Sudan-The Economist Magazine Cover For 08/31/2024

August 31st 2024 How we chose this week’s image SUBSCRIBER ONLY Cover Story How we chose this week’s image The Economist Robert Guest Deputy editor This week’s cover was difficult. It was about the worst humanitarian crisis in the world: the terrible and poorly understood war in Sudan. This is a conflict that erupted out of pure, cynical ambition. Two ruthless military chiefs seized power in a coup, then fell out and started fighting each other. Over the past 500 days or so Sudan has become an inferno. Soldiers and militiamen have killed, burned and raped with impunity. Some 10m people—a fifth of the population—have fled from their homes. Famine is spreading, imperilling millions. As Africa’s third-largest nation collapses, the shockwaves could destabilise swathes of Africa and the Middle East, and send a surge of refugees towards Europe. Sudan is so dangerous that few photographers have been able to cover the war. Our picture researchers looked hard, but struggled to find many high-quality images of the fighting. This portrait of soldiers brandishing their guns captured their swagger and menace, but not the horror of what is going on. These men are clean and rested, and almost look as if they are posing for the camera. This black-and-white photo is better. It shows families who have loaded their possessions onto their heads and set off on a long, hot trek to what they hope will be safety. Though black-and-white creates a suitably grim mood, there is something to be said for showing the exuberant colours that many Sudanese people actually wear. The bright reds, yellows, greens and pinks of a Sudanese crowd are a reminder of the joy they once had, before it was snatched away by men with guns. Another picture shows a smaller group trudging towards a barbed-wire camp, in the hope of succour. It’s a complex story, so our designers tried to illustrate some of its main strands in a collage. A heavily laden refugee glances back towards the place she has left. A column of smoke rises. A map gives a sense of a region at risk. The first version was missing some crucial elements, so we added soldiers with an intimidating red overlay, and changed the map labels from French to English. Some of us thought this image worked well. Others found it a bit confusing. Another idea was to go for brutal simplicity: the word “Sudan”, built of bricks and pocked with bullet holes. This drives home the message that an entire country is being devastated. We worked it up into what many of us thought was a stark, powerful cover. But our Bartleby columnist said it looked to him like pieces of cheese, and suddenly we couldn’t un-see that unfortunate image. So we went back to photos. This one, of a large, mostly female crowd waiting in a refugee camp, gives a hint of the sheer scale of the tragedy. And we tried a headline emphasising how little global attention the war has attracted. However, this photo was slightly too upbeat—it is not obvious, looking at these people, that they are fleeing from killers rather than, say, waiting for buses. So we found a more poignant image, with a central figure looking directly in the viewer’s eye. Some of us worried that desperate images like this look too much like fundraising adverts for a charity. But one should not shy away from depicting suffering when it is real and widespread. Our cover story argues that outsiders can help, and should do so not only for moral reasons but also because it is in everyone’s interest to prevent such a huge country from descending into anarchy. Our cover says it plainly: this catastrophic war is the world’s problem. Cover image • View large image (“Sudan”) Backing stories → Why Sudan’s catastrophic war is the world’s problem (Leader) → Anarchy in Sudan has spawned the world’s worst famine in 40 years (Briefing) → The ripple effects of Sudan’s war are being felt across three continents (Briefing) → “Hell on earth”: satellite images document the siege of a Sudanese city (Briefing)

Murder And Massive Fraud In South Africa

Murray murders: 'Flight risk' Singh siblings denied bail in R178m Investec fraud case accreditation Kyle Cowan Comments Comments gifting Gift article add bookmark Bookmark -00:17 Siblings Rushil and Nishani Singh.(Graphic by Sharlene Rood/News24) Siblings Rushil and Nishani Singh.(Graphic by Sharlene Rood/News24) The Palm Ridge Specialised Commercial Crime Court has denied Rushil and Nishani Singh bail, citing their risk of fleeing the country. The Singhs' extensive assets in Ghana, Botswana and the US weighed heavily against their application. Magistrate Phindi Keswa alluded to the murders of Cloete and Thomas Murray as having played a role in her weighing the interests of justice. Siblings Rushil and Nishani Singh were denied bail by the Palm Ridge Specialised Commercial Crime Court on Wednesday, with Magistrate Phindi Keswa saying she was convinced by the State's argument that they present a flight risk. The Singhs are facing charges of fraud, uttering and forgery linked to a falsified bank guarantee they provided to Investec Bank in 2019 in order to secure a R250 million loan. The loan was intended to fund their business activities in Ghana, where their company, Ghana Infrastructure Company, had secured roads and hospital construction contracts worth an estimated R1 billion. Keswa, who heard the bail application yesterday, delivered her ruling to a wheelchair-bound Nishani, who told the court that she was unable to walk as a bout of tuberculosis and pneumonia had left her extremely frail. Keswa was unconvinced, ruling that medical treatment could continue while she's in custody. READ | Murray murders: Rushil and Nishani Singh arrested, charged over R178m Investec fraud The magistrate found the State had argued convincingly that Rushil was likely to commit further crimes if released on bail. An arrest in January for a R1 million fraud case, for which he was already out on bail, weighed heavily in favour of the State's opposition to bail. Neither of the Singhs showed outward signs of emotion as they heard the verdict. The matter was postponed to 4 September, as the State had indicated that its investigations had been finalised. Keswa attributed her ruling that the Singhs were a flight risk to the significant assets the siblings hold overseas – in Ghana, Botswana and the US. The State argued that Nishani's estranged husband, Steven Killick, had purchased properties in Portugal in order to obtain a "golden visa" – a temporary residency permit in that country attained through investment. While Nishani told the court she would abandon that process, the State argued that it showed she had the means to leave the country. ALSO READ | Five McLarens and the Bad Boys Porsche: How the Singhs blew R120m on cars Keswa agreed. She also questioned the timing of Nishani's illness and the start of her medical treatment, pointing out that it appears the medical condition had started around the time the investigating officer informed the Singhs of their intention to obtain warning statements from them. While the Singhs have not been charged with the murders of Cloete and Thomas Murray, Keswa alluded to the shooting of the father and son liquidators on 18 March 2023 twice as she delivered her ruling. She said the court had weighed "the events that occurred after the liquidation of BIG" (Business Innovations Group) the company the Singhs had run, and found it was not in the interests of justice for them to be released. In addition to the charges in this case brought by Investec and the R1 million fraud case brought by Nedbank, the Singhs are also facing a criminal investigation in Ghana over the same forged bank guarantees. Nishani, meanwhile, has another case pending that was opened against her by Killick, for allegedly forging his signature on documents submitted to Investec. Investigations in the double-murder case continue, with the Singhs likely to be questioned by police as they had spent the morning with the Murrays on the day of the shooting. You have invested in the future News24 has been there for South Africa's defining moments over the last 25 years, and you've been right beside us. Your support of trusted journalism has sustained us, and now it will propel us to continue to strive to inform, inspire and empower as we try to build a better future for us all. Discover News24 Related Links Hawks nab former Estate Controller, Attorney for alleged fraud Assets of R2 m forfeited WATCH | 'I've lost everything': Freed

Ethiopia-When The War Ends

When the War Ends Ethiopia Alemetu, pregnant, was trying desperately to fall asleep when the men from the rebel Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) came for her. Held hostage for four weeks in an abandoned school in Ethiopia’s Oromia region, she was beaten with a horsewhip and suspended upside-down from a tree for hours. To release her, the rebels asked for a ransom of 110,000 birr (about $1,900). That’s almost double what the average person in Ethiopia earns in a year. As the Guardian reported, her family tried valiantly to raise the funds – but also had to pay almost as much to free her uncle, a local farmer. Meanwhile, after they paid, the rebel group – which says it is trying to get independence for the region – set fire to her home. Alemetu’s experience is part of the kidnappings and general lawlessness that have become the norm in Ethiopia in the wake of a civil war that ended two years ago. In March, for example, 16-year-old schoolgirl Mahlet Teklay was kidnapped in the northern regional state of Tigray. When her parents couldn’t pay the $51,800 ransom, the kidnappers killed her. And last month, three public buses carrying at least 167 passengers were traveling to the capital Addis Ababa, bringing students home for the summer holidays from Debark University in the Amhara region, Deutsche Welle reported. Gunmen hijacked the buses and demanded thousands of dollars in ransom for the victims. Many are still being held. “It is very rare to find a family who has not been affected by kidnapping,” Alemetu told the Guardian after being released. “The government has no control.” Once only occurring in certain areas of Western Oromia where the OLA operates, kidnappings have spread to war-torn Tigray, Amhara and elsewhere in the country outside of the capital. They have also moved from being political to more financial – where once only officials and government employees were targeted, now no one is spared, wrote the Africa Defense Forum. The government of Abiy Ahmed Ali, Ethiopia’s prime minister, does not talk much about the kidnapping “pandemic.” Instead, it touts its so-called successes in ending the war in Tigray, and turns the focus on the economy, specifically how it has attracted donors and investors, observers said. For example, in July, the president, winner of the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize, announced a series of market-friendly reforms including the floating of its currency, intended to open the doors to a $3.4 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund, wrote Africa Confidential. Abiy is hoping to turn the page on the war and signal to investors and donors that Ethiopia is back in business. But that’s wishful thinking, says the Hill. Already, since his float of the currency, the dirr has lost 60 percent of its value against the dollar, with prices rising so fast that restaurant menus no longer list them, ABC News wrote. Even though the war with Tigray ended officially in 2022, fighting continues there – but also in Oromia and also in Amhara, where government troops battle regional militias known as the Fano. The fighting threatens to turn into another civil war, wrote Foreign Policy. Meanwhile, talks with both rebel groups have gone nowhere. If anything, the violence is becoming more entrenched, not just in these regions but elsewhere, too, wrote the Economist: “It’s metastasizing,” a Western diplomat told the magazine. “It’s quite, quite terrifying.” It’s not just kidnappings; murders and rapes are spiraling, too, the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect wrote. “We have heard repeated stories about women being gang raped – being raped by one person is starting to be perceived as trivial,” Birhan Gebrekirstos, a lecturer at Mekelle University in Tigray, told the New Humanitarian, “we’re getting used to these stories.” Part of the reason for the violence is that the rebel groups need money, wrote the Institute for Security Studies. Another is that the government has weak control over some regions. Instead, security forces often participate in the violence, or collaborate, even cut deals with the bandits. And it’s become a buyer’s choice of which rebel groups to join because there are few opportunities for the young in the country, which has been in the throes of an economic crisis for years. In some places, the situation is so dire, that famine looms, according to the International Rescue Committee. Abiy is missing the point, said Al Jazeera. Investors are not interested in a country where lawlessness and corruption are out of control. Foreign and local businesses there are already being stymied when trying to move goods and workers, or seeing their workers kidnapped. Africa Intelligence reported in June that France-based Meridiam’s $2 billion geothermal project in Oromia is being abandoned because of insecurity. Meanwhile, Abiy wants to attract high-paying tourists, recently meeting with the head of hotel giant, Marriot. But no visitor wants to visit a country where the possibility of being kidnapped is so high, say analysts. Meanwhile, the instability of the country is dragging the entire Horn of Africa into it. In recent months, “Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has stirred up new tensions with neighboring Somalia, become entangled in Sudan’s civil war (on the rebel’s side), and even made threatening gestures toward Eritrea, which had been Abiy’s ally in the Tigrayan war,” Foreign Affairs magazine wrote. “Meanwhile, the government’s primary foreign patron, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has been funneling arms and money to Ethiopia, as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey have been doing the same to Eritrea, Somalia, and the Sudanese Armed Forces, threatening to drag the region into a proxy conflict.” Share this story

Tanzania Gets Innovative With Construction

Common Ground Tanzania Architects in Tanzania are using three-dimensional printers to construct housing and other buildings, also using soil rather than artificial materials – the production of which emit greenhouse gases that cause climate change. The builders hope to construct a village called New Hope to the west of the capital of Dar es Salaam that will include a school for almost 500 girls as well as farming plots, livestock pens and recreational areas, reported CNN. This positive story suggests Tanzanians can live in greater harmony with nature and each other as they attempt to strike a balance between modern and traditional approaches to life. But it isn’t always the case. One major issue in Tanzania today, for example, involves officials kicking traditional Maasai communities off their ancestral land to make way for conservation efforts and economic development. The Maasai are nomadic pastoralists whose lives revolve around their herds. As Amnesty International explained, Tanzanian officials and private businesses, including a trophy-hunting company tied to the prime minister of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, have colluded to evict Maasai folks from their land. Officials have also shut down government services in Maasai communities to compel people to move to towns and cities, added Human Rights Watch. The government frequently offers displaced Maasai people houses to live in and a few acres of land to farm. “But the houses do not reflect the needs or complexities of Maasai families, which traditionally are large, polygamous, multigenerational and multihousehold,” argued an Al Jazeera opinion piece. Those who speak out against the relocation have faced threats and intimidation from rangers and security forces, creating a climate of fear, HRW wrote. “You’re not allowed to say anything,” one displaced resident told the organization, adding that people have “fear in their hearts.” Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan says she wants to protect the environment from the Maasai’s livestock. She has proposed enlarging the area of protected land in the southern African country from 30 to 50 percent of its territory, cutting into the Maasai’s ancestral lands, noted Deutsche Welle. But critics of the evictions say the government gives hunting and tourism companies free rein on the vacated land. Hassan’s plans also involve new airports, tourism facilities, and other accoutrements of a growing capitalistic economy, added Bloomberg. These moves might cause international friction. Kenya, for example, frowns upon the trophy hunting that Tanzania promotes, reported Reuters. Kenyan officials fear that elephants that generate money from tourists there might cross the border into Tanzania where hunters might kill them. In July, for instance, hunters in Tanzania had shot five bull elephants in the prior few months. There arguably is little point in preserving nature, Kenyan officials told the newswire, if the goal is to destroy it. Share this story

Botswana Celebrates Its Olympic Gold Medal Winners

Going for Gold Botswana Botswanans expressed outrage at the government’s request this week to set up a donation fund for citizens to reward the country’s Olympic athletes, including Letslie Tebogo who became the nation’s first-ever Olympic gold medalist, the BBC reported. On Monday, the government asked citizens to honor the athletes by “contributing rewards to our champions.” But many citizens questioned why the government would ask for donations, instead of using public funds, noting that they already pay taxes. Some called on the cabinet to lead by example by donating a portion of their salaries. Still, others voiced support for the donation fund, adding that it should be open to all Africans to contribute. The announcement followed the country’s Olympic team returning home with a gold medal. Tebogo became the first African to win the men’s Olympic 200-meter sprint and set an African record of 19.46 seconds. He also won a silver medal in the men’s 4×400-meter relay alongside his teammates. Despite the controversy, there were large celebrations in Botswana with tens of thousands gathering at the National Stadium in the capital Gaborone to welcome the Olympic team home. Botswana is one of Africa’s wealthiest countries in terms of income per capita, yet it also faces one of the world’s highest rates of youth unemployment. The country is a major diamond producer, but has recently experienced a decline in revenues that has led the government to cut spending. Share this story

Malawi-A Tyranny Of Doubt

The Tyranny of Doubt Malawi In March last year, Cyclone Freddy ripped through Malawi and southeast Africa, killing 679 people, displacing almost 660,000, and causing property damage totaling more than $500 million. Thirty-nine-year-old mother Gladys Austin was one of those hundreds of thousands who had to flee her home in the southern village of Makwalo after heavy rains destroyed a sandbar on the Ruo River, reported the Guardian. The resulting floods also washed away her livestock, grain, and the rest of her goods. Luckily, she and her family received international aid to rebuild. But many Malawians have not been so lucky. A year after Austin and her community struggled with flooding, communities in Malawi were dealing with one of the worst droughts in memory due to the meteorological phenomenon, El Niño. Malawian President Lazarus Chakwera recently declared a state of disaster due to the drought throughout much of the country, reported the Associated Press. He said Malawi needed $200 million in humanitarian assistance to cope with the problem, or else face potential famine. The drought was already forecast to shave multiple points off of the country’s gross domestic product, further constraining growth that would help the country overcome its deep poverty and desperate need for economic development. The good news, however, is that Malawians have created a “laboratory for low-cost community-led projects” to improve climate resilience, wrote World Politics Review. Farmers, for example, are teaching each other about soil conservation, water management and crop diversification. Others have developed plans for inter-cropping, or growing multiple crops together, composting, organic pest control, and other measures that mitigate the effects of climate change on agriculture. These efforts extend to more sophisticated commercial enterprises. In the capital of Lilongwe, for instance, computer scientists have established a technology incubator that now supports firms, for example a banana tissue culture lab, CNN noted. Malawi has also been working closely with the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change – Blair is a former British prime minister – to help develop AI companies so that they might leapfrog other stages of economic development and benefit sooner from the latest tech trends. The Malawi University of Science and Technology also recently launched an AI research center with the assistance of American schools, Voice of America added. Still, Malawi faces governance challenges under Chakwera that could threaten to stymie anyone’s dreams of a better tomorrow in the country. Amnesty International recently criticized a top court decision to uphold a ban on same-sex sexual conduct, for example. The US State Department decried Chakwera’s oversight of torture and other human rights violations, too. Some journalists investigating corruption, meanwhile, are in hiding, even as the corruption chief resigned under pressure. Malawians face the tough task of standing up for their rights and fighting to survive the weather. And as Deutsche Welle noted, despite making strides in some areas, locals say that “Doubts about the country’s future loom large.” Share this story

Kenya's President Ruto About To Be Forced Out

Nothing to Lose Kenya In late June, Kenyan President William Ruto blinked. After winning the 2022 general election on his plans to reform the economy, he scuttled planned tax hikes and conceded that he was reversing his position in the wake of protests by Gen Z and millennials who ransacked parliament and stayed on the streets for weeks, despite a crackdown that led to at least 50 deaths. Now protesters want Ruto to step down, too, even after he fired most of his cabinet in a move designed to show his critics that he is open to change. “The arrogance is gone, but the lies are still there,” wrote prominent social justice activist Boniface Mwangi on X, formerly known as Twitter, according to Reuters. “Yesterday they unleashed goons and police to kill peaceful protesters. That will not stop us.” This attitude is one reason why the Economist believed the protests could change the East African country forever. The protests erupted after Ruto announced his plan to raise levies on commodities, increasing living costs as many Kenyans are already struggling to make ends meet, wrote CNN. Now they have also expanded to include general discontent with government incompetence and corruption. “It’s about a generation demanding a better future, one where they are not perpetually marginalized,” Daystar University political analyst Wandia Njoya told Turkey’s Anadolu Agency. As Inge Amundsen, a senior researcher at the Chr. Michelsen Institute, noted in the Conversation, Kenyan politicians frequently enact laws and rig regulations to benefit themselves and their circles. These politicians then use their influence to control companies, government agencies, civil institutions, and other groups, cementing their power and creating networks of patronage and illicit activities. Ruto has announced reforms that aim to attack political corruption. But whether or not he can pierce the elite networks that benefit from these relationships will depend on how much political capital he wants to expend on changing the country’s power structure that helped propel him to office. In the meantime, the protests are spreading on the continent. Youth groups are organizing similar mass demonstrations in Nigeria, Uganda, and elsewhere where officials appear more likely to help themselves than tackle the issues that are harming their constituents, noted World Politics Review. In Nigeria, for example, wrote Semafor, protests kicked off on August 1, leading to at least a dozen deaths. Military authorities have said they stand ready to restore order if necessary. But that might only stop the momentum temporarily, especially as global economic growth is expected to decrease, exacerbating economic struggles and limiting opportunity. “It’s a wake-up call,” Xavier Ichani, who teaches international relations at Kenyatta University in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, told Semafor, referring to the widening movement. “Governments need to move with speed and address the grievances of the people.”

Mali Severs Diplomatic Relations With Ukraine

Help by Proxy Mali Mali severed diplomatic relations with Ukraine this week over allegations Kyiv was involved in an attack by separatist rebels late last month that killed dozens of Malian soldiers and mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner Group, Radio Free Europe reported. On July 25, rebels led by the Tuareg minority group attacked a military camp in the northeast commune of Tinzaouatene, near the Algerian border. The armed groups claimed they killed 47 Malian troops and 84 Wagner fighters during the three-day battle. Mali’s military junta said it suffered a “large number” of deaths. Shortly after the rebels’ announcement, Andriy Yusov, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s Main Intelligence Directorate, said on Ukrainian television that the whole world was aware that the rebels “had received the necessary data that allowed them to carry out their operation against the Russian war criminals.” Yusov did not explicitly confirm whether Kyiv was involved. But on Sunday, Mali’s military government accused Ukraine of violating its sovereignty and supporting terrorism. Officials explained that Yusov “admitted Ukraine’s involvement in a cowardly, treacherous and barbaric attack by armed terrorist groups,” according to Radio France Internationale. The diplomatic spat comes as Mali is dealing with a long-running insurgency led by Tuareg and Islamist groups. The military rulers, led by Col. Assimi Goita, seized power through coups in 2020 and 2021, and have shifted Mali’s alliances from its former colonial ruler, France, to Russia. The Malian government has employed Russian forces for military support but has countered allegations that those troops are Wagner mercenaries. In a related diplomatic move, Senegal summoned Ukraine’s ambassador this week over a Facebook post from the Ukrainian embassy, which expressed support for the Tuareg rebels. The Tuaregs are a traditionally nomadic Berber ethnic group living in parts of the western Sahara, including northern Mali. Many Tuaregs have historically complained of persecution by the Malian military government. The Malian military has accused the Tuaregs of cooperating with Islamist groups, but the rebels behind the July 25 assault countered that they had fought alone “exclusively from the beginning to the end.”