KHARTOUM (AFP) – Thousands of supporters of Sudan’s army rallied Saturday in front of UN headquarters in Khartoum, in a new show of force after months of protests against an October military coup. Competing processions marched in Khartoum, according to AFP journalists — a sign of the deep divisions that have taken root in the country, which is among the poorest in the world. Army supporters, some of them riding camels, chanting slogans denouncing “foreign interference” and paying tribute to the military. Hundreds of army backers had boarded a train in Atbara, 250 kilometers (155 miles) north of the capital, to join the procession on Saturday morning. Dozens of anti-army protesters tried in vain to prevent them from boarding the train, demanding that the “military return to the barracks” and shouting “power to the people,” Abu Obeida Ahmed, a resident of Atbara, told AFP. Meanwhile, hundreds of women demonstrated in the capital’s twin city of Omdurman, denouncing a crackdown by security forces on anti-coup demonstrators that has killed at least 76 people and wounded hundreds, according to a pro-democracy group of medics.

***
BEIJING (Dispatches) – China and other countries have blocked a U.S.-drafted Security Council joint statement against North Korea’s missile launches, and urged Washington to be more flexible in dealings with Pyongyang. During a closed-door UNSC meeting held Friday at Washington’s request, China’s UN Ambassador Zhang Jun insisted that the key to easing tensions with North Korea was in the hands of the U.S., saying, “If they do want to see some new breakthrough, they should show more sincerity and flexibility.” “They should come up with more attractive and more practical, more flexible approaches, policies and actions and accommodating the concerns of the DPRK,” Zhang added in a press briefing after the meeting, using the initials of North Korea’s official name. However, he complained, “We have seen a vicious circle of confrontation, condemnation, sanctions.” The U.S. had proposed a UNSC statement censuring Pyongyang’s testing of seven weapons in January -- including its most powerful missile since 2017 -- which were in response to persisting U.S.-led military threats and war games targeting the country. However, China, Russia and other nations refused to sign on to it, prompting Washington to claim that the council’s “ongoing silence” would further encourage North Korea to defy the international community. North Korea launched its longest-range missile test since 2017 on January 30, defying American threats of organizing further sanctions against the country. The test was North Korea’s sixth ballistic missile launch in 2022 and seventh missile test overall.

***
WASHINGTON (AFP) – In a speech to the conservative Federalist Society on Friday, former Vice President Mike Pence rebuked his one-time boss, Donald Trump, decrying the notion that he could have overturned the election results on the 45th president’s behalf. “Our Founders were deeply suspicious of consolidated power in the nation’s capital and were rightly concerned with foreign interference if presidential elections were decided in the capital,” Pence said. “But there are those in our party who believe that as the presiding officer over the joint session of Congress, I possessed unilateral authority to reject electoral college votes. And I heard this week, President Trump said I had the right to ‘overturn the election’. President Trump is wrong…I had no right to overturn the election,” he added. The line constituted some of the most aggressive pushback Pence has offered to date on the question of election certification. And it comes days after Trump attacked Pence, saying he “could have overturned the Election!” as he presided over the Senate after the Capital riots on January 6, 2021.

***
LONDON (Anadolu) – Extreme weather events across Europe caused the deaths of up to 145,000 people in the last four decades, according to a report by the EU’s environment agency. The European Environment Agency said in a report that extreme weather events like storms, heatwaves and flooding led to between 85,000 and 145,000 human fatalities from 1980 to 2020, Anadolu news agency reported. Also, climate-related disasters cost Europe around half a trillion euros, according to the report. Heatwaves were the main cause of weather-related fatalities, accounting for more than 85% of the total. Most fatalities were caused by the 2003 heatwave, representing between 50% and 75% of all fatalities from such events over the past 40 years, said the report. Similar heatwaves after 2003 caused less fatalities as countries took measures to reduce devastating effects caused by extreme weather events, it added. The assessment covered 32 member countries of the European Environment Agency, including all 27 EU member states, as well as Norway, Switzerland, Turkey, Iceland, and Liechtenstein. All regions of Europe are facing economic losses and fatalities from extreme weather and climate events every year.

***
AMPASIPOTSY GARE (AFP) – Cyclone Batsirai is expected to reach eastern Madagascar, posing a “very serious threat” to millions with powerful winds and torrential rains set to batter the large Indian Ocean island. Residents hunkered down before the storm’s arrival and winds of more than 200 kilometers per hour (124 miles per hour) were forecast as it bore down on the country still recovering from the deadly Tropical Storm Ana in late January. After passing Mauritius and drenching the French island of La Reunion for two days with torrential rain, Batsirai was about 250 kilometers east of Madagascar, the Meteo-France weather agency said. Batsirai should make landfall between late afternoon and evening Saturday as an intense tropical cyclone, “presenting a very serious threat to the area”, the forecaster said in its morning bulletin Saturday. The eye of the storm was forecast to cross the centre of the island overnight into Sunday, before leaving its western shores by Monday. Winds could reach “more than 200 or even 250 km/h... at the point of impact” and waves could reach as high as 15 meters (50 feet), Meteo-France said. The United Nations said it was ramping up its preparedness with aid agencies, placing rescue aircraft on standby and stockpiling humanitarian supplies.

***
Kinshasa (Al Jazeera) – At least four people were hurt after a bomb exploded at a busy market in the eastern city of Beni in Democratic Republic of Congo on Saturday, police said, days after the U.S. embassy in the capital Kinshasa warned of a possible attack. Local police said they were looking for the suspected bomber after the blast in the eastern region where Congolese and Ugandan forces have launched a campaign against suspected armed rebels. “We call on the population to be calm and especially vigilant,” said Beni city police spokesperson Nasson Murara. Police tended to casualties at the market before taking them to a local police hospital, a Reuters news agency journalist on the scene said.