At least 17 people, including four children, have died on Monday after several bombardments by the Sudanese Army against the country's capital, Khartoum, and the city of Omdurman, attacks that have also left dozens injured.

The attack has caused “extreme panic” among civilians still in this neighborhood, where the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) are entrenched, Sky News Arabia has reported.

The current hostilities between the Army and the RSF broke out in the context of an increase in tensions around the integration of the paramilitary group within the Armed Forces, a key part of an agreement signed in December to form a new civilian government and reactivate the open transition after the 2019 overthrow of Omar Hasan al-Bashir, damaged by the October 2021 coup against the unit's prime minister, Abdallah Hamdok.

The war has left more than a thousand dead, according to the Sudanese Ministry of Health, but the real figures could be much higher considering the intercommunal violence unleashed in the regions of Kordofan and Darfur.

According to Unicef data, at least 435 children have died and another 2,000 have been injured since the start of the fighting. In addition, more than three million people have been displaced, including nearly 740,000 who have fled to neighboring countries, according to data provided by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), amid reports of daily atrocities and large-scale sexual abuse against the country's women and girls.

The next year 2024 will be held presidential elections in the United States. We know that as of today candidate Trump is more than thirty points ahead of the second Republican candidate, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Former President Trump has a peculiar way of understanding international relations and seeks instant coups with unforeseeable consequences, such as the so-called Abraham pact for the State of Israel to be recognized by some Arab countries and which, for example, led to the recognition by the United States of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara -creating a regional imbalance- a few weeks after leaving the White House.

In recent statements, Trump has claimed that Ukraine's entry into NATO “would be completely insane”, thus opening a possible gap in the unanimity of its Atlantic partners in the event that he were to become president again.. He has also stated that he would end the war in Ukraine in one day, a statement along the lines of what has already been commented and that it does not provide a viable solution to an extremely complex conflict and that it is not susceptible to voluntaristic simplification.. So is Trump.

The war has other fronts other than combat, where they fight for every meter of land and where the losses and gains of each other, dramatic in any case, are not at all determinative for the final result they hope to achieve.. In this sense, we see how the abandonment of the agreement for the export of Ukrainian grain by the Russian Federation implies an indiscriminate global rise in the prices of food and raw materials that will aggravate famine in some countries of the Sahel and the Horn of Africa, in addition to a systematic destruction of the Black Sea port facilities and Ukrainian grain silos.

This situation may be used by the Russian Federation to strengthen its relations with some of the affected countries that will supply their food deficiencies with Russian exports.. In these countries, moreover, mixed feelings will be created towards those they consider responsible for the situation and who are benefiting from the conflict.

Wars today have the character of totals, they are settled in all domains and spheres of human activity, the devastation can become complete and the alleged “surgical actions” of yesteryear have given way to widespread destruction and the denial of use of any land, sea or air space regardless of the purpose pursued, be it war, economic or even humanitarian.. It is the concept of unrestricted warfare.

We see that this conflict is focusing more and more on cities and critical infrastructures (bridges, silos, railways, port terminals…), perhaps because the results on the front are not what might be expected. It seeks to damage productive capacity as much as possible and weaken the will to resist, transferring suffering to the population as a whole. Russia seeks to provoke discouragement and frustration in countries committed to supporting Ukraine as they see the conflict drag on indefinitely without the recovery of the entire territory of Ukraine.

Contributing to all this is the information war that is being waged in all countries and in all social communication media -with special mention to the networks- which seeks to accentuate the real or invented differences and highlight any contradiction, no matter how small.. The examples of Hungary in NATO, of Austria in the EU or the reaction of Poland, Romania or Bulgaria by prohibiting the passage of Ukrainian grain through their territories are examples of the different sensitivities that governments have to face, holding positions that may seem contradictory to those of their allies. The costs of solidarity will become more burdensome with the prolongation of the conflict and only the values shared by the countries that help Ukraine will sustain support for its resistance.

When Dmitry Glukhovsky (Moscow, 1979), author of the best-seller Metro 2033, decided to write his opinion on the Russian invasion of Ukraine on his social networks more than a year ago, he did not know that his life would change after hitting the publish button.. The criticism of this successful Russian writer caused the Kremlin to decide to try him and accuse him of being a “foreign agent”.. Since then he has lived in exile in Europe and the Russian Federation has put him on its search and capture list.. Despite this, he not only continues to express his opinion on what he considers an unjust war, but has also continued his literary work. Glukhovsky is now publishing his new novel, Outpost (Minotaur) in which he reflects on the future of a bleak post-apocalyptic Russia where hate speech, extremism and authoritarianism end the world as we know it.

“As long as Putin is in power, Russian culture will not be independent”

The Ecuadorian Security Committee has agreed this Monday to declare, for 60 days, a state of emergency and a night curfew in the provinces of Manabí and Los Ríos and in the municipality of Durán.

The announcement of the new state of emergency has been made by the president of Ecuador, the conservative Guillermo Lasso, during a meeting of the Security Committee held in Durán, a municipality that is part of the metropolitan area of Guayaquil and that registers one of the highest rates of violence and insecurity in the country.

This new state of emergency, decreed due to the increase in crime and violence rates, covers the province of Manabí, where Manta is located, and the neighboring province of Los Ríos, which also borders the province of Guayas, where Guayaquil and Durán are located.

In all three jurisdictions, the curfew will be in effect from 10:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. local time.

States of exception have been recurring since the beginning of Lasso's presidential term in May 2021 to try to appease the spikes in violence from the insecurity crisis that Ecuador is going through.

The assassination of a mayor and other threats

The measure was taken one day after the mayor of Manta, Agustín Intriago, was assassinated. He was one of the most popular mayors in Ecuador and the event has shocked the Andean country and has mourned the campaign of the extraordinary general elections, where several candidates have suspended their activities as a sign of mourning.

38-year-old Intriago – who was re-elected last February – was assassinated on Sunday while on a tour of works.

So far there is one detainee for the crime, a citizen of Venezuelan nationality who is hospitalized after being injured in the attack, while the Police have also been able to recover four mobile phones that are under analysis, as well as the remains of the shots fired at the late mayor.

The case of Intriago is added to the attack last May against the mayor of Durán, Luis Chonillo, who this Monday participated in the Security Committee, and to murders that have occurred in Ecuador in recent months, including that of candidate for legislator Rider Sánchez, a few days ago in the coastal province of Esmeraldas.

In this sense, the Security Committee of Ecuador will meet again this Tuesday in Guayaquil with representatives of the Association of Municipalities of Ecuador (AME), the Consortium of Provincial Autonomous Governments of Ecuador (Congope) and the National Council of Rural Parochial Governments of Ecuador (Conagopare).

The AME plans to pronounce on the same Tuesday morning on the situation of violence and threats that some local authorities in the country are going through from delinquency and organized crime.

Ecuador closed 2022 with the highest rate of violent deaths in its history, registering 25.32 per 100,000 inhabitants, catapulted by street crime and organized crime, largely linked to drug trafficking, which has turned Ecuadorian ports into large springboards for sending cocaine to Europe and North America.

retained prison guards

Nearly one hundred prison guards are being held in five prisons that are part of the 13 prisons where inmates are on hunger strike, according to the National Comprehensive Service for Persons Deprived of Liberty (SNAI), in charge of the Andean country's prison system.

The largest number of detained agents is in the Turi prison, near the southern Andean city of Cuenca, where there are 40, followed by the Latacunga (Cotopaxi) prisons, with 25; from Machala (El Oro), with 14; from Archidona (Napo), with 12; and from Azogues (Cañar), with 5.

According to the SNAI, at the moment, the inmates on hunger strike belong to prisons in the provinces of Imbabura, Napo, Chimborazo (2), Tungurahua, Azuay, Cañar (2), El Oro, Loja, Guayas, Cotopaxi and Pichincha.

The SNAI has not yet specified the number of prisoners who are on hunger strike at the national level nor the reasons for this measure of force.

The authorities of the state of Massachusetts (USA) have found this Monday the lifeless body of the personal cook of former US President Barack Obama (2009 – 2017), inside a lake on the island of Martha's Vineyard.

Local police have found the body of Tafari Campbell, who worked for the Obamas since they were in the White House, around 10 am this Monday, according to authorities.

Campbell, 43, drowned in a lake near the Obama residence on the exclusive island of Martha's Vineyard, police have said, but neither the former president nor his family were in the area at the time of the incident.

The former president and his wife, Michelle Obama, have said in a statement that Tafari was “part of his family” and recalled that they met him when he worked in the White House kitchen.

“We got to know him as a warm, funny and extraordinarily kind person who made our lives that little bit warmer,” the couple said.

Authorities began rescue activities Sunday night after being alerted that a person who was stand-up paddle boarding was missing.

A federal court has sentenced this Monday to four years in prison Peter Stager, one of the assailants of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, who had repeatedly hit a Police officer, Blake Miller, with a flag pole while the agent was dragged down the stairs.

Judge Rudolph Contreras has sentenced the defendant to 52 months in prison despite the fact that prosecutors had requested six and a half years in jail citing Stager's “chilling motivation” and the brutality of the assault.

Stager, in court, has defended himself by indicating that he thought the agent was a member of Antifa, since he only saw the policeman's shoes, which he found “somewhat strange” because he was wearing military equipment and hiking boots, reports NBC.

That same day, the assailant appeared in a video pointing to the Capitol building saying that “everyone in there is a disgrace.”. “The whole building is full of traitors. Death is the only remedy for what is in that building,” according to the Department of Justice.

Stager's legal team has asserted that their client was “deeply sorry for his conduct,” telling the magistrate that the rehabilitative function of incarceration had already been accomplished because he had served more than two years in federal custody.

The lawyers told the magistrate, as has happened in the case of other defendants in the assault on the Capitol, that Stager experienced a traumatic childhood, according to The New York Times newspaper.

In addition, they have pointed to former President Donald Trump as guilty of assault, since the person under investigation attended a meeting of the former president on the morning of January 6: “This decision is one that Stager will regret for the rest of his life,” indicates his defense.

Since the assault on the Capitol, more than a thousand people have been arrested in almost all states for crimes related to the seizure of the headquarters of the US Congress.

The Carabinieri have arrested 82 alleged members of the Foggia mafia (Italy) on Monday in an operation in which some 500 security agents have participated.

“The Carabinieri of the Foggia provincial command (…) have executed a preventive detention order (…) against 82 people, all serious suspects in crimes of criminal association for drug trafficking, aggravated by the mafia method and purpose,” the Carabinieri Corps said in a statement.

For his part, the Italian Interior Minister, Matteo Piantedosi, congratulated the National Anti-Mafia Directorate and the Carabinieri for dealing a “hard blow” to the Foggia mafia, “one of the most dangerous and violent”.

“This is a strong response from the State that once again confirms its extraordinary commitment by the investigative bodies to effectively counteract this criminal network that seeks to impose itself through illicit trafficking and extortion (…). The fight against the mafias is and will always be the priority of our Government,” the minister said in a statement.

The operation has been carried out mainly in the province of Capitanata, but also in other regions of the country, against alleged senior officials, members and collaborators of the organization in which some 500 Carabinieri have participated, Piantedosi reported.

An earthquake of magnitude 5.5 has shaken the waters of southern Indonesia and eastern East Timor on Tuesday, without the authorities having reported casualties or material damage for the moment.

The epicenter was located 54 kilometers east of the Timorese town of Pante Makassar, with about 12,000 inhabitants, and at a depth of 88.6 kilometers under the seabed, reports the United States Geological Survey, which measures seismic activity worldwide.

For its part, the Indonesian geological service has raised the magnitude of the telluric movement to 6 and indicated that there is no risk of a tsunami.

The island of Timor is located within the so-called “Pacific Ring of Fire”, an area where most of the earthquakes recorded on the planet occur, most of them of low magnitude.

The Honduran Public Ministry announced on Monday the opening of an ex officio investigation into the death and possible rape in a home of a 12-month-old girl who was in state custody.

A multidisciplinary team made up of agents from the Special Prosecutor for the Protection of Children and Adolescents, the Special Prosecutor for Crimes Against Life and the Technical Criminal Investigation Agency is carrying out “ex officio investigations” to clarify the causes of death, the Public Ministry said in a statement.

The girl died last Friday allegedly due to malnutrition at the Mario Catarino Rivas Hospital in San Pedro Sula, the second largest city in Honduras, where pediatricians detected that the minor was allegedly raped, an end that the Public Ministry is investigating.

One of the girl's relatives told reporters on Saturday that the minor had been in the custody of the Directorate for Children, Adolescents and Family (Dinaf) for three months, allegedly due to severe malnutrition.

Dinaf, according to the Public Ministry, “dealt with the institutionalization of the little girl in a center created to care for minors with obvious malnutrition pictures so that, with timely care, she could recover from a supposed acute malnutrition picture.”

The investigation in progress

The multidisciplinary team confiscated the girl's clinical file at the state hospital, took a statement from her parents, medical personnel and Dinaf, among others, he added.

Atic prosecutors and investigators visited the home where the minor was located over the weekend and are awaiting the results of the legal medical autopsy to determine the cause of death.

The Public Ministry indicated that the result of the autopsy will be “fundamental” to confirm whether the girl suffered sexual abuse and recalled that “any precise detail on the matter must be of the exclusive knowledge of the authorities of the justice system for purposes of investigation and deduction of criminal responsibilities to those who correspond”.

the official version

The director of Dinaf, Lizeth Coello, said that, according to the preliminary report, the girl died of “generalized sepsis.”

“The girl, despite the care, developed severe pneumonia, for which she was taken to the emergency room and again admitted to the Mario Catarino Rivas Hospital in a septic state on July 15,” Coello said at a press conference.

Between 2021 and 2022, Honduras registered around 3,112 complaints of child sexual abuse of minors between the ages of 8 and 15, and most of them remain unpunished, according to official figures.