News of the World

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Sudan updates: Blinken calls leaders, urges cease-fire

United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken has spoken to leaders of rival armed forces in Sudan and urged an immediate cease-fire, the State Department said.

Blinken, "expressed his grave concern about the death and injury of so many Sudanese civilians due to the sustained, indiscriminate fighting," State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said.

A cease-fire would "permit the delivery of humanitarian assistance to those affected by the fighting, the reunification of Sudanese families, and allow the international community in Khartoum to make sure its presence is secure," Patel said in a statement.

Blinken also said that a US diplomatic convoy came under fire in the country, but those inside were unharmed.

"I can confirm that yesterday we had an American diplomatic convoy that was fired on. All of our people are safe and unharmed. But this action was reckless, it was irresponsible and of course unsafe," he told reporters in Japan after G7 talks.

Fierce clashes erupted over the weekend between forces loyal to Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the head of Sudan's transitional governing Sovereign Council, and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) head Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, who is deputy head of the council.

At least 185 people have been killed and more than 1,800 injured.

If you ever thought this was just an internal power struggle , you better think it twice.

Egyptian MiG-29s Captured By Militia In Sudan

As fighting between rival government factions intensifies across much of Sudan, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, recently claimed to have taken control of an airbase in the north of the country where Egypt has deployed MiG-29M/M2 Fulcrum multirole fighter jets. The status of the jets and the airbase are currently unclear, with the confused situation being typical of the violence in Sudan.
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The RSF is currently engaged in fighting Sudanese military units loyal to Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the head of Sudan’s transitional governing Sovereign Council. The RSF leader, Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, is also the deputy head of the Sovereign Council. With these two leaders sharing power, it had been planned that the RSF would merge with the regular army.

With those plans now in tatters, a video released by the RSF on Saturday afternoon showed what it claimed was the capture of Merowe (also known as Marawi) Air Base, around 186 miles north of the Sudanese capital Khartoum. While this is a Sudanese Air Force base, it was hosting an unknown number of Egyptian Air Force MiG-29M/M2 jets at the time.

There are numerous reports stating that these aircraft, together with Egyptian military personnel, were deployed to Merowe Air Base to take part in joint exercises, namely the Nile Eagles-2 joint maneuvers, which took place in March. However, there are also suggestions that the Egyptian MiGs are more of a permanent presence at the base, which would explain why the contingent was still in Sudan at this time, despite those maneuvers having ended.

For up-to-date information on this matter, click here.

Brazil welcomes Russia's Lavrov amid US criticism

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov visited Brazil on Monday and expressed gratitude to the South American country for its controversial efforts to mediate the Ukraine conflict.

"As for the process in Ukraine, we are grateful to our Brazilian friends for their excellent understanding of this situation's genesis. We are grateful (to them) for striving to contribute to finding ways to settle it," Lavrov said, sitting alongside his Brazilian counterpart, Mauro Vieira.

In regards to the Kremlin-backed invasion of Ukraine, Vieira told journalists that Brazil sees sanctions against Russia as causing negative impacts for the global economy. He added that Brazil supports an immediate cease-fire in Ukraine.

Lavrov also met with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who has raised eyebrows in the West with his recent comments on Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.
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Following the meeting between Lavrov and Vieira, US national security spokesman John Kirby said, "Brazil is parroting Russian and Chinese propaganda without at all looking at the facts,"

"The most recent comments by Brazil that Ukraine should consider formally ceding Crimea as a peace concession is simply misguided, especially for a country like Brazil that has voted to uphold the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity (at the UN)," he said.

Brazil, however, rejected the US' comments.

"I don't know how or why he reached that conclusion but I do not agree at all," Brazil's Vieira said, referring to the remarks from Kirby.

Russia jails Putin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza for treason

Russian opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza was found guilty on charges of treason and denigrating the military by a court in Moscow on Monday.

The critic of President Vladimir Putin was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Kara-Murza voiced the opposition slogan "Russia will be free" in court after the sentence was announced.

It's the harshest sentence of its kind since Russia criminalized criticism of its military soon after its invasion of Ukraine last February.

His lawyer, Vadim Prokhorov, told DW that "considering his health conditions it is effectively a death sentence."

After the trial, the court said that it found Kaza-Murza guilty of spreading "false" information about the military and of being affiliated with an "undesirable organization."

A German Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said "we condemn this judgment in the strongest possible terms," and that it showed "the shocking level repression has now reached in Russia."

The US State Department said "Mr. Kara-Murza is yet another target of the Russian government's escalating campaign of repression," with France's Foreign Ministry issuing a similar statement.

First Navalny and now Kara-Murza. How many other dissidents will the Russian government put in jail because they opened their mouths to call it out?

Colombia: FARC rebel group 'ready' for peace talks

A breakaway group of Colombia's FARC rebels on Sunday said it was ready to start peace talks with the governmentpeace talks with the government from next month.

The government has yet to confirm the talks. However, the announcement by the Estado Mayor Central (EMC) group would be a boost for leftist President Gustavo Petro's quest for "total peace."

Since the start of April, EMC leaders have held meetings to finalize pathways to the negotiations with the government.
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The EMC is one of two breakaway factions of the FARC and is made up of former leaders and fighters who rejected a 2016 peace deal.

The other dissident faction is the Segunda Marquetalia, which took up arms again in 2019.

Top EMC commander Ivan Mordisco said Sunday that "we can begin to build the road map that will allow Colombia to eradicate the causes of the conflict."

Mordisco also called on the rival National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrilla group "to end the war between our two organizations."

Syria: US helicopter raid hits senior 'Islamic State' leader

US Central Command (Centcom) said on Monday that its forces in northern Syria had conducted "a unilateral helicopter raid" in the early morning targeting what it described as a senior "Islamic State" (IS) Syria leader "responsible for planning terror attacks in the Middle East and Europe."

"The raid resulted in the probable death of the targeted individual," Centcom said, also describing him as an operational planner for the group. "Two other armed individuals were killed on the target."

The short statement said that no US troops were wounded, no helicopters damaged and that Centcom did not believe civilians were killed or injured in the operation.

A Central Command spokesman said additional details would be provided soon.

Syria's White Helmets, a civil defense group operating in opposition-held areas of northern Syria, said it transported two people wounded during the raid to a local hospital. Officials there later said the injured people had died.

A third person was killed when the US forces landed for the raid, the White Helmets said.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, which partners with the US in anti-IS operations in northeast Syria, said that the operation was launched from a base in Kobani and targeted a military site belonging to what it described as a Turkish-backed armed opposition group near the Turkish border.

The British-based monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported a US helicopter raid and "violent clashes."

SpaceX calls off Starship rocket launch

Elon Musk's SpaceX was forced to delay its first launch attempt of its giant Starship rocket due to a technical issue, the company said on Monday.

The rocket, one of the biggest and most powerful ever built, was supposed to launch Monday morning from SpaceX's private spaceport, Starbase, in southern Texas.

It is designed to carry cargo and people to the moon and Mars. The SpaceX "team is working towards next available opportunity," the company said in a statement.

Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of the company, tweeted that a "pressurant valve" on the rocket system appeared to be frozen and they were standing down from launching the rocket into space Monday.

Starship is the tallest rocket system ever built — 120 meters (394 feet) tall, or about 10 meters taller than Saturn V that took the first human crew to the moon in 1969. In comparison, the Statue of Liberty together with its pedestal is 93 meters tall.