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/ 20 February 2008
Egyptian police detained dozens of members of the Muslim Brotherhood on Wednesday, expanding a crackdown on the country’s strongest opposition group ahead of local elections in April. The Islamist group poses the most serious challenge to the ruling National Democratic Party in the April 8 elections for local councils.
Several Darfur rebel commanders have agreed in principle to hold talks in southern Sudan to unify their positions ahead of possible peace talks with the government, a group of mediators said. Efforts to unify the positions of the many Darfur rebel groups have gathered pace but the fragmentations have derailed the prospects of unity talks.
Sudan said on Thursday it has found no evidence to support the charges of the International Criminal Court (ICC) against a government minister suspected of committing war crimes in Darfur. Justice Minister Mohamed Ali Al-Mardi said a probe into the activities of Ahmed Haroun found he had no direct link to any military operations.
Sudanese government aircraft on Sunday attacked the site where rebel leaders in the Darfur region were planning to hold unity talks, wounding several people, one of the faction leaders said. Ahmed Abdel Shafi, head of one of the Sudan Liberation Movement factions, told the media that rebels had brought down one of two helicopter gunships that took part in the attack.
Hassan Abdallah stood in front of a group of young girls wearing bright dresses to greet the head of the United Nations refugee agency at Um Shalaya, a camp for Chadian refugees in Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region. Raising his arms high and urging the girls to repeat after him, he chanted: ”This is our land. Long live Chad.”
The African Union peacekeeping force in West Darfur told the United Nations on Wednesday that Arab militias were killing and pillaging in the region without arrests by the Sudanese authorities. Major Harry Soko, a Rwandan officer who briefed the head of the UN refugee agency, said that the presence of Sudanese rebel groups in his area had also led to conflict.
Egyptian bloggers have come into the spotlight, on the one hand as a forum for political debate, on the other as the target of government attempts to limit their freedom of expression. Earlier this month, Abdel-Karim Suleiman (22), became the first Egyptian jailed for his blogging when he was handed a four-year prison sentence.
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/ 4 December 2006
Mohamed Gad walks barefoot through the muddy tannery, seemingly not bothered by the acrid odours of chemicals and the stink of unprocessed skins. He places piles of shaved leather on a cart, pulls it across the workshop and unloads the lot next to the colouring drums where the leather is cleaned and tanned using chrome.
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/ 3 December 2006
Corpses of people killed during heavy clashes between the Sudanese army and former southern rebels have contaminated part of the Nile river, which civilians were depending on for drinking water. The fighting in the southern town of Malakal this week was the heaviest between government forces and their former southern rebel foes since they signed a peace deal last year.
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/ 7 September 2006
Israel began on Thursday to lift a blockade of Lebanon imposed when it went to war with Hezbollah guerrillas eight weeks ago, and a Lebanese airliner landed at Beirut’s patched-up airport to mark the moment. The Middle East Airlines flight from Paris circled over Beirut to celebrate the demise of the air embargo after intense diplomacy led by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan.