Khartoum

Sudan on Tuesday rejected the legitimacy of the International Criminal Court (ICC), insisting it would try Darfur war criminals after the court named a minister and a militia leader as suspects. ”The Sudanese judiciary has the capacity and the will to prosecute those who have committed crimes in Darfur,” Justice Minister Mohammed Ali al-Mardi said.

The United Nations has warned that a significant number of Arab militia, suspected to be the pro-government Janjaweed, is assembling in Sudan’s Darfur and that its purposes are not known. The Janjaweed is a militia that has been blamed by UN and African Union officials for numerous cases of rape, arson, looting and killing during the four-year conflict in Darfur.

Darfur rebels said on Thursday they will respect a ceasefire and are willing to go back to the negotiating table after a meeting with United Nations and African Union envoys. UN envoy for Darfur Jan Eliasson and AU counterpart Salim Ahmed Salim on Wednesday met rebel commanders.

Sudan will not allow a United Nations human rights team to visit unless they replace a member of the delegation who Khartoum says is biased, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Monday. A six-member UN rights team was due to arrive this week in Sudan to investigate alleged abuses in Darfur. But the government has said they will not get visas.

A meningitis epidemic has killed 76 people in eight Sudanese states since the end of 2006, the United Nations said on Wednesday. Meningitis is an often fatal airborne infection transmitted through sneezing and coughing that infects the brain and spinal cord. Its symptoms include fever, rashes and vomiting.

Hundreds of people waving banners welcomed Chinese President Hu Jintao on his first visit to Sudan on Friday when he arrived in the capital with a large delegation amid heavy security. Thousands of Chinese expatriates live in Sudan, working on construction projects and in Sudan’s budding oil industry, and Khartoum’s main streets were lined with Sudanese and Chinese flags.

A domestic Sudanese passenger plane has been hijacked after leaving Khartoum by an unknown gunman who diverted the plane to Chad’s capital, Ndjamena, an airline official said on Wednesday. ”There are 103 people on board,” said Ahmed Salih, commercial manager of the Air West airline that operates the Boeing 737 plane.

Sudan’s air force bombed Darfur villages in violation of a recent ceasefire, hindering African and American attempts to unite rebel groups under a common leadership that can commit to peace, the African Union (AU) said on Monday. The AU comments were the first independent confirmation of reports from rebel leaders about the air raids in northern Darfur last week.

Clashes between tribes of Arab nomads and ethnic African farmers competing for Darfur’s resources have killed 150 people in the last two weeks, according to the United Nations mission to Sudan. The UN mission also said that 64 people among the latest wave of refugees chased by separate pro-government Janjaweed militia raids have been diagnosed with leprosy.

Sudanese government planes bombed Darfur rebel areas on Tuesday despite a declared truce, rebels said. ”The Antonovs bombed our areas of Amrai and Anka,” Darfur rebel commander Jar el-Neby told the media from North Darfur, near the affected areas. He said it was not immediately clear whether any civilians were killed.

Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir and his southern deputy Salva Kiir hurled blame at each other on Tuesday over failures to implement a north-south peace deal on the second anniversary of its signing. Kiir objected to delays in the implementation of the accord signed on January 9 2005 to end a brutal civil war, blaming the ruling National Congress party.

Sudanese aircraft carried out strikes on two locations in the Darfur region near the border with Chad, endangering a fragile ceasefire, an African Union peacekeeping mission said on Tuesday. It said the raids were carried out last Friday on Bamina and Gadir in North Darfur state, without specifying if they caused any casualties or damage.

Sudan said on Monday it will introduce a new currency this week, replacing the dinar with a new Sudanese pound as part of a peace deal signed two years ago. The change official will occur on Wednesday, but Sudanese will have a transitional period until July 1, when dinars will no longer be accepted.

Sudan on Thursday described the alleged sexual abuse of children by United Nations peacekeepers in south Sudan as ”outrageous” and said it would launch its own investigation into the affair. The UN said on Wednesday it was investigating 13 cases of serious misconduct, including sexual abuse and exploitation in south Sudan. Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper said on Wednesday that UN peacekeepers and civilian staff were raping and abusing children as young as 12.

Sudan on Saturday reiterated its commitment to a ceasefire agreement in the troubled western region of Darfur and blamed violence there on rebels who did not sign the 2004 truce in N’Djamena. ”The signatories of the N’Djamena ceasefire … continue to respect it fully,” said the head of the peace department at the ministry of foreign affairs, Sadek al-Mukli.

Attacks on Darfur aid workers’ compounds in the town of Gereida have forced the evacuation of 71 staff and severely restricted humanitarian aid reaching the region’s largest population of war victims, officials said on Wednesday. About 20 armed men launched a coordinated attack in the south Darfur town on Monday night.

The presence of African Union troops in Sudan’s troubled Darfur region is needed more than ever despite a ”black week” for the embattled force, the AU mission’s spokesperson said on Thursday. ”Imagine for one moment the vacuum that would be created if the troops left Darfur,” Nureddin Mezni said.

More people have fled their homes in Sudan’s Darfur region than at any time since the conflict started there nearly four years ago, said the United Nations on Monday in a report on the crisis.”The number of IDPs has reached nearly two million, the highest level since the conflict started in 2003 and an increase of some 125 000 since the July 1 report,” said the report.

More people have fled their homes in Sudan’s Darfur region than at any time since the conflict started nearly four years ago, said the United Nations on Monday in a report on the worsening crisis. ”The number of IDPs [internally displaced people] has reached nearly two million, the highest level since the conflict started in 2003,” said a summary of the report.

A top Sudanese official signalled that Khartoum would accept United Nations troops as part of an African-led peacekeeping mission in Darfur, but perhaps not as many as the West has asked for under an agreement aimed at ending the continuing violence.