Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok will quit if a political agreement he signed with the military last week is not implemented or fails to receive backing from political factions, a source close to him said on Wednesday.
Hamdok was released from house arrest and restored to his job under the deal reached on Nov. 21, four weeks after he was removed in a military takeover.
The takeover ended a 2019 power-sharing agreement between the military and political groups involved in toppling former leader Omar al-Bashir.
Those groups have rejected the agreement, as have resistance committees that have organized a campaign of protests.
The latest of those protests, on Tuesday, drew tens of thousands of people to central Khartoum under the slogan “No partnership, no negotiation, no compromise.”
Further protests are planned for December on key anniversaries from the 2018 start of protests against al-Bashir.
Opponents say the post-coup agreement favors the military by leaving the army chief in charge of a body, the Sovereign Council, that was meant to pass to civilian control.
The agreement lets Hamdok appoint a new technocratic cabinet, and calls for the release of political detainees and investigations into crackdowns on protests in which medics say 43 people died.
Hamdok has said he signed the agreement to stop bloodshed and preserve much-needed international financial support.
On Wednesday Hamdok issued a decree replacing most of a group of caretaker deputy ministers that had been installed by the military after the coup. The decree did not include the finance, federal rule, and information ministries.
The Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors said on Wednesday 98 people had been injured the previous day, mainly from tear gas canisters and stun grenades. The group, which is aligned with the protest movement, also said that doctors had noticed stronger reactions to the tear gas used on the day.
State television quoted police as saying there were some cases of choking from tear gas and injuries due to crowding, and that 44 people had been arrested.
Most high-profile politicians held after the coup have been released, although lawyers say many protesters are still detained.
Gulf states appeal to US on Israeli minister’s Palestinian comments
The Gulf Cooperation Council said Sunday it had written to Washington’s top diplomat condemning controversial comments from Israel’s finance minister in which he denied the existence of a Palestinian people.
The GCC, in a letter to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, called on Washington “to assume its responsibilities in responding to all measures and statements that target the Palestinian people”.
The letter from the six-member GCC’s foreign ministers also called on the US “to play its role in reaching a just, comprehensive and lasting solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, speaking earlier this month, said that the Palestinians did not exist as a people, comments that sparked outrage among Arab nations.
The US State Department said they had found Smotrich’s comments “to not only be inaccurate but also deeply concerning and dangerous.”
Smotrich is part of veteran Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-right government that took office in December.
The GCC ministers also denounced earlier remarks by Smotrich, calling for the Palestinian town of Huwara in the West Bank to be “wiped out” after two Israelis were shot dead there by an alleged Hamas militant in February, remarks he later walked back.
The GCC, whose foreign ministers met in Riyadh last week, includes the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, which normalized relations with Israel under the US-crafted 2020 Abraham Accords, as well as Saudi Arabia, which has not.
Violence has intensified in the West Bank in recent months, which Israel has occupied since the Six-Day War of 1967.
On Tuesday, the State Department criticized a move by Israel’s parliament to annul part of a law banning Israelis from living in areas of the West Bank evacuated in 2005, calling it “provocative” and in direct contradiction of promises made to Washington at the time.
Blinken, appearing before a Senate committee, also reiterated previous US pushback on Smotrich’s comments about Palestinians, saying they do not reflect US values.
UK politicians caught in sting for lucrative second jobs
A senior British minister on Sunday defended former cabinet colleagues after they were shown negotiating top-dollar rates to work on the side for a fake South Korean consultancy.
The sting operation by the anti-Brexit group Led By Donkeys, which targeted former finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng among others, exposed nothing illegal.
But the issue of Conservative MPs taking lucrative second jobs with companies has been provoking fresh controversy as Britons endure the worst cost-of-living crisis in decades.
Kwarteng’s involvement in particular focussed anger, after he and short-lived prime minister Liz Truss triggered a crash on financial markets that drove up borrowing costs for millions last year.
He and former health secretary Matt Hancock were shown separately negotiating a daily rate of £10,000 ($12,000) to advise a sham consultancy purportedly based in Seoul that was set up by Led By Donkeys.
“On this occasion, I think it is pretty clear that things that were offered and considered were within the rules,” cabinet member Michael Gove told Sky News.
Gove said it was “absolutely vital that we know who is paying” MPs for second jobs, “and that is what the register (of MPs’ interests) is there for”.
“And ultimately, the really important thing is, is an MP delivering for their constituents, is a member of parliament doing everything they can to put public service first?”
Led By Donkeys showed a clip on social media in which Kwarteng said he “wouldn’t do anything less than for about 10,000 dollars a month.”
Prompted by a recruiter representing the fictious “Hanseong Consulting”, he switched the currency to pounds, which are worth more than dollars, and the rate to daily.
Hancock had already drawn controversy for taking an unauthorised break from his work as an MP to take part in a reality television show, in which he ate animal genitalia among other challenges.
He was forced to resign as health secretary for breaking his own pandemic rules on social distancing, when it was exposed that he was having an extra-marital affair with a senior advisor.
A spokesman said Hancock had “acted entirely properly and within the rules” regarding the apparent job offer from South Korea. Kwarteng has yet to comment.
The sting threatens embarrassment for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who replaced Truss in October with a vow to restore “integrity, professionalism and accountability” after her term and that of her predecessor Boris Johnson.
Senior opposition Labour member Lucy Powell told Sky News that she was “pretty appalled and sickened,” reiterating her party’s call to ban MPs from holding second jobs.
Burhan says Sudan’s army will be under leadership of civilian government
Sudan’s leader General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan said on Sunday that the country’s army will be brought under the leadership of a new civilian government.
Speaking before a session for security and army reforms in Khartoum Burhan said his country will build a military force that will not intervene in politics and will be trusted by the Sudanese people in building a modern and democratic state.
More than a year after the military took power in a coup, the military and its former civilian partners and other political forces have agreed on a framework to form a new transitional government and write a new constitution to be announced next month.