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Sudan's military says its top commander survived a drone strike that killed 5 at an army ceremony

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Sudan's military says its top commander survived a drone strike that killed 5 at an army ceremony
News

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Sudan's military says its top commander survived a drone strike that killed 5 at an army ceremony

2024-07-31 18:15 Last Updated At:18:20

CAIRO (AP) — Sudan’s military said its top commander, Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, survived a drone attack on a military graduation ceremony that killed five people in the country’s east.

The military said in a statement Wednesday that the attack by two drones took place in Gebeit, a town in eastern Sudan, after the ceremony was concluded. Military chief Burhan, who was attending, was not hurt, according to Lt. Col. Hassan Ibrahim, from the military spokesman's office.

Sudan has been torn by war for more than a year between the military and a powerful paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces. With fighting in the capital, Khartoum, the military leadership largely operates out of eastern Sudan near the Red Sea Coast.

Videos posted by Al Araby TV shows multiple people running along a dusty road at the time of the drone attack, while other footage showed people at the graduation ceremony apparently looking to the sky as the drone strike hit.

The assassination attempt comes nearly a week after Sudan’s paramilitary leader said that he plans to attend cease-fire talks in Switzerland next month arranged by the United States and Saudi Arabia.

Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, head of the Rapid Support Forces fighting Sudan’s army, emphasized at the time that the talks would become “a major step” toward peace and stability in Sudan and create a new state based on “justice, equality and federal rule.”

The Sudanese Foreign Ministry on Tuesday responded to the U.S. invitation to the talks in Geneva, saying the military-controlled Sudanese government is prepared to take part but said that any negotiation before implementing the Jeddah Declaration “wouldn’t be acceptable to the Sudanese people.”

The Jeddah Declaration of Commitment to Protect Civilians passed last year meant to end the conflict, but neither side committed to its objectives.

Representatives from the Sudanese Army and the RSF, led by Mohamed Hamadan Dagalo, engaged in revived talks brokered by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia in Jeddah, focusing on the delivery of humanitarian aid, achieving ceasefires and paving the way toward a permanent cessation of aggression, among other objectives.

In its Tuesday statement, the Sudanese Foreign Ministry accused the RSF of being the only party that attacks cities, villages and civilians. The military-controlled Sudanese government demanded sanctions to be imposed on “rebels to stop their continuous aggression, end their siege on cities, and open roads.”

“Those taking part in the initiative are the same as the parties who participated in the Jeddah talks, and the topics are identical to what was agreed upon,” the statement read.

The ministry added that the military-led government must be consulted with about the planned agenda for any negotiations and parties taking part, with the provisions in the Jeddah Declaration being the basis of future talks.

“The Sudanese government requested that a meeting be held with the United States government to create a pathway for peace negotiations in a manner that would benefit Sudanese people,” the Foreign Ministry said.

Cameron Hudson, the former chief of staff to the special envoy to Sudan, said the Sudan military government's response is “far more positive and open” than he had anticipated because it opened the door to preliminary talks with the U.S.

“I can't think of a previous U.S. envoy who had to negotiate as complicated a set of issues and not had access to the country or its people and leadership. An impossible task. U.S. should seize on this and propose side talks with SAF soon,” he said.

The Rapid Support Forces were formed from Janjaweed fighters created under former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who ruled the country for three decades before being overthrown during a popular uprising in 2019. He is wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide and other crimes during the conflict in Darfur in the 2000s.

More than 4.6 million people have been displaced as a result of the conflict, according to the U.N. migration agency. Those include over 3.6 million who fled to safer areas inside Sudan and more than 1 million others who crossed into neighboring countries. More than 285,300 people have fled to Egypt.

FILE - Sudan's Army chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan speaks in Khartoum, Sudan, on Dec. 5, 2022. Sudan’s military said its top commander, Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, survived a drone attack on a military graduation ceremony that killed five people in the country’s east. (AP Photo/Marwan Ali, File)

FILE - Sudan's Army chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan speaks in Khartoum, Sudan, on Dec. 5, 2022. Sudan’s military said its top commander, Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, survived a drone attack on a military graduation ceremony that killed five people in the country’s east. (AP Photo/Marwan Ali, File)

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The Gulf of Whatnow? Mapmakers grapple with Trump's geographic renaming plans

2025-01-23 15:31 Last Updated At:15:40

What's in a name change, after all?

The water bordered by the Southern United States, Mexico and Cuba will be critical to shipping lanes and vacationers whether it’s called the Gulf of Mexico, as it has been for four centuries, or the Gulf of America, as President Donald Trump ordered this week. North America’s highest mountain peak will still loom above Alaska whether it’s called Mt. Denali, as ordered by former President Barack Obama in 2015, or changed back to Mt. McKinley as Trump also decreed.

But Trump's territorial assertions, in line with his “America First” worldview, sparked a round of rethinking by mapmakers and teachers, snark on social media and sarcasm by at least one other world leader. And though Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis put the Trumpian “Gulf of America” on an official document and some other gulf-adjacent states were considering doing the same, it was not clear how many others would follow Trump's lead.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum joked that if Trump went ahead with the renaming, her country would rename North America “Mexican America.” On Tuesday, she toned it down: “For us and for the entire world it will continue to be called the Gulf of Mexico.”

Map lines are inherently political. After all, they're representations of the places that are important to human beings — and those priorities can be delicate and contentious, even more so in a globalized world.

There’s no agreed-upon scheme to name boundaries and features across the Earth.

“Denali” is the mountain's preferred name for Alaska Natives, while “McKinley" is a tribute to President William McKinley, designated in the late 19th century by a gold prospector. China sees Taiwan as its own territory, and the countries surrounding what the United States calls the South China Sea have multiple names for the same body of water.

The Persian Gulf has been widely known by that name since the 16th century, although usage of “Gulf” and “Arabian Gulf” is dominant in many countries in the Middle East. The government of Iran — formerly Persia — threatened to sue Google in 2012 over the company’s decision not to label the body of water at all on its maps. Many Arab countries don’t recognize Israel and instead call it Palestine. And in many official releases, Israel calls the occupied West Bank by its biblical name, “Judea and Samaria.”

Americans and Mexicans diverge on what to call another key body of water, the river that forms the border between Texas and the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas. Americans call it the Rio Grande; Mexicans call it the Rio Bravo.

Trump's executive order — titled “Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness” — concludes thusly: “It is in the national interest to promote the extraordinary heritage of our Nation and ensure future generations of American citizens celebrate the legacy of our American heroes. The naming of our national treasures, including breathtaking natural wonders and historic works of art, should honor the contributions of visionary and patriotic Americans in our Nation’s rich past.”

But what to call the gulf with the 3,700-mile coastline?

“It is, I suppose, an internationally recognized sea, but (to be honest), a situation like this has never come up before so I need to confirm the appropriate convention,” said Peter Bellerby, who said he was talking over the issue with the cartographers at his London company, Bellerby & Co. Globemakers. “If, for instance, he wanted to change the Atlantic Ocean to the American Ocean, we would probably just ignore it."

As of Wednesday night, map applications for Google and Apple still called the mountain and the gulf by their old names. Spokespersons for those platforms did not immediately respond to emailed questions.

A spokesperson for National Geographic, one of the most prominent map makers in the U.S., said this week that the company does not comment on individual cases and referred questions to a statement on its web site, which reads in part that it "strives to be apolitical, to consult multiple authoritative sources, and to make independent decisions based on extensive research.” National Geographic also has a policy of including explanatory notes for place names in dispute, citing as an example a body of water between Japan and the Korean peninsula, referred to as the Sea of Japan by the Japanese and the East Sea by Koreans.

In discussion on social media, one thread noted that the Sears Tower in Chicago was renamed the Willis Tower in 2009, though it's still commonly known by its original moniker. Pennsylvania's capital, Harrisburg, renamed its Market Street to Martin Luther King Boulevard and then switched back to Market Street several years later — with loud complaints both times. In 2017, New York's Tappan Zee Bridge was renamed for the late Gov. Mario Cuomo to great controversy. The new name appears on maps, but “no one calls it that,” noted another user.

“Are we going to start teaching this as the name of the body of water?” asked one Reddit poster on Tuesday.

“I guess you can tell students that SOME PEOPLE want to rename this body of water the Gulf of America, but everyone else in the world calls it the Gulf of Mexico,” came one answer. “Cover all your bases — they know the reality-based name, but also the wannabe name as well.”

Wrote another user: “I'll call it the Gulf of America when I'm forced to call the Tappan Zee the Mario Cuomo Bridge, which is to say never.”

FILE - President Donald Trump speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)

FILE - President Donald Trump speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)

FILE - Peter Bellerby, the founder of Bellerby & Co. Globemakers, holds a globe at a studio in London, Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)

FILE - Peter Bellerby, the founder of Bellerby & Co. Globemakers, holds a globe at a studio in London, Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)

FILE - A boat is seen on the Susitna River near Talkeetna, Alaska, on Sunday, June 13, 2021, with Denali in the background. Denali, the tallest mountain on the North American continent, is located about 60 miles northwest of Talkeetna. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen, File)

FILE - A boat is seen on the Susitna River near Talkeetna, Alaska, on Sunday, June 13, 2021, with Denali in the background. Denali, the tallest mountain on the North American continent, is located about 60 miles northwest of Talkeetna. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen, File)

FILE - The water in the Gulf of Mexico appears bluer than usual off of East Beach, Saturday, June 24, 2023, in Galveston, Texas. (Jill Karnicki/Houston Chronicle via AP, File)

FILE - The water in the Gulf of Mexico appears bluer than usual off of East Beach, Saturday, June 24, 2023, in Galveston, Texas. (Jill Karnicki/Houston Chronicle via AP, File)

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