CAIRO: At least 17 people have been killed and dozens injured in renewed violence in the past 24 hours in West Darfur, Sudan, according to a local activist and aid worker.
Sharaf Jumma Salah, a West Darfur resident and activist, said Friday that tribal clashes between Arabs and non-Arabs left at least 46 people injured, and that dozens of houses in four villages had been burnt down in the area of Jebel Moon.
Fighting earlier this week also killed at least 16, in the same area.
Adam Regal, spokesman for the General Coordination Body for Refugees and Displaced in Darfur, said on Thursday that the violence started that morning and went on for hours. He said a communications cut had made it difficult to obtain complete information from the remote area.
Regal blamed local Arab tribal militias known as janjaweed for the attack.
Clashes in Jebel Moon erupted in mid-November over a land dispute between Arab and non-Arab tribes. Dozens have been killed since then and authorities have deployed more troops to the area. Sporadic fighting has continued, however.
Sudan has seen unrest following an October military coup that rattled an already fragile democratic transition. The African country has also faced uphill security and economic challenges since the 2019 overthrow of longtime autocrat Omar Al-Bashir and his Islamist government.
In Khartoum, the country’s capital, protests against the military coup continue. Two teenagers were killed by gunfire in demonstrations on Thursday, according to the Sudan Doctors Committee. The group, which has kept track of protester deaths and injuries since the coup, has tallied a total of 87 killed.
The instability has led to deteriorating security conditions in other parts of the country, like the war-wrecked region of Darfur.
The yearslong Darfur conflict broke out when rebels from the territory’s ethnic central and sub-Saharan African community launched an insurgency in 2003, complaining of oppression by the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum.
Al-Bashir’s government responded with a campaign of aerial bombings and raids by the janjaweed, a militia that has been accused of mass killings and rapes. Up to 300,000 people were killed and 2.7 million were driven from their homes in Darfur over the years.
Al-Bashir, who has been in prison in Khartoum since his ouster, also faces international charges of genocide and crimes against humanity related to the Darfur conflict.
Sudan tribal clashes kill 17 people in Darfur
https://arab.news/99zwf
Sudan tribal clashes kill 17 people in Darfur
- Fighting earlier this week also killed at least 16, in the same area
- In Khartoum, the country’s capital, protests against the military coup continue
Trump invites China’s Xi Jinping to attend inauguration, CBS News reports
The invitation to the Jan. 20 inauguration in Washington occurred in early November, shortly after the Nov. 5 presidential election, and it was not clear if it had been accepted, CBS reported.
The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump said in an interview with NBC News conducted on Friday that he “got along with very well” with Xi and that they had “had communication as recently as this week.”
It would be unprecedented for a leader of China, a top US geopolitical rival, to attend a US presidential inauguration.
Trump has named numerous China hawks to key posts in his incoming administration, including Senator Marco Rubio as secretary of state.
The president-elect has said he will impose an additional 10 percent tariff on Chinese goods unless Beijing does more to stop trafficking of the highly addictive narcotic fentanyl. He also threatened tariffs in excess of 60 percent on Chinese goods while on the campaign trail.
In late November, China’s state media warned Trump that his pledge to slap additional tariffs on Chinese goods over fentanyl flows could drag the world’s top two economies into a mutually destructive tariff war.
Separately on Wednesday, China’s US Ambassador Xie Feng read a letter from Xi to a US-China Business Council gala in Washington, in which the Chinese leader said Beijing was prepared to stay in communication with the US
“We should choose dialogue over confrontation and win-win cooperation over zero-sum games,” Xi said in the letter.
Xie added that the two countries should not decouple supply chains. But Nicholas Burns, the US ambassador to Beijing, said in a prerecorded video address that China at times tried to “sugar coat” challenging and competitive relations.
“No amount of happy talk can obscure our profound differences,” Burns said. (Reporting by Jasper Ward, David Brunnstrom, Michael Martina and Costas Pitas; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
Mexican judge shot dead in violence-plagued Acapulco
MEXICO CITY: A judge was shot dead Wednesday in Mexico’s once-thriving beach city of Acapulco, local media and the state prosecutor’s office said.
Local press identified the slain judge as Edmundo Roman Pinzon, president of the Superior Court of Justice in Guerrero state, saying he was shot at least four times in his car outside an Acapulco courthouse.
The southern state of Guerrero is one the areas hardest hit in Mexico by violence linked to organized crime, and has seen a string of deadly attacks this year.
In October, the mayor of the state capital Chilpancingo was killed and decapitated just days after taking office.
Weeks later, armed clashes between alleged gang members and security forces left 19 people dead in the state. Last month, a dozen dismembered bodies were discovered in vehicles in Chilpancingo.
Acapulco, the state’s most populous city, was once a playground for the rich and famous, but has lost its luster over the last decade as foreign tourists have been spooked by bloodshed that has made it one of the world’s most violent cities.
On Wednesday, the Guerrero state prosecutor’s office said in a statement that it was “investigating the crime of aggravated homicide against Edmundo N,” in line with the usual practice of not giving full names.
The killing comes just over a week after President Claudia Sheinbaum led a meeting of the National Public Security Council in Acapulco, with state governors in attendance.
Spiraling violence, much of it linked to drug trafficking, has seen more than 450,000 people murdered in Mexico since 2006, when the government launched an offensive against organized crime.
Sheinbaum, who took office in October as Mexico’s first woman president, has ruled out launching a new “war on drugs,” as the controversial program was known.
She has pledged instead to stick to her predecessor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s “hugs not bullets” strategy of using social policy to address the causes of crime.
Last year, 1,890 murders were recorded in Guerrero.
South Korea’s Yoon vows to fight ‘until the very last minute’
SEOUL: South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Thursday vowed to fight “until the very last minute,” defending his shock decision last week to declare martial law and deploy troops to the country’s parliament
The South Korean leader is banned from foreign travel as part of an “insurrection” probe into his inner circle over the dramatic events of December 3-4 that stunned South Korea’s allies.
A probe into last week’s turmoil has swiftly gathered pace, with police on Wednesday attempting to raid Yoon’s office to investigate his brief imposition of martial law.
Facing an impeachment vote in parliament on Saturday, Yoon vowed to “fight with the people until the very last minute.”
“I apologize again to the people who must have been surprised and anxious due to the martial law,” he said in a televised address.
“Please trust me in my warm loyalty to the people.”
Police on Wednesday were blocked from entering the Presidential office by security guards, later saying they had been given “very limited” documents by Yoon’s staff.
The main opposition Democratic Party warned it would file legal complaints for insurrection against the presidential staff and security if they continued to obstruct law enforcement.
Yoon’s inner circle has come under intense scrutiny for their role in last week’s martial law declaration.
Prison authorities on Wednesday said former defense minister Kim Yong-hyun tried to kill himself shortly before his formal arrest the previous day.
Kim, who is accused of suggesting to Yoon that he impose martial law, was first detained on Sunday, and later formally arrested on charges of “engaging in critical duties during an insurrection” and “abuse of authority to obstruct the exercise of rights.”
The justice ministry and a prison official said he was in good health on Wednesday.
The former interior minister and the general in charge of the martial law operation are also barred from foreign travel.
Two senior police officials were also arrested early Wednesday.
But Yoon on Thursday remained defiant, accusing the opposition of having pushed the country into a “national crisis.”
“The National Assembly, dominated by the large opposition party, has become a monster that destroys the constitutional order of liberal democracy,” Yoon said in a televised address.
But, he said, he would “not avoid legal and political responsibility regarding the declaration of martial law.”
Pentagon chief urges ‘close consultation’ between Israel and US on Syria
WASHINGTON: US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz that it was important for the United States and Israel to be in close consultation over events unfolding in Syria, the Pentagon said on Wednesday after their call.
“Secretary Austin emphasized the importance of close consultation between the United States and Israel on events in Syria,” the Pentagon said in a statement.
Austin told Katz Washington was monitoring developments in Syria and that it backed a peaceful, inclusive political transition, according to the Pentagon.
Ukrainian drone hits police barracks in Russia’s Chechnya, injures four
A Ukrainian drone struck the roof of a police barracks in Russia’s Caucasus region of Chechnya early on Thursday, injuring four people, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said, the second such incident in a week.
“The drone detonated in the air, damaged the roof and broke windows,” Kadyrov wrote on the Telegram messaging app of the incident in the regional capital, Grozny. “Falling fragments triggered a small fire, which was quickly put out.”
Four members of a unit guarding the facility suffered slight wounds. A video posted by Kadyrov showed shattered windows.
Kadyrov has been a vocal supporter of Moscow’s war and has sent forces to Ukraine, some 1,000 km (600 miles) away, to fight alongside Russian forces.
Last week, Kadyrov said a drone hit the roof of a police facility, though it was unclear whether the same building was involved.
In October, the roof of a military training center in the Chechen city of Gudermes was set ablaze in what appeared to be the first Ukrainian drone attack directed against Chechnya since the start of the war in February 2022.
