Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir on Thursday told visiting UN Security Council envoys that there was a “brutal campaign” against his regime and vowed that a crisis in a contested oil region would be resolved soon.
In an address to a visiting UN delegation in Khartoum, the head of state described the oil-rich Abyei area as “the topmost remaining issue” in the implementation of the 2005 peace agreement between north and south.
“It will soon be settled through dialogue between the two partners,” the president said.
Beshir also strongly defended his government after International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo on Thursday implored the UN Security Council to ask Khartoum to arrest two Darfur war crimes suspects.
“My country is the target of an unjust and deliberate campaign,” the president said. “This brutal campaign has tried to exaggerate and deform facts. It has tarnished the image, the heritage and the values of our people.”
Beshir did not elaborate nor directly name the ICC but merely said the campaign was driven by people “who want to exploit the conflict in Darfur for their own ends.”
Last May, the ICC, the world’s first permanent war crimes court, issued arrest warrants for Ahmed Haroun, Sudan’s secretary of state for humanitarian affairs, and Janjaweed militia leader Ali Kosheib.
They are charged with 51 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including acts of murder, persecution, torture, rape and forcible displacement.
ICC prosecutor Moreno-Ocampo said that at the council’s request his office would next month present new evidence exposing the facts and identifying those most responsible for the Darfur crimes.
The Darfur conflict began in 2003 when ethnic minority rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated regime and state-backed Janjaweed militias, fighting for resources and power in one of the most remote and deprived places on earth.
Up to 300,000 people may have died from the combined effects of war, famine and disease, UN humanitarian chief John Holmes said. Sudan claims the death toll from the war does not exceed 10,000.
Leaders from north and south Sudan have been holding talks on how to find a solution to the lack of joint administration or boundary demarcation in the explosive Abyei region where fighting has sparked fears of a return to civil war.
Despite the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) after the 21-year conflict between north and south Sudan, Africa’s longest-running civil war, protocols on Abyei with its half-a-billion-dollar oil wealth, have not been implemented.
“The spirit of cooperation and partnership are the CPA’s best assets,” Beshir said in a speech to the UN Security Council mission.
Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the nation’s enduring love of paper in the digital era. While speaking to Agence France-Presse at the plant, his hands black with ink, one of the creators, Kazuma Obara, said: “I think [paper] is a medium that engages all five
‘ABSURD MISTAKE’: The election commission said that there had been a failure to anticipate turnout after 14 polling stations ran short of ballot papers South Korean riot police yesterday cleared protesters from a Seoul polling station after a 35-hour blockade sparked by a shortage of ballot papers during local elections earlier this week. Wednesday’s election was the first nationwide vote since South Korean President Lee Jae-myung took office following the ouster of Yoon Suk-yeol over his short-lived martial law declaration. Lee’s ruling Democratic Party swept most races, but failed to flip the crucial Seoul mayoral seat. The South Korean National Election Commission apologized, blaming a failure to anticipate turnout after 14 polling stations in Seoul ran short of ballot papers. Some polling stations stayed open until 10pm to
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
A Sherpa guide was found crawling to base camp on Mount Everest a week after he went missing and was reunited with his family, who had given up hope he would return. Dawa Sherpa was last seen on Friday last week descending the mountain, but he did not reach base camp even though his client did. The pair were among the last climbers on the mountain as the climbing season came to an end and the route was dismantled. Dawa was located by a cleaning crew on Thursday morning as he was crawling down the snowy slopes around the Khumbu Icefall, just above
RSS