KHARTOUM (Reuters) -- Tens of thousands of protesters marched towards Sudan’s presidential palace in Khartoum on Tuesday for demonstrations on the first anniversary of a coup that halted the transition towards democracy. Internet services were blocked, according to monitoring group Netblocks. Protesters burnt tires on main roads, chanting “power belongs to the people, the military belongs in the barracks”, Reuters reporters said. Protesters marching from southern Khartoum towards the palace and from central Omdurman towards the bridge connecting the city to the capital were faced with heavy tear gas from security forces, the reporters said. The military takeover halted Sudan’s transition to democracy following the overthrow of Omar al-Bashir in 2019, and plunged an economy already in crisis further into turmoil. Foreign donors quickly suspended relations and the currency tumbled, and the government hiked taxes spurring numerous strikes. A year on, Sudan’s military leaders have not appointed a prime minister, while those loyal to Bashir who were purged from the civil service have returned. Bashir is in jail pending trial on charges he denies related to the coup that brought him to power in 1989 and the early 2000s war in Darfur.

 

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SYDNEY (Reuters) -- Australia on Tuesday pledged increased defense spending and efforts to firm up diplomatic ties with neighboring Southeast Asian and Pacific nations as it seeks to counter China’s growing economic and strategic influence in the region. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s first budget since his centre-left Labor government was elected in May lifts funding for defense by 8% in the fiscal year ending June 2023 and to more than 2% of gross domestic product through to mid-2026. Additionally, the government included a previously announced A$1.4 billion in overseas assistance, which features A$900 million for Pacific island nations and A$470 million for Southeast Asia. Amid worsening relations with Beijing, Canberra and Washington have partnered in two multilateral blocs to counter China’s influence: a group known as “the Quad”, which includes Japan and India, and AUKUS, which includes the UK.

 

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DAKAR (AFP) -- Senegal’s President Macky Sall, who heads the African Union, deplored the “lack of coherence” from the world’s governing bodies and called for a reform of the system. Sall hit out at the failings of the UN Security Council and the G20 group of major economies as he listed the problems facing Africa, from extremism, climate change and health crises to the impact of war in Ukraine and a spate of coups. “You have to admit that the picture is not pretty,” Sall told the opening of the Dakar International Forum on Peace and Security. “Terrorism which is gaining ground on the continent is not only an African affair, it’s a global threat,” he told the annual forum branded “Africa in the face of external shocks: stability and sovereignty challenges.” Sall said multilateralism had to “serve the interests of all” or else face the “loss of legitimacy and authority.”  “The inertia of the Security Council in the fight against terrorism in Africa carries with it the breakdown of the multilateral system,” the AU chairman warned.  

 

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PORT MORESB (AFP) -- Thirty people have been killed and several more have been injured in a wave of intercommunal violence on Papua New Guinea’s remote Trobriand Islands, police said Tuesday. The long-simmering dispute between two local football teams on sparsely policed Kiriwina Island first flared earlier this year in the wake of the country’s general election, Provincial Police Commander Peter Barkie told AFP. When residents of three villages stormed a government office Monday, police and “even church elders could not contain the fight and we recorded 30 deaths and several many injured”, he said. The Trobriand Islands are a group of low-lying atolls in the South Pacific, known for their ornate coral gardens that produce bananas, yams and taro. In recent years, they have struggled with a growing population and changing climate, which has made harvests more difficult. 

 

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KAMPALA (Reuters) -- At least eleven students died and six others were in critical condition after a fire in a school for the blind in central Uganda, police said on Tuesday.  The fire broke out around 1 a.m. at the Salaama School for the Blind in Mukono, about 30 km east of the capital Kampala, and the cause is so far unknown, police said in a statement. Deadly school blazes, which often tear through dormitories, are relatively common in Uganda and often blamed on faulty wiring, although authorities say some have been started deliberately.

 

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YANGON (Reuters) -- Myanmar’s military has defended air strikes on a concert organised by an ethnic minority force as a justified response to attacks in the area, after opponents accused the junta of targeting civilians and conducting war crimes. The air strikes late on Sunday in Kachin State in the north killed at least 50 civilians, including singers and officers of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), media reported, citing witnesses who said three planes carried out the attack. The military said its forces were responding to ambushes and other attacks by the KIA and armed groups on its forces and that it met international rules of engagement. The KIA has been fighting on and off for six decades for greater autonomy for the Kachin people. It has voiced support for opposition to military rule in the wake of a coup last year.