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Fighting is raging once again in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, where a power struggle between rival factions has claimed the lives of hundreds of people. Around 185 people have been killed and more than 1,800 injured in the wake of an attempted coup.

A US diplomatic convoy came under fire yesterday and the EUs ambassador in Sudan, Aidan OHara, was reportedly assaulted at his home.Journalists have been detained and beaten up by soldiers for breaking newly-imposed curfews.Across Sudan, international agencies, non-governmentalorganisationsand charities are scrambling for a solution to prevent further bloodshed.

Militaryaircrafthave flown low over urban centres and engaged targets on the ground. Residents in Khartoum areterrifiedof the eruption of what feels like a war within what is normally a peaceful city. Gunfire has beenheardon state TV,presumably takingplace within the building.

The fighting continues, withvery littlesense at leastoutsidethe country what is going on and who iswinning

A contestappears to beshaping up between the countrys regular army which is effectively a military junta and a paramilitary force called the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), whose leader, General Mohamed HamdanDagalo, was supposed to be a figure in the current military regime: a council of officers, led by the army chief,Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.But the council, it seems, has been dissolved.

This feels a little like a traditional military coup, where the aims areto capture state TV, the national leaders residence, and so on. It has, however, hit a few snags.

The RSF announced even crowed about its capture ofEgyptiansoldiers, who were arrested and photographed blindfolded and in custody in Merowe, between Khartoum and the Egyptian border. The RSF has said it will return the troops, but already the damage is done: Egypt has a large military and a strongman leader; it wont be happy that some of its visiting personnel were detained.Whether Cairo will seek revenge remains unclear.

Meanwhile, the fighting continues, withvery littlesense at leastoutsidethe country what is going on and who iswinning.

The military council on which both Mohamed HamdanDagaloand Abdel Fattah al-Burhan sithad held power since a military coup in 2021. This regime had overturned a provisional government that formed after protests in 2018-19 brought down the countrys long-time dictator Omar al-Bashir.

At that time, the protestors were jubilant. Their revolution had been peaceful and significantly for both the region and the international media covering the story led by women. At least initially, the army and its various groups seemed pleased Bashir was gone. They said they would respect the will of the people.

They promised a swift transition from temporary council rule to a full democracy. A document was drawn up in 2019, a draft constitution, thatseemed to pointa way forward.Activistshoped the country could become a democracy, or at least increase the political rights of the people, whose representation in power has in living memory been limited. This is a country whichhas been defined for decades by civil conflict including with South Sudan, which is now independent and allegations of genocide in Darfur.

The Bashir government was a pariah internationally. Many hoped that, with his removal, better things and better governments were possible. They hoped that Bashir could be handed over for international trial for allegations relating to the war in Darfur, and that Sudan couldbenefitfrom the aid and trade that tends to flow to countries who oust their dictators if they can stabilise things.Sadly,it did not work out quite like that.

This has been a period of military coups in Africa. We have recently seen multiple coups in Mali and in Burkina Faso, in Guinea Bissau and the Republic of Guinea. Sudan is only the latest ina long list.Part of the reason for this wave of coups is to do with the pandemic: economic crises, exacerbated by Covid, madeunpopular leaders even less popularand tempted generals to chance their arm. Many uprisings involve outside actors: Russia is oftenallegedto be behind coups and coup attempts, with the intention of creating a new alliance of military regimes dependent on Moscow and prepared to do Moscows bidding.

Thingsremainmuddy in Sudan. Wedontyet know what will happen, or why it has happened at all.But onethingssure: this is the precise opposite of what millions of Sudanese wanted when they took to the streets for democracy less than five years ago.

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Sudan's dreams of democracy appear to be over - The Spectator

While covering the Olympics opening ceremony for NBC in 2012, journalist Bob Costas 74, H15 noted a tragic anniversary: During the 1972 Olympics in Munich, a Palestinian militant organization killed 11 Israeli athletes and coaches.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) had declined a request to hold a moment of silence during the 2012 events to remember the late Israelis. As the athletes marched in, Costas told viewers that IOC President Jacques Rogge had led a moment of silence earlier in the week, before an audience of about 100 people at the athletes village.

Still, for many, tonight with the world watching is the true time and place to remember those who were lost and how and why they died, Costas said. After a brief pause, NBC cut to a commercial.

Talev (left), director of the Institute for Democracy, Journalism and Citizenship, helped moderate and participated in a panel discussion, The Intersection of Entertainment and Democracy: Are We the Problem or the Solution?

Costas shared the anecdote during a recent panel discussion held at Warner Brothers Studios in Burbank, California, celebrating the launch of the Syracuse University Institute for Democracy, Journalism and Citizenship. Costas, who attended the S.I.Newhouse School of Public Communications before launching his storied career and was awarded an honorary degree in 2015, was among the special guests who took part in the discussion, titled, The Intersection of Entertainment and Democracy: Are We the Problem or the Solution?

The event was held in the Los Angeles area, where the University boasts a thriving alumni population and academic programming, including Newhouse LA. While it will be based roughly 2,700 miles awayin Washington, D.C.the institute will address issues of pressing national relevance such as threats to the media and democracy, and the fight against disinformation. Announced in the summer of 2022, it is a partnership of Newhouse and the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.

With the launch of the new institute and with the combined strength of the Maxwell and Newhouse schools, the University will play a vital role in leading dialogs that bring people together, helping to bridge the differences and divide seen and experienced in our country today, Newhouse Dean Mark J. Lodato told the panel audience of mostly alumni and friends of the University. And while the institute will be based in Washington, D.C., I hope you can see that its work and impact will have a national, broad reach involving faculty and students and research and teaching, convenings like this and experiential learning opportunities.

In addition to Costas, panelists included another alumDanielle Nottingham 99, co-host of NBCs California Live; CNN correspondent David Culver; and, from the University, Lodato, Margaret Talev and David M. Van Slyke. Talev is the institutes recently named Kramer Director, while Van Slyke is dean of the Maxwell School.

From left to right: Lodato, Talev, Costas, Nottingham, Culver, Jones and Van Slyke

Author, lawyer and CNN host Van Jones provided opening remarks focused on the virtues of listening, engaging others who have different perspectives and finding common ground.

The conversation explored the topics that give rise to the need for the institutepolitical polarization, mistrust in institutions including the media, and the role of entertainment news, disinformation and higher education.

Costas, who has been honored with 28 Emmy Awards, called 12 Olympics and covered multiple World Series, Super Bowls and NBA finals, explored the intersection of sports reporting and current events. In addition to his experience with the 2012 Olympics, he shared more recent occasions when he has taken time during his sports broadcasts to discuss current events and what some might view as thorny issues.

For instance, during a playoff game this past fall, he spent nearly a minute talking about the rationale behind the Cleveland Guardians name change from the Indians. And, during Sunday Night Football, Costas has spoken about the prevalence of brain trauma to athletes.

Of the latter, he said, When I used that two minutes a handful of times to talk about the fact that football is as directly connected to brain trauma as smoking is to lung cancer, that got me on the wrong side of a lot of people: The NFL, my own network and people that just dont want to hear it because they love football, you know?

Costas said that while people turn to sports for entertainmentto get awayit can also be the best place to make a good point to the largest possible audience if you do it concisely and at the right time.

Jones (left) and Costas

Talev, a veteran journalist who served as managing editor for politics at Axios and was a CNN political analyst before joining the University this past summer, talked about the erosion of trust in institutions such as the military, the supreme court and higher education. Adding to that, she said, Technology is giving us more opportunities to choose your own adventure and tune out the stuff you dont want to hear.

She asked Van Slyke to reflect on how that has impacted teaching at the University.

Van Slyke described a game he plays with students at the start of a semester: He asks them at first what they read in the morninga question that often draws furrowed brows since most admittedly are reading their cell phones. Then he asks innocuous questions such as, how many are first-generation students, how many are from military families, how many are Yankees fans.

When you go through this a little bit, all of a sudden you start to see people looking at one another, because what youve taken away is party identification, he said. In the absence of that, its easier to find common ground, to have discourse.

Van Slyke shared that he and colleagues are challenged by the notion of evidence, given the current polarized climate in which people cite the sources that share in their beliefs, often at the expense of factual, credible information.

Weve lost any confidence in what evidence actually means, he said, adding that he challenges students to consider things such as: What are the facts? How did you collect the facts? Where did the facts come from? What did the data look like?

During the hourlong conversation, panelists also talked about how to reach Gen Zthose born from the mid-1990s to the early 2010s. Nottingham shared how she felt compelled to join social media channels like Instagram, where she didnt at first feel comfortable, to better connect with the demographic.

I think that when we talk about dialog and how we move forward, and all these things, we have to look to the younger generations, said Nottingham, a graduate of the College of Visual and Performing Arts. They dont see the world the way we see the world.

Van Slyke later told Nottingham that while she may have joined with some trepidation, the good news is other people are going to find you and theyre going to tag that with some legitimacy.

He added that New York Gov. Kathy Hochul 80a Maxwell alumnarecently shared a $1 billion plan to overhaul the states continuum of mental health care. He said he was pleased to see students take to Instagram on the issue, some sharing 40-year-old stories about the former network of institutions where the mentally ill were housed and often mistreated.

The process is very different for them getting the information, he added.

As the event came to a close, Costas noted the contrast in how NBC supported fellow Syracuse alumnus Mike Tirico 88 to cover the 2022 Olympics, a decade after him. Tiricoa graduate of the Maxwell School and the College of Arts and Sciences as well as Newhouseinfused his reports with well-researched background and guest experts who spoke about the intense global scrutiny to the host country, largely for the mistreatment of ethnic minorities.

You know, they laid it out. They did something credibly, he said. They did it at the beginning. And then they got out of the way for the most part and let the competition play out. They did a very journalistically responsible thing.

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All Star Broadcasting Panel Addresses the Intersection of ... - Syracuse University News

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By Mark Moore

April 18, 2023 | 11:00am

Former Rep. Liz Cheneys upcoming tell-all is being described by her publisher as a warning about the threat to American democracy posed by former President Donald Trump and his allies.

Little, Brown and Company callsthe book by Cheney, one of two Republicans on the House select committee that investigated Trumps actions in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot a gripping first-hand account from inside the hall of Congress by the House Republican leader who dared to stand up to it.

Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, lost her Wyoming congressional seat last August after her role on the committee drew the ire of Trump and he backed a primary challenger against her.

The last two years have shown us once again that our constitutional republic is not self-sustaining, Cheney said in a statement to Axios.

It survives only because of the courage and honor of individual Americans. When history looks back on this time, each elected official will have to answer the questions: Did we do our duty? Were we faithful to our oath of office? added Cheney, who calls herself a constitutional conservative.

The book, Oath and Honor. A Memoir and a Warning, will hit bookshelves Nov. 14, ahead of a potential 2024 presidential run.

The publisher told Axios Cheneys tome will take readers inside the rooms where congressional leaders grappled with the threat posed by Trumps efforts to overturn the election.She will detail lessons learned stories of leadership, of cowardice, and of courage.

Cheney will explain why she decided to stand almost alone against her party; why she risked her career, her seat, and her position in leadership to do what she knew was right.

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Former Rep. Liz Cheney to publish book 'warning' of Trump 'threat' - New York Post

A group of rich Americans marked Tax Day on Tuesday by calling on the U.S. Congress to aggressively tax wealthy people like themselves, warning that the U.S. will remain in a state of "perpetual chaos" until lawmakers boldly confront the worsening inequality crisis.

"Tax Day isn't just a filing deadlineit's also an annual reminder that the ultra-rich exist in an entirely separate world when it comes to taxes," said Morris Pearl, chair of the Patriotic Millionaires, an advocacy group that supports progressive taxation.

"For us, the loopholes are bigger, the rates are lower, and many rules are entirely optional," Pearl, a former managing director at BlackRock, continued. "The tax code has been contributing to growing inequality for decades, and we're reaching a point where the concentration of wealth is simply unsustainable. We need a change, or our economy and our democracy will not survive. For my future, my grandchildrens future, and our countrys future, we need to tax the rich."

Ahead of a Tuesday morning event on Capitol Hill, which will feature Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and other progressive lawmakers, Patriotic Millionaires released a tax reform agenda that calls for, among other changes, a 90% top marginal tax rate for people with annual incomes above $100 million and a federal tax exemption for people who earn less than a "cost-of-living wage."

The group also proposed legislation titled the Oppose Limitless Inequality Growth And Restore Civil Harmony (OLIGARCH) Act, which would create a progressive wealth tax structure aimed at countering the vast concentration of fortunes at the very top.

Patriotic Millionaires explained that the bill would establish "wealth tax bracket thresholds based on multiples of median American household wealth."

"The bracket thresholds are set at 1,000, 10,000, 100,000, and 1,000,000 times median household wealth, with marginal rates at 2, 4, 6, and 8 percent respectively," the group said. "It will wax and wane with wealth concentration, intensifying during periods of extreme inequality when wealth at the top is increasing faster than wealth in the middle, and tapering off to near non-existence when median household wealth increases and inequality moderates."

Watch the group's Capitol Hill press conference, which is scheduled to begin at 10:30 am ET:

Erica Payne, founder and president of Patriotic Millionaires, said in a statement Tuesday that the heavily skewed U.S. tax code contains "the seeds of our destruction."

A massive trove of Internal Revenue Service documents obtained by ProPublica last year showed that the 25 richest Americansincluding Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Tesla CEO Elon Muskpaid an average true tax rate of just 3.4% between 2014 and 2018 in large part because unrealized capital gains from stock appreciation are not taxed.

Patriotic Millionaires on Tuesday called for a Billionaire Minimum Income Tax that would "impose a minimum tax on a wealthy household's true economic income, including unrealized capital gains, thereby eliminating the incentive for billionaires to hoard assets and avoid selling, and instead live on low-interest personal loans."

"Elites over decades have broken the social contract," said Payne. "The only way to restore stability to this nation, the only way to fix this country, is to tax this country appropriately. That includes 90% tax rates on centi-millionaires and an aggressive wealth tax designed to make billionaires less rich."

According to an Oxfam America analysis published last week, U.S. billionaires have gotten 86% richer over the past decade, with $37 of every $100 of wealth created between 2012 and 2021 going to the top 1%. The bottom 50% only received $2 for every $100 of wealth generated during that period, according to Oxfam.

"Tax Day is a reminder that the tax system isn't working for ordinary Americans. It's built to favor the richest in our society," said Nabil Ahmed, Oxfam Americas Director of Economic Justice. "The ultrawealthy are sitting on mountains of wealth that remain largely untouched by taxes, and their wild riches are in no small part a result of intentional public policy."

"We need to implement strategic wealth taxes if we want to stand any chance at reining in this kind of Gilded-Era wealth inequality that allows the super-rich to have a stranglehold over our economy," Ahmed added.

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Group of Wealthy Americans Warns US Democracy 'Will Not Survive ... - Common Dreams

LONDON: With at least 185 people killed during clashes between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces in recent days, the dreams of shift from military rule to civilian-led democracy have turned to dust, revealing that the transition planwas likely doomed from the start.

It is a far cry from the events of 2019, when the very forces now fighting one another worked together to oust the countrys autocratic ruler, Omar Al-Bashir. Analysts at that time described Sudans nascent transition to civilian-led democracy as a glimmer of hope.

Most people are ignoring the ways in which the constitutional declaration of August 2019 set in place an unsustainable tension between the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces, both of which were recognized as official armed forces of Sudan, Eric Reeves, an academic with more than 25 years of experience researching the country, told Arab News.

Now at loggerheads, Gen. Fattah Al-Burhan, head of the Armed Forces, leads the countrys transitional governing Sovereign Council, while his former deputy, Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, commonly known as Hemedti, leads the RSF.

The problem with this is you cant have two armies and two competing generals in one desperate country and expect this (peaceful transition), especially with so many unhappy civilians who experienced catastrophic decline in the economy, who are suffering from a great deal of malnutrition and unemployment, and the list goes on, said Reeves.

SUDAN UNREST:The Key Dates

April 11, 2019 Military coup ousts dictator Omar Al-Bashir following lengthy popular uprising.

Aug. 17, 2019 Ruling military council and civilian opposition alliance sign constitutional deal.

Oct. 3, 2020 Juba Peace Agreement signed between transitional government and alliance of armed groups.

Feb. 8, 2021 Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok announces new cabinet, including seven former rebel chiefs.

Oct. 25, 2021 Gen. Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan dissolves government, arrests Hamdok and seizes power.

Nov. 21, 2021 After months of pro-democracy mass rallies, Hamdok is reinstated but resigns within two months.

Oct. 25, 2022; Thousands take to the streets demanding civilian government.

Dec. 5, 2022 Political framework agreement signed by civilian leaders and military to launch two-year political transition.

April 15, 2023 Fighting breaks out between Al-Burhans forces and Rapid Support Forces led by Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.

You have as the head of state the heads of the two military operating organizations sanctioned by the Constitutional Declaration. Sooner or later, this was going to happen.

The fighting in Sudan has aggravated an already dire humanitarian situation in the country. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, about 15.8 million Sudanese are in need of humanitarian aid 10 million more than in 2017.

However, aid distribution has been disrupted in recent days after three World Food Programme employees were killed during the fighting, which caused the UN-backed body to halt operations, further exacerbating the effects of the severe malnutrition wreaking havoc on the country.

Were not talking about good and evil here, were talking about bad and worse, said Reeves. As long as there is rivalry between the two men, that rivalry will be at the expense of any chance of the Sudanese moving toward civilian governance or recovery from catastrophic economic collapse.

After Al-Bashir was toppled in 2019, an October 2021 military coup dismantled all civilian institutions and overturned a power-sharing agreement that had been put in place. After a massive public outcry, military and civilian actors signed a framework agreement in December 2022 with a view to returning to the path toward civilian-led democracy.

However, a power struggle between the two main military actors in Sudan continued despite the framework agreement, which had stipulated that the RSF would be integrated into the Sudanese Armed Forces.

Al-Burhans Armed Forces had called for the integration to be completed over a period of two years, while Hemedtis RSF was adamant it should take place over 10 years.

The transitional process had been moving slowly (even) before the outbreak of the clashes, Zouhir Shimale, head of research at Valent Projects, a media tech startup that specializes in addressing online manipulation, told Arab News.

Many people thought that agreement was going to be signed and end in a political struggle after the October 2021 coup, especially because both military actors showed relative collaboration.

Besides the military merger, civilians involved in the transition process also demanded the transfer of several key, and profitable, military holdings in agriculture and commerce to civilian control. These holdings represent a significant source of power and profit for the army. Reeves is therefore skeptical that any such transfer will take place.

There will be no civilian governance as long as Al-Burhan and Hemedti are fighting it out, he said. And there will be no transition to civilian governance if either were to prevail, unless they were so weakened that civilians were in position to exert more power than they are now. But theyre helpless. Theres nothing civilians can do at present.

Tensions intensified on Monday when the US embassy in Khartoum said the RSF had targeted one of its diplomatic convoys. This prompted Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, to call both Hemedti and Al-Burhan and appeal for a ceasefire to which both agreed.

Experts are confident the fighting will not escalate into a full-blown civil war, given that the Sudanese Armed Forces enjoy air superiority a crucial and strategic advantage over the RSF.

I have watched how the RSF has developed as a military force. It does not have an air force. It does not have any significant supply of heavy armor, said Reeves. It is not a militia force that is highly motivated, except by greed. They have no interest in civilian governance.

This section contains relevant reference points, placed in (Opinion field)

Shimale agrees with Reeves view that the RSF is unlikely to have the drive or resources to mount a lasting campaign in an attempt to seize power.

The Sudanese Armed Forces have the upper hand in this struggle and will successfully trump the RSF forces, although it might take some time, said Shimale.

I think that while the fighting will probably end in the capital it will move geographically to the south, where protracted fighting will continue for a while, namely in Darfur, where Hemidtis main support base and his paramilitary HQ are located.

The international community has been keeping a close watch on the situation, with Saudi Arabias Minister of Foreign Affairs Prince Faisal bin Farhan speaking to both generals and calling for an end to hostilities.

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Why Sudan's transition from military rule to civilian-led democracy ... - Arab News