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According to Bloomberg, Saudi officials project the Line will cost around $100-$200 billion of the $500 billion planned to be spent on Neom and will have a population of 1 million with 380,000 jobs by the year 2030. It will have one of the biggest airports in the world for some reason, which seems like a strange addition to a supposedly climate-friendly city.

The site also makes numerous hand wavy and vaguely menacing claims, including that “all businesses and communities” will have “over 90%” of their data processed by AI and robots:

Don’t pay attention to Saudi war crimes in Yemen, the prince’s brutal crackdowns on dissent, the hit squad that tortured journalist Jamal Khashoggi to death, and the other habitual human rights abuses that allow the Saudi monarchy to remain in power. Also, ignore that obstacles facing Neom include budgetary constraints, the forced eviction of tens of thousands of existing residents such as the Huwaitat tribe, coronavirus and oil shock, investor flight over human rights concerns, and the lingering questions of whether the whole project is a distraction from pressing domestic issues and/or a mirage conjured up by consulting firms pandering to the crown prince’s ego and hungry for lucrative fees. Nevermind you that there are numerous ways we could ensure the cities people already live in are prepared for climate change rather than blowing billions of dollars on a vanity project.

One of Rowland’s sons, a senior executive at the Luxembourg-based bank, emailed the plan to Will Tricks, who had swapped a career in the U.K.’s foreign intelligence service MI6 for a job advising MBZ. Tricks, who acted as a go-between for the Rowlands, was paid as a contractor by Banque Havilland. The presentation found its way to the UAE’s ambassador to the U.S., who stored it on his computer under “Rowland Banque Havilland.”

Last year, Qatar sued Banque Havilland in London, accusing it of orchestrating a campaign that cost the country more than $40 billion to shore up its banks and defend its currency peg against the U.S. dollar. While the lawsuit has received attention in the media, the extent of other work Banque Havilland did on behalf of MBZ hasn’t been previously reported. Nor has the role of Tricks.

Havilland is facing a criminal investigation in Luxembourg for, among other things, its dealings with the family of another head of state, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev. It has also had communications with regulators in Luxembourg and the U.K. about the Qatar plan

Devising a plan for economic sabotage, whether implemented or not, is beyond the remit of most private banks. But Banque Havilland is no ordinary financial institution. The firm specialized in doing things others might balk at, the documents and emails show. Its clients included kleptocrats and alleged criminals in corruption hotspots including Nigeria and Azerbaijan. Its owners solicited business in sanctioned countries such as North Korea and Zimbabwe.

Not all of its clients were pariahs, and none was as important as MBZ, people with knowledge of the matter say. The crown prince, 59, is one of the Arab world’s most powerful leaders. A graduate of Britain’s Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, he commands one of the best-equipped armies in the region and has waged wars in Yemen, Libya and Somalia. He’s not as well-known as his protégé and neighbor Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince. And he isn’t president of the UAE, a title held by a half-brother.

When MBZ wanted to develop a foothold in southern Africa’s commodities market in 2011, Tricks worked with the Rowlands on sourcing potential investments, documents and emails show. They picked Zimbabwe as a hub for the region, but there was a problem. The country was subject to U.S. and European Union sanctions that banned dealings with President Robert Mugabe’s inner circle and many of its state-owned companies. Tricks passed on advice about setting up a trust in Abu Dhabi for any Zimbabwe deals to hide the identities of investors from the U.S. Treasury Department, which oversees sanctions enforcement

the UAE is now a major trading partner with the country despite continuing U.S. sanctions, and it opened an embassy there in 2019

Robeson, the foundation’s chairman, was elected to the Human Rights Watch board a few months later, in April 2012. He was named to the advocacy group’s Middle East and North Africa advisory committee. “We have been given the complete list of projects currently being undertaken by Human Rights Watch in the Middle East and North Africa,” Robeson wrote soon after joining the board, in a memo he emailed to Jonathan Rowland that he asked him to share with his father. Robeson also said he’d been given detailed notes of a meeting between the group and Britain’s then-Secretary of State for International Development Andrew Mitchell, along with other private briefings.

The foundation appears to have had no other purpose than making the Human Rights Watch donations. It was registered in Guernsey after the first gift and wound down when Robeson left the board in 2016.

Emma Daly, a spokeswoman for Human Rights Watch in New York, said the organization vetted Robeson at the time he was being considered for the board and couldn’t find any conflicts. She said the group didn’t know about Rowland’s or the bank’s connections to MBZ. Its most recent report on the country noted that, “Despite declaring 2019 the ‘Year of Tolerance,’ United Arab Emirates rulers showed no tolerance for any manner of peaceful dissent.”

The presentation is now a key part of the case in which Qatar accuses the bank of orchestrating an illegal UAE-backed campaign to create false impressions about the country’s stability. The UAE is not a defendant. The plan called for setting up an offshore vehicle into which the UAE would transfer its holdings of Qatari debt before buying more of the securities. The fund would also purchase foreign-exchange derivatives linked to the Qatari riyal and buy enough insurance on its bonds—a barometer of a country’s creditworthiness—to “move the price sufficiently to make it newsworthy.” Working with an affiliated party, it would then flood the market with the bonds to create the impression of panicked selling. The presentation also described a public relations drive to “add more fuel to the fire” and suggest Qatar might be struggling to access U.S. dollars.

Within weeks of the plan being sent to Tricks, the riyal—under pressure since the beginning of the blockade in June 2017—went into freefall and hit a record low. The yield on Qatar’s 10-year bonds also soared, as did the cost of insuring the country’s debt against default. The currency didn’t recover until November of that year, after the Intercept reported on the Banque Havilland plan.

the Oman 2020 plan, launched in 1995. With the goal of diversifing the economy away from hydrocarbons and increasing the ratio of nationals in public and private employment to 95 per cent, from 68 per cent in 1996. However, these two goals have proven somewhat contradictory. The high rate of foreign labour in both the public and private sectors has increased since 2009 when a Free Trade Agreement with the US came into force– more than doubling the 2005 figure. High rates of unemployment, low wages and the concentration of wealth among elites aligned to the government were contributing factors to the popular unrest of 2011-12.

Under a 1996 constitutional provision a council comprising members of the ruling family and senior officials is granted three days from the Sultan's death to choose a successor. If this process fails to provide a clear transition, then a contingency plan would be activated. This, as Qaboos himself told Foreign Affairs in a 1997 interview, would mean that: "As for a successor, the process, always known to us, has now been publicised in the Basic Law. When I die, my family will meet. If they cannot agree on a candidate, the Defence Council will decide, based on a name or names submitted by the previous sultan. I have already written down two names, in descending order, and put them in sealed envelopes in two different regions."

if we follow the categorisation of the region's regimes discussed by Henry and Springborg in Globalization and the Politics of Development in the Middle East, we can see that Qaboos' Oman represents an almost completely different approach to government from most other regimes in the region. Indeed, it reflects neither the kind of practices of a bunker state – associated with rule "through military/security/party structures that are in turn controlled by alliances of these leaders' families and tribes", such as was the case in Salah's Yemen, Assad's Syria or Gaddafi's Libya – nor the kind of "bully praetorianism" which characterised the kleptocratic regimes of Ben Ali's Tunisia, Mubarak's Egypt or the PLO/PA under Arafat. Moreover, it also differs from the strife riddled monarchies in Riyadh and Manama particularly in as much as the ruling family has not gone out of its way to ostracise, exclude and oppress particular sections of the population. Instead, according to Henry and Springborg, "being the sole GCC ruler without a solid family and tribal base ... [Qaboos' Oman has] been the most assiduous in seeking to build an identity that simultaneously glorifies the Sultan himself".

Oman faces a number of pressing, and distinctly Omani-challenges in the immediate and mid-term

49 per cent of residents under the age of 20

some dissatisfaction arose during the height of the uprisings across the region in 2011-12. Though initially it appeared that Qaboos had handled popular protests deftly – through increased public sector spending, and some political reorganisation and an anti-corruption campaign – frustration at the slow pace of reform contributed to strikes by workers at Petroleum Development Oman and protests elsewhere. Authorities countered with arrests and a draconian crackdown on freedom of speech including hacking the social media accounts of intellectuals involved in the protest

mandated to investigate all human rights violations from 1955, shortly before Tunisia’s independence from France, to 2013

62,000 complaints

a dozen more hearings covering various human rights violations during the presidencies of Habib Bourguiba from 1956 to 1987 and Ben Ali, from 1987 to 2011, such as torture, abuses against union rights, sexual violence against women imprisoned for political reasons, and violations of economic rights

transferring cases of egregious human rights violations to specialized courts, which the transitional justice law and subsequent implementing legislation established but which have not begun hearing cases

Tunisian authorities have not investigated or held anyone accountable for the vast majority of torture cases, including notorious cases resulting in death in custody

parliament’s approval, on September 13, 2017, of a law on “reconciliation in the administrative field,” which offers blanket impunity for civil servants implicated in corruption and embezzlement who did not benefit personally

Many South Asian countries are equally dependent on remittances from their workers abroad, according to the World Bank’s 2019 data, including India ($82 billion in remittances), Bangladesh ($17 billion), Pakistan ($21 billion), and Sri Lanka ($7 billion).

South Asian countries have either ignored the plight of these workers during the pandemic or made no significant plans to ease their hardships. In part, that’s because the workers tend to be from the poorest and least politically powerful groups at home.

As coronavirus cases rise in the Middle East, migrant workers from around the world, and particularly from South Asia, will be the worst-hit.

The UAE has threatened that Nepal and other South Asian countries must repatriate the workers or face the suspension of bilateral labor agreements.

Two Tunisian television stations critical of the president, Nessma and Al-Quran al-Kareem, were taken off the air on October 11, over alleged licensing issues.

While no one knows the exact composition or origins of the different militant groups based in Sinai, many believe past state crackdowns on the area might have fueled their growth. While visiting his cousin in Cairo’s Tora prison in 2005, Fathy met Kamal Allam, who would later become a key militant in the Tawheed and Jihad group in Sinai. At the time, police had randomly arrested hundreds of men from the peninsula after several tourist sites were bombed in South Sinai. Allam was in custody on drug charges, and was limping due to injuries sustained from torture. He told Fathy, “I wouldn't wish what I'm going through even on an apostate.” After spending his time in prison among Islamist detainees, Allam escaped from his cell during the 2011 revolution when the police retreated from their posts. He was among the first to attack police stations in North Sinai between January 25 and January 28 of that year. In January 2014, the Ministry of Interior announced Allam had been killed in a military campaign south of Rafah.

Fathy explains that the expansion of terrorist networks in Sinai is mainly stimulated by the desire to retaliate against police brutality, and less by a deep-rooted jihadist doctrine

many of those who suffered during the ongoing security crackdown were easy to recruit. Many people — especially those from the most impoverished areas in the peninsula’s center and eastern edge — are also joining the militias to make money after losing work in the stymied smuggling trade

Madiha, a middle-aged widow from Muqataa, sits in the small shed she relocated to three months ago. She now lives in the Masaeed neighborhood in southern Arish, one of the few places that residents still consider relatively safe. Muqataa was the target of some of the military’s most vicious operations. In the first raid in mid-2013, military forces stormed her house. The troops shot between the legs of her 12-year-old daughter to force her to report on the area’s militants. They then used Madiha and her three children as human shields, she claims, forcing them to walk in front of the soldiers as they ventured into the fields.

Civilian deaths have become recurrent in these attacks, though widely unreported by the media.

Reports of civilian deaths have been corroborated by human rights groups conducting research in the area, though no reports have been published yet. These deaths are the brutal, immediate cost of the state’s war on terrorists. But there is also a more prolonged, quotidian cost that North Sinai residents must pay. Rafah had been under curfew since the summer of 2013, but in October 2014, the government announced a three-month curfew that stretched to Arish. On January 25, 2015, area residents gathered to celebrate the curfew’s end — only to find out it would be extended. The streets of Arish are now lined with cafes and restaurants shuttered by the slump in business, and many workers lost their jobs when the curfew eliminated evening shifts.

Instead of bolstering a sense of security, the war on terror and increased militarization have fostered an extended state of fear in North Sinai

The tribal moderns may endorse Islamism, or liberal democracy, but the fact of the matter remains constant. From the perspective of regimes, they are a dangerous bunch, simply because if they invoke tribal solidarities, they may be heeded by their fellow cousins, both imaginary and real.

No doubt, activists in Kuwait and other GCC countries will fall under the heavy weight of a pact designed above all to control, monitor and punish dissidents. The GCC itself may not move from cooperation to unification in the near future but it has certainly become yet another mechanism to silence peaceful and legitimate opposition across borders. Read More: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/03/saudi-gcc-security-dissident-activism-detention-opposition.html Madawi Al-Rasheed Columnist  Dr. Madawi Al-Rasheed is a columnist for Al-Monitor and a visiting professor at the Middle East Centre at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She has written extensively about the Arabian Peninsula, Arab migration, globalization, religious trans-nationalism and gender. On Twitter: @MadawiDr !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs'); function target_popup(a){window.open("","formpopup","width=400,height=400,resizeable,scrollbars");a.target="formpopup"}

Demonstration events account for 99% of all disorder in the country, with the remaining 1% consisting of violence against civilians, predominantly perpetrated by state forces; rare clashes between the authorities and anti-government militia groups, such as Saraya Al Ashtar; and sporadic bomb attacks. More than 20 fatalities are reported between 2016 and early 2020

The most active group involved in demonstrations is the February 14 Coalition, a decentralized organization primarily consisting of youth activists. Named for the start date of Bahrain’s 2011 uprising,3 the Coalition is not affiliated with any formal political groups and contains both Shiite and Sunni members

Many demonstrations are also led by the Shiite community at large

Despite accounting for a majority, the Shiite community is marginalized and often faces discrimination by the government, which is dominated by the Sunni royal family

The data show spikes in demonstration activity around executions and extrajudicial killings committed by the government

multiple gay men in Morocco told PinkNews that they were living in a state of absolute terror: watching as other gay men were outed on social media, beaten up by their families, kicked out of their homes, disappearing and, in several, unverified, cases, killing themselves as a result of being publicly outed. Now, tragically, reports of gay men dying by suicide in the Muslim-majority country have been confirmed.

uman Rights Watch told LGBTQ Nation that it was looking into the situation. “The law inherently discriminates against LGBT+ people, so it can only be an incubator for this type of abuse,” said Ahmed Benchemsi of HRW. “Homophobic people feel empowered because the law is on their side.”

“We took immediate action by sending a security message to all our 41,000 users in Morocco, we blocked all profiles created from the time this person addressed her users and contacted Facebook to have the group page taken offline.”

Images of gay men in Morocco are being shared in closed Facebook groups by women following Moussa’s instructions.

a sort of social persecution of men and women who look religious — something that could further exacerbate Tunisia’s terrorism problem. Alienation pushes these people to the margins of society, making them psychologically fragile and more receptive to radical discourse targeted against the state. “How do you expect people to feel when they’ve been subjected to this sort of treatment?” said Ghaki. “They’ll feel hatred and a desire for vengeance.”

experiences frequent harassment by police and security personnel because she wears a face veil, the niqab. She said she once had to wait 45 minutes before she was allowed into a hospital. Though she offered to show her face and allow the security personnel to check her identity, she said they made sure to humiliate her before letting her go inside to visit her ailing relative.

While people have gotten used to seeing women wearing the hijab in Tunisia’s streets, niqabi women and bearded men are the country’s new scapegoats. Chaima said that she was once called a terrorist by a group of people in a passing car. “It’s not easy to be who we are in Tunisia,” she said. “Some people want to let us know that we have no place here.”

a group of lawmakers tried to exploit the rising fear of terrorism by proposing a law that would make it illegal for women to cover their faces in public. The draft law drew comparisons to a controversial 2010 law passed in France under president Nicolas Sarkozy. This is no coincidence. France is Tunisia’s former colonial power, and French law, culture, and values have had a profound impact on modern Tunisian society, particularly among the upper classes.

Decades of forced secularization under the Bourguiba and Ben Ali regimes made people less accustomed to the sight of traditional clothing and long beards. Displays of conservative religiosity are less common than in other countries in the region, and thus tend to draw scrutiny.

This kind of treatment inevitably contributes to the alienation and sense of exclusion felt by many of Tunisia’s most vulnerable people. It should be no surprise if some of them actually end up joining the terrorists who society has already classed them with. Sometimes it seems that the security forces aren’t even trying. Ahmed Sellimi, another of Mona and Tarek’s brothers, went to a police station one day to try to convince them to stop the harassment. “Why are you here?” asked the agent he addressed. “Why don’t you just go the mountains with the rest of the terrorists?”

Before the 2011 revolution, the spread of internet access and the rise of blogs and social media allowed Egypt’s LGBTQ citizens a degree of breathing space. Some used blogs and social media to campaign for their rights, while others saw it primarily as a medium via which they could meet and date. Some of the leading human rights activists and anti-Mubarak dissidents were members of the LGBTQ community. But neither LGBTQ movement evolved on the ground nor was gay liberation a cause on the agenda of any political party. The situation did not change much after the outbreak of the 25 January Revolution, though a relatively healthier atmosphere existed briefly from 2011 to 2013, during which some gender taboo issues could be discussed and raised in mainstream circles. The July 2013 military coup, led by Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, ended all that. The EIPR has recorded the arrest of at least 232 “LGBTQ suspects” between the last quarter of 2013 and March 2017.

The only political group, as of this writing, to take a clear public position against the crackdown and homophobia is the Revolutionary Socialists. The liberal Ad-Dustour Party’s spokesperson Khaled Dawoud condemned the arrests, but according to a source in the party this sparked an internal controversy, and it was decided in the end that his statement was solely his and not the party’s.

Sensationalist crackdowns on “queers”, “Satanists”, “wife swappers” etc. is a classic tactic by any dictatorship to divert public attention away from its political and economic failures. And Sisi needs such diversion, as the economy is going down the drain.

in times of defeats and counterrevolutions, reactionary ideas flourish

Ironically, amid an ongoing domestic anti-LGBTQ campaign, Egypt had the audacity to condemn the Orlando gay nightclub shooting in June 2016 in the US. Yet Sisi’s homophobic crusade had already gone international, with his diplomats boycotting the UN’s monitor on anti-gay violence, then later voting (together with the US, Botswana, Burundi, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, China, India, Iraq, Japan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) against a UN resolution condemning the death penalty for LGBTQ people and other groups.

Sarah Hegazi, herself, reportedly resigned from the left-leaning Bread and Freedom Party shortly before her arrest because the party refused to take a stand in solidarity with the LGBTQ community. With her arrest, the party issued a brief, weak statement denouncing the arrest, but did not dare take a clear stand against homophobia.

Not a single Western embassy in Cairo has issued a condemnation up till now, amid hypersales of arms to Egypt and the signing of security cooperation agreements against “terrorism” and “illegal migration”.

Within Sisi’s approach to Islam, censorship remains key. In addition to going after the Muslim Brotherhood, he has locked up thousands of youth and other perceived dissidents. His brutal crackdown has ensnared over 40,000 prisoners of different political stripes. In the security-first mindset of the Sisi regime, writers and other dissidents pose a considerable threat: They have the ability to make the larger population question his policies

Fahmy is optimistic that the current repressive period is already creating burgeoning subversive spaces of critical resistance. “Within the readership there actually is a more healthy and critical reception of books and engagement with them [than before]. The reading public hasn’t expanded but deepened.”

a coalition of trade unions called the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA) established informal leadership of nationwide demonstrations

In February 2020, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) described Sudan’s economic prospects as “alarming” – unusually blunt language by its standards. Then came covid-19 and the associated global economic downturn. The IMF revised its assessment: Sudan’s GDP would shrink by 7.2 percent in 2020. By April, inflation had risen to almost 100 percent (one independent estimate finds that inflation may have hit around 116 percent). Adding to this grim catalogue of calamities, the swarms of locusts that have ravaged the Horn of Africa in the worst outbreak in 70 years are widely expected to arrive in Sudan in mid-June. The United States Agency for International Development estimates that more than 9 million Sudanese will require humanitarian assistance this year.

Despite the fact that a “constitutional declaration” places the civilian-dominated cabinet in charge of the country, the generals are largely calling the shots. They control the means of coercion and a tentacular network of parastatal companies, which capture much of Sudan’s wealth and consolidate their power at the expense of their civilian partners in government

In particular, Hamdok will need to establish civilian authority over the parastatal companies controlled by the military and security sector. The task is daunting and fraught with risks, but Hamdok can acquire greater control by taking advantage of the rivalry between Hemedti and General Abdelfattah al-Buhran, the de facto head of state.

draws on 54 recent interviews with senior Sudanese politicians, cabinet advisers, party officials, journalists, former military officers, activists, and representatives of armed groups, as well as foreign diplomats, researchers, analysts, and officials from international institutions

Sudan’s chance for democratisation is the product of a difficult struggle against authoritarianism. For three decades, Bashir ruled as the president of a brutal government. He took power in 1989 as the military figurehead of a coup secretly planned by elements of the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood, before pushing aside Islamist ideologue Hassan al-Turabi, who had masterminded the plot. During his rule, Bashir survived US sanctions, isolation from the West, several insurgencies, the secession of South Sudan, a series of economic crises, and arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Darfur. He presided over ruthless counter-insurgency campaigns that deepened political rifts and destroyed the social fabric of peripheral regions such as Darfur, South Kordofan, and Blue Nile.

he turned pro-government tribal militias from Darfur into the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), an organisation led by Hemedti, as insurance

Throughout the 2010s, the Bashir regime put down successive waves of protests. But the uprising that began on December 2018 – triggered by Bashir’s decision to lift subsidies on bread – proved too much for the government to contain

The April 2019 revolution, which ended Omar al-Bashir’s 30-year military rule, brought hope that a civilian regime would emerge to govern Sudan. But – less than a year since the appointment of the transitional prime minister, Abdalla Hamdok – this hope is fading fast.

As junior officers vowed to protect demonstrators, the leaders of the military, the RSF, and the NISS put their mistrust of one another aside, overthrew Bashir, and installed a junta

On 3 June, the last day of Ramadan, the generals sent troops to crush the sit-in. RSF militiamen and policemen beat, raped, stabbed, and shot protesters, before throwing the bodies of many of their victims into the Nile. Around 120 people are thought to have been killed and approximately 900 wounded in the massacre.

prompted Washington and London to pressure Abu Dhabi and Riyadh to curb the abuses of their client junta

envisioned a transition that would – over the course of a little more than three years, and under the guidance of a civilian-led cabinet of ministers – reach a peace deal with armed groups from the peripheral regions of Sudan, while establishing a new constitutional order and free elections

When Hamdok, a UN economist picked by the FFC, took office on 21 August, there were grounds for cautious optimism. The peace talks with armed groups began in earnest and seemed to make rapid progress. Hamdok inherited a catastrophic economic situation and political structure in which the generals remained in high office but the constitutional declaration put civilians in the driving seat. Western countries expressed their full support for the transition. The journey would be difficult, but its direction was clear.

Sudanese citizens have gained new civil and political rights since the transition began. The new authorities have curtailed censorship. The harassment and arbitrary, often violent detentions conducted by NISS officers have largely ended. Minorities such as Christians now have freedom of religion. The government has repealed the public order law, which allowed for public floggings. And it is in the process of criminalising female genital mutilation.

The authorities have not achieved much on transitional justice.[3] The head of the commission in charge of investigating the 3 June massacre of revolutionary demonstrators said he could not protect witnesses. The authorities said they are willing to cooperate with the International Criminal Court to try Bashir and the other wanted leaders, but the generals are blocking a handover of the suspects to The Hague

By 2018, the authorities were struggling to finance imports, and queues were forming outside petrol stations. The economic slide continued, prompting Bashir’s downfall. It has only continued since then. The Sudanese pound, which traded at 89 to the dollar in the last weeks of Bashir’s rule, now trades at 147 to the dollar.

Donors want the Sudanese government to commit to reforms that will have a social cost in return for a promise of unspecified levels of funding. The pledges Sudan receives in June could fall far below the estimated $1.9 billion the government needs, forcing the authorities to create the social safety net only gradually.[8] This would go against the logic of a temporary programme designed to offset one-off price hikes. In these conditions, subsidy reform – however necessary – is a gamble for the government.

The European Union has pledged €250m in new development assistance (along with €80m in support against covid-19) to Sudan, while Sweden has pledged €160m, Germany €80m, and France €16m-17m. Yet these are paltry figures in comparison to Europeans’ declared commitments

The path to debt relief under the Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HPIC) Initiative is long in any circumstances. But US indifference, European timidity, and the indecisiveness of Hamdok’s cabinet have combined to kill off hopes that the diplomatic momentum Sudan established in September and October 2019 would quickly translate into substantial international assistance

Although the state sponsor of terrorism designation does not impose formal sanctions on Sudan, it sends a political signal that stigmatises the country, deters foreign investment and debt relief, and casts doubt on Washington’s claim to support civilian government. Unfortunately for Hamdok, Sudan does not sit high on the list of priorities of the current US administration. President Donald Trump decided not to fast-track Sudan’s removal from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, allowing the process to take the bureaucratic route and become enmeshed in the conflicting perspectives of the State Department, national security and defence agencies, and Congress

Failure to stabilise Sudan’s economy would have far-reaching consequences for not only the country but also the wider region. Since Hamdok’s appointment, the domestic balance of power has once again tilted in favour of the generals, who could seize on the climate of crisis to restore military rule. If they remove civilian leaders from the equation, rival factions within the military and security apparatus will be set on a collision course.

Within the government, the configuration of power that has emerged since September 2019 bears little resemblance to the delicate institutional balance – enshrined in the constitutional declaration – that the FFC fought so hard to achieve in its negotiations with the junta.

The generals’ public relations machine is now well-oiled. The military opened a bakery in Atbara, the cradle of the 2018-2019 uprising. Hemedti has established health clinics and a fund to support farmers; his forces have distributed RSF-branded food supplies and launched a mosquito-eradication campaign.

Neither Hamdok nor the FFC has attempted to mobilise public support when faced with obstruction by, or resistance from, the generals. As such, they have given up one of the few cards they held and created the impression that they have been co-opted by the old regime. The popularity of the FFC has collapsed; Hamdok earned considerable goodwill with the Sudanese public in late 2019, but their patience with him is wearing thin. Many activists say that they would be back on the streets if it were not for covid-19 (which has so far had a limited health impact on Sudan but, as elsewhere, led to restrictions on public gatherings).

The so-called “Arab troika” of the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt have taken advantage of the revolution to sideline their regional rivals Turkey and Qatar, which had long supported Bashir’s regime. The Emiratis, in cooperation with the Saudis, are playing a particularly active role in shaping Sudan’s political process, reportedly spending lavishly and manoeuvring to position Hemedti as the most powerful man in the new Sudan

The Emiratis are widely known to be generous with their covert financial contributions, which flow either directly to various political actors or, indirectly, through Hemedti.[20] Mohammed Dahlan, the Palestinian exile who runs many important security projects on behalf of Emirati ruler Mohammed bin Zayed, handles the UAE’s Sudan file.[21] Former Sudanese general Abdelghaffar al-Sharif, once widely considered the most powerful man in the NISS, reportedly lives in Abu Dhabi and has put his formidable intelligence network at the service of the UAE.

The Arab troika has also worked to undermine Hamdok and prop up the generals

Saudi Arabia and the UAE have avoided financing transparent mechanisms such as the World Bank’s Multi-Donor Trust Fund. Meanwhile, Hemedti appears to have a large supply of cash with which to support the central bank. In March, he deposited $170m in the bank. These developments suggest that the Gulf powers could be using their financial might to shape the outcome of Sudan’s domestic political process, redirecting flows of money to prop up Hemedti and exacerbating the economic crisis to position him as a saviour

The levels of resentment between the RSF and SAF are such that many officers fear a local incident could escalate into broader clashes between the two forces

Beyond subsidies, the economic debate in Sudan has recently turned to the issue of how the civilian authorities can acquire greater revenue – particularly by recovering assets stolen by the Bashir regime, and by gaining control of the sprawling network of parastatal companies affiliated with the military and security sector.

It is not difficult to identify who to tax: companies owned by NCP businessmen, Bashir’s family, the SAF, the NISS, and the RSF play a dominant role in the economy, yet benefit from generous tariff and tax exemptions

the military and security apparatus has shares in, or owns, companies involved in the production and export of gold, oil, gum arabic, sesame, and weapons; the import of fuel, wheat, and cars; telecommunications; banking; water distribution; contracting; construction; real estate development; aviation; trucking; limousine services; and the management of tourist parks and events venues. Defence companies manufacture air conditioners, water pipes, pharmaceuticals, cleaning products, and textiles. They operate marble quarries, leather tanneries, and slaughterhouses. Even the firm that produces Sudan’s banknotes is under the control of the security sector.

These companies are shrouded in secrecy; high-level corruption and conflicts of interest make the boundaries between private and public funds porous

The generals are using dark money to keep the civilian government on life support, ensuring that it remains dependent on them

Following decades of consolidated authoritarianism, Sudan has entered a rare period of instability in its balance of power.

The US, Europe, and international financial institutions have left Sudan to its own devices, allowing its economy to tank and its political transition to stall. In the interim, the generals have expanded their reach and FFC leaders have returned to Sudan’s traditional elite bargaining, at the expense of institutional reform. Western inaction has also enabled regional actors – chief among them Abu Dhabi and Riyadh – to play a prominent role in Sudan, dragging the country closer to military rule or a civil war.

Across the region, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have demonstrated their preference for military governments over civilian-led democracies. Their recent actions in Sudan suggest that they may hope to repeat their success in helping return the military to power in Egypt in 2013. But this would be both cynical and naïve. A strong civilian component in the government is a prerequisite for stability in Sudan. The country’s conflicts are a direct result of state weakness – a weakness that pushed Bashir’s military government to use undisciplined militias to repress citizens, fuelling cycles of instability and the emergence of a fragmented military and security apparatus. In the current political environment, any attempt to formally impose military rule could ignite further instability and even a civil war.

Following the constitutional referendum on July 25, Tunisia approved the new constitution, replacing what was considered one of the most progressive in the Arab world. The new document is missing many of the articles that had guaranteed the protection of rights and freedoms. It eliminates several constitutional commissions created under the 2014 constitution, such as the Human Rights Commission, which investigated human rights violations, and the Independent High Commission for Audiovisual Communication, the country’s media regulatory body.

“The 2014 constitution protected the freedom of the press, publication, and expression. However, the new constitution does not mention anything on the independence of the judicial system, which is one of the few things that could guarantee fair trials when violations against journalists or the press occur,” Mohamed Yassine Jelassi, president of the SNJT, told CPJ in a meeting. “And now, with the lack of independent constitutional bodies, we are going to start dealing again with a Ministry of Communications that takes its orders straight from authorities.”

Jelassi told CPJ that the new constitution further diminishes the protection of journalists and the freedom of publication by using vague language that could lead to the conviction of journalists on charges unrelated to journalism. Under the 2014 constitution, authorities were prohibited from interfering with any journalistic content, since it would violate the freedom of publication. By contrast, the new constitution protects the freedom of publication only if it does not harm “national security,” “public morals,” or “public health,” which are all defined by the law.

while Al-Jazeera has all its paperwork, licenses, and taxes in order, the office remains closed. As of early September, police were still heavily present in front of the bureau’s building

“Most private [and non-profit] news organizations are partially funded by foreign groups or governments,” said Khadhraoui. “Without these funds, it will be impossible to pay staff salaries, and therefore there won’t be any independent press sector in Tunisia.”

The Egyptian authorities’ efforts to screen out prominent organisations with a record of criticising their rule, particularly on the issue of human rights, comes amid growing concern over their treatment of protests and civil society at the Cop in Sharm el-Sheikh in November.

The UNFCCC told the Guardian host nations were permitted to invite organisations at their discretion for one-time access, but that “there is no fixed written policy” on one-time registration. The UK did not recommend any NGOs for one-time admission to attend Cop26.

The secretariat does not consider itself to be competent to unilaterally identify additional organisations from the host country

Abdallah said the Egyptian government wished to use Cop27 “to portray a different image of Egypt, one where people are kept away from cities suffering from pollution, poverty or repression. Part of this image is keeping critical voices out so that the only ones heard in Sharm el-Sheikh are those praising the government.”

Since coming to power in a military coup in 2013, Sisi has moved to strangle civil society activity. The state has demanded that NGOs receive government approval to continue operating and has outlawed funding received from abroad as a way to curtail their operations.

Organisations tracking detentions by security services, use of torture by state bodies or the state’s crackdown on civil rights have found their offices raided, their founders targeted with asset freezes and travel bans or their premises forcibly closed by the authorities.

Abdallah told the Guardian the ECRF had applied to attend Cop27 not just to represent Egyptian citizens but also to provide legal assistance in Sharm el-Sheikh to anyone detained for protesting.“Not allowing ECRF to attend strips participants from our protection, meaning protection from a watchdog organisation that can actually support them,” he said. “No one else is doing this.”

Climate justice activists have said Egypt should not be allowed to host Cop27 while thousands of prisoners of conscience remain behind bars, particularly the British-Egyptian activist and blogger Alaa Abd El-Fattah, now more than four months into a hunger strike. Abd El-Fattah, imprisoned on terrorism charges for a social media post, told his family during a recent visit that he believed he would die in prison.