Daily Brief Audio Series

Now, in the twilight of his term in office, US President Joe Biden is on a two-day visit to Angola.

It’s notable because, despite much talk in Washington about seeking to counter China’s influence in Africa, such top-level personal attention is extremely rare.

This is Biden’s only trip to anywhere in Africa over the past nearly four years of his presidency. And it may be a while until we see the next US presidential visit: during his first term in office, Donald Trump never set foot on the continent.

So, for Angolan President João Lourenço, Biden’s visit marks a serious diplomatic achievement, perhaps his biggest since taking office in 2017.

What’s top of the agenda for the two presidents probably won’t surprise anyone: economic issues.

In particular, the US government has been keen to see greater access to central Africa’s mineral wealth. Along with Europe, the US has been involved in a multi-billion-dollar initiative called the Lobito Corridor. It’s a railway project connecting Angola’s Atlantic port of Lobito with the “Copper Belt” in Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Whether human rights are also on the agenda is less clear.

Angola’s human rights record is grim. Police have been implicated in killings, sexual violence, torture, excessive use of force, and unjustified detention of peaceful activists and protesters.

What’s more, this past year, President Lourenço brought in two new laws that severely restrict fundamental human rights. The first provides prison terms of up to 25 years for people who participate in protests that result in vandalism and service disruptions. The second permits excessive government control over media, civil society organizations, and other private institutions.

Biden’s visit to Angola – the first by any US president ever – is a rare chance to help the people of Angola by highlighting the abuses they face. This top-level opportunity probably won’t come around again for a long time.

Biden should make it count.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has been in the news in recent weeks like never before. And as its big yearly meeting kicks off today, the institution is under unprecedented pressure.

The annual session of the ICC’s Assembly of States Parties (ASP) takes place in The Hague this week. This is the gathering of the court’s 124 member countries – those that have signed up to the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the ICC. They’ll discuss various issues concerning the court, its direction, and difficulties, as well as its all-important budget for next year.

Looming over all the deliberations, no doubt, will be the extreme pressure the ICC has been facing after judges issued arrest warrants last month for senior Israeli leaders as well as a Hamas official in the Palestine investigation.

The court is currently operating in 16 countries around the globe, but this is the investigation that gets most attention internationally – the arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in particular.

In the wake of the arrest warrant decision last month, disturbing threats have come from lawmakers in the US, which is not an ICC member. US Senator Lindsey Graham called for the US Senate and President Joe Biden to enact a bill passed by the House of Representatives on June 4, aimed at imposing sanctions against the ICC, its officials, and those supporting its work.

The bill is modeled on a sanctions program put in place by then-US President Donald Trump in 2020.

We’ve also seen some wobbling of support for the court and its mission from ICC member state France.

If there’s an ICC arrest warrant outstanding on someone, all ICC member states are obligated to arrest them. Last week, however, the French government apparently claimed Netanyahu has immunity from arrest as the head of state of a country that is not a member of the ICC.

ICC judges have rejected this view before, most recently in relation to ICC-fugitive Vladimir Putin’s travel to Mongolia, which as an ICC member country, had an obligation to arrest him, but didn’t.

Of course, when it comes to the ICC arrest warrant for Putin, in relation to Russia’s mass abduction of children in Ukraine, countries like the US and France have been rightly supportive of the court. The West’s double standard is obvious to the entire world. As I’ve said many times before:

If you only care about war crimes when your enemies commit them, then you don't really care about war crimes.

Pressure on the ICC doesn’t just come from “the West.” In response to the ICC arrest warrant against Putin, Russia (not an ICC member) has issued its own arrest warrants against the ICC prosecutor and some judges.

As the Assembly of States Parties kicks off today, all these many pressures will be weighing on the minds of those taking part. ICC members need to take this opportunity to redouble their support for the court.

This means demonstrating the ICC has the political backing and resources it needs. It also means all member countries should reiterate their obligation to execute the court’s arrest warrants, regardless of whom they target.

The ICC has an ambitious global mandate to deliver justice for the most serious atrocity crimes. Victims of those atrocities need ICC member countries to support the court in all its work everywhere.

Even if you didn’t grow up in a safety-conscious, gun-owning family like I did, you probably know that shooting firearms up into the air is not a great idea. What goes up, must come down.

Still, despite its obvious dangers, celebratory gunfire is common in many places around the world. People are happy and excited – at a wedding, for example – and want to make some party noise.

One of those places is Chad, but one incident this year was particularly horrific.

On May 9, authorities announced the provisional results of the presidential election held three days earlier. They declared the then-transitional president, General Mahamat Idriss Déby, had won. Chad’s security forces, loyal to Déby, celebrated by opening fire over cities and towns.

“They were shooting in the air,” one witness described, “and in any direction they wanted.”

The security forces loyal to Déby didn’t limit themselves to small arms either. They used large-caliber weapons and rockets, too.

When it was all over, at least 11 people lay dead. Hundreds were injured, including some across the border from Chad’s capital N’Djamena, in neighboring Cameroon.

The mother of a two-year-old girl, Safia Imam, who was killed in N’Djamena, said: “We were laying down a mat in the house. I was with my husband, and we had our two kids with us. There was noise all around and suddenly Safia was hit. The bullet came through the house … I lost my daughter. I am still in shock.”

For some people in Chad, the spate of gunfire on May 9 was less a celebration and more an act of intimidation. Violence had marred the run-up to the presidential election, and pro-democracy leaders had called for a boycott, describing the election as a “masquerade” aimed at supporting a “dynastic dictatorship.”

Some thus saw the security forces’ excessive gunfire on May 9 as, “a warning for us to not dare to protest” the announced results.

Whatever the intention of the shootings was, however, their victims deserve justice. Six months on, they’ve yet to see any. The government should investigate the events of May 9 and prosecute those found responsible.

The government should also fully support the victims by paying their medical bills and other related expenses. In the hours and days that followed the shooting, hundreds of people across Chad sought hospital care. Some still owe large sums in medical fees.

The deaths and injuries on May 9 were all avoidable tragedies. Firing into the air is always a bad idea, and adding rockets and other weapons to mix only makes it worse.

Survivors and victims should get justice and compensation. And maybe Chad’s security forces should get some basic training in gun safety. 

Monday marked the start of the “16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence” around the world. It’s an annual opportunity, observed from November 25 to December 10, to highlight the issue, to call for accountability, and demand action from decision makers.

Violence against girls and women is truly a global problem, as a few statistics from the UN demonstrate. One in four adolescent girls is abused by their partner. One in three women experience violence in their lifetime. Last year, partners and family members killed a girl or woman intentionally every ten minutes.

That’s the world we live in – and need to change.

Gender-based violence sometimes also takes on specific characteristics depending on the country. On Monday, we looked at rampant sexual violence by criminal gangs in Haiti, for example. Today, we’re talking about Afghanistan.

The violence Afghan girls and women face under Taliban rule continues to shock and appall in its scope and its cruelty. It is, as my expert colleague Sahar Fetrat writes, “structural and systematic.”

The Taliban bars girls from education beyond the sixth grade. This alone limits their futures severely. But of course, that’s not the only gender-based rule.

The Taliban have also blocked women from many forms of employment and restricted their movement in public. A woman cannot leave her house without a male family member chaperoning her.

The Taliban have published new laws that require women to completely cover their bodies, including their faces, in public at all times. They have also declared women should not be heard speaking or singing in public.

The Taliban base all this on their twisted interpretation of Islam. No other Muslim-majority country has such extreme restrictions on girls and women.

For more than three years, the Taliban have systematically erased women from public life, and making it even worse, the international community has occasionally joined in. For example, the UN excluded Afghan women from the Doha 3 meetingin June, a gathering intended to help coordinate the global approach to the country.

Today is day three of the global “16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence,” or #16Days, as the hashtag is known. It’s is a crucial moment to understand and address a worldwide problem – and to realize the international communitry can do a lot better in specific countries, like Afghanistan.

An Israeli airstrike in Lebanon that killed three journalists and injured four others last month was most likely a deliberate attack on civilians and an apparent war crime.

New research reveals US equipment was used in this attack. Let’s discuss what this means.

For some time, this newsletter has been highlighting the Israeli military’s repeated atrocities in Gaza and Lebanon and noting the need for the US, UK, Germany, and other countries to stop supplying Israel with arms. The message is straightforward: “More Arms, More War, More Crimes.”

The fresh HRW research examines in detail an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon on October 25. The attack took place at the Hasbaya Village Club Resort in southern Lebanon, where more than a dozen journalists had been staying for over three weeks.

Human Rights Watch found no evidence of fighting, military forces, or military activity in the immediate area at the time of the attack.

Information our experts reviewed indicates the Israeli military knew or should have known journalists were staying in the area and in the targeted building. The Israeli military had the area under close surveillance, and they surely would have seen the journalists leave in cars marked “press” or “TV” to go out reporting day after day.

After initially stating its forces struck a building where “terrorists were operating,” the Israeli military said hours later “the incident is under review.” However, previous deadly attacks on journalists by Israel have had no consequences for the perpetrators, despite their serious legal implications.

The laws of war (international humanitarian law) prohibit attacks against civilians and civilian objects. Journalists are considered civilians.

Individuals who commit serious violations of the laws of war with criminal intent – that is, intentionally or recklessly – may be prosecuted for war crimes. Individuals may also be held criminally liable for assisting in, facilitating, aiding, or abetting a war crime.

Evidence at the scene, including remnants collected by HRW, reveals the air-dropped bomb was equipped with a Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) guidance kit. The JDAM is attached to air-dropped bombs and allows them to be guided to a target by using satellite coordinates, making the weapon accurate to within several meters. It’s made in the USA.

The US government needs to act here. Given the Israeli military’s repeated, unlawful attacks on civilians in Gaza and Lebanon, Washington should suspend weapons transfers to Israel. US officials’ failure to do so may make them complicit in war crimes.