Palestinians in Gaza are incurred with crippling financial costs as a result of complying with Israel’s displacement orders, if that weren’t bad enough. Moath Al-Kahlout from Al Jazeera distills it down.
The village of Tarasin was “completely levelled to the ground”, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A), the rebel group that controls the area, said as it appealed to the United Nations and international aid groups for help to recover the bodies on Tuesday.
The tragedy happened on Sunday in the village, located in Central Darfur’s Marrah Mountains, after days of heavy rainfall.
“Initial information indicates the death of all village residents, estimated to be more than 1, 000 people”, the rebel group said in a statement. “Only one person survived”, it added.
The ruling Sovereign Council in Khartoum said it mourned “the death of hundreds of innocent residents” in the Marrah Mountains landslide. In a statement, it said “all possible capabilities” have been mobilised to support the area.
Luca Renda, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Sudan, said he was “deeply saddened” by the reported landslide, adding that the UN and its partners were mobilising to support affected communities at the scene.
A local emergency network, which has been providing support to communities across Sudan during the war, said its teams recovered the bodies of at least nine people on Tuesday. Search teams were facing challenges to reach the area because of bad weather and a lack of resources, it added.
Mohamed Abdel-Rahman al-Nair, a SLM/A spokesman, told The Associated Press news agency that the village where the landslide took place is remote and accessible only by foot or donkeys.
Tarasin is located in the central Marrah Mountains, a volcanic area with a height of more than 3, 000 metres (9, 840 feet) at its summit. A World Heritage Site, the mountain chain is known for its lower temperatures and higher rainfall than surrounding areas, according to UNICEF. It is located more than 900 kilometres (560 miles) west of the capital, Khartoum.
Sunday’s landslide was one of the deadliest natural disasters in Sudan’s recent history. Hundreds of people die every year in seasonal rains that run from July to October. Last year’s heavy rainfall caused the collapse of a dam in the eastern Red Sea State, killing at least 30 people, according to the UN.
News of the disaster came as Sudan’s continuing war – now in its third year – plunges the country further into one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with famine already declared in parts of Darfur.
People fleeing clashes between the government-aligned Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in North Darfur state had sought shelter in the Marra Mountains, and food and medication were in short supply, the Reuters news agency reported.
The UN and aid organizations have largely abandoned access to much of the area, with Doctors Without Borders (known by its French acronym MSF) branding it as a “black hole” in Sudan’s humanitarian response.
On Tuesday, the International Organization for Migration demanded that the area’s support be expanded and for safe access.
The SLM/A factions have pledged to fight the RSF in parallel.
Since the army seized Khartoum from the RSF in March, fighting has gotten worse, especially in El-Fasher.
The paramilitary force is attempting to occupy El-Fasher, the last significant population center held by the army in the Darfur region, for more than a year while the strategic city has been under RSF’s control for more than a year.
For the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit, which ended on Monday, more than 20 non-Western leaders from non-Western countries gathered in Tianjin, China, to discuss a global economic order with the Global South at its heart.
Xi told delegates: “We must continue to take a clear stand against hegemonism and power politics, and practice true multilateralism in the face of new global tariffs that have been imposed by US President Donald Trump.
India and Russia, two of the world’s top emerging economies, together account for more than one-fifth of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP), along with China.
According to the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC), trilateral trade between China, India, and Russia totaled $452 billion in 2023, up from $351 billion in 2022.
The 10-member SCO, which is seen as an alternative to the majority of US-led international institutions, covers much of Central Asia, Russia, China, India, Iran, Pakistan, and Belarus and accounts for about 43 percent of the world’s population and 23 percent of the global GDP.
Beijing’s push for multilateralism comes as Washington’s trade tariff policies have given SCO members a place to work together amid growing grievances.
China’s trading partners are varied.
The US, which imported $442 billion, or 12.9 percent of China’s total exports in 2023, mostly made up of electronics, machinery, consumer goods, and telecommunications equipment, is its main buyer.
Asia is the main hub for China’s exports, handling $1.6 trillion worth of goods, with India alone receiving $ 120 billion, or 3.1 percent of its total exports.
China exported $ 89.3 billion worth of goods to Europe, with Germany ($151 billion), Russia ($110 billion), and the UK ($95.33 billion).
The US also purchases Indian goods in large numbers.
The US purchased items worth $ 81.4 billion in 2023, or 17.9 percent of India’s total exports, followed by precious stones, machinery, and textiles, before moving on to other products.
Asia is India’s primary export market, accounting for $ 178 billion in goods, with the UAE being its second-largest export market, with $ 31.4 billion, or 6.9% of total exports, mainly jewelry and refined petroleum, accounting for $ 69 billion.
With $ 22. 5 billion in exported oil, India’s third-largest export market is $ 15 billion, with refined petroleum being the largest exporter. India’s export market is second-largest in Asia and fourth-largest there.
US President Donald Trump formally imposed a 50% tariff on Indian imports on August 6, citing in part India’s continued purchase of discounted Russian crude oil.
India responded with a strong nod, calling the tariffs “unjustified, and unreasonable,” and reaffirming its independent authority to decide its energy policies. Despite the pressure from the US, India continued to import Russian oil, which was sparked by Moscow’s significant discounts.
Russia’s trading partners were significantly more diverse before the conflict in Ukraine.
Russia had a wide range of European partners, including China, which accounted for 14.6 percent ($72. 1 billion) of its exports in 2021). Russia’s second-largest exporter was the Netherlands, accounting for 8% of its total exports, followed by the US, which accounts for 5.5% ($27.3%).
Heavy sanctions severely slowed trade with many Western nations after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
China accounted for about one-third of Russia’s exports by 2023, with India accounting for 16.8% ($66.1 billion) and Turkiye at 7.9% ($31 billion), making the Asia-Pacific region the main exporter of Russian goods, with more than three-quarters of that amount going there.
Machinery and transportation equipment were the main exports China made to Russia in 2023, totaling $110 billion in goods. Cars are the top exporters from China to Russia, according to the OEC.
Russia also sold $ 29 billion worth of goods to China that year, primarily mineral products, including oil and natural gas.
Russia has recently enjoyed a trade surplus with China, primarily as a result of its energy-related exports, which account for nearly three-quarters of the country’s exports.
Russia and India have a significant trade deficit, with much of it coming in from India.
About 88 percent of these imports, the majority of which India purchases at a discount, came from Russia, which sold $66.1 billion worth of goods to India in 2023. Energy products, primarily crude oil and natural gas, account for about 88 percent of these imports.
India’s exports to Russia are more diverse, reaching $4.1 billion in 2023, with significant contributions coming from metal, machinery, and chemical products.
India and China have a significant trade deficit, importing roughly seven times as many goods as it exports.
India exported $ 18.1 billion worth of goods to China in 2023, with oil and fuel-related products accounting for the majority of its exports, while China exported $ 125 billion worth of goods, primarily machinery and chemical products.
Last year, inspectors visited and took environmental samples at “three locations that were allegedly functionally related” to the remote desert site Deir el-Zour, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) spokesman Fredrik Dahl said in a statement on Tuesday.
“Analysis revealed a significant number of anthropogenic natural uranium particles in samples taken at one of the three locations. Some of these uranium particles are consistent with the conversion of uranium ore concentrate to uranium oxide”, said Dahl. This would be typical of a nuclear power reactor.
IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi reported these findings to the agency’s board of directors on Monday in a report on developments in Syria.
The report also stated that “the current Syrian authorities indicated that they had no information that might explain the presence of such uranium particles”.
The IAEA urged Syria on Tuesday to cooperate fully over allegations that it had been building a covert nuclear reactor at Deir Az Zor.
Syria has repeatedly denied these allegations.
The Deir Az Zor site only became public knowledge after Israel – which is the Middle East’s only state with nuclear weapons, although it has not declared its own programme – launched air strikes in 2007, destroying the facility. Syria later levelled the site and never responded fully to the IAEA’s questions.
An IAEA team visited some sites of interest last year while al-Assad was still in power. After al-Assad’s fall last December in a rebel offensive on the capital Damascus, the new government led by interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa agreed to cooperate with the agency and again provided inspectors access to the site where the uranium particles had been found.
They took more samples there and “will evaluate the results of all of the environmental samples taken at this location and the information acquired from the planned visit to the site, and may conduct follow-up activities, as necessary”, Dahl said on Tuesday.
In an interview with The Associated Press news agency in June during a visit to Damascus, Grossi said al-Sharaa had expressed an interest in pursuing nuclear energy for Syria in the future. The IAEA said Syria granted its inspectors access to the location for a second time to gather more samples.
A number of other countries in the region are pursuing nuclear energy in some form. Grossi said Syria would most likely be looking into small modular reactors, which are cheaper and easier to deploy than traditional large ones.
The United Nations has warned of an exponential rise in casualties from a powerful earthquake in eastern Afghanistan, as the Taliban said the death toll had surpassed 1, 400 on Tuesday, with more than 3, 000 people injured.
The figures provided by Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid were mainly for the province of Kunar.
Sunday night’s magnitude 6 earthquake affected several provinces, causing extensive damage. It flattened villages and trapped people under the rubble of homes constructed mainly of mud bricks and wood, which were unable to withstand the shock.
Rough terrain is hampering rescue and relief efforts, forcing Taliban authorities to airdrop dozens of commandos to evacuate the injured from places where helicopters cannot land.
A magnitude 5.2 aftershock, close to the epicentre of Sunday’s earthquake, rattled the area on Tuesday, according to the United States Geological Survey. There were no immediate reports of damage.
Indrika Ratwatte, the United Nations resident coordinator for Afghanistan, said rescuers are scrambling in a “race against time” to reach the mountainous and remote area. In a media briefing in Geneva on Tuesday, he warned of a surge in casualty numbers.
“We cannot afford to forget the people of Afghanistan who are facing multiple crises, multiple shocks, and the resilience of the communities has been saturated”, Ratwatte said, urging the international community to step forward.
“These are life-and-death decisions while we race against time to reach people”, he said.
It is the third strong earthquake since the Taliban seized power in 2021, and the latest crisis to beset Afghanistan, which is reeling from deep cuts to aid funding, a weak economy, and millions of Afghans forcibly returned from Iran and Pakistan.
Four-times Tour de France champion Chris Froome sustained a life-threatening injury to his heart in a training crash in southern France last week, his wife Michelle said.
The 40-year-old Briton was airlifted to hospital in Toulon after the August 27 crash, which also left him with broken ribs, a collapsed lung and a back fracture.
His wife said doctors discovered Froome had suffered a pericardial rupture – a tear in the protective sac surrounding the heart, often caused by blunt chest trauma.
“It was obviously a lot more serious than some broken bones,” she told The Times newspaper. “He’s fine, but it’s going to be a long recovery process. He won’t be riding a bike for a while.”
Froome, who has won seven Grand Tours – including two Vuelta a Espana titles and one Giro d’Italia victory – has struggled to regain his best form following a high-speed crash during training for the Criterium du Dauphine in 2019.
Last year, he expressed his desire to compete in the Tour de France one final time before retiring, but has faced further setbacks. He suffered a broken collarbone in a crash during the final stage of the UAE Tour earlier this year and was not selected for this year’s Tour de France.