Sudan government denounces US sanctions as ‘immoral’

Sudan government denounces US sanctions as ‘immoral’
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People gather to greet Sudan's army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, along a street in Port Sudan, on January 14, 2025. (AFP)
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Updated 17 January 2025
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Sudan government denounces US sanctions as ‘immoral’

Sudan government denounces US sanctions as ‘immoral’
  • Washington had slapped sanctions on Burhan, accusing the army of attacking schools, markets and hospitals and using food deprivation as a weapon of war
  • US earlier imposed sanctions on Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, commander of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, accusing his group of committing genocide

PORT SUDAN: Sudan’s army-aligned foreign ministry rejected as “immoral” US sanctions declared on Thursday against army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, saying that they “lack the most basic foundations of justice and transparency.”
In a statement, it said the sanctions “express only confusion and a weak sense of justice,” after 21 months of war between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, in which the foreign ministry said Burhan was “defending the Sudanese people against a genocidal plot.”
On Thursday, the US treasury department announced sanctions against Burhan, accusing the army of attacking schools, markets and hospitals and using food deprivation as a weapon of war.
It came a week after the US slapped sanctions on RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, accusing his group of committing genocide.
Sudan’s foreign ministry on Thursday said the US’s “flawed decision cannot be justified by claiming neutrality,” saying it amounts to “support of those committing genocide.”

12 million people uprooted

Since April 2023, the war between the army and the RSF has killed tens of thousands, uprooted more than 12 million people and pushed hundreds of thousands into famine.
Both sides have been accused of targeting civilians and indiscriminately shelling residential areas, with the RSF specifically accused of ethnic cleansing, systematic sexual violence and laying siege to entire towns.

“Taken together, these sanctions underscore the US view that neither man is fit to govern a future, peaceful Sudan,” outgoing Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement in which he voiced regret at his failure to end the brutal war.
The United States previously had steered clear of sanctions on the two leaders so as to preserve diplomacy with them.
But Blinken, who leaves office on Monday, said the army had repeatedly failed to join peace initiatives, although he hoped President-elect Donald Trump would keeping trying on Sudan.
“It is for me, yes, another real regret that when it comes to Sudan, we haven’t been able on our watch to get to that day of success,” Blinken said at a farewell news conference.
There have been “some improvements in getting humanitarian assistance in through our diplomacy, but not an end to the conflict, not an end to the abuses, not an end to the suffering of people,” he said.
The war erupted over a failure to integrate the army and the RSF, with joint US and Saudi diplomacy succeeding only in limited humanitarian agreements including on the entry of aid.
More than 24.6 million people — around half of Sudan’s population — face “high levels of acute food insecurity,” according to a recent review by the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification.

Genocide in Darfur

The United States last week said that the RSF has committed genocide in Darfur through systematic killings and rapes of the ethnically African people there.
The atrocities are an echo of the scorched-earth campaign by the RSF’s militia predecessor, the Janjaweed, also accused of genocide two decades ago in Darfur.
The US special envoy on Sudan, Tom Perriello, pointed to actions taken last time in Darfur — “naming and shaming” of perpetrators, a “tremendous global activism” and the prospect of African Union intervention.
“Most of those tools are either off the table completely or seriously diluted right now,” Perriello said at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Perriello, a former Democratic congressman who also leaves office Monday, said the United States was also no longer the same “major bank for the world” that can spell dire economic consequences through sanctions.
US options are “much weaker in a world where people can go to other countries and get billion-dollar checks without having any conversations about human rights and democracy,” he said.
Perriello also voiced shock that regional power South Africa welcomed RSF leader Dagalo on a visit and that there was not “much of an outcry from South African civil society.”
But he said African powers increasingly focused on domestic issues and “want to be seen as economic powerhouses of the future, not necessarily the moral police.”
The Sudan conflict has brought in a series of foreign players, with the United Arab Emirates facing repeated charges of arming the RSF.
Perriello saluted the role of Egypt, saying he was surprised to work so closely but that Cairo exerted pressure on the Sudanese army in the interest of decreasing refugee flows.
 


Amnesty: US strike on Yemen migrant center may constitute humanitarian ‘violation’

Amnesty: US strike on Yemen migrant center may constitute humanitarian ‘violation’
Updated 4 sec ago
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Amnesty: US strike on Yemen migrant center may constitute humanitarian ‘violation’

Amnesty: US strike on Yemen migrant center may constitute humanitarian ‘violation’
DUBAI: Rights group Amnesty International urged the United States on Monday to investigate possible violations of international law in a deadly strike on a migrant detention facility in rebel-held Yemen.
Last month’s attack, which prompted international alarm and was part of the US bombardment campaign against the Iran-backed Houthis, killed 68 people held at a center for irregular migrants in Saada, the rebel authorities said at the time.
Agnes Callamard, Amnesty’s secretary-general, said that “the US attacked a well-known detention facility where the Houthis have been detaining migrants.”
The dead were all migrants from African countries, the Houthis had said.
To Callamard, “the major loss of civilian life in this attack raises serious concerns about whether the US complied with its obligations under international humanitarian law.”
“The US must conduct a prompt, independent and transparent investigation into this air strike,” she added.
A US defense official had told AFP in the aftermath of the strike that the military launched “battle-damage assessment and inquiry” into “claims of civilian casualties related to the US strikes in Yemen.”
Amnesty cited people who work with migrants and refugees in Yemen and visited two hospitals that treated the victims, saying that they had seen “more than two dozen Ethiopian migrants” with severe injuries including amputations.
The morgues at both hospitals had run out of space, the witnesses told Amnesty.
In mid-March, the United States began an intense, near-daily military campaign against the Houthis after they had renewed threats to attack vessels in the vital Red Sea and Gulf of Aden shipping lanes.
The campaign ended with a US-Houthi ceasefire agreement earlier this month.
The Houthis, who control large swathes of Yemen, began firing on Israel and Israeli-linked shipping in November 2023, weeks into the Gaza war triggered by an attack by the Yemeni rebels’ Palestinian ally Hamas.
Amnesty said it had analyzed satellite imagery and footage from the site of last month’s strike on Saada, in Yemen’s north.
The group said it was “unable to conclusively identify a legitimate military target” within the targeted prison compound, citing Houthi restrictions on independent investigations.
“Any attack that fails to distinguish between civilians and civilian objects on the one hand, and legitimate military targets on the other, even within the same compound, constitutes an indiscriminate attack and a violation of international humanitarian law,” Amnesty said.

Syria says foiled attempt to smuggle out 4 million captagon tablets

Syria says foiled attempt to smuggle out 4 million captagon tablets
Updated 4 min 55 sec ago
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Syria says foiled attempt to smuggle out 4 million captagon tablets

Syria says foiled attempt to smuggle out 4 million captagon tablets
  • The tablets were seized in the key port city of Latakia — the coastal heartland of deposed president Bashar Assad’s Alawite minority

DAMASCUS: Syrian authorities on Monday announced that they had thwarted an attempt to smuggle out four million tablets of captagon, an amphetamine-like narcotic that has flooded the region.
The interior ministry said in a statement that authorities seized “over four million captagon tablets that were tightly hidden inside industrial equipment designed for manufacturing flour used for human consumption.”
It said they had acted on “accurate information received from our sources about a shipment of drugs hidden inside industrial equipment prepared for smuggling outside the country.”
The tablets were seized in the key port city of Latakia — the coastal heartland of deposed president Bashar Assad’s Alawite minority.
Under Assad’s rule, captagon became Syria’s largest export during the civil war that erupted in 2011 and a key source of illicit funding for his government.
Since Assad’s ouster last December, the new Islamist authorities have discovered millions of captagon pills in warehouses and on military bases.
The interior ministry said those involved in the latest operation have been “arrested, the equipment containing the drugs has been seized, and the arrested individuals have been referred for investigation based on a decision issued by the public prosecution.”
Last week, Syrian authorities announced the seizure of around nine million captagon tablets that were headed for Turkiye, after a month-long operation.
Drug smuggling has persisted in Syria despite the new rulers’ efforts, with neighboring countries occasionally seizing large quantities of captagon.
Iraqi security forces seized more than a ton of captagon smuggled from Syria via Turkiye in March, and Jordan thwarted a smuggling attempt from Syria in April, confiscating “hundreds of thousands” of captagon tablets.


Netanyahu: Israel must avert Gaza famine ‘for diplomacy’ while pressing for full territorial control

Netanyahu: Israel must avert Gaza famine ‘for diplomacy’ while pressing for full territorial control
Updated 19 min 3 sec ago
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Netanyahu: Israel must avert Gaza famine ‘for diplomacy’ while pressing for full territorial control

Netanyahu: Israel must avert Gaza famine ‘for diplomacy’ while pressing for full territorial control
  • Israel's blockade of Gaza since March 2 came under increasing international pressure to restore aid
  • Netanyahu vows full military control of Gaza as humanitarian crisis deepens and international warnings mount
  • The Israeli military issued an evacuation order for residents of Khan Younis

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that Israel must prevent famine in Gaza for “diplomatic reasons,” even as he vowed to press ahead with military operations to “take control of all” of the war-torn territory.

His comments came amid mounting international concern over a deepening humanitarian crisis in Gaza and as Israeli forces launched what they called extensive new ground operations against Hamas.

“The fighting is intense and we are making progress. We will take control of all the territory of the Strip,” Netanyahu said Monday in a video posted to his Telegram channel.

“We will not give up. But in order to succeed, we must act in a way that cannot be stopped.”

‘Prevent Famine for Diplomacy’

Netanyahu also said it was necessary for Israel to prevent a famine in Gaza for “diplomatic reasons,” after his government announced it would allow limited food aid into the territory.

The premier’s defense of the decision to at least partially lift a more than two-month aid blockade followed criticism from far-right members of his coalition who opposed the move.

“We must not let the population (of Gaza) sink into famine, both for practical and diplomatic reasons,” Netanyahu said the Telegram video, adding that even friends of Israel would not tolerate “images of mass starvation.”

Israel has said its blockade since March 2 was aimed at forcing concessions from the Palestinian militant group.

But it came under increasing international pressure to restore aid to Gaza, where UN agencies have warned of critical shortages of food, clean water, fuel and medicines.

The territory was at “critical risk of famine,” with 22 percent of the population facing an imminent humanitarian “catastrophe,” the UN- and NGO-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) said this month.

Neytanyahu on Monday shrugged off criticism of the aid resumption as “natural,” calling the decision “difficult, but necessary.”

Evacuation Order

The Israeli military on Monday issued an evacuation order for residents of Gaza’s second-largest city, Khan Younis, and nearby towns.
Avichay Adraee, a military spokesperson, posted the order on his social medial accounts, saying the entire area “will be considered a dangerous combat zone.”
The evacuation order comes as Israel escalates its war in Gaza with new operations.


Iraqi FM arrives in Tehran to attend regional security forum

Iraqi FM arrives in Tehran to attend regional security forum
Updated 19 May 2025
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Iraqi FM arrives in Tehran to attend regional security forum

Iraqi FM arrives in Tehran to attend regional security forum
  • The Tehran Dialogue Forum aims to discuss ways to enhance joint cooperation

DUBAI: Iraq’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Fuad Hussein arrived in Tehran on Sunday to take part in a forum on regional security, Iraqi state news agency INA reported.

The Tehran Dialogue Forum aims to “discuss ways to enhance regional security and joint cooperation, and exchange views on the political and economic challenges facing the region,” according to the INA report.

Hussein is expected to take part in sessions at the forum, which will host ministers, senior officials, research center leaders, and international experts.

He was received by Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Middle Eastern and Gulf Affairs Mohammad Ali Beyk, alongside other Iranian Foreign Ministry officials and Nasir Abdul Mohsen Abdullah, Iraq’s ambassador to Iran, at Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport.

“During his visit, the minister will meet with a number of senior officials in the Islamic Republic of Iran to discuss bilateral relations between the two countries and regional and international issues of common interest,” the report added. 


Qatari PM meets Iranian president in Tehran

Qatari PM meets Iranian president in Tehran
Updated 19 May 2025
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Qatari PM meets Iranian president in Tehran

Qatari PM meets Iranian president in Tehran
  • The two officials discussed enhancing cooperation between their countries, particularly in economy

DUBAI: Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian received Sheikh Mohammed Al-Thani, Qatar’s prime minister and minister of foreign affairs, in Tehran on Sunday for high-level talks, Qatar news agency reported. 

The two officials discussed enhancing cooperation between their countries, particularly in economy and trade.

They also reviewed the latest developments in the Gaza Strip and the occupied Palestinian territories, as well as other regional and international issues of mutual concern.