Nhan Dan Online – The Vietnam National Oil and Gas Group (Petrovietnam) and the Sudan National Oil and Gas Corporation (Sudapest) have signed a co-operation agreement in the field of oil and gas, thus expanding investment of the Petrovietnam and the Sudapet in the exploration and exploitation of oil and gas in Sudan, Vietnam and the third country.
The signing ceremony took place during the Petrovietnam delegation’s visit to Sudan.
Right after the signing ceremony, the Sudapet introduced the investment opportunities in the oil and gas exploration in Sudan.
The two sides agreed to a specific discussion on an oil and gas contract in January 2010.
Source:nhandan.com.vn
Sudan Twitter,South Sudan
Friday, December 11, 2009
Worgu set to quit Sudan
Nigeria star Stephen Worgu says he wants to leave his Sudanese club El Merreikh after only one year.
He was recently sentenced to 40 lashes and a fine for drink-driving, a charge which he denied.
But he said that his desire to move is motivated by football reasons, not his personal difficulties in Sudan.
"I think I have fulfilled one ambition of playing outside Nigeria and the next step is to take my game to Europe," Worgu told BBC Sport.
He joined the Khartoum giants in October 2008 for US$2.6m, in one of the biggest transfers in African history.
But after spending only a season in Omdurman in Northern Sudan, the young striker is hankering on a move to Europe.
"Already there are offers but in January we will consider the perfect offer for both player and club," Worgu said.
"It is true I have had to deal with a lot of things but nothing compares to the love and affection showered on me by the fans, players and officials of El Merreikh.
"Terrible things have been written about me for coming to Sudan, while playing here and even presently.
"There are several things which go beyond what people see and read about but importantly money has never been a motive in my life."
Until a deal is sorted out Worgu says he is concentrating on playing for El Merreikh - including winning the Sudanese Cup final against their great rivals Al Hilal.
Source:news.bbc.co.uk/
Sudan says 75 pct of adults sign up for elections
KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Almost three quarters of adults in Sudan have registered to take part in the country's first multi-party elections in 24 years, officials said on Tuesday.
The oil-producing country is due to hold national elections in April under a troubled peace deal that ended more than two decades of north-south civil war.
Opposition groups have made allegations of widespread fraud during the five-week registration period that ended on Monday and observers from the Carter Centre last week warned some states might fail to sign up half of eligible voters.
Sudan's elections commission told Reuters 14,020,482 people had registered to vote at the start of Monday and it was expecting that to climb to 14,200,000 as final figures came in.
"That constitutes 73 percent of people who are eligible for registration -- people who are more than 18 years old," said commission deputy chair Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah.
"This is a good result by any standards ... I don't know how the Carter Centre came up with such a forecast."
Joint U.N./African Union peacekeepers said there had been a large turnout to register to vote in Zamzam displacement camp near El Fasher, capital of North Darfur, on Monday.
"Women and youth, in particular, were well represented," said a statement from the UNAMID force. "However, registration teams expressed concern that many IDPs (internally displaced persons) might not have been able to register before the closing, leaving them without a voice in next year's ballot."
The poll has already been hit by delays, and opposition parties have threatened to boycott the vote.
Source:af.reuters.com/
Gift sent to Abdelrazik while in Sudan returned because "unknown at embassy"
MONTREAL — Abousfian Abdelrazik's ordeal gained national attention last year, as supporters fought for the Sudanese-Canadian to return home to Canada after his six year ordeal trapped in Sudan.
But it seems that not everyone at the Canadian Embassy in Khartoum, where Abdelrazik stayed for a year, knew about their house guest, or they had simply forgot.
At least that's what the red scribble on a care package sent to Abdelrazik seemed to indicate.
A gift sent months ago to Abdelrazik by supporters in Montreal was returned to the group recently because the recipient was "unknown at embassy."
"We were all surprised," said Maria Forti, a member for Project Fly Home, which campaigned for Abdelrazik's return to Canada.
"He was probably the most surprised because he had known the people at the embassy, because he had been living there for about a year," she said, about the mysterious message written on the box.
"It was absurd, and I had a lot of frustration about that. For me, it's a big lack of respect towards Abousfian," Emilie Breton, also a member of Project Fly Home said, adding she felt enraged that a simple gift from friends could be refused.
The package was sent in April as a way of keeping Abdelrazik's spirits high, as he battled Canadian officials for his right to return home.
Abdelrazik was told a package arrived for him, but that he would not be able to receive it.
To top it off, Canada Post rubbed a little more salt in the wound.
"We ended up having to pay a $120 return to sender fee," said Forti, adding the group who sent the package had already dished out $130 to send the gift to Sudan in the first place.
"We had no idea that we would be required to pay the return to sender fee when actually the recipient was living where we said he was living," said Forti, giving an exasperated laugh.
Abdelrazik was arrested in Sudan in 2003 while visiting his sick mother and spent almost six years in prison because of alleged links to terrorist organizations.
He was released but due to passport problems he couldn't return home and was forced to stay at the embassy for 14 months before finally returning this past June.
At a meeting this week with Forti and others, Abdelrazik finally opened his gift, which finally made its way back to Canada in late November.
Forti described opening the package, like unsealing a time capsule, as letters, and photos from supporters were stuffed inside, as well as DVDs, a button down shirt, a pair of sandals and an Arab-French dictionary.
"He was really happy to get it back," said Forti "He loved it, he was glad he finally got all that stuff."
"I guess it reminded him of the long year he passed alone in the embassy, but also it was good for him to see there were people trying to help him," Breton said.
Foreign Affairs did not have an immediate answer as to why the note on the package suggested the embassy did not know Abdelrazik was there.
Source:http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5hMNWYKwxo33cSF--cu3Islj2pyXg
But it seems that not everyone at the Canadian Embassy in Khartoum, where Abdelrazik stayed for a year, knew about their house guest, or they had simply forgot.
At least that's what the red scribble on a care package sent to Abdelrazik seemed to indicate.
A gift sent months ago to Abdelrazik by supporters in Montreal was returned to the group recently because the recipient was "unknown at embassy."
"We were all surprised," said Maria Forti, a member for Project Fly Home, which campaigned for Abdelrazik's return to Canada.
"He was probably the most surprised because he had known the people at the embassy, because he had been living there for about a year," she said, about the mysterious message written on the box.
"It was absurd, and I had a lot of frustration about that. For me, it's a big lack of respect towards Abousfian," Emilie Breton, also a member of Project Fly Home said, adding she felt enraged that a simple gift from friends could be refused.
The package was sent in April as a way of keeping Abdelrazik's spirits high, as he battled Canadian officials for his right to return home.
Abdelrazik was told a package arrived for him, but that he would not be able to receive it.
To top it off, Canada Post rubbed a little more salt in the wound.
"We ended up having to pay a $120 return to sender fee," said Forti, adding the group who sent the package had already dished out $130 to send the gift to Sudan in the first place.
"We had no idea that we would be required to pay the return to sender fee when actually the recipient was living where we said he was living," said Forti, giving an exasperated laugh.
Abdelrazik was arrested in Sudan in 2003 while visiting his sick mother and spent almost six years in prison because of alleged links to terrorist organizations.
He was released but due to passport problems he couldn't return home and was forced to stay at the embassy for 14 months before finally returning this past June.
At a meeting this week with Forti and others, Abdelrazik finally opened his gift, which finally made its way back to Canada in late November.
Forti described opening the package, like unsealing a time capsule, as letters, and photos from supporters were stuffed inside, as well as DVDs, a button down shirt, a pair of sandals and an Arab-French dictionary.
"He was really happy to get it back," said Forti "He loved it, he was glad he finally got all that stuff."
"I guess it reminded him of the long year he passed alone in the embassy, but also it was good for him to see there were people trying to help him," Breton said.
Foreign Affairs did not have an immediate answer as to why the note on the package suggested the embassy did not know Abdelrazik was there.
Source:http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5hMNWYKwxo33cSF--cu3Islj2pyXg
Tanzania: Egypt, Sudan Want More Time On Nile Basin Pact
Egypt and Sudan have called for more time before the signing of the cooperation agreement among the Nile Basin countries.
However, other member countries have insisted that they are ready to sign the agreement.
Chairman of the Nile Council of Ministers (Nile-Com) Nasri El-din Allam, who is also Egypt's water and irrigation minister, said there was no need to rush on the matter since it was "critical and sensitive", and called for more time to reach a conclusive decision.
Mr Allam said Egypt and Sudan had prepared a proposal on water security, which was being distributed to other partner states for their input.
"The matter is with our top political leaders for discussions we are not late. Everyone hoped the agreement would have been signed yesterday, but let's be optimistic that this will soon come to an end," he said during the closing of a meeting held in Dar es Salaam to mark the initiative's 10th anniversary.
Water security is the only pending protocol in the formation of the permanent Nile Basin Commission. Riparian countries currently chair the body on a rotational basis.
Ministers responsible for water from Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Ethiopia and Congo expressed their willingness to sign the cooperation agreement by February next year as stipulated in the framework without any further delay.
Kenya's director of water resources, Mr John Rao Nyaoro, urged Nile Basin countries to be more practical and strive to sign the agreement by next February.
Water and Irrigation minister Mark Mwandosya said negative perceptions were holding back the signing of the agreement among the Nile Basin countries.
"We have made a lot of progress on the structure of the agreement we have the same aims, but different perceptions need to be resolved so that the agreement can be signed in February, he said Mwandosya.
Source:allafrica.com/
However, other member countries have insisted that they are ready to sign the agreement.
Chairman of the Nile Council of Ministers (Nile-Com) Nasri El-din Allam, who is also Egypt's water and irrigation minister, said there was no need to rush on the matter since it was "critical and sensitive", and called for more time to reach a conclusive decision.
Mr Allam said Egypt and Sudan had prepared a proposal on water security, which was being distributed to other partner states for their input.
"The matter is with our top political leaders for discussions we are not late. Everyone hoped the agreement would have been signed yesterday, but let's be optimistic that this will soon come to an end," he said during the closing of a meeting held in Dar es Salaam to mark the initiative's 10th anniversary.
Water security is the only pending protocol in the formation of the permanent Nile Basin Commission. Riparian countries currently chair the body on a rotational basis.
Ministers responsible for water from Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Ethiopia and Congo expressed their willingness to sign the cooperation agreement by February next year as stipulated in the framework without any further delay.
Kenya's director of water resources, Mr John Rao Nyaoro, urged Nile Basin countries to be more practical and strive to sign the agreement by next February.
Water and Irrigation minister Mark Mwandosya said negative perceptions were holding back the signing of the agreement among the Nile Basin countries.
"We have made a lot of progress on the structure of the agreement we have the same aims, but different perceptions need to be resolved so that the agreement can be signed in February, he said Mwandosya.
Source:allafrica.com/
Russia has to open consulate in South Sudan - envoy
December 9, 2009 (KHARTOUM) — Russia should open a consulate in the southern Sudan capital as over 20 countries have their offices there, said Mikhail Margelov the special envoy to Sudan in statements to Russian journalists.
Margelov is conducting currently a six-day visit to Sudan since last Thursday heading a delegation of businessmen, media and press. He visited Kadoguli, Al-Fasher, Juba and met today with the President Omer Al-Bashir in Khartoum.
The envoy disclosed in a discussion with Russian journalists who accompanied during his visit to Sudan he intends to discuss the question of opening a consulate with President Dmitriy Medvedev when he briefs him on his trip to the country.
"This is not the first year that the idea of opening a Russian consulate in Southern Sudan in Juba has been discussed, and I am deeply convinced that this should be done and not delayed," reported the Russian RIA Novosti news agency on Wednesday.
The Special envoy said that there are now 20 foreign consulates in Juba including Russia’s partners at the UN Security Council.
He further stressed that there is a need for diplomatic presence in Juba as Russian business showed interest to implement projects in southern Sudan.
He intends to discuss the question of opening a consulate with President Dmitriy Medvedev when he briefs him on his trip to the country, the report said.
Source:sudantribune.com/
Margelov is conducting currently a six-day visit to Sudan since last Thursday heading a delegation of businessmen, media and press. He visited Kadoguli, Al-Fasher, Juba and met today with the President Omer Al-Bashir in Khartoum.
The envoy disclosed in a discussion with Russian journalists who accompanied during his visit to Sudan he intends to discuss the question of opening a consulate with President Dmitriy Medvedev when he briefs him on his trip to the country.
"This is not the first year that the idea of opening a Russian consulate in Southern Sudan in Juba has been discussed, and I am deeply convinced that this should be done and not delayed," reported the Russian RIA Novosti news agency on Wednesday.
The Special envoy said that there are now 20 foreign consulates in Juba including Russia’s partners at the UN Security Council.
He further stressed that there is a need for diplomatic presence in Juba as Russian business showed interest to implement projects in southern Sudan.
He intends to discuss the question of opening a consulate with President Dmitriy Medvedev when he briefs him on his trip to the country, the report said.
Source:sudantribune.com/
Guantánamo judge won't expand Sudanese war crimes case
In this photo of a sketch by courtroom artist Janet Hamlin, defendant Ibrahim al Qosi, far left, sits with a member of his defense team in the courthouse for the U.S. war crimes commission at the Camp Justice compound on Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base in Cuba, Wednesday, July 15, 2009. A Pentagon court security officer approved this sketch for release. JANET HAMLIN / POOL SKETCH ARTIST
BY CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@MiamiHerald.com
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- A military judge dealt the Pentagon a double-barreled defeat Thursday, rebuffing a bid to include al Qaeda's 1992-96 formative era in a Sudanese captive's war crimes case and separately ordering the government to put on a show-cause hearing Jan. 6.
The decision by Air Force Lt. Col. Nancy Paul appeared to put the case against alleged Osama bin Laden bodyguard Ibrahim al Qosi on track to become the first Obama administration trial by military commission here at Guantánamo Bay, early next year.
But she also limited the scope of the trial, leaving Pentagon prosecutors evaluating whether to withdraw the case entirely and start fresh.
Meanwhile, Paul ruled that adding allegations against Qosi, 49, covering the time period of 1992 to 1996 would "fundamentally'' and "dramatically'' change the nature of Qosi's military commission case. She called the prosecutors' proposal an "unfair surprise'' nearly two years after the Pentagon swore out charges against the captive.
Conviction at trial is punishable by a maximum of life in prison. Qosi has been held at Guantánamo for almost eight years.
"While the basic elements of the offense conspiracy does not change, nor is a greater punishment possible, the scope of the crimes the accused must defend against will have shifted dramatically,'' she read from the ruling, as Qosi listened to an Arabic translation.
At issue had been whether the Pentagon could use a new military commission law just enacted by Congress to expand the case against Qosi, who is now accused of supporting terror and conspiracy for allegedly serving as a member of bin Laden's bodyguard detail in Afghanistan after 1996.
From 1992 to 1996, bin Laden was based in Qosi's native Khartoum, and, according to Pentagon documents, Qosi allegedly handled the al Qaeda payroll. Sudan's government had bin Laden and his organization leave the country in 1996, after pressure by the Clinton administration.
The Pentagon's chief war crimes prosecutor, Navy Capt. John F. Murphy, said his office would not appeal the ruling.
But he said his lawyers would consult with attorneys at the office of Susan Crawford, the Pentagon appointee in charge of the war court, to decide whether to withdraw the case and bring new charges that expand the case.
In her twin rulings Thursday, Paul became the first commissions judge to address head-on how to apply Congress' new Military Commissions Act of 2009 to old cases still at the court and approved for military trials by Attorney General Eric Holder.
Qosi was singled out for trial in the earliest years of the establishment of the prison camps at Guantánamo. He was captured in Afghanistan in late 2001, allegedly after serving on an al Qaeda mortar crew and helping bin Laden elude American capture at Tora Bora.
He has been charged in every version of a commission dating back to the original effort established by the Bush administration, which was struck down as unconstitutional by the Rehnquist Supreme Court.
Under the new law, only war-on-terror captives defined as an ``unprivileged enemy belligerent'' -- not a POW -- can go before the tribunals now being held here at Camp Justice.
And defense lawyers asked the judge to throw the case out because Qosi had been held as an ``unlawful enemy combatant'' -- Congress' old label for a war-crimes trial candidate.
Navy Cmdr. Dirk Padgett, the case prosecutor, argued Wednesday that the case the Pentagon would present at trial to a panel of military officers would prove Qosi was an ``unprivileged enemy belligerent.''
But Paul instead borrowed a page from the earlier trial of Osama bin Laden's Yemeni driver and ordered the government to call witnesses and present evidence Jan. 6, in a proceeding that some lawyers have likened to a show-case hearing in civilian criminal court.
To decide whether the captive of eight years met the definition, she said, she would consult both U.S. law and The Geneva Conventions.
"We don't view this as a setback,'' said Murphy, the Pentagon prosecutor. "We view this as a normal part of the process. We have conflicts between the new statute and the old statute. There are remedies to these issues.''
Source:miamiherald.com/
OVL pulls out of exploration block in Sudan
ONGC Videsh Ltd, the overseas arm of state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, has pulled out of an exploration block in Sudan
"Not just OVL but the entire consortium has decided to exit the Block 5B," Sudan's Minister of State for Energy and Mining Angelina Jany Teny said today.
OVL has written off investment of $90 million it had made in the block.
The minister said the consortium exited after it did not find oil or gas in the three wells it drilled on the block. The consortium may have also exited because of claims made by Sudan's regional and federal government on the area where the block exists.
The 20,000-sq-km block is in the southern part of the Muglad basin in an area claimed by the federal government based in Khartoum and by the regional government based in Juba, Southern Sudan.
Ascom SA of Moldova was granted rights to one portion of Block 5B from the Southern Sudanese government and began drilling in January 2008, while the Khartoum government awarded the other part of the block to the White Nile Petroleum Operating Co (WNPOC).
The WNPOC consortium included operator Petronas of Malaysia (39 per cent interest), Lundin (24.5 per cent), OVL (23.5 per cent) and Sudan's Sudapet 13 (per cent).
Source:business-standard.com/
"Not just OVL but the entire consortium has decided to exit the Block 5B," Sudan's Minister of State for Energy and Mining Angelina Jany Teny said today.
OVL has written off investment of $90 million it had made in the block.
The minister said the consortium exited after it did not find oil or gas in the three wells it drilled on the block. The consortium may have also exited because of claims made by Sudan's regional and federal government on the area where the block exists.
The 20,000-sq-km block is in the southern part of the Muglad basin in an area claimed by the federal government based in Khartoum and by the regional government based in Juba, Southern Sudan.
Ascom SA of Moldova was granted rights to one portion of Block 5B from the Southern Sudanese government and began drilling in January 2008, while the Khartoum government awarded the other part of the block to the White Nile Petroleum Operating Co (WNPOC).
The WNPOC consortium included operator Petronas of Malaysia (39 per cent interest), Lundin (24.5 per cent), OVL (23.5 per cent) and Sudan's Sudapet 13 (per cent).
Source:business-standard.com/
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