Sudan's paramilitaries announces a parallel government, deepening the country's crisis
The move, which was announced Saturday, was likely to deepen the crisis in Sudan, which plunged into chaos when tensions between the country's military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, exploded into fighting in April 2023 in the capital, Khartoum and elsewhere in the country.
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Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Colombia: Ex-President Uribe gets 12 years' house arrest
Colombia's former President Alvaro Uribe was sentenced Friday to 12 years of house arrest for witness tampering and bribery in a case related to the country's prolonged civil war. The conservative politician was found guilty this week of paying jailed paramilitaries to retract testimony which connects Uribe to right-wing militia groups. In the decades since the outbreak of Colombia's civil war in the 1960s, paramilitary groups were responsible for mass killings, forced disappearances, and other atrocities. The conviction marks the first time a Colombian head of state has been found guilty in a criminal trial. What did the court rule? While prosecutors had demanded a 12-year prison term, Uribe was sentenced to 12 years of house arrest, fined $578,000 (€499,000) and barred from public office for more than eight years. The judge ordered Uribe to begin serving his sentence immediately at his rural estate in Rionegro, in northwestern Antioquia province. The ex-president's lawyers said Uribe would appeal the verdict. However, the court rejected Uribe's request to remain free while appealing the verdict, with the judge saying the former president might flee the country to avoid punishment. The 73-year-old politician has denied any wrongdoing. Following the Friday hearing, Uribe said "politics prevailed over the law in sentencing." What do we know about the case against Uribe? During a nearly 6-month trial, prosecutors presented evidence that Uribe and his brother had helped found the Bloque Metro paramilitary group in the 1990s. At the time, Uribe was the governor of Antioquia, a key battleground in the civil war. One former paramilitary, who worked on the Uribe family ranch, told the court he was offered bribes and legal favors to retract his testimony. Another testified that Uribe's lawyer offered him money to speak favorably about Uribe. The court found that the ex-president had been trying to discredit a rival who had exposed Uribe's alleged paramilitary ties and had been sued by the then-president for libel. The libel case was dismissed in 2018 and a probe into Uribe's alleged conduct began. Uribe's supporters dismiss the case as a vendetta by leftwing rivals to tarnish his legacy as Colombia's most effective anti-guerrilla leader. This sentiment seems to be echoed by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who said the trial was a "weaponization of Colombia's judicial branch by radical judges." Analysts have said there could be cuts to US aid to Colombia in response. In turn, human rights groups hailed the conviction as a landmark moment for accountability in Colombia's long history of impunity. What was Colombia's civil war? The conflict began in 1964 when leftist guerrilla groups like FARC took up arms, demanding land reform and social justice. Fueled by funding from the illegal drug trade, the war involved guerrilla fighters, right-wing paramilitary groups, and government forces, each committing widespread violence and human rights abuses. Under Uribe's rule, the conflict intensified. His hardline tactics against leftist guerrillas led to mass killings, paramilitary abuse, and forced disappearances. During the conflict, an estimated 220,000 people died and millions more were displaced. A truth commission found that over 6,400 civilians were falsely labeled as guerrillas and executed by the military during Uribe's administration — a scandal known as the "false positives." A 2016 peace deal between the government and FARC ended the war officially, transforming the rebels into a political party. However, violence in Colombia persists to this day, driven by fragmented armed groups, drug trafficking, and ongoing struggles over land and power in rural areas. Edited by: Darko Janjevic
New York Times
3 hours ago
- New York Times
Two War Reporter Brothers, 60 Countries and Now a Pair of New Books
In 2006, the journalists Jon Lee Anderson and his brother, Scott, both happened to be reporting stories from Lebanon. Israel had invaded the country in a bid to crush Hezbollah. Jon Lee was in Beirut, trying to learn what he could about a shadowy war. Scott was doing the same in the southern city of Tyre, where the Israelis had imposed a blanket curfew, threatening to shoot anything that moved. Scott was traveling with the photographer Paolo Pellegrin to see what was happening at a hospital when a drone strike missed their vehicle by a matter of yards. The shock wave knocked all the buttons off Scott's shirt and gave him a concussion. Blood was pouring out of his ear. The frighteningly close call convinced the brothers that they needed a rule. 'We have a kind of superstition, which is that it's not good to be in the same war zone at the same time,' Jon Lee said. 'And the one time we were, Scott nearly got killed.' The Andersons were recounting this story in Scott's New Jersey living room — comfortably far from a war zone, though finding them on the same continent, let alone in the same city, was a matter of fortuitous timing. Scott, 66, who lives in Jersey City, was leaving for a monthlong trip to Turkey with his teenage daughter in a few weeks; Jon Lee, 68, who lives with his wife in Dorset, England, was passing through New York to give a talk at the Americas Society before visiting his daughter in New Hampshire, where she was about to give birth. It isn't exactly common for two people from the same family to do the uncommon work of reporting from some of the world's most dangerous hot spots — Jon Lee as a staff writer for The New Yorker, Scott as a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine. Nor is it common for siblings to have new books coming out in the same month. In another accident of fortuitous timing, Scott's 'King of Kings' and Jon Lee's 'To Lose a War' both publish in August. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
Three die as Ukraine and Russia exchange drone attacks
Ukrainian drone attacks overnight killed three people, Russian officials said on Saturday. Russia's defence ministry said air defences intercepted or destroyed 112 drones across eight Russian regions and the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula. A drone attack on the Rostov region, on the border with Ukraine, killed one person, acting governor Yuri Slyusar said. Further from the front line, a woman was killed and two other people wounded in a drone strike on business premises in the Penza region, according to regional governor Oleg Melnichenko. In the Samara region, falling drone debris sparked a fire that killed an elderly resident, regional governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev said. According to the Ukrainian air force, Russia launched 53 drones and decoys at Ukraine overnight into Saturday. It said that air defences shot down or jammed 45 drones. Eleven people were wounded in an overnight drone strike on the Kharkiv region, governor Oleh Syniehubov said on Saturday. The reciprocal drone strikes followed a day of mourning in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on Friday, after a Russian drone and missile attack killed 31 people, including five children, and wounded more than 150. The continued attacks come after US President Donald Trump on Tuesday gave Russian President Vladimir Putin a shorter deadline – August 8 – for peace efforts to make progress. Trump said on Thursday that special envoy Steve Witkoff is heading to Russia to push Moscow to agree to a ceasefire in its war with Ukraine and has threatened new economic sanctions if progress is not made.
