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Bernard Cazeneuve a entamé lundi une journée de consultations sur l'islam de France qui réunit responsables cultuels, personnalités de la société civile et parlementaires pour mettre sur pied la future Fondation pour l'islam de France.

 

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General : Parliamentary committees deal with anything from relations with Turkey to migration and car emissions this week. Parliament President Martin Schulz is due to visit Ankara, while MEPs discuss the EU-Canada trade agreement. In addition former commissioner Günter Verheugen answers questions from the Parliament's inquiry committee investigating car emission tests.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

General : Parliamentary committees deal with anything from relations with Turkey to migration and car emissions this week. Parliament President Martin Schulz is due to visit Ankara, while MEPs discuss the EU-Canada trade agreement. In addition former commissioner Günter Verheugen answers questions from the Parliament's inquiry committee investigating car emission tests.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

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Welcome back! For a few happy weeks, officials were able to put Europe’s multiple crises to the back of their minds. No longer.

Those returning to their desks in Brussels, Berlin, Paris and beyond are confronted with a Hydra of misery: the refugee crisis rolls on, growth is still stagnant, and security concerns are mounting following a string of terror attacks.

A potentially huge referendum in Italy awaits as does another chance for Austria to vote in a far-right president. The fallout from Turkey’s failed coup creates instability at the EU’s border and – if the EU-Turkey refugee deal falls apart – further trouble in its core.

On top of all this, Britain has to decide how to extricate itself from the EU. Welcome back, indeed.

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Les ténors de la primaire de la droite poursuivent leur offensive ce lundi matin dans les médias. Et le burkini reste un de leurs thèmes favoris.  Invité de RTL, Nicolas Sarkozy s'est redit favorable...

Le ministre de l'Intérieur reçoit lundi les membres du Conseil français du culte musulman. Dans un entretien à La Croix, il dit vouloir «réussir la construction d'un islam de France dans le respect des valeurs de la République».

Le Secrétaire général de l'ONU, Ban Ki-moon, a félicité lundi le peuple et le gouvernement gabonais pour le déroulement pacifique et ordonné de l'élection présidentielle le samedi 27 août.

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Déchaîné ! Contre toute attente, François Fillon, le quatrième homme de la primaire, à la peine dans les sondages, a donné corps dimanche à ce slogan brandi fébrilement par ses supporteurs : « Avec Fillon,...

Il aura suffi d'un week-end pour voir la droite renouer avec ses vieux démons de la division. D'Alain Juppé à Nicolas Sarkozy en passant par Bruno Le Maire et Jean-François Copé, les principaux candidats...

24 août 2014. Arnaud Montebourg et Benoît Hamon s'égayent en bras de chemise à la Fête de la rose de Frangy-en-Bresse (Saône-et-Loire), réunis dans une même critique de la politique économique de François...

August 28, 2016 (KHARTOUM) - The leader of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) Gibril Ibrahim has promised to release Prisoners of War (POWs) from government forces at the request of a Sufi Islamic cleric.

JEM leader Gibril Ibrahim talks to reporters in Addis Ababa on 13 August 2016 (ST Photo)

On 10 August, the leader of the Kabashi Sufi sect Abdel-Wahab al-Khalifa al-Hibir al-Kabashi sent a letter to JEM's leader appealing to him to release government POWs.

In a letter he wrote in response to al-Kbashi's message, Ibrahim said he appreciates the latter's request, pointing the religious leader and the POWs families would soon hear good news in this regard.

According to the political advisor of the (JEM-Dabago), a breakaway group from JEM, Nahar Osman Nahar, more than 100 POWs and detainees are currently being held in JEM's prisons including former members of the executive office and commanders from the movement such as Hashim Haroun besides other civilian detainees.

He told Sudan Tribune that nine detainees from JEM-Dabago are still detained by JEM after 9 others managed to flee from the movement's prisons in Deim Zubeir Camp in Western Bahr el Ghazal region, South Sudan.

For his part, JEM-Dabago leading figure Issa Mohamed Issa said that JEM currently detains 48 people besides a similar number of POWs from the Sudanese army.

Issa, who escaped from JEM prisons in South Sudan, added the movement had more than once in the past released government POWs through the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

He called upon the humanitarian groups and the international community to check on the conditions of the detainees at JEM prisons.

JEM-Bashar, a breakaway group from JEM, inked a peace agreement negotiated with the Sudanese government on the basis of the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur (DDPD) in the Qatari capital in 2013.

Following that, JEM killed the leader of JEM-Bashar, Mohamed Bashar, and his deputy Suleiman Arko, and detained more than 20 others in an attack near the Chadian border while they were returning to Khartoum.

JEM-Bashar subsequently appointed Bakheit Abdallah Dabago as Bashar's successor.

(ST).

August 28, 2016 (KHARTOUM) - Sudan's internal opposition umbrella, the National Consensus Forces (NCF) has expressed full support for any peace talks that aims to stop the war and allow humanitarian access to the affected population.

FILE - NCF leaders

Earlier this month, the African mediation suspended the latest round of talks between the government and the rebel movements on Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile after the negotiating parties failed to reach agreement on the security arrangements and humanitarian access.

In a statement extended to Sudan Tribune on Sunday, the NCF reiterated its position to overthrow the regime and establish a transitional government to address the security, social, political and economic problems caused by the “dictatorship regime”.

It held the regime responsible for aborting the idea of a national dialogue that leads to a comprehensive and democratic solution for the Sudanese crisis, expressing absolute support for any talks that stops the war and allows humanitarian access to the affected.

The Sudanese army has been fighting Sudanese People's Liberation Movement/North (SPLM-N) rebels in Blue Nile and South Kordofan since 2011 and a group of armed movements in Darfur since 2003.

The NCF pointed that the Roadmap Agreement brokered by the African Union is inconsistent with its declared position regarding the national dialogue, stressing its rejection to any dialogue that doesn't lead to dismantling the single-party state and to establish a civil and democratic state.

The Sudanese government and four parties and armed movements from the opposition umbrella Sudan Call have signed the Roadmap Agreement for peace and dialogue brokered by the African Union High Implementation Panel (AUHIP).

The NCF is a member of the Sudan Call coalition but its parties have taken different positions with regard to the roadmap.

Three parties within the NCF including the Sudanese Congress Party (SCoP), Sudan Allied Forces (SAF) and the Sudanese Ba'ath Party have supported the singing of the peace plan by the Sudan Call.

However, the major parties of the NCF including the Sudanese Communist Party (SCP), the Arab Ba'ath Party (ABP), Nasserite Socialist Party (NSP) have declined to accept the agreement, saying it would reproduce the regime.

The statement stressed that the government continues to impose security solutions for the country's crises particularly with regard to general freedoms, demanding the release of all political detainees and convicts.

The NCF also held the regime responsible for the of the worsening economic crisis and price hikes, pointing to the sharp decline in the value of the Sudanese pound against the US dollar.

(ST)

August 28, 2016 (EL-FASHER) - The comissioner of Tawila locality, 60 km west of North Darfur capital, El-Fasher, Adam Yaquob has accused the rebel Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM-AW) led by Abdel-Wahid al-Nour of killing and injuring cattle herders on Thursday.

A Cattle herder in Darfur region (FAO Photo)

Yaquob told Sudan Tribune that a few pockets of outlaws from the rebel groups still exist in the caves and mountains surrounding his locality, saying that SLM-AW fighters coming from Jebel Marra area attacked cattle herders from Nawaiba tribe killing a woman and a child and injuring two women.

“They tried to steal heads of cattle, goats and sheep but the villagers stood up to them and they fled toward Fanga area in Jebel Marra," said the commissioner.

“They were about 32 fighters armed with automatic machine guns,” he added

The commissioner pointed that the security committee of his locality immediately arrived at the incident scene, saying the bumpy roads prevented the villagers from pursuing the perpetrators.

He said they had previously warned the cattle herders against approaching the border with Jebel Marra, pointing that outlaws had earlier stolen camels but the security organs managed to retrieve some of them.

Last week, unknown gunmen stole dozens of cattle heads and farming machineries at Tarni area in Tawila locality and ran away.

Thousands of residents were displaced by the intense fighting that had erupted in mid-January between the Sudanese army and the SLM-AW in Jebel Marra area.

Last April, the Sudanese army said its forces captured the last rebel stronghold area of Srounq in Jebel Marra from the SLM-AW. The government warplanes continue to bombard the rebel positions in the area.

The SLM-AW is not part of the African Union brokered process to reach a negotiated settlement of the 13 -year conflict.

The Sudanese army and its allied militia have been fighting a group of armed movements in Darfur since 2003.

According to the United Nations, 200,000 people have been killed in the conflict, and 2, 5 million chased from their homes.

(ST)

August 28, 2016 (JUBA) – The East African regional body, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), said the controversially replaced South Sudanese First Vice President, Riek Machar, must reclaim his position in the transitional unity government in the country as the legitimate First Vice President.

South Sudan President Salva Kiir (C) poses for a picture after the government swearing in with his first deputy Riek Machar (R) and second deputy James Wani on 29 April 2016 (Photo Moses Lomayat)

IGAD said they have not changed their position in a communiqué released last month which called for the newly appointed First Vice President, Taban Deng Gai, to step down and for Machar to resume his work as the first deputy president.

The comments from IGAD came days after the United States Secretary of State, John Kerry, said the replacement process was an internal matter and did not break the peace agreement.

Kerry made the comments while on a visit to the Kenyan capital, Nairobi last week.

However, IGAD member states including Ethiopia which chairs the body, “questioned” John Kerry's comments, according to the CCTV Africa which reported from Addis Ababa on Friday.

They reaffirmed their position that Machar is the legitimate First Vice President, who should assume his post upon arrival in Juba, the South Sudanese capital.

Earlier, Machar's spokesperson, James Gatdet Dak, in comments to Sudan Tribune criticized the comments from the US top diplomat, saying Kerry's opinion was against the IGAD communiqué as well as against a resolution passed by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) which described the controversial replacement in Juba as “inconsistent” with the peace agreement.

But President Salva Kiir's spokesperson, Ateny Wek Ateny, criticized IGAD for wanting Machar to return to the position, saying Gai has a better working relationship with President Kiir.

Opposition officials on the other hand said Gai is liked by Kiir because he will not ask for the full implementation of the peace deal, but will instead allow for scrapping of major provisions and block the needed reforms in the country.

(ST)

August 28, 2016 (KHARTOUM) - The Malian Minister of Foreign Abdoulaye Diop will start an official visit to Khartoum on Monday, Sudan's Foreign Affairs Ministry disclosed.

Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Gharib Allah Khidir (ST Photo)

According to the Foreign Ministry spokesperson Gharib Allah Khidir, Diop would extend an invitation from Mali's President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta to President Omer al-Bashir to attend the summit meeting of La Francophonie heads of state and government in Bamako next January.

The summit, Khidir said, would discuss various issues including terrorism, illegal migration, arms and human trafficking and organized crime besides the fight against the extremist group Al-Qaida in Mali.

He further said Diop would hold talks with Sudan's Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour, saying the two ministers would discuss bilateral ties as well as the security and political situation in the region.

Al-Bashir is under two International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants since 2008 for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes allegedly committed in Darfur.

Mali ratified the Rome Statute of the ICC on 16 August 2000 and therefore has an obligation to arrest al-Bashir.

(ST)

By Tesfa-Alem Tekle

August 28, 2016 (ADDIS ABABA) – Tanzania is set to sign electricity power export deal with Ethiopia making it the fourth African country purchasing electricity from the latter.

The planned Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam project (AP)

Ethiopia's national power company (EEP) on Saturday announced that Tanzania has agreed to purchase 400 MW of Ethiopia's hydro-power processed electricity.

EEP's Chief Executive Officer, Azeb Asnake said the agreement between the two countries will be finalized in the coming weeks.

Azeb said the new power export deal will fosters economic integration and strengthens multilateral ties between the two countries.

The power transaction will create further economic integration between Tanzania and Kenya as the latter sits between Ethiopia and Tanzania, the CEO told the state run Ethiopian News Agency.

“Because when Tanzania gets electric power from Ethiopia, it has to pass through Kenya,” she said, adding, "When two countries are integrated economically, then they have to watch out for their political relationship as well”.

The horn of Africa's nation is investing billions of dollars to construct a number of hydro-electric power plants including what would be Africa's largest Dam known as Grand Ethiopia Renaissance Dam (GERD).

GERD which is being constructed along the Nile River in the Benshangul Gumz region near the Sudanese border is currently over 50 percent complete and will have power generation capacity of 8,000 MW.

The Ethiopian government says construction of the massive dam project will transform the country's vision to become a leading power exporter in the East African region hub for the renewable energy in Africa.

Ethiopia hopes to become a middle income nation by 2025. Currently, it exports hydro-power processed electricity to its neighbors: Kenya, Sudan and Djibouti.

Ethiopia intends to export power to seven neighboring countries after the completion of the mega dam project.

Azeb further said Ethiopia also signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Burundi and Rwanda.It also has plans to link its grid with South Sudan, Uganda and Yemen.

According to official estimates Ethiopia's potential power production capacity from hydro as well as geothermal, wind and solar energy over 60,000 MW which is roughly equal to half of Africa's current installed capacity (147,000MW).

(ST)

Chinese WMA301 Fire Support Vehicle

Le gouvernement égyptien a annoncé dimanche vouloir durcir la législation pour lutter contre l'excision, dévoilant un projet de loi qui prévoit jusqu'à sept ans de réclusion pour toute personne pra

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