Behind the Escalating Violence in Sudan

Summary

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WSJ What’s News

Episode: Behind the Escalating Violence in Sudan

Date: October 31, 2025
Host: Alex Osola
Featured Guest: Nicholas Barillo, WSJ Reporter

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into the rapidly intensifying violence in Sudan, focusing on the Darfur region where the Arab-led Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have taken control. The discussion explores the ethnic dimensions of the conflict, the impact on civilians, the use of drones in modern warfare, and warnings from human rights groups about potential genocide. The episode also includes brief coverage of business headlines and trends in the U.S. housing market.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Escalation of Violence in Sudan: Context and Dynamics

Segment starts at 00:47

• Conflict Background:

  • The civil war in Sudan has entered a dangerous phase, especially in Darfur, where the RSF, an Arab-led militia, recently took the region’s largest city, El Fasher (referred to as El Fac).
  • The entire region, “roughly the size of Spain,” is now under RSF control.
  • The fighting is fundamentally ethnic, between Arab tribes (RSF-backed) and indigenous Black African tribes (army-backed).

• Mass Displacement:

  • After the RSF's takeover, about 70% of the city’s Black Sudanese population fled, with most heading west toward Chad.
  • The Chadian border now acts as a sanctuary, already hosting around half a million displaced people.

• Potential for Atrocity:

  • Humanitarian groups are warning that “the killings have the potential to surpass the genocide that played out in Rwanda just over 30 years ago.” (Alex Osola, 01:32)

Notable Quote

"What’s happening is that the rebel group known as the Rapid Support Forces has taken over the last holdout city in this region of Darfur from the regular army. So, the entire area, which is roughly the size of Spain, is under rebel control."
— Nicholas Barillo (01:58)

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2. The Use of Drones in the Darfur Conflict

Segment starts at 02:55

• Technological Edge:
  • RSF leverages state-of-the-art drones for surveillance and attacks, giving them a significant advantage over the regular army.
  • These drones are bomb-equipped and are used both to monitor army and civilian positions and to selectively bomb targets, including populated or displaced persons’ areas.

Notable Quote

"They have these drones armed with bombs. They are able to target where the military positions are, where the populated areas are, where the displaced are sheltering."
— Nicholas Barillo (02:58)

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3. Humanitarian Crisis and Genocide Warnings

Throughout the Sudan segment (00:47–03:25)

• Emphasis on the scale of displacement and the explicit warnings from rights organizations about genocide.
• The ethnic targeting and the exodus of the Black Sudanese population raise alarm regarding mass atrocities.

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Other Major Headlines Covered

4. Business & Financial Updates

Segment starts at 03:25

• JPMorgan and Texas Stock Exchange:
  • JPMorgan Chase leads a $90 million investment in the Texas Stock Exchange, bringing total fundraising above $250 million.
• Markets Rally:
  • Major U.S. indexes end the week higher, with the longest streaks of monthly gains since 2018.
• Microsoft & OpenAI Losses:
  • Microsoft reported a $4.1 billion charge related to OpenAI, suggesting massive quarterly losses at the AI company.

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5. Small AI Models Prevail in Daily Life

Segment starts at 05:53

• Expert Insight:
  • Christopher Mims (WSJ Technology Columnist) discusses the practicality and widespread use of small AI models in applications such as transcription and document conversion.
• Key Takeaway:
  • “It turns out that the world runs on small models. We just don’t hear about it because it’s not as flashy or exciting.”
    — Christopher Mims (05:53)
  • Small models are fast, cheaper to run, and often more effective for specific tasks.

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6. U.S. Domestic Policy Updates

Segments: 07:42–09:58

• Food Assistance Amid Government Shutdown:
  • Two federal judges order the Trump administration to use emergency funds to sustain SNAP benefits, averting an immediate crisis.
• Immigration Facility Lawsuit:
  • Lawsuit filed over unsanitary and prolonged detainment at an Illinois immigration facility.

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7. Housing Market Instability

Segments: 09:58–12:09

• Rising Scrapped Home Purchases:
  • About 15% of U.S. home purchase agreements were canceled in September, up from 13.6% a year ago.
  • Quote: “Buyers are feeling anxious about their job security and when that happens, they may want to back out of that contract last minute.”
    — Veronica Dagger (00:35, 09:58)
• Factors: Unstable job market, financing falling through, unanticipated repair costs, and economic uncertainty.
• Consequences: Buyers may lose deposits and other fees, sellers face relisting challenges.

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• Nicholas Barillo on Darfur’s Takeover:
  “So, the entire area, which is roughly the size of Spain, is under rebel control.” (01:58)
• Christopher Mims on AI Models:
  “Small models have taken over for translating text and documents into machine readable text...Speed is often of the utmost importance.” (05:53)
• Veronica Dagger on the Housing Market:
  “This just shows the uncertainty about what's happening in the market and that is combining with people's general uncertainty about this overall economy.” (11:50)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Sudan & Darfur Crisis:
  00:47 – 03:25

• AI Model Trends (Christopher Mims):
  05:53 – 06:55

• Legal Updates: Food Assistance & Immigration Facility:
  07:42 – 09:58

• Housing Market Cancellations (Veronica Dagger):
  09:58 – 12:09

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Summary

This episode provides an urgent examination of the deteriorating situation in Darfur, Sudan, highlighting how ethnic conflict and advanced technology are contributing to a humanitarian catastrophe. With insights from on-the-ground reporting, the show brings to light the displacement crisis and the threats of mass violence. The episode then shifts to U.S. market and policy headlines, revealing mounting pressures in real estate and business, and closes with a reminder of ongoing economic uncertainty. The tone is factual, analytical, and urgent, mirroring the gravity of the global and domestic issues presented.

Transcript

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[Alex Osola]

Two judges are ordering the Trump administration to pay for federal food benefits amid the government shutdown. Plus, what's driving a rise in scrapped home purchases.

[Veronica Dagger]

Buyers are feeling anxious about their job security and when that happens, they may want to back out of that contract last minute if they feel like their job prospects are a little shaky.

[Alex Osola]

And inside the escalating violence in Sudan where a rebel group is dominating the population in the region of darfur. It's Friday, October 31st. I'm Alex Osola for the Wall Street Journal. This is the PM edition of what's the top headlines and business stories move the world today. We begin this evening in Sudan where the civil war is taking a jarring turn in Darfur. There, an Arab led militia is now using state of the art drones and execution squads to dominate the region's black population. The conflict which began more than two years ago, is between the Sudanese government and the Rapid Support Forces, a well armed rebel force. Humanitarian groups say the violence has been escalating since the militia seized control of El Fac, the largest city in the region where 70% of the population, largely black Sudanese, have fled their homes. These human rights groups are warning that the killings have the potential to surpass the genocide that played out in Rwanda just over 30 years ago. For more, WSJ reporter Nicholas Barillo joins us now from Kampala, Uganda. Nicholas, what exactly is going on in Darfur at the moment?

[Nicholas Barillo]

What's happening is that the rebel group known as the Rapid Support Forces has taken over the last holdout city in this region of Dafa from the regular army. So the entire area, which is roughly the size of Spain, is under rebel control. This is an ethnic conflict between the Arab dominated tribes versus the indigenous black African tribes in the same region. These are competing for a lot of things, including land, resources and governance. And most of these black African communities are allied with Sudan's army. So after the takeover of this city, most of them are fleeing westward towards the border with Chad, the Chadian border. It's like the sanctuary, already hosting around half a million people and the city is rapidly emptying.

[Alex Osola]

I mentioned drones in my intro. How are drones being used here?

[Nicholas Barillo]

They give the rebels an edge over the military. They have these drones armed with bombs. They are able to target where the military positions are, where the populated areas are, where the displaced are sheltering. So you have a very experienced army being facilitated by drones for surveillance and for picking out targets with bombs.

[Alex Osola]

That was WSJ reporter Nicholas Barillo. We're exclusively reporting that JPMorgan Chase's investment bank is leading a group investing roughly $90 million in the Texas Stock Exchange. It's the latest Wall street heavyweight to back the upstart trading venue, which has billed itself as more CEO friendly. Previous investors include Citadel Securities, BlackRock and Charles Schwab. The exchange said that the new investment brings its total fundraising to date above $250 million. Major US stock indexes rose today after yesterday's strong earnings from Amazon and Apple reassured investors about the trajectory of big tech. The Nasdaq added 0.6%, the S&P 500 advanced about 0.3%, and the Dow rose roughly 0.1%. Indexes also ended the week and month solidly higher. The Dow and the Nasdaq set their longest streaks of monthly gains since January 2018. Inside Microsoft's quarterly earnings that came out earlier this week was a charge that caught analysts by surprise a $4.1 billion hit on its investment in OpenAI. The figure was up 490% from a year earlier. A Bernstein analyst said that this implies a more than $12 billion quarterly loss at OpenAI, which if true, would mark one of the largest single quarter losses for a tech company in history. The specifics behind the red ink are unclear, as OpenAI doesn't report results publicly, but CEO Sam Altman has told investors to expect years of heavy losses as OpenAI invests to be a leader in a technology that he believes will transform the economy. And the biggest names in AI, including OpenAI and competitors DeepMind and Xai, are working on big, large language models like the one that powers ChatGPT. Eventually, these AI megabrains will get sophisticated enough to supposedly take all our jobs, but for most tasks in the corporate world, it's actually the most simplistic AI models that are winning the day. Small models are made up of billions or a few hundred million parameters, which is tiny compared to the more than 1 trillion parameters needed to power those big models. As Christopher Mims, who writes a technology column for the Journal and also hosts our Bold Names podcast, told us that small size can come with some advantages.

[Christopher Mims]

It turns out that the world runs on small models. We just don't hear about it because it's not as flashy or exciting and it's not a place where companies can make zillions of dollars. Small models have taken over for translating text and documents into machine readable text. Small models are what allow voice transcription on your phone or in any app that does that for you. Small models are fast. Speed is often of the utmost importance. We still tap on buttons and type on things and ask the cloud to do things for us and expect immediate responses. Right. So a smaller model is what's powering the generative summaries that you're getting on Google these days. Obviously, they cost less to access and to run. And then finally, because they can be specialized to individual tasks, they can actually be more capable than large models at things for which they've been fine tuned.

[Alex Osola]

Coming up, the legal move that may keep federal food assistance funded as the government shutdown continues. That's after the break. Foreign.

[Christopher Mims]

What'S driving the markets this week? What's on investors minds as they look ahead? Find out on the Markets podcast from Goldman Sachs. A breakdown of market moves and macro signals in 10 minutes or less. The Markets podcast from Goldman Sachs. Listen now.

[Alex Osola]

Today, President Trump said that he isn't considering ordering military attacks in Venezuela two weeks after suggesting ground strikes were possible. Asked by reporters on Air Force One about reports that he's weighing airstrikes against Venezuela, Trump responded, quote, no, it's not true. As we mentioned on this morning's show, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that the US Military has identified targets in Venezuela that include military facilities used to smuggle drugs. Two federal judges have ordered the Trump administration to tap emergency funds to pay for food assistance benefits a day before they were set to be suspended because of the government shutdown. Judge John McConnell of Rhode island issued a temporary restraining order during a hearing today, saying he was directing the US Department of Agriculture to use contingency funds to pay benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or snap. In a related case, a Massachusetts judge said today that the move to suspend SNAP benefits was likely unlawful and that the government was required to use emergency funds as needed to make payments. The two orders may help temporarily alleviate one looming crisis for millions of Americans resulting from the impasse between Republicans and Democrats on a bill to fund the government and end the shutdown. And the Trump administration is facing a separate lawsuit, this one over the conditions at the immigration facility in Broadview, Illinois. In legal filings yesterday, advocates for immigrants detained there said that the suburban facility, which is designed to be a temporary holding spot on route to a formal detention center, is now holding immigrants for days or even weeks in squalid and unsanitary conditions without access to legal counsel. The Department of Homeland Security has defended conditions at its facilities. More home purchase agreements are being scrapped around the country, reflecting an intensifying standoff between buyers and sellers in a largely stalled housing market. According to the real estate brokerage firm Redfin, about 15% of agreements were canceled in September, up from roughly 13.6% a year earlier. And the rate has generally been climbing all year. I'm joined now by WSJ personal finance reporter Veronica Dagger. Veronica, what are some of the reasons that these housing deals are falling apart?

[Veronica Dagger]

One of the factors is uncertainty regarding the economy. Buyers are feeling anxious about their job security and when that happens, they may want to back out of that contract last minute if they feel like their job prospects are a little shaky. Also, financing for buyers may be falling through because they lost their jobs and they no longer qualify for a mortgage or the house ends up being a lot more expensive than they realized. For example, if they are factoring in home insurance that maybe they didn't factor in initially, or property taxes, they may realize that this monthly payment is going to be way more than they can handle. Another thing is a lot of these deals are falling out of bed during the home inspection stage and folks are finding there's a repair I need to make that's not super unusual. But the difference now is that doing those repairs are a lot more expensive. So you may realize I don't have another $20,000 to put towards a pipe repair when I'm already so stretched on this mortgage going in.

[Alex Osola]

What are the consequences of a failed deal for both the buyer and the seller?

[Veronica Dagger]

Depending on the contract and when the buyer backs out of that contract, they could lose a good faith deposit, typically 1 to 3% of the home's purchase price. If you back out in time or under certain conditions, you can get that money back. You're also going to lose the money spent towards home inspections and appraisals, and that could be in the thousands of dollars. Sellers, on the other hand, having that deal fall through doesn't look good in general because your house is going to ultimately be on the market. Other buyers will see that and say.

[Alex Osola]

There'S something maybe wrong with this house. What is this showing us more broadly about the housing market right now?

[Veronica Dagger]

This just shows the uncertainty about what's happening in the market and that is combining with people's general uncertainty about this overall economy. And that's giving people a lot of pause.

[Alex Osola]

That was WSJ personal finance reporter Veronica Dagger. Thanks so much, Veronica.

[Veronica Dagger]

My pleasure.

[Alex Osola]

And that's what's news for this week. Tomorrow, you can look out for our weekly markets wrap up, what's News in Markets? Then on Sunday, we'll be discussing the upcoming New York City mayoral election and what it means for business and politics on a national scale. That's in what's New Sunday. And we'll be back with our regular show on Monday morning. Today's show was produced by Pierre Bienname and Zoe Culkin with supervising producer Jana Herron. Michael Lavalle wrote our theme music. Jessica Fenton is our technical manager. Aisha El Musleam is our development producer. Chris Zinsley is our deputy editor. And Falana Patterson is the Wall Street Journal's head of news audio. I'm Alex Osola. Thanks for listening.