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Africa
Congolese and Belgian citizens take part in a protest in Brussels, while clashes between M23 rebels and the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo take place in DRC.
Rwandan-backed M23 rebels have withdrawn from peace talks with the Democratic Republic of Congo that were set to start Tuesday in Angola, citing sanctions imposed by the European Commission on Rwandan officials for plundering mineral wealth in the DRC. This is the second time talks have collapsed since December, when they were canceled after Rwanda demanded a direct dialogue between the DRC and the M23 rebels, which DRC President Félix Tshisekedi refused.
In a related development, Rwanda severed diplomatic ties with Belgium, which had urged the Commission to impose the sanctions, accusing Brussels of “consistently undermining” Rwanda in forums like the EC “using lies and manipulation” in an attempt to “sustain its neo-colonial delusions.” Belgium subsequently declared Rwandan diplomats persona non grata and described Rwanda’s response as “disproportionate.”
What’s behind the conflict? Low-level violence in the DRC has persisted for three decades, killing six million people and displacing millions of others, but it increased again last November. This year, M23 seized the strategic cities of Goma and Bukavu, resulting in thousands of fatalities and displacing hundreds of thousands of people.
The rebels claim the DRC harbors anti-Rwanda rebels linked to the Hutu genocide of the Tutsis in 1994. The DRC also has deposits of gold and critical minerals, which M23 seeks to appropriate – it already reportedly earns $300,000 a month from territory it controls in the eastern part of the country.
John Green pulled a friend's body from a building in Plantersville, Ala., on Sunday, March 16, 2025, after a a deadly overnight tornado hit the area.
40: Windstorms and tornadoes wreaked havoc across the Plains and the southern US this weekend, starting Friday with dust storms and multiple-vehicle pileups. Saturday brought a string of tornadoes across the South, and millions remained on alert for extreme weather late Sunday along the East Coast. At least 40 people were killed, and several areas remain without power.
72: US Sec. of State Marco Rubio declared South Africa’s ambassador to the US, Ebrahim Rasool, persona non grata on Friday, claiming that he is a “race-baiting politician” who hates America and President Donald Trump. Rasool had described the MAGA movement as “a response, not simply to a supremacist instinct, but to very clear data that shows great demographic shifts in the USA in which the voting electorate in the USA is projected to become 48% white, and that the possibility of a majority of minorities is looming on the horizon.” The US gave Rasool 72 hours to vacate the country.
2: The two NASA astronauts, Sunita “Suni” Williams and Butch Wilmore, who blasted off for the International Space Station last June, were supposed to spend just eight days in space. But NASA determined their Boeing Starliner spacecraft wasn’t safe for the return trip, so they stayed put. Now, nine months later, they are finally set to return home — perhaps as early as this Wednesday — after NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 mission successfully docked with the ISS after taking off from Florida on Friday.
59: Families in the eastern town of Kocani, North Macedonia, are in mourning after a nightclub fire killed 59 revelers early Sunday. Another 155 people were injured, with 18 still in critical condition. The fire, thought to have been sparked by pyrotechnics that set the ceiling alight, spread quickly, filling the club with thick smoke. Arrest warrants have been issued against four people.
3: In a weekend email, President Donald Trump’s administration ordered journalists at Voice of America, Radio Free Asia, and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty to leave their offices and surrender their press badges and equipment. Why? The White House stated that taxpayers should not be “on the hook for radical propaganda” and has claimed that VOA “too often speaks for America's adversaries — not its citizens” and “amplified Beijing’s propaganda.” All three outlets are renowned for their international coverage.
124,000: Mexicans gathered in several cities on Saturday to remember and seek justice for the country’s 124,059 missing people, most of whom disappeared during a military-led campaign against drug cartels in the 2000s, leading to an escalation of violence. Vigils were held in the western state of Jalisco, where a mass grave has been discovered, and in Mexico City, Tijuana, Veracruz, San Luis Potosi, Guadalajara, Puebla, Veracruz, Cancun, and Colima.Protesters hold Democratic Republic of Congo flags during a march to voice concerns about issues regarding the recent conflict in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), outside the parliament in Cape Town, South Africa, February 7, 2025.
On Tuesday, Angola offered to mediate an end to the conflict between the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group. Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi traveled to Angola to discuss a potential peace process, announcing that direct negotiations could come within days – something they have been loath to engage in the past. Meanwhile, the DRC is trying to strengthen its position by leveraging critical mineral reserves to secure backing from the Trump administration.
Background: M23 is one of nearly 100 armed groups operating in the mineral-rich DRC, where ongoing violence has created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, displacing over 7 million people. In a swift three-week offensive last month, M23 seized two major cities and is now advancing across the eastern part of the country. Given the stakes, Tshisekedi hopes to secure US support by offering access to critical minerals in exchange for security.
The DRC holds an estimated $24 trillion in untapped mineral wealth. It is the world’s largest supplier of cobalt — a crucial material for defense, aerospace, and electric vehicle batteries — though most currently goes to China. The country also has significant lithium, tantalum, and uranium reserves, all vital to military technology.
The deal on the table: The DRC’s proposal combines security and minerals, offering the US companies favorable mining access in exchange for equipping Congolese forces and running military bases to protect supply routes. The White House signaled it's open to the offer, but even if they agree, US companies may consider it too risky to do business in the region unless a ceasefire is reached.A drone view shows a flooded area in the city of Bahia Blanca, in the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina.
13: The port city of Bahia Blanca, Argentina, was devastated by a massive rainstorm this weekend that dumped a year’s worth of rain in just a few hours, killing 13 people and displacing hundreds. A similarly devastating rainstorm in December 2023 also claimed 13 lives in Bahia Blanca.
200: A grim discovery was made in a clandestine crematorium in Jalisco, Mexico: 200 pairs of shoes. The footwear is believed to belong to people killed by organized criminal gangs. It was uncovered by relatives of some of Jalisco’s 15,000 missing people, the most of any state in Mexico, where over 100,000 people are registered as “disappeared.”
5 million: The Democratic Republic of Congo has announced a $5 million reward for information leading to the arrest of three M23 rebel leaders, and a $4 million reward for the arrest of two journalists in exile deemed as “accomplices.” But with the DRC’s army increasingly outmatched by rebel forces, the chances of capture are considered slim.
22: A new study reveals that America’s butterfly population has declined by 22% since 2000, with the Southwest hardest hit with a drop of over 50%. The change is primarily attributed to insecticides, climate change, and habitat loss, and it could imperil certain crops, including Texas cotton, of which half is pollinated by butterflies.
296: The latest twist in cyber warfare? Internet shutdowns. In 2024, 296 shutdowns were reported across 54 countries, compared with 283 shutdowns in 39 countries the previous year. Shutdowns were used for political control, to suppress dissent, and to disrupt elections, and they were particularly acute in Africa, where at least five have been in place for over a year.
South Sudan on brink of civil war as senior officials’ arrests inflame ethnic tensions
South Sudan's President Salva Kiir, left, and Riek Machar, shake hands after a meeting in which they reached a deal to form a long-delayed unity government in Juba, South Sudan back in December 2019. How times have changed.
Both Machar and Chol are members of the Nuer ethnic group, the country’s second-largest demographic after the majority Dinka. The crackdown by President Salva Kiir – an ethnic Dinka whose long-standing rivalry with Machar exploded into conflict in the past – came one day after the White Army, a loosely organized militia made up of members of the vice president’s Nuer minority, seized control over Nasir, a major town in South Sudan’s northeasternmost Upper Nile State, from the country’s military. Machar supported the White Army during the war.
As part of the 2018 peace deal that ended the civil war, Kiir and Machar agreed to unify disparate ethnic militias into one national army in 2022. But negotiations stalled last year.
In early February, Kiir’s government unilaterally sacked Machar’s allies, including the health minister, without consulting the vice president as required under the peace pact. Days later, national troops loyal to Kiir attacked civilians in a crowded market in Nasir during a meeting with the local United Nations mission.
In response to what was just the latest example of UN-documented abuses of civilians by the military, armed youths killed at least four soldiers. A week later, the military launched airstrikes on positions held by militants loyal to Machar.
Dashed hopes? The latest escalation comes just two months after South Sudan’s oil production began again, bringing much-needed revenues to one of the world’s poorest countries.
Egypt held a summit in Cairo on Tuesday, bringing together Arab states to forge a path forward for Gaza. The host proposed a $53 billion, five-year plan to rebuild the Palestinian enclave, which has been largely destroyed during the 15-month war between Israel and Hamas. The idea was to rally Arab League countries to fund and support the plan as a counterweight to US President Donald Trump’s proposal to turn Gaza into a Mediterranean “Riviera” and forcibly displace Palestinians from the region.
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said the new plan was endorsed by Arab League leaders on Tuesday. Attendees are meant to reconvene for further discussion in Egypt next month.
What’s in Egypt’s plan? It calls for keeping Palestinians in Gaza and for an independent Palestinian body — not Hamas — to oversee Gaza during the reconstruction. In the end, there would be housing for 3 million people, as well as an airport, industrial centers, hotels, and other major developments.
But none of this can happen without a sustained ceasefire and a permanent end to conflict in Gaza. Meanwhile, talks about the second phase of the ceasefire have been halted amid disagreements – Israel now wants more hostages released to initiate the next stage of the three-phase ceasefire and is demanding Hamas’s disarmament (a red line for the militant group). The first stage expired Saturday without a clear path forward. In the meantime, Israel has stopped the flow of aid into Gaza, and while the enclave has supplies for now, the stoppage raises concerns about dwindling stockpiles in the weeks ahead.The White House responded to Egypt’s Gaza proposal late Tuesday, saying it did not address the fact that the enclave is uninhabitable and noting that Trump stands by his proposal.
Children walk through the destruction, as Palestinians try to build tents next to their destroyed homes after returning to Khan Younis, amid the cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas.
Phase one of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is set to expire Saturday amid uncertainty over whether there’s enough common ground to discuss phase two.
Both sides are sending delegations to Cairo for possible talks, with Qatar and Egypt serving as intermediaries in the US-backed process. This first phase, which went into effect on Jan. 19, included the handover of 33 Israeli hostages in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Both parties paused hostilities in Gaza, where brutal fighting has destroyed around 70% of the structures and killed at least 48,000, according to Gaza’s health ministry, so people could return to their homes and critical aid could be allowed in.
Negotiations for the second phase, which is meant to include Israeli troop withdrawal from the narrow strip between Gaza and Egypt known as the Philadelphi corridor in exchange for the dozens of remaining hostages, were supposed to start earlier this month but have yet to get underway. Now Israel wants to extend the first phase and secure the release of more hostages without leaving the corridor, which is likely to hamper negotiations for the second phase and beyond.
That raises even bigger questions about Gaza’s future. President Donald Trump has proposed turning Gaza into a “Riviera,” permanently displacing Palestinians, while Egypt wants to rebuild infrastructure, exclude Hamas from government, and keep Palestinians on their land.