Thousands of people marched in Khartoum and other Sudanese cities Monday to mark the October 1964 uprising that ended the dictatorship of Ibrahim Aboud. The protesters, however, focused on the present, and made demands that stem from the recent ouster of former leader Omar al-Bashir.
They used the occasion to call for an independent investigation into the massacre on June 3, 2019, when dozens of people were killed as military forces cleared pro-democracy protesters away from the Defense Ministry in Khartoum.
Monday’s demonstrations were backed by the Sudanese Professionals Association, which organized the protests that swept Bashir from power earlier this year. But they were initially organized by neighborhood committees and the families of the June 3rd victims.
Sudanese demonstrators march during a protest in the capital Khartoum, Oct. 21, 2019.
Protester Najlaa Mohamed, crying and holding a Sudanese flag, said she is pessimistic the current military-civilian ruling council will get justice for the victims.
She added that protesters reject any kind of military representation in the new transitional government.
In addition, protester Ahmed Nasser says Bashir, who is facing corruption charges, needs to also be punished for his dictatorial 30-year rule.
The dissolution of the National Sudanese Congress Party — which supported Bashir for decades — was another of the protesters’ demands.
However, the Freedom and Change Alliance published a communique asking the protesters to drop that idea, warning that chaos could erupt if Bashir supporters attacked the protest.
Ahead of the march in Khartoum, Sudan’s military published a communique warning protesters and citizens not to get close to army headquarters and military facilities. Troops were deployed across the capital to protect strategic locations.
Sudan erupted in mass protests in December 2018 over high bread prices, but the demonstrations quickly morphed into calls for Bashir to step down.
A power-sharing agreement between the generals who ousted Bashir and protest leaders was signed in August to end eight months of turmoil and to lead the country until elections are held in 2022.
When Germain Kalubenge gets a request for a ride on his motorcycle, it can be a matter of life or death. The 23-year-old is a survivor of the Ebola virus and often is the only driver his community trusts to help if someone suspects they are infected.
“I wake up every day at 5 in the morning to … wait for calls from suspected Ebola cases who do not like to take an ambulance,” he said. “In the community they are afraid of ambulances. They believe that in an ambulance, doctors will give them toxic injections and they will die before arriving at the hospital.”
FILE – Motorcycle taxi driver Germain Kalubenge is photographed at an Ebola transit center where potential cases are evaluated, in Beni, Congo, Aug. 22, 2019.
Kalubenge is a rare motorcycle taxi driver who is also an Ebola survivor in eastern Congo, making him a welcome collaborator for health workers who have faced deep community mistrust during the second deadliest Ebola outbreak in history. More than 2,000 people have died since August of last year, and the World Health Organization last week said the outbreak still warrants being classified as a global emergency, even as the number of confirmed cases has slowed.
This is the first time Ebola has been confirmed in this part of Congo, and rumors quickly spread in Beni, an early epicenter of the outbreak, that the virus had been imported to kill the population. The community has been traumatized by years of deadly rebel attacks and is wary of authorities, blaming them for the insecurity that has killed nearly 2,000 people since late 2014.
Gaining people’s trust has been a constant challenge for health workers.
Imagine that you are running a fever and you see a dozen jeeps carrying doctors wearing head-to-toe protective gear, said Muhindo Soli, a young man who was arrested earlier this year for throwing stones at Ebola responders’ vehicles. “That would scare me,” he said, adding that some young people refuse to let patients be taken away.
FILE – A woman whose 5-year-old daughter was ill with her in an Ebola transit center where potential cases are evaluated, after being transported there by motorcycle taxi driver Germain Kalubenge, in Beni, Congo, Aug. 22, 2019.
Soli called on Ebola responders to stop working with military and police escorts, which he said only heightens tensions: “One wonders why the people who come to treat us come with soldiers?”
Dr. Muhindo Muyisa, who leads the response to Ebola alerts in Beni, said they have received more than 150 alerts daily about potential cases. They have intervened more than 90% of the time, sending an ambulance or other vehicle, when people refuse to go to centers where testing is done for the virus, Muyisa said.
Kalubenge, who as a survivor is immune to Ebola, saw the community resistance and decided to help. At times he has taken about 10 people a day to the Ebola centers after surviving the virus last year.
He and his motorcycle are sprayed with chlorine each time he arrives.
FILE – Motorcycle taxi driver Germain Kalubenge pours chlorinated water on his motorcycle after taking a suspected case of Ebola to an Ebola transit center where potential cases are evaluated, in Beni, Congo, Aug. 22, 2019.
One day in August, he received a call from a parent whose 5-year-old had a fever and was vomiting. His first step was to convince the mother to allow her child to go to the center for testing. The symptoms were similar to other diseases common in the area such as malaria, which can add to people’s hesitation about Ebola. In the end, the child was found to have malaria.
Kalubenge makes sure to tell potential patients his own Ebola story and says they will only get better if they go to a center to be checked.
Riding with him draws far less attention than an ambulance would. People like to ride a motorcycle “to avoid neighbors’ curiosity,” he said.
Kalubenge is the only good link between the Ebola centers and the population, said Beni resident Sammy Misonia, who met the driver during a community question-and-answer session with Ebola survivors.
“There are too many rumors that make people afraid to go,” Misonia said. “With this initiative, people will always agree to go because we now see someone who has come out of the treatment center alive.”
Kalubenge said he is happy to help give people hope — even when some riders vomit on him during the journey.
“People need to know that doctors treat well, and I was well cared for,” he said. “Ebola is not the end of life. After Ebola, there is life.”
The Russian military says two of its nuclear-capable bombers will visit South Africa in what appears to be the first-ever such deployment to the African continent.
The Russian Defense Ministry said Monday that sending the Tu-160 bombers is intended to help “develop bilateral military cooperation” and reflects a “strategic partnership” with one of Africa’s most developed economies.
The mission comes as Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to host the first-ever Russia-Africa summit this week with 43 of the continent’s 54 heads of state or government in attendance. The remaining 11 countries will be represented by foreign ministers or other officials.
As part of efforts to expand its clout in Africa, Russia has signed military cooperation agreements with at least 28 African countries, the majority in the past five years.
A study of former professional soccer players in Scotland finds that they were less likely to die of common causes such as heart disease and cancer compared with the general population but more likely to die from dementia. The results raise fresh concerns about head-related risks from playing the sport — at least for men at the pro level.
Researchers from the University of Glasgow reported the results in the New England Journal of Medicine on Monday. They compared the causes of death of 7,676 Scottish men who played soccer with 23,000 similar men from the general population born between 1900 and 1976. Over a median of 18 years of study, 1,180 players and 3,807 of the others died.
The players had a lower risk of death from any cause until age 70.
However, they had a 3.5 times higher rate of death from neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s. In absolute terms, that risk remained relatively small — 1.7% among former players and 0.5% for the comparison group.
Former players also were more likely to be prescribed dementia medicines than the others were.
The results “should not engender undue fear and panic,” Dr. Robert Stern, a Boston University scientist who has studied sports-related brain trauma, wrote in a commentary published in the journal.
The findings in professional players may not apply to recreational, college or amateur-level play, or to women, Stern noted.
“Parents of children who headed the ball in youth or high-school soccer should not fear that their children are destined to have cognitive decline and dementia later in life. Rather, they should focus on the substantial health benefits from exercise and participation in a sport that their children enjoy,” while also being aware of the risks of head-balling, Stern wrote.
English Football Association chairman Greg Clark said “the whole game must recognize that this is only the start of our understanding and there are many questions that still need to be answered. It is important that the global football family now unites to find the answers and provide a greater understanding of this complex issue.”
The association and players’ union sponsored the study.
“We need to kick on now and understand what it means, because that’s all an awful lot we don’t know,” English FA chief executive Mark Bullingham said. “We don’t know if concussion was the cause or whether it was heading or whatever or whether it’s the old heavy ball or something entirely different.”
But the association’s medical advisory group has not deemed it necessary to issue to change how the game is played, even reducing heading among younger age groups.
“In youth football, you might want to reduce the likelihood of aerial challenges,” Bullingham said. “But our research shows this has already been reduced significantly over the years as we change to small size of pitches, move to possession-based football and now rolling substitutes.”
Referees across all levels can stop games for three minutes to fully assess head injuries, but some experts believe that is not long enough. The English FA also is pushing soccer’s global lawmaking body for the introduction of concussion substitutes, with an additional player switch or as a temporary replacement.
Campaigning to discover more about the long-term impact of head injuries in soccer has been led in England by the family of former England striker Jeff Astle, whose death at age 59 in 2002 was attributed to repeatedly heading heavy, leather balls. In 2017, a British study of brains of a small number of retired players who developed dementia highlighted the degenerative damage possibly caused by repeated blows to the head.
In an interview Monday, Mazloum Abdi, the commanding general of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), told VOA’s Sirwan Kajjo that the United States made a strategic mistake by withdrawing its troops from northeast Syria. He said SDF “has not agreed to the U.S.-Turkey cease-fire agreement in its entirety.” He added that SDF’s trust in the United States is at its “lowest,” but stressed that the alliance with Washington continues in the fight against the Islamic State terror group.
Days after U.S. President Donald Trump’s Oct. 6 announcement that U.S. troops would withdraw from a border area in northeast Syria, the Turkish military and its allied Syrian militia groups began an offensive against SDF fighters. Last week, a temporary cease-fire, set to expire Tuesday, was brokered by the U.S. after a delegation led by Vice President Mike Pence met with Turkish officials in Ankara. Per the cease-fire deal, SDF Kurdish fighters and remaining civilians evacuated the city of Ras al-Ayn.
Below is a transcript of VOA’s interview with Abdi.
Question: You have accepted the U.S.-Turkish deal that was announced last week. What do you say about it?
Abdi: “We haven’t accepted the U.S.-Turkey deal in its entirety. We have only agreed to the cease-fire. Our forces have already withdrawn from Ras al-Ayn and Tel Abyad. In return, Turkey would commit to a permanent cease-fire in those areas with the U.S. being a guarantor. As for other details of their agreement, nobody has discussed them with us. Therefore, we do not accept them. We have relied on the U.S. narrative of the agreement, which says that the [Turkish] operation will be limited to those two towns. We will never accept the Turkish narrative, which says that Turkish forces will enter all areas in northern Syria along the border with Turkey.”
FILE – Turkish troops and Turkish-backed Syrian rebels gather outside the border town of Ras al-Ayn on Oct. 12, 2019,during their assault on Kurdish-held border towns in northeastern Syria.
Q: In light of recent events, do you still consider yourself a U.S. ally?
Abdi: “President Trump’s decision to pull out U.S. troops from the border area led Turkish forces to occupy a large part of Syria’s territory. It has caused a major displacement of civilians. It has allowed an ethnic cleansing of the Kurdish people. Our trust in the United States is at its lowest. However, our alliance with Washington to combat IS still continues. The U.S. has not abandoned this partnership. But allowing the Turkish military to invade Syria has largely damaged this partnership. We still want this partnership to continue. We want the remaining U.S. forces in Syria to make an international balance in this region and to prevent one side from taking control over our people. We still are of the belief that keeping U.S. forces in Syria is in the interest of the Americans and the Kurds.”
Q: What is going to happen to the 11,000 IS prisoners in your custody? Will Turkey be in charge of them, as President Trump has suggested?
Abdi: “Turkey has nothing to do with [IS] prisoners. There aren’t any prisons in areas that Turkish forces recently have occupied. We have evacuated all prisoners in those areas and moved them to prisons under our control. Turkey has no right to be involved with these prisoners, because it was Turkey who facilitated the entry of these fighters into Syria in the first place. All [IS] prisons are still under our control. There is no risk yet, but if the war continues, guarding them will be difficult. Therefore, we want U.S. troops to stay here to work with us on the IS prisoner dossier so that these people won’t be a threat to global peace anymore.”
Q: Would you seek Russian help to prevent Turkey from seizing other areas under your control?
Abdi: “Russia is allied with the Syrian regime and it also coordinates with Turkey. We have a previous experience with Russia in Afrin [in northwest Syria], when Russia paved the way for Turkey to carry out an ethnic cleansing in Afrin. That’s why we cannot count on Russia in this regard. President Trump keeps saying that Kurds have struck a deal with the Russians and the [Syrian] regime to protect themselves. But that’s not accurate. Russia’s policy and its alliance with the Syrian regime are not for the protection of Kurds. It is quite the opposite; Russia coordinates with Turkey and has paved the way for attack against Kurds in Syria. It’s not appropriate to leave Russia in charge of this region. What we need at this point is a balance of powers on the ground that will also be a guarantee for a long-term solution to the Syrian crisis.”
China is asking the World Trade Organization for the right to impose $2.4 billion in annual penalties on the United States in a case over Chinese subsidies dating back years.
A document published Monday showed China has called for the matter to be considered by the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Body next Monday. The matter would be referred to a WTO arbitrator if the U.S. objects to the amount China proposes.
The request stems from a July WTO appellate decision in a case dating to before the Trump administration, and unrelated to the tariffs it has slapped on Chinese goods.
Washington criticized that decision, which it said recognizes that China uses state-owned enterprises to subsidize and distort its economy but contends the U.S. must use “distorted Chinese prices” to measure subsidies.
At least 12 white supremacists have been arrested on allegations of plotting, threatening or carrying out anti-Semitic attacks in the U.S. since the massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue nearly one year ago, a Jewish civil rights group reported Sunday.
The Anti-Defamation League also counted at least 50 incidents in which white supremacists are accused of targeting Jewish institutions’ property since a gunman killed 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue on Oct. 27, 2018. Those incidents include 12 cases of vandalism involving white supremacist symbols and 35 cases in which white supremacist propaganda was distributed.
The ADL said its nationwide count of anti-Semitic incidents remains near record levels. It has counted 780 anti-Semitic incidents in the first six months of 2019, compared to 785 incidents during the same period in 2018.
The ADL’s tally of 12 arrests for white supremacist plots, threats and attacks against Jewish institutions includes the April 2019 capture of John T. Earnest, who is charged with killing one person and wounding three others in a shooting at a synagogue in Poway, California. The group said many of the cases it counted, including the Poway shooting, were inspired by previous white supremist attacks. In online posts, Earnest said he was inspired by the deadly attacks in Pittsburgh and on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, where a gunman killed 51 people in March.
The ADL also counted three additional 2019 cases in which individuals were arrested for targeting Jews but weren’t deemed to be white supremacists. Two were motivated by Islamist extremist ideology, the organization said.
The ADL said its Center on Extremism provided “critical intelligence” to law enforcement in at least three of the 12 cases it counted.
Last December, authorities in Monroe, Washington, arrested a white supremacist after the ADL notified law enforcement about suspicions he threatened on Facebook to kill Jews in a synagogue. The ADL said it also helped authorities in Lehighton, Pennsylvania, identify a white supremacist accused of using aliases to post threatening messages, including a digital image of himself pointing an AR-15 rifle at a group of praying Jewish men.
In August, an FBI-led anti-terrorism task force arrested a Las Vegas man accused of plotting to firebomb a synagogue or other targets, including a bar catering to LGTBQ customers and the ADL’s Las Vegas office. The ADL said it warned law enforcement officials about the man’s online threats.
“We cannot and will not rest easy knowing the threat posed by white supremacists and other extremists against the Jewish community is clear and present,” the group’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, said in a statement.
The ADL said it counted at least 30 additional incidents in which people with an “unknown ideology” targeted Jewish institutions with acts of arson, vandalism or propaganda distribution that the group deemed to be anti-Semitic or “generally hateful,” but not explicitly white supremacist.
“These incidents include the shooting of an elderly man outside a synagogue in Miami, fires set at multiple Jewish institutions in New York and Massachusetts, Molotov cocktails thrown at synagogue windows in Chicago, damaged menorahs in Georgia and New Jersey, as well as a wide range of anti-Semitic graffiti,” an ADL report said.
