Category: General

U.S. Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Molly Phee told the head of the military-led Sovereign Council that international economic support to Sudan would resume once a civilian government is established.

On Sunday Phee had a phone call with Lt Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan to encourage him to move toward the restoration of a civilian transitional government after his coup of October 25, 2021.

The US top diplomat is facing pressure from the Congress members who see no effective measures taken in Khartoum to restore the civilian government despite the pledges made by the military leaders in this respect.

Ahead of the launch of the UNITAMS-AU-IGAD facilitated dialogue, Phee on Sunday by phone with al-Burhan to courage him to take the needed measures to create the needed conducive environment for the process.

The State Department on Monday said that she welcomed the recent release of political detainees and pressed for the full implementation of the confidence-building measures including lifting the state of emergency and the release of the remaining political detainees.

“She underscored the need for the military to transfer power to a civilian government established under such a framework to enable the resumption of international financial support and development assistance,” further stressed the statement.

Special envoys from France, Germany, Norway, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, and the European Union on April 28, met with al-Burhan to express their support for the efforts of the tripartite mechanism to end the political stalemate.

The visiting diplomats warned that any agreement or government resulting from non-inclusive processes would lack credibility with the Sudanese public and the international community.

Phee, on February 1, 2022, told the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee that she was working on sanctions targeting the Sudanese military companies and military-controlled companies.

However, she stressed they still believe that current conditions in Sudan still allow to smartly bring back the democratic transition in Sudan.

“Some of them truly would like to effect the transition but they do not know how to do it,” she added referring to al-Burhan.

His deputy and commander of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) plans to lead the country one day, as his entourage confesses.

In a statement issued after the phone call on Sunday, the Sovereign Council said that al-Burhan pledged his commitment to complete the democratic transition

He further “reiterated his commitment to supporting the tripartite mechanism’s efforts as well as other efforts by the Sudanese to achieve national consensus”.

On Monday, al-Burhan continued his efforts to mobilise tribal and religious figures as well as small political groups from several regions to back his efforts to marginalize the political of the Forces for Freedom and Change that he ousted from power in October 2021.

The signatories of the National Declaration for Sovereignty and Democratic Transition stated their support for the national sovereignty, and the democratic transition, and rejected “foreign interference in Sudanese affairs”.

One of the controversial religious figures in Sudan Mohamed Mustafa Abdel Qadir stated that the purpose of this Declaration is to “deliver a message to Volker (Perthes of the UNITAMS) and the western countries, which have tyrannized our country to make it their own”.

Source: Sudan Tribune

The VisionFund 2021 Annual Report highlights work carried out by its global network of 28 microfinance institutions across Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America.

Through our financial services offered to women and men living in rural, vulnerable communities, 4.3 million children benefitted from improved livelihoods.

Source: World Vision

The Darfur lawyers Association called on the African Union to replace its current envoy with the tripartite mechanism, Mohamed El Hacen Ould Lebatt, accusing him of bias and lack of neutrality.

The tripartite mechanism tasked with the facilitation of the intra-Sudanese dialogue plan to hold a preliminary meeting on May 10-12, comprising various political forces and civil society groups, ahead of the process, which aims to restore the 2019 Constitutional Declaration after amending it.

On Sunday, the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC) announced their commitment to the process, after expressing reservations about the dialogue, stressing they want the goal of political negotiations: (establishment of a fully civilian government without the participation of the military) to be clear to all.

In a statement on Sunday, the legal body said to have reservations about the initiative of the tripartite mechanism, in which it was invited to participate, particularly that the constitutional declaration is not suitable as a basis for negotiation, and the mechanism’s approach lacks visions and strategic plans.

“Also, the Association observed that the African Union Envoy, Ould Lebatt, was relinquishing his duty as an independent and impartial mediator,” added the statement.

The civil society group said they will address the mechanism with their vision on how to resolve the conflict with the military and will address the African Union to replace its envoy, “who has abandoned the role of a neutral mediator and is not trusted in what he says and does.”

The Mauritanian envoy became controversial in Sudan after his participation with an Ethiopian diplomat in mediating an agreement to resolve the conflict between the FFC and the Transitional Military Council in 2019 following the popular uprising that toppled al-Bashir.

In a TV talk show broadcast recently on a Sudanese TV channel, a leader of the Sudanese Communist Party, Youssif Siddiq, denied the authenticity of statements attributed to him by Ould Labatt during the 2019 process, which led to the signing of the transitional constitutional declaration.

Reached by the Sudan Tribune to explain their position on the AU envoy, a leading member of the legal group accused the A1frican Union envoy of “implementing the agenda of the military”.

The lawyer who declined to be named further added they have facts that they will mention in their letter to the African Union regarding the request to withdraw Ould Labatt from the mechanism.

He pointed out that the diplomat had previously made a misplaced accusation against the representatives of the Resistance Committees, saying they had an agenda and political affiliation.

“This is not a behaviour of an impartial mediator,” he said.

The military rulers in Sudan accuse some sections of the Resistance Committees of adopting the positions of the Sudanese Communist Party, which rejects any dialogue with the coup leaders.

The Darfurian lawyer went on to say that after joining the UN mediation, the African Union official held again the same consultative meetings that Volcker had previously organized instead of endorsing its findings.

“Ould Labatt did that in order to cancel the outcome of Volcker’s previous works,” he said before stressing that this is “a manner to circumvent Volcker’s efforts”.

The Darfur lawyers group did not indicate when they would send their request to the regional intra-state organisation.

Several sources close to the tripartite mechanism told the Sudan Tribune on Monday that the preliminary meeting is announced for this week might be postponed due to the lack of preparations.

Source: Sudan Tribune

The President of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Felix Tshisekedi has vowed spearhead the African Union’s (AU) efforts for lifting of sanctions and arms embargo imposed on South Sudan.

Speaking at a joint press conference with his South Sudanese counterpart, Salva Kiir in the country’s capital, Juba on Sunday, Tshisekedi said policies of the AU do not allow and encourage sanctions on its member states.

The DRC leader pledged to engage the international community for lifting South Sudan sanctions, saying it delays implementation of the peace deal.

On July 13, 2018, the United Nations Security Council imposed an arms embargo on South Sudan’s territory, legally obliging all UN member states to prevent the direct or indirect supply, sale, or transfer of arms and related material – including ammunition, military vehicles as well as spare parts.

Tshisekedi said they also discussed approaches to strengthen the security between the two neighbouring countries, especially at the borders and further agreed to prioritize peace and security to encourage development.

The two leaders also deliberated on the construction of a road connecting South Sudan and the DRC to enhance food security in the two countries.

President Kiir and his DRC counterpart reportedly discussed a wide range of bilateral and multilateral issues concerning the two neighbouring nations.

South Sudan’s leader congratulated Tshisekedi and the Congolese people for their country’s recent admission to the East African Community (EAC).

In March this year, the DRC officially joined the EAC as its seventh member state, massively expanding the territory of the regional bloc.

“The President expressed that Congo’s joining of the East African Community provides an avenue for enhancing mutual cooperation in areas of trade, agriculture, infrastructure development and movement of people across the borders of the two countries,” the presidency said in a statement issued on its Facebook page.

Also discussed, it added, was the issue of security whereby both leaders pledged to jointly work together to restore stability along the border areas.

The inclusion of DR Congo’s consumer market of close to 90 million people is expected expand the EAC market to almost 300 million and open the bloc to the Congolese economy which is rich in several natural resources.

Source: Sudan Tribune

Sudanese lawyers revealed on Sunday that there are at least 88 political detainees held in jail many of whom were subjected to torture, despite the pledges made by the military leaders about their release.

In a bid to quell the anti-coup protests, the security forces arrested dozens of activists of the Resistance Committees and leaders of the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC) after the coup of October 25, 2021.

In a press conference in Khartoum on Sunday, the Emergency Lawyers confirmed the presence of about 88 detainees in the Sudanese prisons across the country.

“There are 27 detainees in Soba prison, 2 in Muqrin detention facility and one detainee in Debek prison (in Khartoum state), in addition to 29 in Port Sudan, (Red Sea State) and 29 in Rabak (of the White Nile state),” said Rahba Mubarak one of the lawyers who spoke to the media on Sunday.

The lawyer underscored that the security forces have returned to their old bad habits and cruelly torture the political detainees.

“They burn the detainees with car mufflers,” she stressed before adding that as a result of this cruel torture there are four detainees subjected to “third-degree burns” along with other detainees who lost the ability to speak due to torture.

The third-degree burns destroy the outer layer of skin (epidermis) and the entire layer beneath (the dermis).

The lawyers further spoke about the current dysfunction and paralysis of the legal system due to the muddling of the military rulers.

They underscored that the Resistance Committees activists are held without a judicial decision or even by the public prosecutor.

Also, the said the public prosecution abandoned his supervisory authority over the detainees’ conditions, to the acting governor who is also head of the security committee in Khartoum State.

“The acting Wali of Khartoum (…) renews the detention orders without any complaints lodged against them,” she added.

The head of the Sovereign Council Abdel Fattah al-Burhan used to reassure the foreign diplomats about the release of activists and FFC political leaders within the confidence building-measures he agreed to implement ahead of the dialogue process.

However, during their press conference, the Emergency Lawyers repeated that the country is in a “lawlessness situation” created by the coup and that the security services practice grave human rights violations on a daily basis.

It is worth mentioning that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet on November 12, 2021, appointed Adama Dieng as an expert to monitor human rights in Sudan, following a request from the UN Human Rights Council.

Source: Sudan Tribune

The world is creeping closer to the warming threshold international agreements are trying to prevent, with a nearly 50-50 chance that Earth will temporarily hit that temperature mark within the next five years, teams of meteorologists across the globe predicted.

With human-made climate change continuing, there’s a 48% chance that the globe will reach a yearly average of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels of the late 1800s at least once between now and 2026, a bright red signal in climate change negotiations and science, a team of 11 different forecast centers predicted for the World Meteorological Organization late Monday.

The odds are inching up along with the thermometer. Last year, the same forecasters put the odds at closer to 40%, and a decade ago it was only 10%.

The team, coordinated by the United Kingdom’s Meteorological Office, in their five-year general outlook said there is a 93% chance that the world will set a record for the hottest year by the end of 2026. They also said there’s a 93% chance that the five years from 2022 to 2026 will be the hottest on record. Forecasters also predict the devastating fire-prone megadrought in the U.S. Southwest will keep going.

“We’re going to see continued warming in line with what is expected with climate change,” said UK Met Office senior scientist Leon Hermanson, who coordinated the report.

These forecasts are big picture global and regional climate predictions on a yearly and seasonal time scale based on long-term averages and state of the art computer simulations. They are different from increasingly accurate weather forecasts that predict how hot or wet a certain day will be in specific places.

But even if the world hits that mark of 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial times — the globe has already warmed about 1.1 degrees (2 degrees Fahrenheit) since the late 1800s — that’s not quite the same as the global threshold first set by international negotiators in the 2015 Paris agreement. In 2018, a major United Nations science report predicted dramatic and dangerous effects on people and the world if warming exceeds 1.5 degrees.

The global 1.5 degree threshold is about the world being that warm not for one year, but over a 20- or 30-year time period, several scientists said. This is not what the report predicts. Meteorologists can only tell if Earth hits that average mark years, maybe a decade or two, after it is actually reached because it is a long-term average, Hermanson said.

“This is a warning of what will be just average in a few years,” said Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald, who wasn’t part of the forecast teams.

The prediction makes sense given how warm the world already is and an additional tenth of a degree Celsius (nearly two-tenths of a degree Fahrenheit) is expected because of human-caused climate change in the next five years, said climate scientist Zeke Hausfather of the tech company Stripe and Berkeley Earth, who wasn’t part of the forecast teams. Add to that the likelihood of a strong El Niño — the natural periodic warming of parts of the Pacific that alter world weather — which could toss another couple of tenths of a degree on top temporarily, and the world gets to 1.5 degrees.

The world is in the second straight year of a La Niña, the opposite of El Niño, which has a slight global cooling effect but isn’t enough to counter the overall warming of heat-trapping gases spewed by the burning of coal, oil and natural gas, scientists said. The five-year forecast says that La Niña is likely to end late this year or in 2023.

The greenhouse effect from fossil fuels is like putting global temperatures on a rising escalator. El Niño, La Niña and a handful of other natural weather variations are like taking steps up or down on that escalator, scientists said.

On a regional scale, the Arctic will still be warming during the winter at a rate three times more than the globe on average. While the American Southwest and southwestern Europe are likely to be drier than normal the next five years, wetter than normal conditions are expected for Africa’s often arid Sahel region, northern Europe, northeastern Brazil and Australia, the report predicted.

The global team has been making these predictions informally for a decade and formally for about five years, with greater than 90% accuracy, Hermanson said.

NASA top climate scientist Gavin Schmidt said the figures in this report are “a little warmer” than what NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration use. He also had doubts about skill level on long-term regional predictions.

“Regardless of what is predicted here, we are very likely to exceed 1.5 degrees C in the next decade or so, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that we are committed to this in the long term — or that working to reduce further change is not worthwhile,” Schmidt said in an email.

Source: Voice of America