Sudan Minister to Asharq Al-Awsat: We Removed Symbols of Former Regime

Sudan’s Minister of Industry and Trade Madani Abbas. (SUNA)
Sudan’s Minister of Industry and Trade Madani Abbas. (SUNA)
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Sudan Minister to Asharq Al-Awsat: We Removed Symbols of Former Regime

Sudan’s Minister of Industry and Trade Madani Abbas. (SUNA)
Sudan’s Minister of Industry and Trade Madani Abbas. (SUNA)

Sudan’s Minister of Industry and Trade Madani Abbas said that his office, like other ministries, has removed many symbols of the ousted regime of President Omar al-Bashir from the state apparatus.

He told Asharq Al-Awsat that efforts are still being spent to eradicate the remnants of the former “deep state” and to restructure civil service bodies. This, according to him, is part and parcel of the citizens’ aspirations after having led the revolution against Bashir.

“The deep state is not only the presence of employees of the former regime in state institutions, but also in many decisions that were taken from outside the state framework, which created an inappropriate working environment and led to the hiring of unqualified workers. The performance does not meet the challenges facing the country,” he added.

Abbas explained that the solution does not rely on only removing elements of the former regime, but also on addressing the roots of the problem that led to the total disruption of the rules of the civil service.

“The project now is not reforming the state, but rebuilding it and its institutions. Indeed, the transitional government has agreed to establish the concepts of governance and rebuild state institutions,” he said.

The minister pointed out that, soon, a ministerial decree will restore the powers of the Ministry of Industry and Trade which were stripped by the previous regime.

During the implementation of the policies of “economic liberalization,” the ministry’s role in controlling markets and determining the prices of goods was canceled.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade plays a central role in the Sudanese economy.

Abas, on another note, said that challenges facing export and import operations are inherited from the former regime.

More so, the minister announced the formation of the National Council for Exports Development, a body which will work to formulate export policies.



An Israeli Strike that Killed 3 Lebanese Journalists Was Most Likely Deliberate

A destroyed journalists car is seen at the site where an Israeli airstrike hit a compound housing journalists, killing three media staffers from two different news agencies according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency, in Hasbaya village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP)
A destroyed journalists car is seen at the site where an Israeli airstrike hit a compound housing journalists, killing three media staffers from two different news agencies according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency, in Hasbaya village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP)
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An Israeli Strike that Killed 3 Lebanese Journalists Was Most Likely Deliberate

A destroyed journalists car is seen at the site where an Israeli airstrike hit a compound housing journalists, killing three media staffers from two different news agencies according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency, in Hasbaya village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP)
A destroyed journalists car is seen at the site where an Israeli airstrike hit a compound housing journalists, killing three media staffers from two different news agencies according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency, in Hasbaya village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP)

An Israeli airstrike that killed three journalists and wounded others in Lebanon last month was most likely a deliberate attack on civilians and an apparent war crime, an international human rights group said Monday.
The Oct. 25 airstrike killed three journalists as they slept at a guesthouse in southeast Lebanon in one of the deadliest attacks on the media since the Israel-Hezbollah war began 13 months ago.
Eleven other journalists have been killed and eight wounded since then, Lebanon's Health Minister Firass Abiad said.
More than 3,500 people have been killed in Lebanon, and women and children accounted for more than 900 of the dead, according to the Health Ministry. More than 1 million people have been displaced since Israeli ground troops invaded while Hezbollah has been firing thousands of rockets, drones and missiles into Israel - and drawing fierce Israeli retaliatory strikes.
Human Rights Watch determined that Israeli forces carried out the Oct. 25 attack using an air-dropped bomb equipped with a US produced Joint Direct Attack Munition, or JDAM, guidance kit.
The group said the US government should suspend weapons transfers to Israel because of the military´s repeated "unlawful attacks on civilians, for which US officials may be complicit in war crimes."
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the report.
The Biden administration said in May that Israel’s use of US-provided weapons in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza likely violated international humanitarian law but that wartime conditions prevented US officials from determining that for certain in specific airstrikes.
The journalists killed in the airstrike in the southeastern town of Hasbaya were camera operator Ghassan Najjar and broadcast technician Mohammed Rida of the Beirut-based pan-Arab Al-Mayadeen TV, and camera operator Wissam Qassim, who worked for Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV.
Human Rights Watch said a munition struck the single-story building and detonated upon hitting the floor.
"Israel’s use of US arms to unlawfully attack and kill journalists away from any military target is a terrible mark on the United States as well as Israel," said Richard Weir, the senior crisis, conflict and arms researcher at Human Rights Watch.
Weir added that "the Israeli military’s previous deadly attacks on journalists without any consequences give little hope for accountability in this or future violations against the media."
Human Rights Watch said that it found remnants at the site and reviewed photographs of pieces collected by the resort owner and determined that they were consistent with a JDAM guidance kit assembled and sold by the US company Boeing.

The JDAM is affixed to air-dropped bombs and allows them to be guided to a target by using satellite coordinates, making the weapon accurate to within several meters, the group said.
In November 2023, two journalists for Al-Mayadeen TV were killed in a drone strike at their reporting spot. A month earlier, Israeli shelling in southern Lebanon killed Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah and seriously wounded other journalists from France´s international news agency Agence France-Presse and Qatar´s Al-Jazeera TV on a hilltop not far from the Israeli border.