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South Africa rejects US accusations of arms shipment to Russia

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South African officials on Friday hit back at US accusations that a Russian ship had collected weapons from a naval base near Cape Town late last year, a move investors fear could lead Washington to impose sanctions.

The US ambassador to South Africa Reuben Brigety said on Thursday he was confident that a Russian ship under US sanctions took aboard weapons from the Simon’s Town base in December, suggesting the transfer was not in line with Pretoria’s stance of neutrality in Russia’s war against Ukraine, Reuters reported.

Western diplomats were alarmed at South Africa carrying out naval exercises with Russia and China this year, and at the timing of a visit by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

South Africa is one of Russia’s most important allies on a continent divided over its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, but says it is impartial and has abstained from voting on UN resolutions on the war.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday had discussed the conflict in Ukraine in a phone call with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, the Kremlin said.

Ramaphosa’s office said on Thursday that an inquiry led by a retired judge would look into the US allegation. On Friday, a minister responsible for arms control and a foreign ministry spokesman said South Africa had not approved any arms shipment to Russia in December.

“We didn’t approve any arms to Russia … it wasn’t sanctioned or approved by us,” Communications Minister Mondli Gungubele, who chaired the National Conventional Arms Control Committee when the purported shipment took place, told 702 radio.

He did not say whether or not an unapproved shipment had left South Africa.

South Africa’s defense department said on Friday it would give its side of the story to the government’s inquiry.

Brigety was summoned on Friday to meet South African foreign minister Naledi Pandor. The ministry “expressed the government’s utter displeasure with his conduct and statements made yesterday,” a statement said.

It said Brigety “admitted that he crossed the line and apologized unreservedly to the government and the people of South Africa.”

Brigety said on Twitter: “I was grateful for the opportunity to speak with Foreign Minister Pandor this evening and correct any misimpressions left by my public remarks.”

The US State Department said Secretary of State Antony Blinken had a phone call with Pandor “and reiterated cooperation on shared priorities, including health, trade, and energy.”

After leaving Simon’s Town, Refinitiv shipping data showed the vessel, the “Lady R”, sailed north to Mozambique, spending Jan. 7 to 11 in the port of Beira before continuing to Port Sudan on the Red Sea.

It arrived in the Russian port of Novorossiysk on the Black Sea on Feb. 16, the data showed.

The United States placed the Lady R and Transmorflot LLC, the shipping company it is linked to, under sanctions in May 2022 on the grounds the company “transports weapons for the (government of Russia)”.

Washington has warned that countries providing material support to Russia may be denied access to US markets, Reuters reported.

“This is not just a verbal warning, this is something that the Biden administration has shown through its actions that it is willing to do, including by sanctioning companies in places like China and Turkey,” said Edward Fishman, a foreign policy expert who worked on Russia sanctions during President Barack Obama’s administration.

Cameron Hudson, a former CIA analyst and now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said he thought it was unlikely that Washington would impose sanctions or suspend South Africa from AGOA, a major US trade preference programme for Sub-Saharan Africa, although he said there were grounds to.

Authorities in South Africa’s opposition-run Western Cape province said they feared losing a market for exports such as oranges, macadamia nuts and wine.

The US allegation over the weapons has heaped pressure on the rand currency, already weighed down by concerns over a power crisis. It struck an all-time low early on Friday before regaining some ground, but remained at its weakest in three years.

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Trump says he still has good relations with leader of ‘nuclear power’ North Korea

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U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday he still has a good relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, with whom he held several summits during his first term, and referred to North Korea once again as a “nuclear power.”

Asked by reporters during an Oval Office meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte whether he had plans to reestablish relations with Kim, Trump said: “I would … I have a great relationship with Kim Jong Un, and we’ll see what happens, but certainly he’s a nuclear power,” Reuters reported.

On January 20, when he was inaugurated for his second term, Trump said North Korea was a “nuclear power,” raising questions about whether he would pursue arms reduction talks rather than denuclearization efforts that failed in his first term in any re-engagement with Pyongyang.

After referring to Russia and China’s nuclear arsenals, Trump said: “It would be a great achievement if we could bring down the number. We have so many weapons, and the power is so great.

“And number one, you don’t need them to that extent. And then we’d have to get others, ’cause, as you know, in a smaller way – Kim Jong Un has a lot of nuclear weapons, by the way, a lot, and others do also. You have India, you have Pakistan, you have others that have them, and we get them involved.”

Asked if Trump remarks represented any shift in policy towards North Korea’s nuclear weapons, a White House official said: “President Trump will pursue the complete denuclearization of North Korea, just as he did in his first term.”

On February 15, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his Japanese and South Korean counterparts reaffirmed their “resolute commitment to the complete denuclearization” of North Korea in accordance with U.S. Security Council Resolutions.

Last week, Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister Kim Yo Jong criticized the Trump administration for stepping up "provocations" and said it justified North Korea increasing its nuclear deterrent. This week North Korea fired multiple ballistic missiles, its first since Trump took office.

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Iran’s President to Trump: I will not negotiate, ‘do whatever the hell you want’

“It is unacceptable for us that they (the U.S.) give orders and make threats. I won’t even negotiate with you. Do whatever the hell you want”, state media quoted Pezeshkian as saying.

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President Masoud Pezeshkian said Iran would not negotiate with the U.S. while being threatened, telling President Donald Trump to “do whatever the hell you want”, Iranian state media reported on Tuesday.

“It is unacceptable for us that they (the U.S.) give orders and make threats. I won’t even negotiate with you. Do whatever the hell you want”, state media quoted Pezeshkian as saying.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday that Tehran would not be bullied into negotiations, a day after Trump said he had sent a letter urging Iran to engage in talks on a new nuclear deal, Reuters reported.

While expressing openness to a deal with Tehran, Trump has reinstated the “maximum pressure” campaign he applied in his first term as president to isolate Iran from the global economy and drive its oil exports down towards zero.

In an interview with Fox Business, Trump said last week, “There are two ways Iran can be handled: militarily, or you make a deal” to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Iran has long denied wanting to develop a nuclear weapon. However, it is “dramatically” accelerating enrichment of uranium to up to 60% purity, close to the roughly 90% weapons-grade level, the IAEA has warned.

Iran has accelerated its nuclear work since 2019, a year after then-President Trump ditched Tehran’s 2015 nuclear pact with six world powers and reimposed sanctions that have crippled the country’s economy.

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Philippines’ ex-President Duterte arrested at ICC’s request over ‘drugs war’ killings

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The Philippines arrested firebrand former President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday at the request of the International Criminal Court, a major step in the world body’s investigation into thousands of killings in a bloody “war on drugs” that defined his presidency.

Duterte, the maverick former mayor who led the Philippines from 2016 to 2022, was served an arrest warrant on arrival from Hong Kong at Manila’s main airport and was now in custody, the office of his successor Ferdinand Marcos Jr said in a statement.

The “war on drugs” was Duterte’s signature campaign platform that swept the mercurial, crime-busting former prosecutor to power in 2016 and he soon delivered on promises made during vitriolic speeches to kill thousands of drug dealers and users, Reuters reported.

If transferred to the Hague, he could become Asia’s first former head of state to go on trial at the ICC.

Duterte has insisted he told police to kill only in self-defence and has repeatedly defended the crackdown, saying he was willing to “rot in jail” if it meant ridding the Philippines of drugs.

In a video posted on Instagram by daughter Veronica Duterte from Manila’s Villamor Air Base, where he has been placed in custody, the former leader questioned the reason for his arrest.

“What is the law and what is the crime that I committed?” he said in the video. It was unclear who he was speaking to.

“I was brought here not of my own volition, it is somebody else’s. You have to answer now for the deprivation of liberty.”

The president’s office has yet to clarify the next steps for Duterte and it was not immediately clear what the ICC has charged him with.

According to police, 6,200 suspects were killed during anti-drug operations that they say ended in shootouts. But activists say the real toll of Duterte’s crackdown was far greater, with many thousands more slumland drug users, some named on community “watch lists”, killed in mysterious circumstances.

The ICC’s prosecutor has said as many as 30,000 people may have been killed by police or unidentified individuals.

Police have rejected allegations from rights groups of systematic executions and cover-ups.

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