Region

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office on Sunday announced the approval of a road project in the occupied West Bank that would separate traffic for Palestinians and Israelis near the Maale Adumim settlement.

"The security cabinet approved last night Defence Minister Israel Katz's proposal for the construction... of a new road network in the Maale Adumim area," the office said in a statement, referring to the large settlement east of Jerusalem, home to more than 40,000 people.

The project "will thus improve traffic flow and strengthen transportation infrastructure between Jerusalem, Maale Adumim and the eastern Binyamin region, allowing for the continued development of settlements in the E1 area," Netanyahu was quoted as saying.

The international community has warned repeatedly that Jewish settlement construction in the E1 corridor, which passes from Jerusalem to Jericho, would slice the West Bank in two and compromise the contiguity of a future Palestinian state. 

Anti-settlement NGO Peace Now slammed the project as a "new apartheid road", with one of the planned roads rerouting Palestinian traffic away from the main artery used by Israelis, to reach a number of villages.

"We continue to strengthen the security of Israeli citizens and expand our settlements," Netanyahu said, according to the statement.

Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas condemned the project.

In a statement, it said "the continued expansion of settlement projects in occupied Jerusalem exposes the malicious intentions of the occupation."

Israel seized the West Bank and east Jerusalem in the Six-Day War of 1967 in moves never recognised by the international community.

Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories are considered illegal by the United Nations and most foreign governments.

Several far-right Israeli ministers are openly advocating for Israel to annex all or part of the West Bank, capitalising on US President Donald Trump's second term.

CAIRO — The head of the Sudanese paramilitary Rapid Support Forces admitted in a speech to fighters on Sunday that the group had withdrawn from the capital Khartoum which rival army forces have retaken.

The comment from RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo came three days after the group said there would be "no retreat and no surrender" and that its forces had "repositioned", despite the army's declaration on Thursday that "the last pockets" of the RSF had been eliminated from Khartoum after nearly two years of war. 

"I confirm to you that we have indeed left Khartoum, but... we will return with even stronger determination," Daglo said in the speech posted on social media.

The war has created what the United Nations describes as the world's worst hunger and displacement crises. More than 12 million people have been uprooted, tens of thousands killed, and a UN-backed assessment declared famine in parts of the country.

"All those who think that there are negotiations or agreements in process with this diabolical movement are mistaken," Daglo said, in reference to the army.

"We have neither agreement nor discussion with them -- only the language of arms."

Army chief Abdel Fattah Al Burhan on Saturday also vowed not to back down, after a decisive blitz in which the army reclaimed the presidential palace, the war-damaged airport and other key sites in the city centre where buildings are burned and bullet-scarred.

"We will neither forgive, nor compromise, nor negotiate," Burhan said, adding that victory would only be complete when "the last rebel has been eradicated from the last corner of Sudan".

Despite the military's reclaiming of Khartoum, Africa's third-largest country remains essentially divided in two by the war. The army holds sway in the east and north while the RSF controls most of the vast Darfur region in the west, where it is rooted, and parts of the south.

Pope Francis, recovering from a life-threatening bout of pneumonia, on Sunday issued written prayers and urged new negotiations as soon as possible in Sudan.

Appeal for new talks 

Early in the war the United States and Saudi Arabia conducted mediation but multiple ceasefires collapsed.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday said Washington hoped to do more diplomatically to end the war.

Rubio said he was "engaged" on Sudan and had discussed the war with international players including Kenyan President William Ruto and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.

Rubio's predecessor Antony Blinken tried extensively to broker an end to the war but ultimately voiced disappointment at the failure to do so.

The United States has imposed sanctions on both sides. It accused the army of attacks on civilians and said the RSF had "committed genocide" in Darfur.

Following a year and a half of defeats to the RSF, the army late last year began pushing through central Sudan to Khartoum.

On Thursday night, however, witnesses in the Blue Nile state capital Damazin reported that both its airport and the nearby Roseires Dam came under drone attack by the paramilitaries and their allies for the first time in the war.

The army later said it had shot down the RSF drones.

Almost 500 kilometres to the northwest in El-Obeid city, a medical source on Sunday told AFP that an RSF strike killed a child and wounded eight other people.

It is the latest such attack reported by medical sources since the military in February said it had broken an RSF siege of the North Kordofan state capital.

Istanbul — Thousands of rallied in Istanbul Saturday in protest against the  arrest of mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey's worst street unrest in over a decade.

Rally organised at the call of Turkey's main opposition CHP over the jailing of city mayor and top party figure Ekrem Imamoglu whose arrest has sparked the country's biggest street demonstrations in over a decade. 

Among those at the protest were Imamoglu's wife Dilek and their children, along with his parents, an AFP correspondent said.

Opposition chief Ozel told French newspaper Le Monde the Saturday rallies would from now on be a weekly event in cities across Turkey, alongside a weekly Wednesday night demo in Istanbul.

Student groups have kept up their own protests, most of them masked, in the face of a police crackdown that has seen nearly 2,000 people arrested.

Eleven journalists were freed Thursday, among them AFP photographer Yasin Akgul.

Swedish journalist Joakim Medin, who flew into Turkey on Thursday to cover the demonstrations, was jailed on Friday, his employer Dagens ETC told AFP.

Reporters Without Borders' Turkey representative Erol Onderoglu said Medin had been charged with "insulting the president" -- a charge often use to silence Erdogan's critics.

"The judicial pressure systematically brought to bear on local journalists for a long time is now being brought to bear on their foreign colleagues," he told AFP.

Turkish authorities held BBC journalist Mark Lowen for 17 hours on Wednesday before deporting him for posing "a threat to public order", the broadcaster said.

Turkish officials said it was due to "a lack of accreditation".

Baris Altintas, co-director of MLSA, a legal NGO helping many of the detainees, told AFP the authorities "seem to be very determined on limiting coverage of the protests".

NAIROBI — The South Sudan government said on Friday First Vice President Riek Machar was "under house arrest," two days after he was detained, as a former Kenyan premier arrived in Juba to mediate the crisis threatening to end the fragile peace deal between rival factions.

Machar's arrest by forces loyal to President Salva Kiir prompted UN Chief Antonio Guterres on Friday to call on warring parties to "put down the weapons" and "put all the people of South Sudan first," as the conflict risks plunging the world's youngest nation back into civil war.

Kiir "directed the placement of Dr Riek Machar under house arrest", information minister and government spokesman Michael Makuei Lueth said in a statement, in the first official comments since Machar's detention.

Despite the arrest, Juba appeared calm on Friday, with shops open and people on the streets, an AFP correspondent said.

Makuei blamed Machar for clashes in recent weeks in Nassir County, accusing him of been "agitating" his forces "to rebel against the government with the aim of disrupting peace so that elections are not held and South Sudan goes back to war".

He called on the public "to be calm and maintain peace", adding that Machar and his allies "will be investigated and brought to book".

The unravelling power-sharing deal between Kiir and Machar risks a return of the civil war that killed around 400,000 people in five years.

The deputy chair of Machar's party said his arrest "abrogated" the agreement.

"The prospect for peace and stability in South Sudan has now been put into serious jeopardy," Oyet Nathaniel Pierino said in a statement on Thursday.

But Makuei insisted the peace agreement was still intact.

A convoy of 20 heavily armed vehicles entered Machar's residence in the capital Juba late on Wednesday and arrested him, according to a statement issued by a member of his party.

The international community fears a resurgence of war and has strongly condemned the arrest of Machar.

The United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), warned that the country was "on the brink of relapsing into widespread conflict".

The US State Department on Thursday called on Kiir to "reverse this action and prevent further escalation".

Kiir eyes succession -- analysts

Kenyan President William Ruto, chair of the East African Community (EAC), announced Thursday that he was sending a special envoy "to engage" and try to "de-escalate" the situation.

That envoy, former Kenyan prime minister Raila Odinga, arrived on friday in Juba to help mediate, his spokesman told AFP.

The decision was taken after a telephone conversation with Kiir and consultations with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, Ruto said.

"The Special Envoy is presently engaged with the escalating situation in our sisterly country," Korir Sing'Oei, principal secretary of Kenya's foreign ministry, said on X.

South Sudan -- which declared independence from Sudan in 2011 -- has remained plagued by poverty and insecurity since the peace deal in 2018.

Analysts say Kiir, 73, has been seeking to ensure his succession and sideline Machar through cabinet reshuffles.

More than 20 of Machar's political and military allies in the unity government and army have also been arrested since February, many held incommunicado.

Machar's party said three of its military bases around Juba have been attacked by government forces since Monday.

The training centres were established to prepare opposition forces for integration into the unified army -- a key provision of the 2018 peace agreement aimed at uniting government and opposition troops.

None of the incidents has been confirmed by the Kiir-aligned army, the South Sudan People's DefenceForces, although it accused Machar's forces of aggressive manoeuvres from one of the bases on Monday.

The British government has reduced its diplomatic staff to a minimum and urged its citizens to leave the country.

Germany and Norway have closed their embassies in Juba, while the United States has scaled back its diplomatic staff to a minimum and also advised its citizens to leave.

This week, the head of UNMISS condemned indiscriminate attacks on civilians, particularly in the northeast of the country.

Machar's arrest comes after weeks of clashes between federal forces loyal to Kiir and the "White Army", a militia accused by the government of collaborating with Machar.