The rise of the outsider general Hemedti. Plus: Fox News and the unbroadcastable truth
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As foreign governments scrambled to evacuate civilian nationals from Sudan this week, many were still struggling to digest the rapid descent of the east African state into chaos and war. But those inside the country had for some months foreseen and feared open conflict between two rival generals.
In a revealing feature read this week, the Guardian’s Sudanese-born columnist Nesrine Malik charts the rapid rise of the warlord known as Hemedti, and how he came to despise Sudan’s de facto ruler Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the armed forces he leads.
As Nesrine writes: “Hemedti only appeared on [Sudan’s] political scene four years ago. In that short time, he has drawn the army, and all of Sudan, into an unprecedented confrontation … How did he, seemingly overnight, come to capture Sudan’s politics?”
Adding to our coverage of Sudan this week, Zeinab Mohammed Salih and Jason Burke report on the plight of terrified civilians in Khartoum and the geopolitical influences fuelling the violence.
Fox News paid $787.5m to settle a libel case for knowingly broadcasting false claims about Dominion voting machines after the 2020 US election. Reporter Sam Levine reflects on the staggering cost paid by the network to avoid a public apology. Adam Gabbatt looks at why Fox fired its erstwhile star host Tucker Carlson this week, and, in Opinion, Jonathan Freedland says the nightmarish reality for Fox is that both it, and its audience, are addicted to lies.
In Culture, Stuart Jeffries marvels at a major new London show pitting the otherworldly creations of Hilma af Klint alongside the abstract works of Piet Mondrian. And, as tech firms such as Google, Tesla and Meta build new homes for their workers, Steve Rose looks at the chequered history of company towns.
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