Monday, March 31, 2025

A new arena for proxy war

South Sudan stands on the brink of another civil war and what happens there in the coming days will determine the oil producer's fate and that of the wider region.
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The world's newest nation, South Sudan, stands on the brink of another civil war. What happens in the coming days will determine the oil producer's fate and that of the wider region.

Vice President Riek Machar's party has warned that his house arrest last week collapsed a 2018 peace deal that ended a brutal six-year conflict following independence from Sudan in 2011. The US was among foreign powers to express "grave concern" at the development.

Machar's detention signals severe strain in his relations with President Salva Kiir, with whom he has shared power since the war's end. Tensions between the pair have escalated since early March, when a militia loyal to Machar, a 72-year-old former rebel, overran a military base in the northeastern town of Nasir.

Salva Kiir. Photographer: Andy Wong/AFP/Getty Images

A return to fighting would mean active conflict with the potential for major civilian casualties engulfing a swathe of eastern Africa stretching from the Great Lakes to the Red Sea.

That would have ripple effects, potentially drawing in Uganda, whose troops are already in South Sudan at the request of Kiir, and Ethiopia, which shares a border with the nation. Kenya dispatched former Prime Minister Raila Odinga as a special envoy to try and relieve the pressure.

There's also the risk it converges with a war being fought in Sudan between its army and the Rapid Support Forces militia, where Russia, Turkey, Egypt, China, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have come out on competing sides.

The proxies that have backed the warring parties in Sudan could be pulled into a new conflict in South Sudan. The International Crisis Group, a Brussels think tank, has warned of "a free for all" and a "new arena for proxy war in the region."

The United Nations called for restraint. But at a time when the world is unusually distracted and USAID is being dismantled, the omens are not good. Monique Vanek and Simon Marks

Kiir and Machar after a meeting in Juba in December 2019. Photographer: Majak Kuany/AFP/Getty Images

Global Must Reads

US President Donald Trump threatened "secondary tariffs" on buyers of Russian oil if Vladimir Putin refuses a ceasefire with Ukraine, saying he was "pissed off" and "very angry" at Putin for casting doubt on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's legitimacy as a negotiating partner. The threats against one of the world's three largest oil producers mark a significant change of tone, and reflect a growing frustration with the Kremlin.

Trump also said he plans to start his reciprocal tariff push with "all countries," tamping down speculation he could limit the initial scope of levies set to be unveiled on Wednesday. The tariffs are a centerpiece of his plan to rebalance global trade and boost US manufacturing while collecting payments to fund his domestic policy priorities.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said any attack by the US or Israel would be met with "a firm retaliatory strike," after Trump threatened to bomb Iran unless it signs a deal renouncing nuclear weapons. The government in Tehran has told Trump it won't engage in direct negotiations with his administration because of a lack of trust, according to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, though he said indirect communication would remain a possibility.

France's anti-immigration National Rally leader, Marine Le Pen, was today found guilty in an embezzlement case involving millions of euros in European Union funds and handed an electoral ban. Judges in Paris were still reading out their decision at the time of publication and it remained unclear whether she'd be barred from running for president in 2027. Le Pen, who denies wrongdoing, has accused the prosecution of seeking her "political death."

Le Pen at the National Assembly in Paris last month. Photographer: Nathan Laine/Bloomberg

The US military has begun to upgrade its operations in Japan to a new "war-fighting" command, according to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, highlighting the Trump administration's focus on China as its primary security challenge. Hegseth made his comments in Tokyo, the final stop on a swing through the Asia-Pacific that went some way toward reassuring allies that it intends to remain engaged in the region.

Giorgia Meloni had hoped her proximity to the Trump camp would consolidate her position at the center of European politics, but the next wave of US tariffs could be far more damaging to Italy's economy and to a prime minister who is suddenly looking under pressure.

Meloni in Rome in January. Photographer: Alessia Pierdomenico/Bloomberg

Greenland's new prime minister said Trump won't get the arctic island, the first comments Jens-Frederik Nielsen has made since forming a government on Friday and after Vice President JD Vance visited a US military base in the far north of the autonomous Danish territory.

Trump said he wouldn't rule out seeking a third term in the White House, telling NBC News yesterday that "there are methods" that would allow him to do so and he's "not joking."

Israel's government defied the courts and named Eli Sharvit as the new head of the country's domestic intelligence agency, Shin Bet, after political rifts led to the dismissal of his predecessor.

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Chart of the Day

Europe's gas sector is entering a crucial few months as the end of the heating season starts the clock ticking to refill storage. Facilities are more depleted than usual following the first really cold winter since the region lost most of its piped supplies from Russia. The tightened market has driven summer gas prices persistently higher than those for next winter, which – crucially – removes the financial incentive for storage trades.

And Finally

Massive crowds gathered in Istanbul on Saturday for demonstrations organized by Turkey's main opposition party, the CHP, to protest the imprisonment of Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu. CHP leader Özgür Özel vowed to continue rallies every weekend in a different city and every Wednesday in a district of Istanbul, signaling the party sees the gatherings as a way to sustain public pressure on the government. The CHP estimated as many as 2.2 million people attended one rally in Istanbul's Maltepe district; the figure couldn't be independently verified.

The "Freedom for İmamoğlu Rally" in Istanbul on Saturday. Source: Depo Photos/SIPAPRE/AP Photo

Thanks to the 17 people who answered Friday's tricky quiz, and congratulations to Brian O'Keane, who was first to correctly identify South Africa as the country which, with Antarctica, bookends an island group where colonies of Albatross are being devastated by a fast-spreading form of avian flu.

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