Latest news with #BlackThursday
France 24
16-05-2025
- Politics
- France 24
Chad's ex-prime minister arrested for 'inciting hatred'
Masra, who served as premier from January to May last year, faced off against President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno in presidential elections a year ago. One of Deby's fiercest opponents, he won 18.5 percent of the vote against Deby's 61.3 percent, but claimed victory. Earlier Friday, his party said Masra had been abducted from his home in the early morning. A post by The Transformers party featured an unverified video showing him leaving his residence surrounded by around a dozen armed men in military uniform. Prosecutor Oumar Mahamat Kedelaye later said Masra had been detained after inquiries into a clash in the southwestern region of Logone-Occidental on Wednesday. "The investigations carried out by the judicial police revealed the involvement" of Masra, Mahamat Kedelaye told reporters. "Messages were disseminated particularly on social media calling on the population to arm themselves against other citizens," the prosecutor said. He gave no details on the content or if Masra had been behind the messages. The clashes killed 42 people mostly women and children, the prosecutor said, raising a previously reported toll of 35. A local source said Thursday that the cause of the violence was thought to be a dispute between ethnic Fulani nomadic herders and local Ngambaye farmers over the demarcation of grazing and farming areas. Conflicts between pastoralists and sedentary farmers are estimated by the International Crisis Group to have caused more than 1,000 deaths and 2,000 injuries between 2021 and 2024. Masra, who comes from the south, is ethnic Ngambaye and enjoys wide support in the region, whose people are mostly Christian and animist and complain of being marginalised by the mostly Muslim central government. - Deadly protests - Masra, 41, an economist who trained in France and Cameroon, was a fierce opponent of the ruling authorities before they named him prime minister five months before the presidential election. He contested the results and his party then boycotted parliamentary elections in December. The elections cemented Deby's rule and ended a three-year transition period. He had promised an 18-month transition to democracy but extended it by another two years. Deby had been proclaimed transitional president by fellow army generals in 2021 after his father, Idriss Deby Itno, who had ruled Chad for 30 years, was killed in a gun battle with rebels. Opposition figures have fled, been silenced or joined with Deby. Since 2018, Masra has been the only opposition figure able to mobilise crowds of supporters in the capital at rallies that were systematically and violently repressed. Like other opposition figures, Masra fled into exile after the army and police opened fire on demonstrators protesting the transition extension in October 2022, known as Black Thursday. Up to 300 young people died according to international NGOs -- 50, according to the regime. Masra returned from exile and signed a reconciliation deal with Deby but faced critics who denounced his decision to ally with the then junta.
Int'l Business Times
16-05-2025
- Politics
- Int'l Business Times
Chad's Ex-prime Minister Arrested For 'Inciting Hatred'
Chad's former prime minister and opposition leader Succes Masra was arrested early Friday accused of inciting hatred in connection with deadly clashes in the southwest, the public prosecutor said. Masra, who served as premier from January to May last year, faced off against President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno in presidential elections a year ago. One of Deby's fiercest opponents, he won 18.5 percent of the vote against Deby's 61.3 percent, but claimed victory. Earlier Friday, his party said Masra had been abducted from his home in the early morning. A post by The Transformers party featured an unverified video showing him leaving his residence surrounded by around a dozen armed men in military uniform. Prosecutor Oumar Mahamat Kedelaye later said Masra had been detained after inquiries into a clash in the southwestern region of Logone-Occidental on Wednesday. "The investigations carried out by the judicial police revealed the involvement" of Masra, Mahamat Kedelaye told reporters. "Messages were disseminated particularly on social media calling on the population to arm themselves against other citizens," the prosecutor said. He gave no details on the content or if Masra had been behind the messages. The clashes killed 42 people mostly women and children, the prosecutor said, raising a previously reported toll of 35. A local source said Thursday that the cause of the violence was thought to be a dispute between ethnic Fulani nomadic herders and local Ngambaye farmers over the demarcation of grazing and farming areas. Conflicts between pastoralists and sedentary farmers are estimated by the International Crisis Group to have caused more than 1,000 deaths and 2,000 injuries between 2021 and 2024. Masra, who comes from the south, is ethnic Ngambaye and enjoys wide support in the region, whose people are mostly Christian and animist and complain of being marginalised by the mostly Muslim central government. Masra, 41, an economist who trained in France and Cameroon, was a fierce opponent of the ruling authorities before they named him prime minister five months before the presidential election. He contested the results and his party then boycotted parliamentary elections in December. The elections cemented Deby's rule and ended a three-year transition period. He had promised an 18-month transition to democracy but extended it by another two years. Deby had been proclaimed transitional president by fellow army generals in 2021 after his father, Idriss Deby Itno, who had ruled Chad for 30 years, was killed in a gun battle with rebels. Opposition figures have fled, been silenced or joined with Deby. Since 2018, Masra has been the only opposition figure able to mobilise crowds of supporters in the capital at rallies that were systematically and violently repressed. Like other opposition figures, Masra fled into exile after the army and police opened fire on demonstrators protesting the transition extension in October 2022, known as Black Thursday. Up to 300 young people died according to international NGOs -- 50, according to the regime. Masra returned from exile and signed a reconciliation deal with Deby but faced critics who denounced his decision to ally with the then junta.
Yahoo
15-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Where does New Hampshire get all of its not-so-great ideas?
"With Republicans firmly established as the MAGA Party, I wonder where the highest marginal tax rate was set when that crowd last considered America to be 'Great.'' (Photo) As Gov. Kelly Ayotte, President Donald Trump, and legislative and congressional Republicans continue to shape their marketing campaign for selling reductions in critical public services and programs as 'reasonable adjustments' to spending, it's important to keep up with your reading. If you're a fan of dark comedy, you should check out an April 14 New York Times dispatch headlined 'Republicans Ponder the Unthinkable: Taxing the Rich.' The premise of the necessarily short piece is that congressional Republicans are so shocked by the degree to which they've bamboozled the working class that they're 'quietly' — and antithetically — considering doing them a solid by increasing the tax rate on top individual earners (those above $609,351). 'For Republicans struggling with the roughly $4 trillion cost of continuing the 2017 cuts,' tax policy reporter Andrew Duehren writes, 'letting the top rate snap back to 39.6% (where it stood before Trump cut it to 37% during his first term) would be an easy way to reduce the cost of the bill.' Rather quickly, the story crumbles under the weight of its unlikelihood, placing it in the same news category as one headlined, 'Powerball ticket buyer dreamily considers benefits of taking lump sum over annuity.' The lottery ticket won't hit and the GOP won't tax the wealthy, and so the pros-and-cons exercise is meaningless. It shouldn't be meaningless, mind you, but it is. Even though the Tax Policy Institute calculates the return to 39.6% would save about $366 billion, the Times story notes, 'some Republicans quickly promised to try and kill any tax increases, and leadership was circumspect.' With Republicans firmly established as the MAGA Party, I wonder where the highest marginal tax rate was set when that crowd last considered America to be 'Great.' Was it the 88% of the Greatest Generation years of 1942 and 1943, or the 94% of 1944 and 1945? Probably not. Could it be that when they say 'Great Again' they're actually referring to the years just before and during the Great Depression, when the rate was 25% (and a low of 24% in 1929, the year that brought us Black Thursday)? While I'm sure they love that rate, it's tough to put a positive spin on an era of global economic collapse, so no. But it's also clear as day they don't mean the mythologized golden years of 1951 to 1963, when the rate was steadily 91% (except for the two years, 1952 and 1953, when it was 92%). 'Great Again' has to refer to Trump's beloved 1980s — the Gordon Gekko 'Greed is Good' era. When Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1980, the top rate was 70%, but by the time he left office after two terms, it was 28%. How great has Reaganomics worked out for the American working class, you ask? Here's what a first-ripple 1992 study from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found, as reported by the Los Angeles Times on Aug. 28 of that year: ''In the vast majority of states, economic growth during the 1980s was not shared evenly among the rich, the poor, and the middle class,' the study concluded. 'Instead, the wealthy fared substantially better than other income groups.'' Nearly three decades after that study, a 2020 Pew Research Center report offered a longer view of the kind of economic growth that is 'not shared evenly among the rich, the poor, and the middle class': Since 1980, Pew researchers said, there has been an 'uninterrupted increase in inequality' in America. And, this past October, the Congressional Budget Office reported that as of 2022, 'families in the top 10% of the distribution held 60% of all wealth, up from 56% in 1989.' Meanwhile, for the rest of the top half, that percentage fell from 37% to 34%, and the bottom 50% remained steady from 1989 to 2022 — at a shame-of-the-nation 6% (which, without factoring in future Social Security benefits, is actually 3%). That's a lot of numbers, so here's the flashcard: The top 10% in America holds about two-thirds of all wealth and the bottom 50% holds just (and optimistically) one-twentieth. And, since the beginning of the GOP's beloved (and still unfolding) Reagan Revolution, the middle class share has been heading in the wrong direction. If you listen to the Republican Party now — from Ayotte to Trump to legislative and congressional leaders — you won't hear about this nation's obscene acceleration of economic inequality since 1980. What you will hear, however, is an abundance of blame placed on those with the least — the undeserving Medicaid and SNAP recipients, the invading migrants, all of the people living with disabilities, various 'welfare' fraudsters — for allegedly hollowing out the middle class. That sure sounds like an unbelievable amount of macroeconomic influence for people holding 3 to 6% of national wealth, doesn't it? Truly, statistically, commonsensically unbelievable. Still, Republicans say they're slashing budgets not to punish the less fortunate, which is inarguably what they are doing in practice, but to eliminate 'waste, fraud, and abuse.' And they always say it in that singsongy order ('waste, fraud, and abuse') because it's meant to be an earworm marketing jingle rather than factual. You will also hear, from Ayotte, Trump, and Republican leadership, that any proposed Medicaid cuts will not affect 'vulnerable' people — and they always use the word 'vulnerable.' Why? Because since the November electoral victories they've been rewriting, all on their own, the definition of who is considered 'vulnerable' so they can more easily sell the punitive as a 'reasonable adjustment.' I wonder: How many more decades of data do we need in order to see who has benefited — and who has not — from the Reagan-era policies exalted and expanded by the modern American right? And, when will it become clear to Granite State voters that New Hampshire Republicans are following — to the letter — a playbook that has resulted in historic levels of economic inequality and all its targeted suffering? What I'm asking is, what will it take for the 90% who populate 'Other America' to realize they're getting played by the party of the 10%?
Asharq Al-Awsat
07-04-2025
- Business
- Asharq Al-Awsat
The Worst Market Crashes Since 1929
Monday's stock market collapses in Asia and Europe after China retaliated to steep US tariffs revived memories of similar market turmoil after the Covid pandemic and the last global financial crisis. Analysts called the falls "historic" and some even described it as a "bloodbath", recalling previous collapses since the start of the last century. Global stocks crashed in March 2020 after the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a pandemic, putting much of the world under lockdown. On March 12, 2020 -- the day after the announcement -- Paris fell 12 percent, Madrid 14 percent and Milan 17 percent. London dropped 11 percent and New York 10 percent in the worst fall since 1987. Further falls came over the following days, with US indexes dropping more than 12 percent. The rapid response by national governments, which dug deep to keep their economies afloat, helped most markets rebound within months. The 2008 global financial crisis was caused by bankers in the United States giving subprime mortgages to people on shaky financial footing and then selling them off as investments, fueling a housing boom. When borrowers became unable to pay their mortgages, millions lost their homes, the stock market crashed and the banking system buckled, culminating with the dramatic bankruptcy of investment bank Lehman Brothers. From January to October that year, the world's main stock markets fell between 30 and 50 percent. The start of the millennium saw the deflation of the tech bubble caused by venture capitalists throwing money at unproven companies. From a record 5,048.62 points on March 10, 2000, the US tech-heavy Nasdaq index lost 39.3 percent in value over the year. Many internet startups went out of business. Wall Street crashed on October 19, 1987, on the back of large US trade and budget deficits and interest rates hikes. The Dow Jones index lost 22.6 percent, causing panic on markets worldwide. October 24, 1929 became known as "Black Thursday" on Wall Street after a bull market imploded, causing the Dow Jones to lose more than 22 percent of its value at the start of trade. Stocks recouped most lost ground during the day but the rot set in: October 28 and 29 also saw huge losses in a crisis that marked the beginning of the Great Depression in the United States and a global economic crisis.
