Clooney, George
wife is hu rights lawyer
<div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/01/the-western-media-is-ignoring-a-powerful-uprising-where-citizens-are-resisting-tyranny-and-russian-interference/">https://www.alternet.org/2019/01/the-western-media-is-ignoring-a-powerful-uprising-where-citizens-are-resisting-tyranny-and-russian-interference/</a></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">AN 119</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The story of the world today is the rise of right-wing populism, or so we are told. It’s the story of Donald Trump, of Brexit, of rising nationalism in continental Europe — especially in the east — as well as almost all of the former Soviet Union. But stories can change quickly. Whatever happened to “The End of History”? Or the War on Terror? The Great Recession? Or the Arab Spring? Who knows what the story will be next? Perhaps it’s already being written in <b>Sudan,</b> with echoes of so many other stories folded into it.</font></p><div class="p1_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Almost eight years to the day after the Arab Spring began in Tunisia with the startling overthrow of the 23-year regime of President Ben Ali, the current Sudan uprising began in the city of Atbara, a railroad union stronghold. That was on Dec. 19, and protests quickly spread nationwide. A month later, Sudan’s 29-year ruler, President Omar al-Bashir — <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/darfur/albashirhttps:/www.icc-cpi.int/darfur/albashir" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">who has been indicted for genocide by the International Criminal Court</a> — is barely clinging to power, while American media, not to mention the U.S. government, has largely ignored the entire situation.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“All residents of Atbara are now on the streets,” one eyewitness, Adel Abdel-Latif, <a href="https://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article66796" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">told Sudan Tribune</a> last month as the uprising began. “He pointed out that the demonstrators chanted slogans such as ‘Peaceful, Peaceful against the Thieves,’ saying the police and army didn’t interfere to disperse or arrest the protestors,” the publication reported.</font></p><div class="p3_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The story we’re missing is historic, according to J</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">onathan Hutson, who helped expose mass human rights violations in Sudan from 2010 to 2014 — documenting 46 village burnings and locating eight apparent mass graves — as the architect of <b>George Clooney’s <a href="https://www.satsentinel.org/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Satellite Sentinel Project</a>.</b></span></font></p><div class="p4_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“What we have is the Western media largely misunderstanding or ignoring a revolution in a Putin-aligned African country, ruled by an Islamic theocracy, where the resistance is committed to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of religion,” Hutson told Salon. Reports of food riots vastly understate the seriousness of events, and Russian involvement with paramilitary troops (reportedly under the direction of <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-11-20/putin-chef-yevgeny-prigozhin-is-now-meddling-in-africa" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Yevgeny Prigozhin, aka “Putin’s chef”</a>) has failed to register as echoing the predatory pattern already seen in the Ukraine, Crimea and Syria.</font></p><div class="p5_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“News reporting on Sudan has finally begun to highlight the ongoing economic collapse of the past seven years,” veteran Sudan observer <a href="https://sudanreeves.org/2018/12/24/the-failure-of-international-news-reporting-on-sudans-economy-2011-2018/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Eric Reeves wrote on Dec. 24,</a> but even so “there is remarkable superficiality and failure to look with any historical depth at how the present catastrophe began. … Priorities in the national budget have been wildly skewed for decades toward the military and security services, with only very small amounts devoted to health, education, and the crucial agricultural sector. Arable land has been sold or leased for decades in order to raise cash for a kleptocratic regime.” In short, al-Bashir’s political affinity to Putin’s Russia are profound.</font></p><div class="p6_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div class="teadsNative" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">As for the Sudanese people, it’s not that they’re imitating the Arab Spring — it’s really the other way around: Civil uprisings in Sudan have <a href="https://africanarguments.org/2014/10/20/50-years-on-remembering-sudans-october-revolution-by-willow-berridge/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">twice toppled dictatorships</a>, first in 1964 and again in 1985. “The popular uprising has become one of the political norms that Sudanese resort to in redefining their social contract with the state,” <a href="https://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article66944" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">noted Luka Kuol</a>, a Sudanese professor of security studies.</font></p><div class="p7_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Sudan escaped the first wave of Arab Spring uprisings in part because the government learned from those previous examples:</b> It exploited regional, racial, ethnic and religious divisions, broke the power of professional unions and keeping the army dispersed outside Khartoum, the capital city, among other measures. But the government’s continued kleptocratic misrule has pushed Sudan past the breaking point, and al-Bashir’s old tricks no longer seem to work.</font></p><div class="p8_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Atbara demonstrations spread quickly despite a sometimes violent response. “The numbers of peaceful demonstrators in Atbara are increasing dramatically and the city is in full civil disobedience,” the opposition youth group Sudan Change Now <a href="https://twitter.com/Sudanchangenow/status/1075362750279376897" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">tweeted</a> on Dec. 19, along with a 57-second video of a loud but peaceful march. Sudan Tribune reported that <a href="https://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article66800" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">eight people were killed</a> on the second day of protests. Barely a month later, the al-Bashir regime appears doomed. The more demonstrators have been killed, injured or arrested, the more the movement has swelled, and al-Bashir’s attempts to divide it along racial and ethnic lines have failed.</font></p><div class="p9_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In an inspiring and informative overview, “<a href="https://500wordsmag.com/sudan-news/the-chants-of-sudan-uprising/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">The Chants of the Sudan Uprising</a>,” Wa’el Jubara writes about the regime’s “sick and naive divide-and-conquer attempt” to blame the protests “on one of the armed rebel movements in the West,” conflating them with “peaceful, unorganised (politically) citizens” from Darfur in the West, whom they arrested. “The next day, Sudanese people from all walks of life and origins went out again, calling out the regime on its poor racist tactics,” Jubara wrote. “They called out the failed conspiracy of Al Bashir and said, ‘<b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">يا عنصري مغرور كل البلد دارفور</b>‘, loosely translated to ‘You [Al Bashir] are racist and arrogant, we are all Darfur.’”</font></p><div class="p10_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The current demonstrations are unprecedented, in terms of scale, persistence, intensity, and geographical reach,” Adil Babikir, a U.K.-based Sudanese translator, <a href="https://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article66930" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">wrote in Sudan Tribune</a> on Jan. 18. “The momentum is building up, with simultaneous rallies staged in many cities across the country. The revolutionary mood is at its peak. New patriotic songs are hitting the social media platforms every day. Some of these are originally folkloric wedding songs reworded with the themes of the revolution.”</font></p><div class="p11_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the midst of all this, on Dec. 31, Hutson posted a <a href="https://twitter.com/JonHutson/status/1079952769178632193" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">33-tweet thread</a> exposing the Russian presence in Sudan with photos and information provided by activists on the ground. This information on the “illegal” Russian incursion was information further <a href="https://twitter.com/Amjedfarid/status/1080900965941813253" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">developed and promoted by Sudan Change Now</a>, as well as <a href="https://citeam.org/are-ru-mercenaries-suppressing-the-sudan-protests/?lang=en" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">by the Russia-based Conflict Intelligence Team</a>.</font></p><div class="p12_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Russian forces in Sudan are apparently or probably there in the guise of </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Prigozhin</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">’s paramilitary Wagner Group (aka PMC Wagner), which was </span><a href="https://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/pages/sm0114.aspx" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury in 2017</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> for its involvement in Ukraine</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. Prigozhin, the now-infamous Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg and two related firms he controls </span><a href="https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm0312" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">were also sanctioned in March 2018</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> for their role in 2016 election interference on behalf of Donald Trump.</span></font></p><div class="p13_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“As police fired tear gas and live ammunition at peaceful demonstrators in Khartoum, wounding at least four people, Sudanese observers on the ground wondered about the significance of Russian military trucks spotted in the capital,” Hutson began.</font></p><div class="p14_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Hutson initially stopped short of definitively identifying PMC Wagner. But the group’s presence in Sudan and elsewhere in Africa was already known, if not commonly discussed. In November, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-11-20/putin-chef-yevgeny-prigozhin-is-now-meddling-in-africa" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Bloomberg reported</a> that<b> Prigozhin was “already active in or moving into 10 countries that Russia’s military already has relationships with: the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Libya, Madagascar, Angola, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and the Central African Republic</b>.”</font></p><div class="p15_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russian-journalists-editor-says-killed-for-investigating-wagner-group-2018-8" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Last summer</a>,<b> three Russian journalists were killed while investigating Wagner in the Central African Republic on behalf of exiled Russian opposition figure Mikhail Khodorkovsky.</b> A week after Hutson’s tweet-storm, <a href="https://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article66883" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Sudan Times confirmed Wagner’s presence</a> in the current conflict, citing a source within Sudan’s security force.</font></p><div class="p16_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Hutson noted that Wagner “guards Sudanese gold, uranium, and diamond mines, as well as atomic energy facilities. Russian media have reported that Wagner trains Sudanese armed forces.” He identified Wagner’s typical vehicle as “a light-brown, Ural-4320, all-wheel-drive, two-door cab, 6×6 truck in troop transport mode, similar to trucks used by the Russian military, and by Russian private military contractors.” (In a <a href="https://twitter.com/JonHutson/status/1083480882957205504" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">later thread</a>, he explained in detail how he identified the trucks.)</font></p><div class="p17_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hutson provided some background on Sudan’s Russia connection, noting that on Nov. 23, 2017, al-Bashir met with Vladimir Putin in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Russia. Reportedly “Bashir asked Putin to protect Sudan from ‘aggressive acts of the United States.’ In return, Bashir promised Putin that Sudan could serve as Russia’s ‘key to Africa.’”</font></p><div class="p18_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hutson also described some earlier activity in Sudan. “Radio Dabanga (<a href="https://twitter.com/Radiodabanga" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">@RadioDabanga</a>) reported in March 2018 that about 500 Russian armed forces appeared in the Um Dafug area of South Darfur, which borders on the Central African Republic.” At the same time, “across the border in CAR, the Wagner Group was defending mining interests.”</font></p><div class="p19_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Four months after that, the</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> three Russian journalists working for Khodorkovsky were killed,</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> amid disputed claims of who was responsible. Ten days after Hutson’s tweet, <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/01/10/report-links-journalists-murder-africa-russian-mercenaries-investigating1/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">the Telegraph reported damning evidence that Wagner itself was responsible</a>, based on findings from <a href="https://www.khodorkovsky.com/dossier-center/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Khodorkovsky’s Dossier Center</a>, including cell phone records and other documents connecting the driver to Prigozhin. “The journalists were under the control of people from Yevgeny Prigozhin’s structures starting from the preparation stage,” according to the Dossier Center.</span></font></p><div class="p20_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Hutson has speculated that “the relationships between Putin, Prigozhin, the Internet Research Agency, the Wagner Group and Trump” could help explain the U.S. government’s relative silence on the Sudan uprising. </b>More recently, on Jan. 23, the State Department finally issued a three-paragraph <a href="https://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2019/01/288533.htm" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">statement of “concern,”</a> stating that “A new, more positive relationship between the United States and Sudan requires meaningful political reform and clear, sustained progress on respect for human rights.”</font></p><div class="p21_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In fairness, America’s hands-off attitude might not have much to do with Putin. Like al-Bashir and the Sudanese regime, the Russian president may simply be taking advantage of long-standing pernicious habits and attitudes. That’s the picture suggested by Justin Lynch at the Daily Beast, in a recent article asking“</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-is-sudans-genocidal-regime-a-cia-favorite" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Why is Sudan’s Genocidal Regime a CIA Favorite?</a>”:</span></font></p><div class="p22_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: rgb(245, 245, 245); border: none !important;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Although Sudan has been <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/state-sponsors-sudan" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">listed</a> as a state sponsor of terror since 1993 and the U.S. has accused al-Bashir more than once of genocide for his government’s actions in Darfur, cooperation between the two countries has been close on particular issues that Washington sees as a priority, particularly the fight against terrorist jihadis.</font></p><div class="p23_28" style="font-style: italic; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This remained true, Lynch reports, even after Sudan dramatically reduced its counterterrorism collaboration in 2015.</font></p><div class="p24_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: rgb(245, 245, 245); border: none !important;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As one of the last acts of the Obama administration in January 2017, the United States began a five-track process to restore relations that depend on humanitarian access, stopping violence and counter-terrorism collaboration. That process has expanded under the Trump administration, and in late-October the United States entered a second re-engagement with Sudan.</font></p><div class="p25_28" style="font-style: italic; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A few weeks later, the Sudan uprising began. And America has watched from the sidelines.</font></p><div class="p26_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For all the talk about how disruptive and anomalous Trump’s presidency is, and for all the justified concern about how compromised he might be by his Russian entanglements, the main impediment to America doing the right thing to support the people of Sudan may simply be short-sighted, sclerotic institutional continuity, just as it was during the Arab Spring.</font></p><div class="p27_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We are right to worry about the future of democracy at home. But the Sudan uprising should remind us that we live in a larger world that we have often carelessly misshaped with our misguided actions and misplaced fears, even as we have also helped shape it with our ideals. In his famous 1967 address “<a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/beyond-vietnam" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Beyond Vietnam</a>,” explaining his opposition to the war, Martin Luther King Jr. said that “our greatest defense against communism is to take offensive action in behalf of justice.” The same could be said about the various threats facing us today — and that’s what the Sudan uprising is calling on us to do.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p></div><div>
<a href="http://ecowatch.com/2016/02/29/environmental-films-to-watch/2/">http://ecowatch.com/2016/02/29/environmental-films-to-watch/2/</a>
<p><strong>Tomorrowland (2015)</strong>
George Clooney and Britt Robertson star in this American
“cli-fi” mystery adventure film about a disillusioned and disgruntled
inventor, Frank Walker (Cloney) and a science prodigy, Casey Newton
(Robertson). When Casey stumbles across a magical pin, it instantly
shows her a world filled with climate doom. She enlists in Frank who
also knows of the powers of the pin. Can they save the world from its
predicted climate change future?</p>
<a href="http://ecowatch.com/2013/11/12/fox-slams-george-clooney-climate-change-typhoon-haiyan/" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">http://ecowatch.com/2013/11/12/fox-slams-george-clooney-climate-change-typhoon-haiyan/</a><div>
</div><div>
</div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Fox Business disparaged actor George Clooney as “irresponsible” and “foolish” for allegedly “blaming” <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2013/11/11/philippines-typhoon-global-warming-warsaw-climate-talks/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(67, 146, 65); transition: color 0.2s linear; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">Super Typhoon Haiyan on climate change</a>. However, Clooney merely stated that regardless of “whether or not this particular storm” can be attributed to <a href="http://ecowatch.com/category/climate-change-news/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(67, 146, 65); transition: color 0.2s linear; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">climate change</a>, denying the existence of manmade climate change—as those censuring Clooney have—is “ridiculous.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2013/11/07/super-typhoon-philippines/3468165/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(67, 146, 65); transition: color 0.2s linear; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">Super Typhoon Haiyan</a> was one of the strongest tropical cyclones in world history when it struck the Philippines on Nov. 7, killing as many as <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-10/typhoon-haiyan-leaves-philippines-counting-dead-as-un-rushes-aid.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(67, 146, 65); transition: color 0.2s linear; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">10,000 people</a>. Scientists have <a href="http://www.climatecentral.org/news/super-typhoon-haiyan-a-hint-of-whats-to-come-16724" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(67, 146, 65); transition: color 0.2s linear; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">stated</a> that intense tropical cyclones such as Haiyan are expected to become more frequent as the earth warms, although many caution against attributing Haiyan directly to climate change. <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2013/10/29/high-will-seas-rise/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(67, 146, 65); transition: color 0.2s linear; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">Sea level rise</a> due to climate change also worsens the deadly storm surge for tropical cyclones such as Haiyan and <a href="http://ecowatch.com/category/water-news/hurricane-sandy/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(67, 146, 65); transition: color 0.2s linear; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">Hurricane Sandy</a>.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In an apparent response to a question about the typhoon, <em style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Gravity</em> co-star Clooney <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/george-clooney-philippine-typhoon-terrible-20846056" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(67, 146, 65); transition: color 0.2s linear; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">criticized</a> those who ignore the <a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/2013/06/25/with-climate-change-announcement-pending-conser/194582" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(67, 146, 65); transition: color 0.2s linear; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">vast majority</a> of scientists on climate change:</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 30px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Well it’s just a stupid argument. I mean, whether or not this particular storm is any one—if you have 99 percent of doctors who tell you ‘you are sick’ and one percent that says ‘ah, you’re fine,’ you probably want to hang out with, check it up for the 99. You know what I mean? I—the idea that we ignore that we are in some way involved in climate change is ridiculous. What’s the worst thing that happens? We clean up the earth a little bit? And you know, yeah, I find this to be the most ridiculous argument ever.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">On Monday, Fox Business host Stuart Varney and Fox News’ senior meteorologist Janice Dean harangued Clooney for supposedly “us[ing] the tragedy to push his climate change agenda,” saying his statement was “irresponsible” and “foolish”—without ever airing or quoting what he actually said.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Dean also criticized Clooney for weighing in on climate change because he does not have a “seal of approval” from the American Meteorological Society (AMS), as <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/personalities/janice-dean/bio/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(67, 146, 65); transition: color 0.2s linear; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">she</a> does. However, AMS officials have <a href="http://www.ametsoc.org/stationscientist/globalclimatchange_editorial.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(67, 146, 65); transition: color 0.2s linear; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">criticized</a> broadcast meteorologists such as Dean for offering “nonscientific” opinions on climate change:</p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px;">Increasing numbers of broadcast m</p></blockquote></div><div></div></div>