PARIS: Sudan’s prime minister has met a senior Darfur rebel leader living in France, President Emmanuel Macron said Monday, hailing an “essential step” for peace in the troubled east African nation.
“We facilitated talks that Prime Minister (Abdalla) Hamdok had yesterday with Abdel Wahid Nour, who is in our country,” Macron said at a press conference with Hamdok after talks in Paris.
“I think the step taken yesterday is an essential step,” he added. “The Sudanese deserve to finally live in peace and security.”
Hamdok said that his meeting with Nour, which he had expected to last 30 minutes, went on for nearly three hours and involved “very profound exchanges.”
“We discussed the roots of the Sudanese crisis and possibilities for a solution and... we are going to lay the first stones for this edifice of peace,” he said.
Darfur fell into widespread conflict in 2003 when ethnic minority rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated government of Omar Al-Bashir, who was toppled in April this year.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the years-long conflict in Darfur and more than two million displaced, according to the United Nations.
Sudan PM meets Darfur rebel chief in ‘essential’ step to peace: Macron
Sudan PM meets Darfur rebel chief in ‘essential’ step to peace: Macron
- Hamdok said that his meeting with Nour involved “very profound exchanges.”
- “The Sudanese deserve to finally live in peace and security,” Macron said
Russia claims new advances in east as Kyiv awaits Western support
Facing a difficult situation on the front lines, Kyiv has responded with an increasing number of incursions and attacks on Russian territory bordering Ukraine.
Some of these incursions were carried out by Russians who volunteered to fight in pro-Ukrainian units, which Putin has called to “punish.”
“On the Avdiivka front, units of the ‘Center’ grouping of troops liberated the village of Orlivka,” the Russian defense ministry said.
It is the latest in a string of gains for Moscow, which has built on the capture of Avdiivka a month ago.
Avdiivka’s seizure had forced Ukrainian troops to withdraw to defensive lines along Tonenke, Berdychi and Orlivka.
The Ukrainian army has not addressed the potential seizure of Orlivka.
But Kyiv has acknowledged a difficult situation on the battlefield and urged the West to keep up and deliver on its promises of support.
European deliveries have fallen behind, and its industrial capacities remain limited.
Kyiv has urged the US Congress to unblock a $60 billion aid package, which has been stalled due to political infighting.
President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday told US Senator Lindsey Graham that is was “critically important” for the US to make a swift decision.
“We are at a critical moment for the future of the armed conflict,” Graham told reporters after his meeting with Zelensky.
Kyiv has intensified its attacks on Russian territory, with shelling and incursions in the regions of Belgorod and Kursk.
In the past week these attacks killed 16 people and wounded nearly a hundred in the region of Belgorod, its governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.
Speaking at a meeting of ruling party members, he also announced the evacuation of thousands of children from areas at risk.
“We are evacuating a large number of villages, and now we are planning to evacuate about 9,000 children because of the shelling by the Ukrainian armed forces,” Gladkov said.
The surge in strikes took place ahead of elections that saw Putin win a predictable fifth term as president, after running against no real opposition.
“I am proud that the residents of the region did not succumb to the difficult situation and that many more people came to the polling stations than ever before,” Gladkov said.
Putin addressed the border assaults, which have marred his re-election week, in a meeting with his FSB security services.
He claimed Russian troops inflicted “heavy losses” on units that he said where made up of regular Ukrainian soldiers, foreign mercenaries and pro-Ukrainian Russian fighters.
“About these traitors... we must not forget who they are, we must identify them by name. We will punish them without statute of limitations, wherever they are,” Putin said, calling them “scum.”
Ukraine-based militias — made up of Russian citizens who oppose Moscow’s offensive and have taken up arms for Kyiv — have claimed to be behind previous incursions into Russian territory.
One of them is the Russian Volunteer Corps. Its head of staff, identified as Aleksandr, gave an interview on Ukrainian television, denying heavy losses.
“There are losses, but absolutely not of the scale claimed by Putin or the defense ministry,” he said.
On the naval front, Ukrainian forces claim to have destroyed more than two dozen Russian ships since the conflict began in February 2022, including a military patrol boat earlier this month.
Russian state media earlier confirmed Moscow had replaced the head of its navy, after reports the previous naval chief had been sacked for repeatedly losing Black Sea warships to Ukrainian attacks.
UN weather agency issues ‘red alert’ on climate change after record heat, ice-melt increases in 2023
UN weather agency issues ‘red alert’ on climate change after record heat, ice-melt increases in 2023
- WMO in a “State of the Global Climate” report released Tuesday, ratcheted up concerns that a much-vaunted climate goal is increasingly in jeopardy
- The 12-month period from March 2023 to February 2024 pushed beyond that 1.5-degree limit
GENEVA: The UN weather agency is sounding a “red alert” about global warming, citing record-smashing increases last year in greenhouse gases, land and water temperatures and melting of glaciers and sea ice, and warning that the world’s efforts to reverse the trend have been inadequate.
The World Meteorological Organization, in a “State of the Global Climate” report released Tuesday, ratcheted up concerns that a much-vaunted climate goal is increasingly in jeopardy: That the world can unite to limit planetary warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) from pre-industrial levels.
“Never have we been so close – albeit on a temporary basis at the moment – to the 1.5° C lower limit of the Paris agreement on climate change,” said Celeste Saulo, the agency’s secretary-general. “The WMO community is sounding the red alert to the world.”
The 12-month period from March 2023 to February 2024 pushed beyond that 1.5-degree limit, averaging 1.56 C (2.81 F) higher, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Service. It said the calendar year 2023 was just below 1.5 C at 1.48 C (2.66 F), but a record hot start to this year pushed beyond that level for the 12-month average.
“Earth’s issuing a distress call,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. “The latest State of the Global Climate report shows a planet on the brink. Fossil fuel pollution is sending climate chaos off the charts.”
The latest WMO findings are especially stark when compiled in a single report. In 2023, over 90 percent of ocean waters experienced heat wave conditions at least once. Glaciers monitored since 1950 lost the most ice on record. Antarctic sea ice retreated to its lowest level ever.
“Topping all the bad news, what worries me the most is that the planet is now in a meltdown phase — literally and figuratively given the warming and mass loss from our polar ice sheets,” said Jonathan Overpeck, dean of the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability, who wasn’t involved in the report.
Saulo called the climate crisis “the defining challenge that humanity faces” and said it combines with a crisis of inequality, as seen in growing food insecurity and migration.
WMO said the impact of heatwaves, floods, droughts, wildfires and tropical cyclones, exacerbated by climate change, was felt in lives and livelihoods on every continent in 2023.
“This list of record-smashing events is truly distressing, though not a surprise given the steady drumbeat of extreme events over the past year,” said University of Arizona climate scientist Kathy Jacobs, who also wasn’t involved in the WMO report. “The full cost of climate-change-accelerated events across sectors and regions has never been calculated in a meaningful way, but the cost to biodiversity and to the quality of life of future generations is incalculable.”
But the agency also acknowledged “a glimmer of hope” in trying to keep the Earth from running too high a fever. It said renewable energy generation capacity from wind, solar and waterpower rose nearly 50 percent from 2022 to a total of 510 gigawatts.
The report comes as climate experts and government ministers are to gather in the Danish capital, Copenhagen, on Thursday and Friday to press for greater climate action, including increased national commitments to fight global warming.
“Each year the climate story gets worse; each year WMO officials and others proclaim that the latest report is a wake-up call to decision makers,” said University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver, a former British Columbia lawmaker.
“Yet each year, once the 24-hour news cycle is over, far too many of our elected ‘leaders’ return to political grandstanding, partisan bickering and advancing policies with demonstrable short-term outcomes,” he said. “More often than not everything else ends up taking precedence over the advancement of climate policy. And so, nothing gets done.”
Indonesian medics enter Gaza for emergency medical support
- Indonesian NGO hopes to continue sending doctors, nurses to Gaza on a rolling basis
- Orthopedic physicians, surgical nurses are part of the Indonesian volunteer team
JAKARTA: An Indonesian medical team has entered Gaza as part of an emergency deployment led by the World Health Organization.
The Indonesian NGO organizing the volunteers said on Tuesday that the team of 11 doctors and nurses is now in Rafah and will work at a hospital in the city for at least two weeks.
They will join two other volunteers from the Indonesian NGO Medical Emergency Rescue Committee who have stayed in the besieged enclave since the Israeli campaign began in October.
“There are 11 MER-C volunteers who have entered the Gaza strip, comprising doctors and also surgical nurses … (they) are now in Rafah, southern Gaza, because it is safer in the south,” Sarbini Abdul Murad, chairman of MER-C’s executive committee, said during a press conference in Jakarta.
“From the beginning we wanted to help and to bring volunteers to help the people of Gaza, who today are in need of medical workers … so, in this case, MER-C went to Gaza with an international organization, which is the WHO.”
MER-C volunteers used to be stationed at the Indonesia Hospital in north Gaza, which the organization had built using funds partly donated by the Indonesian people. The facility, which was also designed and constructed with the help of Indonesian engineers and builders, opened in 2015.
But after the hospital — like many other public facilities in Gaza — was destroyed by the Israeli military, Indonesian volunteers were forced to seek safety in the southern part of the enclave.
For months, the NGO had unsuccessfully attempted to send a medical team to Gaza, with continued Israeli violence complicating entry to the besieged territory.
“This long journey has not been tiring for us, as it is a big responsibility to help our brothers in Gaza. Even with the present dynamic situation and condition, we will never forget the struggle, the suffering that our fellow brothers in Gaza have gone through,” Murad said.
Almost 32,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel’s air and ground campaign across Gaza, where the humanitarian situation has deteriorated to an imminent famine. Half of the enclave’s 2.4 million people are experiencing “catastrophic hunger and starvation,” the UN said on Monday.
The team of Indonesian medics is part of a larger emergency medical deployment led by the WHO and composed of members from different countries. It includes orthopedic physicians and surgical nurses to help victims of Israeli attacks who suffer injuries from bombings, missile attacks and gunshots.
“We also know that many doctors, especially in orthopedics, are exhausted and some of them have died — so this is a small part where we can help them,” Murad added.
MER-C is also calling on all Indonesian medics to form a medical coalition to continue sending doctors and nurses to Gaza on a rolling basis.
“We must all contribute, to band together so that, at least on the issue of healthcare, we can handle it together,” Murad said.
“We want to emphasize once again that the problem in Gaza is a world problem; a problem for all of us, and it’s not enough to have just one group helping the people of Gaza.”
Blinken’s Manila visit triggers protest against US presence in Philippines
- Philippines allowed US troops last year to increase their footprint in the country
- Blinken says US stands by ‘ironclad’ commitments to defend Philippines
Manila: Protesters rallied against American presence in the Philippines on Tuesday as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Manila to reinforce support against Chinese influence in the region.
The Philippines is Washington’s key security partner in Asia under a decades-long alliance, which allows the US to rotate troops into the Philippines for extended stays and build and operate facilities on Philippine military bases.
In the past two years, the partnership has expanded under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who in February last year permitted American troops to increase their footprint in the country.
China claims the disputed area almost in entirety and its military activity in the territory has been increasing, regularly encroaching on the Philippine part of the waters, the West Philippine Sea.
“These waterways are critical to the Philippines, to its security, to its economy, but they’re also critical to the interests of the region, the United States and the world,” Blinken said at a joint press conference with his Philippine counterpart Enrique Manalo.
“That’s why we stand with the Philippines and stand by our ironclad defense commitments, including under the mutual defense treaty.”
The 1951 agreement obliges the US to defend its ally in the case of external attack.
Philippine vessels have been regularly attacked by Chinese ships in the parts of the South China Sea that are internationally recognized as belonging to the Philippines.
American troops have been patrolling the maritime area with Philippine forces since November, despite protests from Beijing, which says the US is not a party to the maritime dispute.
“Article 4 of that treaty extends to any armed attacks on Filipino armed forces, on public vessels, on aircraft, and that would include its coast guard and that would also be anywhere in the South China Sea,” Blinken said.
As he told reporters that the two countries have seen an “extraordinary expansion” in their partnership, protesters in Manila carried banners reading: “US troops out of the Philippines,” “Blinken war criminal, not welcome,” “No to US intervention in PH and Asia.”
The demonstration was organized by civil society, including BAYAN — the Philippines’ largest alliance of grassroots groups — near the Presidential Palace, ahead of Blinken’s meeting with Marcos.
BAYAN said in a statement that Marcos was “advancing the geopolitical interest of the US in the region” and “offering the Philippines as an extension” of the US military network.
“The country’s assertion of sovereignty in the West Philippine Sea against China’s aggression should not involve the opportunistic meddling of a former colonizer whose real motive is to preserve and expand its imperialist hegemony in the Asia-Pacific,” the group said.
It also drew attention to Gaza, where Washington’s other key ally, Israel, has killed over 30,000 Palestinians in daily airstrikes and land assaults since October.
BAYAN said the US was “the main supporter and enabler of the ongoing genocide in Palestine” and was “actively fanning proxy wars and conflicts in various parts of the world.”
Afghan refugee convicted in murder case that shocked Albuquerque Muslim community
- Muhammad Syed faces life in prison for killing Aftab Hussein in 2022
- Syed also will stand trial in the coming months for two other slayings