Tag: AfricaNews

The speaker of the Sudanese parliament, Ahmad Ibrahim Al-Tahir, declared on Thursday that the Israeli attack on Al-Yarmook arms factory will not deter his country from continuing its support to the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.

During an emergency meeting of the parliament’s affairs committee in the capital Khartoum, Al-Tahir stressed that the “Israeli aggression” will not prevent Sudan from fulfilling its duties towards the causes of the Arab and African people.

“If Israel is targeting Sudan because of its stand on the side of the Palestinian resistance, then Sudan will continue down that road as dictated by the religion, history and fate it shares with the Palestinian people” he added.

Israel neither denied nor confirmed responsibility for the airstrike that Sudan says it caused the destruction of AL-Yarmook military factory in the capital Khartoum at the midnight of Tuesday, 23 October.

But it is known that the Jewish state sees the Muslim east African country as an ally of its arch enemy Iran as well as a conduit for arms smuggling activities toward the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

Al-Tahir warned that by this attack Israel has rendered itself in “a state of war” with Sudan and that the latter will respond in kind. The parliament later issued a statement condemning Israel for “using high-tech to execute a criminal deed that violated all laws.”

Hamas issued a statement on Thursday condemning the alleged Israeli attack saying it proves that Tel Aviv “continues to violate international laws and international norms, and to exercise state terrorism not only against Palestinian people.”

The statement reiterated Hamas’s support to the people and government of Sudan, and praised their backing of Palestinian people and their rights.

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Africa could feed itself if trade restrictions were reduced and fertile land was put to good use, and according to the World Bank almost 20 million people are affected by hunger in the Sahel region of West Africa, the bank says.

WB says removing cross-border barriers would free up trade, reduce prices and generate billions of dollars for African governments.

Trade restrictions also raise the price of food to consumers and reduce the incentive for farmers to produce, as they receive only a small proportion of the end price.

High transport costs, including roadblocks and bribes at border posts, as well as strict rules restricting the use of high yielding seeds and more effective fertilisers, exacerbated the problem, the bank said.

The African Union Peace and Security Council (AUPSC) on Wednesday unanimously endorsed an initial proposal prepared by the mediation seeking to settle a conflict over the ownership of Abyei, between South Sudan and Sudan.

The AUHIP proposal calls to hold Abyei’s referendum in October 2013 and only the Misseriya residing Abyei can participate in this vote. The text comes in accord with the South Sudanese position but not with the Sudanese one. Khartoum supported the partition of the disputed area.

The Council’s approval of the proposal comes a day after the African mediation circulated a new proposal seeking to extend negotiations for a further six weeks, according a South Sudanese official in Addis Ababa.

The purpose of the extension, which was criticised by Juba, was to allow the two parties to “voluntarily” reach a consensus on the remaining outstanding issues including the final status of Abyei.

Luka Biong Deng, a Co-Chair of Abyei Joint Oversight Committee on Wednesday said the Council had endorsed the initial proposal without changes. He commended the Mbeki’s team for demonstrating exemplary leadership with courage and commitment to bring peace and stability to the region.

“I am delighted to inform you that the AUPSC has unanimously endorsed the African Union High Level Implementation Panel Proposal on the final status of Abyei area that was presented to our President Salva Kiir and President Bashir on 21st September as final and binding solution,” Biong told Sudan Tribune from Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

The official further said he attended the opening session of the meeting of African Union Peace and Security Council in which South Sudan Minister of Foreign Affairs; Nhial Deng Nhial gave a presentation on the disputed issues, and the humanitarian in South Kordofan and Blue Nile that has affected over 900,000 people.

Luka further added that the representatives of the permanent members of the UN Security Council particularly US, France, UK and EU Special Envoy have made strong statements in support of the 21 September Proposal on the final status of Abyei.

They also asked the Council to endorse the Proposal and reassured the meeting that the UN Security Council will equally endorse it.

“China was keen to support any African solution and Russia was not available. Uganda was in support of the 21st Sept proposal on the final status of Abyei,” Biong said.

Moscow which seeks to enhance its economic relations with Khartoum, said supporting Abyei’s partition.

South Sudan Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Nhial Deng Nhial, in a speech before the Council said that for the sake of peace and regional stability, his government compromised and accepted the decisions of the international community and implemented it, citing the acceptance of the arbitration rule, which reduced the size of Abyei .

Nhial also refuted Sudan’s demand to divide the area saying “Sudan’s novel contention that Abyei should be partitioned between the two states, would not only amount to a travesty of justice for the Ngok Dinka whose Abyei Homeland is being progressively chipped away by Khartoum,

..but would also re-open the debate over Abyei, with potentially fatal political consequences for the two states,” he stressed, before the closed door meeting which resolved to endorse the AUHIP proposal in its totality.

The new Chairperson of the African Union commission Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma told the 339th ministerial level meeting of the AU’s Peace and Security Council (AUPSC) that the “AU will stand by” Sudan and South Sudan while they address their remaining issues.

“The establishment of sustainable and cooperative relations between Sudan and South Sudan requires the final delineation of their common border, a decision on the future status of Abyei Area, as well as the peaceful resolution of internal conflicts within each state,” she added.

Khartoum does not yet announce or react to the decision.

UN Security Council is expected to discuss the issue soon.

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has said Africa must invest to overturn the energy deficit in many countries.

He was addressing the Africa Energy Summit on the sidelines of the World Energy Forum.

Mugabe underscored the right of nations to pursue peaceful nuclear options for power generation.

He said it was disheartening to note that Africa was “a case of energy underdevelopment and energy under-consumption”.

“My own country, Zimbabwe, sits on huge coal deposits we cannot harness. We also sit on significant deposits of methane gas which remain unexploited.

“The billion-strong African continent accounts for a mere 3 percent of global power consumption,” said Mugabe.

“Per capita electricity consumption in Africa, we are told, is about 60kWh compared to 8 000kWh in the United States of America.

He said Inga Dam in the Democratic Republic of Congo could easily light up the whole continent if fully developed.

“I am raising issues of creating a good, progressive energy policy environment on the continent which ensures we invest in our energy sector while we value-add on that same resource for greater energy access to our people and for greater export value to our economies,” he said.

Africa’s marginalisation in the global economy, he said, replicated itself as the continent’s marginalisation on the energy front.

“We are exporters of primary energy commodity, which is why pipelines and ships daily cart crude from the continent for refinement elsewhere in the developed world before the same commodity comes back to us as huge fossil energy bill; which we can hardly afford.

In Mali, Foreign Jihadist fighters have arrived in a northern town of Gao.

Sadou Diallo said between 60 and 100 Algerians and Sahrawis had come into the town about four or five days ago.

Two weeks ago, the UN Security Council gave the regional bloc Ecowas 45 days to draw up a plan with the details of its offer to send 3,000 troops to the vast desert region.

Residents in the area say that Sudanese Islamists had arrived over the weekend.

The Islamist groups and Tuareg rebels took control of northern Mali following a coup in March.

Plans are under way for military intervention after Islamists took over northern Mali earlier this year.

The Former Mozambican armed movement REMANO is regrouping its command and reactivating its old headquarters in the Gorongosa mountain range in the centre of the country ahead of planned national “peaceful” demonstrations next month.

Renamo, the main opposition party, has in the past threatened countrywide demonstrations but has yet to go through with any, including a December “revolution” last year.

On Thursday, the 20th anniversary of the peace agreement with the Frelimo government, Renamo top brass joined about 800 former guerrillas from the central provinces of the country who were receiving military uniforms reportedly to provide security during the protests and continued their call for a new political order.

Long time Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama, who left the capital Maputo two years ago to live in Nampula, the country’s third largest city, told the ex-combatants at a rally in Gorongosa that he would not leave his Nampula base until the ruling Frelimo addressed all his concerns.

“I will not abandon the woods where I have been since Monday. I am not going to Beira, nor the village of Gorongosa. The talks will take place here in the woods. They will come here maybe in three days, but if they delay I will not be responsible for the consequences,” Dhalakama said.

The Renamo leader has been calling for revision of the electoral law, the implementation of protocols from the 1992 Peace Agreement signed in Rome and the the improvement in living conditions for the general population.

While in Gorongosa, Renamo’s old military base during its campaign against Frelimo, Dhlakama ordered military preparedness but said he was not planning to attack anyone but only to defend himself “if provoked by government troops”.

Dhlakama has said he will not take up arms despite pressure from the demobilised forces. “I do not want to take up arms but the demobilised want to do so,” he said.

Mr Dhlakama said he is was recruiting some of the former gurerrillas to strengthen his personal guard, in preparation for November’s demonstrations.

Fear and panic spread in the Sudanese capital Khartoum on Tuesday when massive explosions and fire erupted at a military factory in the southern suburbs of the city as the authorities failed to clarify the cause of the incident but dismissed rumors of a hostile action behind it.

Sounds of explosions followed by huge fire occurred at Al-Yarmook arms and ammunition factory of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in Al-Shigara area south of Khartoum at around mid-night, sparking a wave of panic among the area’s residents who fled their homes in fear.

The fire and explosions also spread to near-by buildings, leading to the collapse of some of them, as hospitals in the area received dozens of people suffering from severe cases of suffocation due to the smoke.

The explosions also set free large pieces of shrapnel and ammunition which scattered in the area, a Sudan Tribune reporter said.

Fire fighting forces rushed to the scene and helped contain the fire as security forces blocked all roads leading to the large factory. A number of senior officials, including Khartoum State Governor Abdel Rahman Al-Khidir and officers from the National Intelligence and Security Services as well as SAF also arrived at the scene later.

Meanwhile, the authorities made conflicting statements on the cause of the incident but reported that no causalities were incurred as a result.

Khartoum State Governor Abdel Rahman Al-Khidir said in a televised statement that the cause of the incident is not clear yet but he discounted the possibility of foreign entities being involved.

His statement was clearly aiming to quell wildly spreading rumours that the factory was hit by an airstrike. Some witnesses told Sudan Tribune that the explosion occurred after a sound resembling that of a rocket was heard and the sky lit up. There is also a rumor that an airplane carrying military materiel crashed on the site of the factory but Sudan Tribune was not able to independently verify those claims.

Al-Khidir said that the explosion probably happened at the main storage facility of the large factory.

SAF’s spokesman Al-Sawarmi Khalid Saad said that an internal explosion occurred in one of the storage facilities and the fire spread due to the plenty of grass in the area. He confirmed that they already launched an investigation into the incident.

An anonymous police source also told AFP that the explosion erupted during a routine maintenance operation, adding that the authorities continue to count the losses.

A similar explosion occurred at the same factory in August 2006 leading to the injury of seven SAF members. The authorities attributed the incident at the time to an electric short circuit.

The Commission of the Africa Union chaiperson, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, has decried the serious threat that the entrenchment of terrorist and criminal networks posed to the stability of Mali and the surrounding region.

Addressing the meeting of the Support and Follow-up Group of the AU in Bamako Friday, Dr Dlamini-Zuma said the sooner the union dealt with the problem, the better.

Said the AU chief in a press statement: “The African Union was the first Organisation to react to the attacks against Mali by rebel groups in mid-January this year.

We did so as a matter of principle because there was and still there is no justification, whatsoever, for the use of arms, particularly when there are peaceful avenues to address legitimate concerns of a given group.

“We did so because we foresaw the likely consequences that would arise from the resumption of armed conflict in North Mali.”

According to the press release, Dr Dlamini-Zuma paid tribute to the regional Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) for its proactive involvement in the quest for a solution in Mali.

“We could not expect less from an organisation that has, over the years, made significant contributions to the promotion of regional peace, security and stability,” said Dr Dlamini-Zuma.

She also recognised the contribution of the core countries, Algeria, Mauritania, Mali and Niger in their fight against rebel and terrorist groups in the Sahel region.

The Ecowas, AU, the European Union and UN representatives were meeting in the Mali capital, hoping to finalise a clear strategy for the intervention in the troubled country.

Mali, noted Dr Dlamini-Zuma, was one of the founding members of the OAU and the AU, and the principles at stake in the Malian crises were of particular importance to the continent.

“Africa cannot simply fold its arms while two thirds of the Malian territory was under the control of armed, terrorist and criminal groups,” said Dr Dlamini-Zuma.