Kenya on Saturday recalled its ambassador from Somalia for “urgent consultations” over a maritime border dispute that involves lucrative offshore oil and gas deposits.
“The summons is a consequence of a most regretful and egregious decision by the government of Somalia to auction off oil and gas blocks in Kenya’s maritime territorial area that borders Somalia,” the Kenyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
The “unparalleled affront and illegal grab at the resources of Kenya” had taken place at an auction in London on Feb. 7 and would “not go unanswered,” it said.
The UN’s highest court, the International Court of Justice in The Hague, has been hearing a case Somalia brought against Kenya about the dispute.
Nairobi previously unsuccessfully argued that the court did not have jurisdiction over the case.
Mogadishu’s case against Nairobi focuses on an attempt to redraw the sea border, which would affect at least three of Kenya’s 20 offshore oil blocks.
Somalia says talks have failed to resolve the spat. A final outcome would significantly impact a new source of revenue for either of the east African neighbors.
Somalia, which lies north of Kenya, wants to continue the frontier along the line of the land border, in a southeast direction, but Kenya wants the border to head out to sea in a straight line east, along the parallel of latitude, giving it more sea territory.
The disputed triangle of water is believed to hold valuable deposits of oil and gas in a part of Africa only recently found to be sitting on significant reserves.
Kenya has already awarded three oil blocks in the area to Italian energy company Eni SpA.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion