Pelosi warns U.K. on post-Brexit discord
LONDON — U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned Britain on Friday that there will be no U.S.-U.K. trade deal unless the British government solves post-Brexit disagreements with the European Union that risk destabilizing Northern Ireland’s peace.
Britain and the EU are at odds over trade arrangements that have imposed checks on goods going to Northern Ireland from the rest of the U.K. They were agreed by both sides in their divorce deal to keep an open land border between the north and EU member Ireland — a key pillar of Northern Ireland’s peace process.
Britain says the new checks are onerous and wants to rewrite the agreement, but the EU says it will not renegotiate.
The United States, which played a key role in securing Northern Ireland’s 1998 Good Friday peace accord, has cautioned Britain against doing anything to undermine the peace settlement.
Pelosi, who is visiting the U.K., met Prime Minister Boris Johnson at his No. 10 Downing St. residence on Thursday. Johnson’s office said the prime minister “outlined the U.K.’s concerns with the way the (Northern Ireland) Protocol is being implemented and the impact it is having on the people of Northern Ireland.”
W. African leaders visit junta in Guinea
CONAKRY, Guinea — A delegation of West African leaders met with junta leaders Friday in Guinea, a day after the regional bloc imposed sanctions on the military chiefs and their families over this month’s coup.
Ghana President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo led the delegation that met with Col. Mamady Doumbouya to discuss the decisions made by the 15-member Economic Community of West African States. Delegation members also pushed for the release of Guinea President Alpha Conde, who was deposed in the Sept. 5 coup and has been imprisoned since.
Even before the delegation arrived, demonstrators opposed to Conde gathered outside the airport to protest the involvement of the bloc. Many Guineans have questioned its role, saying it did not put enough pressure on Conde when he changed the country’s constitution to allow himself to seek a third term in office.
After a summit Thursday in Ghana’s capital, Accra, the bloc imposed travel bans and froze the financial assets of members of Guinea’s ruling junta as well as their families. They also insisted on a quick transition to elections.
S. Africa’s Zuma denied bid to avoid jail
JOHANNESBURG — South Africa’s highest court on Friday denied an application by former President Jacob Zuma to rescind his sentence of 15 months in jail for contempt of court in a ruling viewed as a stern test of the country’s resolve to hold powerful figures to account.
The Constitutional Court judgment upheld its own ruling that Zuma should go to prison for refusing to testify at a commission of inquiry into widespread corruption in government and at state-owned companies while he was president of South Africa from 2009-2018.
Zuma, who was forced to resign as president in 2018 over corruption allegations, still has significant support in parts of South Africa and within the ruling African National Congress party.
He was jailed in July after a long-running dispute with the judicial commission of inquiry, which saw him walk out midway through testimony and refuse to appear again.
The 79-year-old Zuma has since been granted medical parole for an undisclosed illness after serving two months of his sentence. His release from prison has been questioned by opposition parties who say procedure wasn’t followed.
Ethiopia receives U.S. sanctions threat
The White House on Friday threatened to impose sanctions against Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and other leaders involved in a conflict gripping the Tigray region, where 10 months of fighting have left hundreds of thousands of people facing famine.
A new executive order allows the U.S. Treasury Department to sanction leaders and groups seen as fueling the violence if they don’t take steps soon to stop the fighting. Senior U.S. officials who previewed the order Thursday said that while it does not set a deadline on the leaders, they wanted to see progress made toward a cease-fire in the coming weeks. But the U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss White House strategy, said they were not optimistic Abiy would change course.
Abiy’s office responded Friday in a letter addressed to President Joe Biden that said Ethiopia would not “succumb to consequences of pressure.” The conflict in Tigray has grown from a political dispute into a more serious war threatening stability in Ethiopia, the second-most populous country in Africa and a key U.S. security ally in the region. The fighting, which involved various forces and soldiers from neighboring Eritrea, has triggered the world’s largest hunger crisis in a decade.
The U.S. and United Nations say Ethiopian troops have prevented passage of trucks carrying food and other aid. Scores of people have starved to death, The Associated Press has reported.