Africa

Samson Siasia, Nigeria's former under-23 coach, gives the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) a two-week ultimatum to settle its long-standing debt to him.

Ugandan police stop gay pride celebrations in two resorts outside the capital Kampala.

The world's biggest conference on species protection has opened in South Africa amid differing views on the survival of elephants.

September 23, 2016 (JUBA) - South Sudanese President, Salva Kiir, and his chief of general staff, Paul Malong Awan, have eventually accepted the creation of the cantonment sites for the armed opposition fighters in his home region of Bahr el Ghazal, according to senior officials.

It remains unclear what prompted the sudden change of heart after a long intransigence and insistence to not allow the creation of the assembling points or areas for the armed opposition faction of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA-IO) led by his former first deputy, Riek Machar.

Establishment of cantonment areas for the SPLA-IO was one of the key sticking matters which stalled the implementation of the security arrangements in the country.
Several government officials, including the president, were previously keen to advance narratives that Bahr el Ghazal and Equatoria regions, unlike Upper Nile region, were not active military combat zones during the more than two years, despite the presence of leading politicians and prominent figures with a significant military and political following from the two regions in the movement.

The differences and delays to reach a consensus resulted in the building up of tension which escalated to deadly clashes in Juba after rival forces traded statements depicting the other to have initiated provocative acts against the other.

Observers interpreted the sudden change of heart to mean attempts by Kiir and his military and political confidants to portray opposition leader Machar as the cause for the delay.

South Sudan army spokesman, Brigadier General Lul Ruai Koang, told reporters on Friday that four cantonment sites will be established in greater Equatoria region and two others in Bahr el Ghazal.

These cantonment sites, according to the military spokesman, will be used by armed opposition fighters to whom he referred to as “SPLM/A-IO peace wing” under the command and leadership of the newly appointed first vice president, Taban Deng Gai. The military spokesman referred to Machar's group as “warmongers” to be dealt with.

Meanwhile Gen. Augustino S.K. Njoroge, deputy head of the Joint Monitory and Evaluation Commission (JMEC), a body charged with responsibility to overseeing implementation of the peace agreement in South Sudan by the regional leaders, announced on Thursday the two sides have agreed in principle during a two-day workshop in Juba to work out all the requirements set out by the UN Security Council resolution on the deployment of a regional protection force in Juba.

The two-day workshop, he said, brought together politicians and military commanders to review proposals and make recommendations for realignment of transitional security arrangements for Juba, including how to introduce the UN regional protection force and realignment of security arrangements.

Njoroge reaffirmed commitment of the monitoring body to work out details of specific tasks. He described the conduct of the workshop as successful and has achieved all the objectives for which it was organised and conducted for the stakeholders in the peace agreement.

“We have received a joint briefing from the parties on their shared concept of Juba security arrangements whose details can now be fine-tuned and actualized,” Njoroge told reporters.

He commended the parties in Juba for recommitting to the peace process, while appreciating the international community for supporting the people of South Sudan to realize peace and stability.

The peace monitoring official confirmed receiving a detailed briefing and government proposal for the cantonment, verification and demobilization of forces with approval for establishment of cantonment sites in previously contested areas in the Equatoria and Bahr al Ghazal regions.

He also pointed out that the proposal provides a useful starting point and sets out clear steps and challenges to be addressed by the parties in the event of disagreement during the cause of implementation.

Another document they received, he said, was a realignment concept note of operations for United Nations mission in the country and the regional protection force that compliments the JMCC plan.

The deputy head of JMEC revealed that the parties also agreed in principle on the matter of forces required in Juba, redeployment of forces and commitment to jointly working through the technical details of armament types and the numbers at JMCC and UNMISS levels.

The workshop developed a very clear task and timelines for operationalizing the proposed security arrangements to be worked out in future details by JMCC, UNMISS, CTSAMM and Transitional government of national unity to finalize implementation of the UN Security Council resolution.

(ST)

September 23, 2016 (KHARTOUM) - The United People's Front for Liberation and Justice(UPFLJ), a group from eastern Sudan has called on the African Union mediation to open a new peace track for one of Sudan's poorest regions.

Zainab Kabashi (ST photo)

The African Union High-level Implementation Panel (AUHIP) is brokering a peace process with two tracks one for Darfur and the other for the Two Areas. This process also provides to hold national constitutional conference with the participation of all the political forces in Sudan.

The UPFLJ, which is part of the Sudanese Revolutionary Front (SRF) led by Malik Agar, said in a statement extended to Sudan Tribune on Thursday they wrote to the AUHIP chief Thabo Mbeki urging him to creating a track within this process to discuss the grievances of the eastern Sudan region which comprises the states of Kassala, Gedaref and Red Sea.

The memorandum, which will be handed over to the chief mediator by its chairwoman Zainab Kabashi, urges the AUHIP to "play a positive role in the establishment of a platform to discuss issues of eastern Sudan on the basis of its mandate in accordance with UN Security Council resolution 2046 and African Union Peace and Security Council decisions no. 456 and 539."

The opposition group further warned that ignoring the cause of eastern Sudan would lead to frustrate the people of the region who may have resort to other options that would not be in the interest of national unity.

Kabashi will take part in a workshop organized in Addis Ababa from 25 to 30 September where the opposition groups will discuss their different positions on the issues they would negotiate with the Sudanese government in the framework of the African Union mediated process.

The UPFLJ is a splinter faction of the Eastern Front that signed a peace agreement with the Sudanese government in October 2006.

The group says Khartoum government didn't implement the Eritrean government brokered agreement which provides to establish a $600 million development fund to be paid over four years.

(ST)

September 23, 2016 (JUBA) - Top ranking regional religious leaders have on Friday called for an end to South Sudan's conflict, saying violence in all its forms does not resolve the differences but “begets violent destruction.”

South Sudan's religious leaders pray for a peace ahead of a referendum in 2011 (Photo: Michael Wagner/File)

The religious leaders, who held closed door meeting with President Salva Kiir, include Archbishops and Primates of Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa, were accompanied by the archbishop of Roman Catholic, Paulino Lukudu Loro, archbishop of episcopal church in Sudan and South Sudan, Daniel Deng Bul, and chairman of the South Sudan Council of Churches (SSCC) and moderator of the Presbyterian church in Sudan and South Sudan, Reverend Peter Gai Lual, among others.

It was not immediately clear what the top religious leaders have told the president and whether or not he accepted their pleas to end the violent conflict which erupted on 8 July and instead implement the peace agreement wholly without reservations.

But in a brief statement issued to journalists after their meeting with the South Sudanese president, the religious leaders said that millions of innocent civilians in the country are victims of war and are pleading for peace, often receiving nothing but the “bitter vinegar of rejection,” their cries silenced “with the same ease with which television channels are changed.”

The indifference to suffering, according to the statement, which it said is a product of war, is a virus “that paralyzes, rendering us lethargic and insensitive, a disease that eats away at the very heart of religious fervor, giving rise to a new and deeply sad paganism.”

“The families whose lives have been shattered by war, the children who've known nothing but violence, the elderly who've been forced to abandon their countries, all of them have a great thirst for peace,” the statement said.

“We appeal to the leadership to put a stop to war and bring peace, a true peace that is not illusory,” they said.

Peace, they advised, has to be built by giving “first place” to those who suffer, fixing conflicts from within, through a consistent goodness and rejecting the “shortcuts offered by evil.”

They said peace means forgiveness; welcome and openness to dialogue; cooperation, and education, which the statement described as a call to learn “the challenging art of communion.”

The top religious leaders further added that victims of war hardly get attention they deserve from the authorities.

“Who listens to them? Who bothers responding to them? Far too often they encounter the deafening silence of indifference, the selfishness of those annoyed at being pestered, the coldness of those who silence their cry for help with the same ease with which television channels are changed,” they lamented.

The statement further stressed that “the lust for power and money, the greed of arms dealers, personal interests and vendettas for past wrongs,” and the underlying causes of conflicts, including “poverty, injustice and inequality, the exploitation of and contempt for human life, are the bad deeds haunting the nation.

(ST)

September 23, 2016 (KHARTOUM) - Sudan's Federal Ministry of Health on Friday announced that Blue Nile State is free of watery diarrhea after dozens of people died of the disease in the state.

A child receives an oral cholera vaccine dose in the South Sudan capital, Juba (Medair Photo)

According to the Under-secretary of the Federal Ministry of Health, Essam al-Din Mohamed, 55 people died from watery diarrhea and 2619 cases have been reported across Sudan, with Blue Nile State is the highest in the number of infections.

State Minister for Health, Sumia Akad said that the reported cases are below the normal average and the number of cases admitted to the 30 centers assigned for the epidemic control were 31 cases on Wednesday, 19 cases on Thursday and 8 cases on Friday.

The federal state minister is visiting the Blue Nile state after media reports and statements by the opposition parties about cholera outbreak in the troubled region where the government forces carry out a counterinsurgency military campaign on the SPLM-N rebels.

In statements to the official Sudan News Agency (SUNA) during her tour to the health centers and dispensaries the minister said that 27 centers did not report any new cases on Friday.

Last week , Federal Ministry of Health acknowledged that hundreds of people in Blue Nile State were infected by watery diarrhea caused by (E. coli) bacteria stressing that the epidemic in not cholera.

“The emergency health room will continue its efforts and more units of water purification would be added,” stressed Akad who also praised the role of youth women and students groups participating actively in the local efforts to raise awareness and prevent the spread of the disease.

The minister pointed that the federal government has provided sprayers, pesticides, drugs and garbage collection vehicles to enhance environment health in two of Blue Nile State localities.

(ST)

By Tesfa-Alem Tekle

September 23, 2016 (ADDIS ABABA) – Media rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) urged the European Union (EU) to closely watch Eritrea over gross human rights violations by the regime which Some of these violations may constitute crimes against humanity.

Eritrean president, Isias Afewerki (AFP Photo)

RSF issued the statement while paying tribute to the 11 Eritrean journalists held indefinitely in inhuman conditions since September 2001.

The 2001 crackdown against journalists in Eritrea came one year after the country ended a bloody war with its larger neighbour, Ethiopia, over border dispute.

On September 2001, some 15 high-ranking officials from the ruling People's Front for Democracy party wrote a protest letter to President Isaias Afwerki calling him for reform, implement the constitution and conduct national elections.
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The open letter further blames the president for going to war with Ethiopia which claimed the lives of 70,000 people.

They said the war was unnecessary and accused the president of taking actions that were “illegal and unconstitutional”.

The protest letter which shortly led to the arrest of the then known as G-15 was widely published by a number of independent Media leading to arrest of editors of all the independent print media.

The government also shut down all independent media in Eritrea.

This month marks 15 year in jail without charge for the 11 journalists.

A report last year by the UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in Eritrea said the regime in Asmara is responsible for systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations.

The grave human right violations the report said have created a climate of fear in which dissent is stifled, a large proportion of the population is subjected to forced labour and imprisonment, and hundreds of thousands forced to flee the country.

With this regard RSF urged the European Union, which is trying to normalize its relations with Asmara, to not close its eyes to actions that constitute crimes against humanity and violations of the Eritrean population's fundamental rights.

“We also address this message to the EU governments that are negotiating a return to normal relations with Asmara without asking about political prisoners and human rights,” RSF said.

The rights group said at least 15 journalists are currently detained arbitrarily in Eritrea but the number might be higher because no information emerges from the secretive nation.

Extrajudicial killings, widespread torture, sexual slavery are also among right abuses long been reported by right groups.

Western governments have lately shown a clear interest to normalize relations with the reclusive East African nation as part of their strategy to stem a huge flow of Eritrean refugees to European soil.

“The EU cannot close its eyes to the Eritrean government's countless violations, which a UN Human Rights Council report in June described as ‘crimes against humanity.' The EU cannot adopt a conciliatory position towards the Afeworki regime” it added.

Among the arrested journalists seven are believed to have died in detention.

“We call on President Afeworki to stop persisting in these arbitrary and repressive practices and to free the journalists who are still imprisoned,” RSF said.

“The freedoms of Eritrea's citizens have been constantly flouted for the past 15 years on the grounds of national security and the eternal conflict with Ethiopia”

“The president says his priority is development. You cannot have sustainable development without an open society in which the justice system functions and freedoms are respected,” it added.

Eritrea has been ranked last out of 180 countries in RSF's World Press Freedom Index every year for the past eight years.

Referred by right groups as the North Korea of Africa, the Red Sea nation is one of the world's most repressive states.

Currently there are an estimated 10,000 political prisoners in atrocious conditions in different prison facilities across the country where they remain subjected to different forms of abuses.

(ST)

September 23, 2016 (JUBA) - The United States is pledging nearly $133 million in additional humanitarian assistance to South Sudan's refugees and internally displaced people, its State Department said.

South Sudanese refugees cook on an open fire at a camp run by the Sudanese Red Crescent Society in Sudan's White Nile state on 27 January 2014 (Photo: AFP/Ashraf Shazly)

The funding was announced Thursday during a high level event on South Sudan at the margins of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

“Aid can only be effective if it reaches the people who need it most”, partly reads a statement issued by the State Department.

The US urged all parties stop attacking civilians, allow humanitarians unfettered access to those in needs throughout South Sudan, and cease violations of international humanitarian law and principles.

“No amount of humanitarian aid will end the violence or provide lasting solutions to this man-made crisis,” it said, adding, “We call on South Sudan's leaders to prioritize the safety and security of the citizens they represent, to restore stable environments for civilians and humanitarians, and to enable people to rebuild their lives”.

Over 2.7 million people, aid agencies say, have been forced to flee their homes, either to other parts of South Sudan or to neighboring countries as refugees due to conflict in the world's youngest nation.

At least 40% of the South Sudan populations are reportedly in need of life-saving assistance, with some people on the brink of starvation.

The new funding, the US said, will boost emergency health services, increase access to and the availability of clean water and sanitation, provide psychosocial support and other services to survivors of gender-based violence, increase access to emergency education for refugee children, and build and expand new refugee camps throughout the region.

“Our assistance will also help feed the hungry, provide nutrition supplements for children suffering from malnutrition, and reunite families separated by the fighting,” it further stressed.

The aid comes amid discussions over whether the US should cut its aid to South Sudan, a young nation trying to recover from civil war.

Last month, however, the US Secretary of State, John Kerry said US humanitarian assistance to South Sudan will not continue forever if its leaders "are not prepared to do what's necessary for their people."

Over one million people have fled South Sudan since fighting broke out in December 2013, and more than 1.6 million people have been internally displaced, according to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR).

This additional funding brings the total US humanitarian aid for the people of South Sudan to nearly $1.9 billion since the start of the conflict in December 2013.

(ST)

September 23, 2016 (KHARTOUM) - Sudan's Foreign Ministry on Friday said the Chadian President Idriss Deby would participate in the final session of Sudan's dialogue conference scheduled to be held on October 10th in Khartoum.

Sudan's FM Ibrahim Ghandour shakes hands with the Chadian President Idris Deby in New York on 22 September 2016 (ST Photo)

In a press release extended to Sudan Tribune on Friday, the Foreign Ministry said Deby has confirmed his acceptance of the invitation extended to him by President Omer al-Bashir to attend the dialogue conference, saying the Chadian President is keen to achieve peace and consensus in Sudan.

Meanwhile, Sudan's Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour met with the Chadian President on Thursday at his residence in New York on the sidelines of the 71st Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).

Sudan's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Gharib Allah Khidir pointed that Ghandour has conveyed to Deby a verbal message from President al-Bashir pertaining to bilateral relations between the two countries.

It is noteworthy that President Deby had participated in the inauguration of the national dialogue in October 2015.

In January 2014, President Omer al-Bashir called on political parties and armed groups to engage in a national dialogue to discuss four issues, including ending the civil war, allowing political freedoms, fighting against poverty and revitalising national identity.

Launched on 10 October 2015 for three months, the dialogue process was initially expected to wind up in January 2016 but it was delayed until October 10th.

The opposition groups refuse to join the process and call on the government to implement a number of confidence building measures aimed to create a suitable atmosphere for dialogue. But the government refuses their claims.

(ST)

September 23, 2016 (KHARTOUM) - Sudan's Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour has participated in the ministerial meeting of the international liaison group on the Libyan issue on the sidelines of the 71st Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).

Ibrahim Ghandour attends African Union ministers meeting in Addis Ababa on 11 April 2016 (ST Photo)

In a press release on Friday, the foreign ministry said Ghandour attended the meeting which was held under the auspices of the African Union, pointing the meeting was co-chaired by the US Secretary of State John Kerry and Italy's Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni.

He added that the Prime Minister of the Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA), Fayez al-Sarraj pointed in his address before the meeting that the Sudanese rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Islamic extremist Boko Haram group are actively involved in the fighting among Libyan factions.

On September 10th, Libya's Oil Installation Guards, Central Branch, spokesman, Ali Al Hassi, accused JEM of participating alongside renegade General Khalifa Haftar's forces in an attack against the oil facilities in east Libya.

However, the political advisor to JEM's chairman, Mahgoub Hussein, denied the accusations and stressed that his movement has no presence in the Libyan territory.
He described what is going on in Libya as an “internal affair”.

According to the foreign ministry, the meeting of the liaison group stressed the need to support and strengthen the GNA government in order to ensure Libya's unity.

The meeting was also attended by representatives from various countries and regional bodies including Libya's neighbors, United Nations, European Union, the Arab League and African Union besides Canada, China, France, Germany, Malta, Jordan, Morocco, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Turkey, United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom.

The GNA, which formally came into being in March 2016, has been struggling to unify war-ridden North African nation and exert its control over its entire territory.

However, its task is complicated by the presence of a parallel government operating out of eastern Libya, backed by local militias and units of the national army loyal to Haftar.

(ST)

September 23, 2016 (JUBA) – South Sudan's former First Vice President and leader of the armed opposition faction of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM-IO), Riek Machar, will not be welcomed to Ethiopia if he wishes to continue with the rebellion, Ethiopian Prime Minister, Hailemariam Desalegn, has said.

Speaking in an exclusive interview to reporters of the Foreign Policy in New York, the leader of the regional powerful nation who chairs the East African regional bloc, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), which mediated the August 2015 peace deal between Machar and President Salva Kiir, said South Sudanese leaders should implement the peace agreement.

“We do not need someone who is leading an armed struggle in Ethiopia,” Desalegn to the US-based Foreign Policy media in Washington.

The Ethiopian leader who was speaking to the media on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York did not however explain how the peace deal will be salvaged after the 8 July violence in the capital, Juba, which pushed out Machar from the city and eventually from the country.

The Ethiopian Prime Minister however said his country would only allow Machar to pass through Ethiopia but not to stay longer as he used to do during the peace negotiations.

NO EXILE

When asked on the comment from the Ethiopian premier about the fate of their leader, Machar's spokesman, James Gatdet Dak, said his leadership has not received any information from the Ethiopian government about any conditions attached to Machar's future visits to the country.

He also said the opposition leader, Machar, does not intend to live in exile in any of the regional countries.

“Well, first of all, our leader has not received a notification from the Ethiopian leadership about any conditions allegedly attached to his future visits to the country. Second, Dr. Riek Machar does not intend to live in exile. He has his General Headquarters inside South Sudan as the Chairman and Commander-in-Chief of the SPLM/SPLA (IO). And of course he is the legitimate First Vice President of the Republic of South Sudan per the Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan,” Dak told Sudan Ttribune.

He said Machar had to stay longer periods at times in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, in 2014 and in 2015 because he was needed for timely and continuous consultations when the peace negotiations were being hosted in Addis Ababa.

He also said he would visit Ethiopia and the rest of the region this time in order to consult with the IGAD leadership on the deteriorating situation in South Sudan which, he said, threatens the total collapse of the peace deal after President Kiir's forces renewed the war in Juba on 8 July, 2016.

Machar fled Juba in July following eruption again of the violent conflict between his forces and those loyal to President Kiir, only three months after taking over the first vice presidency in accordance to the peace agreement negotiated and signed in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

(ST)

September 23, 2016 (WAU) – Chief of General Staff of South Sudan's national army (SPLA), Paul Malong Awan ordered the arrest and detention of the ex-governor of Wau state, Elias Waya, an official claimed.

President Salva Kiir, (L), accompanied by army chief of staff Paul Malong Awan, (R), waves during an independence day ceremony in the capital Juba, on July 9, 2015 (Photo AP)

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Awan ordered for the former governor's arrest the day President Salva Kiir invited the latter to report to the capital, Juba.

“When Elias came to Juba, it was the president who called him from Wau, but he was denied for the all-day [the chance] to see the president. This was after Paul Malong acknowledged that the president was planning to remove him and replace him with Waya,” he told Sudan Tribune.

“The presidential plans were already leaked by those who are closed to him, the plan to remove Paul Malong and replace him with Waya,” he added.

According to the official, when the ex-governor was removed from office, Awan ordered a security officer to arrest him, but the plan allegedly failed.

Sudan Tribune could not verify these claims made by the official.

Waya is reportedly being detained at the national security headquarters in Juba, as government officials try to find a solution to his dispute with Awan.

Malong had several times infuriated Kiir, particularly when he criticized the president for accepting to sign the peace agreement in August 2015

(ST)

As Botswana prepares for its 50th Anniversary, on 30 September, Vice-President Mokgweetsi E.K. Masisi, described to the United Nations General Assembly the journey of how the country went from one of the world’s poorest nations to a middle income country.

A mother-of-three inspires thousands by walking 250km across Somalia to prove the country finally has peace.

South Sudan’s vice-president today assured the General Assembly of further steps toward deploying 4,000 more United Nations peacekeepers after this summer’s resurgence of a civil war that has engulfed the world’s newest country for most of its five years of life.

Peace and security are vital conditions for security and development, leaders from Africa’s Sahel region told the United Nations General Assembly today, laying out their plans to end conflict, counter terrorism and press ahead with meeting the Gaols of the 2030 Agenda.

Two days of violence in the city of Kananga in central Democratic Republic of Congo have left at least 10 people dead.

The Cape Town supermarket owner selling food past its "sell-by" date.

Fifa secretary general Fatma Samoura says more must be done to make all elements of the football industry more open to women and minorities.