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Sudan sets date for election nominations

Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir addresses the media at Khartoum airport, April 1, 2009 upon arrival from the Arab Summit in Doha. Sudan has set a date for receiving its presidential and parliamentary nominations as the historic elections for the continent’s biggest country nears. REUTERS

By LUCAS BARASAPosted Monday, December 28 2009 at 13:17

Sudan has set a date for receiving its presidential and parliamentary nominations as the historic elections for the continent’s biggest country nears.

The National Election Commission at the weekend said it will receive the nominations for the executive and legislative bodies from January 12 to January 22.

The oil-rich country is to hold the presidential and parliamentary polls from April 5 to April 12, 2010.

A report from Sudanese Embassy in Nairobi said NEC chairman Abil Alier and other commission’s member announced the nomination dates at a press conference at NEC offices.

“Alier welcomed the role being played by the media to make a success the elections process, calling for continuity of the cooperation in the coming period, especially after the conclusion of the registration phase and starting of the nomination phase,” the report, said.

The chairman of the NEC Technical Committee, Al-Hadi Mohamed Ahmed, pointed out that the nomination for the executive positions includes the election of the President of the Republic, the President of the Government of South Sudan and the Governors of the States, while the nomination for the legislative positions includes the membership of the legislative assemblies from the geographical constituencies, women, the Legislative Assembly of South Sudan and the States’ legislative assemblies.

The elections were to mark an end of a transitional period which began when the decades-long Second Sudanese Civil War came to an end in early 2005.

They were to be held from March to April 2009 but delayed due to problems with the preparation of the vote and with national census.

About 69 parties have registered for the election.

The Sudan census results were released in mid-May 2009 but was contested by the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army which said Southern Sudanese are a third of Sudan’s total population while the census stated a much smaller number.

It is unknown if the Darfurian amalgamation referendum, due to take place in July 2010, will be pulled back to match the general election.

Observers believe opposition parties will have a difficult time to oust President Omar Bashir’s National Congress Party from power due to their divisions.

The Sudan elections are a cornerstone of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between the Government of Sudan and the SPLM/A. Another is the Southern self-determination referendum, scheduled for 2011 at the end of the peace deal’s six-year interim period.

Field Marshal Bashir’s government bowed to pressure from the South to open voter registration centres in three Sub-Saharan states previously left out by the country’s NEC. Sudanese nationals in the Diaspora were able to register from South Africa, Kenya and Uganda. Another centre was also opened in Malaysia bringing the countries identified by NEC for the exercise to 14.

Some victors will be chosen under a first-past-the-post system, others by proportional representation. In a recent report, the Rift Valley Institute noted that the numerous elections and referendums held in Sudan since 1953 “have not so far produced the kind of stable yet dynamic government that the secret ballot is intended to encourage” largely because of “widespread and massive” fraud under authoritarian regimes and lack of necessary resources.

Source:nation.co.ke/

Sudan and Chad agreed to end hostilities - official

December 27, 2009 (KHARTOUM) — Sudan and its neighboring Chad have agreed to end hostilities against each other, said spokesperson of the foreign ministry in Khartoum today.

The Chadian foreign minister Moussa Faki Mahamat, heading a high level security delegation, was this week in Khartoum where he met Sudanese Omer Al-Bashir on Thursday, and held talks with presidential adviser Ghazi Salah Al-Deen Attabani and intelligence chief Mohamed Atta Al-Moula.

Moussa said they had agreed to implement the already signed agreements which deal mainly with the control of joint border and presence of rebel groups in their respective territories.

"Chadian-Sudanese relations will witness a major breakthrough in the coming days," said Sunday Muawiya Osman Khalid Spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who further said that the two countries had agreed to stop all forms of hostilities between the two countries at both the military and the media levels.

Khalid also said they agreed to increase the political engagement between the two countries through exchange visits at the different levels including the border towns.

He also indicated that a Sudanese military delegation would travel to Ndjamena within two weeks to discuss implementation of security and military issues as it is agreed in the signed agreement.

According to a non-aggression pact signed in the Senegalese capital, on the sidelined of the Islamic Conference summit on March 13, 2008, the two countries agreed to deploy a monitoring force to ensure stability on the joint border and to establish a contact group composed of Congo, Eritrea, Gabon, Libya and Senegal.

According to the deal, Chad will supply its own soldiers to patrol its own border, Sudan will supply its own soldiers to patrol its own border, and the peace and security force will become a mechanism for observing the two countries.

According to Dakar agreement, an aerial and satellite surveillance would be used to identify the troops movement across the border.

Speaking to Miraya FM on Sunday, the Chadian Consul in Khartoum Hussein Jeddah said his country would ban the activities of the Sudanese rebels inside its territories in implementation of the signed deals between the two countries.

The diplomat disclosed Sudan had evacuated the Chadian rebels at four hundreds kilometers from the joint border.

During the last four years, Sudan and Chad traded accusation of supporting rebel groups who attacked the two capitals and remain active along the border areas.

Khalid stressed that the recent move between the Chad and Sudan is not tactical or related to Darfur peace process in Doha but rather expresses a strategic issue for the two neighbors that have interdependent interests.

Source:sudantribune.com/

Sudan ships first ethanol exports to EU

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudan has begun exporting its first 5 million litres of ethanol to the European Union, at an initial price of around 450 euros a cubic metre, officials from the Kenana Sugar company said on Monday.

Kenana, Sudan's largest sugar company, this year inaugurated the ethanol plant which aims to produce 65 million litres a year of the bio fuel.

"Yesterday a vessel carrying 5 million litres of ethanol went to Rotterdam," said company secretary Fareed Omer Medani.

"This has been purchased by the European Union," he said, adding by the end of February a further 20 million litres would be exported in four separate shipments.

Kenana's Managing Director Mohamed El Mardi told Reuters the price per cubic metre for the December shipment was about 450 euros FOB.

But he said prices for the four further shipments would vary, depending on the market.

"The prices are not fixed prices," he said. "For the five shipments we will have 5 different prices -- January/February prices are higher than in December."

Mardi said it was the first export of ethanol from Sudan, adding the shipments would continue regularly at 5 million litres every month.

Source:af.reuters.com/

Sudan confirms 5 A/H1N1 flu deaths, 145 infection cases

KHARTOUM, Dec. 28 (Xinhua) -- The Sudanese Health Ministry said five people died of influenza A/H1N1 and 145 cases were confirmed in the country, Khartoum's Al Ahdath daily reported Monday.

The paper quoted Undersecretary of the Sudanese Ministry of Health Kamal Abdul-Ghader as saying that "all cases came from outside Sudan."

He said his ministry has set up 13 centers for the infected people in Khartoum, besides one center in each state of the country, according to the report.

"There are measures to prevent the spread of the disease through surveillance at airports," he was quoted as saying.

He added that the ministry was planning to import vaccines in cooperation with the World Health Organization (WHO).

Source:news.xinhuanet.com/english/

NCP favors Sudan’s unity in 2011 referendum: official

December 26, 2009 (KHARTOUM) – The Sudanese ruling National Congress Party (NCP) stressed today that it is working towards making the choice of unity a dominant one among Southerners in the 2011 referendum.

Mohamed Mandoor Al-Mahdi the NCP’s VP in Khartoum state, said that the party’s leadership is in favor of Sudan’s unity, saying that the discussions with the Sudan People Liberation Movement (SPLM) focused on the required percentage of voters in the referendum to declare the south an independent state.

The NCP official told reporters today that the NCP sought to increase the percentage to bolster hopes that unity option will be possible adding that this issue was thoroughly discussed with the ex-Southern rebel group.

Both parties in the National Unity government have been deadlocked for most of this year on the referendum law particularly over the turnout and the ‘Yes’ vote in favor of independence.

Initially the NCP wanted between 75%-90% yes vote and a two thirds turnout arguing that the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) says that the secession choice should be made difficult.

However, following stiff resistance from the SPLM, the dominant party agreed on a simple majority result for secession and a 60% turnout.

This week the national assembly adopted the referendum bill but NCP legislators modified it by cancelling an article stipulating that southerners who reside outside the region will have to register and vote only in South Sudan.

The SPLM walked out on the voting session to protest the change introduced to the bill threatening escalation if the move is not reversed. The US administration criticized the NCP saying it is reneging on the CPA.

The bill is scheduled to be sent back to the parliament to remove the modifications made by the NCP.

Al-Mahdi denied reports that the national assembly will look into the entire bill but rather at the article in dispute which the parties sat down and agreed on its resolution.

He acknowledged that the referendum law makes secession easier noting that some SPLM figures have publicly expressed their opinions in favor of independence.

On Friday the Ezekiel Gatkuoth, head of South Sudan’s mission to the United States told the Washington Times that the US financially is helping South Sudan to be a viable state should it decide to secede in 2011.

The NCP official slammed the SPLM questioning the fate of $8 billion sent to the south to be spent on development adding that this would have contributed towards making unity attractive.

Source:sudantribune.com

Independence an uncertain draw for Khartoum southerners

Kiir claims southern Sudan gets less than 25 percent of revenues generated by oil produced from its territory




KHARTOUM — Amid wrangling in parliament over an independence referendum for south Sudan, southerners in the capital Khartoum look forward with enthusiasm to secession, but the prospect unsettles some.

There are about 520,000 south Sudanese -- mostly Christian -- living in the Muslim north, according to a northern government census. The southern government says the figure is much higher.

This population, most of which fled the south during a 22-year civil war with the Muslim north that ended in a 2005 power-sharing agreement, is at the centre of a dispute that saw southern MPs withdraw from parliament this week.

The ruling northern National Congress Party (NCP) pushed a bill in parliament that allowed diaspora southerners, including those in the north, to cast absentee ballots for the 2011 referendum.

The bill, passed after MPs with the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Movement (SPLM), the ruling party in the south, staged a walk-out in protest, will be resubmitted to parliament on Monday for a second reading.

The NCP says barring southerners in the north from casting ballots would violate Sudan's interim constitution, which allows freedom of travel in the country.

But southern politicians say the measure opens the way to fraud and pressure on voters.

The majority of southerners are still expected to vote for independence, but in Khartoum they view the referendum with a mixture of optimism and apprehension.

Saber Azaria, 21, a student in Khartoum and the son of a northern father and southern mother, said he would be torn by the partition of the country.

"It will be like having one leg here and the other leg there," he said.

Others, conscious of religious and cultural differences with the north, where Islamic sharia law applies, say they belong to the south.

"In Juba (the southern capital) I feel at home. Here I feel as if I'm in a foreign country," said Kwashi James Amum, a young woman preparing to attend mass at a cathedral in Khartoum.

"We have a different culture, language and religion," she said.

Southerners in Khartoum complain of being treated like second-class citizens. "When I look for work, the first question I am asked is: are you Muslim or Christian?" said Gatwech Mueth Bol, a 27-year old university graduate.

"I spent more than 20 years here in Khartoum but we south Sudanese are not considered true Sudanese," said Anthony Gony, 45, a technician.

Southern politicians also claim that Khartoum has failed their region, which sits on lucrative oil reserves.

SPLM leader Salva Kiir said in November that the south receives less than 25 percent of revenues generated by oil produced from its territory, although the 2005 agreement apportioned 50 percent to the southern government.

Others blame Khartoum for a spate of ethnic killings this year mainly in Jonglei state, where they accuse the NCP of arming and backing local tribes, an allegation Khartoum denies.

The violence has led to concern ahead of general elections next year.

Under the referendum bill passed this week, a simple majority of votes in support of independence would suffice.

But some fear a lurch into an uncertain future. Lisa Peter, 21, says she is drawn to an independent south, yet still finds the prospect "terrifying."

Source:AFP

Algerian artists for the 54th celebrations of Sudan's independence

Algiers- On Algeria's initiative and under the high patronage of Presidents Abdelaziz Bouteflika and Omar Hassan El Bashir, a host of Algerian artists will take part in the festivities celebrating the 54th anniversary of the independence of Sudan on 1st January 2010, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Sunday.

"This gesture, expression of the traditions of friendship and brotherhood binding the two peoples," the same source underscored, will be conveyed through two major artistic evening performances in Khartoum and Umm Durman on 31st December 2009 and 1st January 2010. Both shows, scheduled to feature famous Algerian artists and the Algerian National Ballet, will take place at Khartoum’s Friendship Hall and Umm Durman’s National Theatre.

Source: