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Syrian armed opposition fighters control the city of Maarat al-Numan after seizing control of most parts of Idlib.
Rebels in Syria seize strategically important city of Hama — set sights on Homs
On Thursday, rebel fighters in Syria continued their startling advance by entering and seizing the city of Hama, according to both the rebels and the Syrian government. Hama has been under the control of Bashar Assad’s government since 2011. Last weekend, fighters of the Islamist group Hayʼat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, broke through government forces to capture the city of Aleppo.
The advance into Hama brings the insurgents to within 120 miles of Damascus, Syria’s capital. Syrian army forces backed by Iran and Russia are in retreat, and the rebels have now turned their attention to Homs, another strategically important city on the road to Damascus.
As of Friday, the rebels were reportedly within striking distance of Homs, and tens of thousands were fleeing the city, Syria's third-largest.
This surprise offensive comes at a bad time for Assad’s major allies. Iran is fully occupied with protecting what’s left of its chief regional proxies, Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as potential direct threats from Israel. Russia’s military is focused on its current offensive in Ukraine.
HTS leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, in an exclusive interview with CNN published Friday, explained that the militants intend to remove Assad from power. “When we talk about objectives, the goal of the revolution remains the overthrow of this regime. It is our right to use all available means to achieve that goal,” said Jolani.
Refugee women stand in the Gorom refugee settlement during Foreign Minister Baerbock's visit.
UN accuses Sudan militia of mass rape
The United Nations Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan has just issued a new report accusing the Rapid Support Forces militia of using sexual violence to control civilians in their territory. The report follows one of the deadliest single incidents of the 18-month-old civil war: On Friday, RSF troops killed at least 124 people, injured nearly 200, and detained scores in a village southeast of Khartoum.
Activists told CNN that the RSF deliberately targets communication links, especially Starlink devices, so the true casualty and arrest figures are likely “significantly higher.” The number of detentions is extremely worrying, as the UN’s report found that the RSF routinely forces detained and abducted girls and women into sexual slavery, with victims ranging in age from 8 to 75.
The report also documents the use of gang rape to punish civilians for perceived support for the Sudanese Armed Forces, the old regime, or human rights activism. Victims suffer not only from the violence and trauma but from broader social isolation as many are shunned by their family and peers — or even killed.
What led to the massacre? Last month, the SAF launched an offensive against RSF-held areas in the capital, Khartoum, and pushed into surrounding states including El-Gezira, where Friday’s massacre occurred. As the RSF has pulled back toward its core base in Darfur to the west, its fighters have retaliated against civilians. Omran Abdullah, a senior RSF spokesperson, told Al-Jazeera the victims were fighting for the SAF, however.
The UN is calling for an immediate cease-fire, urgent distribution of food and medicine, a peacekeeping force to protect civilians, and an international judicial process to bring some small measure of justice to victims. As intense and deeply disturbing as the violence has proven, we are not holding our breath for a strong response from the international community.
President Joe Biden addresses the nation about his decision to step back from the 2024 presidential race on July 24, 2024.
Civil Wars and Civil Exits
For a moment last night, America lived up to its best ideals. It often does in the dark hours.
President Joe Biden addressed the nation from the Oval Office to explain his reluctant decision to step away from the 2024 campaign — a campaign he was forced to accept, in a humiliating but necessary way, that he could not win — in a rare moment of sacrifice over ego, service over ambition.
Though age has severely diminished Biden’s capacities, it has not diminished his dignity or character.
Character is not something we talk about a lot in politics these days. But as Biden raspily and haltingly defended his presidential record, his vision for the future, and his 50 years of service, he showed genuine character.
Character is more than just toughness, grit, and fortitude amid a fight, though surely it can encompass those qualities. Character is more than just grace in loss, and Biden knows more about that than most, having lost his wife Neilia and his 1-year-old daughter Naomi to a car accident in 1972, and then his son Beau to brain cancer in 2015. Character is what happens after those moments. It’s what you do with the time left, how you reassemble the pieces and build something with purpose. It’s reflected in the ideas you hold and the people you serve, even if those ideas fail and people turn on you. Character is the story your life tells when you might no longer have the strength to tell it yourself.
“Nearly all men can withstand adversity,” President Abraham Lincoln once said, “but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” You don’t have to agree with what Biden fought for, you don’t have to like his record, and you don’t have to support his party, but last night, President Joseph R. Biden, who still has more power than anyone on earth, passed the character test. And he asked a riven country to try to do the same.
Now let’s turn to the campaign, which, as ever, is a testing ground of character.
Campaign rallies are not known for their subtle rhetoric, so when a local politician is trying to juggle the twin duties of whipping up a partisan crowd while simultaneously kissing their candidate’s butt, it’s usually not surprising they get a little sloppy.
But it’s worth paying attention to what Ohio Sen. George Lang said to a crowd as he introduced former President Donald Trump and JD Vance the other day. Arriving at the podium chanting Trump’s now-famous epizeuxis “fight, fight, fight,” Lang warned of an upcoming civil war if Democrats win the election. “I believe wholeheartedly Donald Trump and Butler County’s JD Vance are the last chance to save our country politically,” Lang said, sweating with enthusiasm in the summer sun. “I’m afraid if we lose this one, it’s going to take a civil war to save the country.” And then, he added a little boost for those prepping for battle. “If we come down to a civil war, I’m glad we got people like Bikers for Trump on our side.”
No one followed Lang on stage and pushed back or suggested it was horrendously dangerous rhetoric. It wasn’t until much later when the recklessness of the comments began to circulate more widely that Lang was forced to apologize.
“Remarks I made earlier today at a rally in Middletown do not accurately reflect my view,” Lang said, as if somehow his mouth had gone rogue from his brain. “I regret the divisive remarks I made in the excitement of the moment on stage. Especially in light of the assassination attempt on President Trump last week, we should all be mindful of what is said at political events, myself included."
Amen to that.
Still, fears of a second civil war permeate the campaign, and while I don’t normally hyperventilate over these hypothetical, partisan-stoked fears because the institutions in the US have mostly proven to be resilient, the horrific assassination attempt on Trump and the events of Jan. 6, 2021, have made the descent in political violence a genuine scenario that demands attention. Stable democracies, like bankruptcy, end in two ways: gradually, and then suddenly.
People in the US are getting used to this sort of rhetoric by now — though normalizing it is one of the most dangerous signs of decline — but people outside the US, especially in the country’s closest allies, are deeply apprehensive. Is the US really inching toward a civil war?
To find out, we partnered on a poll with David Coletto, CEO and chair of Abacus Data, and the results are unsettling. Thirty-nine percent of Canadians say it is likely that the United States will descend into civil war, while another 23% believe it is somewhat likely. 39%? Yes. The numbers are starker among young people, with 48% of people between the ages of 18 and 29 saying a civil war is likely.
“Canadians are watching the increasing polarization and political violence in the US, and many of them are not shutting the door to that division escalating into full-scale civil war,” Coletto says. “Younger Canadians, in particular, are inclined to think that the very worst outcome is at least a possibility.”
While the polling figures are accurate, let’s hope the sentiments are wrong.
Abacus also asked about mandatory retirement ages for politicians in the wake of Biden’s agonizing decision to step aside and, again, most Canadians heartily agree that he is too old to lead. Seventy-three percent believe there should be a maximum age for a president or prime minister. What age? 28% say 71-plus while 48% say somewhere between 61 and 70, which is surprising.
“The whole Joe Biden saga put into clear perspective the effect aging can have on leaders charged with the most important executive functions in the world,” Coletto says. “Most Canadians think political leaders have a best-before date, and the average age of a president or prime minister is around the usual age of retirement, which is 65.”
You can see the full poll results and Coletto’s comments about it here. GZERO will continue to work with Abacus Data, a well-respected Canadian polling firm, to explore how Canadians and Americans feel about their relationship, the US election, and more in the coming 100 days. Check out their work here.
Myanmar military troops take part in a military exercise at Ayeyarwaddy delta region in Myanmar, February 3, 2018.
Myanmar’s military moves into Rakhine villages
Myanmar’s military has begun expelling residents from villages surrounding Rakhine’s state capital Sittwe in response to threats from the rebel Arakan Army. The junta is reportedly moving into these villages, planting landmines, and bombing roads that lead into the city to inhibit the AA’s advances as it takes an increasingly defensive stance in its three-year-old civil war. The military has also been accused of murdering 76 people and burning down villages on the outskirts of Sittwe, allegations it denies.
Rakhine is home to the overwhelmingly Buddhist country’s largest Muslim population, which has been subjected to ethnic cleansing in recent years, and the state has once again become a hotbed for escalating ethno-religious violence. The AA, a largely Buddhist rebel group, launched a major offensive seven months ago and has allied itself with other ethnic militias nationwide. They’ve made great advances, capturing nine of the 17 Rakhine townships.
What we’re watching: Will the military be able to hold on against the AA? The capture of Sittwe would be a devastating loss for the junta – it would be the first state capital to come under rebel control, representing a major morale victory for the embattled rebels.
The military seems scared of the prospect.They’ve recently been entering refugee camps across the Bangladesh border to forcefully recruit Rohingya Muslims, a group they once massacred, in a desperate bid to augment their bruised military.Women and children wait for food distribution from the United Nations World Food Programme in Thonyor, Leer state, South Sudan, back in 2017.
South Sudan customs dispute taxes a long-suffering population
Even as three-quarters of South Sudan’s people face starvation, a squabble between the government and the UN over import taxes is leaving vital aid trucks stuck at the border.
The background: South Sudan’s trade ministry ordered this week that all goods trucks entering the East African country must pay a $300 tax. The measure was meant to ensure that the government got its share of revenue from imports that are often underbilled or misrepresented. There was supposed to be a carveout for UN aid vehicles, but if so, officials at the Ugandan border didn’t get the memo – at least not yet.
The bigger background: South Sudan is one of the world’s newest countries – and one of its poorest. After coming into existence in 2011 following years of war with the Sudanese government, it fell into its own civil war, which killed or displaced hundreds of thousands of people.
The legacy of that conflict – along with frequent natural disasters – persists: Seven million of the country’s 12 million people are facing hunger in the coming months. The harrowing civil war in Sudan, which just entered its second year, has exacerbated things, driving an estimated 500,000 people across the border into South Sudan, straining the country’s resources further.
Demis Hassabis, CEO of DeepMind Technologies and developer of AlphaGO, attends the AI Safety Summit in Bletchley Park, near Milton Keynes, Britain, November 2, 2023.
Hard Numbers: Google’s spending spree, Going corporate, Let’s see a movie, Court-ordered AI ban, Energy demands
100 billion: AI is a priority for many of Silicon Valley’s top companies — and it’s a costly one. Google DeepMind chief Demis Hassabis said that the tech giant plans to spend more than $100 billion developing artificial intelligence. That’s the same amount that rival Microsoft is expected to spend in building an AI-powered supercomputer, nicknamed Stargate.
72.5: The free market is dominating the AI game: Of the foundation models released between 2019 and 2023, 72.5% of them originated from private industry, according to a new Staford report. 108 models were released by companies, as opposed to 28 from academia, nine from an industry-academia collaboration, and four from government. None at all were released through a collaboration between government and industry.
5: The A24 film Civil War has garnered considerable controversy for its content, but its promotion is under scrutiny as well. Five posters for the film were created using artificial intelligence and depict scenes that never occur in the narrative. That’s kicked off a debate about the ethics of using AI in film marketing as well as questions of whether this is false advertising for the movie itself.
1,000: A sex offender in the UK who was found to have created 1,000 indecent images of children was banned from using any “AI creating tools” for five years by a British court. It’s not clear if he was actually using AI to create the illegal images in question, or if the order is peremptory, but it could serve as a model for future punishment in UK cases in the future. Meanwhile, on April 23, a group of AI companies including Google, Meta, and OpenAI, pledged to better prevent their tools from creating sexualized images of children and other exploitative material.
4.5: Salesforce is calling on AI companies to disclose the energy efficiency and carbon footprint of their models, and asking legislators to pass new laws aimed at demanding transparency and reducing the total energy consumption of AI. Salesforce’s best estimates put the total power generation demands of global data centers at 1.5% but warn that that figure could increase to 4.5% in the coming years absent intervention.A police officer patrols near the police headquarters as Haiti continues in a state of emergency, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti March 6, 2024.
Haiti’s gangs threaten civil war
Prime Minister Ariel Henry is refusing calls to resign and remains stranded outside Haiti while the leader of the country’s largest gang alliance, Jimmy Chérizier, threatens civil war.
Henry visited Nairobi last week in an attempt to secure a Kenyan-led intervention force to help bring peace to Haiti. But heavily armed gangs took advantage of his absence and launched assaults against Haiti’s two largest prisons and the international airport in Port-au-Prince, paralyzing the country. Henry has since tried but failed to return to Haiti.
Washington responded to the chaos on Wednesday, calling for an “urgent” political transition, and the UN Security Council met behind closed doors to discuss next steps. Henry’s predecessor, Claude Joseph, told CNN that political groups within Haiti are discussing a plan for a three-member transitional council that will select an interim president to organize elections.
Why the power vacuum? Haiti has not held polls since 2016, has no elected officials in office, and Henry and his government are widely seen as illegitimate. He came to power unelected after President Jovenal Moïse was assassinated in 2021 but has been unable to prevent men like Chérizier from seizing 80% of the capital and unleashing intense physical and sexual violence on ordinary Haitians.
Two names to watch: Guy Philippe and Chérizier. Philippe played a leading role in the 2004 coup and is pressing for a council of his choice to put him in power. Chérizier, however, is the man with the most firepower.
Danny Shaw, a Haiti expert at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, says Haitians don’t see Chérizier, aka Barbecue, as a panacea.
“Overwhelmingly within Haiti – besides Barbecue's own base down in Delmas – they say he's an opportunist. They say he's not trustworthy,” says Shaw.
During his recent visits, Shaw also hasn’t seen much enthusiasm for the long-awaited Kenyan-led police mission, which is again in doubt. Despite Washington’s efforts to stay at arm's length, Shaw says many Haitians fear the deployment will amount to a “US invasion and occupation in blackface” that will fail to resolve the nation’s crises.The beach, Red Sea State, Port Sudan, Sudan.
Sudan’s lost sea access worsens humanitarian disaster
Since fighting between rival military factions in Sudan erupted last April, nearly 8 million people have been displaced, and 24 million require urgent food aid. But the crisis now may begin to beggar description as the country loses access to its Red Sea coast and migrants stream across its borders.
Refugee influx. Over 400,000 Sudanese refugees have fled to Libya, where they face long waits for registration, leading many to turn to smugglers to attempt dangerous Europe-bound sea crossings. Their first destination is Italy, with nearly 6,000 Sudanese refugees arriving there in 2023.
Numbers are expected to soar this year, prompting Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to urge support for investments designed to disincentivize migration. Meloni unveiled a plan last month to enhance energy cooperation with African states and assist them in areas including health and education, at a cost of 3 million euros annually for four years.
Impact of Houthi attacks. Houthi attacks in the Red Sea have cut off Sudanese ports and are disrupting aid shipments, forcing humanitarian agencies to reroute deliveries at significantly higher costs. Some shipments are delayed, others are stuck altogether, and still more face exorbitant air-freight costs. Aid workers describe the situation as "catastrophic" and fear mass starvation is imminent.