Headline

Sudan’s Prime Minister, Detained After Coup, Returns Home

Published

4 years ago

October 27, 2021

Sudan’s deposed prime minister and his wife were allowed to return home Tuesday, a day after they were detained when the military seized power in a coup, according to a statement issued by his office.

The release of Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok and his wife followed international condemnation of the coup and calls for the military to release all the government officials who were detained when Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan seized power on Monday.

The statement by Hamdok’s office said other government officials remained in detention, their locations unknown. The deposed prime minister and his wife were under “heavy security” at home in the upscale Kafouri neighborhood of the capital Khartoum, said a military official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media. The official did not say whether they were free to leave or make calls.

Earlier in the day, Burhan said Hamdok had been held for his own safety and would be released. But he warned that other members of the dissolved government could face trial as protests against the putsch continued in the streets.

The military seized power in a move that was widely denounced abroad. On Tuesday, pro-democracy demonstrators blocked roads in the capital with makeshift barricades and burning tires. Troops fired on crowds a day earlier, killing four protesters, according to doctors.

In his second public appearance since seizing power, Burhan said the military was forced to step in to resolve a growing political crisis.

“There were people who were talking about discriminating against others, and that was driving this country to reach a civil war that would lead to the fragmentation of this country, tearing apart its unity, its fabric and society. These dangers were in front of us,” Burhan told a televised news conference.

But the coup came less than a month before Burhan was supposed to hand the leadership of the Sovereign Council that runs the country to a civilian — a step that would have decreased the military’s hold on power.

“The whole country was deadlocked due to political rivalries,” Burhan said. “The experience during the past two years has proven that the participation of political forces in the transitional period is flawed and stirs up strife.”

Hamdok had been held at Burhan’s home, the general said, and was in good health. But of the many other senior government officials detained Monday, Burhan alleged that some tried to incite a rebellion within the armed forces, saying they would face trial. Others who are found “innocent” would be freed, he added.

The takeover came after weeks of mounting tensions between military and civilian leaders over the course and pace of Sudan’s transition to democracy. It threatened to derail that process, which has progressed in fits and starts since the overthrow of longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir in a popular uprising two years ago.

At an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged world powers to unite to confront a recent “epidemic of coups d’état.” But the U.N.’s most powerful body took no action during the closed-door consultations about Sudan, a nation in Africa linked by language and culture to the Arab world.

Hamdok’s office had voiced concern for his safety and for the other detained officials. In a statement, the office accused military leaders of acting in concert with Islamists, who have argued for a military government, and other politicians linked to the now-dissolved National Congress Party, which dominated Sudan during al-Bashir’s Islamist-backed rule.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration announced the halt of $700 million in emergency assistance to Sudan and said Tuesday it was looking at sending stronger signals to the generals.

“They should first and foremost cease any violence against innocent civilians, and … they should release those who have been detained and they should get back on a democratic path,” said Jake Sullivan, the administration’s national security adviser.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken reported that he spoke with Hamdok on Tuesday, the first high-level contact the U.S. has had with Sudan since the coup and the suspension of in U.S. aid. Blinken welcomed Hamdok’s release and emphasized that the U.S. supports a civilian-led transition to democracy in Sudan, a State Department statement said.

Mariam al-Mahdi, the foreign minister in the dissolved government, declared Tuesday that she and other members of Hamdok’s administration remained the legitimate authority in Sudan.

“We are still in our positions. We reject such coup and such unconstitutional measures,” she told The Associated Press by phone from her home in Khartoum. “We will continue our peaceful disobedience and resistance.”

The Ministry of Culture and Information, still loyal to the deposed government, said in a Facebook post that Sudanese ambassadors in Belgium, Switzerland and France have defected.

Nureldin Satti, the Sudanese envoy to the U.S., said he was working with those diplomats to “resist the military coup in support of the heroic struggle of the Sudanese people” to achieve the aims of the uprising against al-Bashir. But he did not specify whether he, too, had defected.

Al-Mahdi, meanwhile, spoke to the wife of one of the officials detained, Minister of Cabinet Affairs Khalid Omar, and said he was humiliated and mistreated during his arrest.

Military forces “took Khalid barefoot, wearing only his nightclothes,” she said.

Hours after the arrests, Sudanese flooded the streets of Khartoum and other cities in protest. At least four people were killed and over 80 wounded when security forces opened fire, according to the Sudan Doctors’ Committee. Human Rights Watch said forces used live ammunition against the demonstrators.

Sudan saw a bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protests in 2019, and there were fears about whether there would be another crackdown. A bigger test of how the military will respond to the resistance could come Saturday when protesters plan a mass march to demand a return to civilian rule.

The Sudanese Professionals’ Association, a group of unions that was behind the uprising against al-Bashir, also urged people to go on strike and engage in civil disobedience. Separately, the Sudan Popular Liberation Movement–North, the country’s main rebel group, denounced the coup and called for people to take to the streets.

In a sign of the divisions among the civilian leaders in Sudan, a group known as the Justice and Equality Movement blamed the deposed government for the military takeover. It said a few officials had monopolized decision-making and refused to engage in dialogue.

The group, headed by Finance Minister Gibreil Ibrahim, is the first to publicly voice support for the military but also urged it to end the state of emergency, release the detainees and appoint a civilian government to run day-to-day activities. Earlier this month, the group had taken part in a pro-military sit-in in Khartoum.

Another pro-military group that splintered from the protest movement that ousted al-Bashir also welcomed the takeover, saying it would end a sit-in it had organized outside the presidential palace to support the generals earlier this month.

The military has sent mixed signals about Sudan’s future. Burhan promised to gradually restore internet and communications services that were disrupted in the coup. But the Civil Aviation Authority said it was suspending all flights to and from Khartoum’s airport until Oct. 30.

Following the coup, Burhan now heads a military council that he said would rule Sudan until elections in July 2023.

(AP)

Headline

Nigerian Man Jailed In US For $1.3m COVID-19 Fraud

Published

5 hours ago

July 12, 2025

Editor

A Nigerian man living in the San Gabriel Valley, Abiola Femi Quadri, was sentenced to 135 months in federal prison for defrauding California and Nevada out of $1.3m in COVID-19 pandemic unemployment and disability insurance benefits.

Quadri, 43, was caught submitting more than 100 fraudulent applications using stolen identities and using the money to build a nightclub and mall in Nigeria.

He was sentenced by United States District Judge George H. Wu, who also ordered him to pay $1,356,229 in restitution and a $35,000 fine.

This was contained in a press statement issued by the Public Information Officer, United States Attorney’s Office, Central District of California, Ciaran McEvoy, on Thursday, July 10, 2025.

Headline

Palestinian-American Beaten To Death By Israeli Settlers In Occupied West Bank

Published

10 hours ago

July 12, 2025

Editor

…another man shot dead

Israeli settlers killed a 20-year-old Palestinian-American man in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health and an eyewitness, as settler violence against Palestinians ramps up in the occupied territory.

The twenty-year-old Sayfollah Musallet “was martyred after being severely beaten all over his body by settlers in the town of Sinjil, north of Ramallah,” the health ministry said in a statement on Friday.

The municipality of Sinjel said that Musallet died following a “barbaric attack” carried out by settlers as part of “daily assaults” on local residents. It alleged Israeli forces stormed the area at the same time as the settlers’ attack, obstructing the work of paramedics and volunteers.

A friend of the deceased man’s family told CNN he was with Musallet and took him to a hospital in Ramallah, adding the young man was an American citizen born in Tampa, Florida.

Israel’s military said it was “aware of reports regarding a Palestinian civilian killed and a number of injured Palestinians as a result of the confrontation, and they are being looked into by the ISA [Israeli Security Agency] and Israel Police.”

Musallet’s family is demanding the US State Department lead an investigation into the incident.

“We are devastated that our beloved Sayfollah Musallet (nicknamed Saif) was brutally beaten to death by Israeli settlers while he was protecting his family’s land from settlers who were attempting to steal it,” the family said in a statement.

“We demand justice.”

The US State Department said in a statement to CNN that it is aware of reports of the death of an American in the West Bank, without providing a name.

“Out of respect for the privacy of the family and loved ones during this difficult time, we have no further comment,” a department spokesperson said.

Musallet ran a business in Tampa and had been in the West Bank since June 4 to visit family and friends, the family statement said.

A second Palestinian man died in the attack in Sinjel after he was shot in the chest by settlers, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said. Ten others were wounded in the same attack, it added.

Following the attacks, the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs criticised what it called Israel’s expanding settlement projects in the occupied territory and called for urgent action to hold the perpetrators of settler violence accountable.

Israel has recently ramped up military operations in the West Bank, displacing tens of thousands of Palestinians and razing entire communities as it targets what it says are militants operating in the territory.

Multiple American citizens have been killed in the West Bank in the past few years, according to Palestinian officials and eyewitnesses, including a 14-year-old boy whom the Israeli military shot dead last April in what they described as a “counterterrorism operation.”

Israeli soldiers also shot dead a 26-year-old woman during a protest against an Israeli settlement in September 2024.
(CNN)

Headline

Japan’s Petabit: What To Know About Internet Speed That Can Download 67 Million Songs In A second

Published

15 hours ago

July 12, 2025

Editor

Researchers in Japan have broken the record for the fastest internet speed ever recorded: 1.02 petabits per second. That’s fast enough to “download 67 million songs in a second.”

Contents
How Fast is 1.02 Petabits Per Second?How Did Japan Make This Happen?
When Can the World Expect to Use This?

According to FirstPost, this new speed could let someone download the entire Netflix library almost instantly—or stream millions of 8K videos at once without any buffering.

To give some perspective, Japan’s new speed is around 16 million times faster than India’s average internet speed of 63.55 Mbps and 3.5 million times faster than the U.S. average.

How Fast is 1.02 Petabits Per Second?

A petabit is one million gigabits. So when researchers say they hit 1.02 petabits per second, they’re talking about a connection fast enough to transfer more than 100,000 HD movies in just one second.

This speed could technically download the full Netflix catalog in less than a second. Big game downloads, like the 150GB Call of Duty: Warzone, would finish in a flash.

According to Gagadget, the full English Wikipedia is about 100GB. At this speed, you could download it “10,000 times in just one second.”

Music platforms can’t even match the scale. Spotify says a minute of audio uses about 1MB. That means, “with Japan’s new speed, you could theoretically download 67 million songs in a second—that’s more than 1,27,000 years of continuous music.”

While these examples help show how fast this is, the real impact will likely be on emerging technology.

Things like cloud computing, AI, autonomous vehicles, and real-time translation depend on large volumes of data moving quickly. With speeds like this, data centers in different parts of the world could work together almost as if they were on the same local network. That would allow global AI systems to run with almost no delay.

How Did Japan Make This Happen?

The breakthrough came from Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), working with Sumitomo Electric and European partners.

The team sent data over 1,800 kilometers—about the distance from Delhi to Goa—using a specially built fiber-optic cable.

Typical fiber cables send data down a single path of light. This new design packs 19 separate cores into a standard-sized fiber, which researchers describe as “a 19-lane superhighway” for internet traffic. It increases capacity without requiring totally new infrastructure.

Sumitomo Electric developed the cable, while NICT and international researchers built the transmission system.

To deal with long-distance signal loss, they used advanced amplification and signal processing. The setup involved 19 loops of fiber, each 86.1 km long, with the signal passed 21 times. That totaled 1,808 km, and during the test, “180 individual data streams were sent at record-breaking speed and stability.”

When Can the World Expect to Use This?

Most home internet is still measured in megabits per second, not terabits, much less talking about petabits. We’re far from seeing these speeds in everyday life. That means using this speed is not anytime soon.

Still, the breakthrough is getting attention from telecom companies, infrastructure providers, and governments. This could help shape the future of undersea cables, national internet backbones, and next-generation networks like 6G.

It may take years to reach consumers, but the progress points toward a future where fast, high-capacity internet becomes standard—not something rare.

(FirstPost/Tribune)