World

GENEVA — The new head of the UN’s migration agency will visit Africa on her first official trip from Sunday to highlight the scale of migration happening around the continent.

Amy Pope, the first woman elected to lead the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), will then head to Brussels as the 27-member EU bloc deals with a recent influx of migrant arrivals in Italy.

The American, who took office on October 1, will visit the headquarters of the African Union in Addis Ababa, before meeting Ethiopian officials.

She will then travel to Kenya and Djibouti. 

“Over 80 per cent of the migration takes place in Africa,” Pope said at a press briefing in Geneva, at a time when attention is particularly focused on migrants trying to reach Europe. 

She also spoke of the large number of African migrants heading for the Gulf, highlighting “very, very troubling reports” about their treatment there.

“Ensuring that there is better protection and access for migrants to services in that context is important,” she added.

“The evidence is fairly overwhelming that migration actually benefits economies... on the whole is a benefit,” Pope went on, citing its role in “fuelling the renovation or revitalisation of ageing communities”, while providing manpower and innovation.

“It’s critical that IOM begin to engage these partners who recognise the benefits of migration and demonstrate to our member states how that can work in a very pragmatic way, rather than in a political way.”

Pope meanwhile insisted she would “refrain from getting into any direct conflict with Elon Musk,” who courted controversy this weekend in claiming that Berlin-funded migrant rescue operations in the Mediterranean could be seen as an “invasion” of Italy.

The tech billionaire is a migrant himself, having been born in South Africa, has Canadian nationality and lives in the United States.

“We hear especially in the technology space, there is an overwhelming need for new ideas [and] for people for a sustainable workforce.

“And frankly, migration is our most obvious way to build out a sustainable workforce,” said Pope, urging investment in skills training as climate change encroaches on ever greater numbers of people.

The treatment of migrant workers who helped build the sites for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar was also a hot-button issue.

The NGO Human Rights Watch more recently accused Saudi border guards of killing hundreds of Ethiopian migrants attempting to enter the country from Yemen.

Riyadh denied the report as “politicised and misleading”. 

Pope is to discuss with the African Union the best way of guaranteeing the movement of people, in particular to support the free trade agreements promoted by the organisation.

STOCKHOLM — Researchers Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman won the Nobel Medicine Prize on Monday for work on messenger RNA (mRNA) technology that paved the way for groundbreaking Covid-19 vaccines.

The pair, who had been tipped as favourites, "contributed to the unprecedented rate of vaccine development during one of the greatest threats to human health in modern times", the jury said.

The World Health Organisation declared Covid-19 a pandemic in March 2020 and the first mRNA vaccines were approved for use against the illness in December that year.

Billions of Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna doses have been injected around the world since then.

Together with other COVID vaccines, they “have saved millions of lives and prevented severe disease in many more”, the jury said.

Kariko, 68, and Weissman, 64, longstanding colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States, have already won a slew of awards for their research.

In recognising the duo this year, the Nobel committee broke with its usual practice of honouring decades-old research, aimed at ensuring it has stood the test of time.

While the prizewinning research dates back to 2005, the first vaccines to use the mRNA technology came out just three years ago.

Unlike traditional vaccines which use weakened virus or a key piece of the virus’ protein, mRNA vaccines provide the genetic molecules that tell cells what proteins to make, which simulates an infection and trains the immune system for when it encounters the real virus.

Sweet comeback 

The idea was first demonstrated in 1990 but it wasn’t until the mid-2000s that Weissman, of the US, and Hungarian-born Kariko developed a technique to control a dangerous inflammatory response seen in animals exposed to these molecules, opening the way to develop safe human vaccines.

The honour is particularly sweet for Kariko, the 13th woman to win the Medicine Prize, who toiled in obscurity for years and struggled to convince her superiors of the need for research on messenger ribonucleic acid.

Speaking to Swedish Radio, she said her late mother always had faith in her, listening to the Nobel prize announcements “year after year” hoping to hear her daughter’s name called out.

“Unfortunately, five years ago she passed at the age of 89. She might be listening from above,” Kariko said.

Thomas Perlmann, the secretary general of the Nobel Assembly, called Kariko “an extraordinary and unusual scientist” who “resisted any temptation” to do “something easier”.

Weissman told AFP he heard the news from Kariko, who received the call from the jury first.

“We were wondering if somebody was pulling a prank on us.”

“This is the ultimate, this is the prize I thought of when I was five years old when I started to get interested in how things worked,” he said.

Breakthrough 

In the 1990s, Kariko believed mRNA held the key to treating diseases where having more of the right kind of protein can help, like repairing the brain after a stroke.

But the University of Pennsylvania, where Kariko was on track for a professorship, decided to demote her after grant rejections piled up.

She carried on as a lower-rung researcher.

Much of the scientific community was at the time focused on using DNA to deliver gene therapy but Kariko believed that mRNA was also promising since most diseases are not hereditary and don’t need solutions that permanently alter our genetics.

First though, she had to overcome the problem of the massive inflammatory response in animal experiments, as the immune system sensed an invader and rushed to fight it.

Kariko and Weissman discovered that one of the four building blocks of the synthetic mRNA was at fault — and they could overcome the problem by swapping it for a modified version.

They published a paper on the breakthrough in 2005.

In 2015, they found a new way to deliver mRNA into mice, using a fatty coating called “lipid nanoparticles” that prevent the mRNA from degrading and help place it inside the right part of cells.

Both these innovations were key to the COVID-19 vaccines developed by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna.

Their mRNA technology is now being used to develop other treatments for diseases and illnesses such as cancer, influenza and heart failure.

Kariko and Weissman will receive their Nobel prize, consisting of a diploma, a gold medal and a $1 million cheque, in Stockholm on December 10.

The Nobel will however not be the first gold medal in Kariko’s family. Her daughter Susan Francia is a two-time Olympic gold medallist rower.

LACHIN, Azerbaijan — A United Nations mission arrived in Nagorno Karabakh on Sunday, Azerbaijan said, after almost the entire ethnic-Armenian population fled since Baku recaptured the breakaway enclave.

An Azerbaijani presidency spokesman told AFP that a "UN mission arrived in Karabakh on Sunday morning" — mainly to assess humanitarian needs.

It marks the first time in about 30 years that the international body has gained access to the region.

Armenian separatists, who had controlled the region for three decades, agreed to disarm, dissolve their government and reintegrate with Baku following a one-day Azerbaijani offensive last week.

France has lashed out at Azerbaijan for only allowing the UN mission in after most residents had already fled.

The end of Karabakh's separatist bid dealt a heavy blow to a centuries-old dream by Armenians of reuniting what they say are their ancestral lands, divided among regional powers since the Middle Ages.

Nearly all of Karabakh's estimated 120,000 residents fled the territory over the following days, sparking a refugee crisis.

An AFP journalist at a border crossing along the Lachin corridor that links Karabakh with Armenia, saw only one car arrive from the now deserted enclave.

Sergei Astsaryan, 40, said he was among the last Armenians to leave the region.

"I have no idea of where to go, maybe Europe," he told AFP, adding however that he hoped many of the refugees would return if Azerbaijan "gives guaranties, provides help".

"I've talked to Azerbaijani police and they said there would be no problems if we want to return, that we can live in our homes."

The Azerbaijani presidency said Baku’s migration service began operating in Karabakh’s main city of Khankendi (Stepanakert in Armenian) to register Armenian residents to ensure their “sustainable reintegration... into the Azerbaijani society”, promising them the “patronage of the Azerbaijani state”.

Nazeli Baghdasaryan, spokeswoman of the Armenian prime minister, said “100,490 forcefully displaced persons arrived in Armenia” by Sunday morning.

She said 47,322 refugees were now in temporary accommodation.

On Sunday, Armenia observed a national day of prayer for the region.

Bells rang in churches across the country, and the head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Karekin II, lead a service in the nation’s main cathedral Echmiadzin, close to the capital Yerevan.

“As our sacred land of Karabakh is deserted, we pray for our sisters and brother of Karabakh who are going through terrible suffering,” said the pontiff.

Hundreds attended the religious service in the church of Saint Sarkis, in Yerevan.

“One of the most tragic pages of Armenian history is being written today,” 28-year-old Mariam Vartanyan told AFP, standing in the crowd of worshippers wrapped in the smoke of burning incense.

In the Vatican City, Pope Francis said he was “following in recent days the dramatic situation of the displaced people in Nagorno Karabakh”.

Following his Sunday Angelus prayer to the faithful at St Peter’s Square, he called for “dialogue between Azerbaijan and Armenia” to end the humanitarian crisis with the support of the international community.

Ethnic hatred 

Yerevan has accused Baku of “ethnic cleansing” — an allegation that Baku rejected — calling on Armenians not to leave their homes and reintegrate with Azerbaijan where their rights would be respected.

Armenia, a country of 2.8 million, faces a major challenge housing the sudden influx of refugees.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies on Friday announced an emergency appeal for 20 million Swiss Francs ($22 million) to help those fleeing.

Azerbaijan is now holding “reintegration” talks with separatist leaders while, at the same time detaining some senior figures from its former government and military command.

Azerbaijan’s Prosecutor General Kamran Aliyev said criminal investigations had been initiated into war crimes committed by 300 separatist officials.

“I urge on those persons to surrender voluntarily,” he told journalists on Sunday.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan are set to meet on Thursday in the Spanish city of Granada for Western-mediated talks aimed at ending their historic enmity.

With the two countries’ relations poisoned by ethnic hatred ensuing from three wars in as many decades, several rounds of negotiations mediated by Brussels and Washington have so far failed to bring about a breakthrough.

WASHINGTON — The future of US aid for Ukraine hangs in the balance after a last-gasp deal to avoid a government shutdown, despite President Joe Biden's attempts to reassure Kyiv it will get what it needs to fight Russia.

Barely a week after President Volodymyr Zelensky was in Washington appealing for more funds, the compromise struck in Congress late Sunday dropped new funding for Ukraine amid opposition from hardline Republicans.

Biden and his Democratic party say America has a duty to help Ukraine stand up to Russian President Vladimir Putin's brutal invasion, warning that a failure to do so could embolden other autocrats in the future.

But the issue has become so politicised in Washington that the fate of vital military aid is now in jeopardy, just as Kyiv tries to make progress in its sluggish counteroffensive before winter sets in. 

Biden urged Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Sunday to "stop the games" and said he "fully expects" him to secure passage of a separate bill for Ukraine funding soon.

"I want to assure our American allies, the American people and the people in Ukraine that you can count on our support. We will not walk away," Biden said in an address from the White House.

Ukraine played down the blow, saying Sunday it was "actively working with its American partners" to ensure new wartime aid.

Moscow 'celebrating' 

Yet the wider signal to the world — that not only Republicans but also some Democrats were willing to sacrifice Ukraine for politics — is damaging, said analyst Brett Bruen.

"That ought to worry leaders in Kyiv, and I think in Moscow they're celebrating the signs that our support may be waning," Bruen, president of the Global Situation Room consultancy and a former US diplomat, told AFP. 

Ukraine is already nervously eyeing the possibility of a return to the White House by Republican former president Donald Trump, who has previously praised Putin.

Top House Democrats said on Saturday that they expect McCarthy to bring a separate Ukraine aid bill for a vote next week, though it was unclear if it would be the $24 billion Biden originally sought.

But that could be more easily said than done. 

Ukraine’s fight for survival has become a political football just over a year from the US presidential election, with questions mounting over aid approved by Congress that totals $100 billion so far, including $43 billion in weaponry.

First, there is a bid to unseat McCarthy next week by hardline Republican Matt Gaetz, one of a core of hard-right members of the party implacably opposed to any more aid for Ukraine. 

If he does survive, McCarthy made it clear on Sunday that he would hold out for funding to stop immigrants crossing the Mexican border, a key Republican demand.

“I’m going to make sure that the weapons are provided for Ukraine, but they’re not going to get some big package if the border is not secure,” McCarthy told CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday.

War fatigue 

Even if McCarthy does agree on the Ukraine aid, possibly in a deal with Democrats to allow him to stay as speaker, there is a wider problem — war fatigue.

Skepticism is spreading from the hardline Republicans to more moderate lawmakers who say they won’t write Ukraine a “blank check”.

More worryingly for Biden and Kyiv, inflation-hit American voters appear to have similar concerns about Ukraine. 

An ABC/Washington Post poll released September 24 showed 41 per cent of respondents saying the United States was doing too much to support Ukraine, up from 33 per cent in February and just 14 per cent in April 2022.

Making the problem even tougher is a Republican impeachment inquiry into Biden over his son Hunter’s business deals in Ukraine.

The Biden administration’s answer is simple — if Russia is not stopped in Ukraine, the rest of the world could be at risk. 

US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin urged Congress to “live up to America’s commitment to provide urgently needed assistance to the people of Ukraine as they fight to defend their own country against the forces of tyranny”.

Analyst Bruen added that even a temporary delay on Ukraine funding was a “big boost to the detractors”.

“I think that, over the long term, is going to prove more problematic,” he added.

WASHINGTON — The United States urged Belgrade to pull its forces back from the border with Kosovo on Friday after detecting what it called an "unprecedented" Serbian military build-up.

Serbia deployed sophisticated tanks and artillery on the frontier after deadly clashes erupted at a monastery in northern Kosovo last week, the White House warned.

The violence, in which a Kosovo police officer and three Serb gunmen were killed, marked one of the gravest escalations for years in Kosovo, a former Serbian breakaway province.

"We are monitoring a large Serbian military deployment along the border with Kosovo," White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters.

"That includes an unprecedented staging of advanced Serbian artillery, tanks, mechanised infantry units. We believe that this is a very de-stabilising development".

He added: "We are calling on Serbia to withdraw those forces from the border."

The build-up took place within the last week but its purpose was not yet clear, Kirby said.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had telephoned Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic to urge "immediate deescalation and a return to dialogue", he added.

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan also spoke with Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti and "expressed concern about Serbian military mobilisations", according to a readout of the call.

The pair also "discussed the EU-facilitated Dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia, which Mr Sullivan underscored was the only long-term solution to ensuring stability throughout Kosovo", the readout said.

Serbia's leader Vucic did not directly deny there had been a recent build-up but rejected claims that his country's forces were on alert.

“I have denied untruths where they talk about the highest level of combat readiness of our forces, because I simply did not sign that and it is not accurate,” Vucic told reporters.

 “We don’t even have half the troops we had two or three months ago.”

Serbia said on Wednesday that the defence minister and head of the armed forces had gone to visit a “deployment zone” but gave no further details.

 ‘Worrisome’

The clashes on Sunday began when heavily armed Serb gunmen ambushed a patrol a few miles from the Serbian border, killing a Kosovo police officer.

Several dozen assailants then barricaded themselves at an Orthodox monastery, sparking an hour-long firefight in which three gunmen were killed and three were arrested.

Kosovo’s government has accused Belgrade of backing the operation, while a member of a major Kosovo Serb political party admitted to leading the gunmen, his lawyer said on Friday.

Kirby said the attack had a “very high level of sophistication”, involving around 20 vehicles, “military-grade” weapons, equipment and training.

“It’s worrisome. It doesn’t look like just a bunch of guys who got together to do this,” he said.

The NATO peacekeeping force known as KFOR would be “increasing its presence” following the attack, Kirby added.

In Brussels, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg confirmed that the US-led alliance was ready to boost the force to deal with the situation.

In the north of Kosovo, where the Serb minority is concentrated, KFOR has decided to “increase its presence and activity”, added a NATO official who requested anonymity.

He added that KFOR was prepared to make “further adjustments” if necessary to enable it to fulfil its peacekeeping mandate.

Kosovo broke away from Serbia in a bloody war in 1998-99 and declared independence in 2008 — a status Belgrade and Moscow have refused to recognise.

It has long seen strained relations between its ethnic Albanian majority and Serb minority, which have escalated in recent months in northern Kosovo.

WASHINGTON — China is seeking to surpass the United States as the top power in the world, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Thursday, as he again warned on Taiwan.

Successive US presidents have called China the top long-term challenge to the United States, but some US analysts have seen Beijing's ambitions as more focused on reducing Washington's influence in Asia than about a global role.

Asked at a forum about China's intentions, Blinken said, "I think that what it seeks is to be the dominant power in the world, militarily, economically, diplomatically."

"That's what Xi Jinping is seeking," Blinken said of China's president.

"And in a sense, that's not a surprise. There's an extraordinary history in China," he said at the event organised by The Atlantic magazine.

"I think if you look and listen to Chinese leaders, they are seeking to recover what they believe is their rightful place in the world."

Blinken has previously spoken in more indirect terms about China aspiring to "reshape the international order".

President Joe Biden's administration, while saying it is clear-eyed on China and stepping up pressure, has also been increasing dialogue in hopes of managing tensions, with Blinken paying a rare visit to Beijing in June.

But tensions remain particularly high over Taiwan, the self-governing democracy claimed by Beijing which has staged a series of major military drills.

Blinken said the stakes were "extraordinarily high" on Taiwan due to its role in the global economy, including as a hub for advanced semiconductors.

"Were there to be a crisis over Taiwan precipitated by Chinese actions, you would have a global economic crisis," Blinken said.

"I think the message that China is hearing increasingly from countries around the world is, don't stir the pot.

"We want, everyone wants, peace and stability and everyone wants the status quo to be preserved."