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Sudan: Wheat Crop May Go to Waste

An October 2021 coup and the Russia-Ukraine war have left Sudan’s food security hanging by a thread.

Thousands of Sudanese farmers have cultivated wheat as part of Sudan’s largest agricultural program, in which the government promised farmers 43,000 Sudanese pounds per sack of wheat. In recent weeks, however, Sudanese officials have said that due to a lack of funds, they will not be able to purchase this year’s entire harvest.

Last month, dozens of wheat farmers from Sudan’s Northern State staged a protest outside the agricultural bank after it refused their harvest. Although traders have offered to purchase the wheat, the price they proposed would barely cover the cost of production.

An agricultural bank official said that the government “does not have the money to buy the harvest.”

“We have asked the Finance Ministry and the central bank for funds, but we got no response,” the official told AFP.

This year, the farmers’ harvest was expected to provide 25% of the 2.2 million tons needed. According to a 2021 UN report, wheat imports from Russia and Ukraine make up 70-80% of Sudan’s market needs.

The wheat can last up to 1.5 years if stored properly but may rot within three months if stored improperly.

Meanwhile, according to United Nations estimates, over 18 million people – nearly half Sudan’s population – are expected to be pushed into extreme hunger by September.

Recent monsoons in India and Bangladesh have left at least 59 people dead and millions of others stranded, officials said on Saturday.

Although floods are a regular occurrence in Bangladesh, experts say that floods are increasing in their frequency, unpredictability, and ferocity. Troops have been deployed throughout the nation to evacuate households cut off from neighboring communities.

Police officials noted that lightning triggered by the storms has killed at least 21 people since Friday afternoon, including three children. At least four other people died when landslides hit their homes.

In India, according to Assam’s disaster response agency, over 2.6 million people have been affected by floods in the area, and 18 have died in floodwaters or landslides, while nearly 7,500 more people have been rescued.

Speaking to reporters, Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that he had instructed district officials to provide “all necessary help and relief” to those caught in the flooding.

Sylhet region chief government administrator Mosharraf Hossain noted that nearly the entire region was without electricity, adding, “The situation is bad. More than four million people have been stranded by flood water.”

Ukraine Granted EU Candidate Status

Ukraine on Friday was granted “candidate status” by the European Union (EU) to join the 27-nation alliance.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, “Ukraine has clearly shown commitment to live up to European values and standards, and embarked, before the war, on its way towards the EU.”

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She added, “We recommend to give Ukraine the candidate status, on the understanding that the country will carry out a number of important reforms.”

According to her, Ukraine implements 70% of EU “rules, norms, and standards,” but still has work to do with regards to the “the rule of law, oligarchs, anti-corruption and fundamental rights.”

“Progress depends entirely on Ukraine,” she added.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Twitter hailed the signal from Brussels as “the 1st step on the EU membership path that’ll certainly bring our Victory closer.”

Moldova and Georgia have also requested to join the EU. Moldova was recommended for “candidate status” on Friday.

According to von der Leyen, “Moldova is on a real pro-reform, anti-corruption and European path. It still has a long way to go. But we believe it has the potential to live up to the criteria.”

Georgia was advised to devise a plan showing a “clear path towards structural reform.”

Candidate status is the first official step on the road to EU membership. Still, there is no guarantee that a candidate will become a member of the EU. While the European Commission recommends whether the EU should grant this status to an applicant, the authority to do so rests with EU member governments, which must act unanimously to give their approval. Becoming an EU member is a long process and requires the approval of all EU member states.

Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey have the status of membership candidates. Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina are classed as “potential candidates.”

Putin: End Of “Unipolar World”

nomic Forum, Putin said, “When they won the Cold War, the U.S. declared themselves G-d’s own representatives on earth, people who have no responsibilities – only interests. They have declared those interests sacred. Now it’s one-way traffic, which makes the world unstable.”

He declared, “They live in the past on their own under their own delusions... They think that ... they have won and then everything else is a colony, a backyard. And the people living there are second-class citizens.”

Putin also said that the Russia-Ukraine war has become a “lifesaver for the West to blame all the problems on Russia.”

“Their intention is clear: To crush the Russian economy by breaking down the chain the logistical chains, freezing national assets and attacking the living standards, but they were not successful. It has not worked out.”

Regarding Ukraine’s desire to join the European Union, Putin said, “The European Union has fully lost its sovereignty, and its elites are dancing to someone else’s tune, harming their own population. Europeans’ and European businesses’ real interests are totally ignored and swept aside.”

He added, “The EU is not a military-political bloc, unlike NATO, therefore we have always said, and I have always said, that our position here is consistent, understandable, we have nothing against” Ukraine joining the EU.

It has been more than three months since Russia invaded Ukraine.

Macron Loses Absolute Majority

16 absolute majority in the country’s parliament, with the far-right and left gaining seats in the parliament. The Jewish Home | JUNE 23, 2022 Macron’s centrist alliance, Ensemble!, won 245 of the parliament’s 577 seats, but fell short of the 289 seats necessary for an absolute majority in the French lower house. The second-largest party, the leftwing New Ecological and Social People’s Union (NUPES), led by far-left figure Jean-Luc Mélenchon, won 131 seats, making it the largest opposition party. Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally come in third, with 89 seats. With the results of the elections, Macron becomes the first sitting French president not to win a parliamentary majority since the year 2000. Both Pen’s and Mélenchon’s performances are the latest indication that Macron presides over a deeply divided country – where the French public are turning to the extreme right and left to voice their dissatisfaction with the status quo. According to French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, the situation is “unprecedented.” “Never before has the National Assembly experienced such a configuration under the Fifth Republic,” she said. “As of tomorrow, we will work on building an action-oriented majority. There is no alternative to that coalition to guarantee our country stability and enact the necessary reforms.”

Macron will be forced to make alliances in this government if he wishes to move any legislation forward.

S. Korea Launches Rocket

South Korea is now the seventh nation capable of launching satellites using a self-developed propulsion system, as it successfully launched and put its homegrown space rocket into orbit on Tuesday.

“The Nuri rocket launch was a success,” Lee Sang-ryul, director of the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI), said. “After the launch, Nuri’s flight process proceeded according to the planned flight sequence.”

KARI set off its 200-ton homegrown space rocket from the Naro Space Center in the Southern coastal village of Goheung.

Loaded with a 162.5-kilogram performance-verification satellite – as well as four cube satellites for academic research and a 1.3-ton dummy satellite – Nuri reached its target orbit of 700 kilometers above the Earth. All three stages of its engine were combusted according to plan, separating the mounted satellites at the arranged moment.

With Tuesday’s launch, South Korea joined the U.S., Russia, France, China, Japan and India in its self-developed propulsion capabilities, according to officials.

“The launch opens up a new era for South Korea’s space program and science technology,” Aerospace Engineering professor Cho Donghyun of Pusan National University noted.

The Nuri Development Project, also known as the Korean Launch Vehicle project, commenced in 2010. The completion of its three-stage launch vehicle system technology enabled the team to test-fire South Korea’s first homemade rocket last October.

A latecomer in the aerospace industry, South Korea’s rocket-launch journey began in 2013 when it blasted its first carrier rocket, Naro-1, to achieve orbit. The aircraft was a collaborative project with Russia’s Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center and KARI.

In the 12 years since that collaboration, South Korea developed its very own space rocket. South Korea invested $616 million on space research in 2021, according to South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT, a figure considerably less than the $48 billion the U.S. spent in the same period.

Five Planets to Align With the Moon

Five planets will align in the early morning sky this week, in an event that is not expected to reoccur for nearly twenty years.

Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn will line up in the early morning sky every morning through the end of June. They will be visible above the eastern horizon.

The last time all five of these planets were visible at the same time was in 2004.

The planets can be seen with the naked eye, though they may be difficult to identify. They will be most visible 45-60 minutes before sunrise, on mornings when the skies are clear.

Mercury is the hardest to see with the naked eye and will hang very low on the horizon, while Venus will glow brighter and appear just above and to the right of Mercury. The other three planets will hang much higher in the sky.

Although the planets will be visible until the end of June, the best mornings to see the planets will be the three days after June 21, the summer solstice. Before daybreak on Friday, June 24, the crescent moon will fall in line perfectly with the planets, visible between Mars and Venus.

The five planets will not appear in this order again until August 2040, when they will be grouped somewhat closer together.

Petro for President

Leftist Gustavo Petro, a former member of the M-19 guerrilla movement, who has vowed profound social and economic change, won Colombia’s presidency on Sunday, the first progressive to do so in the country’s history.

Petro beat construction magnate Rodolfo Hernandez with an unexpectedly wide margin of more than 700,000 votes.

A former mayor of capital Bogota and current senator, Petro has pledged to fight inequality with free university

18 education, pension reforms and high taxes on unproductive land. He won 50.5% to Hernandez’s 47.3%. The Jewish Home | JUNE 23, 2022 “From today Colombia changes; Colombia is different,” Petro told cheering supporters in Bogota’s concert arena. “Change consists precisely in leaving behind sectarianism.” He added, “It is not a time for hate. This government, which will begin on Aug. 7, is a government of life.” Thousands of people took to the streets in Bogota to celebrate, with some dancing near its largest polling place under intermittent rain. This campaign was Petro’s third presidential bid; his victory adds the Andean nation to a list of Latin American countries that have elected progressives in recent years. His win demonstrates that Colombians, many living in poverty, are desperate for change. A fragmented congress, where a dozen parties have seats, will act as a check on Petro’s proposals. Petro’s running mate, Francia Marquez, a single mother and former housekeeper, will be the country’s first Afro-Colombian woman vice-president. Colombian presidents are limited to one term. Some 22.6 million people voted –

Sri Lanka Starts Two-Week Shutdown

Sri Lanka on Monday closed schools and halted non-essential government services, signaling the start of a twoweek shutdown. The closures aim to conserve the country’s fast-depleting fuel reserves.

At the same time as the self-imposed shutdown, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has opened talks with the country’s government regarding a possible bailout.

Sri Lanka, with 22 million people, has run out of foreign exchange to import the essential food, fuel, and medicines its citizens need. The country faces record-high inflation and long power outages, as well as months of protests in which citizens called on the country’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to step down.

Despite the protests and attempts to block key officials from attending, the talks with a visiting IMF delegation went on as planned, the Prime Minister’s Office said.

The recent talks will continue until the end of June, but a final rescue plan is not expected until Sri Lanka reaches an agreement with its creditors to restructure the $51 billion it owes in foreign debt – a process which could take months.

Despite the shutdown, Sri Lanka’s main airports and seaports remain operational, as are hospitals.

In a statement, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong noted, “Not only do we want to help the people of Sri Lanka in its time of need, there are also deeper consequences for the region if this crisis continues.”

Australia has announced $35 million in emergency assistance, to provide Sri Lanka’s citizens with healthcare and food.

Saudi Arabia: Hezbollah Causing Chaos in Lebanon

Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry on Friday praised a recent decision by The Hague’s Special Tribunal for Lebanon to sentence two Hezbollah members for their role in the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister.

Both of the suspects, members of the Hezbollah terror group, were tried and convicted in absentia. The two will receive life in prison for their role in the 2005 assassination for Rafik al-Hariri.

Hariri served as prime minister of Lebanon five times following the 197590 civil war. He and 21 others died in a massive truck bomb on February 14, 2005. His son, Saad Hariri, has served as Lebanese prime minister twice.

Meanwhile, the Saudi Foreign Ministry called on the international community to “assume its responsibilities towards Lebanon,” emphasizing that Lebanon is “suffering from the absurd terrorist practices of the Iran-backed militia.”

The Ministry also called for international resolutions to be implemented against Lebanon and for the assassins to be tracked down and arrested, since they “deliberately contributed to the loss of innocent lives, causing unprecedented chaos in this brotherly country.”

In November, a diplomatic crisis between Lebanon and the Gulf states broke out after Saudi Arabia expressed outrage against comments made by then Lebanese information minister George Kordahi supporting the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen and criticizing the military intervention led by Saudi Arabia, calling the war in the country “futile.”

Saudi Arabia and the UAE, along with other Gulf states, withdrew their diplomatic envoys and expelled Lebanese envoys in response to the comments. Saudi Arabia also designated the financial charity body Al-Qard Al-Hasan Association, which is linked to Hezbollah, as a terrorist entity, saying it “works on managing funds for the terrorist organization (Hezbollah) and its financing.”

The diplomatic envoys have since returned to Lebanon.

Turki Al-Maliki, the spokesman for the Saudi coalition fighting in Yemen, called Hezbollah a “cancer,” saying it started by hurting the Lebanese and now has targeted civilians in Saudi Arabia and Yemen and “spreads destruction in the region and around the world.”

New Floating City in the Maldives

In the Indian Ocean, a floating city large enough to house 20,000 people is under construction.

The city is just 10 minutes by boat from the Maldivian capital of Male and will consist of 5,000 floating units, including shops, schools, houses, and restaurants, with canals running between the buildings.

The first units will be unveiled this