Sudan coup leader says technocrat will lead new government, ousted PM could return

Sudan's top army general Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan speaks during a press conference at the General Command of the Armed Forces in Khartoum on October 26, 2021. (File/AFP)
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Updated 29 October 2021
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Sudan coup leader says technocrat will lead new government, ousted PM could return

  • Western countries have cut off hundreds of millions of dollars in desperately needed aid to Sudan since General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan dissolved Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok’s cabinet
  • Opponents of the coup have called for mass protests on Saturday under the slogan “Leave!“

KHARTOUM: Sudan's military coup leader, facing pressure at home and abroad to restore power to civilians, said a technocratic prime minister could be announced in a week.

He left the door open for the man he ousted to return and form the new government.

Western countries have cut off hundreds of millions of dollars in desperately needed aid to Sudan since General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan dissolved Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok's cabinet and soldiers rounded up government ministers on Monday.

Opponents of the coup have called for mass protests on Saturday under the slogan "Leave!".

At least 11 protesters have been killed in clashes with security forces so far this week, and residents say they fear a full-blown crackdown.

"I am scared that this country will catch fire. We're scared these people will kill our children. There's been enough death," said a Khartoum woman in her 70s on condition of anonymity.

The coup has derailed a transition meant to steer Sudan to democracy, with elections in 2023, after long-serving ruler Omar al-Bashir was toppled two years ago.

While there has been no evidence of concrete progress towards restoring civilian rule, several mediation efforts have been announced. An Egyptian source said Egyptian officials had spoken to Burhan in a bid to foster a new government.

In Khartoum, a committee of national figures has been formed to mediate and has met with both the army and civilians, a member told Reuters. A U.N. special representative has also offered to facilitate an agreement.

In a speech on Thursday night, Burhan said Hamdok had been offered a chance to return as prime minister.

"Until this night, we were sending him people and telling (Hamdok) ... complete the path with us," Burhan said in the speech, which was broadcast on Al-Jazeera TV. "We told him that we cleaned the stage for you ... he is free to form the government, we will not intervene in the government formation."

There was no immediate public response from Hamdok to the suggestion that he might return, but his allies have previously said he wants the civilian role in government restored and all detained ministers freed.

One minister in Hamdok's ousted government, speaking on condition of anonymity, said cabinet members were not opposed to standing aside for a new government, provided it is led and chosen by Hamdok, and the transitional agreement is restored in full.

Burhan has said he removed to cabinet to avert civil war after civilian politicians stoked hostility to the armed forces. He says he is still committed to a democratic transition, including elections by 2023, but favours a government that would exclude partisan politicians.

The new government would be led by a technocrat "agreed upon by different sections of the Sudanese people", who could be chosen within a week and permitted to select a cabinet, he said in comments reported on Friday by Russia's Sputnik news agency.

"We will not interfere in the choice of the ministers," he said. New members would also be appointed to the Sovereign Council, a civilian-military body which he dissolved along with the cabinet.

The U.N. Security Council has called for the restoration of civilian rule, while U.S. President Joe Biden says Washington stands with peaceful demonstrators.

Hamdok, an economist, was initially held at Burhan's residence when soldiers rounded up the government on Monday, but was allowed to return home under guard on Tuesday.

A source close to Hamdok said on Wednesday that Hamdok rejected any retreat from the democratic path as a threat to stability. On the eve of the coup, Hamdok had resisted pressure to dissolve his cabinet and warned the army against using violence against protesters, the source said.

Magdi El Gizouli, a political analyst, said Burhan's calculation is that he can suppress the opposition by force if needed, while counting on the backing of people who crave stability.

While it was important the army avoid violence on Saturday, Burhan's opponents must make realistic demands, he added. "Otherwise you're driving your car beyond its motor."

Egyptian officials including intelligence chief Abbas Kamel have been spoken with Burhan and General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, another top Sudanese commander, in the last two days in a bid to restore calm and mediate over the formation of a new government, a security source at Egyptian intelligence said.

The coup has led donors to freeze assistance badly needed in a country where more than half the population is in poverty and hardship has fuelled instability and civil wars. After decades of pariah status under Bashir, Sudan had finally won Western aid, which has only recently begun to stabilise its economy.

Since becoming de facto head of state in 2019, Burhan has developed good ties with Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, U.S.-allied Arab states all happy to see the downfall of Bashir, whose Islamism they opposed.


Iran’s FM arrives in Istanbul for Arab League meeting

Updated 57 min 43 sec ago
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Iran’s FM arrives in Istanbul for Arab League meeting

  • Around 40 diplomats are slated to join the weekend gathering of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation

ISTANBUL: Iran’s foreign minister arrived in Istanbul on Saturday, Tasnim news agency reported, for a meeting with Arab League diplomats to discuss Tehran’s escalating conflict with Israel.

Around 40 diplomats are slated to join the weekend gathering of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), as Israel and Iran continue to exchange missile strikes.

“The Foreign Minister arrived in Istanbul this morning to participate in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation Foreign Ministers’ meeting,” Tasnim reported.

It comes after Araghchi met with his counterparts from Britain, France and Germany in Geneva on Friday.

“At this meeting, at the suggestion of Iran, the issue of the Zionist regime’s attack on our country will be specifically addressed,” said Iranian foreign Abbas Araghchi, according to the news agency.

Israel began its assault in the early hours of June 13, saying Iran was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons, triggering an immediate retaliation from Tehran in the worst-ever confrontation between the two arch-rivals.

Earlier on Friday, Araghchi said Tehran was ready to “consider diplomacy” again only if Israel’s “aggression is stopped.”

The Arab League ministers are expected to release a statement following their meeting, the Turkish state news agency Anadolu said.


Iran, Israel launch new attacks after Tehran rules out nuclear talks

Updated 21 June 2025
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Iran, Israel launch new attacks after Tehran rules out nuclear talks

  • Israel is widely assumed to possess nuclear weapons

JERUSALEM/WASHINGTON: Iran and Israel exchanged fresh attacks early on Saturday, a day after Tehran said it would not negotiate over its nuclear program while under threat and Europe tried to keep peace talks alive.

Shortly after 2:30 a.m. in Israel (2330 GMT on Friday), the Israeli military warned of an incoming missile barrage from Iran, triggering air raid sirens across parts of central Israel, including Tel Aviv, as well as in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Interceptions were visible in the sky over Tel Aviv, with explosions echoing across the metropolitan area as Israel’s air defense systems responded.

22 arrested for links to Israeli spy services since start of conflict

Police in Iran’s Qom province said Saturday that 22 people “linked to Israeli spy services” had been arrested since June 13, Fars news agency reported.

“22 people were identified and arrested on charges of being linked to the Zionist regime’s spy services, disturbing public opinion, and supporting the criminal regime,” the agency stated, citing the head of police intelligence in Iran’s Qom province.

Iran’s Isfahan nuclear site targeted by Israel

Iran’s Isfahan nuclear site was targeted by Israel, Iran’s Fars news agency reported on Saturday, adding that there was no leakage of hazardous materials.

At the same time, Israel launched a new wave of attacks against missile storage and launch infrastructure sites in Iran, the Israeli military said.

Sirens also sounded in southern Israel, said Magen David Adom, Israel’s national emergency service. An Israeli military official said Iran had fired five ballistic missiles and that there were no immediate indications of any missile impacts.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Interceptions visible in skies over Tel Aviv

• Israel says it targeted Iranian missile storage, infrastructure

• Iran says no talks with US under 'Israeli aggression'

There were no initial reports of casualties.

The emergency service released images showing a fire on the roof of a multi-storey residential building in central Israel. Local media reported that the fire was caused by debris from an intercepted missile.

Israel began attacking Iran last Friday, saying its longtime enemy was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons. Iran, which says its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes, retaliated with missile and drone strikes on Israel.

Israel is widely assumed to possess nuclear weapons. It neither confirms nor denies this.

Its air attacks have killed 639 people in Iran, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency, a US-based human rights organization that tracks Iran. The dead include the military’s top echelon and nuclear scientists.

In Israel, 24 civilians have been killed in Iranian missile attacks, according to authorities.

Reuters could not independently verify casualty figures for either side.

Talks show little progress

Iran has repeatedly targeted Tel Aviv, a metropolitan area of around 4 million people and the country’s business and economic hub, where some critical military assets are also located.

Israel said it had struck dozens of military targets on Friday, including missile production sites, a research body it said was involved in nuclear weapons development in Tehran and military facilities in western and central Iran.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said there was no room for negotiations with the US “until Israeli aggression stops”.

But he arrived in Geneva on Friday for talks with European foreign ministers at which Europe hopes to establish a path back to diplomacy.

US President Donald Trump on Friday reiterated that he would take as long as two weeks to decide whether the United States should enter the conflict on Israel’s side, enough time “to see whether or not people come to their senses”, he said.

Trump said he was unlikely to press Israel to scale back its airstrikes to allow negotiations to continue.

“I think it’s very hard to make that request right now. If somebody is winning, it’s a little bit harder to do than if somebody is losing, but we’re ready, willing and able, and we’ve been speaking to Iran, and we’ll see what happens,” he said.

The Geneva talks produced little signs of progress, and Trump said he doubted negotiators would be able to secure a ceasefire.

“Iran doesn’t want to speak to Europe. They want to speak to us. Europe is not going to be able to help in this one,” Trump said.

Hundreds of US citizens have fled Iran since the air war began, according to a US State Department cable seen by Reuters.

Israel’s envoy to the United Nations, Danny Danon, told the Security Council on Friday his country would not stop its attacks “until Iran’s nuclear threat is dismantled”.

Iran’s UN envoy Amir Saeid Iravani called for Security Council action and said Tehran was alarmed by reports that the US might join the war.

Russia and China demanded immediate de-escalation.

A senior Iranian official said that Iran was ready to discuss limitations on uranium enrichment but that it would reject any proposal that barred it from enriching uranium completely, “especially now under Israel’s strikes”.


Israel may have breached EU agreement, bloc’s foreign policy arm says

Updated 21 June 2025
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Israel may have breached EU agreement, bloc’s foreign policy arm says

  • EU-Israel pact requires “respect for human rights and democratic principles” for both sides
  • EU foreign ministers are set to discuss the review during a gathering in Brussels on Monday

BRUSSELS: The European Union’s diplomatic service said on Friday there were indications that Israel had breached its human rights obligations under the terms of a pact governing its ties with the bloc, according to a document seen by Reuters.

Citing assessments by independent international institutions, the European External Action Service said “there are indications that Israel would be in breach of its human rights obligations under Article 2 of the EU-Israel Association Agreement.”

The report comes after months of deepening concern in European capitals about Israel’s operations in Gaza and the humanitarian situation in the enclave.

“Israel’s continued restrictions to the provision of food, medicines, medical equipment, and other vital supplies affect the entire population of Gaza present on the affected territory,” the document said.

Palestinians try to get food at a charity kitchen providing hot meals in Rimal neighborhood in Gaza City on June 18, 2025, amid the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)

Asked about the EU review, an Israeli official called it “a one-sided report that exemplifies the double standards the EU uses toward Israel.”

Under the EU-Israel Association Agreement, which came into force in 2000, the EU and Israel agreed that their relationship “shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles.”

The EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, announced in May that the bloc would examine whether Israel was complying with the terms of the pact, after over half of EU members backed the conducting of a review.

The report includes a section dedicated to the situation in Gaza, covering issues related to denial of humanitarian aid, attacks with a significant number of casualties, attacks on hospitals and medical facilities, displacement, and lack of accountability.

Mourners carry a body for burial outside al-Awda hospital in Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, on June 20, 2025, after several Palestinians were killed as they reportedly headed to a food distribution centre in the war-stricken Gaza Strip. (AFP)

The report also looks at the situation in the West Bank, including settler violence.

The document relies on “facts verified by and assessments made by independent international institutions, and with a focus on most recent events in Gaza and the West Bank,” it said.

Israel has said that it respects international law and that operations in Gaza are necessary to destroy Hamas, the Palestinian group responsible for the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel.

EU foreign ministers are set to discuss the review during a gathering in Brussels on Monday. Member countries remain divided in their approach to Israel.

While some ministers could advocate for moving toward taking action based on the review, no concrete decisions are expected at Monday’s session.

Diplomats expect EU officials will reach out to Israel with the outcome of the review in an effort to influence it, and that ministers will return to the subject during a July meeting.


Morocco says 2024 ‘hottest year’ on record

Updated 21 June 2025
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Morocco says 2024 ‘hottest year’ on record

  • Moroccan climatologist Mohammed-Said Karrouk, who also heads Morocco’s National Future Planet Committee, warned that the kingdom’s geography and climate make it more vulnerable to temperature extremes

RABAT: The year 2024 was Morocco’s hottest on record, the North African country’s meteorological agency said on Friday, mirroring the record surface temperatures measured globally.
In an annual report, the agency said it recorded an average temperature anomaly of +1.49 degrees Celsius (+2.7 Fahrenheit) last year compared to the 1991-2020 period.
“The year 2024 stands out as the hottest ever recorded in Morocco,” it said, adding that every month in 2024, excluding June and September, had been hotter than the average for the 1991-2020 reference period.
Several cities broke daily heat records, with 47.6 degrees Celsius (117.7 Fahrenheit) in Marrakech and 47.7 degrees Celsius (117.8 Fahrenheit) in Beni Mellal in July last year, the agency said.
It also noted “an increase in thermal anomalies, particularly during the autumn and winter seasons.”
Morocco’s all-time heat record was set in August 2023, when temperatures hit 50.4 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit) in Agadir.
The country, which is enduring a seventh straight year of drought, registered an average rainfall deficit of -24.7 percent last year, the report said.
The agency said last year’s data reflected “an amplification of climate contrasts in Morocco, where prolonged droughts alternate with episodes of extreme precipitation.”
Torrential rains in September 2024 — causing floods and killing 18 people — “did not reverse the overall rainfall deficit,” it added.
Moroccan climatologist Mohammed-Said Karrouk, who also heads Morocco’s National Future Planet Committee, warned that the kingdom’s geography and climate make it more vulnerable to temperature extremes.
He said warming was now observed in all seasons.
“In autumn, lingering summer heat combined with gradually cooling temperatures favors violent downpours, which have become more dangerous due to excess humidity in the atmosphere,” he said.
“In winter, the heat originating mostly from warming tropical oceans now influences North Africa as well.”
A former member of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Karrouk also warned of a recent intensification of the West African monsoon — a seasonal wind system that brings moist air from the Atlantic Ocean — which he linked to the deadly September floods.
He called for the construction of shelters to protect vulnerable populations and dams to capture water — a valuable resource with Morocco’s unrelenting drought.
Weather extremes have taken a toll on farming, a vital sector for Morocco which employs nearly a third of its active population and accounts for 12 percent of GDP.
Scientists say that recurring heatwaves are a clear marker of global warming and that they are set to become more frequent, longer and more intense.
Fuelled by human-driven climate change, 2024 was the warmest year on record globally — and 2025 is projected to rank among the top three.

 


Hundreds of US citizens left Iran in last week, State Department cable says

Updated 21 June 2025
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Hundreds of US citizens left Iran in last week, State Department cable says

  • Washington is looking at ways to potentially evacuate its citizens from Israel, but it has almost no way of assisting Americans inside Iran

WASHINGTON: Hundreds of American citizens have departed Iran using land routes over the past week since an aerial war between the Islamic Republic and Israel broke out, according to an internal State Department cable seen by Reuters on Friday.
While many left without problem, “numerous” citizens had faced “delays and harassment” while trying to exit, the cable said. It said, without giving further details, that one unidentified family had reported that two US citizens attempting to leave Iran had been detained.
The internal cable dated June 20 underscores the challenge Washington is facing in trying to protect and assist its citizens in a country with which it has no diplomatic relations and in a war in which the United States may soon get involved.
The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The cable was first reported by The Washington Post.

HIGHLIGHTS

• US advises land exits via Azerbaijan, Armenia or Turkey

• Some US citizens departing Iran faced problems, cable says

• Over 6,400 US citizens filled possible evacuation form in Israel

President Donald Trump and the White House said on Thursday he will decide in the next two weeks whether the US will get involved in the Israel-Iran war. Trump has kept the world guessing on his plans, veering from proposing a swift diplomatic solution to suggesting Washington might join the fighting on Israel’s side.
The air war began on June 13 when Israel attacked Iran and has alarmed a region that has been on edge since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza in October 2023.
Israel is the only country in the Middle East widely believed to have nuclear weapons, and said it struck Iran to prevent Tehran from developing its own nuclear weapons.
Iran, which says its nuclear program is peaceful, has retaliated with its own strikes on Israel. Iran is a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, while Israel is not.

POTENTIAL EVACUATION
The US State Department in a travel alert earlier on Friday urged its citizens wishing to depart Iran to use land routes via Azerbaijan, Armenia or Turkiye. Iranian airspace is closed.
The US Embassy in the Turkmenistan capital of Ashgabat has requested entry for over 100 American citizens, but the Turkmenistan government has yet to give its approval, the cable said.
The Islamic Republic treats Iranian-US dual citizens solely as nationals of Iran, the State Department emphasized.
“US nationals are at significant risk of questioning, arrest and detention in Iran,” the alert said.
Washington is looking at ways to potentially evacuate its citizens from Israel, but it has almost no way of assisting Americans inside Iran. The two countries have had no diplomatic ties since the Iranian Revolution in 1979.
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee on Thursday said the administration was looking at different ways to get US citizens out.
“We’re working to get military, commercial, charter flights and cruise ships for evac,” he said in an X post, urging US citizens and green card holders to complete an online form.
As of Friday, more than 6,400 US citizens filled out that form for Israel, a separate internal department email seen by Reuters said. The form allows the agency to predict an approximate figure for potential evacuations.
“Approximately 300-500 US citizens per day would potentially require departure assistance,” said the internal email, also dated June 20 and marked “sensitive.”
The State Department does not have official figures but thousands of US citizens are thought to be residing in Iran and hundreds of thousands in Israel.
Israel’s strikes over the last week have killed 639 people in Iran, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency. Israel says Iranian attacks have killed 24 civilians in Israel.
“The US Department of State received no reports of US citizen casualties in Israel or Iran,” the second email said.