity.

However, it must be emphasized that this cannot be done without an immediate end to the war in Ukraine and without a stable peace agreement between the Kremlin and Kiev. Again, it is worth reiterating something that Chinese President Xi Jinping has insisted on and Brazilian President Luís Inácio Lula da Silva has repeated on numerous occasions: the world must not return to the policy of blockades. In the age of nuclear weapons and mass destruction, that’s too dangerous. And it’s finally time to secure Kant’s eternal peace!

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