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12th January, 2015
21st, Rabia I,1436
Pentagon Throws out Guantanamo
‘Foot Soldier’ Conviction
MONDAY
EDITORIAL P.6
76 Political Parties!
By: Miami Herald
guilty to providing material
support for terrorism in exchange for his potential testimony against other captives
and release from the U.S.
prison at Guantanamo Bay
Naval Base, Cuba. He admitted to being a small-arms and
artillery weapons instructor at
an Afghan training camp in
the 1990s, and was repatriated
A retired U.S. Marine general
responsible for the Guantanamo war court has overturned
the terrorism conviction of a
Sudanese man who was sent
home a little over a year ago
as a war criminal, the Pentagon disclosed. In 2011, Noor
Uthman Mohammed pleaded
in December 2013. He is now
53, and little is known about
what became of him. Friday, a
Pentagon announcement said
the Convening Authority for
Military Commissions, a job
held by retired Marine Maj.
Gen. Vaughn A. Ary, threw
out the case “in the interests
of justice and under the rule
of law.”Civilian courts have
ruled that providing material
support for terrorism was not
a legitimate war crime for actions that occurred before the
adoption of the Military Commissions Act of 2006. It was
adopted by Congress during
the Bush administration to try
to prosecute alleged war criminals of al-Qaida captured after
the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
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We Are the Pioneers
NEC Receives Al Bashir’s Application
Two Women Apply for Presidency
By: Zuleikha Abdul Raziq/
Najat Ahmed
Khartoum - President Omar Al
Bashir has been nominated for
re-election by the National Congress Party (NCP).The nomination application was forwarded to
the National Elections Commission at its temporary head ofﬁce
in the Friendship Hall.
Meanwhile, Mahassin Abdul
Rahman Al-Tazi applied as an
independent candidate, Prof. Fatima Abdul Mahmoud from the
Sudanese Socialist Democratic
Federation, and Dr. Mohammed
Abbas Al-Sarraj all applied for
the Presidency.NCP Information
Secretariat
Secretary-General,
State Minister of Information,
Yassir Yusuf said in a press statement yesterday that the step
comes as an implementation of
a constitutional right to make
the April elections process a success.
He added that the nomination of
Al Bashir came through a national
committee attended by more than
50 political parties, Suﬁ sects,
local administrations, Trade Unions, Students, and women’s organisations.
For his part, Prof. Ibrahim
Ghandour reiterated the NCP’s
seriousness to run a fair election
through which the voters chose
Al Bashir Attends
24th School
Tournament
Closing
Ceremony
By: Mohammed Omer El-Haj
Khartoum – President Omar Al Bashir attended the
closing ceremony of the 24th school tournament
yesterday in Sennar State.
During his address, Al Bashir afﬁrmed the presidency’s commitment to completing development
projects, along with a personal promise to establish
Sennar Stadium as an Olympic stadium to contribute towards upgrading sports sector.He lauded the
role of teaching staff all over the country.During his
visit, Al Bashir inaugurated an emergency hospital
in Sinja, public library, besides witnessing the wedding of 700 couples.Meanwhile, Sudan Teachers’
Union honoured Al Bashir by awarding him a medal for his sponsoring of teachers programmes.For
her part, Minister of Education, Suad Abdul Raziq
called for more care towards distinguished students,
adding that her ministry accomplished 90 percent
of the national education conference recommendations.Meanwhile, Sennar Governor, Eng. Ahmed
Abbas handed over the ﬂag of the school tournament to North Kordofan Governor, Ahmed Haroun
as the 25th tournament will take place in El-Obeid
in North Kordofan.
Sudan-China
Talks Begin
their candidates freely and without any directives or constraints.
He stressed on going ahead with
the national and communal dialogue process called for by the
President last January, adding
that the electoral process doesn’t
contradict the national dialogue.
The two females who applied for
the Presidency race, Mahassin AlTazi and Fatima Abdul Mahmoud
afﬁrmed their seriousness in running in the race.NEC Electoral
Register and Technical Committee ofﬁcial, Lt. Gen. (Police),
Al-Hadi Mohammed Ahmed said
that the period for receiving the
applications for the presidency
and the proportional constituen-
cies will continue up to January
17.He added that the requirements
to qualify for the candidacy are
available at the NEC website.The
presidency and national assembly
nominations started yesterday as
40 political parties and peace signatory armed movement’s representatives handed the NEC a recommendation order to nominate
Omar Al Bashir for re-election
for another presidency term.The
national nomination committee is
led by Field Marshal Abdul Rahman Suwar Addahab, Kamala
Shaddad, Dr. Hussein Suleiman
Abu Salih, besides leaderships
from local administrations and
Suﬁ sects.
NCP Begins Dialogue with Parties
Participating in Elections
By: Staff Writer
Khartoum – The National
Congress Party (NCP) has
begun an intensive dialogue with political parties and forces running the
April elections.
It aims to deal with the
constituencies left to other
parties.
The ruling party revealed
last week an assignment
for parties totaling 30 percent of the constituencies
in the general elections.
NCP Head of the Political
Sector, Dr. Mustafa Osman Ismail said his party
began discussions with
parties interested in the
elections, including the
Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), the origin, and
other opposition parties.
He said that there are understandings with allied
parties to contest with the
national electoral process,
and create a parliament
that represents all political
forces in the country.
Vice President of the ruling party, Prof. Ibrahim
Ghandour afﬁrmed the
participation of DUP in
the elections, besides the
participation of national
unity parties.
On the other hand, the
NCP warned political parties against carrying out
any attempts to destabilise
security and stability during the upcoming elections. He stressed concern
for safety procedures to
achieve the democratic
process and peaceful
transfer of power.
For his part, Head of the
youth political sector of
the NCP, Al-Sadiq Fadlallah called on the political
forces to cooperate to ensure a safe process.
He appealed to the Sudanese citizens to support
the nomination of Omar
Al Bashir for the presidency, highlighting the
importance of the role
of youth in the electoral
process.
IGAD Supports Peace in Somalia
By: Mohamed Abdalla
Khartoum - The Intergovernmental Authority on
Development (IGAD) reiterated its support for Somalia to bring peace, reconciliation and stability.
The IGAD ministerial
council in its 53rd session
in Mogadishu, capital of
Somalia, on Sunday issued
a communiqu� to encourage a peace process in Somalia.
Somali President Hassan
Sheikh Mohamed appreciated the outcome of the
IGAD ministerial meeting
and vowed to activate a
2016 Somali vision to realise peace and security.
“This is the ﬁrst council meeting to be held in
Mogadishu since the collapse of the Somali state,”
he said.
The President highlighted
that Somalia is undergoing
a fragile transition from a
failed state to a state-in-the-
making and that this period
represents the ‘best chance
for state building’.
Mohamed further went on
to praise the efforts exerted
by IGAD to enhance peace
in his country.
“I appreciate the role
that IGAD members have
played in Somalia both in
times of peace and stability
as well as during the difﬁcult civil strife and today’s
state building process.”
The recent session is on
the Somali issue, the min-
isterial council within two
days reviewed the way
that Somali should follow
to bring peace and support
the current government to
overcome challenges.
The meeting was attended
by IGAD members and its
partnership.
The council meeting was
held under the Chairmanship of Tedros Adhanom,
the Foreign Minister of the
Federal Republic of Ethiopia and the current Chair of
Ministers.
By: SUNA
Khartoum - The Sudan-China bilateral talks between the Foreign Ministers of the two countries
began Sunday evening at the Friendship Hall.
The six-member committee includes Sudan, China,
Ethiopia, South Sudan and South Sudan opposition.
Foreign Ministry Ofﬁcial Spokesman, Ambassador,
Yousif Al-Kordofani said in press statement that the
talks come in the context of strengthening cooperation and coordination between the two countries in
all political, economic and investment ﬁelds as well
as expansion of the Chinese investments in Sudan.
Al-Kordofani described the Chinese delegation
visit to Sudan as important, representing a quantum
leap in relations between the two countries.
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Karti: ‘Serious,
Objective
Dialogue to
Normalise
Relations with US’
By: Ashorooq
Khartoum – A serious and substantive dialogue is
occurring between the country and United States
of America to normalise relations.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Karti said there
is progress in the process of relations between
Khartoum and Washington, although the latter
did not abide by its promise to remove Sudan
from the list of states sponsoring terrorism, while
Sudan was committed towards normalising relations.Karti said that the serious dialogue with
America is going slowly, adding: “But we are on
the threshold of a substantive dialogue and beginning to look at issues in a different way.”
Meanwhile, the minister described Sudan relations with Arab countries as powerful.
He said that the relations with Africa are also
witnessing signiﬁcant progress, pointing to the
durability and excellence of Sudan’s relations
with China and Russia.
“Relations with Europe in the normalisation
phase began after there was a chill, and we
opened a very large door with Brazil that was not
open before,” Karti said.
In another context, Karti defended Sudan’s decisions to expel some of the envoys of the United
Nations.
“We have the right to reject UN staff if their performance necessitates observation and followup,” Karti said.
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Minister of Information Presents Plan for 2015
2 HOME
Monday, January 12, 2015
NCP Reafﬁrms Completing Presidential
Elections Nomination Procedures
Ethiopian Embassy Organizes
Sudanese-Ethiopian Relations
Symposium
By: SUNA
Khartoum - The Embassy of the Federal
Democratic Republic of
Ethiopia organized last
Wednesday 11:30 a.m
at the Embassy in Khartoum, a symposium on
the Sudanese-Ethiopian
historical cultural, political and economic relations.
The symposium was addressed by Mr. Alemu
Asefa, the lecturer at
the University of Bahri
Dar of Amhara Region.
The accompanying programme of the symposium presented promotion programme for the
tourism and investment
opportunities in Ethiopia in general and the
region of Amhara in
particular.
Ethiopian to Start Flights
to Tokyo, the Only Air
Service between Japan
and Africa
By: SUNA
Khartoum - The National Congress party said
it intends to complete formalities for the nomination of its candidate for the presidential elections, as approved by the general congress of
the party, Omar Al Bashir, with the Election
Commission, on Sunday the 11th of January.
The Deputy Chairman of the party, Professor
Ibrahim Ghandour, has stressed that the party
has collected 18400 signatures from the party’s grassroots across the country, beside 5000
members from other political parties backing
the nomination.
He has however added that the party is not competing in 30% geographical and constituencies,
leaving them for other political parties to compete in them.
He said refraining from competing with other
political parties in these national constituencies
does not mean the party is conceding to other
political parties altogether but, rather, the party
would be competing in these constituencies but
at the level of the state legislatures.
He said leaders of the party in those constituencies where the party would not compete, will be
standing in the proportional lists.
Ghandour said there are no contradictions between the elections in April and the National
Dialogue process.
He said he expects the outcome of the National
dialogue, which is set to begin in two weeks, to
be taken into consideration even if they would
lead to holding early elections in the country.
He stressed that elections are legal and constitutional right for all individual and not speciﬁcally
conﬁned for political parties alone, and that the
individuals are the one who give the legitimacy
to any government.
Reacting to questions that as the party has renewed the nominees, to drop 54% of the former
candidates, with new faces and if this would not
lead to party members who have been bypassed
to go it their own way and stand as independent candidates, Ghandour said the party regulations stipulate that anyone who take such a step
would be ﬁred from the party membership.
He revealed that the party committee has ex-
amined 65 thousands candidates from the party
leadership around the country, through more
than 1300 Shura college, putting forward over
4000 candidates, an average of 3 candidate for
each seat, at the national and state level competitions.
The party’s candidates for the national assembly’s (Parliament) 426, while the party committee is looking into 850 candidates to compete in
the seats allocated for the state councils (State
legislatures), in addition to candidates for the
proportional constituencies 213 candidates and
128 for women who represent 30% of the parliamentary seat.
He said most of the party candidates are university graduates, with no illiterate at all, and
that70% of the geographical constituencies candidates are university graduates.
He revealed that the party candidates include
persons non-afﬁliated to the party, including national personalities, national ﬁgures, and representatives of the sport, theatre and arts, as well
as representative of the persons with special
needs.
Finance Ministry Issues Circulars
on Budget Spending Permissions
By: Shadia Basheri
Khartoum – Ministry of Finance
and National Economy issued
yesterday an order according to
which the ministries and federal
units are authorized to spend on
the 2015 budget in accordance to
the general directives and measures aiming at implementing the
overall policies and achieving
the ﬁnancial control.
The ministerial order stressed on
commitment to implement the
budget according to the goals of
the general budget of the state
for 2015 and the directives of
the ﬁve-year economical reform
programme besides adapting the
ﬁnancial transparency principles.
Finance Ministry Acting Undersecretary, Abdallah Ali Ibrahim,
announced his ministry’s commitment to directly deal with
the government units in the ap-
proved credits.
He revealed the possibility of
transferring from one item to another after prior approval from
the ministry.
He directed the government
units to commit to purchase and
contracting act for 2010 besides
stopping purchasing vehicles
and new government buildings
unless there is an exceptional
directive issued by the Finance
Minister.
Press Release
Ethiopian Airlines, the
largest airline in Africa, is
pleased to announce that it
has ﬁnalized preparations to
start new services to Tokyo
Narita International Airport
in April 2015, in codeshare
partnership with fellow Star
Alliance member, All Nippon Airways, Japan’s leading airline.
The thrice weekly ﬂight, the
only direct connection between Africa and Japan, will
be operated through Hong
Kong with the ultra-modern
Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft, which offers customers the best on-board comfort with the biggest windows in the sky, high ceiling
, less noise than any aircraft
with less carbon footprint,
and higher cabin humidity
ideal for long haul travel.
Chief Executive Ofﬁcer of
Ethiopian Airlines Group,
Ato Tewolde Gebremariam,
said: “As the only direct
service between Africa and
Japan, our ﬂights to Narita
will give our customers the
best possible connectivity
options and will be critical role in enabling greater
people-to-people, investment, trade and tourism
ties between a rising Africa,
the second fastest growing
region in the world, and a
highly industrialized Japan,
the third largest economy in
the world.” Tokyo is one of
the world’s most populous
metropolis and serves as
Japan’s political, economic
and cultural hub. Japan is
the world’s third largest
economy and one of the
main ﬁnancial and economic centers with growing
investment, trade and tourism ties with Africa. Ethiopian ﬂights to Tokyo will
enable the strengthening of
investment, trade, tourism
and people-to-people ties
between Africa and Japan.
Ethiopian is a Pan-African
global carrier voted by Passenger Choice Awards as
the Best in Africa for two
consecutive years, in the
most comprehensive survey in the industry. The airline operates the youngest
ﬂeet in the continent with
an average of less than 7
years and currently serves
84 international destinations across 5 continents
with over 200 daily departures.
Council of
Drugs, Poisons
Warns Against
Black Market
Cosmetics
By: Areej Khalid
Khartoum – The National Council of Drugs and
Poisons has warned citizens of using cosmetics
sold on the black market.
It called on citizens to report any such practices.
Meanwhile, the Council issued several directives
to control the drugs distribution process from the
factories to the pharmacies.
Monday, January 12, 2015
Six-Party Committee Meeting on S. Sudan Begins
From P.1
Pentagon Throws out Guantanamo
‘Foot Soldier’ Conviction
The Pentagon framed it this way:
“Subsequent to his commission proceedings, decisions by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in separate commissions cases established that it was
legal error to try the offense of providing material support or terrorism
before a military commission.”Noor
got to Guantanamo in May 2002 and
went home without ever testifying at
any war-crimes trial. It was the job
of Ary’s ofﬁce to approve the record.
Instead he “disapproved” the “ﬁndings and sentence,” the Pentagon said.
It did not release the documents that
Ary signed. Reached by phone Friday
night in Phoenix, Noor’s civilian attorney, Howard Cabot, said the freed
captive was probably unaware of the
outcome.
The two had not been in contact
since his return to Sudan, he said. To
make the plea deal, Noor’s defense
team abandoned an argument that the
charges were illegitimate, and Cabot
said it was a worthwhile trade-off.
“Noor’s been home for a year and
change,” he said. “Now we have a
legal decision that basically says for
people in the future that these particular charges are ex post facto.”
Noor was among the few foot soldier
cases the Pentagon chose to prosecute
at Guantanamo, and may have chosen
him because of the company he kept.
Pakistani security forces picked him
up in Faisalabad, Pakistan, after the
9/11 attacks at the same safe house as
a prized war-on-terror captive, Zayn
Abdeen al Hussain - better known as
Abu Zubaydah, who would be waterboarded 83 times by the CIA in an at-
tempt to break him.
A prosecutor screened a video of an
anti-American rant by Abu Zubaydah
at Noor’s sentencing hearing to argue
guilt by association in setting his punishment. Defense lawyers countered
with Noor’s account of how U.S.
troops treated him at the Bagram air
base in Afghanistan before his August
2002 transfer to Guantanamo - painful shackling, blasts of hot and cold,
deafening music and being left naked
in sight of female soldiers.
After his guilty plea, a jury of U.S.
military ofﬁcers sentenced him to the
maximum 14 years imprisonment,
only to learn that under a secret plea
deal, his sentence would expire in December 2013. Only if the panel had
given him less time would the sentence have been relevant.
Information State Minister, Economic Radio
Director Discuss Cooperation
By: SUNA
Khartoum - The promotion of economic information
through radio to cope with the government’s efforts to
achieve economic reform was reviewed yesterday by State
Minister of Information, Yassir Yousif and Chairman of
the Board of Directors of the Economic Radio (FM89), Dr.
Abdul Rahim Hamdi. The meeting also touched on the FM
Radio Station performance and its future plans, afﬁrming
the necessity of supporting training and capacity building
of information cadres.
Red Sea State.. Utilising its Attractive Tourist Qualities
Report by SUNA
Khartoum - Tourism is one of the
most important investment ﬁelds. It
is an effective and strong element that
brings in hard currency and supports
the national economy, meaning many
countries depend largely on tourism to
foster its economy.
The Red Sea State is the ﬁrst tourist
area in Sudan due to its wilderness and
naval tourist advantages in addition to
its distinctive geographical position. It
is the country’s main port in the Red
Sea, which adds more commercial importance to the region.
The State’s government chaired by Dr.
Mohamad Taheer Ella adopted speciﬁc
plans give the State additional advantages over other regions, until it became the preferred region for tourism
in Sudan.Recently, the Red Sea State
has begun to reap the fruits of development which appeared clearly in the
social and economic ﬁelds. As tourist
areas in the state became the best options for explorers inside and outside
the state, the country has experienced
a great jump in the tourism industry.
The eighth Session of Tourism and
Marketing Festival in Red Sea State
was a unique and coordinated event
which beneﬁted from the experiences
of previous festivals.
The State Governor Aylaa asserted that
his government succeeded in realising
many achievements in ﬁeld of tourism
by utilising their capacities in tourism
to create new job opportunities and increase the per capita income.
Governor Aylaa urged the central gov-
ernment to provide the required assistance to support projects of tourism,
food security and affordable housing
in the state. He expressed appreciation
for the role of the private sector and
Sudanese Businessmen and Employers Federation for their contribution to
the success of all developmental and
economical projects in the state.
For his part, Chairman of the Sudanese Businessmen and Employers
Federation Saud Mamoon Al-Brier asserted the necessity of the private sector’s role as a principal partner in the
country ‘s development and renewed
the sector’s commitment to the partnership with Red Sea state and central
government to accomplish the developmental projects.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Finance in
Red Sea State disclosed that the total
costs of the festival amounted to SDG
5 million and SDG 200,000, adding
that the proceeds will contribute to
supporting the State’s development
projects. He expects that the number
of tourists will surpass one million, up
from last yearís 750,000.
For his part, Chairman of the economical and commercial exhibitions committee in the Tourism and marketing
festival in Red Sea State Mohamad
Al-Basseree said that the committee
was ongoing in all previous sessions,
which added to its experiences in this
ﬁeld. He said the committee is keen to
establish a ëMade in Sudaní tag in the
national industries.
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By: SUNA
Khartoum - The Six-Party political consultation meeting will begin
Monday to bridge the gap in viewpoints between the disputed parties
in the State of South Sudan.
The discussion will include Sudan,
China, State of South Sudan, the representatives of Riek Machar and Ethiopia. Foreign Ministry Spokesman,
Ambassador Yousif Al-Kordofani
announced that the Six-party meeting
which includes the conﬂicted parties
in South Sudan aims to reach a po-
litical settlement to realise peace and
stability in that country.
He said the meeting was initiated by
Sudan and China in the presence of
IGAD and the concerned neighbouring countries which have organised
another initiative in this connection.
First Vice-President Meets IPFC Ofﬁcial
By: SUNA
Khartoum - First Vice-President of the Republic Lt. Gen.
Bakri Hassan Saleh has got acquainted with the administrative arrangements carried out by the International People’s
Friendship Council (IPFC) to strengthen Sudan’s relations
with the different people of the world.
This came yesterday when the IPFC’s Secretary General,
Abdul Moneim Al-Sunni briefed Saleh on the Council’s future strategic plans for 2015.
The cooperation between the council and other related institutions, especially the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and
the Secretariat of the Sudanese Working Abroad was also
discussed.
WHO Approves Safe Meningitis A Vaccine for Infants
By: Hafﬁya Elyas
The World Health Organisation
(WHO) has opened the door to routine immunisation of infants in subSaharan Africa by approving for use
an innovative and affordable vaccine
that has all but rid the meningitis belt
of a major cause of deadly epidemics.
In the four years since its introduction in Africa, MenAfriVacÆ has had
an immediate and dramatic impact in
breaking the cycle of meningitis A
epidemics, leading the safe, effective
technology to be approved by WHO
through its prequaliﬁcation process
for use in infants, and paving the way
for protecting millions more children
at risk of the deadly disease. The announcement was made today by the
Meningitis Vaccine Project (MVP)óa
partnership between the global health
nonproﬁt PATH and WHOóand Serum Institute of India Ltd (SIIL),
which manufactures the MenAfriVacÆ vaccine.
According to WHO, in 2004, MVP
partnered with SIIL to develop an affordable, tailor-made vaccine for use
against meningitis A in sub-Saharan
Africa. MenAfriVacÆ was developed
in record time at less than 1 tenth the
cost of a typical new vaccine. Since
campaigns started in 2010, MenAfriVacÆ has been administered to over
215 million people in 15 countries
of the African meningitis belt: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad,
CÙte díIvoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali,
Niger, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal,
Sudan, Togo, and The Gambia.
ìInitial mass vaccination campaigns
with MenAfriVacÆ have been highly
effective in reducing the number of
meningitis A cases,î said Dr. MariePierre PrÈziosi, director of MVP.
ìBut epidemics will return when rising numbers of unprotected newborns
become a larger proportion of the total population over time. Now, with
this decision, health ofﬁcials will be
able to ensure that population-wide
protection is sustained by routinely
immunizing infants.î
4 HOME
Monday, January 12, 2015
Daily Arabic Newspapers
Headlines
Sunday, January 11th, 2015
Al-Ray AlAam
* Kati to Cairo on Thursday.
* Hassabo: Sudan Facing Foreign Plots.
* Al-Sisi Admits Conﬂicts, Denies Corruption.
Al-Sahafa
* Army Crushes Rebellion in Um-Surdaba.
* 20 Thousand African and Asian Students Studying in Sudanese Universities.
* Truth Federal Party Nominates Its Candidate in the Presidency Race.
Alyoum Al-Tali
* Cold wave Claims the Life of a Citizen in Khartoum Streets.
* Foreign Ministry Summons Libyan Ambassador on Barring Sudanese from Entering
Libya.
* Parliament: PCP Criticizing the Constitutional Amendments Improper.
Assayha
* An Arrest Warrant for Al-Sadiq Al-Mahdi.
* Opposition Alliance Decides to Boycott the Elections.
* Foreign Ministry Reveals Serious Dialogue to Normalize Relations with the US.
Al-Tayar
* Al-Tayar Reveals the Deal of the NCP with Partners in the Elections.
* Darfur: 12 IDPs died by Frost Cold.
* Juba: We Didn’t Receive Any Notiﬁcation on Khartoum Consultative Conference
for S. Sudan Rivals.
* 2000 Refugees Lack Humanitarian Assistance in Bahr El-Ghazal.
Al-Mijhar
* NUP and Communist Party: NCP Is Running the Elections against Itself.
* Farmers Optimistic over the Winter Production.
* DDPD Implementation Committee to Meet in Nyala under the Chairmanship of
FVP and Al-Mahmoud.
Cabinet Sponsors Capacity Raising
Workshop for Sudanese Laboratory
By: SUNA
Khartoum - The Minister for Animal
Resources, Fisheries and Pastures,
Dr Faisal Hassan Ibrahim, has underlined the concern of his ministry with
quality control applications in all the
Sudanese laboratories, be they medical, criminal or scientiﬁc.
Faisal has stressed the need for development the laboratories and for raising the capacities of the staff, technically, for upgrading the work tools and
revising them annually in accordance
with the standards set internationally
to gain conﬁdence in their products
constantly.
The Minister was addressing the
workshop at the Council of Ministers
Tuesday, attended by a number of
specialists and experts in this ﬁeld.
The Undersecretary at the Ministry
of Animal Resources, Dr Isam Mohamed Abdullah has meanwhile said
the workshop is seeking to examine
policies, plans and legislations beside
provision of basic data on the laboratories in the Sudan, won how to control disease and epidemics that affect
man health wise
The workshop has recommended that
it was necessary to coordinate joint
efforts with all the laboratories and all
those concerned as to how make use
of the technological developments in
the ﬁeld of laboratories.
Sayyid Fahd Receives Speaker of
Sudanese House in Oman
Al-Tagyeer
* Opposition: Linking the Elections to the National Dialogue Aborts the Dialogue.
* NCP: September Incidents Will Not Affect the Popularity of the Party.
* Sudan and Egypt Sign US$800 Agreement for Infrastructure Projects.
Akhir Lahza
* DUP Leading Figure Challenges Al-Mirghani and Announces Boycotting the
Elections.
* Sudanese Army Inching to Kauda.
* NCP: Khartoum State Development Projects are Not Electoral Propaganda.
Al-Intibaha
* Insulin Expired Shipment in the markets.
* New Breakaways within the SPLM/N Field Leaderships
* NCP Nominates Candidates for 62% of the Constituencies.
* Joint Sudanese/Chinese Talks Start Today.
Al-Sudani
* Finance Ministry Reviews the Salaries’ Increase.
* NCP Nominates 42 Candidates for Khartoum State Legislative Council.
* President to Visit Sennar Today.
* Meteorology: Starting the School Classes at 9:00 Is Unfortunate Decision.
* Port Sudan Receives Crossing Ethiopian Imports.
Al-Jareedah
* NCP: September Incidents Effects Overcome
* Environment Minister: Spread of Diseases is Because of the Sanitation System.
* DUP Reiterates Supporting Al Bashir Candidacy for the Presidency Race.
* Interior Ministry Sets New Measures to Implement the Constitutional
Amendments.
ONA
Muscat: His Highness Sayyid Fahd
bin Mahmoud Al Said, Deputy Prime
Minister for the Council of Ministers
received Dr Al Fatih Izz Al Deen Al
Mansour, Speaker of the National
Assembly in the Republic of Sudan,
who is currently visiting the Sultanate. The Sudanese guest conveyed
greetings of President Omar Hassan
Al Basheer of the Republic of Sudan,
along with his best wishes of success
to His Majesty and the Omani people further progress and prosperity.
He also expressed thanks for Oman’s
* Communist Party Rejects the Constitutional Amendments, Expects Banning AlMaidan from Publishing till the End of the Elections.
* China Gives Priority to South Sudan Crisis.
* 4560 Sudanese Returned Voluntarily from Libya.
* Al-Mirghani Announces that They Will Not Nominate any Candidate to Compete
with Al Bashir in the Presidency Race.
* AU Summit to Take Place by the End of January.
Al-Ahram Al-Youm
* SPLM (Kodi Wing) Boycotts the Elections.
* American Website Reveals the Failure of Save Darfur Alliance
* NCP Launches Talks with Elections’ Participating Parties.
reviewing the latest developments at
the regional and international arenas.
The Speaker of the Sudanese National Assembly expressed his delight
and that of his accompanying delegation of this visit. He hailed the policies being pursued by the Sultanate at
the domestic and international levels,
as well as the march of the Omani
Shura. The meeting was attended by
Khalid bin Hilal Al Ma’awali, Chairman of Majlis Al Shura, Salim bin Ali
Al Ka’abi, Deputy Chairman of Majlis Al Shura and Awadh Mohammed
Ahmed bin Ouf, Sudanese ambassador to the Sultanate.
Al-Sisi Says Divsions within LJM
Harm Peace in Darfur
ST
Al-Ayam
constant support.
During the meeting, the good relations between the two brotherly countries were reviewed stemming from
the fraternal ties binding them. HH
Sayyid Fahd highlighted the role being carried out by the State Council
and Majlis Al Shura in enhancing the
march of the national work, as well as
cooperation with the Government and
other state institutions to provide best
services for citizens.
Conversation during the meeting
touched on means of supporting cooperation between the two countries
in a number of ﬁelds, in addition to
KHARTOUM - The chairman of Darfur
Regional Authority (DRA) Dr. Al-Tijani
Al-Sisi admitted the existence of sharp
differences within his group, Liberation
and Justice Movement (LJM), and regretted that such crisis harms the western Sudan region.
Speaking in a meeting held with the
leaders of the Indigenous Administration and civil society groups in the
capital of South Darfur state Saturday,
al Sissi said they “keep silent about differences because they are keen to preserve the unity of Darfur people” adding differences “made them look small
before the others”.The LJM, which is
the ﬁrst signatory of the Doha Docu-
ment for Peace in Darfur (DDPD), is
crossed by divisions between two wings
led by its secretary general Bahr Idriss
Abu Garada and al-Sissi. The former
has blamed the latter of mismanaging
the implementation of the security arrangements and being weak with the
central government.“Accusing the
Darfur Regional Authority of embezzling two billion dollars, means charging Omdurman National Bank (where
the funds are deposited)” said the DRA
chairman. But he quickly added “I do
not think that the bank has agreed with
contractors and stole the DRA money.
“He further added that contracts were
signed with 35 companies to implement
the DRA projects “in accordance with
the well-established tender terms and
conditions,” he stressed.
Sissi further pointed that the current differences may harm the region and put
the interest of Darfur people at risk.The
head of Darfur peace implementation
Amin Hassan Omer last week minimised the rift within the former rebel
group, saying divisions are normal in
political forces pointing to his National
Congress Party.
He called on Nyala people to reserve a
warm welcome to the participants, particularly the Qatari deputy prime minister, Ahmed bin Abdullah Al-Mahmoud,
who will attend the meeting.
The former peace mediator Djibril
Bassol� is also expected to attend the
meeting representing the Organisation
of Islamic Cooperation.
BUSINESS 5
Monday, January 12 ,2015
Legal Challenge Shows
Rocky Path to ECB
Money-printing
Reuters
Analysis - Oil-driven Asian Bond rally could
Boomerang
Reuters
SINGAPORE - Plunging oil prices have sparked
a big rally in Asian government bond markets as
lower fuel costs cut inﬂation expectations, but
the rally could be built on shallow foundations as
monetary policymakers remain out of step with
tumbling bond yields.
The price of oil , of which Asia is a net importer,
has halved in less than six months, driving bond
yields down across the region, from India to South
Korea, as markets anticipate looser monetary policy
to accommodate the resulting disinﬂation.
The imminence of further monetary easing in
Europe and Japan builds a strong case for bond
yields to drop further.
But there is little sign yet of ofﬁcial rate cuts,
particularly in markets such as Indonesia, Malaysia
and the Philippines, where central banks were
sounding hawkish or even raising rates into the ﬁnal
months of 2014.
“The oil price has caught central banks by surprise,”
said ING’s chief Asian economist Tim Condon.
“The panic of 2013 is right now foremost in their
minds, and they are looking at a Fed rate hike, and
so I think they will remain pretty dug in,” he said.
The fear of a repeat of 2013’s “taper tantrum”,
when talk of the Federal Reserve withdrawing
monetary stimulus prompted vast sums of foreign
capital to bail out of the region, helps explain why
Asian central banks might err on the side of tighter
monetary policy.
But there are other factors that also suggest ofﬁcial
policy will stay tighter than the bond markets
imply.
For one, a rising U.S. dollar is pushing down
all emerging market currencies, which already
indirectly eases monetary conditions for Asian
policymakers and creates pressure on them to keep
interest rates up to prevent the ﬂight of foreign
cash.
The market mismatch is evident in Indonesia, where
the rupiah currency has fallen 9 percent against the
dollar in the past six months.
Ten-year Indonesian government bond yields,
which are normally signiﬁcantly higher than
overnight policy rates to reﬂect the risk of holding
bonds to term, are just 5 basis points above the
7.75 percent policy rate, having fallen 60 bps since
mid-December.One plausible scenario that could
trigger a bond market tumble is if lower oil costs
dramatically improve U.S. growth numbers in the
next couple of months, leading to renewed optimism
about global growth and a rise in Treasury yields.
Far from cutting rates, policymakers might then
have to raise rates.
PARADOX
The odds of this high-growth scenario playing out
are perhaps reﬂected in how well equity markets
have held up despite worries about disinﬂation,
patchy economic growth and the possibility that
Greece could return to the emergency room.
Despite a wobbly start to 2015, Asian shares
<.MIAPJ0000PUS> are up 6 percent in the past
three months.
“We are apparently on the edge of deﬂation, and
yet equity markets aren’t collapsing,” said BofA
Merrill Lynch strategist Claudio Piron. “And there
are certain elements to what is going on which are
reminiscent of the Asian ﬁnancial crisis -- oil prices
falling, dollar strengthening, bonds rallying strongly
-- which all seems very ominous.”
With the exception of Thailand, none of Asia’s
central banks has explicitly spoken of the need for
easier policy.
Inﬂation has slowed sharply, except in Indonesia
and Malaysia, where fuel subsidies were cut late
last year.
While consumer price inﬂation in the Philippines
is well below the central bank’s expected 3 percent
average for the year, the rhetoric from policymakers
suggests markets may at best hope for rates to be
on hold.On the other hand, Indonesia’s inﬂation is
running at nearly double the ofﬁcial forecast range
for this year, thanks to a jump in domestic oil prices.
ING’s Condon doesn’t expect any of Asia’s central
banks to react in a hurry to either oil or slowing
inﬂation, and instead says they might be prepared
to tolerate disinﬂation just as the European Central
Bank and Fed do.
“There is some sort of asymmetry there. It’s okay to
undershoot inﬂation, it’s prohibitive to overshoot.
That, I think, will be the story in Asia as well.”
Some market participants recognize that bias, which
is possibly why short-end yields in Asian bond
markets haven’t moved much. But it is in longerterm yields that investors might read a warning that
2015 will hold more pain than gain.
Iran Vows to Help Venezuela’s Maduro in
Venezuela to Stem OPEC Kingpin Saudi for
Oil Price Fall
Talks
question the rule of thumb for measuring
economic health, namely that there
should be a steady up-tick in prices.
British inﬂation will be watched on
Tuesday, with analysts betting it will hit
a fresh 12-year low below 1 percent.
Those looking for respite elsewhere may
be disappointed. The People’s Bank
of China cut the cost of borrowing in
November and loosened loan restrictions
to encourage lending.
It is expected to take further such steps, as
the country’s property market downturn
continues and local governments and
companies grapple with heavy debts.
Bank lending data and a readout on
economic output in the ﬁnal three
months of last year are likely to paint a
glum picture.
Hopeful eyes are turning to the ECB. But
German opposition to money printing
could put a ﬂy in the ointment.
Its Bundesbank has warned that buying
bonds issued by euro zone governments
-- including politically brittle Greece -could leave it on the hook for losses.
Next week, an adviser to Europe’s top
court will give his opinion on a challenge
by a group of Germans to an earlier
ECB bond-buying programme. If he
shares any of the concerns of Germany’s
constitutional court, which referred the
case to European judges, it would be
signiﬁcant.
Alain Durre, an economist with Goldman
Sachs, said this could lead to the ECB
setting a ﬁxed limit on its bond-buying
plans or to take priority over other
investors when it buys state bonds.
Whatever the outcome, the German
protest is likely to get louder. “The
ECB has stepped beyond its remit.
The European court should forbid the
ECB from doing this,” said Dietrich
Murswiek, a lawyer representing one of
the plaintiffs.
“You can draw parallels with quantitative
easing. From my point of view, QE is
also beyond its remit. This can also lead
to legal action.”
BP, Anadarko Fail to Win
New Review of Gulf Spill
Fines
Reuters
DUBAI - Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
told Venezuela’s president on Saturday he backed
coordinated action between Tehran and Caracas to reverse
a rapid fall in global oil prices which he described as a
“political ploy hatched by common enemies”.
President Nicholas Maduro is on a tour of fellow OPEC
countries to lobby for higher oil prices, which hit new
lows last week below $50 per barrel, nearly half of what
they were back in June 2014.
The plunge in crude prices has pummelled the public
ﬁnances of Iran and Venezuela, whose economies rely
heavily on oil exports.
“The strange drop in oil prices in such a short time is a
political ploy and unrelated to the market. Our common
enemies are using oil as a political ploy and they deﬁnitely
have a role in this severe fall in prices,” Khamenei said in
talks with Maduro.
“(Khamenei) endorsed an agreement between the
presidents of Iran and Venezuela for a coordinated
campaign against the slide in oil prices”, the ofﬁcial IRNA
news agency said.
Venezuela’s economy contracted in the ﬁrst three quarters
of 2014 and its international reserves have deteriorated
sharply due to the tumbling oil prices. The decline has
spurred concerns that Venezuela may default on its
foreign bonds, which in turn has pushed its bond yields
to the highest of any emerging market nation. Maduro has
denied his country will default.
Earlier on Saturday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani
said OPEC hawks Iran and Venezuela “can undoubtedly
cooperate to thwart world powers’ strategies ... and to
stabilise prices at a reasonable level in 2015”.
Already hit by global sanctions over its suspected nuclear
programme, Iran has been particularly frustrated by the
failure of OPEC countries -- led by its arch regional rival
Saudi Arabia -- to cut output to ease the existing glut in
the oil market.
At its previous meeting on Nov. 27, the cartel decided to
keep output at 30 million barrels per day. Saudi Arabia
blamed the weak market on oversupply by non-OPEC
producers such as Russia, Mexico, Kazakhstan and the
United States. OPEC is due to meet next in June.
FRANKFURT - A landmark legal
opinion this week will remind the
European Central Bank of the limits
it faces as it advances towards money
printing, while a tumbling oil price saps
inﬂation in debt-strained Europe.
With expectations high that the ECB
is on the verge of buying government
bonds with new money to shore up
the economy, an inﬂuential adviser to
Europe’s top court will give his view on
Jan. 14 about an earlier unused bondbuying scheme.
It is the latest chapter in a long-running
and increasingly bitter dispute about
quantitative easing (QE) between the
ECB and Germany, the largest member
of the 19-country bloc, that is likely
to limit the size or scope of such a
programme.
As the debate continues, the euro zone
economy is all but grinding to a halt.
Germany is expected to announce
modest growth on Jan. 15 for last year.
In the United States, fresh data on rising
employment as well as retail sales is set
to show just how much its recovery has
overtaken Europe.
“The global economy is at a precarious
point,” said Jacob Kirkegaard of
Washington think tank, the Peterson
Institute.
“The falling oil price is a huge shot in
the arm. Nonetheless, it is clear that the
ECB will have to do something. There
is no growth and the debt burden is too
high. The world will be ﬂying on one
engine, the U.S., for quite some time.”
Oil’s second-biggest collapse on
record has taken the price of a barrel of
benchmark Brent crude to around $50
from $115 in the middle of last year.
That is a mixed blessing for the stuttering
global economy.
While it is good news for a slowing
China and should put more money in the
pocket of motorists around the world,
cheap oil has put price inﬂation into
reverse in the euro zone, increasing the
burden on countries with heavy debts.
It has also compounded an economic and
currency crisis in neighbouring Russia,
one of the world’s biggest oil exporters.
Russia is already locked in conﬂict with
neighbouring Ukraine.
Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s has
said it will conclude a review of Russia’s
credit status by mid January. Any
downgrade would badge Russian bonds
as “junk” for the ﬁrst time in more than
a decade.
INFLATION EYED
Low price inﬂation, a symptom of
the global slowdown, has led some to
Reuters
AFP
Venezuelan President Nicolas
Maduro has arrived in OPEC’s
leading oil producer Saudi
Arabia, state media reported
on Sunday, after he visited
Iran to discuss the impact of
plummeting crude prices.
Maduro landed on Saturday in
Riyadh where Deputy Crown
Prince Moqren bin Abdul
Aziz received him, the Saudi
Press Agency said.
“The Venezuelan president
was accompanied by a
number of ministers,” it said,
giving no further details.
Saudi Arabia is the world’s
largest crude exporter and
the biggest producer in the
12-member
Organisation
of the Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC), to which
Venezuela and Iran also
belong.
While Saudi Arabia says it is
ﬁnancially strong enough to
withstand the drop in world
oil prices, which fell about 50
percent last year, the budgets of
Venezuela and Iran are under
strain.Venezuela has said it
is willing to cut production
to support prices but OPEC
decided in November to
maintain an output ceiling of
30 million barrels per day.The
decision intensiﬁed the price
slide that began in the middle
of the year, blamed on softer
growth in demand and a
stronger United States dollar
as well as oversupply.
Iran’s President Hassan
Rouhani, his oil minister
and other top ofﬁcials have
criticised Saudi Arabia for
not backing steps to bolster
prices.
During his meeting with
Maduro on Saturday, Rouhani
again appeared to single out
Riyadh, in remarks carried
on the Iranian government’s
website.“Without
doubt,
cooperation of countries
that are on the same line in
OPEC can neutralise the
plans of some powers who
are against OPEC, stabilising
a reasonable price for oil in
2015,” Rouhani said.
According to the ofﬁcial
remarks, Maduro echoed
Rouhani, “calling for the
cooperation of oil exporting
countries to bring back
stability.”Saudi Oil Minister
Ali al-Naimi has been quoted
as saying it is unfair to expect
the cartel to reduce output if
non-members, who account
for most of the world’s crude
production, do not.
BP Plc and Anadarko Petroleum Corp
narrowly failed to persuade a U.S
appeals court to reconsider its 2014
ruling that they could face civil ﬁnes
under federal pollution laws over the
2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
By a 7-6 vote, the 5th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals let stand a threejudge panel’s decision to uphold a
2012 ruling from U.S. District Judge
Carl Barbier in New Orleans, in
which he said the companies could
face Clean Water Act penalties.
Barbier is scheduled on Jan. 20 to
begin a non-jury trial to determine
pollution ﬁnes. BP is appealing his
Sept. 4 ruling that it was grossly
negligent in causing the spill, exposing
the London-based company to roughly
$18 billion of potential ﬁnes.
BP and Anadarko had owned a
respective 65 percent and 25 percent
of the Macondo well, which blew
out following the April 20, 2010,
explosion of the Deepwater Horizon
drilling rig.
They said they should not face ﬁnes
because the discharge that culminated
in the largest U.S. offshore oil spill
was the result of a broken riser under
the control of Transocean Ltd , which
owned the rig.
The three-judge panel ruled against BP
and Anadarko last June 4, and issued
a separate ruling ﬁve months later that
the companies said caused confusion,
further justifying a rehearing.
An outside spokeswoman for BP
declined to comment. Anadarko
spokesman John Christiansen also
declined to comment.
Writing for the dissenting judges,
Circuit Judge Edith Brown Clement
said on Friday the panel misinterpreted
the Clean Water Act, and misapplied
its own standard in assessing what
happened.
She said denial of a rehearing “ensures
that our precedent concerning liability
for oil spills under the Clean Water
Act remains unclear.”
The case is In re: Deepwater Horizon,
5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No.
12-30883.
6 OPINION
Editorial
76 Political Parties!
According to news articles, the Sudanese National
Parties’ Council announced that 76 political parties
and peace signatory armed movements will support
the nomination of Omar Al Bashir to stand for the
re-election in the Presidential race.
The re-election of Al Bashir and his victory is a foregone conclusion considering that he is the only one
in the ruling party who has approval from the majority.
Even those who disagree with him give excuses and
justiﬁcations and express respect for him to some
extent.
As for the National Congress Party, its leadership
will not give any other person a chance to win, and
accordingly the announcement of Al Bashirís victory
is waiting at the end of the elections’ process.
Interestingly enough in the above news is the number
of the political parties and peace signatory armed
movements, which are reportedly 76.
The question is how can all the registered political
parties which adapt the peaceful solution rejecting
violence meet and agree with armed groups which
adopt the military solutions?
Amazingly, the Sudanese National Parties’ Council
announced this big number of parties that support Al
Bashir’s nomination.
As a matter of fact, those parties do not exist on the
ground and we know nothing about them.
We have never heard of a single achievement of any
of these mirage parties.
We never saw them in our joys and sorrows.
76 political parties and none of them built one classroom or a primary health care centre in any part of
the country.
76 political parties and none of them provide a syringe or gauze or antiseptic for one of the rural clinics. 76 political parties and we have never heard
about a forum or a lecture on Sudan’s issues.
Those parties do not deserve to be given the right
to win the heart of the ruling party or the public in
general.
76 political parties in Sudan, while in Britain or USA
or France or Italy or Turkey the political parties are
no more than three.
Did those political parties practice democracy within
itself to qualify to practice it amid the people?
Are they really political parties with programmes,
plans, and ambitions?
It is recognised that the majority of those parties are
breakaways from other parties, and those breakaway
parties are seeking seats in the government institutions.
We only need two or three active political parties
to make the peaceful exchange of power with actual competition according to studied programmes;
otherwise it will be chaos which needs somebody to
regulate.
An Independent Daily
Act. Editor-in-Chief:
Muawad Mustafa Rashid
E-mail: [email protected]
Monday, January 12, 2015
The Comprehensive Peace Agreement
(CPA) Assessed
One of the unforgettable cover designs includes a photograph by Eric Ball of the Haboub (sandstorm) closing in
on Khartoum. The white Republican Palace, seat of rulers
since the 19th Century, is clear. Across the river facing
the palace, there is another building under construction.
The caption reads : Against the Gathering Storm .Securing Sudan’ CPA. The author of that report for Chatham
House, Dr Edward Thomas, was among the distinguished
panellists who were invited to talk on 9 January 2015 under the title: Sudan and South Sudan. Reﬂecting on 10
years of the CPA.Thomas was joined by Dr Abdelwahhab
El-Affendi (Westminster University), Mr Mawan Mourtat (Political Commentator), and Dr Sharath Srinivathan
(University of Cambridge).The event was chaired by
Dame Rosalind Marsden, former UK ambassador to the
Sudan who knew the country well and kept up interest in
its developments. The main Lecture Hall was full. The
Sudanese ambassador, the deputy Head of Mission and
the political counsellor were there. So were diplomats
from the South Sudan Embassy and other embassies.
Oxfam, Globall Witness and Amnesty International were
represented. Professor Peter Woodward was there, so was
Dr Alex De Waal, Peter Everington and tens of students,
Coordinator and Follow-up
Al-Sammani Awadallah
Email:[email protected]
Executive Secretary
Lilly Lamunu
E-mail: delﬁnolilly@ yahoo.com
News Editor
Zuleikha Abdul Raziq
Email: [email protected]
Promotion Manager
Awadallah Al Tayeb Al Bahari
Mob. 0912301742
Email:[email protected]
Art Director&Designers
Jamal Osman Hamdan
Hafez Gaffar Elsaid Onsa
Mohammed Abdelhakam
Address :Khartoum 2
Tel: +249183571702
E-mail: [email protected]
www.sudanvisiondaily.com
Fax:(83)571700
Published By
Byader Media Distribution Co.Ltd.
Printed by: Martyr Major Osman Omer
politicians and journalists.
E. Thomas began with a description of the storm. Two
Millions were displaced by the civil war in South Sudan.
The bloated army has got more Generals than the US
army and half the budget is swallowed by salaries. He did
not support the view that the conﬂict was mainly tribal.
The root cause is the way the Government related to the
people in South Sudan since the 19th Century. There is a
repeated pattern of alienation and disconnection.
El-Affendi argued that the CPA could have resulted in †a
reformed united Sudan; but it did not address the †core
bone of contention of the Sudan’s diversity. Arab-Muslim
or African? The Government did honour most of its CPA
commitments; but there were differences of opinion and
practice with the SPLM over laws and other signiﬁcant
issues. The new US administration did not end Sudan’s
isolation because of Darfur. Mourtat agreed that the CPA
was positive and should be assessed as such despite setbacks in implementation. Srinivathan †said that a government that is in power for 25 years cannot convincingly
blame external factors for internal turmoil.
The Sudanese ambassador Mohamed Abdallah El-Tom
criticised the approach of the International Community
Have You ever had an Experience in:
GET FREEZING?
Email: [email protected]
I donít want to talk a lot today; because I am freezing!
And I think yes that everyone is freezing these days because of this great cold weather! So, Iíll talk about us
here freezing, the illusion people who makes fake stories
about everything, and our brothers and sisters who are
dying because of the cold weather!
We, here in Sudan, used to suffer from our hot weather
that is no easier gets cool rather cold, but here it comes
the winter, I donít think Iíve ever witness winter season
like this! I mean, my ﬁngers are kind of paralyzed, I canít
feel them sometime. But to be fair itís much better than
summer. And here are some advices that you can use to
avoid getting sick in this winter: try to drink a glass of
Email; [email protected]
Most of us complain about the cold wave which is gripping the country this week! But the reality that we should
express gratitude of our mild climate! We are still able
to walk during the daytime without wearing too heavy
clothes while in so many countries some people freeze to
death because of the harsh winter. They can’t live without wearing winter clothes and eating several hot meals
everyday!
In so many countries these days, people cannot take a
morning shower without using the water heater. They
also need an open ﬁreplace to sleep near at night! But
Alaa Babiker
ers got killed by the snow!!
Third and last: speaking of getting
killed, some people are actually dying of the snow storms that in Syria, and I really feel so
bad for them that they are suffering and dying enough because of the war and yet they are dying from the weather
too. So please letís all pray for them and may God be
with them.
In the end, and you guys can drop me an email just to
let me know what you think about todayís article. Do
not forget about taking good care of yourself and you
family in this weather. And have a unique winter season
everyone.
OPINION
Faisal Mohammad Fadlalmoula
here, some of us are able to take a nice shower with the
tap water directly! We still also turn-on the ceiling fans
to enjoy a sound sleep!
Not only do we have mild weather in winter but also in
summer and autumn! In our country the majority of people sleep in their backyards during all-night! The only
problem that we face at night is the mosquito bites! But
this problem can be treated by using a mosquito net (Namosia)! Or using mosquito repellent (Cream)!
We can enjoy the sunlight during all the daytime! And
throughout the year! While in some countries people will
Dinka People Are Our Strategic Ally
that insisted on reform and changes
on the Sudanese Government; but
was not even-handed and didn’t do the same for the
SPLM/A. What is happening in South Sudan today is one
of the results of this policy. He said that sanctions were
not lifted as promised and that the ICC was not about
justice. Peter Everington said that the†bright side of the
CPA should not be overlooked and asked about the lessons that the Inernational Community could learn from
the setbacks in implementation.
Dame Rosalind Marsden reminded the audience that a
great deal of effort was made to oversee CPI implementation. There was an Assessment and Evaluation Commission headed by a senior British diplomat. The US, Britain and Norway spent funds for training political parties,
drafting laws and the process leading to and including the
referendum.
When the sandstorm blows visibility is reduced to a few
feet. The discussion was an attempt to improve visibilit.
By its very nature, the sandstorm is transient and is followed by ﬁne breeze. This could be the more optimistic
interpretation of Eric Ball’s photograph on the cover of
the Chatham House 07 report
Experiences
water after squeezing half lemon in it. Wear double think
clothes and for children make them triple because they
get sick easier. Most importantly DO NOT take bath with
the normal tap water because itís not normal, itís freezing water, and instead put some water to be hot and then
take the bath only at the afternoon time, DO NOT act
brave and take your bath at the morning, itís suicidal,
some people actually lost their lives after taking a bath
in the morning.
Second: The illusionistsí people who claim there is snow
at the northern of Sudan, what are you guys think of?!
I mean, we are already freezing enough just feeling the
cold, we really donít want to get scared hearing that oth-
Sudan’s Climate is the Best Ever!
be on pins and needles waiting to
take a sunbath when sunrises, then
the sun sets for twenty hours a day
or even more!
We are very lucky to not witness natural disasters such
as volcanic eruptions,†earthquakes,†tsunamis and other
hazards.
We should be grateful to live in this wonderful country
Sudan; land of the rising sun, rather than to live in a land
‘whose ﬁshes die of the cold’ as Altayeb Salih described
Britten in his novel ‘Season of migration to the north’.
I Have a Dream
Abdulmoniem A.M. Ismail
Act. Managing Editor
Alula Berhe Kidani
Khalid Al Mubarak
Email: [email protected]
Tel: +249183571702
E-mail:[email protected]
Tel: +249183571702
OPINION
The Nilotic people of South Sudan are the Acholi, Anyuak , Bari, Dinka, Nuer, Shilluk. The Bantu people of
South Sudan are Azande, Mundu, Avukaya and Baka.
The Dinka people are an ethnic group inhabiting the Bahral El-Ghazal region of the Nile basin, Jonglei an upper
Nile regions. The Dinkas are mainly agripastora people,
relying on cattle herding at riverside camps in the dry
season and growing millet and other varieties of grain in
ﬁxed settlements during the rainy season. Dinka is the
largest ethnic tribe in South Sudan. They believed to be
the tallest people in Africa and they are noted for their
height.
No doubt tribes have an inﬂuential role in political authority in South Sudan through their ritual chiefs. The
tribal factor is essential both in peace and war time. Dinka
people as tribal super power have the right to rule South
Sudan. They should share wealth and power with other
tribes particularly Nuer people the second super power
in South Sudan. The tribes were the backbone of Sudanese civil war. For instance the ﬁrst Sudanese civil war
(also known as the Anyanya 1) was a conﬂict from 1955
to 1972 le by Joseph Lagu who belongs to Madi ethnic
group of Eastern equatoria. In may 1960 he graduated
from the military college in Omdurman and was commissioned as an ofﬁcer in the Sudanese Army and posted
to the 10th Brigade, Northern Command .The ﬁrst Sudanese civil war was ended 1972, after a peace agreement
was signed in Addis Ababa by Sudanese government led
by President Jaafar Nimery and South Sudan Liberation
Movement (SSLM), political wing of the Southern opposition founded by Joseph Lagu when he took overall
control of entire Southern opposition in January 1971.
The Southern Sudan autonomous region was established
on 28 February 1972 by the Addis Ababa Agreement.
However the region was abolished on June 1983 by the
administration of Jaafar Nimery who adapted equatorial
people point of view and ignored Dinka who was totally
against division of Southern Sudan autonomous region
.In direct response to this, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army \ Movement ( SPLA/ M) was founded under
the leadership of Dr. John Garang (Dinka), and second
Sudanese civil war erupted .During the war several factions split from SPLA often along ethnic lines , with most
notable the SPLA ñ Nasir in 1991 led by Dr. Riek Machar (Nuer). In 1997 Dr. Riek made an agreement with
the Government of Sudan . As a result he became head
of South Sudan Defense Force ( SSDF).In 2000 he left
SSDF and framed a new militia , the Sudan People Defense Force \ Democratic Front (SPDF), and in 2002 rejoined SPLA as a senior commander. Dr. Riek agreement
with Khartoum collapsed obviously because it excluded
Dinka the most inﬂuential tribal power , just as Addis
Ababa collapsed when Dinka be ignored by President
Jaafa Nimery. In 2005 the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) , mediated by ( IGAD) ended the Sudanese
second civil war which lasted from 1983 to 2005 . As d
result Dr. John Garang became the
ﬁrst vice president and South Sudan
became autonomous region. CPA
was successful agreement because was led by Dinka
tribe. As a result South Sudan people established their
own state . The fresh state faces civil war between forces
of the legitimate government led by president Salva Kiir
(Dinka ) and opposition forces led by Dr. Riek Machar
( Nuer).
The stability of the fresh state of South Sudan is partially
responsibility of Sudanese government, not only because
we used to be one nation but because we beneﬁt from the
peace and stability of South Sudan state, in other words
we will suffer a lot from South Sudan civil war. Our interests will be gained by backing up the legitimate regime
led by president Salva Kiir (Dinka). In the same time it is
our duty to do whatever necessary to keep Dr. Riek Machar (Nuer) strong and do not let him be completely defeated by Dinka regime, otherwise no other tribe in South
Sudan can stop the Dinka dictatorship. For the stability of
South Sudan state our government should persuade Salva
Kiir regime to establish strong coalition with Nuer people
to rule South Sudan state because Dinka cannot exclude
Nuer the brave warriors . It will be entirely wrong idea if
Dinka think they can rule South Sudan without sharing
wealth and power with Nuer. Also it will be crazy idea
if Nuer think they can defeat Dinka or topple Salva Kiir
regime. It is better for Salva Kiir to be real Banj’’ this
what Dinka people call themselves it means leader’’ and
share power and wealth with other tribes without excluding Nuer the ultimate warriors. As the President Omar Al
Bashir expressed the feeling of Sudanese people towards
brothers and sisters who ﬂee their mother land to escape
the civil war and come their ex-country. We welcome
all Southern people but special greetings to the ultimate
warriors so we say Mal Makwa, Mal Madeed.
OPINION 7
Monday, January 12, 2015
Djibouti, the Pomegranate of the Scale in East Africa (1)
By: Mekki Elmograbi
The leadership of this small country
has committed itself to wise and
balanced policy in a surrounding
full of conﬂicts. It has succeeded in
employing the unique geographical
location, where modern ports and
investments - in stony and arid lands
- are visibly taking shape and roots
with bright future ahead.
The steelyard scale by deﬁnition
is a balance in which an object to
be weighed is suspended from the
shorter arm of a beam and the weight
determined by sliding counterpoise
ìthe shape of pomegranate fruitî
along a graduated scale on the
longer beam until equilibrium is
attained. The word is used in Arabic
as ìRomanat Al-Mizanî which means
ìthe Pomegranate of the Scaleî or in
French ìLe Pommeau de La Balance
Romaineî to describe something
that is small in size and weight but
without which no equilibrium is
attainable.
On our 5-day visit ñ me and two
dozens of Ethiopian and Addis
Ababa based journalists - to the
Pomegranate of East Africa, I
embarked on writing. Wait a minute!
Why did I choose East Africa not
the Horn of Africa? Whose coast
extending from North to South,
with Djibouti in the middle, but
constitutes the most important
due to its location in the crowded
passage from the entire east and
west of the world, beyond which are
ten landlocked countries.
I had planned to write the series of
my articles under ìDjibouti the Bless
of Geography and Gift of Balanceî,
but opted for the above title after
being impressed by things on our
way to the Republican Palace to
meet the leader of the Renaissance
President Ismail Omar Guelleh after
a meeting with the Minister for
Finance Mr. Ilyas Moussa Dawaleh.
Dawaleh noted that when the
colonizers departed the country left
only ten graduates in the country,
one school and two doctors, adding
that colonization did not care about
educating and developing the people
of Djibouti. He went on to tell the
grievances of the past as well as a
ìgradual successî story up to the time
of Mega Projects, which we seen for
ourselves during our visit.
From a previous visit to Djibouti I
knew there were only two or three
cranes at the old port before the
coming of Guelleh to power by
whose arrival the old historical
port was refurbished and developed
to match international standards;
in addition to the inauguration of
extra terminals for containers and
oil and also the greater free zone
in the country. The Ports and Free
Zones Authority in the Djiboutian
government is currently engaged in
the construction of four additional
ports and a free zone, specially for
exporting cattle and meats, meaning
the eastern region of country, which
abounds in cattle and meats will reap
the fruits of ports and the integrated
free zone ìDamerjogî, which will
become the ìsole guaranteeî for East
African exports.
On the ﬁfth day of our visit, neither
exhaustion nor the long journey - by
sea and land from the dawn to the
sunset - to Tajoura and mega projects
there did not have any effect as the
heart beats love for this modest and
moderate nation of Djibouti.
At the new elegant hall of Studies
Center, belonging to the Ministry
of Foreign Mahmud Ali Yousif,
spoke or more precisely discussed
several issues with the visiting
press delegation to his country in
a ﬂuent English for ten minutes,
before listening to their questions.
He spent twenty minutes responding
to questions and more than half an
hour in interviews to a number of
TV channels and news agencies.
He explained his countries affairs
in strong right forward argument.
The journalists were representing
Ethiopian media or regional and
UN’s Hegemonic Statements
SS
According to Vienna Convention on Diplomatic
Relations, the host nation at any time and for any reason
can declare a particular member of the diplomatic
staff to be persona non grata. The sending state must
recall this person within a reasonable period of time,
or otherwise this person may lose their diplomatic
immunity.
Exercising legitimate right, Sudan has expelled two
UN ofﬁcials - Ali Al-Zaatari, U.N. resident coordinator
at the United Nations Development Programme; and
Yvonne Helle, the UNDP’s country director.
The move, hence, is normal and allowed according
to international relations and article 9 of Vienna
Convention. Unfortunately, UN secretary General has
condemned Khartoum’s demand for the exit of the two
senior UNDP ofﬁcials.
Ban Ki-moon called on the government of Sudan
to reverse its decision immediately and urged it to
cooperate fully with all United Nations entities present
in Sudan.
The secretary generalís demand is a ﬂagrant violation
of international law and international relations.
In response, the Sudanese government quickly reacted
to a statement which condemned Khartoumís decision
to expel two senior UN ofﬁcials.
ìSudan is not targeting the United Nations by virtue of
being an original member [of the UN] and committed
to the provisions of its charter and appreciates its
efforts to achieve security, stability and development
in Sudan” said the Sudanese foreign Ministry.
It is actually striving to develop this relationship in
accordance with the provisions of the UN charter and
the relevant resolutions of the General Assembly and
the Security Council, said the ministry.
The ministry underscored that the move is in line with
Sudanís sovereign rights as outlined by article (9)
of Vienna Convention, warning that the government
will repeat such expulsions if necessary against any
diplomat or international ofﬁcial who exceeds his or
her mandate.
Sudanís decision is reasonable because Al-Za’tari has
directed insults at the Sudanese people and president
Hassan Omer Hassan Al-Bashir in an interview with
Bistandsaktuelt, while Hele has also taken decisions
without consulting the Sudanese government.
international correspondents residing
in Addis Ababa, for this reason I can
claim that the questions covered all
areas.
He underscored the importance
of balance in an ocean vomiting
crisis, stating: ìshortly after the
independence of Djibouti, the war
broke out between Ethiopia and
Somalia and shortly after internal
Ethiopian war got ﬁerce against
Mengesto until the fall of his regime.
By the time Ethiopia started to
be stable, the regime in Somalia
collapsed, and now the neighboring
Yemen slipped into a new crisisî,
Mahmud Yousif said, ìIf there are
any worth noting achievements
in the region such as preventing
and reigning in piracy, Djibouti
has played a major role without its
participation and contribution it
would not have been possible for
the entire region to overcome such a
grave danger as well as other dangers
of terrorism and conﬂicts, which are
currently being curbed.î
Yes, the Minister was absolutely true
as the situation in the region is more
gracious than he cited. Waves and
gales have hit the region; especially
interests in Djibouti had increased
following the opening of Suez
Canal late 19th century. Two years
following its colonization of Egypt,
Britain colonized the ports of Zilei,
Barbara, Aden, by the time when
France sent its ships toward the Gulf
of Tajoura, ever since discussions of
different forms have continued up to
the moment. A European friend of
mine once told me that ìEast Africa
is rich in conﬂictsî rhyming with
ìrich in resourcesî.
Djiboutiís neighborhood has never
been stable. After the Ethiopian
Italian war, the region entered
independence revolutions, conﬂict
between East and West after the
World War II. The nonstop civil wars
in the region have been but ìwar by
proxyî for international conﬂicts
and ambitions. War in early eighties
claimed one million lives only in
Ethiopia, where then Derg regime
This is the Kind of Change that Suits America
E.mail: [email protected]
The American strategic policies are characterized by the sustainability without
abolition or amendment by longevity or change of Presidents. Those strategic
policies have great effect on European policies especially in Britain, France,
Norway ñ Pantheon of Churches -. They are also effective in the UNSC
resolutions. Needless to say that one major driving force of the American
external policies is the safety and existence of Israel right in the middle of
the Arab nation. That is why there is a close link of the activities between the
intelligence agencies in both countries.
In most cases both activities coincide. In rare cases they intersect. We, in Sudan,
at one of the rare intersections. Intersection of interests and ultimate objectives.
America wants to see a solid united Sudan ruled by Islamic moderate stream in
the incumbent regime. America is conﬁdent that the prevailing weak opposition
in its present disarray is never a good option to rely on.
Their weak and diversiﬁed spectrum between historically out-dated parties,
ﬂoaters, secularists, communists and hard line Islamists will not qualify them
to be a replacement to the Salvation ruling regime. American experts believe
that the ruling of this non-homogenous opposition is more damaging than
the continuation of the Salvation regime in a modiﬁed form. The following
statement of the former CIA Chairman James Woolsey in 2006 enhances my
dedications. He said, “We will design and make for them a form of Islam that
suits us and will push them to go in revolutions which will lead them to deadly
confrontations and disintegration, after which we move to win.”This is exactly
what is happening now in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yeman and to a less extent in
used starving people as a weapon
that, which sparked the civil war
in 1992 that ended in victory by
the revolutionaries and eventually
culminated in stability in Ethiopia.
As to Somalia, the regime of Siad
Beri collapsed in 1991, which
resolute in curving the country into
Puntalnd in the center and Jubaland
in the south, and a third independence
movement led by Rahanweyn
Resistance Army a fourth movement
calling for autonomy in addition to
the Republic of Somaliland, which
steadily seeking secession from
mother land.
Yemen had seen internal wars and
war with Egypt, and has always
driven by divisions into tribal lines
and full of arms in the hands of tribes;
which in turn has continued to fuel
the conﬂict in the region, aggravated
by the emergence and evanesce of
piracy and the coming into existence
of Al-Shabab movement.
Djibouti has been a political
laboratory for supplying remedies
of stability. Despite resistance to
implementation here and there, the
country has remained as steelyard
to polarization and hijacking, and
in safe hands of a wise leadership,
whose balanced foreign policies
yielded it a state of security and
stability to render it a rising regional
economic power.
We concluded our session with
Mahmoud Ali Yousif in a brief
conversation in Arabic, language in
which he is conversant and ﬂuent,
salutations to the spokespersons for
the government for such balance.
To be continued
Wake-up Call
Omer Bakri Abu Haraz
Egypt and Sudan. Also and well before this statement and in 11/9/1990 G. Bush
(the father) spoke, after the collapse of the Soviet Union and end of Cold War,
about a new world order to help the needy, remove trade borders and a fair
play to protect the weak against the strong in the world. Saying that the UN
can play this new noble role. So by all means we are part and parcel of this
plan to abolish the strong non-democratic regimes in the area by weakening
them in a dilemma of armed revolutions, killing, displacement, suffering of
innocent civilians until the countries are blown up and settle down in small
weak fragments easy to control and guide and not posing any threat to the
international peace and security. Some scholars and experts believe in the old
theory of one government to rule the globe.
Going back to the intersection of the American and Israeli plans in Sudan; it is
clear that the American strategy works on keeping the Sudan as one entity ruled
by moderates while Israel works on weakening Sudan and splitting it into few
small weak states of deep differences and animosities between them.
America wants Sudan to tact governed by moderate Islam to serve two interests
to America ñ One security and other economic -. In security America feels
that any turbulence in Sudan will spill over to seven neighbouring countries
ñ Egypt, Libya, Chad, Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Eritrea and South
Sudan.
This will deﬁnitely threaten the regional security and peace and this absolutely
correct.
The other is that America is well aware of the fact that Sudan is resourceful in
vital and needed aspects. It has
275 million or arable land,
only 25% cultivated, abundance of water ñ rain or rivers, sustained 150 million
of livestock, 100 thousand tones of ﬁshery yearly, dominance of Sudan of the
Gum Arabic in the world, underground minerals and oil. Leaving Sudan to
inimical regimes will deprive the American economy of penetrating the whole
region of Africa and will open a wide door to the Chinese and Russians to go
back in dominating the region in all aspects ñ political and economical.
I believe Israel will back-away from its plans and wait to see the American
plans coming through. Plans of weakening the hard-line stream and bolstering
the moderate.
In an intelligent tactic to weaken the hard-liners the plans will go to fuel the
armed struggle and indirectly encouraging the hard-liners of the regime to
continue ﬁerce operations to subdue the armed insurgence. This is because
wars always have disastrous side effects on innocent civilians through killing,
displacement, destruction of villages, lack of food, lack of medical treatment
created by the failure of international aid to reach them. This is a powerful
tool conducive to the international direct intervention in the affected areas and
under the legal coverage of the UN Charter. The extent of the intervention can
go up to the declaration of Darfur and South Kordofan and Blue Nile as UN
Protectorates for deﬁnite or indeﬁnite period.
This will deﬁnitely lead to the weakening of the hard core of the ruling party
and give room for the emergence of moderates on top of governance.
And this is the kind of change that suits America.
8 SCIENCE
Monday, January 12, 2015
As Flu Becomes more Widespread, CDC Pushes Antiviral Meds
AP
NEW YORK ó In the midst of a worrisome ﬂu season,
health ofﬁcials are pushing doctors to prescribe antiviral
medicines more often.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday
sent a new alert to doctors, advising prompt use of Tamiﬂu
and other antivirals for hospitalized ﬂu patients and those at
higher risk for complications like pneumonia.
CDC ofﬁcials say a nasty strain of ﬂu is going around that
is more dangerous to elderly people and very young children. What’s more, ofﬁcials think the ﬂu vaccine doesn’t
work well against this particular virus. So “it’s more important than usual” that doctors treat certain patients with
Tamiﬂu or other antiviral medications, CDC Director Dr.
Tom Frieden said at a press conference Friday.
CDC ofﬁcials said ﬂu was reported to be widespread in 46
states last week, up from 43 the week before. But there was
a small drop in states reporting high numbers of ﬂu-related
doctor’s ofﬁce visits. That’s one sign that for some areas,
the worst stretch of the current ﬂu season may be ending.
Flu seasons tend to last about 13 weeks, and CDC data suggests the nation is about seven weeks in, Frieden said. “It
seems we’re right in the middle of ﬂu season,” he said.
However, while ﬂu may be ebbing in some states, it’s increasing in others, and it’s not clear whether ﬂu has peaked
overall, health ofﬁcials said.
CDC research suggests doctors prescribe antivirals to one
in ﬁve high-risk ﬂu patients. CDC ofﬁcials say the number
should be higher.
When given promptly ó within two days of the beginning
of ﬂu symptoms ó they can shorten the amount of time
someone is sick with the ﬂu, a number of studies have
found. The drugs also can prevent patients from becoming
sick enough to end up in a hospital intensive care unit ó or
worse, Frieden said.
“Antiviral ﬂu medicines save lives,” he said.
The CDC sent an advisory to physicians last month, warning them this could be a potentially bad ﬂu season and encouraging prompt treatment with antivirals. CDC ofﬁcials
said doctors should not wait for test results conﬁrming the
ﬂu if they are dealing with an elderly patient, someone who
is very sick from the ﬂu, or someone with pre-existing conditions like asthma, diabetes and heart disease.
The CDC sent a second alert to doctors Friday that repeated earlier recommendations and noted a new antiviral was
approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration last
month. It’s called Rapivab, and is an infusion that can be
given to sick patients who aren’t able to take Tamiﬂu pills
or another, inhalable antiviral medicine called Relenza.
Doctors have been cautious about prescribing antiviral
medicines for a number of reasons, CDC ofﬁcials say.
Some want a lab result conﬁrming ﬂu before they prescribe
a ﬂu drug. In cases in which patients delayed seeking treatment, doctors may worry the patients are already be too far
into the illness for the drugs to do much good.
And there also is uncertainty about the drugs’ effectiveness
in reducing hospitalizations and complications.
Last year, a respected international network of researchers
ó the Cochrane Collaboration ó published a review of past
studies on the medications, and found there was no good
evidence to support claims that Tamiﬂu reduces ﬂu complications or ﬂu-related hospitalizations. At best, it shortens
ﬂu symptoms by half a day, the Cochrane report said.
The CDC shouldn’t be promoting antivirals unless there
is strong proof they prevent hospitalizations and key complications, said one of the Cochrane study’s authors, Peter
Doshi, in an interview Friday. He is an assistant professor
at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, and an
associate editor of BMJ ó the British medical journal in
which the study was published.
CDC ofﬁcials say the Cochrane review had limitations; for
example, Cochrane looked at high-quality studies but none
that included hospitalized patients. CDC ofﬁcials say the
agency is giving greater weight to observational studies,
which are considered less rigorous than the research Cochrane focused on, but which offered a look at what happened in hospitalized patients. And that research did ﬁnd a
beneﬁt.
Also, there aren’t really other options: Against ﬂu, antiviral
medicines are what’s left in the medical arsenal when the
vaccine doesn’t work, experts say.
China Plan for
Unmanned Moon
Landing, Earth
Return Advances
AP
BEIJING - China’s bold plan to land an unmanned
spaceship on the moon before returning to Earth has
moved another step forward with a test craft shifting
into lunar orbit to conduct further tests, state media
reported Sunday.
The service module of a lunar orbiter that ﬂew back
to Earth in November had been sitting in a position
that brought in into sync with Earth’s orbit, known
as the second Lagrange point. It had separated from
the orbiter in November.
The craft, loaded with support systems for operating
a spaceship, will collect further data to aid planning
of the 2017 Chang’e 5 mission, state broadcaster
China Central Television said.
Chang’e 5 is being designed to make a soft landing on the moon and collect at least 2 kilograms (4
pounds) of rock and soil samples before returning
to Earth.
If successful, that would make China only the third
country after the United States and Russia to meet
such a challenge.
China’s lunar exploration program has already
launched a pair of orbiting lunar probes, and in 2013
landed a craft on the moon with a rover onboard.
None of those were designed to return to Earth. China also has hinted at a possible crewed mission to
the moon.
China sent its ﬁrst astronaut into space in 2003,
the only other country after Russia and the U.S. to
achieve manned space travel independently. It also
has launched a temporarily crewed space station.
China’s program has received Russian assistance,
but has largely developed independently of America’s, which is now in its sixth decade of putting
people into space.
N. Korea Offers to Suspend Nuclear Tests in Return for End to U.S. Drills
Reuters
SEOUL- North Korea said on Saturday
it was willing to suspend nuclear tests
if the United States agreed to call off
annual military drills held jointly with
South Korea, saying the exercises were
the main reason for tension on the Korean peninsula.
The proposal, which the North’s ofﬁcial KCNA news agency said was conveyed to Washington on Friday through
“a relevant channel”, follows an oftenrepeated demand by Pyongyang for an
end to the large-scale defensive drills
by the allies. “The message proposed
(that) the U.S. contribute to easing tension on the Korean peninsula by temporarily suspending joint military exercises in South Korea and its vicinity
this year,” KCNA said in a report.
“(The message) said that in this case
the DPRK is ready to take such a responsive step as temporarily suspending the nuclear test over which the U.S.
is concerned,” KCNA said, using the
short form for the Democratic People’s
Republic of Korea. North Korea has
conducted three nuclear tests, the last
in February 2013, and is under layers
of U.N. sanctions for defying international warnings not to set off atomic
devices in pursuit of a nuclear arsenal, which Pyongyang calls its “sacred
sword”. It often promises to call off
nuclear and missile tests in return for
comparable steps by Washington to
ease tensions. It reached such a deal in
February 2012 with the United States
for an arms tests moratorium only to
Medical Charity MSF Opens Ebola
Clinic for Pregnant Women
Reuters
FREETOWN - Medical charity Medicins
Sans Frontiers (MSF)
has opened the ﬁrst care
centre in the current Ebola epidemic for pregnant
women, whose survival
rate from the virus is virtually zero, the charity
said on Saturday.
There is currently one patient in the clinic, which
is perched on a hill in the
compound of a disused
Methodist boys’ high
school in the Sierra Leone
capital. More than 20,700
people have been infected
with the virus in Guinea,
Sierra Leone and Liberia
since it began a year ago
and at least 8,200 people
have died, according to
World Health Organiza-
tion ﬁgures.
The rate of transmission
has slowed in Guinea and
Liberia and there are signs
it is starting to ebb in Sierra Leone.
Women are particularly
vulnerable to a disease
spread through direct contact with infected people
and with the corpses of
victims, because women
often care for sick family
members, said MSF Field
Coordinator, Esperanza
Santos.
“Pregnant women (with
Ebola) are a high risk
group so they have less
chance than...than the rest
of the population,” she
told Reuters. The charity
has played a leading roll
in the ﬁght against the virus.
Medical authorities say it
is unclear why the survival
rate for pregnant women
is lower than for other patients but early testing and
rapid treatment will help
lower mortality rates.
Ramatu Samura’s story
illustrates issues facing
pregnant women. The
16-year-old
miscarried
when she ﬁrst contracted
Ebola, but has recovered
after treatment at MSF’s
Kingtom Care Unit maternity ward in northwest
Freetown.
Survivors cannot contract the same strain of
the virus and Samura is
now at looking after her
baby niece and the baby’s
mother, both of whom are
being treated for the virus.
Samura said she bled for
two hours and miscarried
when she arrived at the
care unit. She only knew
she was pregnant after
she miscarried and survived partly because the
pregnancy was at an early
stage, hospital sources
said.
Sierra Leone’s ﬁrst conﬁrmed Ebola case was last
May 24 when a pregnant
woman was brought to
the public hospital in the
eastern town of Kenema
from the border district of
Kailahun. She miscarried
and died, infecting her
nurses.
scrap it two months later.
The United States and South Korea
have stressed that the annual drills,
which in some years involved U.S.
aircraft carriers, are purely defensive
in nature, aimed at testing the allies’
readiness to confront any North Korean aggression. Tension peaked on the
Korean peninsula in March 2013 when
the North ratcheted up rhetoric during the annual drills, with Pyongyang
threatening war and putting its forces
in a state of combat-readiness.
‘Small Screens’ Prevent Kids from Sleeping: US Study
AFP
Children who have access to tablets or smartphones in their bedrooms get
less sleep than children who do not have the devices with them at night, a
US study said Monday.
The ﬁndings in the January 5 edition of the journal Pediatrics show that
having a so-called “small screen” within reach was slightly worse than a
television set when it came to sleep deprivation in a group of 2,000 middle
school kids.
Overall, those with access to smartphones and tablets got nearly 21 fewer
minutes of sleep per night than children whose rooms were free of such
technology, and they were more likely to say they felt sleep deprived.
Those with a TV in the bedroom got 18 minutes fewer of slumber than
kids without televisions in their rooms.
“Presence of a small screen, but not a TV, in the sleep environment, and
screen time were associated with perceived insufﬁcient rest or sleep,” said
the study led by Jennifer Falbe of the University of California, Berkeley
School of Public Health.
“These ﬁndings caution against unrestricted screen access in children’s
bedrooms.”
Participants in the study included 2,048 fourth- and seventh-graders enrolled in the Massachusetts Childhood Obesity Research Demonstration
Study from 2012 to 2013.
Orangutan Returns to Indonesian Wild, but Abandons Son
AFP
A once-blind female orangutan
who regained her sight with surgery has returned to the rainforests
of Indonesia’s Sumatra Island, but
with only one of her young twins,
an environment group said.
Gober and her infants -- Ginting, a
female, and Ganteng, a male, who
will turn four this month -- were
released on January 5 to a conservation forest as part of a reintroduction project by Swiss-based
PanEco’s Sumatran Orangutan
Conservation Programme.
“Sadly, the plan to release Gober
and both of her twin infants together did not work out as hoped,”
a statement from the group said.
“Gober struggled in the trees with
two infants to watch out for. It was
not long before she seemed to give
up trying, and poor little Ganteng
was left behind,” it said.
“Whilst Gober and Ginting subse-
quently coped perfectly well, travelling through the canopy, ﬁnding
food and building a huge nest for
the night, little Ganteng spent his
ﬁrst night in the forest alone and
afraid, cold and wet.”
Ganteng had since been taken back
by the conservation programme’s
staff. PanEco conservation director
Ian Singleton said the carers were
shocked that Gober would abandon her son. “No one believed
she would leave one of her twins
behind, at least not so soon after release. We’re all a bit stunned at just
how quickly it happened,” he said.
“Despite obvious disappointment
that it didn’t go as planned, I still
think we can consider Gober and
Ginting’s release as a huge success,
and we must now ensure Ganteng
gets out there with them eventually as well.” The blind Gober ﬁrst
made headlines in 2008, following
her rescue by the Sumatran Orang-
utan Conservation Programme after she was found raiding farmers’
crops for food. She was then placed
at its quarantine centre near Medan,
North Sumatra, where she mated
with a male orangutan Leuser. He
was also blind after being shot at
least 62 times with an air riﬂe be-
fore being brought into the programme’s care. The pair gave birth
to the twins, which was considered
rare. Gober again made news after
regaining her eyesight following a
“groundbreaking” cataract surgery
in 2012, paving way for her release
into the wild.
WORLD NEWS
Monday, January 12, 2015
9
At Least 57 Die As Bus Collides With Oil Tanker
Croatia Votes in Tight Presidential Runoff
Sky News
At least 57 people have died in
Pakistan after a bus collided
with an oil tanker and burst into
ﬂames.
The head-on collision happened
on a motorway near the Pakistani
city of Karachi on Sunday
morning.
Reports suggest the tanker was
speeding and on the wrong side
of the road.
Authorities
said
the
bus
immediately caught ﬁre following
the crash.
Around 60 people were on
board the bus as well as some
passengers travelling on the roof,
who were able to jump for their
lives.
Some estimate that as many as 57
people died after being trapped
inside the burning vehicle.
†Shoaib
Siddiqui,
Karachi
commissioner, said: “All the
bodies have been transferred to
hospital.
“We estimated that around 44
bodies were brought to hospital
and they are still in the mortuary.
“Four people who were injured,
including two children and
women, were allowed to go
home after treatment. The bodies
are charred and joined to each
Al Jazeera
A liberal incumbent and a conservative
rival are pitted against each other in a
surprisingly close showdown in Croatia’s
presidential runoff, held amid deep
discontent over economic woes in the
European Union’s newest member.
The Sunday vote is seen as a major test
for Croatia’s center-left government,
which is preparing for parliamentary elec
tions this year under a cloud of criticism
over its handling of the ﬁnancial crisis.
Polling stations opened at 06:00 GMT
across the Balkan nation and were to
close 12 hours later.
In the ﬁrst round of voting, Josipovic won
38.5 percent of the ballots, edging GrabarKitarovic with 37.2 percent. The runoff
was called because neither Josipovic
nor Grabar-Kitarovic captured over 50
percent needed to win outright.
A conservative triumph could shift
Croatia back into right-wing nationalism,
jeopardising relations with Balkan
wartime rival Serbia.
Incumbent Ivo Josipovic, 57, is a softspoken law professor, pianist and
composer who campaigned on a platform
of constitutional change, including
legislative veto powers for the largely
ceremonial presidency.
He supports change in the electoral system
and giving more power to the regions. He
is backed by the Social Democratic Party,
which leads the unpopular center-left
other badly.”
Distraught relatives of the bus
passengers gathered outside
Karachi’s Jinnah Hospital, where
the bodies of the victims were
taken.
One man, Abdul Hafeez, was
overcome with emotion as he
told the AP news agency that nine
people from his family had died.
“My sister, her kids, two uncles
and their families; a total of nine
members of my family were on
board and nobody survived,” he
said.
Pakistan has a record of frequent
fatal trafﬁc accidents due to poor
roads, badly maintained vehicles
Libya’s Factions Agree to New Talks
in Geneva next Week
Reuters
TRIPOLI - Libya’s factions
have agreed to a new round
of U.N.-backed negotiations
to attempt to end the conﬂict
destabilizing the North
African country three years
after its civil war ousted
Muammar Gaddaﬁ.
The meeting, announced
after United Nations envoy
Bernardino Leon met rival
parties in Libya, will take
place next week in Geneva,
the U.N. mission said in a
statement on Saturday.
Libya, which is a major
oil producer, has slipped
deeper into division since
the overthrow of Gaddaﬁ,
with two rival governments
and two parliaments, each
backed by competing groups
of heavily armed former
rebel ﬁghters.
“In order to create a conducive
environment for the dialogue,
Special Representative Leon
has proposed to the parties
to the conﬂict a freeze in
military operations for a few
days,” the U.N. said.
The statement did not make
clear who would attend the
talks or give an exact date.
But it said the meeting would
seek to address the formation
of a unity government,
drafting a new constitution
and ending of hostilities.
Negotiators have struggled
to bring the two sides to
the table during months of
consultations. Fighting has
also complicated attempts to
broker talks.
“This represents a last chance
which must be seized. Libya
is at a crucial juncture; the
different actors should be in
no doubt of the gravity of
the situation that the country
ﬁnds itself in,” European
Union’s foreign policy chief
Federica Mogherini said in a
statement backing the talks.
After weeks of ﬁghting in the
summer, an armed faction,
Libya Dawn, allied to the
western city of Misrata,
took over Tripoli, driving
out ﬁghters from the city
of Zintan who had set up in
the capital after the fall of
Gaddaﬁ.
Libya’s
internationally
recognised government of
Prime Minister Abdullah
al-Thinni and the elected
parliament now operate out
of the east. Most countries
pulled their diplomats out of
Tripoli after the city fell to
Libya Dawn forces.
Each faction claims the
mantle of true liberators of
Libya, each brands its ﬁghters
the real army and each seeks
international recognition in a
conﬂict that Western powers
and African neighbours
worry will fracture Libya.
No Ukraine Summit without Progress
on Peace Plan, Merkel Tells Putin
Reuters
BERLIN - German Chancellor Angela Merkel
told Russian President Vladimir Putin on
Saturday that a four-way summit to discuss the
situation in eastern Ukraine would not take place
until there was real progress on the Minsk peace
plan.
German government spokesman Steffen Seibert
said in a statement after the phone call between
the leaders that Merkel welcomed Russian efforts
to ﬁnd a solution to the crisis.
Putin underlined the need to observe a ceaseﬁre
and “to support the economic recovery of the
affected regions in southeastern Ukraine”, the
Kremlin said in a statement.
It said both sides conﬁrmed their intention to
promote a peaceful settlement in Ukraine.
However, the chancellor told Putin that a summit
by leaders from France, Germany, Russia and
Ukraine in Kazakhstan’s capital Astana or
another city could not be conﬁrmed at this stage,
Seibert said.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has invited
the leaders of Russia, France and Germany to
talks in Astana on Jan. 15 in an attempt to restore
peace.
But Germany and France have already raised
doubts about whether such a four-way summit
can take place without further progress on the
peace plan which was agreed in the Belarussian
capital Minsk in September.
The foreign ministers of France, Germany, Russia
and Ukraine will meet in Berlin on Monday to
discuss the situation in eastern Ukraine and the
implementation of the 12-point protocol.
Merkel’s spokesman said the chancellor told Putin
that all sides needed to make their contribution
to implement the peace plan. “That includes that
Russia uses its inﬂuence on the separatists in
order to reach consensual solutions,” he said.
In a separate phone call, Merkel discussed the
situation in Ukraine also with Poroshenko, the
spokesman said.
A four-way summit would only make sense if
there was a substantial improvement on important
points like a ceaseﬁre and a demarcation line
between the Ukraine-Russia border, Merkel told
Poroshenko, according to the statement.
More than 4,700 people have been killed in
ﬁghting between Kiev’s forces and pro-Russian
rebels in eastern Ukraine since last April. The
conﬂict has provoked the worst crisis in relations
between Russia and the West since the Cold
War.
and reckless driving.
The driver of the oil tanker ﬂed
the incident but it is not clear
what caused the crash.
A total of 57 people, including
18 children, were killed last
November when a bus collided
with a coal truck in Sindh, near
the city of Khairpur
government.
“I offer the country better organisation
and reduction of the administration,”
Josipovic has said.
Opposition leader
Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, 46, is a former
foreign minister and an ex-assistant to the
NATO secretary general. Grabar†Kitarovic
is opposed to Josipovic’s proposed
constitutional changes and accuses him
of doing nothing to stop the Croatian
economic downturn.
She promises a swift economic revival
and reversal of Josipovic’s alleged soft
stance toward neighbouring Serbia. The
outspoken populist is backed by the
conservative Croatian Democratic Union
that ruled Croatia after it became an
independent state in 1991.
“Josipovic is an accomplice in the
country’s economic hardships,” GrabarKitarovic said. “He is just the ﬂip side of
the government’s devaluated coin.”
The presidency in Croatia is a largely
ceremonial position, but the vote is
considered an important test for the main
political parties before the parliamentary
elections expected in the second half of
the year.
A victory for Grabar-Kitarovic - giving
her a ﬁve-year term - would greatly boost
the chances of her center-right Croatian
Democratic Union to win back power.
She would be Croatia’s ﬁrst woman
president.
Pope’s Asia Trip to Address Poverty,
Dialogue, Climate Change
Reuters
COLOMBO/VATICAN CITY
- Pope Francis returns to Asia
for the second time in less
than six months, travelling to
Sri Lanka and the Philippines
in coming days to underscore
his concern for inter-religious
dialogue, poverty and the
environment.
Security will be a main issue
in both countries, particularly
in the Philippines, Asia’s only
majority Catholic country,
where up to six million people
are expected to attend an
outdoor Mass on Jan. 18.
Up to 40,000 police, troops
and reservists will take part
in what military chief General
Gregorio Catapang has called
the country’s biggest ever
security operation.
“There will be soldiers
rappelling up and down
helicopters to rescue the pope
in case he will be pinned
down by a sea of people. We
may airlift or use naval boats
to bring the pope to safety if
necessary,” he said.
When Pope John Paul visited
Manila in 1995, security
perimeters were breached and
he had to be taken by helicopter
to a Mass site because his car
could not get through a sea of
some 5 million people.
One theme of the Jan. 1219 trip will be climate
change. During his stay in
the Philippines he will visit
Tacloban, where Typhoon
Haiyan killed 6,300 people in
2013.
Sri Lanka is among the Asian
countries experts say will
see sea level rises likely to
displace people and adversely
affect tourism and ﬁsheries.
The Vatican says Francis, who
is preparing an encyclical on
the environment, will speak
about the issue several times.
While Pope John Paul made
a number of trips to Asia visiting both countries in
1995 - Francis’ immediate
predecessor Benedict, who
resigned in 2013, made none
to a region the Vatican sees as
a potential growth area.
“We have to recover the
presence of a pope in
this preponderant area of
humanity,” Vatican spokesman
Father Federico Lombardi
said. Only about 3 percent
of people in the region are
Catholic.
“This continent in many ways
represents a frontier for the
Church,” said Father Antonio
Spadaro, editor of the Italian
Jesuit
magazine
Civilta
Cattolica.
“Inter-religious
dialogue is tested every day
and young Churches there are
growing”.
SURPRISE ELECTION
The 78-year-old arrives on
Tuesday morning in the Sri
Lankan capital, Colombo,
days after President Mahinda
Rajapaksa lost his bid for a
third term, ending a decade
of rule that critics say had
become authoritarian and
marred by nepotism and
corruption.
Lombardi said he hoped the
surprise election result in
the former British colony
would not give rise to any
“inconveniences that will
affect the serenity and
tranquillity of the trip”.
The main purpose of the
three-day stop in Sri Lanka
is to canonise Joseph Vaz, a
Catholic priest credited with
rebuilding the Church there
in the 17th and 18th centuries
after Dutch occupiers imposed
Calvinism as the ofﬁcial
religion.
The Indian Ocean island
nation is about 70 percent
Buddhist, 13 percent Hindu,
10 percent Muslim and only
about 7 percent Catholic.
Francis will stress the need
for worldwide inter-religious
dialogue, and, speaking after
the recent attacks in France,
again condemn the concept of
violence in God’s name.
He will also preach a message
of reconciliation during a visit
to Madhu, in the north that
was the centre of a 26-year
civil war that ended with the
defeat of ethnic Tamil rebels
in 2009.
Vatican ofﬁcials say that
despite its minority status,
the Church in Sri Lanka can
help reconciliation because
it includes members of both
ethnic groups - Sinhalese and
Tamil.
Francis arrives on Thursday in
the Philippines, where more
than 80 percent of people are
Catholic.
One main topic in the former
Spanish colony will be the
effect of immigration on the
family. The search for jobs
outside the country - mostly
in domestic work - has put
strains on many families.
Serbian PM Accuses EU of Backing anti-Government Media
Reuters
BELGRADE - Serbia’s prime minister accused European Union’s
ofﬁcials late on Saturday of orchestrating a campaign against the
government after a regional news organisation published a critical
article about the reconstruction of a key coal mine.
The dispute came after Sarajevo-based Balkan Investigative
Reporting Network (BIRN) reported earlier in the week that the
state-owned power monopoly Elektroprivreda Srbije (EPS) hired an
inexperienced local consortium to work on the reconstruction of the
Tamnava coal mine, increasing costs.
Fifty one people died in ﬂoods in Serbia last May that inﬂicted
damages of more than 1.5 billion euros, including ﬂooding of
the Tamnava mine which is supplying coal to TENT power plant
complex that accounts for half of country’s energy generation.
At a news conference earlier on Saturday, Prime Minister Aleksandar
Vucic accused the EU and Michael Davenport, the head of EU
mission to Serbia, of ﬁnancing media organisations, including BIRN,
to slander the government.
In a statement, Maja Kocijancic, a European Commission
spokeswoman said she was surprised by Vucic’s claims. ìMedia
criticism is essential to ensure the proper accountability of elected
governments,” she said.
Kocijancic also said that the EU expected that the Serbian authorities
would secure an environment that would support freedom of
expression and media.
Last June, Vucic also clashed with the Organisation for Security
and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), security and rights watchdog,
accusing it of lying after it criticised his government of trying to
smother online criticism of its handling of the ﬂoods.
Later on Saturday, Vucic also accused Kocijancic of trying to silence
him. “I am shocked by the fact that Maja Kocijancic in the name of
the EU has tried to shut me up,î he said in a letter to the Commission.
“I am refusing to be your puppet,” Vucic said.
Vucic is a former ultranationalist who served as the information
minister during the autocratic rule of late strongman Slobodan
Milosevic in late 1990s. He later changed policies and embraced
Serbia’s path to European Union membership.
10 SPORTS
Monday, January 12, 2015
Peter Crouch: The Premier League Millionaire Everybody Likes?
BBC
Imagine a player with more Premier League
assists than Cristiano Ronaldo or Paul
Scholes, with more Premier League goals
than Fernando Torres or Dennis Bergkamp.
Imagine if he had more goals for England
than Kevin Keegan, Steven Gerrard or David
Beckham, with a goals-per-minute ratio
signiﬁcantly superior to Michael Owen and
Gary Lineker and twice as good as Alan
Shearer.
That you wouldn’t imagine that man to be
Peter Crouch might be a sore point for some
players. Not for Crouch. There are prima
donnas in the Premier League. Then there
is the striker who celebrates scoring a ﬁrstminute goal against Arsenal by going to a
Kasabian gig and crowd-surﬁng into the arms
of a startled bouncer.
“I got a bit more involved than I planned
to,” he admits with a grin, preparing to face
Arsenal once again this Sunday.
“I’d been watching from the side quite
reserved, but I ended up getting a bit carried
away. A couple of fellas have lifted me up
onto their shoulders, and then it’s a case of
enjoy it or try to get down. And I decided to
enjoy it.”
Which rather sums up Crouch’s approach to
the world.
For a long time he has either been beset by
caveats or cliches - the hoary old ‘Good
Touch for a Big Man’ thing, or its converse,
the criticism that for a chap of 6ft 7in he wins
too few headers.
On a day I am casually offered a cappuccino
at the Stoke City training ground, it feels
appropriate to ditch a few stereotypes. A few
weeks short of Crouch’s 34th birthday, you
sense he has matured into something else:
the millionaire striker everyone likes, the one
you’d actually rather like to be.
All those goals, all those assists. An England
record that is by any statistical measure
outstanding. Enormous houses in the
spacious parts of London and the snooty part
of Cheshire. A wife whose proﬁle precedes
her.
We should hate him. Instead he somehow still
seems like one of us. It’s tempting to subvert
the old George Best line: Peter Crouch, where
did it all go so right?
He snorts through his nose, something else
Ronaldo and Beckham don’t do.
“Listen, I try to enjoy myself. I’m doing the
best job in the world. There are so many
people who’d like to be in my position,” he
said.
“I’ve played for England, I’ve been lucky
enough to do this for a long time. So why
can’t you do it with a smile on your face?
Why can’t you laugh at the situation you’re
in?
“I know I’m very lucky to be in the position
I’m in, and that at some point I won’t have
it any more, that someone will take it away
from me. Too many people seem to be playing
football with a grimace on their faces these
days, so I think if you can play like you’re
enjoying it that’s the right way to do it.”
A goal every other game for England is
one thing. But nothing wins over a British
audience like a little self-deprecation,
which brings us to something else Crouch
is famous for: his answer when asked what
he would have been if he hadn’t made it as a
professional footballer.
You know the one, suggesting in not so many
words that he would probably have been
markedly less successful with the ladies.
Too good to have been spontaneous, surely?
Pre-prepared and rolled out before?
“I was joking around, and it was off the
cuff.” He pauses and grins. “Obviously, I do
like to think I would have had a couple of
optionsÖ”
Crouch puts his outlook down to the circuitous
route he took to the top; sent out on loan
as a young pro at Tottenham to the prosaic
(Dulwich Hamlet) and the not as glamorous
as they sound (IFK H?ssleholm). Aged 20 he
was dumped by Spurs without having made
a ﬁrst-team appearance, sold on to QPR for a
token £60,000.
Only when he was 24 and scoring goals at
Southampton for his greatest managerial
supporter, Harry Redknapp, did he actually
convince himself he could make it, £9m in
transfer fees further on.
“If you go from being a kid at school to being
on £60,000 a week, that can be hard to deal
with. I didn’t have that, and maybe that’s kept
me a bit more grounded than some players.
“Even when I was at the top, playing in the
Champions League ﬁnal for Liverpool and
playing at the World Cup for England, I’ve
never let it go to my head. I’d like to believe
that I’m still the same person I was when I
was younger.”
What would the 10-year-old Crouch, growing
up in west London admiring Chelsea forward
Kerry Dixon and so keen on Italy striker
Crystal Palace 2-1 Tottenham Hotspur: Alan Pardew winsFirst
Premier League Game in Charge of Eagles at Selhurst Park
Daily Mail
When the battle was over and the points were delivered, Alan Pardew came
careering down the touchline, blowing kisses and punching the air. For
most of the unpredictable evening, his self-control had been impeccable,
but now his inhibitions were cast aside, and it was impossible to blame
him.
In Pardewís ﬁrst Premier League match as their manager, Crystal Palace
had achieved the victory which had escaped them since November. And
they had done it against a Spurs side which so recently buried Chelsea
beneath ﬁve goals. As one who played for the club, Pardew knew precisely
what it meant and how signiﬁcant it might prove. Hence his Hollywood
parade from dugout to tunnel.
Later, he would try to place it in a saner perspective: ëOne game Ö small
steps Ö swallow doesnít make a summer.í†
Crystal Palace: Speroni 6.5, Ward 6.5, Dann 8.5, Delaney 8, Kelly 6.5,
Ledley 7, Puncheon 7.5, McArthur 7, Bannan 6.5 (Guedioura 6, 45), Gayle
7 (Campbell 87), Murray 6 (Zaha 7, 74)
Subs not used: Mariappa, Hangeland, Hennessey, Thomas
Goals:†Gayle (Pen 69), Puncheon (80)
Bookings:†Bannan, Dann, Puncheon, Campbell, Guedioura
Manager: Alan Pardew 7.5†
Tottenham Hotspur: Lloris 7, Walker 6.5, Fazio 6, Vertonghen 6.5, Rose 6,
Stambouli 6.5 (Soldado 6, 75), Dembele 6.5, Townsend 5.5 (Capoue 6, 70),
Eriksen 6, Chadli 6, Kane 7.5
Subs not used:†Kaboul, Lennon, Paulinho, Vorm, Davies
Goals: Kane (49)
Bookings: Townsend, Stambouli, Fazio
Manager: Mauricio Pochettino 6
Referee:†Anthony Taylor (Cheshire) 6
Man of the match: Scott Dann†
But after his consistent rejection by Geordie fans, the acclaim which
erupted around Selhurst Park will be ringing in his ears for some time yet.
He took some pleasure in pointing out that Newcastle owner Mike Ashley
had been the ﬁrst person to text his congratulations after the match. But
then, after Jason Puncheon scored the late and priceless goal which lifted
Palace beyond the bottom three, Pardew took pleasure in everything. For
everything which could go right had gone just perfectly.
By contrast, Mauricio Pochettino was suitably subdued. Spurs had fallen
short of their standards and paid a heavy price. Moreover, they had
conceded a genuine penalty, then been denied an equally genuine award.
He correctly identiﬁed the penalty debate as the turning point, but had the
class to remark: ëReferees have a very difﬁcult job.í
Never a man to sell himself short, Pardew set the tone with his programme
notes: ëIíd like to thank Steve Parish and the Palace board for working so
hard to get me here.í
His reception was a great deal warmer than anything he heard at St Jamesí
Park. Tottenham passed the ball with greater conﬁdence and moved with
purpose in those opening stages, as beﬁts a side coming off a momentous
victory. But their chances were few, the football unconvincing. To their
credit, Palace also passed it neatly, revealing little of the anxiety which
must have attended their efforts. Yet they conceded a gaping chance in
26 minutes, when Kyle Walker drove a low cross and, in the ensuing
confusion, Christian Eriksen managed improbably to hook the shot wide
from four yards out.
But an even more acceptable chance fell to Palace in 37 minutes, when
the Spurs back four left Glenn Murray absurdly alone, 15 yards out. Hugo
Lloris advanced, more in hope than expectation, and the ﬂustered Murray
drove the shot against the keeperís right knee. Pardew looked ﬂeetingly
homicidal, and with some reason.†
Tottenham play from ﬁrm principles, building thoughtfully and refusing to
resort to the witless launch. In Benjamin Stambouli, they offer a midﬁelder
of persistent strength and bewilderingly brilliant feet. But they could not
devise a position from which Harry Kane could reveal his form.
That deﬁciency was remedied in 49 minutes, when Spurs demonstrated
the ﬁnishing which separates the best sides from the toilers. Nacer Chadli
rolled a ball to Kane 20 yards out, and form asserted itself as the strikerís
low, impeccable drive brought the customary result.
ëHeís one of our own,í sang the Tottenham contingent, and while the lead
was gratefully a ccepted, it was barely deserved.
By now, Spurs were starting to exercise authority. Chadli was producing
genuine havoc with his surging runs, yet this was not a game to take for
granted, for the 69th minute yielded another improbable turn.
Joe Ledley hurried on to a short ﬂick in the Spurs area, and the hitherto
excellent Stambouli stretched to the tackle and appeared to win the ball.
The referee Anthony Taylor gave the appeal an eternity of consideration,
then jabbed a ﬁnger at the spot. There was pandemonium at the Palace as
Dwight Gayle simply battered the penalty. By now, we were prepared for
anything. And so was Pardew.,
The crucial goal was withheld until the 80th minute. Palace substitute
Wilfried Zaha attacked from the left with a mazily tenacious run.
Gianluca Vialli that he bought a replica
Sampdoria shirt, say to the adult Crouch if he
saw him today?
“I genuinely don’t think he would believe it.
Even when I went to QPR I was only ﬁfthchoice striker, but it just so happened that
the other four got injured and I was thrown
in the deep end. I ended winning player of
the year, scoring 25 goals, and then that was
the road.”
What if he were one of us, watching on from
the stands or on Match of the Day - is he the
sort of player he would like?
“Of course! I play the game wholeheartedly. I
put everything I have into every game I play.
I know my strengths and weaknesses and I
play to them. I’ve affected games in the right
way down the years and I’ll continue to do
that. “You see fans every day who want to
talk about games or goals or other aspects,
and I try to make time for them as much as
possible. You can’t please everyone, but you
do your best.
“I’ve always tried to be open and approachable,
whereas some players these days make it
very hard to approach them. They keep an
aura around them, but I like to get away from
that as much as possible.”
CAF Awards
Good for My
Career-Oshoala
Junior Malanda Dies: Promising
Belgian Soccer Player, 20, Killed
in Car Crash
Sunday Sun
African womenís footballer
of the year 2014, Asisat
Oshoala says winning the
prize means a lot to her and
her career, as she capped
a brilliant 2014 with
continental recognition.
The 20-year old was
named the CAF Africa
womenís footballer of
the year 2014, at the CAF
African player of the year
awards ceremony which
held in Lagos, Nigeria on
Thursday. She also carted
home the African womenís
young player of the year
award, to cap a remarkable
evening for her and she
tells sl10.ng what the prizes
mean to her.
ìThey mean a lot to me and
my career and what this has
done is to encourage me to
work harder,î she told sl10.
ng. ìI thank God all the
people who voted for me.
Agencies
Junior Malanda was
killed in a car crash in
Germany on Saturday,
bringing a tragic end to
what appeared to be a
promising soccer career.
The Belgium Under21 midﬁelder was the
passenger in a car that
crashed near the German
city of Bielefeld, police said.
ìAccording to German newspaper Bild, Malanda was
a passenger in a car that police believe was travelling
at high speed in poor conditions near Porta Westfalica
in north-central Germany, with winds in excess of 40
mph. The Volkswagen Touareg vehicle skidded off the
road, passed through a guardrail and came to rest at a
tree. Malanda was reportedly ejected from the car and
died instantly. Two other passengers have been taken to
a local hospital.î
Malanda was seen as an up-and-coming player for
Wolfsburg, having made 15 appearances for the German
Bundesliga side this season.
Within hours of Malandaís death, many players shared
their shock and condolences. The suddenness of his death
was especially stinging for his Wolfsburg teammates.
Wolfsburg teammate Kevin de Bruyne wrote that it was
difﬁcult to fathom Malanda being gone.
Venus Williams Tennis Match Replaces
Ball Boys for Dogs!
FOXNEWS
NEW
ZEALAND
ó
Fetching†balls
is
something that comes
naturally to dogs ó so
why not use them as ball
boys in a tennis match?
Tennis
star,
Venus
Williams,
took
on
Svetlana Kuznetsova in
a friendly tennis match in
Auckland, New Zealand
ó and the ball fetchers
were equipped with 4
legs and furry faces!
A Bull Mastiff named
Oscar, a Border Collie
named Ted and a Jack
Russell/Norfolk Terrier/
Miniature Schnauzer mix
named Super Teddy, were
the stars of the match ó
decked out with sweat
bands on their legs.
The special event†has
us wondering why not
all tennis matches use
canines to fetch the
balls!
HUMAN DEVELOPMENT 11
Monday, January 12, 2015
Edited by: Alula Berhe Kidani
HDR-2014: Vulnerable People
and Vulnerable World (3)
The Political Economy
of Arab Uprisings (1)
By: Nadine Sika
On the occasion of the Euro-Mediterranean
Annual Conference ìA New Mediterranean
Political Landscape, The Arab Spring and
Euro-Mediterranean Relationsî, held in
Barcelona on October 2011, distinguished
analysts presented the results of their research
on the new dynamics in the region following
the Arab uprisings. Five major issues were
approached: the crisis of the authoritarian
system in the Mediterranean Arab world,
the divergent paths of the Arab Spring, the
road ahead for democratic transitions, the
geopolitical implications of the events in the
region, and the future of Euro-Mediterranean
relations.
The HDR (World Human Development Report 2014) the ﬂag ship of the UNDP (United
Nations Development Report) was launched in Khartoum on Sunday 2 November,
2014. The basic issue this year is very important for developing countries and that is
sustaining human progress and this is why we are reviewing extensively this Report.
This part focuses on vulnerable people and vulnerable world and sustainable human
development.
Almost everyone feels vulnerable at some
point in life. But some individuals and
some groups are more vulnerable than
others due to varying exposure to social
and economic conditions and at different
stages of their life cycles, starting at
birth. This Report is concerned with
people facing the possibility of major
deterioration in their circumstances as a
result of adverse events. The interest is
in examining how individual and social
characteristics condition the impacts that
people feel in response to persistent shocks
and risks more generally. By focusing on
enduring and systemic vulnerability, we
then ask who is vulnerable and why. This
leads us to examine some of the critical
underlying factors that generate these
impacts.
People with limited core capabilities, such
as in education and health, are less able
to easily live lives they value. And their
choices may be restricted or held back
by social barriers and other exclusionary
practices. Together, limited capabilities
and restricted choices1 prevent them from
coping with threats. At certain stages
of the life cycle, capabilities may be
restricted due to inadequate investments
and attention at the appropriate times,
yielding vulnerabilities that may
accumulate and intensify. Consider how
the lack of development of cognitive and
noncognitive skills in early childhood
affects labour outcomes and even drug
and alcohol use later in life.2 Among
the factors that condition how shocks
and setbacks are felt and tackled are
circumstances of birth, age, identity and
socioeconomic
statusócircumstances
over which individuals have little or no
control.
This chapter highlights life cycle
vulnerabilities
and
structural
vulnerabilities (as well as their
intersections). It also looks at how
security inﬂuences choices and affects
some groups more than others, with a
focus on personal insecurity
Life cycle vulnerabilities refer to threats
that individuals face across different
stages of their lifeófrom infancy through
youth, adulthood and old age. Focusing
on life cycle vulnerabilities and the
formation of life capabilities draws
attention to sensitive phases when a
person may be particularly susceptible.
Inadequate attention during such periods
can limit capabilities and heighten
vulnerability. Earlier and continual
investments make the formation of life
capabilities more robust. This approach
helps in identifying interventions and
policies that build human resilience, a
subject for the next chapter.
ï Structural vulnerabilities are embedded
in social contexts. Such a focus draws
attention to individual and group
characteristics, including group identity,
that are associated with a higher
vulnerability to adverse circumstances.
The reduced ability to bounce back can
be traced to inadequate investments in
building capabilities not only today,
but throughout the entire life cycle, to
disability, to geographical remoteness
or other isolation, or to societal barriers
that prevent people from realizing their
potential even if they otherwise have
similar capabilities (such as discrimination
and the exclusion of women).
Social institutions including norms
shape the capabilities and choices that
are afforded to individuals. Norms such
as discrimination against certain groups,
weak rule of law and systems of recourse,
and settling of disputes through violence
can severely curtail the freedoms that
individuals enjoy. Structural factors
can also subject people or groups
to multiple disadvantages. Groupbased discrimination and exclusion
exist across multiple dimensionsó
political participation, health care,
personal security and education, to
name a fewóand generate chronic and
overlapping vulnerabilities for minorities
and other excluded groups by limiting
their capabilities and their potential role
in the larger society.
Almost all Arab countries have written
constitutions that set out the main legal and
institutional principles of separation of power,
the judiciary, individual freedoms, and equality
before the law. Nevertheless, the gap between
what is written and what is practiced is wide. The
executive branch dominates all other branches
of governance in all Arab countries. Citizens
have very limited venues for participation, and
civil and political rights are constrained by the
highly coercive intelligence services prevalent
in the region. A state of emergency is in place
in many countries to date, and many states
have anti-terrorism laws that expanded the role
of government and intelligence services. The
executive branch also controls the ìindependent
judiciaryî by setting its budget and appointing
judges. Hence, the judiciary is not effective
in implementing the laws, and is regarded as
another branch of the executive. Institutions,
such as courts, laws and the independence of
the judiciary, are not as important as networks
of interests, which reproduce corruption. For
instance, in Lebanon the late Prime Minister
Raﬁk al-Hariri acknowledged the importance
of ìgetting things doneÖ having the right
contacts... and adopting ﬂexible approaches to
governance are equally if not more important
than bureaucratic developmentî.
Corruption is ìdeeply rooted in the political
infrastructure of the stateÖ the institutional
infrastructure of the public sectorÖ develops as
a result of the relatively limited opportunities
for public participationî . According to
the Transparency International Corruption
Perceptions Index 2011, Arab countries are
amongst the lowest ranked in the world, with
Somalia being the worst classiﬁed, at 182nd
in the index of 182 countries. Sudan is ranked
number 177, Iraq 175, Libya 168, Yemen 164,
Lebanon 134, and Syria 129.
The neoliberal development project and its
implementation in the Arab region led to GDP
growth and to higher human capital at the
expense of good governance and the rule of
law. Hence, the social problems associated
with the neoliberal reform project manifested
in monetary and austerity measures were
forcefully implemented, while the positive
socio-political aspects of good governance and
the rule of law were widely neglected in the
region. International institutions, especially the
World Bank and the IMF, along with western
donors like the United States, did not criticize
Arab governments for their failure to advance
good governance, as long as these governments
were holding ìterrorismî at bay, were opening
their markets to foreign direct investments, and
exported their oil to the world market.
Arab countries were capable of building upon
their human and physical capital with few heavy
industries, services, and simple manufactures,
but were not able to accompany economic
development in an impartial state. On the
contrary, state bureaucracy was soon to turn
into a politicized structure far from being a
technocratic one, as in the case of the Asian Tigers
whose state is typically developmentalist. In the
Asian Tigersí governance structure, the ruling
elite were not included in the labour, peasant
or business sectors of development, unlike their
Arab counterparts. In the case of Arab countries,
the stability of the regime was dependent on
labourers and peasants, the backbone of the
regimesí legitimacy. The regimes provided
them with goods and services, and even job
opportunities in the early stages of development
of the 1960s, as in the case of Nasserís Egypt
and al-Assadís Syria. The dominant form of the
social contract developed in the region was one
where the population resigned itself to a lack of
political freedom in exchange for the provision
of certain services, like state employment,
access to public healthcare and education, and
exemption from or low taxation.
Nevertheless, with the stagnation of development
and productivity, by the end of the 1980s these
lower and middle-income countries faced
grave problems. This is when the adoption of
neoliberal economic measures was enforced
by the World Bank and the IMF. The prevailing
social contract within the region has come under
pressure since the 1970s, but more so in the
1990s due to increasing inability of the state to
co-opt the educated youth into the public sector.
The public sector used to be a relatively wellpaid civil service that acted as a mechanism for
upward social mobility. In country after country,
the public sector is no longer able to absorb the
increasing numbers of graduates produced by
the education systems.
Structural adjustment measures have resulted in
a decline in both the real income of government
employees and a decline in government
expenditure on social services. This is coupled
with the increasing privatization of social services
without guarantees of quantity or quality. The
system of large-scale subsidies that was offered
on a range of essential goods became difﬁcult to
maintain, and led to bread riots in a number of
countries in the 1970s and 1980s.
Climate Change and Developing Countries Children (2)
Sheridan Bartlett
Childrenís Environments Research Group
This article provides a brief overview of the implications
for children of climate changeóboth of extreme weather
events and more gradual changes, along with the
adaptations likely to be made at various levels. The article
stresses not only childrenís vulnerability, but also their
resilience and their capacity as active agents to play a
role in addressing the challenges they confront related to
climate change.
The latest report from the IPCC states with high conﬁdence
that changes in climate, especially increases in temperature,
are affecting a wide range of natural systems. There is no
doubt at this point that lakes and rivers are warming, there
is earlier greening in the spring, the range of plant and
animal species is changing, and the oceans are warming
and increasingly acid.
In some places, at least over the shorter term and in places
with less intense effects, there may be beneﬁts associated
with climate changeófewer deaths from cold exposure,
for instance, and better crop yields in some places.
Nonetheless, the negative effects are deﬁnitely projected
to outweigh the beneﬁts, especially in lower-income
countries. The impacts will be mediated both by the degree
to which the environment has been adapted in response and
the resilience of the people.
The report points in particular to Africa and parts of Asia,
where multiple stresses and low adaptive capacity put
millions at risk. Especially in the mega-delta areas of these
regions, large concentrations of people live in areas already
prone to extreme weather. In parts of Africa, in addition,
increased water stress is expected to affect between 75
and 250 million people by 2020; in much of Asia by 2050,
a billion people could be affected by shortages of fresh
water. The effects, generally, are likely to be especially
serious in urban areas, where a large and increasing
proportion of the people and enterprises most at risk from
extreme weather events and rising sea levels are located.
The urban poor are particularly vulnerable. They often
live in the most hazardous areas and are also least able to
invest in preventive measures, or to have their needs for
risk reduction taken seriously by local governments.
Although these existing and projected impacts are not
disaggregated by age, we know that children are a
considerable part of the population in the countries’ most
likely to be affected. In most high-income countries, people
under 18 make up about 20 percent of the population; in
the countries; most exposed and most vulnerable to climate
change, they are closer to half the population (for instance,
42 percent in Bangladesh, 51 percent in Nigeria, 57 percent
in Uganda). Even more to the point is the proportion of
highly vulnerable children under 5óthey make up between
10 and 20 percent of the population in countries more
likely to be seriously affected (for instance, 11 percent in
India, 12 percent in Bangladesh, 17 percent in Nigeria and
Mozambique, 21 percent in Uganda.) In higher income,
and less vulnerable, countries the proportion of under-ﬁves
is closer to four or ﬁve percent.
Small children, along with women and the elderly, are
generally considered the most likely to be victims of
such extreme weather events as ﬂooding, high winds, and
landslides. This makes sense given their lesser size and
strength and capacity to move rapidly. Some studies point to
higher mortality for adult males, related to their risk-taking
behavior and activities after disasters. However, these
kinds of ﬁgures appear primarily in high-income countries
where adequate housing and infrastructure prevent most
potential disaster-related mortality and injury. What these
studies indicate more than anything is the huge potential
that exists for preventing death and injury in the face of
extreme events.
In lower-income countries, and especially among the
poor, the loss of life is repeatedly demonstrated to be
disproportionately high among women and children.
A recently published paper, for instance, points to the
signiﬁcant disparities in the distribution of ﬂood-related
deaths in Nepal. These ﬁndings, which used an existing
database to verify residency prior to the ﬂood, demonstrated
the higher vulnerability of younger children, girls in
particular, and especially of those in poverty. Preschool
girls were ﬁve times more likely to die than adult men,
and the relative risk of those in poor households was over
six times higher than that of high-income households.
The same general pattern held true in the 2004 Indian
Ocean tsunami. The higher mortality rates for girls than
for boys is striking, given the much higher mortality risks
demonstrated for boys in the USA. It is hypothesized here
that the preferential treatment often accorded to boys in
South Asia must extend also to rescue efforts in the context
of disaster. While the tsunami was not related to climate
change, it provides a useful benchmark for considering the
effects of high-magnitude disaster, as well as the capacity
to respond. It has also been well documented.
In slower-onset disasters such as droughts and famines,
mortality rates also tend to be more extreme for young
childrenóas is reﬂected in the indicators used to deﬁne the
severity of an emergency. For a situation to be considered
an emergency, it is common to expect the death rate for
children under ﬁve to be twice as high as that for the
population at large. This should be put into context.
MONDAY
LAST PAGE
Nominations Cocktail:
2 Women, 2 Men Run
12th January, 2015 - 21st Rabia I,1436
for Presidency
By: Zuleikha Abdul Raziq
Photo: Al-Sir Mukhtar
Khartoum - The ﬁrst day of
nominations for the post of
president of the republic, the
national council, and states
legislatures ended yesterday.
So far, four candidates have
applied for the post of president of
the republic; Head of the National
Congress Party (NCP), Omar
Hassan Ahmad Al-Bashir, Prof.
Fatima Abdul Mahmoud from the
Unionist Socialist Party, while
Mahasin Abdul Rahman Al-Tazi
and Dr. Mohammed Abbas AlSaraj made their nominations as
independents.
National Message
The NCP considers the great
support for the candidate of the
party, Al Bashir, from the leaders
of the native administration,
Suﬁ sectors, Sudanese society,
political parties and various
organisations, as a step towards
his national message and as a
conﬁrmation of realising an
important constitutional right:
the elections, one of the most
important means of the peaceful
transition of power.
The role of women
Vice Chairman of the Unionist
Socialist Party, Abdul Ellah
Mahmoud said the nomination
of Prof. Fatima Abdul Mahmoud
came as they believe in the role of
Sudanese women in the leadership
of the public work.
Great self-conﬁdence
For her part, Mahasin Al-Tazi
said her candidacy is backed by
her self-conﬁdence and abilities,
especially as she is one of the ﬁrst
women who worked in the ﬁeld of
trafﬁc policing.
Many Sudanese parties believe
that Al Bashir is best suited to
lead the country in the next stage
due to his strong character and
to complete the process of the
national dialogue.
Meanwhile,
Head
of
the
Democratic Unionist Party, the
origin, Maulana Al-Mirghani also
announced his participation in the
next elections and his support for
Al Bashir.
Published By: Byader Media Distribution Co.Ltd.
-
Printed by: Martyr Major Osman Omer.
An employee at Christie’s poses with Joan Miro’s “Painting (Women, Moon, Birds)” in
An Independent Daily