The Capitals: Sudan’s Khartoum a battleground for power, New Delhi’s big space dreams, and more

Hello and Welcome. This is The Capitals. Your weekly round-up of news and views from the corridors of power all over the world. 

This week, the capitals of Sudan, Yemen, India, Northern Ireland, United States, Ghana and Japan witnessed among the most significant of all events of reckoning.

Smoke billows above residential buildings in Khartoum on April 16, 2023, as fighting in Sudan raged for a second day in battles between rival generals | AFP

Sudanese capital’s uneasy calm was wrecked by gunfire and shelling this week as a deadly power struggle broke out between the erstwhile power-sharers, Sudan’s army and a paramilitary group. The Rapid Support Force (RSF) is the paramilitary group infamous for many human rights violations in the country located at the crossroads of Sub-Saharan Africa and West Asia. 

So far at least 56 civilians are reported to be dead in the deadly fight between the Sudanese army and the RSF. 

Here is a WION explainer to what all is happening in Sudan, and the exact genesis of the ongoing battle between the two warring armed factions of contested authorities. 

Prisoners formerly held by Yemen’s Houthi rebels board an aircraft of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) before it takes off from Sana’a International Airport on April 16, 2023 | AFP

It is still not known how many prisoners the both sides have. 

But both the rebels and government forces are still honouring a ceasefire that expired in October 2022 after a seven-month period. The current exchange of prisoners is being seen as a measure that West Asia watchers expect to formalise into an end to the war. 

File photo of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi chairing a meeting of Cabinet Committee on Security | @PMOIndia/Twitter

In New Delhi, India’s big space dreams were unveiled in the form of the Indian Space Policy 2023, a formal expansion of space sector reforms India launched in 2020. While the 2020 reforms allowed private sector firms to perform end-to-end space activities, this week’s policy release is aimed at providing greater clarity on the specific activities that private firms can carry out, Sidharth MP, WION correspondent covering Space and Defence sectors told The Capitals.

“The Space Policy is said to be a stepping stone to a Space Activities Bill and a Space Activities Law in India, which will codify the roles and responsibilities of the government and private sector in greater detail,” Sidharth pointed out. 

India aims to constitute at least a tenth of $360 billion global space economy by the end of the decade. 

US President Joe Biden delivered a speech on business development at Ulster University in Belfast on April 12, 2023 | AFP

US President Joe Biden went down the lane of his Irish ancestory in Northern Ireland’s capital Belfast this week. He commemorated 25 years of Good Friday peace agreement, a 1998 agreement between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland which ultimately diluted the previously concentrated calls for Northern Ireland’s separation from Britain. 

The four-day visit to Ireland was marked by pomp as Biden was seen acting on behalf of his British allies to strengthen Northern Ireland’s union with Britain. “Northern Ireland will not go back [to violence],” Biden said at the Ulster University campus in Belfast while referring to pre-1998 calls for separation.

File photo of the White House in Washington D.C. superimposed with the images of Jack Teixeira, 21, arrested in classified document leak row this week | Reuters

The world’s most powerful corridor of power was marred by the most explosive document leak of the decade. This time, it wasn’t a Snowden or Assange but a 21-year-old newly minted member of the US Air Force, who unleashed a diplomatic storm of embarrassment over White House. Why embarrassment? Well, for one, the leak of highly classified US military documents revealed how Washington spies on countries it calls its allies and partners. Two, it exposed gaps in Ukrainian air defences amid its ongoing war in Ukraine. 

Here is a WION explainer, detailing upon Jack Teixeira, the young man arrested this week, who has been charged with unauthorised removal of classified national defence information. 

Representative image for children’s Malaria vaccination | Reuters

This week, the Ghanaian capital approved the use of Oxford University-Serum Institute of India’s anti-malaria vaccine Mosquirix developed by the British drugmaker GSK. Children under the age of three will be inoculated with the anti-malaria vaccine while the exact timeline of the rollout has not been revealed. 

Annually, about 600,000 people die due to Malaria, most of them in Africa. Children under the age of three, for whom the anti-malaria vaccine with 77 per cent efficacy has been approved, remain most vulnerable to the disease.

People line up to purchase the fresh copies of Japanese writer Haruki Murakami’s new book ‘The City and Its Uncertain Walls’ at a book store in Shinjuku district of Tokyo early on April 13, 2023 | AFP

Legendary Japanese writer Haruki Murakami’s first novel in six years, ‘The City and Its Uncertain Walls’ hit the shelves in Tokyo this week. A Murakami novel is often considered ‘an Olympic event’ in Japan. While Japanese language readers can score through the 661-page novel, Murakami admirers worldwide will have to wait for some time more for the English translation of the novel. 

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