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mariacallous · 11 months ago

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On a sunny April afternoon in 2006, thousands of people flocked to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., for a rally with celebrities, Olympic athletes, and rising political stars. Their cause: garner international support to halt a genocide in Sudan’s Darfur region.

“If we care, the world will care. If we act, then the world will follow,” Barack Obama, then the junior Illinois senator, told the crowd, speaking alongside future House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. That same week, then-Sen. Joe Biden introduced a bill in Congress calling on NATO to intervene to halt the genocide in Sudan. “We need to take action on both a military and diplomatic front to end the conflict,” he said.

Flash-forward 18 years, and the prospect of genocide again looms in Sudan amid an explosive new civil war. But this time, there are no rallies, no A-list celebrities, no calls for outside military intervention. Few world leaders pay anything more than lip service to condemning the atrocities.

Fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the rival Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced some 9 million since the conflict began in April 2023. The United States accused both sides of committing war crimes and atrocities and concluded that the RSF and its allied militias have committed ethnic cleansing.

Western officials and aid workers working on Sudan say they are vexed, and horrified, by the lack of international attention and resources the conflict is receiving—particularly compared to the global response to the conflict in 2006, which was the progenitor of the current conflagration.

If this trend continues and there is no forceful international crisis response, they warn, Sudan will likely collapse into a failed state and could face full-fledged genocide once again.

“You can’t help but watch the level of focus on crises like Gaza and Ukraine and wonder what just 5 percent of that energy could have done in a context like Sudan and how many thousands, tens of thousands of lives it could’ve saved,” said Alan Boswell, an expert on the region at the International Crisis Group.

The top general of the SAF, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the head of the RSF, Mohamed Hamdan “Hemeti” Dagalo, jointly seized power from a transitional government in a coup in 2021. Tensions between the rival sides escalated and finally erupted into war in April 2023.

In the 13 months since, the RSF has entrenched its positions around the national capital of Khartoum, forcing the SAF to relocate its headquarters to the coastal city of Port Sudan. The RSF has made steady gains in seizing control of Darfur and advancing southward and eastward against SAF forces. The SAF still controls territories around Khartoum and up the Nile River, a vital strategic route to Egypt; along the Red Sea coast; and the eastern borders with Ethiopia and Eritrea.

The conflict has also expanded into a full-fledged regional proxy war. Egypt and Saudi Arabia, as well as Riyadh’s arch regional rival Iran, back the SAF, while the United Arab Emirates is reportedly funneling arms and military supplies to the RSF. The RSF also reportedly receives support from Chad and from Russia through its affiliated mercenary groups.

The focal point of the conflict now is on El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur and the center of fighting. The RSF has taken control of vast swaths of western and southern Sudan in its war against the SAF. El Fasher is the last SAF stronghold in Darfur, occupying a strategically important position for trade routes from neighboring Libya and Chad.

The RSF recently began its advance on El Fasher where an estimated 2 million to 2.8 million civilians have sought to take refuge from the fighting. (Precise figures are hard to come by.)

“The risk of genocide exists in Sudan. It is real, and it is growing every single day,” Alice Nderitu, the U.N. special advisor on the prevention of genocide, warned in a U.N. Security Council meeting last week.

A lengthy report from Human Rights Watch documented how the RSF and allied militias committed widespread atrocities, including mass rape, child murder, and massacres of civilians when it captured the Sudanese city of El Geneina last year. U.S. and U.N. officials and human rights experts warn that the same will likely happen if the RSF takes control of El Fasher, but on a much wider scale. The United States and aid groups have accused the SAF of blocking vital food aid from entering the country and RSF forces of looting humanitarian stocks, exacerbating the crisis and pushing regions of the country closer to famine.

“The potential fatality generation here is off the charts,” said Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of the Humanitarian Research Lab at Yale’s School of Public Health who runs a research project that monitors the conflict in Sudan. “What will happen when the RSF takes El Fasher? Exactly what is happening in every other place they control.”

“There is Hiroshima- and Nagasaki-level casualty potential,” he added, referring to the U.S. atomic bombs dropped on Japan in World War II that killed up to 225,000 people.

Aid organizations and officials who work on Sudan have long decried the relative inattention the conflict in Sudan gets compared to Ukraine or the war in Gaza. Some 20 million people—or 10 times the population of Gaza—are at risk of famine in various regions of Sudan. “Very few people who don’t work on Sudan know that Darfur is on the brink of famine,” Boswell said. “Obviously, everyone knows about the risk of famine in Gaza.”

U.S. President Joe Biden’s own social media posts about Gaza versus Sudan provide another, albeit imperfect, window into the attention each conflict receives. Biden tweeted about Israel or Gaza at least 107 times in the six months since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks that started the Israel-Hamas war. Since the war in Sudan began over a year ago, he has tweeted about Sudan four times—three of which were about the evacuation of the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum right after fighting broke out.

Aid groups are strained for resources to tackle the humanitarian crisis caused by the war. In February, Doctors Without Borders warned that in one refugee camp alone in North Darfur, one child was dying every two hours of malnutrition. In April, on the conflict’s first anniversary, aid groups said the international humanitarian response plan to aid the Sudanese was only 6 percent funded. At a donor conference that month in Paris, countries pledged $2 billion more—though that is still only about half of what aid groups estimate the country needs.

Biden appointed a special envoy for Sudan in February—Tom Perriello, a former U.S. representative from Virginia and State Department veteran. Most experts have cheered Perriello’s new push to hold cease-fire talks in the months since and engage U.S. lawmakers on Capitol Hill to bring more levers of U.S. power and financing to bear on Sudan, but they also fear his efforts may be too little, too late for the civilians trapped in El Fasher.

“It will be very hard to deescalate the situation, though everyone should try. But there is an aura of inevitability that this is all going to blow up,” Boswell said. “The degree of mobilization from all sides is hard to walk down.”

Diplomatic and aid officials working on Sudan have some theories on why the atrocities in Darfur and across the country are receiving such little attention now compared to the 2000s, but none gives a full answer.

In 2006, the United States was still reaching the heights of its post-9/11 “war on terror” campaign. Sudan, under former dictator Omar al-Bashir, had given safe haven to Osama bin Laden as he built up al Qaeda’s global terror network, and “bashing Bashir and his genocide in Darfur couched nicely with [counterterrorism] priorities” of the U.S. government at the time, said Nicole Widdersheim, a former senior National Security Council official now with Human Rights Watch.

The memories of failed and successful international interventions to halt genocide—Rwanda in 1994 and the Balkans later that decade, respectively—were still relatively fresh in the minds of policymakers. The costly Western campaigns in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya that later exposed the shortcomings and blowback of military interventions were still underway.

It also preceded the current era of great-power competition, where Washington is intensely focused on countering Russia and China. Sudan also competes with the ongoing wars in Gaza and Ukraine for international attention and humanitarian resources. Others suggested racism built into Western foreign policy played a part. “It’s seen as yet ‘another war in Africa like all the others,’” said one official dryly. Not one single factor can explain it all, experts concluded.

“Gaza is taking up the always limited American public interest and activism on a foreign crisis, but to be fair, there was nearly no public activism or engagement on the Sudan war before” the Israel-Hamas war, Widdersheim said.

Experts say the relative inattention Sudan has gotten from the top echelons of the White House and other Western powers that could have influence in pressuring the warring sides in Sudan to sit for peace talks has led to the current protracted state of the war.

Biden hosted Kenyan President William Ruto for a state visit this week, where the two called on “the warring parties in Sudan to facilitate unhindered humanitarian access and immediately commit to a ceasefire” toward the end of a lengthy joint statement but did not elaborate further. U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Samantha Power and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas Greenfield have also been outspoken about urging an end to the conflict in Sudan.

Successive cease-fire talks in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, over the past year, brokered by the United States and Saudi Arabia, failed to clinch any lasting deal. Those talks were led on the U.S. side not by a top White House official or Secretary of State Antony Blinken, but by the assistant secretary of state for African affairs, Molly Phee.

Behind-the-scenes efforts by some members of Congress in December 2023 to appoint a special presidential envoy on Sudan—one who would report directly to the White House, rather than an envoy reporting to the assistant secretary of state—were unsuccessful, multiple officials and congressional aides said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal administration dynamics. Perriello was appointed two months later.

Perriello in mid-April said that cease-fire talks would resume in Jeddah “within the next three weeks,” but so far those talks have yet to materialize. Several current and former officials familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity to speak candidly, said the talks in Jeddah could resume in June, by which point the RSF could have already captured El Fasher from the mostly cutoff SAF forces.

“The need to start formal peace talks in Jeddah is absolutely urgent, and the United States is working exhaustively with partners to make that happen,” said a State Department spokesperson. “But we are not waiting for formal talks to begin—rather, we have accelerated our diplomatic engagements to align international efforts to end this war, mitigate the humanitarian crisis, and prevent future atrocities.”

Cease-fire talks have worked in limited ways in the past, such as when the United States got both sides to briefly stop fighting in Khartoum so it could evacuate its embassy in April 2023. “When the right leverage is put on the table at the right time to get the RSF and SAF to stop fighting, it can be done,” said Kholood Khair, a Sudanese policy analyst and founding director of Confluence Advisory, a Sudan-focused think tank. “The international community has just chosen not to deploy that same leverage this time around.”

Khair added that the Jeddah talks format has failed before, and it will likely fail again. “The concern is that because of the laziness and complicity of the international community at this point, you don’t have any diplomats who are looking for a new way of doing things. Jeddah in many ways is blocking the start of any new diplomatic efforts or other good ideas that could be effective.”

“Diplomats are fixated on Jeddah now, simply because it’s already there,” Khair said.

As Perriello engaged in frenetic diplomacy, he has also publicly marveled at how little attention the scale of the conflict and death in Sudan is receiving on the international stage.

“One of the things that to me captures just how invisible and horrific this war is, is that we don’t have a credible death count,” Perriello said during a congressional hearing in front of the 21-member Senate Foreign Relations Committee this month. “We literally don’t know how many people have died—possibly to a factor of 10 or 15. The number was earlier 15,000 to 30,000. Some think it’s at 150,000,” he said. During the course of Perriello’s hearing, senators cycled out of the room due to scheduling conflicts, often leaving only one senator in the room and 20 empty seats.

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 2 months ago

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Dave: creepy puppet :: @FinancialReview

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

February 19, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

Feb 20, 2025

The past week has solidified a sea change in American—and global—history.

A week ago, on Wednesday, February 12, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced at a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Brussels, Belgium, that President Donald Trump intended to back away from support for Ukraine in its fight to push back Russia’s invasions of 2014 and 2022.

Hegseth said that Trump wanted to negotiate peace with Russia, and he promptly threw on the table three key Russian demands. He said that it was “unrealistic” to think that Ukraine would get back all its land—essentially suggesting that Russia could keep Crimea, at least—and that the U.S. would not back Ukraine’s membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the mutual security agreement that has kept Russian incursions into Europe at bay since 1949.

Hegseth’s biggest concession to Russia, though, was his warning that “stark strategic realities prevent the United States of America from being primarily focused on the security of Europe.” Also on Wednesday, President Donald Trump spoke to Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, for nearly an hour and a half and came out echoing Putin’s rationale for his attack on Ukraine. Trump’s social media account posted that the call had been “highly productive,” and said the two leaders would visit each other’s countries, offering a White House visit to Putin, who has been isolated from other nations since his attacks on Ukraine.

In a press conference on Thursday, the day after his speech in Brussels, Hegseth suggested again that the U.S. military did not have the resources to operate in more than one arena and was choosing to prioritize China rather than Europe, a suggestion that observers of the world’s most powerful military found ludicrous.

Then, on Friday, at the sixty-first Munich Security Conference, where the U.S. and allies and partners have come together to discuss security issues since 1963, Vice President J.D. Vance attacked the U.S.A.’s European allies. He warned that they were threatened not by Russia or China, but rather by “the threat from within,” by which he meant the democratic principles of equality before the law that right-wing ideologues believe weaken a nation by treating women and racial, religious, and gender minorities as equal to white Christian men. After Vance told Europe to “change course and take our shared civilization in a new direction,” he refused to meet with Germany’s chancellor Olaf Scholz and instead met with the leader of the far-right German political party that has been associated with neo-Nazis.

While the Munich conference was still underway, the Trump administration on Saturday announced it was sending a delegation to Saudi Arabia to begin peace talks with Russia. Ukrainian officials said they had not been informed and had no plans to attend. European negotiators were not invited either. When U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov spoke on Saturday, the Russian readout of the call suggested that Russia urgently needs relief from the economic sanctions that are crushing the Russian economy. The day before, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, an ally of both Putin and Trump, assured Hungarian state radio on Friday that Russia will be “reintegrated” into the world economy and the European energy system as soon as “the U.S. president comes and creates peace.”

Talks began yesterday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In a four-and-a half-hour meeting, led by Rubio and Lavrov, and including national security advisor Mike Waltz, the U.S. and Russia agreed to restaff the embassies in each other’s countries, a key Russian goal as part of its plan to end its isolation. Lavrov blamed the Biden administration for previous “obstacles” to diplomatic efforts and told reporters that now that Trump is in power, he had “reason to believe that the American side has begun to better understand our position.”

Yesterday evening, from his Florida residence, Trump parroted Russian propaganda when he blamed Ukraine for the war that began when Russia invaded Ukraine’s sovereign territory. When reporters asked about the exclusion of Ukraine from the talks, Trump answered: “Today I heard, ‘Oh, well, we weren’t invited.’ Well, you've been there for three years. You should have ended it three years ago. You should have never started it. You could have made a deal.” He also said that Zelensky holds only a 4% approval rating, when in fact it is about 57%.

Today, Trump posted that Zelensky is a dictator and should hold elections, a demand Russia has made in hopes of installing a more pro-Russia government. As Laura Rozen pointed out in Diplomatic, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev posted: “If you’d told me just three months ago that these were the words of the US President, I would have laughed out loud.”

“Be clear about what’s happening,” Sarah Longwell of The Bulwark posted. “Trump and his administration, and thus America, is siding with Putin and Russia against a United States ally.”

To be even clearer: under Trump, the United States is abandoning the post–World War II world it helped to build and then guaranteed for the past 80 years.

The struggle for Ukraine to maintain its sovereignty, independence, and territory has become a fight for the principles established by the United Nations, organized in the wake of World War II by the allied countries in that war, to establish international rules that would, as the U.N. charter said, prevent “the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights.” Central to those principles and rules was that members would not attack the “territorial integrity or political independence” of any other country. In 1949 the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) came together to hold back growing Soviet aggression under a pact that an attack on any of the member states would be considered an attack on all.

The principle of national sovereignty is being tested in Ukraine. After the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine held about a third of the USSR’s nuclear weapons but gave them up in exchange for payments and security assurances from Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom that they would respect Ukraine’s sovereignty within its existing borders. But Ukraine sits between Russia and Europe, and as Ukraine increasingly showed an inclination to turn toward Europe rather than Russia, Russian leader Putin worked to put his own puppets at the head of the Ukrainian government with the expectation that they would keep Ukraine, with its vast resources, tethered to Russia.

In 2004 it appeared that Russian-backed politician Viktor Yanukovych had won the presidency of Ukraine, but the election was so full of fraud, including the poisoning of a key rival who wanted to break ties with Russia and align Ukraine with Europe, that the U.S. government and other international observers did not recognize the election results. The Ukrainian government voided the election and called for a do-over.

To rehabilitate his image, Yanukovych turned to American political consultant Paul Manafort, who was already working for Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska. With Manafort’s help, Yanukovych won the presidency in 2010 and began to turn Ukraine toward Russia. When Yanukovych suddenly reversed Ukraine’s course toward cooperation with the European Union and instead took a $3 billion loan from Russia, Ukrainian students protested. On February 18, 2014, after months of popular protests, Ukrainians ousted Yanukovych from power in the Maidan Revolution, also known as the Revolution of Dignity, and he fled to Russia.

Shortly after Yanukovych’s ouster, Russia invaded Ukraine’s Crimea and annexed it. The invasion prompted the United States and the European Union to impose economic sanctions on Russia and on specific Russian businesses and oligarchs, prohibiting them from doing business in U.S. territories. E.U. sanctions froze assets, banned goods from Crimea, and banned travel of certain Russians to Europe.

Yanukovych’s fall had left Manafort both without a patron and with about $17 million worth of debt to Deripaska. Back in the U.S., in 2016, television personality Donald Trump was running for the presidency, but his campaign was foundering. Manafort stepped in to help. He didn’t take a salary but reached out to Deripaska through one of his Ukrainian business partners, Konstantin Kilimnik, immediately after landing the job, asking him, “How do we use to get whole? Has OVD [Oleg Vladimirovich Deripaska] operation seen?”

Journalist Jim Rutenberg established that in 2016, Russian operatives presented Manafort a plan “for the creation of an autonomous republic in Ukraine’s east, giving Putin effective control of the country’s industrial heartland.” In exchange for weakening NATO and U.S. support for Ukraine, looking the other way as Russia took eastern Ukraine, and removing U.S. sanctions from Russian entities, Russian operatives were willing to help Trump win the White House. The Republican-dominated Senate Intelligence Committee in 2020 established that Manafort’s Ukrainian business partner Kilimnik, whom it described as a “Russian intelligence officer,” acted as a liaison between Manafort and Deripaska while Manafort ran Trump’s campaign.

Government officials knew that something was happening between the Trump campaign and Russia. By the end of July 2016, FBI director James Comey opened a counterintelligence investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. After Trump won, the FBI caught Trump national security advisor Lieutenant General Michael Flynn assuring Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak that the new administration would change U.S. policy toward Russia. Shortly after Trump took office, Flynn had to resign, and Trump asked Comey to drop the investigation into Flynn. When Comey refused, Trump fired him. The next day, he told a Russian delegation he was hosting in the Oval Office: “I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job…. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”

Trump swung U.S. policy toward Russia, but that swing hit him. In 2019, with the help of ally Rudy Giuliani, Trump planned to invite Ukraine’s pro-Russian president, Petro Poroshenko, to the White House to boost his chances of reelection. In exchange, Poroshenko would announce that he was investigating Hunter Biden for his work with Ukrainian energy company Burisma, thus weakening Trump’s chief rival, Democrat Joe Biden, in the 2020 presidential election.

But then, that April, voters in Ukraine elected Volodymyr Zelensky rather than Poroshenko. Trump withheld money Congress had appropriated for Ukraine’s defense against Russia and suggested he would release it only after Zelensky announced an investigation into Hunter Biden. That July 2019 phone call launched Trump’s first impeachment, which, after the Senate acquitted him in February 2020, launched in turn his revenge tour and then the Big Lie that he had won the 2020 election. The dramatic break from the democratic traditions of the United States when Trump and his cronies tried to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election was in keeping with his increasing drift toward the political tactics of Russia.

When Biden took office, he and Secretary of State Antony Blinken worked feverishly to strengthen NATO and other U.S. alliances and partnerships. In February 2022, Putin launched another invasion of Ukraine, attempting a lightning strike to take the rich regions of the country for which his people had negotiated with Manafort in 2016. But rather than a quick victory, Putin found himself bogged down. Zelensky refused to leave the country and instead backed resistance, telling the Americans who offered to evacuate him, “The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.” With the support of Biden and Blinken, NATO allies and other partners stood behind Ukraine to stop Putin from dismantling the postwar rules-based international order and spreading war further into Europe.

When he left office just a month ago, Biden said he was leaving the Trump administration with a “strong hand to play” in foreign policy, leaving it “an America with more friends and stronger alliances, whose adversaries are weaker and under pressure,” than when he took office.

Now, on the anniversary of the day the Ukrainian people ousted Victor Yanukovych in 2014—Putin is famous for launching attacks on anniversaries—the United States has turned its back on Ukraine and 80 years of peacetime alliances in favor of support for Vladimir Putin’s Russia. “We now have an alliance between a Russian president who wants to destroy Europe and an American president who also wants to destroy Europe,” a European diplomat said. “The transatlantic alliance is over.”

This shift appears to reflect the interests of Trump, rather than the American people. Trump’s vice president during his first term, Mike Pence, posted: “Mr. President, Ukraine did not ‘start’ this war. Russia launched an unprovoked and brutal invasion claiming hundreds of thousands of lives. The Road to Peace must be built on the Truth.” Senate Armed Services Committee chair Roger Wicker (R-MS) said, “Putin is a war criminal and should be in jail for the rest of his life, if not executed." Courtney Kube and Carol E. Lee of NBC News reported that intelligence officials and congressional officials told them that Putin feels “empowered” by Trump’s recent support and is not interested in negotiations; he is interested in controlling Ukraine.

A Quinnipiac poll released today shows that only 9% of Americans think we should trust Putin; 81% say we shouldn’t. For his part, Putin complained today that Trump was not moving fast enough against Europe and Ukraine.

In The Bulwark, Mark Hertling, who served as the Commanding General of the United States Army Europe, commanded the 1st Armored Division in Germany, and the Multinational Division-North in Iraq, underlined the dramatic shift in American alignment. In an article titled “We’re Negotiating with War Criminals,” he listed the crimes: nearly 20,000 Ukrainian children kidnapped and taken to Russia; the deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, schools, and energy facilities; the execution of prisoners of war; torture of detainees; sexual violence against Ukrainian civilians and detainees; starvation; forcing Ukrainians to join pro-Russian militias.

“And we are negotiating with them,” Hertling wrote. Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo points out that the talks appear to be focused on new concessions for American companies in the Russian oil industry, including a deal for American companies to participate in Russian oil exploration in the Arctic.

For years, Putin has apparently believed that driving a wedge between the U.S. and Europe would make NATO collapse and permit Russian expansion. But it’s not clear that’s the only possible outcome. Ukraine’s Zelensky and the Ukrainians are not participating in the destruction of either their country or European alliances, of course. And European leaders are coming together to strengthen European defenses. Emergency meetings with 18 European countries and Canada have netted a promise to stand by Ukraine and protect Europe. “Russia poses an existential threat to Europeans,” President Emmanuel Macron of France said today. Also today, rather than dropping sanctions against Russia, European Union ambassadors approved new ones.

For his part, Trump appears to be leaning into his alliance with dictators. This afternoon, he posted on social media a statement about how he had killed New York City’s congestion pricing and “saved” Manhattan, adding “LONG LIVE THE KING!” White House deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich reposted the statement with an image of Trump in the costume of an ancient king, with a crown and an ermine robe. Later, the White House itself shared an image that imitated a Time magazine cover with the word “Trump” in place of “Time,” a picture of Trump with a crown, and the words “LONG LIVE THE KING.”

The British tabloid The Daily Star interprets the changes in American politics differently. Its cover tomorrow features Vladimir Putin walking “PUTIN’S POODLE”: the president of the United States.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Heather Cox Richardson #Letters From An American #Putin's Poodle #Russia Russia Russia #Putin #TFG #The Felon #the King #EU #Ukraine #War in Ukraine #NATO #alliances #democracy #American History #Dave

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in4newz · 1 month ago

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U.S. OFFICIALS SET FOR UKRAINE TALKS IN RIYADH NEXT WEEK

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz are reportedly heading to Riyadh soon, to meet with Ukrainian officials, including Andriy Yermak, the Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine.

The talks, following their meeting with Russia, aim to advance Zelensky’s air and sea truce proposal amid a U.S. aid pause.

With Europe pushing $20B in aid and Russia rejecting the truce, the stakes are high for Kyiv’s inclusion.

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hummussexual · 11 months ago

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Alexander Durie 23 May, 2024

The Cannes Film Festival this year showcased screenings from the Middle East and North Africa that captured significant attention.

The New Arab has curated a list of the top seven films premiered there, and we highly recommend giving them a watch.

The Seed of the Sacred Fig (2024)

Director Mohammad Rasoulof – Iran, France, Germany

In the bustling streets of Tehran, the life of Judge Iman takes a drastic turn when he discovers his gun missing, leading him to suspect his own family, including his wife and daughters. The film explores the intricate dynamics of familial relationships, as suspicion and distrust put their bonds to the ultimate test.

Despite facing an eight-year prison sentence in Iran, Director Mohammad Rasoulof's determination to present this story at Cannes highlights the enduring power of artistic expression in challenging times.

Norah (2024)

Director Tawfik Alzaidi – Saudi Arabia

Transporting audiences back to the conservative landscape of 1990s Saudi Arabia, Norah introduces us to Nader, a newly arrived teacher in a remote village, and Norah, a spirited young woman yearning for freedom. Their secret affair blossoms amidst the shadows of societal restrictions and impending danger, fueled by their shared passion for art and beauty.

Against the backdrop of a repressive society, the film serves as a reminder of the power of love and the human spirit's pursuit of liberation.

youtube

To a Land Unknown (2024)

Director Mahdi Fleifel – Palestine, UK, France, Germany, Greece, Netherlands, Qatar, Saudi Arabia

To a Land Unknown tells the story of Chatila and Reda, two Palestinian cousins in Athens, Greece, aiming for a better life in Germany. They face tough challenges as refugees, pushing themselves to their limits. Their journey highlights the struggles of seeking refuge and finding hope in difficult times.

youtube

Across the Sea (2024)

Director Saïd Hamich Benlarbi – Morocco, France, Belgium, Qatar

Across the Sea follows Nour, a young immigrant who comes to Marseille, France, for a better life. He faces tough challenges surviving on the outskirts of society, getting involved in small crimes with an uncertain future. But meeting Serge, a charismatic but unpredictable cop, and his wife Noémie, gives Nour hope.

The story spans from 1990 to 2000, showing Nour's search for love, identity, and belonging in a world that's changing fast.

youtube

East of Noon (2024)

Director Hala Elkoussy – Egypt, Netherlands, Qatar

East of Noon welcomes viewers into a fantasy world rooted in Egyptian folklore. It follows young Abdou, a musical prodigy who defies tradition with his music. As Abdou's melodies resonate across the timeless landscape, he confronts the norms, embarking on a bold journey of self-discovery.

Director Hala Elkoussy's tale celebrates Egypt's cinematic heritage, with enchanting characters and captivating storytelling that transport audiences to a realm of limitless imagination.

The Brink of Dreams (2024)

Director Nada Riyadh & Ayman El Amir – Egypt, France, Denmark, Qatar, Saudi Arabia

In a remote village in Upper Egypt, a group of young girls breaks societal norms by forming a street theatre group. They dream of a life beyond their traditional upbringing. Through daring performances, they challenge the expectations of their Coptic families and local communities. Daughters of the Nile, filmed over four years, shows their journey from rebellious teens to empowered women.

This film is a powerful story of resilience and strength, capturing their universal longing for self-discovery and freedom.

youtube

Everybody Loves Touda (2024)

Director Nabil Ayouch – Morocco, France, Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands, Norway

In the charming villages of Morocco, Touda dreams of a life beyond what society expects. She wants to become a Sheikha, a traditional Moroccan performer. Despite facing criticism from her community, Touda finds comfort in her music, singing about resistance, love, and freedom. Every night, she performs in local bars, her voice filling the streets as she imagines a better future for herself and her son.

Driven by a desire to break free from tradition, Touda sets her sights on the bright lights of Casablanca, determined to make her own way in a world full of opportunities.

youtube

#swana #mena #arab #iran #north africa #south west asia #egypt #morocco #saudi arabia #qatar #palestine #Youtube

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misfitwashere · 2 months ago

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February 19, 2025

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

FEB 20

The past week has solidified a sea change in American—and global—history.

“Be clear about what’s happening,” Sarah Longwell of The Bulwark posted. “Trump and his administration, and thus America, is siding with Putin and Russia against a United States ally.”

To be even clearer: under Trump, the United States is abandoning the post–World War II world it helped to build and then guaranteed for the past 80 years.

—

#heather cox richardson #letters from an american

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collapsedsquid · 1 year ago

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The Saudi-led military coalition fighting against the Houthi movement in Yemen said on Monday it would close all air, land and sea ports to the Arabian Peninsula country to stem the flow of arms to the Houthis from Iran. The move, which follows the interception of a missile fired towards the Saudi capital Riyadh on Saturday, is likely to worsen a humanitarian crisis in Yemen that according to the United Nations has pushed some seven million people to the brink of famine and left nearly 900,000 infected with cholera. "The Coalition Forces Command decided to temporarily close all Yemeni air, sea and land ports," the coalition said in a statement on the Saudi state news agency SPA. It said aid workers and humanitarian supplies would continue to be able to access and exit Yemen. The United Nations, however, said it was not given approval for two scheduled humanitarian flights on Monday and was seeking clarification on the coalition's announcement.

Your freedom-of-navigation news from 2017

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khalid-albeshri · 8 months ago

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Reasons behind the fast economic growth of Saudi Arabia:

The rapid economic growth of Saudi Arabia in 2022, especially being the fastest-growing among G20 economies, can be attributed to several key factors:

- Increased Oil Production and Prices: Saudi Arabia, being one of the world's largest oil producers, benefited significantly from rising global oil prices and increased production levels. The rebound in global demand for oil post-pandemic, combined with geopolitical tensions that disrupted other oil supplies, contributed to higher revenues.

- Economic Reforms Under Vision 2030: The Saudi government’s Vision 2030 initiative aims to diversify the economy away from oil dependency. Reforms under this vision have encouraged growth in non-oil sectors such as tourism, entertainment, real estate, and finance, driving economic expansion.

- Investment in Infrastructure: Major infrastructure projects, including NEOM, the Red Sea Project, and the expansion of Riyadh, have attracted significant investments. These projects are not only boosting construction and related industries but are also creating jobs and stimulating the overall economy.

- Foreign Direct Investment (FDI): Saudi Arabia has seen an increase in FDI due to improved business regulations, economic reforms, and strategic partnerships with global companies. The Kingdom's efforts to create a more business-friendly environment have made it an attractive destination for foreign investors.

- Strong Private Sector Growth: Government initiatives to boost the private sector, including supporting small and medium enterprises (SMEs), have contributed to economic growth. Privatization of certain sectors and public-private partnerships have also played a role.

- Expansion of Non-Oil Sectors: Sectors such as tourism, entertainment, and technology have seen rapid growth, fueled by government support and increased consumer spending. Events like the Saudi Seasons, international sporting events, and cultural festivals have attracted visitors and investments.

- Labor Market Reforms: Reforms in the labor market, including Saudization efforts (Nitaqat program) and improved labor laws, have increased workforce participation and productivity, particularly among women and young Saudis.

- Fiscal Prudence and Debt Management: Saudi Arabia has implemented effective fiscal policies, including managing public debt and reducing the budget deficit, which has helped stabilize the economy and promote growth.

- Global Economic Recovery: The global economic recovery post-COVID-19 also played a role, as increased global trade and investment flows positively impacted Saudi Arabia's economy.

These factors combined to create a robust and diversified growth environment, contributing to Saudi Arabia's rapid economic expansion

#KhalidAlbeshri #خالدالبشري

#advertising #artificial intelligence #autos #business #developers & startups #edtech #education #finance #futurism #marketing

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darkmaga-returns · 7 days ago

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In the final days of Ramadan, before Mecca's Grand Mosque, Sudan's de facto president and army chief, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan knelt in prayer beside Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. Al-Burhan had arrived in the kingdom just two days after his troops dealt a significant blow to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), recapturing the capital Khartoum after two years of civil war. Missing from the frame was the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Gulf power that has backed al-Burhan’s rivals in Sudan’s civil war with arms, mercenaries, and political cover. The scene captured the essence of a deepening rift between Saudi Arabia and the UAE — once allies in reshaping the Arab world, now architects of competing visions for Sudan and the region.

For two years, Sudan has been enveloped in chaos. The conflict that erupted in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed forces (SAF) and the RSF, led by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo "Hemedti," has inflicted immense suffering: an estimated 150,000 killed, allegations of mass atrocities staining both sides but particularly the RSF in Darfur, 12 million displaced, and over half the population facing acute food insecurity.

Khartoum, once a symbol of confluence, bears deep scars — widespread destruction, looted homes, and streets haunted by the unburied dead. It was against this backdrop of devastation and military gains that al-Burhan made his trip across the Red Sea.

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havithreatendub4 · 4 months ago

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Compilation video

#2024 #Red Sea International Film Festival #rsiff #premiere #screening #Modi Three Days On The Wing Of Madness

#December 12, 2024 #Culture Square #Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Sometime after the Modi premiere screening Johnny and a few acquaintances left Jeddah & shared a flight to Riyadh for fun & frivolity.....

Pt 2

This might have been on December 11th or 13th ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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dsp-consultants · 4 months ago

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The Importance of Acoustic Consultancy Services in Saudi Arabia’s Growing Landscape

In a world where architectural marvels and infrastructure innovations are shaping the future, the role of sound in defining experiences is often overlooked. Our perception of spaces is influenced as much by our ears as by our eyes. This makes acoustics a critical element in creating successful buildings and environments. With Saudi Arabia undergoing rapid transformation and development, acoustic consultancy services have become more important than ever.

At DSP Consultants, we understand the vital role acoustics play in shaping spaces that inspire and function effectively. As a leading provider of acoustic consultancy services in the region, we help clients create environments where sound complements design and purpose.

Why Acoustics Matter in Saudi Arabia's Expanding Landscape

Saudi Arabia’s ambitious urban projects, such as NEOM, the Red Sea Project, and Riyadh’s Vision 2030 initiatives, demand world-class infrastructure that meets both aesthetic and functional goals. Acoustic performance is a key component of this success.

Whether it’s enhancing the auditory experience in concert halls or mitigating the noise impact of transport systems in urban areas, acoustics are fundamental to ensuring the comfort, productivity, and well-being of occupants. Poorly designed acoustic environments can lead to dissatisfaction, reduced efficiency, and compliance issues.

A Comprehensive Approach to Acoustics

At DSP Consultants, we adopt a people-centric, sensory approach to acoustic design, ensuring every space is tailored to its intended use. Our expertise extends across a variety of projects and industries, enabling us to deliver innovative and customized solutions for each unique challenge.

Optimizing Acoustic Experiences: From delivering exceptional sound quality in cultural venues like theaters and auditoriums to ensuring speech clarity in conference rooms and lecture halls, our team provides solutions that enhance auditory experiences.

Noise and Vibration Mitigation: With the rapid expansion of transportation networks and industrial zones in Saudi Arabia, controlling noise and vibration is paramount. We help clients meet regulatory requirements and minimize environmental impact.

Integration with Other Disciplines: Collaborating with audio-visual, architectural, and interior design teams, we integrate acoustic solutions seamlessly into the overall project design, ensuring a holistic outcome.

The Role of DSP Consultants in Shaping Saudi Arabia’s Soundscapes

As a trusted provider of acoustic consultancy services, DSP Consultants combines technical expertise with cross-disciplinary insights to deliver tailored solutions for every project. Whether designing the acoustic environment for a high-performance concert hall or managing noise in residential developments, we bring a wealth of experience to every assignment.

Key Features of Our Services:

Detailed Acoustic Analysis: We conduct thorough assessments to understand the specific acoustic needs of a space.

Customized Solutions: Each project is unique, and our recommendations are tailored to suit its purpose and context.

Regulatory Compliance: We ensure all designs meet local and international acoustic standards.

Future-Ready Designs: Leveraging advanced tools and technologies, we create acoustic environments that are both innovative and sustainable.

Transforming Saudi Arabia with World-Class Acoustics

Saudi Arabia’s rapid growth and development demand a focus on the finer details of building design, including acoustics. At DSP Consultants, we are committed to helping architects, developers, and organizations achieve their vision through exceptional acoustic environments. By addressing the challenges posed by noise and vibration, we ensure that buildings and spaces across the Kingdom meet the highest standards of quality and comfort.Let DSP Consultants be your partner in redefining soundscapes in Saudi Arabia. Contact us at [email protected] to learn more about how our acoustic consultancy services can transform your project.

#Saudi Arabia #Acoustic Consultants #Acoustical Consultants #Noise Consultants #Acoustical Consultancy Services

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rjzimmerman · 4 months ago

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Three-Quarters of Earth’s Land Got Drier in Recent Decades, U.N. Says. (New York Times)

Excerpt from this New York Times story:

From the American West to eastern China, more than three-quarters of Earth’s land became persistently drier in recent decades, according to a new United Nations report that called the shift a “global, existential peril.”

Industrial emissions of planet-warming gases were a major culprit, the report said. If nations don’t stop the rise in temperatures, the drying is likely to expose more places to sand and dust storms, wildfires, water shortages, crop failures and desertification.

The report was released on Monday at a U.N. summit taking place this month in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where nations are discussing how to stop more habitable surfaces from turning into barren wastelands.

Nearly one in three people live in moisture-deprived areas, up from one in five in 1990, the report said.

Many of these places are major food producers, such as Argentina, Spain and the Black Sea region, said Narcisa Pricope, one of the report’s authors and a land systems scientist at Mississippi State University. Others, like South Sudan, are vulnerable to conflict and political instability.

The aridity crisis is unfolding “in our lifetime,” Dr. Pricope said. “This is affecting our children.”

Worldwide in recent years, nearly 400,000 square miles of the planet’s healthy and productive land has become degraded annually. Under the 30-year-old U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification, countries committed themselves to halting the devastation.

The report released on Monday outlined actions that could increase societies’ resilience, including rethinking where thirsty crops like wheat and alfalfa are grown. Places with long histories of water challenges — Los Angeles, for instance — are already exploring such shifts, said Barron Orr, the lead scientist for the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification.

“I’m not saying it’s easy, but at least they know how to do it,” Dr. Orr said. “That’s not going to be true for many very large urban areas all over the world.”

Places that scientists classify as drylands don’t just face the occasional drought. They are persistently moisture-deficient: Much more water leaves the ground through evaporation and the release of vapor by plants than arrives as rain or snow.

As of 2020, more than 40 percent of Earth’s land outside Antarctica was considered dryland, the U.N. report found. How much more land goes dry this century depends on how much fossil fuel societies continue burning, the report said.

#climate change #drought #precipitation #desertification

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duhragonball · 1 year ago

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Were you aware of/do you have an opinion on the Dragonball theme park that is starting construction soon? On the one hand it seems like that Harry Potter theme park (which was a dumb idea, nobody serious cares about HP anymore), but Dragonball also isn't shitty, and Akria Toriyama didn't spend the last years of his life making sure everyone knew he was a transphobe (which J.K. Rowling is doing her best to do). Do you have a take?

I was not aware of any of this, so I don't think I have much to contribute to the conversation.

The article I just found was published only a few hours ago, so I guess this is a HOTTT scoop? Also, it looks like the thing is being built in Saudi Arabia, so I guess that's why this got announced in the middle of the night where I live. It's 3am here and I'm up early because I went to bed at 7pm and woke up around 1am.

Okay, so the Saudi connection is something I can talk about, because this sounds a lot like the same agenda that led to the WWE's infamous deal with Saudi Arabia. For those of you who aren't into pro wrestling, in 2018 WWE started putting on events in Jeddah and Riyadh. This has been controversial for several reasons, but the main sticking point is that the Saudi assassination of dissident journalist James Khashoggi took place in October 2018, a few weeks before WWE's second-ever Saudi show, Crown Jewel. The U.S. condemned the assassination, and politicians pressured WWE to call off the show, but the Kingdom paid a lot of money for the deal, and Vince McMahon only cares about himself, so they just went ahead and did the show anyway. There's other issues, but that one especially stuck in my craw, and it's why I canceled my WWE Network subscription and haven't watched their product ever since.

Basically, the Saudi government has been trying to revamp their economy to reduce dependence on the petroleum industry. The WWE deal is part of the "Saudi Vision 2030" project, which aims to increase the economic, social, and cultural diversification of the country by the end of this decade. Tourism is a big part of that plan, which is why they're paying big money for sporting events, live shows, and so on. Their plans also include a lot of political and social reforms, but this feels like an afterthought, especially to a lot of critics. For example, they announced a "Red Sea Film Festival" in 2019, but in order to put on such an event, they first had to lift a 35-year moratorium on building new movie theaters. They started allowing women to enter the King Fahd International Stadium for the first time, but that's probably just because they really wanted a packed house for these shows and concerts they're putting on.

The whole thing smacks of propaganda designed to distract the public from KSA's lousy record on human rights. When WWE was promoting their first Jeddah show, they ran a lot of video packages about Saudi Vision 2030 and talked up how cool it was that the country was seeking to modernize. Meanwhile, a lot of their roster couldn't even go to these shows for various reasons. Sami Zayn's a Syrian by descent, Noam Dar is an Israeli, and Montel Vontavious Porter is a former Muslim, so he might get executed for apostasy if he entered the country. The women's roster was a whole other thing. I think they were just left at home for the first couple of shows, and then they gradually started allowing more women to participate. And all those slick Saudi Vision video packages looked pretty hollow when James Khashoggi got murdered.

My take has been that KSA is just throwing money at their problems and trying to distract their critics. Saudi Arabia is practically synonymous with oil, and that's what made the country rich. I watched a video on this a while back, and if I remember right, they discovered oil in the 1930s and wanted to avoid getting exploited by the British and French, so they partnered with the United States. That prosperous relationship allowed Saudi Arabia to become a regional power and basically have things their way. The human rights problems were allowed to persist because they knew the U.S. would always back them up to protect their oil interests.

But over the last fifty years or so, U.S. dependence on Saudi oil has declined. See, it's not that Saudi Arabia has more crude oil than other countries. What made it so important in the petroleum industry is that Saudi crude is much easier to refine than other sources. So Saudi refineries can produce more fuel in a short span of time, which gave them a lot of leverage in that sector. But there's been a big push in the U.S. to seek out and refine more crude oil domestically, and that's cut into Saudi Arabia's prestige. Now, when rival powers like Iran start bothering Saudi Arabia, the U.S. isn't as quick to offer support, and that's why KSA is trying to figure out how to adapt to the changing times.

To be blunt, I don't know how the hell a Dragon Ball theme park helps solve any of this. If the oil revenue is on the decline, then it makes sense for a country to invest in other industries while the coffers are fuil, but now Saudi Arabia has to backtrack a lot of their draconian laws and authoritative policies to improve their public image. And they need to do it quickly, but not so quickly as to upset the conservative elements in the country.

Like, all right, let's say they open this park, and they really want people to fly in from all over the world. I know a lot of women in the Dragon Ball fandom. What kind of restrictions would they have to deal with in the park? Is there a stringent dress code? They made a big deal out of the historic first-ever women's match at one of those Crown Jewel shows, but the wrestlers had to wear black unitards under their usual ring gear. So they eased up on some rules, but you watch the show and you can tell there's still some rules in place.

I've met a lot of LBGTQ+ people in this fandom. Can they go to the Saudi Dragon Ball theme park? Can a same-sex couple hold hands as they wait in line to ride the Ginyu Force Log Flume? And I'm sure there's a guy at the General Entertainment Authority office who would assure me that it's all good, nothing to worry about, everyone is welcome, please come to the theme park and spend lots of money. But once you get there? Remember, James Khashoggi was a citizen of Saudi Arabia, and he walked into that consulate assured that everything would be cool, and then it wasn't.

You mentioned the Harry Potter theme park, and yeah, that whole franchise is a PR hot mess, but at least I don't have to ask these kinds of questions about who can go to the park without getting detained. That's the public relations mess Saudi Arabia has to clean up. At least with Harry Potter, they just have to distract people from one hateful, cranky billionaire. For most casual fans, "J.K. Rowling" is a name they barely notice in the credits. But Saudi Arabia's issues are baked into the government, laws, and history of the whole country. Reform is possible, but it isn't as simple as the propaganda makes it sound. There's a lot of damage that needs to be repaired.

I'm sorry, I kind of turned this into a rambling essay about Saudi Arabia's pivot to tourism, but for me that's the main issue here. The park might get completed and it may even do big business, but I don't think there's a lot of transparency with these projects. From what I've heard, the WWE shows in Jeddah and Riyadh don't actually make a lot of money. Much of the live crowd attends for free just to make the shows look more popular than they are, and WWE only plays along because they're getting paid handsomely for the effort. It just comes across like the country is spending lots of money to imitate a tourist destination without actually becoming one. So the Dragon Ball park looks like it's also going to be a means to an end. Someone in charge liked the idea enough to push it through, but that doesn't translate into success.

Oh, wait, I just realized: What if the park opens, then fails, and it gets abandoned? I really don't have any interest in theme parks, but abandoned theme parks kick ass. Imagine Dogpatch U.S.A, except it's Dragon Ball themed. That would be amazing. I hope I live long enough to see photos of it when it gets all old and decrepit.

#dragon ball #dragon ball: the theme park #this doesn't feel like it'll end well #oh i just found the youtube video about it i hope it's like the thing for cryptoland #pleasepleaseplease

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