Africa

Leaks in city water pipes, like this one in the Pequeño Haití (Little Haiti) market in Santo Domingo, aggravated the water shortages during the lengthy drought in the Dominican Republic. Credit: Dionny Matos/IPS

By Ivet González
SANTO DOMINGO, Jan 11 2016 (IPS)

The recent lengthy drought in the Dominican Republic, which began to ease in late 2015, caused serious losses in agriculture and prompted national water rationing measures and educational campaigns.

But the most severe December-April dry season in the last 20 years helped convince the authorities to listen to the local scientific community in this Caribbean nation that shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti.

“The National Meteorology Office (ONAMET) actually benefited because the authorities and key sectors like agriculture and water paid more attention to us,” said Juana Sille, an expert on drought, which was a major problem in the Caribbean and Central America in 2015.

The cause was the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), a cyclical climate phenomenon that affects weather patterns around the world. Forecasts indicate that its effects will be felt until early spring 2016, and devastating impacts have already been seen in South American countries like Bolivia, Colombia and Peru.

As a result of this record El Niño and its extreme climatic events, the international humanitarian organisation Oxfam predicted in October that at least 10 million of the world’s poorest people would go hungry in 2015 and 2016 due to failing crops.

“The most severe droughts reported in the Dominican Republic are associated with the ENSO phenomenon,” Sille told IPS, based on ONAMET’s studies.

But the meteorologist said that unlike in past years, “there is now awareness among decision-makers about climate change and the tendency towards reduced rainfall.”

The gardens and fruit trees kept by many women in their yards to help feed their families, like this one in the rural settlement of Mata Mamón, were hit hard by drought in the Dominican Republic in 2015. Credit: Dionny Matos/IPS

“The authorities are learning to follow the early warning system and to implement prevention and adaptation plans,” she stated.

Sille pointed out that, in an unusual move, a government minister asked ONAMET in 2015 to carry out a study to assess the causes and likely duration of the drought that has been plaguing the country since 2014.

One quarter of the world’s population faces economic water shortage (when a population cannot afford to make use of an adequate water source).Effects of drought in the Caribbean

• In Cuba, 45 percent of the national territory suffered rainfall shortages, in the most severe dry season in 115 years.
• In Jamaica, people found to be wasting water can be fined or even put into jail for up to 30 days.
• Barbados, Dominica and the Virgin Islands adopted water rationing measures in the residential sector.
• St. Lucia declared a national emergency after several months of water shortages.
• Puerto Rico suffered serious shortages due to poor maintenance of reservoirs.
• Antigua and Barbuda depended on wells and desalination plants to alleviate water shortages.
• In Central America, more than 3.5 million people have been affected by drought.

This is true mainly in the developing South, where the local scientific communities have a hard time raising awareness regarding the management of drought, whose impacts are less obvious than the damage caused by hurricanes and earthquakes.

Experts in the Dominican Republic and other developing countries call for the creation of risk management plans to ward off the consequences of water scarcity crises.

“We have a National Plan Against Desertification and Drought, but some institutions apply it while others don’t,” lamented the meteorologist. “This drought demonstrated the urgent need for everyone to implement the programme, which we have been working on for a long time.”

She said 2015 highlighted the importance of educational campaigns on water rationing measures, drought-resistant crops, more frequent technical advice and orientation for farmers, more wells, and the maintenance of available water sources.

The Dominican Republic’s 10 reservoirs, located in six of the country’s 31 provinces, are insufficient, according to experts. Another one will be created when the Monte Grande dam is completed in the southern province of Barahona.

Along with rivers and other sources, the reservoirs must meet the demands of the country’s 9.3 million people and the local economy, where tourism plays a key role.

Water from the reservoirs is used first for household consumption, then irrigation of crops in the reservoir’s area of influence and the generation of electric power. But every sector was affected by water scarcity in 2015.

“The dry season was really bad. The worst of all, because it killed the crops,” Luisa Echeverry, a 48-year-old homemaker, told IPS. Her backyard garden in the rural settlement of Mata Mamón, in the municipality of Santo Domingo Norte, to the north of the capital, helps feed her family.

But her garden, where she grows beans and corn, as well as peppers and other vegetables, to complement the diet of her three children, was hit hard by the scant rainfall.

“When things were toughest, we would try to manage using our water tank, which we sometimes even used to provide our neighbours with water,” said Echeverry.

“Our concern was for the crops, in our houses we always had water,” said Ocrida de la Rosa, another woman from this rural town of small farmers in the province of Santo Domingo, where many women keep gardens and fruit trees to help feed their families.

All but two of the country’s reservoirs were operating at minimum capacity, which meant the authorities had to give priority to residential users over agriculture and power generation.

Yields went down, and many crops were lost, especially in rice paddies, which require huge quantities of water. Production in the rice-growing region in the northwest of the country fell 80 percent due to the scarce rainfall and the reduced flow in the Yaque del Norte River.

And the Dominican Agribusiness Council reported a 25 to 30 percent drop in dairy production due to the drought, while hundreds of heads of beef cattle died in the south of the country.

Production in the hydropower dams fell 60 percent, in a country where hydroelectricity accounts for 13 percent of the renewable energy supply.

The daily water supply in Greater Santo Domingo went down by 25 percent, and thousands of people in hundreds of neighbourhoods, and in the interior of the country, suffered water rationing measures. Some neighbourhoods depended on tanker trucks for water.

And in the face of rationing measures, residents of Greater Santo Domingo protested the wasteful use of water in less essential activities, as well as the many unrepaired leaks in the residential sector.

The authorities closed down local car wash businesses, which abound in the city, and people could be fined or even arrested for wasting water to wash cars, clean sidewalks and water gardens.

“Integrated water management has advanced in this country,” another ONAMET meteorologist, Bolívar Ledesma, told IPS.

To illustrate, he pointed to the National Water Observatory, which adopts water management decisions together with institutions like the Santo Domingo water and sewage company (CAASD), the National Institute of Potable Water and Sewage (INAP) and the National Water Resources Institute (INDRHI).

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

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Despite considerable progress in Mali, the United Nations peacekeeping chief today warned that the peace process in the country remains fragile, and stressed the need to urgently defeat political, security and humanitarian challenges.

By Magdi El Gizouli

Following established tradition, a reporter from the Khartoum daily al-Jareeda sought Communist commentary on the sixtieth anniversary of Sudan's independence. The event, declared a non-event by a host of opinion makers who have made it habit to decry the loss of British tutelage on each independence anniversary, was missed by the Communist Party this year, busy with another round of undeclared factional dispute. Sideeg Yusif, a party veteran, told the reporter that the Communist Party refuses to celebrate the independence anniversary because Sudan continues to suffer under totalitarian rule. “The slogans of independence cannot be achieved until the overthrow of the regime in Khartoum; what has been attained is only political independence,” Sideeg told the reporter.

Yusif Hussein, the spokesman of the Communist Party, foddered up Sideeg's argument stating that the occasion of the sixtieth independence anniversary should “push the regime to rethink and consider the situation of the country and what it has come to.” Interestingly, Yusif, who has experienced most of the post-independence history first hand, identified achievement in the past of the post-independence glorifying the same institutions and political instruments once battered by qualified Communist criticism.
The pioneers of independence started to construct the right structures and institutions of independence, he said, naming the 1956 constitution, which he further described as “democratic” despite attempts by reactionary forces to impose an Islamic constitution. The pioneers “built a bureaucracy on a democratic basis. There was no arbitrary dismissal or favouritism and appointment was on the basis of merit.” They also “established the first elements of a national economy,” added Yusif Hussein. Of course, Yusif did not miss to mention that projects left behind by colonial rule such the Gezira scheme and the railways have been completely destroyed. The Communist Party's al-Midan which published Yusif Hussein's comments titled its report: “ True celebration of the sixtieth independence anniversary after the overthrow of the regime.” “We will celebrate when the country is free and democratic, and we can build the country we dream of,” Siddig Yusif declared in another notable statement to the press.

The statements of the two leaders are both disheartening and revealing in their dismissal of Sudan's independence, following the lead of recent ‘educated' opinion, championed by the likes of the al-Tayar's editor Osman Merghani who ritually decry independence as a fall from a perceived colonial heaven of bureaucratic efficiency and fair government. Indifferent to the very notion of nationalist struggle once championed by the Communist Party, Sideeg and Yusif approximate Merghani's position in all but phrasing. Their agony is that of a defeated elite, sorry for the loss of the colonial-made state rather than that of bearers of emancipatory politics who seek to flesh liberation from the direct colonial yoke, distant and paradoxically idealised as it seems today, with empowerment of the masses. In a stroke of amnesic argumentation, the two dropped the Communist Party's most pointed and accurate criticisms of the colonial state and its heritage in favour of the abortive politics of frustration with the ‘satanical' National Congress Party (NCP).

A single Communist politician in the 1956 parliament that declared Sudan independent, Hassan al-Tahir Zaroug, stood out of the crowd to point out the discrepancies between the letter of the 1956 constitution, hastily adopted by the house, and the actual practice of the state. Zaroug highlighted the lower wages paid to southerners compared to northerners, and to the poor pay of female teachers compared to males, considering the promise of the constitution not to discriminate between Sudanese citizens in employment and public office by their race, sex, religion or place of birth. Rather than submit to the ‘pledged' democracy of the 1956 constitution, Zaroug wanted it entrenched and expanded in the lives of the common women and men of Sudan, and not subsumed in the rotation of governments and cabinet posts.

What Yusif Hussein today perceives as a bureaucracy built on a “democratic basis” and the yardstick of “merit” was criticised by the early Communists who fought for independence as an institution composed predominantly of northern Sudanese males, discredited by class bias and racial and sexual privilege, that caters for the interests of a narrow power base around the patricians and their business associates. In 1965, when the Communist Party declared the necessity to reform if not “destroy” the organs of the state inherited from Sudan the colony, Yusif was an active member of the party and probably cheered. The associations between these inherited myopias of the state and its continuous practice and current configuration have escaped his attention it seems. Yusif speaks of the elements of a ‘national economy' where his peers diagnosed a dependent mono-product economy designed to serve the guardians of a gatekeeper state, direly in need of diversification and expansion and development of the local market. The Gezira scheme was judged as the embodiment of this single crop economy.

Sideeg and Yusif are again mistaken in drawing no distincti on at all between the record of the independent Sudanese and the record of their successive governments. The resourcefulness of the Sudanese in resisting, sabotaging and also taming ill-devised and disastrous statist projects is remarkable but goes unmentioned since the two veterans are haunted by government rather than inspired by popular struggles. The reactionary politics of the patricians, Nimayri's economy of modernisation by immiseration and the NCP's ‘civilisation project' all ended in defeat and mockery, and a living counter-narrative to each inhabits popular consciousness. The notion of ‘no sanctity in politics' raised against the two sayeds, Abd al-Rahman al-Mahdi and Ali al-Mirghani and their families, survives today albeit in entangled terms and forces Sadiq al-Mahdi to seek alliances where the Umma Party (renamed National Umma Party [NUP] for the 1986 elections) once reigned supreme with guaranteed votes to absent candidates in Darfur and Kordofan. The Nationalist Unionist Party of the Khatmiyya (renamed the Democratic Unionist Party [DUP] after a tumultuous split in 1956 and a sorry reunification in 1966) vegetates today as a beneficiary of the NCP.

Nimayri's decade and a half of inspired dictatorship ended with a heavily indebted government and a country at war with itself but the Sudanese who took him down scrapped his sharia and dismantled his state security. Even the bigots of al-Ingaz under President Bashir could not find it in themselves to reinstate the punishments of limb severance and stoning in practice, but picked from the sharia disciplinary lashing, a favourite of the colonial state before it was a sharia-informed article of law. State security is yet to rid itself from the disrepute of ‘fascism' meted out against it by generations of Sudanese since the era of the colonial ‘intelligence department'. Today, Bashir's National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) sponsors arts and sports to carve a human face into its fascist corpus. The NISS engendered armed battalions that march on a celebrated day every year in a show of force from Qitena to Khartoum to prove their worth in fear of the day when popular agitation and political convenience might dictate its dissolution similar to its predecessor, Nimayri's State Security Bureau. The ‘civilisation project' of the Islamic Movement was effectively extinguished the moment it became a name for flamboyant ‘tobs'. The division between state and religion on the other hand was elevated to an item of intimate and sharp consciousness when it was declared the name of revealing low cut blouses marketed at discount prices.

Sideeg Yusif speaks of a dream, but by all means, the material of that dream seems to be the very same state vilified by the Communist Party that spoke ‘Marx in the vernacular' (to quote Rogaia Abu Sharaf's reading of Abd al-Khalig Mahjoub). No wonder then that Yusif and Sideeg were in no mood to mark the 60th anniversary of Sudan's independence, the beginning of the end of the effendi's paradise, let alone draw lessons from a history of struggle against the lost colony and its heirs for a future they fail even to imagine.

The author is a fellow of the Rift Valley Institute. He publishes regular opinion articles and analyses at his blog Still Sudan. He can be reached at m.elgizouli@gmail.com

The former footballer reflects on the night his heart stopped for 78 minutes and reveals who he owes his life to.

Frederic Mousseau, Policy Director of the Oakland Institute, coordinated the research for the Institute’s agroeocology project.

By Frederic Mousseau
OAKLAND, California, Jan 11 2016 (IPS)

Millions of African farmers don’t need to adapt to climate change. They have done that already.

Frederic Mousseau

Like many others across the continent, indigenous communities in Ethiopia’s Gamo Highlands are well prepared against climate variations. The high biodiversity, which forms the basis of their traditional enset-based agricultural systems, allows them to easily adjust their farming practices, including the crops they grow, to climate variations.

People in Gamo are also used to managing their environment and natural resources in sound and sustainable ways, rooted in ancestral knowledge and customs, which makes them resilient to floods or droughts. Although African indigenous systems are often perceived as backward by central governments, they have a lot of learning to offer to the rest of the world when contemplating the challenges of climate change and food insecurity.

Often building on such indigenous knowledge, farmers all over the African continent have assembled a tremendous mass of successful experiences and innovations in agriculture. These efforts have steadily been developed over the past few decades following the droughts that impacted many countries in the 1970s and 1980s.

In Kenya, the system of biointensive agriculture has been designed over the past thirty years to help smallholders grow the most food on the least land and with the least water. 200,000 Kenyan farmers, feeding over one million people, have now switched to biointensive agriculture, which allows them to use up to 90 per cent less water than in conventional agriculture and 50 to 100 per cent fewer purchased fertilizers, thanks to a set of agroecological practices that provide higher soil organic matter levels, near continuous crop soil coverage, and adequate fertility for root and plant health.

The Sahel region, bordering the Sahara Desert, is renowned for its harsh environment and the threat of desertification. What is less known is the tremendous success of the actions undertaken to curb desert encroachment, restore lands, and farmers’ livelihoods.

Started in the 1980s, the Keita Rural Development Project in Niger took some twenty years to restore ecological balance and drastically improve the agrarian economy of the area. During the period, 18 million trees were planted, the surface under woodlands increased by 300 per cent, whereas shrubby steppes and sand dunes decreased by 30 per cent. In the meantime, agricultural land was expanded by about 80 per cent.

All over the region, a multitude of projects have used agroecological solutions to restore degraded land and spare scarce water resources while at the same time increasing food production, and improving farmers’ livelihoods and resilience. In Timbuktu, Mali, the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) has reached impressive results, with yields of 9 tons of rice per hectare, more than double of conventional methods, while saving water and other inputs. In Burkina Faso, soil and water conservation techniques, including a modernized version of traditional planting pits­zai­ have been highly successful to rehabilitate degraded soils and boost food production and incomes.

Southern African countries have been struggling with recurrent droughts resulting in major failures in corn crops, the main staple cereal in the region. Over the years, farmers and governments have developed a wide variety of agroecological solutions to prevent food crises and foster their resilience to climatic shocks. The common approach in all these responses has been to depart from the conventional monocropping of corn, which is highly vulnerable to climate shocks while it is also very costly and demanding in purchased inputs such as hybrid seeds and fertilizers. Successful sustainable and affordable solutions include managing and harvesting rain water, expanding conservation and regenerative farming, promoting the production and consumption of cassava and other tuber crops, diversifying production, and integrating crops with fertilizer trees and nitrogen fixating leguminous plants.

The enumeration could go on. The few examples cited above all come from a series of 33 case studies released recently by the Oakland Institute. The series sheds light on the tremendous success of agroecological agriculture across the African continent in the face of climate change, hunger, and poverty.

These success stories are just a sample of what Africans are already doing to adapt to climate variations while preserving their natural resources, improving their livelihoods and their food supply. One thing they have in common is that they have farmers, including many women farmers, in the driver’s seat of their own development. Millions of farmers who practice agroecology across the continent are local innovators who experiment to find the best solutions in relation to water availability, soil characteristics, landscapes, cultures, food habits, and biodiversity.

Another common feature is that they depart from the reliance on external agricultural inputs such as commercial seeds, synthetic fertilizers, and chemical pesticides, on which is based the so-called conventional agriculture. The main inputs required for agroecology are people’s own energy and common sense, shared knowledge, and of course respect for and a sound use of natural resources.

Why are these success stories mostly untold, is a fair question to ask. They are largely buried under the rhetoric of a development discourse based on a destructive cocktail of ignorance, greed, and neocolonialism. Since the 2008 food price crisis, we have been told over and over that Africa needs foreign investors in agriculture to ‘develop’ the continent; that Africa needs a Green Revolution, more synthetic fertilizers, and genetically modified crops in order to meet the challenges of hunger and poverty. The agroecology case studies debunk these myths.

Evidence is there, with irrefutable facts and figures, that millions of Africans have already designed their own solutions, for their own benefits. They have successfully adapted to both the unsustainable agricultural systems inherited from the colonial times, and to the present challenges of climate change and environmental degradation. Unfortunately, a majority of African governments, with encouragement from donor countries, focus most of their efforts and resources to subsidize and encourage a model of agriculture, largely reliant on the expensive commercial agricultural inputs, in particular synthetic fertilizers mainly sold by a handful of Western corporations.

The good news is that an agroecological transition is affordable for African governments. They spend billions of dollars every year to subsidize fertilizers and pesticides for their farmers. In Malawi, the government’s subsidies to agricultural inputs, mostly fertilizers, amount to close to 10 percent of the national budget every year. The evidence that exists, based on the experience of millions of farmers, should prompt African governments to make the only reasonable choice: to give the continent a leading role in the way out of world hunger and corporate exploitation and move to a sustainable and climate-friendly way to produce food or all.

(End)

Jan Lundius, a Swedish national, is a professor and former UNESCO associate.

By Jan Lundius
Helsinki, Jan 11 2016 (IPS)

The year 2015 was a sad one for journalists around the world, with approximately 60 journalists killed, more than 200 imprisoned and more than 400 exiled.

In many countries, people speaking up against abuse and violations have a rational fear for their lives and wellbeing. To address this issue, UNESCO and the Government of Finland will co-host a conference on journalists´ safety the week of International Press Freedom Day, 3 May 2016.

The choice of Finland to organize such an event is no mere coincidence. When Reporters Without Borders presented its World Press Freedom Index for 2015, Finland topped the list for the fifth year in a row. And Finland´s government has taken its commitment further by making transparency and information an institutional concern, for example by making broadband access a legal right and easing the way for citizens to participate in the legislative process through online means.

Often when rulers silence the media they do it in the name of security or preserving national culture or unity. So is freedom of speech determined by culture? And, if so, did cultural forces help mold the Finnish government´s liberal attitude toward press freedom?

Until 1809, Finland was part of Sweden, a country that in 1766 was the first nation in the world to abolish censorship and guarantee freedom of the press. But after subsequent conquest by the Russian Empire, growing Russian patriotism demanded a closer integration of Finland and, by the end of the 19th century, harsh censorship of the press was introduced. This and other measures, including Russian promotion of the Finnish language as a way to sever the country’s longstanding cultural ties with Sweden, fueled an already growing Finnish nationalism.

When the Russian tsar abdicated in 1917, the Finnish legislature declared independence, leading to a civil war between the country’s “Reds”, led by Social Democrats, and “Whites”, led by the conservatives in the Senate. Thirty-six thousand out of a population of 3 million died. The Reds executed 1,650 civilians, while the triumphant Whites executed approximately 9,000. The war resulted in an official ban on Communism, censorship of the socialist press and an increasing integration to the Western world economy. The new constitution established that the country would be bi-lingual, with both Finnish and Swedish taught in schools and at universities.

During World War II, harsh press censorship was introduced – this time by the Finnish government itself – as the country fought two wars against the Soviet Union and the subsequently fought to drive out its former German allies in those conflicts.

The development of the current Finnish freedom of speech probably has to be considered in relation to this arduous history, particularly the difficult aftermath of the wars with the Soviet Union and, through all of it, the Finnish people´s struggle to maintain their freedom and unique character as a nation.

Today, Finland has a lively press and a thriving culture production in both languages, even if Finnish people with Swedish as a mother tongue constitute only about 5 per cent of a population of 5.4 million. Even in the Internet Age, Finns remain avid newspaper readers, ranking first in the EU with almost 500 copies sold per day per 1, 000 inhabitants, surpassed only by Japan and Norway.

During the Cold War years, Finland’s efforts to cope with is proximity to Soviet Russia had grave repercussions on freedom of speech in the country. Due to Soviet pressure, some books were withdrawn from public libraries and Finnish publishers avoided literature that could cause Soviet displeasure. For example, the Finnish translation of Solzhenitsyn´s The Gulag Archipelago was published in Sweden. On several occasions, Moscow restricted Finnish politics and vetoed its participation in the Marshall Plan.

The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 led to Finland’s expanded participation in Western political and economic structures. Finland joined the EU in 1994 and the euro was introduced in 1999. Restrictions on the media were relaxed and today, probably in reaction to its previous experiences with censorship, Finland is widely recognized having the most extensive press freedom of any country.

However, the rise of anti-immigrant political sentiment, as evidenced by the rise of the Finns´ Party, has cast a pall over popular media. Now the country’s second largest party after success in this year’s elections, the Finns´ Party combines left-wing economic policies with conservative social values, as well as a heavy dose of xenophobia, euro scepticism and Islamophobia, leading it to attract nationalistic fringe groups that are vociferous in public media.

One example is the group Suomen Sisu, which has an openly crude racial approach, disguised as “ethnopluralism,” an ideology stating that ethnic groups have to be kept separated and that Swedish speaking Finns’ influence on politics and culture has to be limited and that immigration has to be radically restricted, or even halted completely.

Finland´s most popular web site Homma is spreading this message, which also accuses Finnish media of being left-leaning and eroding Finnish national pride. The Finns’ Party´s leader, Timo Soini, is currently the country´s foreign minister and vice prime minister. While the party occasionally reacts harshly to criticism in media it states that it honors freedom of the press. Even when Soini was recently was attacked by the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, he stated that it was quite OK since it was an expression of the press freedom.

Nevertheless, with Finland now scheduled to host an international conference on press freedom, we should be watchful of the dangers to free expression that lurk in uninhibited nationalism and xenophobia. Nordic people often take their excellent record in human rights for granted and, in so doing, dismiss these dangers. Let’s hope that the May conference will serve as a reminder to us all that freedom of the press and of expression is something that has to be jealously guarded and vigorously protected through thick and thin.

(End)

Emelline Mahmoud Ilyas is an outgoing 35-year-old mother of three from Syria. Sitting in a community centre in Zarqa, Jordan, where she just held a meeting with Jordanian and Syrian parents on the subject of childcare, she remembers the ‘journey of death’ that led her family to the Hashemite Kingdom. Huddled in a ditch by […]

Students at Kenya's Garissa University College are resuming classes nine months after an attack by militant Islamist group al-Shabab.

January 10, 2016 (KHARTOUM) -The Government of South Sudan has asked Khartoum to cut the lease of Sudanese oil transportation facilities.

A pipeline that transports crude oil from the south to Port Sudan (Reuters)

Juba said its request was prompted by the fall in oil prices on the international market.

Speaking to Ashrooq's TV the South Sudanese foreign minister, Barnaba Marial Benjamin said a request to this effect was presented to the Sudanese government.

“Oil prices have dropped ..They are no longer like in the past ..We have to see how we can share the oil revenue under these conditions.. And if we suppose that the oil price can go down to 20 dollars, at that time there would be nothing to share,'' said the South Sudanese top diplomat.

He said the oil ministers in Khartoum and Juba were discussing the matter, but no decision has been reached so far.

Benjamin has, however, expressed optimism that a solution could be reached on the matter.

Oil prices have been on continuous decline , dropping to less than 36 U.S Dollars per barrel this week.

In August 2013 South Sudan agreed to pay to Khartoum $9.10 for the oil produced in Upper Nile state and $11 for that of Unity state which produces some 20% of South Sudan's oil. Also Juba agreed to pay the Transitional Financial Assistance (TFA) to the average of the agreed oil transportation fees.

In January 2015, South Sudan's petroleum minister, Stephen Dhieu Dau said his country will consider whether to continue paying Sudan $25 per barrel of oil or push for reduction.

The $25 per barrel of oil being paid was meant to expedite the repayment of a $3 billion compensatory package they agreed to pay Sudan.

Benjamin has further said that President Salva Kiir Mayardit had offered to mediate between Khartoum and the rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/North(SPLM/N).

The TV interview was shot during the recent visit by the South Sudanese official to Khartoum to attend Sudan's 60th independence anniversary celebrations.

Benjamin has denied his government ‘s intention to arrest the SPLM in Opposition leader Riek Machar and his group members when they finally return to Juba.

“Machar will be safe in Juba.. The guarantee for this is his agreement with President Salva Kiir that South Sudan should live in peace and stability,'' he said.

He said a transitional government will be formed once Machar is in Juba. ”Nobody is planning to arrest Machar when he arrives in Juba.. His advance team of 200 troops, led by Taban Deng, is already in Juba,'' he added.

Benjamin also defended Juba's decision to divide the country into 28 states which was seen as a violation of the peace accord between the government and Machar's group.

“The division of the states represents a popular wish that has nothing to do with the peace agreement signed with Machar,'' he said.

He also refused to describe the atrocities committed during the three year conflict as war crimes, saying what had been said was far from the truth.

He also strongly rejected the calls for referring the issue to the International Criminal Court.

“Those calls are coming from outside South Sudan and totally contradict the African Union's Committee report that denied the occurrence of war crimes and violations committed in the South.

In reply to a question, Benjamin ruled out the reunification of South Sudan with Sudan .

“The situation in the Sudan and Southern Sudan dictates the cooperation of two countries on the basis of two independent states,'' he said.

He said the option for confederation between the two countries is in need of many prerequisites to be met , foremost the promotion of trade and the economy and the cementing of the relations between the two countries.

(ST)

January 9, 2016 (YAMBIO) - Authorities in South Sudan's Western Equatoria state said hundreds of citizens have fled the capital, Yambio to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and were living in critical conditions with no food, medicines and shelter.

A group of displaced women wait registration under mango tree in Nzara county, 2010 (ST Photo)

The mayor of Yambio town, Daniel Badagbu and a high level delegation visited Nabiapai border and met huge numbers of internally displaced persons stranded at the DRC border in very awful living conditions.

Badagbu said South Sudan army attacked a group a gangs in Soura village, seven miles away from Yambio. The group allegedly looted several houses, raped women and caused insecurity among the population in Yambio town.

There are, however, no official reports on the causalities involved during the military confrontation between the armed group and the national army.

The armed group is alleged to be the South Sudan People's Patriotic Front SSPPF headed by Alfred Futuyo. The groups declared their positions to join the SPLM/IO in November 2015 accusing the Government of South Sudan of failing to address the insecurity in former Western Equatoria State of which elements of SPLA soldiers were killing innocent people and burning their houses, and dominant of one tribe in the National army.

No assessment has been conducted in Dungu and other remote areas of the DRC to know the exact numbers of civilians displaced by the conflict in Yambio county.

Yambio county authorities have urged all the displaced persons to come back home, saying the security situation had continued to improve in recent weeks.

John Mineala, one of the displaced persons, said life had become so expensive in Yambio town due to insecurity and hiked prices of commodities more than it was before.

“Live has become very scary in Yambio town which was not there before, we continue to live in fear at night because armed groups are looting our money and properties. Not even that prices of commodities are increasing every day, it is better to go and live somewhere” he said.

The South Sudanese conflict, which began in December 2013, has reportedly forced 2.3 million people out of their homes, 650,000 of these across borders and 1.65 million are displaced inside the country.

(ST)

January10, 2016(EL-GENEINA) - Throngs of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) Sunday stormed the premises of the government of West Darfur State for fear of armed militia attacks. But, local security authorities forcefully evacuated them amid conflicting reports about fatalities in the incident.

IDPs camp with their belongings outside the premsies of W Darfur state government on January 10, 2016 (ST Photo)

The IDPs fled Moli village, 20 KM South of El-Genaina to the state capital after the murder of a pastoralist near their area, fearing revenge attacks.

The state's government spokesperson, Abdallah Mustafa, told Sudan Tribune that the villagers headed towards El-Genaina , hoping to find refuge in the nearby IDP camps.

Mustafa further accused some "political entities" , he did not name, of having exploited the situation and "instigated the crowd to protest inside the Government premises”.

He said some IDPs began to sabotage and burning cars and spread chaos. Then the situation forced the authorities to intervene.

He stressed the situation is under control and returned to normal after the evacuation of protesters from the government building.

Eyewitnesses told Sudan Tribune that more than one thousand IDPs, mostly women and children, entered the government building, carrying their belongings on donkeys.

The presence of the Federal Minister of Social Welfare Masha'ir al-Dawallab , in the premises of West Darfur state prompted the security to evacuate the IDPs.

The state government categorically denied any fatalities during the evacuation of the protesters.

However eyewitnesses confirmed to Sudan Tribune the killing of three persons by the security that used live ammunition and tear gas.

The witnesses said not less than 27 persons were hurt while many others had fainted due to the tear gas and were taken to hospital.

So far, no official figure was released about the number of the victims.

MOLI VILLAGE

Regarding the reasons of the displacement of the villagers, the IDPs said they decided to leave their home area after threats by the pro-government militiamen to burn the village after the herder's body was found near Moli.

The militia gave them two days to implement one of two options: to pay blood money (diyya) or to surrender his killer.

As the villagers failed to respond positively, the militias carried out widespread attacks, burning the village and looting the locals belongings a matter that prompted a mass exodus from the villages in the areas towards the premises of the state government.

The West Darfur is seen as a safe state in the troubled region where the tribal violence replaced fighting between the government forces and rebels.

REBELS CONDEMN

The Sudan Liberation Movement - Abdel Wahid al-Nur (SLM-AW) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) condemned the brutality of the security forces, and said the state government and to provide protection not to kill them.

''Sudanese Justice and Equality Movement strongly condemns the vicious attack on Moli village, south of El Geneina in West Darfur, resulting in the burning of the entire village and the displacement of all its citizens," said JEM spokesperson Gibreel Adam Bilal.

Bilal further slammed West Darfur government for failing to provide protection to the civilians or to hear their complaint.

The spokesman of the office of the SLM-AW chairman, Mohamed Abdel Rahman al-Nayer said the number of the victims reached 10 people. He further said the militiamen burned down six villages outside El-Geneina.

Al-Nayer called on the African Union and the UN as well as the joint peacekeeping mission UNAMID to investigate the incident and to shoulder their responsibility of protecting the citizens.

He also urged rights groups to campaign for an investigation by regional and international right institutions.

(ST)

January 10, 2016 (ADDIS ABABA) – South Sudan's main armed opposition faction of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM-IO) said they were not “satisfied”, but okay with the allocated ministerial portfolios to form a transitional government of national unity.

SPLM (IO) Chairman, Riek Machar, addressing the 2nd National Liberation Council (NLC) meeting in Pagak, November 5, 2015 (ST Photo)

On Thursday, four factions of the parties to a peace agreement signed in August to end 21 months of violent conflict in South Sudan selected their respective quotas in dividing up 30 national ministerial positions in accordance with power sharing agreement.

The government selected 16 portfolios; SPLM-IO selected 10 institutions; former detainees got 2 and other political parties went with 2 positions.

Among the selected positions by the SPLM-IO included ministry of petroleum and ministry of interior, in addition to 8 others.

Asked by Sudan Tribune whether the opposition faction was satisfied with the allocated ministerial positions, official spokesman of the opposition leadership said they were okay with the outcome but not satisfied.

“I wouldn't say we are satisfied with the selected 10 ministerial positions. But we have accepted them and we are okay with the outcome,” said James Gatdet Dak on Sunday.

“The consensus was a giant step towards formation of transitional government of national unity,” he added.

He said as an organization spearheading reforms in various sectors, it would have been better if they got most of the institutions which badly needed reform as a priority.

The peace agreement provided for a selection process of the ministerial positions which would have been based on rational basis among the four factions, but the parties instead reached a consensus on how to divide up the 30 ministries successfully.

Dak said the chairman and commander-in-chief of the opposition faction, Riek Machar, will nominate names of individuals to be appointed to the selected positions. He however added that their top leader will not travel to Juba until the joint integrated police and military forces are deployed in the capital.

A next expected step will be to form a government of national unity, which will then sit to resolve on some of the remaining contentious and controversial matters such as the creation of 28 states versus the current constitutionally recognized 10 states.

The peace agreement was signed based on the 10 states including the formula of power sharing among the parties in the states.

(ST)

January 10, 2016 (KHARTOUM) - Sudan, South Sudan and the World Food Programme (WFP) Sunday have signed an extension of the agreement on the transit of humanitarian aid from Sudan to South Sudan for another six months until the end of June.

WFP's field officer Gabriel Ajak talking to people displaced in Pibor County, January 20, 2012 (ST)

Juba and Khartoum signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in July 2014 to allow the expedition of aid across the borders and through river transportation to feed thousands of impacted civilians in South Sudan.

Sudan's foreign ministry spokesperson Ali al-Sadiq told Sudan Tribune that Sudan agreed to deliver the humanitarian aid to South Sudan through its territory in appreciation of the needy population in the neighbouring country.

He pointed that his country seeks to alleviate the suffering of the South Sudanese affected by the ongoing conflict in the newborn state.

The signing of the extension was attended by the representative of the WFP in Sudan, the United Nations resident representative in Khartoum, Sudan's foreign ministry representative and Sudan's humanitarian aid commissioner.

It is worth to mention that the implementation of the agreement is overseen by the joint technical committee for the transit of humanitarian assistance from Sudan to South Sudan including representatives from the governments of Sudan and South Sudan and the WFP.

The violence which erupted in South Sudan in December 2013 has produced one of the world's largest humanitarian emergencies with 2.3 million people forced to flee their homes, 650,000 of these across borders as refugees and 1.65 million displaced inside the country.

The roughly 30 per cent of the population is mainly concentrated in the troubled Unity, Upper Nile and Jonglei states which are not far from the Sudanese border.

(ST)

January 10, 2016 (JUBA) - South Sudanese President, Salva Kiir, has sacked several top police generals, including inspector general of police two days after his government lost the ministry of interior to the armed opposition faction of the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Movement (SPLM-IO) under the leadership of former vice-president, Riek Machar.

Former Police Inspector General Pieng Deng Kuol (Photo File EPA)

The purged generals included a long serving police inspector general, Pieng Deng Kuol and his deputy, Andrew Kuol Nyuon, and have been replaced with Makur Arol as new inspector general and Biel Ruot as his deputy.

The order was broadcast by the state owned South Sudan Television (SSTV) on Saturday evening and did not elaborate on the motives of the changes at the time the government and armed opposition are expected to form a new transitional government of national unity.

The docket of the ministry of interior, according to the selection of ministerial positions conducted on Thursday will be occupied by the nominee of the opposition faction of SPLM-IO who will recommend a new inspector general to command the police force in the country.

The latest move is also seen as a way to curb the power of influence of some of the officers in the security and police services which have long influenced politics from behind the scene.

General Kuol previously served as deputy chief of general staff for finance and administration in South Sudan's army (SPLA) before being removed from active military service in 2013 and put on reserve list of senior military officers who have been awaiting reassignment.

His former deputy, general Nyuon was one of the longest serving high ranking police officers in different capacities until he was appointed to the capacity of deputy inspector general of police.

Both worked under the overall command and administrative supervision of the former interior minister, general Aleu Ayieu Aleu, an ally of president Kiir, who until he was removed from the interior docket in 2015, had played a role of political king-maker for several years by seeking to influence leadership choices behind the scenes.

Changes in the security sector are closely watched in South Sudan, which has been plagued by the ethnic and political violence since gaining independence from neighbouring Sudan in 2011.

Speculations trying to understand the motives behind the removal of general Kuol in particular, who is seen as a close ally of the army chief of general staff, Paul Malong Awan, another strong military ally of president Kiir, have centred on his possible role in the African Union (AU) report of inquiry.

Remarks attributed to him [Kuol] in the report on the atrocities committed by governor forces in December 2013 have been largely interpreted by military and political allies of president Kiir to mean targeting them.

But some analysts see the changes in the police top command as another sign of the waning influence and trust of the president in some of the officers as opposition forces will infiltrate the police force through the implementation of the peace agreement signed in August between President Kiir and Machar in ending 21 months of war.

Relying on oil by 98 percent of its budget and virtually zero exports in other economic sectors, the youngest state on the African soil has been hit by a drastic oil price fall that has slashed its energy revenues by more than half over the past two years of the conflict which has polarized and classified the country into ethnic cantons.

(ST)

January 10, 2016 (KHARTOUM) - Sudan's foreign minister Ibrahim Ghandour Sunday has handed over a message from president Omer al-Bashir to the Egyptian president Abdel-Fatah al-Sissi pertaining to bilateral relations between the two countries and ways to develop it.

Sudan's FM Ibrahim Ghandour (Photo SUNA)

Egypt's presidential spokesperson Alaa Youssef said that Ghandour conveyed Bashir's greetings to al-Sissi, expressing his country's keenness to promote cooperation between the two nations.

He added the Sudanese top diplomat underscored the deep ties between the two peoples, emphasizing the need for joint coordination at both Arab and African levels.

Youssef added that Ghandour also expressed his country's support for Egypt within the framework of the historic and close ties between the two peoples.

According to Youssef, al-Sissi asked Ghandour to convey his greetings to Bashir and the Sudanese people, pointing to Egypt's appreciation for the strong historic ties between the two countries.

It is noteworthy that Ghandour had arrived in Cairo Friday night, leading a high-level delegation on a two-day official visit, at the invitation of the Egyptian Foreign Minister.

MEETING POLITICAL FIGURES

Meanwhile, Ghandour has met with several Egyptian politicians including the former secretary general of the Arab League Amr Musa, former Prime Minister Isam Sharaf, former presidential advisor Mustafa al-Fiqi and the leader of the al-Wafd party al-Sayed al-Badawi besides several academics and journalists.

Ghandour said during the meeting that the dispute over Halayeb area can't be resolved by “imposing a fait accompli” but through dialogue or by referring the case to the concerned international institutions.

“The promotion of the Egyptian Sudanese relations must not be subjected to the [situation] in Halayeb area,” he said.

The Halayeb triangle overlooks the Red Sea and has been a contentious issue between Egypt and Sudan since 1958, shortly after Sudan gained independence from British-Egyptian rule.

The area has been under Cairo's full military control since the mid-1990's following a Sudanese backed attempt on former Egyptian president Mohamed Hosni Mubarak's life. Egypt brushed aside Sudan's repeated calls for referring the dispute to international arbitration.

Ghandour denied presence of any elements from the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in his country, pointing that Sudan was accused in the past of hosting Islamic extremist figures from Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt but the accusations were proven to be incorrect.

“Those [accusations] sought to offend the Sudan while we want our relations with Egypt to go in the right direction,” he said.

The Sudanese top diplomat further pointed to the strong security and military cooperation between Egypt and Sudan.

Ghandour also criticized the low level of trade exchange between the two countries which at $250 million, saying it isn't commensurate with the strong ties and the potential for bilateral cooperation between the two countries.

He expressed hope that the security situation in the two countries allows for the easy flow of people and goods in order to double the volume of trade exchange.

POLITICAL CONSULTATION COMMITTEE

Also, the Sudanese/Egyptian joint political consultation committee Sunday has discussed bilateral relations and ways for promoting it.

The Sudanese side was headed by Ghandour while the Egyptian side was chaired by the minister of foreign affairs Samih Shokri.

Following the meeting, the two ministers held a press conference in which they briefed reporters on the progress of bilateral relations as well as regional and international issues.

(ST)

By Tesfa-Alem Tekle

January10, 2016 (ADDIS ABABA) – Ethiopia says it has finalized preparations to make a new bid to secure a non-permanent seat in the UN Security Council, government officials said on Sunday.

A UN Security Council session in New York (Photo courtesy of the UN)

According to officials at the ministry of foreign affairs, Ethiopia is currently the only candidate from the East African region and has wider chances of becoming a non-permanent member of the United Nations' Security Council (UNSC).

Ethiopia's bid for a non-permanent membership in the Security Council started after Seychelles agreed to leave its candidature for Ethiopia,

Addis Ababa is currently doing lobbying activities and election campaigns by drawing best experiences from member states.

Recently, Ethiopia's Foreign Affairs Minister, Tedros Adhanom, said the country has done fruitful activities at the Arab-Africa and Africa-South America summits held on the sideline of the 70th United Nations General Assembly in New York which would back the country in its efforts to secure seat at UNSC.

At different occasions, Ethiopian officials are expressing confidence that it won't be difficult for Ethiopia to secure two-third vote from the present member states in order to be accepted by the UN influential body.

According to the foreign ministry, Ethiopia has swept 186 votes of the total 190 in elections for UN Human Rights Council membership, saying that is an indication that the country is in “pole position” to become a non-permanent member.

Previously the horn of Africa's country had expressed its position at the ministerial and heads of states meeting held on South Sudan and Burkina Faso at the African Union as well as at the UN peacekeeping mission and UNSC meetings on terrorism.

There are a number of supporting factors that would help Ethiopia in its efforts to attain a non-permanent seat in the Security Council.

One among others - Ethiopia is the seat of the African Union (AU) and it has a significant role in marinating regional peace and security.

Ethiopia is also amongst the leading peace force contributors to the UN peacekeeping missions and has taken part in various peacekeeping missions.

The country has also an experience in serving a non-permanent seat in two occasions in 1967-68 and 1989-90.

The U.N. Security Council includes 10 non-permanent members, with five elected each year.

China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States make up the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.

(ST)

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Strongly condemning yesterday’s terrorist attack on a security training centre in Zliten, Libya, and in the wake of that deadly incident and the recent attacks on the country’s oil infrastructure, the United Nations Security Council has urged all Libyan parties to joint together to combat terrorist threats by implementing the recent agreement on a unity government.

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