US President Barack Obama formally renewed US sanctions on Sudan on Tuesday under his new strategy of keeping up pressure while offering incentives to the Khartoum government.
The one-year extension, which Obama made official in a notice to the US Congress, followed his announcement earlier this month of a new carrot-and-stick policy aimed at ending violence in Sudan’s Darfur region and the semi-autonomous South.
Obama, who during last year’s US presidential campaign urged a tougher line on Khartoum, has justified the shift as necessary to prevent the oil-rich African giant from falling further into chaos.
Unveiling the new strategy on Monday last week, the administration set goals to end war crimes in Darfur and reinforce a fraying 2005 peace deal between Khartoum and former southern rebels ahead of national elections next year and a 2011 referendum on southern secession.
Announcement of the new Sudan policy followed months of speculation that saw Obama’s special envoy for Sudan, Scott Gration — a proponent of more engagement with Khartoum — pitted against more skeptical members of the administration. The result, many analysts agreed, was a compromise.
US officials said Washington’s outreach to Khartoum would not include Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, indicted in March by the International Criminal Court for war crimes while fighting mostly non-Arab rebels in Darfur.
The UN says more than 2 million people were driven from their homes and some 300,000 people died in the Darfur crisis, although levels of conflict have fallen since the mass killings of 2003 and 2004. Khartoum puts the death toll at 10,000.
In his message to Congress, Obama said the actions and policies of the Sudan government “pose a continuing unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”
“Therefore, I have determined that it is necessary to continue the national emergency declared with respect to Sudan and maintain in force the sanctions against Sudan to respond to this threat,” he wrote.
Sudan has been under US sanctions that have been expanded in stages since the late 1990s.
It is on Washington’s list of state sponsors of terrorism and a number of Sudanese officials have been targeted for individual asset freezes and travel bans.
The renewed sanctions restrict US trade with and investment in Sudan, block all property of the Sudanese government in the US and ban transactions with individuals and entities determined to be contributing to the conflict in Darfur.
“The renewal of these tough sanctions is a testament to the United States’ continued commitment to improving the lives of the Sudanese people,” a White House official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“If the government of Sudan acts to improve the situation on the ground and advance peace, there will be incentives; if it does not, there will be increased pressure from the United States and the international community,” he said.
The US has not specified what the incentives might be.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS