Port Sudan, Sudan: The ongoing civil war in Sudan has provoked one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises in decades, the international chief of the medical charity Doctors Without Borders said Thursday.
War has raged for more than a year between the regular military under army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces led by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
“Sudan is one of the worst crises the world has seen for decades... yet the humanitarian response is profoundly inadequate,” Christos Christou, international president of Doctors Without Borders (MSF), said on social media platform X.
“There are extreme levels of suffering across the country, and the needs are growing by the day,” he added.
The conflict, which began in April 2023 has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and displaced more than nine million people, according to the United Nations.
Both sides have been accused of war crimes including deliberately targeting civilians, indiscriminate shelling of residential areas and blocking humanitarian aid, despite warnings that millions are on the brink of starvation.
Rights groups and the United States have also accused the paramilitaries of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.
Sudan one of world’s ‘worst crises’ in decades: medical charity
https://arab.news/brmj5
Sudan one of world’s ‘worst crises’ in decades: medical charity
- War has raged for more than a year between the regular military under army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces led by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo
- Both sides have been accused of war crimes including deliberately targeting civilians, indiscriminate shelling of residential areas and blocking humanitarian aid
Drought has dried a major Amazon River tributary to its lowest level in over 122 years
- The level of the Negro River at the port of Manaus was at 12.66 meters on Friday, as compared with a normal level of about 21 meters
- It is the lowest since measurements started 122 years ago. The previous record low level was recorded last year, but toward the end of October
MANAUS, Brazil: One of the Amazon River’s main tributaries has dropped to its lowest level ever recorded, Brazil’s geological service said Friday, reflecting a severe drought that has devastated the Amazon rainforest and other parts of the country.
The level of the Negro River at the port of Manaus was at 12.66 meters on Friday, as compared with a normal level of about 21 meters. It is the lowest since measurements started 122 years ago. The previous record low level was recorded last year, but toward the end of October.
The Negro River’s water level might drop even more in coming weeks based on forecasts for low rainfall in upstream regions, according to the geological service’s predictions. Andre Martinelli, the agency’s hydrology manager in Manaus, was quoted as saying the river was expected to continue receding until the end of the month.
Water levels in Brazil’s Amazon always rise and fall with its rainy and dry seasons, but the dry portion of this year has been much worse than usual. All of the major rivers in the Amazon basin are at critical levels, including the Madeira River, the Amazon River’s longest tributary.
The Negro River drains about 10 percent of the Amazon basin and is the world’s sixth-largest by water volume. Manaus, the biggest city in the rainforest, is where the Negro joins the Amazon River.
For locals, the drought has made basic daily activities impossible. Gracita Barbosa, 28, works as a cashier on a floating shop on the Negro River. She’s out of work because boats that once stopped there can no longer navigate the river due to the low water levels. Barbosa can no longer bathe in the river and now has to travel longer distances to collect drinking water.
Biden warns Trump may not peacefully concede election if he loses
- "The things that Trump has said, and the things that he said last time out, when he didn’t like the outcome of the election, were very dangerous,” Biden said
- Trump was impeached in 2021 for inciting the insurrection after hundreds of his supporters battered police as they smashed windows at the Capitol and broke through doors
WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden said on Friday he is confident that the upcoming presidential election will be fairly conducted, but he warned that Republican candidate Donald Trump and his running mate could refuse to accept the outcome.
“I’m confident it will be free and fair. I don’t know whether it will be peaceful. The things that Trump has said, and the things that he said last time out, when he didn’t like the outcome of the election, were very dangerous,” Biden said.
Biden said it was notable that Trump’s running mate, US Senator JD Vance, would not confirm during this week’s vice presidential debate that he would accept the outcome of the vote in the Nov. 5 election.
Trump is running against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris for president, in a tight race that will come down to a handful of battleground states.
Biden’s warning came with lawmakers and analysts voicing concern over increasingly bellicose campaign language ahead of the vote.
Trump — who survived an assassination bid in July and another apparent plot in September — alleged widespread fraud after his defeat to Biden, and pro-Trump rioters riled up by his false claims ransacked the US Capitol.
Trump was impeached in 2021 for inciting the insurrection after hundreds of his supporters — exhorted by the defeated Republican to “fight like hell” — battered police as they smashed windows at the Capitol and broke through doors.
He has been indicted over what prosecutors allege was a “private criminal effort” to subvert the election that culminated in the violence.
Trump — who is due to return to the venue of his first assassination bid in Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday — has long been assailed over his violent rhetoric.
Biden made his comments during what was the first appearance of his presidency in the White House briefing room, where he touted his administration’s achievements as his vice president, Kamala Harris, battles Trump.
Harris and Trump meanwhile were barnstorming the battleground states that are likely to decide who wins the White House.
Trump campaigned Friday in North Carolina, where he reprised his claims of 2020 voter fraud: “We should get elected, but remember this, they cheat like hell,” he said.
He also visited neighboring Georgia, a swing state narrowly claimed by Biden four years ago but won by Trump in 2016 — and one of the biggest prizes of the 2024 election map.
The Republican inserted himself aggressively into Georgia politics after his 2020 defeat, pushing for state officials to “find” enough votes to overturn Biden’s victory.
Trump, 78, was charged by state prosecutors with racketeering, in a case that is on pause and expected to start up again after the election. He denies wrongdoing.
Spreading misinformation
On Friday Trump joined Georgia Republican Governor Brian Kemp after receiving a briefing on the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Helene, the deadliest storm to hit the US mainland since Katrina in 2005.
Trump has repeatedly spread misinformation about the federal response to the disaster, falsely alleging that funding for relief has been misappropriated by Harris and redirected toward migrants.
Harris, who is neck-and-neck with Trump in all seven swing states, rallied Friday in Michigan — a union stronghold that epitomized the US manufacturing decline of the 1980s.
The Democratic contender accused Trump of jeopardizing Michigan auto jobs.
“This is a man who has only ever fought for himself. This is a man who has been a union buster his entire career,” she said at a stop in Detroit.
Later, in the city of Flint, she branded Trump “one of the biggest losers of manufacturing jobs in American history.”
Flint is a majority Black city where a 2010s scandal over lead-tainted water highlighted government mismanagement and the disproportionate damage to poor and non-white communities.
She reminded rallygoers that the election is just one month away, and early voting has already begun in several states.
“Folks, the election is here. And we need to energize, organize and mobilize,” Harris said.
Earlier her campaign announced the country’s first Black president, Barack Obama, would stump for her in Pennsylvania and other swing states from next week as she woos undecided voters in the US heartland.
Assassination attempts and new threats have reshaped how Donald Trump campaigns
- Beyond the two attempts on his life, the former president and GOP nominee faces ongoing death threats from Iran
- Trump speaks more often publicly of divine intervention, musing that God saved him in order to save the country
NEW YORK: Donald Trump was onstage at a rally on Long Island last month, talking about taxes, when he appeared momentarily spooked by something he’d spotted over his shoulder.
“I thought this was a wise guy coming up,” he explained, joking that he was getting his elbow ready to fight back.
“You know I got a little bit of a yip problem here, right?” he added to laughs, using a term familiar to golf aficionados to describe a phenomenon once blamed on performance anxiety where players suddenly lose the ability to make easy shots. “I was all ready to start duking it out.”
It was a fleeting moment passed off as a joke. But as he returns to Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday for a rally at the site where a gunman opened fire in July, grazing his ear with a bullet, the scare underscores the lasting fallout for the candidate and his campaign even as much of the national attention has shifted to other crises.
Beyond the two attempts on his life in as many months, the former president and GOP nominee faces ongoing death threats from Iran, which has also been blamed for hacking top campaign officials and allies, exacerbating anxieties already heightened by a stepped-up security apparatus and new restrictions on how he can campaign.
Trump’s allies insist he was not fundamentally changed by the gunman who fired from an unsecured roof at the rally in July or the would-be assailant in September who shoved a rifle barrel through the fence at his West Palm Beach golf course.
The picture of Trump standing, with blood streaked across his face, as he raised his fist and shouted “Fight!” has become the indelible image of the campaign.
“When you almost lose your life, it stays with you. It stays with him,” said Florida Rep. Byron Donalds, a close Trump ally. “But that doesn’t change his resolve. His resolve is just as strong as it ever has been.”
Threats have reshaped how he campaigns
Trump staffers are on edge. There have been death threats directed at his aides, and his team isn’t as able to quickly organize the mass rallies that have always been the signature of his campaigns.
Armed security officers now stand guard at the campaign’s Florida headquarters, and staff have been told to remain vigilant and alert.
Events have been canceled and moved around because the US Secret Service lacked the resources to safely secure them. Even with the use of glass barricades to protect Trump onstage, there are concerns about holding additional rallies outdoors due to fears about drones.
Trump has accused President Joe Biden’s administration of intentionally denying security resources to help Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent, by preventing him from addressing large crowds.
“They couldn’t give me any help. And I’m so angry about it because what they’re doing is interfering in the election,” he said in a recent Fox News interview.
US Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement that Trump “is receiving heightened levels of US Secret Service protection” and that “our top priority is mitigating risks to ensure his continued safety at all times.” Biden expressed concern for Trump after both assassination attempts, saying in September, “Thank God the president is OK.”
Trump also now travels with a larger security footprint, with new traffic restrictions outside his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, and a line of dump trucks and big guns on display outside Trump Tower in New York when he’s staying there.
As reporters filed into his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, for a press conference this summer, guests — including a little girl wearing a red, white and blue bathing suit — were forced to exit their cars and go through airport-style metal detectors as their vehicles were searched for bombs.
Trump’s campaign last week was briefed on continued threats from Iran in presumed retaliation for his administration’s killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, an act that prompted Iran’s leaders to vow revenge. In August, a Pakistani man alleged to have links to Iran was charged in a plot to carry out political assassinations on US soil. Law enforcement did not name the targets of the alleged plot, but legal filings suggest Trump was a potential target.
Iranian hackers have also been charged with stealing information from Trump’s campaign and trying to pass it along to news organizations. In May, prosecutors say, the men charged began trying to penetrate the Trump campaign, successfully breaking into the email accounts of campaign officials and other Trump allies. They then sought to “weaponize” the stolen campaign material by sending unsolicited emails to people associated with Biden’s campaign. None of the recipients who worked for Biden responded.
The cyberattacks have forced some staff to change their email addresses and others to be wary of communicating online.
Trump already faced unprecedented legal jeopardy for a presidential candidate, with four criminal indictments — one resulting in a felony conviction with sentencing delayed until after the election, one case dismissed, and two pending — along with civil lawsuits that carry hundreds of millions of dollars in potential penalties.
“I think that from our perspective, just from the campaign standpoint, operationally, if there’s one group of people that can handle something like this thrown in their lap, it’s the team that Donald Trump assembled to run this campaign, just based on everything we’ve had to deal with, whether it’s lawsuits to keep him off the ballot, to indictments, to assassination attempts,” Trump campaign senior adviser Chris LaCivita said.
Trump talks of divine intervention
As for Trump, he speaks more often publicly of divine intervention, musing that God saved him in order to save the country. He also often says that assailants only go after consequential presidents.
“Obviously, when you come within a half an inch of a very different outcome, that’s going to impact you,” said New York Rep. Elize Stefanik, another ally who said she spoke to Trump the morning after the Butler shooting.
“Of course, those moments really make you consider a higher power, why you are so committed to helping save this country,” she said. “I think it has further empowered and energized President Trump.”
Trump was recently asked by NewsNation if he’s concerned about his safety ahead of his return to Butler. “Well, I’m always worried,” he responded.
“I’m going back to Butler because I feel I have an obligation to go back to Butler. We never finished what we were supposed to do,” he said. “And I said that, when I was shot, I said, we’re coming back. We’re going to come back. And I’m fulfilling a promise; I’m fulfilling really an obligation.”
His most loyal supporters at his rallies, including the one on Long Island where he joked about the “yips,” haven’t been dissuaded from seeing him in person.
“I know some people are scared to come, but I’m not,” said Eileen Deighan, 63, a nurse from nearby Yonkers, New York, who said she was inspired by Trump’s decision to keep on campaigning given the threats.
“The fact that he didn’t give up, he’s willing to fight for our country, how could you not support that?’ she asked. “That will that he has — doesn’t give up. It’s very contagious.”
Trump told his supporters at a rally in Wisconsin on Saturday that he would continue fighting “no matter what obstacles and dangers are thrown on our path.” But he had another point to make.
“I tell you what, I had a good life before I did this,” he said. “Nobody was shooting at me. I had a hell of a life.”
Trump says he thinks Israel should ‘hit’ Iran nuclear facilities
- “When they asked him that question, the answer should have been, hit the nuclear first, and worry about the rest later,” Trump said
WASHINGTON: Republican White House hopeful Donald Trump said Friday he believes Israel should strike Iran’s nuclear facilities in response to the Islamic republic’s recent missile barrage.
The former president, speaking at a campaign event in North Carolina, referred to a question posed to Democratic President Joe Biden this week about the possibility of Israel targeting Iran’s nuclear program.
“They asked him, what do you think about Iran, would you hit Iran? And he goes, ‘As long as they don’t hit the nuclear stuff.’ That’s the thing you want to hit, right?” Trump told a town hall style event in Fayetteville, near a major US military base.
Biden was asked on Wednesday whether he would support strikes against Iranian nuclear sites and the US president told reporters: “The answer is no.”
“I think he’s got that one wrong,” Trump said Friday, in response to a participant’s question about the issue. “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to hit? I mean, it’s the biggest risk we have, nuclear weapons,” he said.
“When they asked him that question, the answer should have been, hit the nuclear first, and worry about the rest later,” Trump added.
“If they’re going to do it, they’re going to do it. But we’ll find out whatever their plans are.”
Biden on Wednesday expressed his opposition to such strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities, in response to the firing of nearly 200 Iranian missiles toward Israel.
“We’ll be discussing with the Israelis what they’re going to do,” he said, adding that all G7 members agree Israel has “a right to respond, but they should respond in proportion.”
Trump, locked in a tooth-and-nail presidential election battle with US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, has spoken little about the recent escalation in tensions in the Middle East.
He issued a scathing statement this week, holding Biden and Harris responsible for the crisis.
Biden says he doesn’t know whether Israeli PM is holding up peace deal to influence 2024 US election
Biden says he doesn’t know whether Israeli PM is holding up peace deal to influence 2024 US election
- Biden’s comments comes a week after Netanyahu rejected a 21-day Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire proposed by the US, France and other allies
- The Israeli PM went on to order a ground invasion on Lebanon, in a major escalation of its war with Hezbollah
WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden had terse words for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday, and said he didn’t know whether the Israeli leader was holding up a Mideast peace deal in order to influence the outcome of the 2024 US presidential election.
“No administration has helped Israel more than I have. None. None. None. And I think Bibi should remember that,” he said, referring to the Israeli leader by his nickname. “And whether he’s trying to influence the election, I don’t know, but I’m not counting on that.”
Biden, in a rare appearance in the White House press briefing room, was responding to comments made by one of his allies, Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Connecticut, who told CNN this week that he was concerned Netanyahu had little interest in a peace deal in part because of US politics.
“I don’t think you have to be a hopeless cynic to read some of Israel’s actions, some of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s actions, as connected to the American election,” Murphy said.
Biden and Netanyahu have long managed a complicated relationship, but they’re running out of space to maneuver as their views on the Gaza war diverge and their political futures hang in the balance.
For Biden, a diplomatic deal would help resolve a deep divide among Democrats over the war and shore up support for Vice President Kamala Harris, making one fewer global conflict for her to manage should she win next month. Netanyahu has his own political concerns closer to home: His far-right coalition would abandon him if he stopped the war, and he could lose power and have to face his own legal problems. And Israel has been decimating Hezbollah’s leadership, so there is little incentive to stop now.
Biden has long pushed for a diplomatic deal, and he and his aides have indicated several times over the past few months that such an agreement was close. But it never seems to materialize, and in some cases, Netanyahu has publicly resisted the prospect while US and Israeli officials continue to talk in private about eking out a deal.
Just last week, the US, France and other allies jointly called for an immediate 21-day Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire, and expected Israel to welcome if not fully endorse the plan. Instead, Netanyahu publicly rejected it, telling leaders gathered for the UN General Assembly that Israel would “continue degrading Hezbollah until all our objectives are met.”
Israel has pressed forward on two fronts, killing top Hezbollah leaders and pursuing a ground incursion into Lebanon and conducting strikes in Gaza that killed dozens, including children. And the nation has vowed to retaliate for Iran’s ballistic missile attack this week.
Oil prices rose 5 percent Thursday as concerns mounted that Israel would hit Iranian oil facilities as payback; a surge in gas prices so close to the election would be a blow to Harris, particularly after strong economic news Friday.
Biden said there had been no decision yet on what type of response there would be toward Iran, though “I think if I were in their shoes, I’d be thinking about other alternatives than striking oil fields.”
He pushed back against the idea that he was seeking a meeting with Netanyahu to discuss the response to Iran. He isn’t, he said.
“I’m assuming when they make a decision on how they’re going to respond, we will then have a discussion,” he said.
But Netanyahu has grown increasingly resistant to Biden’s public charm offensives and private pleading, prompting the president’s more assertive pushback. And Biden has in turn publicly held up delivery of heavy bombs to Israel and increasingly voiced concerns over an all-out war in the Middle East.
Despite their long acquaintanceship, the two are not close or particularly friendly. When Biden was visiting Israel as vice president under Barack Obama, he and other US officials were taken aback by an Israeli government announcement of new Jewish settlements in the West Bank, something the administration strongly opposed.
Nevertheless, Biden has remained consistent in his support for Israel’s defense and security. In the aftermath of the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel, he hugged Netanyahu on the tarmac of the airport in Tel Aviv. Since then, with few exceptions, Biden has supported ongoing and enhanced US arms transfers to Israel while at the same time cautioning the Israelis to be careful in their responses to avoid civilian casualties.
“The Israelis have every right to respond to the vicious attacks on them, not just from the Iranians, but from everyone from Hezbollah to Houthis,” Biden said Friday. “But the fact is that they have to be very much more careful about dealing with civilian casualties.”
Biden has also ordered the US military to step up its profile in the region to protect Israel from attacks by Hamas, Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen and Iran itself. In April, and again earlier this week, the US was a leading player in shooting down missiles fired by Iran into Israel.
By contrast, Republican Donald Trump and Netanyahu have had a much more cordial relationship. Trump hosted Netanyahu in July. While president, Trump initiated policy changes that Netanyahu applauded, including recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, moving the US embassy there from Tel Aviv, recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights and rescinding a decades-old US legal determination that Jewish settlements in the West Bank were inconsistent with international law.
