ADDIS ABABA, 28 November 2021, (TON): Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said his soldiers would "destroy" rebels from the northern Tigray region, in the latest instalment of state media footage purportedly showing him at the war front.

Abiy, winner of the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize, said "you are comprehensively destroying the enemy, there is no going back without winning.”

He added "we will win, the enemy is dispersing, there are areas we have to control.”

"Until we destroy the enemy there is no rest."

Abiy announced this week he would start leading operations against the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), which once dominated national politics but has been locked in a gruesome war with his government for the past year.

The announcement has spurred new recruitment in Addis Ababa.

The country's most famous distance runner, Haile Gebreselassie, told media “he was determined to sacrifice and stand for Ethiopia".

ANKARA, 28 November 2021, (TON): Turkey welcomed Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, the UAE’s de facto ruler, marking the highest-level visit to Ankara since a nearly decade-long disagreement between the two countries.

The visit represents a new page in Turkey-UAE economic relations with the signature of several investment accords that will be supported with a $10 billion fund.

The agreements concentrated on strategic sectors such as energy, ports and logistics, petrochemicals, technology, food and health care, as well as some cooperation deals between stock exchanges and central banks with a potential swap agreement on the horizon.

Dr. Robert C. Mogielnicki, senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, said that Turkey was a big market that the UAE could not afford to ignore if it wanted to get the most out of economic engagement with the broader Middle East and North Africa region.

Mogielnicki told media “Turkey likewise wants to shore up stable trade and investment partners given the volatility and uncertainty plaguing its domestic economy.”

ATHENS, 28 November 2021, (TON): Greece opened two more of its new “closed” migrant camps that have been criticized by rights groups for their restrictive measures.

Minister of Migration Notis Mitarachi said “a new era is beginning.”

He said “we are extricating our islands from the migration problem and its consequences. The images that we all remember from 2015-2019 are now in the past.”

Greece was the main point where more than one million asylum seekers, mainly Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans, entered Europe in 2015 and its islands in the Aegean Sea are the main port of call from people arriving via Turkey in search of a better life in Europe.

The crisis in Afghanistan has prompted fears of a new migration wave.

The “closed” camps feature barbed wire fencing, surveillance cameras, x-ray scanners and magnetic doors and gates remain closed at night.

They also have many features, like running water, toilets and more security, that were absent from the previous facilities that became infamous for their living conditions.

Greece inaugurated the first such camp on the island of Samos in September and plans to open two more, on the islands of Lesbos and Chios.

NAIROBI, 28 November 2021, (TON): A US State Department spokesperson said “US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is greatly concerned about Ethiopia’s military escalation and called for urgent negotiations over the crisis.”

The comments came hours after Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed appeared on the frontline with the national army.

Ned Price said in a statement “Secretary Blinken expressed grave concern about worrying signs of military escalation in Ethiopia and emphasised the need to urgently move to negotiations.”

Price released the statement after a phone call between Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta and Blinken.

Ethiopia’s state-affiliated Fana Broadcasting reported that Abiy was on the frontline with the army fighting rebellious Tigrayan forces in the northeastern Afar region. Abiy posted the same video on his Twitter account.

Abiy’s government has been fighting Tigrayan forces for more than a year, in a conflict that has killed thousands and displaced millions in Africa’s second-most populous nation.

Ethiopia has announced new restrictions on the sharing of information about the war in the north of the country which stipulate that battlefront updates can only come from the government.

MOSCOW, 28 November 2021, (TON): Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted the leaders of regional rivals Armenia and Azerbaijan for talks marking the first anniversary of a Moscow-brokered peace deal that ended fighting in the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

In the southern city of Sochi, Putin held a bilateral meeting with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev. Then the Russian president met with Aliyev and Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan together, and after that he said he would have a separate bilateral meeting with Pashinyan.

Opening the meetings, Putin said “a lot has been done over the past year, but not all the issues are yet resolved. He pointed to repeated clashes on the border between the two nations that resulted in multiple casualties.”

The goal, a year into the truce, is to create conditions for the revival of the region, so that people can feel safe there and be able to carry out normal economic activities, develop the economy, Putin stressed.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked in a decades-old dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh, a region that lies within Azerbaijan but was under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a separatist war there ended in 1994.

The Azerbaijani military routed the Armenian forces in 44 days of fierce fighting in the fall of 2020, which ended with a Russia-brokered peace deal that saw Azerbaijan gain control of a significant part of Nagorno-Karabakh and reclaim all the regions controlled by Armenian forces outside the separatist region.

Russia has deployed nearly 2,000 peacekeepers for at least five years to monitor the peace deal.

TEHRAN, 28 November 2021, (TON): Iran has accused the UN’s nuclear agency of bowing to pressure from its Western financiers to “discriminate” against Tehran, as strains persist ahead of new talks to revive the 2015 atomic deal.

Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran told state television “it’s a reality. The IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) doesn’t deal with Iran as it should.”

He argued that organisations such as the IAEA were “under the influence of powerful countries” which “finance them and in exchange apply pressure on them”.

In a phone call with EU diplomatic chief Josep Borrel, Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said it would be “possible to reach a favourable agreement” if sanctions are lifted.

He said “we will participate in the Vienna talks in good faith and seriously.”

Tehran wants lifting of sanctions days before Vienna talks

After a mission to Tehran this week, IAEA head Rafael Grossi said his talks with Iranian officials had been “constructive” but “inconclusive”.

Grossi told reporters in Vienna where the IAEA is based “in terms of the substance, we were not able to make progress.”

Kamalvandi said “the Islamic republic was trying to stand up for its rights and to counter the negative image that they (the international community) are trying to fabricate about us.”

KIEV, 28 November 2021, (TON): Hands on his machinegun, a Ukrainian soldier scans the grey steppe towards the positions of pro-Russian separatists in his country’s war-scarred east.

Ukrainian soldiers along the country’s eastern frontline say they are ready if Russia sends troops across the border Sergey VOLSKIY Ukrainian soldiers along the country’s eastern frontline say they are ready if Russia sends troops across the border.

The 21-year-old, who goes by the nom de guerre Zhura, says he is ready if Russian President Vladimir Putin decides to send troops across the border.

He says “I cannot rule out the possibility of the start of full-scale onslaught.”

Western governments and independent researchers say Moscow has been moving arms and troops towards the Ukrainian border in recent weeks, with Washington saying it has “real concerns” over the troop build-up.

If Russia decides to take action, Zhura says he and his battle-hardened compatriots will fight back.

“We will give a worthy response to the enemy.”

KHARTOUM, 28 November 2021, (TON): The country’s information ministry said in a statement “Sudan’s former minister of cabinet affairs Khalid Omer Yousif was released from detention along with others less than a day after beginning a hunger strike.”

An army takeover on Oct. 25 halted a power sharing deal between the military and civilians from the Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC) alliance, and a number of ministers and top civilian officials were detained.

Also released on Saturday were former Khartoum State governor Ayman Nimir and anti-corruption taskforce member Maher Abouljokh.

Several high profile politicians remain in custody.

Yousif and others had began the hunger strike, according to the Sudanese Congress Party, to protest their continued detention despite the signing of a deal between military leaders and civilian Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok which provided for the release of all civilian detainees.

Several other prominent civilian politicians and activists had been released on Monday and Friday.

MOSCOW, 28 November 2021, (TON): A source close to the situation told media “Russia’s Military-Industrial Corporation Research and Industrial Association of Machine Building (MIC N-PO Mashinostroyenia) in the Moscow Region town of Reutovo started a serial p-roduction of Tsirkon hypersonic missiles for the country’s Navy.”

The source stated “a serial production of Tsirkon missiles is underway at the NPO Mashin-ostroyenia, although state trials of this product’s surface launches will continue.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin stated on November 3 that the trials of the Tsirkon hypersonic cruise missile were nearing completion and they would start arriving for the Russian Navy from next year.

Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported to Putin on November 18 on the successful test-launch of a Tsirkon hypersonic missile in the White Sea.

A source in the domestic defense industry told TASS earlier this week that flight development tests of the Tsirkon hypersonic missile from an underwater carrier after two successful test-launches would resume from the Project 885M (Yasen-M) modified nuclear-powered submarine Perm in 2024.

On October 4, the nuclear-powered submarine Severodvinsk test-fired Tsirkon hypersonic missiles from its surface and submerged position in the White Sea for the first time.

A source earlier told media that the state trials of the Tsirkon hypersonic missile would begin in November and continue in December.

Overall, five test-launches against sea and coastal targets are planned. On August 24, 2021, a contract was signed at the Army 2021 international arms show on the delivery of Tsirkon hypersonic missiles to the Russian troops.

ISLAMABAD, 28 November 2021, (TON): Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has urged operationalisation of the transit corridors through Afghanistan for the transit trade of all Economic Cooperation Organisation (ECO) members, especially its five landlocked states.

The minister made these remarks while addressing the 25th Council of Ministers Meeting of the ECO in the Ashgabat capital of Turkmenistan.

Qureshi termed the opening of the several ECO transport corridors as the most vital objective.

He said "I would like to welcome the operationalisation of the Istanbul-Tehran-Islamabad (ITI) road corridor."

He added “in addition to Taftan, Pakistan has notified Gabd-Reemdan border Crossing Point as a TIR [International Road Transport] station.”

The foreign minister termed restoration of peace and stability in Afghanistan vital for the purpose. "We must all provide humanitarian and economic assistance to Afghanistan and its people to prevent massive human sufferings and economic collapse."