Armoured Khartoum: Sudan’s bloody transition

Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio. I'm your host, Jason Palmer. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. China's outbreaks of swine flu are spreading from huge industrial farms to tiny backyard operations. More than half of the world's pork comes from China and and half of those pigs are already at risk. We look at how the crisis might transform the country's pork industry and the world market for protein. And this week, San Francisco's mayor will sign legislation outlawing the sale of e cigarettes. We examine the evidence about the harms of vaping, how likely kids are to take it up, and whether a ban addresses either. But first, in Sudan, tens of thousands of people demonstrated in the capital Khartoum yesterday against a military junta. It was the first major demonstration since military forces cracked down on a protest camp a month ago, killing dozens. The protests first erupted at the end of last year when citizens angered by rising costs began demanding the ouster of President Omar Al Bashir. He stepped down in April and a transitional military council took over. Protesters continued to demand a handover to civilian rule and justice for people killed at last month's protests. Yesterday, demonstrators spilled into the streets, heedless of an Internet blackout intended to stymie their organization and of the risk of reprisals from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. Seven people are reported to have died.

Most of the people, they don't think they are safe because the armed forces used extensive violence against them.

Osama Mirgani is the editor in chief of Altayar newspaper. He spoke on the phone after yesterday's demonstration.

We suffered too much from the former regime, and we fear that maybe the new. The new regime can be more worse than the former regime. But now I think the people are protecting democracy and they are protecting the freedom of expression because what they have done will send a very clear message.

Now mediators from Ethiopia and the African Union are trying to broker a deal between the protest movement and the country's military rulers. Last week, the protesters received a proposal for a transition, which they're considering. But since that crackdown, there's little trust between the two sides. A woman who was there last month when the military opened fire described how a festive gathering at the sit in suddenly turned bloody.

The environment is like a happiness environment. Women are just like, talking in the stage about the women's rights and the woman's future.

This demonstrator, whose name we're not using in order to protect her family, spent time in a big protest camp outside the military headquarters about A month ago. It was several weeks since Mr. Bashir had stepped down. The camp stayed put, hoping to pressure the generals to transition to a democratic government.

I went around every places in the demonstration and I find people like talking about what Sudan, what next, about the future. And they are really happy at that time. They are really happy about what they do.

They were optimistic about the possibility of change. And it was almost time for the Muslim Eid festival.

I eat their food and we laughing. That's a really nice time. This is really a good opportunity.

But then people started getting messages from the protesters on the outside of the camp.

They text us something was going to happen today because all the forces is not here.

Until then. Violence between security forces and protesters had been minimal.

The message came again. This is really serious. Many forces they going to attack us. We feel like something scary they going to happen. We saw them coming up from this car to award us and panicking, like shooting in the air to let all the people escape from that area.

And then the forces began shooting protesters. One uploaded this footage to Facebook.

I'm shocked. This has really happened. This is. This is killing people. But my friend, they just grabbed me. We want just to go from here. And I see like two or three people in the street. Blood everywhere, mud. You can smell the tear gas. You can smell the blood. At that time, I feel like this is the end of my life. We run until we get to the hospital, which is the Royal Care. A few minutes. Many casualties. Coming up to Royal Care. I saw them with the blood. I saw like people with shooting in the heart. Many children, women, old people and I'm scared.

She managed to escape, but many didn't. Since then, the forces who took the lead that day, the rapid support forces have dominated a badly shaken city.

It was like arriving in a ghost town.

Nicholas Pelham is the Economist's Middle east correspondent. He arrived in Khartoum just after the crackdown.

Military vehicles were on corners with heavily armed men. But apart from that, the normal teeming city, jammed with cars, was just empty.

And so who were you able to talk to about the crackdown?

The first thing that I did was to go to a hospital called Royal Care where doctors were treating many of the wounded. Spoke to doctors who had horrific stories. They had been on the scene when the shooting had started. They said that they'd seen bodies thrown into the Nile and we actually saw.

People have been shooting, gunned down by ammunition and they actually throw them out of the bridge.

They said Sam was still alive when they were thrown in.

But Injured, it would be like at least 10 at that time. When I saw that it was at.

Least 10 people, there was a great sense of nervousness inside the hospital because it had been repeatedly raided. The security forces were looking for demonstrators, they were looking for organizers.

So people saw us inside the hospital and saw us greeting many injured people. And actually they shoot down in the hospital. They broke down the door of the er. That patient inside. It was a glass. They broke the glass and went inside.

They knew that doctors were a source of information about the extent of the killing that had taken place. It was the doctors themselves that really got the message out that the casualties weren't accidental, that there'd been a fully fledged massacre that had taken place in the center of Khartoum.

Even they hid the guard, security guard of the hospital. They killed one of them, hitting him in the head because he closed the gate. He prevent them to come inside the hospital. That's what happened.

The mood inside the hospital was fearful, but also defiant. And in a sense that sort of characterizes the mood across the city. The center of town had been cleared of protesters, but in a sense the protests had moved into neighborhoods. There were barricades on corners in the roads, There were ditches that had been dug. There was a sense that this was a part of town where the military forces were not going to enter and that this was, in their eyes, liberated territories. I mean, it was really sort of a city that was in a state of mourning. But bizarrely, when I went past the Officers Club, not far from the site of the sit in, there was a large wedding party that was taking place. There was dancing, children were dressed in their finery. I was invited to a feast. And so you really had this kind of totally contrasting images of one a city in mourning and the other military officers and their families who were celebrating Eid. It was a really sort of stark image of the division that was taking place between the armed forces on one hand and the bulk of the population on the other.

And so what was the attitude towards those military leaders after this crackdown?

The military itself is not really a united front. The perpetrators of the killing were a particular wing of the armed forces, the Rapid Support Force, which is led by the deputy head of the Transition Military Council, Mohammad Hamdan Daglo, better known as Hamedati. And he's an outsider. He comes from the far west of the country, from Darfur, began as a cattle rustler from a nomadic tribe. And so you have this sort of what's regarded as a professional army on the One hand. And what is, to all intents and purposes, a sort of militia under heredity.

If I'm an average civilian, how do I tell the difference between the rapid support forces and the army?

You can just tell them difference by their stance, by their attitude. The vehicles of the RSF were full of what looked like young kids. Vehicles are bristling with heavy artillery. The army had fewer people in their cars. They weren't making a show of weapons, and they were taking a much more relaxed position vis a vis the population.

So who actually has more control at this stage? Is it the army, or is it the rapid support forces?

In the eyes of many people in Khartoum that I spoke to, the head of the Transitional Military Council is essentially a puppet of Amenity. It's his forces that are getting external backing. They're getting weapons from the Emiratis and the Saudis, this getting finance. They were the ones who were seen as having the upper hand.

And what are the chances of this standoff actually being resolved? Whether between the military and the demonstrators or with some international push, there have.

Been concerted efforts to intervene, to find a mediated way forward, particularly from regional powers. Ethiopia has been leading the efforts, and they come up with a number of proposals, including the formation of a sovereign council in which you would have equal numbers of civilians and military. But it doesn't appear as if the military council that has taken control is yet ready to concede the forces. The external forces of the regional forces that are backing the military junta appear to be more powerful than those which are trying to push for some form of reconciliation. So you have the Saudis and the Emiratis, the Egyptians, who have all come in with military and financial support for the military council. And for the time being, it's the people with guns who believe they have the upper hand.

Nicholas, thank you very much for joining us.

Jason, thank you. It's good to be with you.

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China is in the grip of a crisis that's threatening the livelihoods of tens of millions of its pig farmers, African swine, Fever, also known as pig Ebola, is harmless to humans, but incurable and deadly for pigs. It spreads quickly among pig populations. Short of culling any animal that might have been exposed, there's no known solution to preventing its spread. The scale of the outbreak is unprecedented in the modern era. China's herd of 440 million pigs make up about half of the global population, and it's estimated that by the end of the year, half of those will die as a result of the outbreak.

Pigs in China are under great stress. The people who make a living out of growing pigs are under great stress. It's been nearly a year since they discovered the first outbreak of African swine fever, and it's now spread to every part of the country.

Ted Plafker is a China correspondent for the Economist.

It's understood that the reported numbers of called pigs are grotesquely underreported, and it's a problem that will be with them for years to come.

So let's step back a bit. Tell me about African swine fever and what it is.

It's a hemorrhagic disease that affects pigs. It originated in Africa almost 100 years ago. It's been found in Europe, it's been found in Russia. The Chinese outbreak started most likely with infections from Russia. It spreads very easily between infected pigs. It does not spread to humans, so there's not a human health concern. But consumption of infected pork products will infect other pigs, and in China, that's one of the problems. A lot of small farmers especially feed their pigs random scraps, which may include other pork products, pork waste. The pigs become quite ill. They develop rashes and blotches, they bleed, they die. Another unfortunate element is that reproductive sows are especially susceptible to the infection, which has consequences for the future of the Chinese herd.

So what are officials trying to do to contain the outbreaks?

They're increasing inspections, they are quarantining areas where infections are found, and they are ordering people to cull pigs, to kill infected pigs to help prevent the spread. One of the big problems, though, is that the burden for compensating farmers for pigs that they lose is being placed onto the local government. So the local government is reluctant to acknowledge the number of pigs in their jurisdiction because they're the ones who have to pay for them. They also don't like the idea of being identified as a hotspot in a lot of areas in Chinese governance. Local jurisdictions do not want to come to the attention of higher authorities for having a problem of any sort. So they are in Their way incentivized to brush things under the carpet. That's why it's thought that the number of pigs reported culled in China, it's about 1.2 million. A little under that is thought to be widely under reported. Some estimates say that by the end of this year there will be 200 million pigs that will have to be culled.

And is there a sign that these.

Problems are being addressed?

It's a structural thing that will be very hard to address. The rules they lay down make sense on paper. I've spoken to experts at international agricultural veterinary organizations. The FAO is watching this very closely. People in the industry are watching this very closely. I spoke to the executive of one of the largest pork producers in the country and he was quite pessimistic. The idea that small farmers will do the right thing is very hard to accept. If money is coming out of their pocket, it's not likely to happen. If money is coming out of the pockets of the local county level government, it's not likely to happen. And it's so many farms in so many places, it's one of those things it's hard to get a grip on. China has a way of getting a grip on problems in other sectors. Air safety. In the 90s, China had terrible air safety problems. Nuclear power was understood to be something that China wasn't necessarily running to top standards. But they got on top of it because it's just a handful of enterprises producing nuclear plants and running airlines and they could kind of crack down from the center and get a grip on the 20 odd enterprises that might be involved in this. But when it comes to tens of millions of pig farms, some literally backyard farmers, they just can't do it. They don't have the resources, the personnel or the reach to do that.

The outbreak is already having an effect on the pork market, I presume.

Yes, in a couple of ways. Pork supply is tightening up. Prices are rising. They've already risen quite a lot this year and are expected to rise much more over the second half of the year. Other meats are being replaced. Consumption patterns are changing. They had been changing anyway. Beef has become more popular. Chicken has become more popular. Lamb is becoming very trendy and popular. And there's another funny game being played with frozen stocks. People are playing a speculative game, wondering whether frozen meat will be worth more later when prices are even higher.

So what are the odds that the.

Way this plays out in China and the effects it'll have on the broader market because China provides so much both supply and demand that'll change the global pork market.

There are some executives of Western meat companies who see a lot of opportunity. They think this will be going on for a very long time and that the supply has to be replaced. The world does not produce enough to replace all of it, but it's thought that foreign pork will play a big role, and imports this year are up tremendously. In the first five months, imports have increased over 20%, and it's only accelerating. In May, the increase was over 45% in imported meat. It will transform the global protein market for years to come because of the understanding that China will not get on top of it anytime too soon. And the demand for pork is very high, and it has to come from somewhere.

TED thank you very much for joining us.

My pleasure.

This week we're expecting London Breed, who is the mayor of San Francisco, to sign legislation which effectively bans the sale of e cigarettes.

Bill Ridgers edits Espresso, our daily morning briefing. He's been looking into the research and the laws around vaping.

It will be the first American city to do so. It will probably take seven months before E cigarettes disappear from the shelves of San Francisco stores. E cigarettes will be completely banned from being sold in San Francisco shops and also online stores will be barred from making deliveries of e cigarettes or vaping fluid to any San Francisco address.

And so why is this ban coming into force?

There seems to be particular concern in America about the fact that vaping is appealing to young people in particular. These are products which are quite often the vaporizers themselves can look quite funky. The liquids which go into them are often fruit flavored, and that's thought to appeal to youngsters. And there's a big craze for sort of showing yourself vaping away on Instagram. And this has sparked concern, really, that e cigarettes are breeding a whole new generation of smokers. And people are worried about the health concerns surrounding that.

I mean, is there anything to back that up?

It is already illegal for teenagers in San Francisco to buy cigarettes that age in which you can start buying them is 21. But I think there is certainly evidence to suggest that they are popular among American teens, at the very least. There is a study which shows that perhaps nicotine use rose by 36% last year amongst teenagers in America.

I guess the central question here is whether vaping in and of itself is, in fact, dangerous. What's the current view on that?

I mean, there hasn't been a whole lot of research. I mean, a lot of these health studies can take years really to look at the long term effects, just by the very name nature. But the studies that there have been have been somewhat conflicting. I think there has been some signs that it might increase heart disease, although other studies have found that it doesn't. I guess the jury's out on whether it is in itself harmful. But then that's not the sole question that needs to be addressed here. There is a bigger question which is is it helping people to quit smoking? Tobacco? Tobacco is very clearly a much more dangerous product than vaping is.

And what's your sense for this being kind of the thin end of the wedge? I mean, California's always been fairly progressive on these kinds of measures. Do you think this kind of approach will spread?

Yeah, I think it will depend on the country. In terms of America, there definitely seems to be a move against E cigarettes across the rest of the world. Actually, it's seen much more positively. In Britain, for example, the National Health Service states quite clearly that E cigarettes were a very useful way of helping people to stop smoking. They say that while there might be some health concerns, clearly it's much better than smoking a cigarette.

So do you think this ban is going to drive vaping underground?

I think it's perfectly possible. I mean, every time that something is banned, then it automatically sets up a black market and it's going to be one of those weird things where the black market is actually going to be safer than the stuff that's going to be available at the shop. So you'll be able to go to the shops and buy this evil weed which gives you cancer and contains all these carcinogens and heavy metals and what have you. And then you have to go around the corner into. Into a dark alley and purchase something which is saving you from taking that stuff.

It's a.

It's a very strange situation.

Bill, thank you very much for your time.

You're welcome. Foreign.

That's all for this episode of the Intelligence. If you like us, give us a rating on Apple Podcasts and you can subscribe to the economist@exterator.com radio. Offer 12 issues for $12 or 12 pounds. See you back here tomorrow.

Sam.