Fast News
Flooding caused by torrential rains in Sudan have killed at least 52 people and damaged or destroyed thousands of homes.
"A total of 52 people have been killed and 25 others wounded due to torrential rains and floods since the beginning of the fall season," state media reported, quoting Abdel Jalil Abdelreheem, spokesperson for Sudan's National Council for Civil Defense.
Abdelreheem said 5,345 houses had been destroyed and 2,862 damaged across Sudan. Other public facilities, shops, and agricultural lands were also damaged.
North and South Kordofan states, River Nile state, and South Darfur were among the most affected across Sudan, he noted.
Nearly 40,000 affected
Heavy rains usually fall in Sudan between May and October, and the country faces severe flooding every year, wrecking properties, infrastructure, and crops.
In a Monday report, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated that around 38,000 people across Sudan had been affected by rains and floods since the start of the rainy season.
About 314,500 people were affected across Sudan during the rainy season of 2021, according to OCHA.
Source: AFP
Thousands of Brazilians have taken to the streets in a symbolic "defence of democracy" march after President Jair Bolsonaro's sustained attacks on democratic institutions just weeks ahead of elections.
Thursday's demonstrations in several cities were sparked by fears that the far-right leader, currently lagging behind in opinion polls, would not accept the outcome of October's vote given his repeated attempts to cast doubt on Brazil's electoral system.
"After 200 years of independence in Brazil, we should be thinking about our future... but we are focused on preventing a regression," University of Sao Paulo rector Carlos Gilberto Junior told a gathering of hundreds of academics, businessmen, trade union leaders and civil society members.
Outside the campus, thousands held up banners denouncing Bolsonaro and proclaiming: "Respect the vote, respect the people."
Some were dressed as electronic voting machines, which Bolsonaro claims, makes rigging the elections easier.
At the university gathering, a video was shown of Brazilian artists reading out a petition "in defence of the democratic state of law."
The petition has garnered more than 900,000 signatures since being posted online weeks ago.
Demonstrations were also held in Rio de Janeiro, Brasilia and Recife.
Voters in Brazil cast their ballots electronically at voting stations. But Bolsonaro has long argued for a paper printout to be made of each vote cast, suggesting the absence of a paper trail enables cheating.
He has not provided evidence of fraud, and the Superior Electoral Court insists the system is fair and transparent.
Violence feared if 'Brazil's Trump' loses
Last month, Bolsonaro repeated his claims at a meeting with foreign ambassadors, prompting the US embassy to later declare that Brazil's electoral system was a "model for the world."
His repeated attacks have led analysts to fear Bolsonaro may refuse to accept defeat like his former American counterpart Donald Trump, whose supporters stormed the US Capitol building after he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden.
Several Brazilian business associations have also published open letters of concern, including the Brazilian Federation of Banks (Febraban) and the Federation of Industries of the State of Sao Paulo (Fiesp).
This is seen as a setback for Bolsonaro, who drew much support from the business sector in his 2018 election.
According to the latest opinion poll by the Datafolha Institute, published on July 28, Bolsonaro lags 18 points behind former leftist president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who is the favourite to win the election.
Source: AFP
Thousands of children have been forced to flee their homes in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where security forces are battling M23 rebels, the UN's children's agency said.
Since March, "more than 190,000 people, half of them children, have been forced to leave their villages in the Rutshuru and Nyiragongo areas," UNICEF said in a statement on Saturday.
"Thousands of children are at risk and have very limited access to basic social services needed for their survival in this crisis," Grant Leaity, UNICEF representative in the DRC, said after visiting Rutshuru, in North-Kivu province.
The situation is likely to persist as people are afraid to return home, said Leaity who recently visited the Rutshuru area where he met with those displaced.
In Kalengera the number of displaced people has more than doubled the existing population.
"Displaced families and host families are in urgent need of food, household items, health and water assistance, hygiene and sanitation," UNICEF said.
"Humanitarian assistance is slow to arrive while needs continue to increase alarmingly," the agency said.
"Due to a lack of assistance, some displaced people are forced to return to their home villages located in unstable" frontline positions, UNICEF warned.
"It is imperative we act now to prevent a significant increase in cases of children suffering from severe acute malnutrition."
M23 violence
Rutshuru has seen a resurgence of violence in recent months with the presence of M23 rebels, who have been fighting DRC's army.
M23, the "March 23 Movement", is a former Tutsi-dominated rebel group that was defeated in 2013.
But it took up arms late last year, attacking government forces and UN peacekeepers, taking control of several areas.
Kinshasa accuses Kigali of supporting the rebels, a charge Rwanda denies.
Source: AFP
BELGRADE, Serbia
Thousands of people gathered in Bosnia and Herzegovina's capital Sarajevo on Monday to protest possible amendments to the nation’s election law and constitution by the Office of the High Representative (OHR), an international institution that is responsible for implementing the country’s peace agreement.
Several thousand people gathered in front of the OHR’s office to convey the message that solutions based on ethnic discrimination and which are contrary to all democratic and legal standards are completely unacceptable.
Dervo Sejdic, a Bosnian Roma who had in the past appealed to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France after he was blocked from running in elections because he was not Bosniak, Croat or Serb, called for protests over the planned changes to the election law.
Many political parties joined the call, including the Social Democratic Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina (SDP), the Democratic Front (DF), the Democratic Action Movement (PDA), Our Party, the Democratic Action Party (SDA) and the People and Justice (NiP) party.
The protestors carried the national flag of Bosnia and Herzegovina. No incidents were recorded and the gathering was secured by a large number of police officers.
Earlier in the day, SDA leader Bakir Izetbegovic said Bosnia needs the authority of a high representative who would protect the constitution and the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement.
Izetbegovic's remarks came at a press conference following an extraordinary meeting held at the SDA’s headquarters ahead of the protest in front of the OHR.
According to local media, by Aug. 1, Christian Schmidt, a German politician and the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, will impose measures for the re-functioning of Bosnia’s Federation (FBiH) entity.
"The high representative in Bosnia Herzegovina is to protect the Constitution and the Dayton Peace Agreement and by no means to impose solutions that we failed to reach through a series of negotiations that stretched throughout the last year, especially changes in the very sensitive sphere of inter-ethnic and party balances and the balance of party influence among the ethnocentric and civic parties,” said Izetbegovic.
Visiting Bosnia Herzegovina, Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said it is in Croatia's interest to have a stable and democratic Bosnia Herzegovina in which Croats will be equal.
"The key is inclusion, so isn't it most natural that Croats who voted and fought for the independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina will be able to participate in the government? These reactions are exaggerated. We need to calm down so that the elections can be conducted in the best way," said Plenkovic
Plenkovic's remarks came after meeting with Dragan Covic, the head of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), the main Bosnian Croat party.
For his part, Covic said Bosniaks in the country want to maintain the status quo.
"During the last two years, we tried to implement the agreement in Mostar. We failed. The wish of the Bosniak parties was to maintain the status quo, but they only partially succeeded in that because all the problems surfaced when it came to the majority of the minority people. I am convinced from the talks with the high representative that those decisions will go in the direction of a democratic atmosphere in the campaign phase as well as that immediately after the election, the results will be able to be implemented," he said.
According to local media, Schmidt, who oversees the peace agreement’s implementation in Bosnia Herzegovina and has special powers to impose laws and dismiss officials, would impose a new law regarding how delegates are chosen from the House of Peoples of the Bosniak-Croat Federation entity’s parliament.
Many say the OHR would give the Croat nationalist party HDZ and the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) party a disproportionate degree of political influence and further deepen discriminatory ethnic divisions.
Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs will lose representatives in the House of Peoples if their ethnic population in any federation canton amounts to less than 3% of the same ethnic population in the federation entity.
This would allow HDZ to get more delegates, at least 14 out of 17 seats in the Croat group, as HDZ rules in cantons with larger Croat populations.
With complete control over the Croat groups, a member from the HDZ will now be guaranteed a seat as either the president or as one of the two vice presidents of the federation in a team with a Bosniak and a Serb selected from their respective groups.
Regardless of whether the HDZ has a president or a vice president for the federation, all three ethnic constituencies are required to form the government, making the HDZ indispensable.
Under the current election law, at least one Bosniak, one Croat and one Serb delegate are elected from each canton.
This would be the third time Schmidt uses the so-called “Bonn powers” after assuming office in August 2021.
The first time he did so to annul a law on immovable property in Republika Srpska, a Serb-dominated entity.
The second time, Schmidt used his "Bonn powers" to finance the country’s general elections on Oct. 2, allocating €6.5 million (approximately $6.97 million) for the Central Election Commission.
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A fierce California wildfire has expanded burning several thousand acres and forcing evacuations, as tens of millions of Americans sweltered through scorching heat with already record-setting temperatures due to climb even further.
More than 2,000 firefighters backed by 17 helicopters have been deployed against the Oak Fire, which broke out Friday near Yosemite National Park, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) said in a report on Sunday.
But two days after it began the blaze had already consumed more than 14,200 acres and remained zero percent contained, the report said, adding that heat combined with low humidity would "hamper" efforts on Sunday.
"Extreme drought conditions have lead to critical fuel moisture levels," according CAL FIRE's report.
'Explosive' fire
Described as "explosive" by officials, the blaze has left ashes, gutted vehicles and twisted remains of properties in its wake, as emergency personnel worked to evacuate residents and protect structures in its path.
It has already destroyed 10 properties and damaged five others, with thousands more threatened.
More than 6,000 people had been evacuated, said Hector Vasquez, a CAL FIRE official.
"It was scary when we left because we were getting ashes on us but we had such a visual of this billowing. It just seemed like it was above our house and coming our way really quickly," one woman who had to be evacuated, Lynda Reynolds-Brown, told local news station KCRA.
California Governor Gavin Newsom on Saturday declared a state of emergency in Mariposa County, citing "conditions of extreme peril to the safety of persons and property."
In recent years, California and other parts of the western United States have been ravaged by huge and fast-moving wildfires, driven by years of drought and a warming climate.
Gore blasts 'inaction'
Evidence of global heating could be seen elsewhere in the country, as 85 million Americans in more than a dozen states were under a weekend heat advisory.
The crisis prompted former vice president Al Gore, a tireless climate advocate, to issue stark warnings Sunday about "inaction" by US lawmakers.
Asked whether he believes US President Joe Biden should declare a climate emergency, as Biden has said he soon might, Gore was blunt.
"Mother Nature has already declared it a global emergency," he told ABC News talk show "This Week."
And "it's due to get much, much worse, and quickly," he said on NBC.
But he also suggested that recent crises, including deadly heat waves in Europe, could serve as a wake-up call for members of Congress who have so far refused to embrace efforts to combat climate change.
The worst wildfire season on record in California was in 2020, in terms of total acreage burned, with more than 4 million acres and over 10,000 homes and other structures destroyed. At least 33 lives were lost. Over 10 million acres went up in flames across several Western states.
Source: TRTWorld and agencies
