Benin's Talon says ECOWAS in need of urgent reform
He spoke at a regional economic summit of west African nations in Abuja ahead of a routine gathering of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
"ECOWAS is a perfect example of regional integration. Unfortunately, our ECOWAS is in crisis right now," he was quoted as saying in a statement by the Nigerian presidency.
Talon singled out the 678-kilometer West African Gas Pipeline through Benin and Togo as a key example of regional dysfunction, blaming delays and poor coordination for its failure to deliver energy across borders.
"This failure of regional cooperation wastes resources and undermines integration," he said, adding that Benin now imports gas from Qatar to meet local demand. "It is ridiculous."
He also raised concerns over the West African Power Pool, which was designed to link national electricity grids in the region.
Despite years of investment, the project is underperforming.
"Unless we act decisively, I'm not confident it ever will," Talon said.
Talon's remarks aligned with those of Nigeria's President Bola Tinubu, who said intra-regional trade in west Africa remains below 10 percent.
"This low trade is not due to a failure of will but a coordination failure," Tinubu said. "The global economy will not wait for west Africa to get its act together, and neither should we."
Talon also said that US President Donald Trump's "trade war" with the rest of the world "should be a wake-up call for all of us."
The United States is "giving us a very important lesson -- they are fighting for their own interests," he added.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Korea Herald
16 hours ago
- Korea Herald
European powers plan fresh nuclear talks with Iran
BERLIN (AFP) -- European powers plan fresh talks with Iran on its nuclear program in the coming days, the first since the US attacked Iranian nuclear facilities a month ago, a German diplomatic source told Agence France-Presse on Sunday. Britain, France and Germany, known as the E3, "are in contact with Iran to schedule further talks for the coming week," the source said. The trio had recently warned that international sanctions against Iran could be reactivated if Tehran does not return to the negotiating table. Iran's Tasnim news agency also reported that Tehran had agreed to hold talks with the three European countries, citing an unnamed source. Consultations are ongoing regarding a date and location for the talks, the report said. "Iran must never be allowed to acquire a nuclear weapon," the German source said. "That is why Germany, France and the United Kingdom are continuing to work intensively in the E3 format to find a sustainable and verifiable diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear program," the source added. Israel and Western nations have long accused Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons, a charge Tehran has consistently denied. On June 13, Israel launched a wave of surprise strikes on its regional nemesis, targeting key military and nuclear facilities. The US launched its own set of strikes against Iran's nuclear program on June 22, hitting the uranium enrichment facility at Fordo, in Qom province south of Tehran, as well as nuclear sites in Isfahan and Natanz. Iran and the US had held several rounds of nuclear negotiations through Omani mediators before Israel launched its 12-day war against Iran. However, US President Donald Trump's decision to join Israel in striking Iranian nuclear facilities effectively ended the talks. The E3 countries last met with Iranian representatives in Geneva on June 21 -- just one day before the US strikes. Also Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin held a surprise meeting in the Kremlin with Ali Larijani, top adviser to Iran's supreme leader on nuclear issues. Larijani "conveyed assessments of the escalating situation in the Middle East and around the Iranian nuclear programme," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said of the unannounced meeting. Putin had expressed Russia's "well-known positions on how to stabilise the situation in the region and on the political settlement of the Iranian nuclear programme," he added. Moscow has a cordial relationship with Iran's clerical leadership and provides crucial backing for Tehran but did not swing forcefully behind its partner even after the US joined Israel's bombing campaign. Iran and world powers struck a deal in 2015 called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which placed significant restrictions on Tehran's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. But the hard-won deal began to unravel in 2018, during Trump's first presidency, when the United States walked away from it and reimposed sanctions on Iran. European countries have in recent days threatened to trigger the deal's "snapback" mechanism, which allows the reimposition of sanctions in the event of non-compliance by Iran. After a call with his European counterparts on Friday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the Western allies had "absolutely no moral (or) legal grounds" for reactivating the snapback sanctions. He elaborated in a post to social media Sunday. "Through their actions and statements, including providing political and material support to the recent unprovoked and illegal military aggression of the Israeli regime and the US ... the E3 have relinquished their role as 'Participants' in the JCPOA," said Araghchi. That made any attempt to reinstate the terminated UN Security Council resolutions "null and void," he added. "Iran has shown that it is capable of defeating any delusional 'dirty work' but has always been prepared to reciprocate meaningful diplomacy in good faith," Araghchi wrote. However, the German source said Sunday that "if no solution is reached over the summer, snapback remains an option for the E3." Ali Velayati, an adviser to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said there would be no new nuclear talks with the US if they were conditioned on Tehran abandoning its uranium enrichment activities.
Korea Herald
16 hours ago
- Korea Herald
Gaza civil defense says Israeli fire kills 93 aid seekers
Gaza's civil defense agency said Israeli forces opened fire on crowds of Palestinians trying to collect humanitarian aid in the war-torn Palestinian territory on Sunday, killing 93 people and wounding dozens more. Eighty were killed as truckloads of aid arrived in the north, while nine others were reported shot near an aid point close to Rafah in the south, where dozens of people lost their lives just 24 hours earlier. Four were killed near another aid site in Khan Younis, also in the south, agency spokesman Mahmud Basal told Agence France-Presse. The UN World Food Program said its 25-truck convoy carrying food aid "encountered massive crowds of hungry civilians which came under gunfire" near Gaza City, soon after it crossed from Israel and cleared checkpoints. Israel's military disputed the death toll and said soldiers had fired warning shots "to remove an immediate threat posed to them" as thousands gathered near Gaza City. Deaths of civilians seeking aid have become a regular occurrence in Gaza, with the authorities blaming Israeli fire as crowds facing chronic shortages of food and other essentials flock in huge numbers to aid centres. The UN said earlier this month that nearly 800 aid-seekers had been killed since late May, including on the routes of aid convoys. In Gaza City, Qasem Abu Khater, 36, told AFP he had rushed to try to get a bag of flour but instead found a desperate crowd of thousands and "deadly overcrowding and pushing." "The tanks were firing shells randomly at us and Israeli sniper soldiers were shooting as if they were hunting animals in a forest," he added. "Dozens of people were martyred right before my eyes and no one could save anyone." The WFP condemned violence against civilians seeking aid as "completely unacceptable." Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify tolls and details provided by the agency and other parties. The army says it works to avoid harm to civilians, and that this month it issued new instructions to its troops on the ground "following lessons learned" from a spate of similar incidents. Israel on Sunday withdrew the residency permit of head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs office in Israel, Jonathan Whittall, who has repeatedly condemned the humanitarian conditions in Gaza. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, in a post to X, accused him of spreading lies about the war in Gaza. The war was sparked by Hamas' attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, leading to the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures. Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed 58,895 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. Separately, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday expressed his regret to Pope Leo XIV after what he described as a "stray" munition killed three people sheltering at the Holy Family Church in Gaza City. At the end of the Angelus prayer on Sunday, the pope slammed the "barbarity" of the Gaza war and called for peace, days after the Israeli strike on the territory's only Catholic church. The strike was part of the "ongoing military attacks against the civilian population and places of worship in Gaza," he added. The Catholic Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, held mass at the Gaza church on Sunday after travelling to the devastated territory in a rare visit on Friday. Most of Gaza's population of more than two million people have been displaced at least once during the war and there have been repeated evacuation calls across large parts of the coastal enclave. On Sunday morning, the Israeli military told residents and displaced Palestinians sheltering in the Deir el-Balah area to move south immediately due to imminent operations in the area. Whole families were seen carrying what few belongings they have on packed donkey carts heading south. "They threw leaflets at us and we don't know where we are going and we don't have shelter or anything," one man told AFP. The displacement order was "another devastating blow to the already fragile lifelines keeping people alive across the Gaza Strip," the UN OCHA said on Sunday. According to the aid agency, 87.8 percent of Gaza is now under displacement orders or within Israeli militarized zones, leaving "2.1 million civilians squeezed into a fragmented 12 per cent of the Strip, where essential services have collapsed." The army's latest announcement prompted concern from families of hostages held since Oct. 7, 2023 that the Israeli offensive could harm their loved ones. Delegations from Israel and militant group Hamas have spent the last two weeks in indirect talks on a proposed 60-day ceasefire in Gaza and the release of 10 living hostages. Of the 251 hostages taken during Hamas's 2023 attack, 49 are still being held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead. (AFP)
Korea Herald
16 hours ago
- Korea Herald
Calm returns to south Syria after violence that killed over 1,100: monitor
Calm returned to southern Syria's Sweida province on Sunday, a monitor and Agence France-Presse correspondents reported, after a week of sectarian violence between Druze fighters and rival groups that killed more than 1,100 people. A ceasefire announced on Saturday appeared to be holding after earlier agreements failed to end fighting between longtime rivals the Druze and the Bedouin that spiralled to draw in the Islamist-led government, the Israeli military and armed tribes from other parts of Syria. AFP correspondents on the outskirts of Sweida city reported hearing no clashes on Sunday morning, with government forces deployed in some locations in the province to enforce the truce. The first humanitarian aid convoy entered the city on Sunday, Red Crescent official Omar al-Malki said, adding that it would be followed by others. He said the convoy came "in coordination with the government bodies and the local authorities in Sweida," which are controlled by the Druze. The Syrian government meanwhile said a Druze group blocked its own convoy from entering the city. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that since around midnight, "Sweida has been experiencing a cautious calm," adding government security forces had blocked roads leading to the province in order to prevent tribal fighters from going there. The Britain-based Observatory gave an updated toll late Sunday of 1,120 killed since the violence erupted a week ago, including 427 Druze fighters and 298 civilians from the minority group, as well as 354 government security personnel and 21 Sunni Bedouin. Witnesses, Druze factions and the Observatory have accused government forces of siding with the Bedouin and committing abuses including summary executions when they entered Sweida days ago. Hanadi Obeid, a 39-year-old doctor, told AFP that "the city hasn't seen calm like this in a week." The Interior Ministry said overnight that Sweida city was "evacuated of all tribal fighters, and clashes within the city's neighbourhoods were halted." The Observatory had said Druze fighters retook control of the city on Saturday evening. Interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa had on Saturday announced a ceasefire in Sweida and renewed a pledge to protect Syria's ethnic and religious minorities in the face of the latest sectarian violence since Islamists overthrew longtime ruler Bashar Assad in December. A spokesperson for Syria's tribal and clan council told Al Jazeera late Saturday that fighters had left the city "in response to the call of the presidency and the terms of the agreement." A medic inside Sweida told AFP by telephone on Sunday that "the situation is totally calm. ... We aren't hearing clashes." Residents of Sweida city, who number at about 150,000, have been holed up in their homes without electricity and water, and food supplies have also been scarce. An AFP photographer said the morgue at Sweida's main hospital was full and bodies were lying on the ground outside the building. The UN migration agency said more than 128,000 people in Sweida province have been displaced by the violence. US special envoy to Syria Tom Barrack said Sunday that the country stood at a "critical juncture," adding that "peace and dialogue must prevail -- and prevail now." "All factions must immediately lay down their arms, cease hostilities, and abandon cycles of tribal vengeance," he wrote on X, saying "brutal acts by warring factions on the ground undermine the government's authority and disrupt any semblance of order." Sharaa's announcement Saturday came hours after the US said it had negotiated a ceasefire between Syria's government and Israel, which had bombed government forces in both Sweida and Damascus earlier in the week. Israel, which has its own Druze community, has said it was acting in defence of the group, as well as to enforce its demands for the total demilitarisation of Syria's south. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Saturday urged the Syrian government's security forces to prevent jihadists from entering and "carrying out massacres" in the south, and called on Damascus to "bring to justice anyone guilty of atrocities including those in their own ranks." (AFP)
