The visiting Chinese envoy for peace in Sudan warned on Tuesday against threatening Khartoum with sanctions over the Darfur crisis and said confrontation would only prolong the suffering of Darfurians, according to the official Sudanese news agency.
Envoy Liu Guijin (劉貴今) visited El-Fasher, the capital of the state of North Darfur, and had a series of meetings with local government officials on Tuesday before touring the massive Abu Shouk and As-Salam refugee camps where some 100,000 now live on the outskirts of the town.
Liu was quoted by the SUNA news agency as calling on the international community to extend humanitarian aid and support Sudan's development rather than enforce economic sanctions.
Suffering
"Waving the threat of sanctions in the face of the Sudan would not contribute to solving the Darfur problem, but would further complicate the situation and prolong the suffering" of Darfur's 2.5 million refugees and of the general population, SUNA reported Liu as saying.
Liu added that his country was playing an active role in solving the Darfur conflict through dialogue and consultation with all concerned parties.
The envoy said China had offered an additional financial assistance of US$80 million for Darfur, out of which he said the first two of four installments have already been paid.
His visit came as the US and other Western nations are threatening to push for harsher sanctions against the Sudanese government, accused of masterminding a counterinsurgency campaign that has led to the death of over 200,000 people since 2003.
China has come under increased pressure to push Khartoum for an improvement of the situation in Darfur as it braces for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. A key diplomatic ally for Khartoum at the UN Security Council, China buys two-thirds of Sudanese oil and is accused of selling the government weapons then used in Darfur despite a UN embargo.
Also see story:
'War on terror' eroding rights, Amnesty says
Auschwitz survivor Eva Schloss, the stepsister of teenage diarist Anne Frank and a tireless educator about the horrors of the Holocaust, has died. She was 96. The Anne Frank Trust UK, of which Schloss was honorary president, said she died on Saturday in London, where she lived. Britain’s King Charles III said he was “privileged and proud” to have known Schloss, who cofounded the charitable trust to help young people challenge prejudice. “The horrors that she endured as a young woman are impossible to comprehend and yet she devoted the rest of her life to overcoming hatred and prejudice, promoting kindness, courage, understanding
Tens of thousands of Filipino Catholics yesterday twirled white cloths and chanted “Viva, viva,” as a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ was paraded through the streets of Manila in the nation’s biggest annual religious event. The day-long procession began before dawn, with barefoot volunteers pulling the heavy carriage through narrow streets where the devout waited in hopes of touching the icon, believed to hold miraculous powers. Thousands of police were deployed to manage crowds that officials believe could number in the millions by the time the statue reaches its home in central Manila’s Quiapo church around midnight. More than 800 people had sought
DENIAL: Pyongyang said a South Korean drone filmed unspecified areas in a North Korean border town, but Seoul said it did not operate drones on the dates it cited North Korea’s military accused South Korea of flying drones across the border between the nations this week, yesterday warning that the South would face consequences for its “unpardonable hysteria.” Seoul quickly denied the accusation, but the development is likely to further dim prospects for its efforts to restore ties with Pyongyang. North Korean forces used special electronic warfare assets on Sunday to bring down a South Korean drone flying over North Korea’s border town. The drone was equipped with two cameras that filmed unspecified areas, the General Staff of the North Korean People’s Army said in a statement. South Korea infiltrated another drone
Cambodia’s government on Wednesday said that it had arrested and extradited to China a tycoon who has been accused of running a huge online scam operation. The Cambodian Ministry of the Interior said that Prince Holding Group chairman Chen Zhi (陳志) and two other Chinese citizens were arrested and extradited on Tuesday at the request of Chinese authorities. Chen formerly had dual nationality, but his Cambodian citizenship was revoked last month, the ministry said. US prosecutors in October last year brought conspiracy charges against Chen, alleging that he had been the mastermind behind a multinational cyberfraud network, used his other businesses to launder
RSS