The UN special envoy for Western Sahara, Staffan De Mistura, stressed yesterday before the Security Council that “the time has come for Morocco to explain and detail its proposal for autonomy,” something he said he had “reiterated respectfully but firmly” to the Government of Rabat.

In his presentation yesterday before the Council behind closed doors, to which the media had access today, De Mistura showed his impatience for the blocking of the peace process between Morocco and the Saharawi independence group Polisario Front, and confessed that he even proposed a partition of the Saharawi territory between the north, which would be for Morocco, and the south, which would become an independent state, but he regretted having reaped a refusal by both parties.

Exposition of the UN envoy

He dedicated a large part of his exhibition to exploring the idea of Moroccan autonomy -categorically rejected by the Polisario-, and said that it has worked in places of the world as different as Greenland, Upper Adige or Scotland, but it remains to know what Morocco proposes for the Sahara beyond “a three-page plan” exposed in 2007.

That plan,” said De Mistura, has created expectations “and even the right to better understand what it means,” a right shared by the people affected but also by the Security Council and the UN General Secretariat, and even by the countries that in one way or another have supported it as a principle.

“It must be explained how this option can provide some kind of worthy form of self-determination for the people of the Sahara, and under what modality,” De Mistura insisted before the Council, before recalling that Morocco “must provide details of its vision.”

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It’s almost 50 years since the beginning of the conflict

De Mistura concluded his speech by recalling that in 2025 it will be 50 years since the beginning of the conflict and that, if from now until six months there is no progress between the parties – that they do not even sit at the same table – it would be legitimate to ask about the involvement that the United Nations must continue to have in the process.

The UN sent a mission to the Sahara in 1991 (Minurso) in order to organize a self-determination referendum, but later Morocco put obstacles to that referendum and since 2007 has only proposed an imprecise offer of autonomy.

Since then, the Minurso has been left with the only task of observing the ceasefire, sporadically broken by both parties.

The President of the United States, Joe Biden, and the vice president and Democratic candidate for the White House, Kamala Harris, reacted this Thursday to the death of the leader of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar, in an Israeli operation and pointed out that there is now more room to “end the war.”

In a statement, Biden said that Sinwar’s death is an “opportunity” to reach an agreement that “provides a better future for both Israelis and Palestinians” and that allows the Gaza Strip to access a “day after” without Hamas in power.

“Yahya Sinwar was an insurmountable obstacle to achieving all those goals. That obstacle no longer exists, but there is still a lot of work ahead,” said Biden, who later spoke on the phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

According to the Israeli Prime Minister’s office, Biden congratulated Netanyahu on Sinwar’s death and both agreed that this fact opens an opportunity for the release of the hostages in the hands of Hamas.

The White House also indicated that the two leaders talked about “how to take advantage of this moment to take the hostages back home and close the conflict, guaranteeing Israel’s security and preventing Hamas from controlling Gaza again.”

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The conversation took place while Biden was traveling to Germany on the Air Force One presidential plane.

Kamala Harris sees a better world

For his part, Harris, in statements to the press from Wisconsin, said that “Justice has been done. The United States, Israel and the rest of the world are a better place.”

According to the vice president, U.S. special operations and intelligence personnel worked closely with their Israeli counterparts to locate the leader of the Islamist group.

After Sinwar’s death, said the Democratic Party candidate in the US presidential elections, Hamas is decimated” and that opens up an “opportunity to end the war in Gaza.”

The end of the conflict, he said, must include security guarantees for Israel, the release of the hostages kidnapped by Hamas and the end of the “suffering” of the Palestinian people in Gaza.

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“We will not give up these goals and I will always work to create a future of peace, dignity and security for all,” said the Democratic candidate.

Who was the leader of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar?

Born in a refugee camp in Jan Yunis, a city in southern Gaza, Sinwar was elected leader of Hamas in Gaza in 2017 after arbilling a reputation as a bitter enemy of Israel and on August 6 – after the murder in Tehran of the then head of the political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh – he was chosen to occupy the highest position in the organization chart of the Islamist group.

He represented the hardest and most belligerent line of the group and is considered by Israel as the mastermind of the attacks of October 7 against Israeli territory in which some 1,200 people were killed and another 250 were kidnapped, which made him the man most wanted by Israel.

Around 16:00 local time (13:00 GMT), the Israeli Army announced that it was investigating whether one of three militiamen killed in operations in Gaza was Sinwar, but said it could not confirm it until it had the results of fingerprint, dental and DNA tests, all of which were already positive.

According to the scarce information revealed so far, Sinwar’s death occurred yesterday, Wednesday 16, in a fortuitous encounter between Israeli troops and militiamen in Rafah, southern the Palestinian enclave, but it was not based on intelligence information.

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According to the Army, together with him they did not find any kidnapped nor were their lives in danger.

Israeli media point out that Sinwar would have remained hidden with Israeli hostages in the tunnels of the Strip until the end of August, when Hamas murdered six kidnapped people in Rafah a day before Israeli troops approached them.

Pope Francis concluded what was supposed to be a tough test in his pontificate: the longest international trip, 12 days in which he has traveled four countries – Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore – and in which despite his 87 years and his mobility problems he overcame without problems in good shape and without showing signs of weakness.

A pope to whom the trip seems to have not made a dent

The trip in which he has traveled 32,000 kilometers, added to those he made by car and mobile among the faithful, the four schedule changes and seven flights, do not seem to have made a dent in the pontiff who said goodbye to Singapore on Friday with a visit to a home for the elderly and a meeting with the young people in which he showed good humor again.

It is true that with respect to other trips, the pace of the events has been slowed down and he has been allowed to rest from one country to another with some free hours on arrival.

But the Argentine pontiff, who due to his knee pain has to move in a wheelchair, has not given up anything, including the strenuous tours in papamóvil of more than 40 minutes among the faithful in the massive masses that he has celebrated and also fighting with the heat and humidity of these countries.

For more than 40 minutes he was touring the huge esplanade ed Taci Tolu in Dili with intense humidity and heat despite the fact that the sunset was waiting to greet the faithful at the end of the mass in which about 600,000 people gathered, practically almost half of the population of East Timor.

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Francisco “regenerates” with the affection of people

“The pope regenerates the affection of the people. All these people were not expected in their path as has been seen in countries like East Timor and that gives it strength,” explains one of the people from the Vatican delegation.

And he tells the pope’s great satisfaction for having been able to go to Vánimo, a remote town in Papua New Guinea, after having traveled another two hours by plane, to visit the Argentine missionaries who work there among the poorest of one of the poorest countries in the world.

Francisco has been seen shaking thousands of hands from the long lines that formed after his actions to be able to greet him without losing patience, stop the car on numerous occasions to bless the babies that his parents had taken to the sides of the road to see him just spend a moment and always approach the sick for a caress.

And distribute candies among the children, one by one, who showed off with songs, dances and playing their instruments during their acts, although always in their wheelchairs.

Francisco, with Asia in his heart

Francis, a great lover of Asia, following in the footsteps of the Jesuits to whom he belongs, has also wanted to demonstrate that this Continent is hope for the Catholic Church, which loses faithful in secularized Europe while in Latin America the evangelist churches make their way.

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East Timor is considered the most Catholic country in the world – not counting the Vatican, with 95% of the population and so he showed it by taking to the streets the two and a half days that the visit lasted.

Even in Singapore, a multi-religious country, where around 43% of its more than five million inhabitants are Buddhists, about 20% are Christians, 14% Muslims, the Catholic Church currently has 176,000 faithful but it is the only one that grows every year, they say.