Islamic countries urged the UN Security Council on Monday to stall moves by the International Criminal Court to arrest Omar al-Bashir.
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has sought Mozambican support in his fight against indictment for genocide and crimes against humanity.
The UN Security Council is set to renew a mandate for peacekeepers in Sudan’s war-ravaged Darfur region on Thursday.
Egypt and South Africa would continue to work together to build the framework for economic and political cooperation.
The UN was split on Monday over an effort by Libya and SA to have the council prevent the ICC from indicting Sudan’s president for genocide.
A Darfur rebel faction that has a pact with Sudan’s government accused the army on Friday of bombing a village this week.
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir pressed ahead with a tour of Darfur on Thursday, with a rally called to defy genocide accusations.
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has dismissed as lies accusations that he masterminded genocide in Darfur.
The AU on Monday asked the UN Security Council to delay a decision by the ICC on whether to indict Sudan President Omar al-Bashir on war crimes.
Sudan said on Monday it expected African ministers to condemn a move to indict President Omar Hassan al-Bashir over war crimes in Darfur.
World powers should heed the worries of African and Arab states in responding to genocide charges against Sudan’s president, China’s says.
Sudan President Omar al-Bashir has agreed to restore relations with Chad, Senegal said on Friday, more than two months after Khartoum severed ties.
Sudan president Omar Hassan al-Bashir might escape war-crimes charges if he brings to justice two men suspected of mass killings, Western envoys say.
An indictment of Sudan’s president for war crimes in Darfur would be ”disastrous” for the region and could affect humanitarian organisations there.
The prosecutor at the International Criminal Court is widely expected to seek the arrest on Monday of the Sudanese president, Omar al-Bashir.
Thousands of people on Wednesday demonstrated in Khartoum at a government-organised ”victory” rally to denounce Darfur rebels who staged a daring attack on the capital as agents of Israel. Waving flags and banners, crowds of men, women and schoolchildren converged outside army headquarters to hear a speech from President Omar al-Bashir.
Chad said on Monday it was closing its border with Sudan after Khartoum broke off diplomatic ties on Sunday following a rebel attack on its capital, which it said was supported by Ndjamena. Chadian President Idriss Déby Itno’s government denies involvement in Saturday’s attack by Darfur rebels.
”Well, what would you do in your country?” That was the question a group of Darfuri refugees put to an aid worker in their camp near the Sudanese border 18 months ago. Anna Schmitt was trying to collect documentary evidence of the atrocities, but the camp elders were growing increasingly frustrated that their voice was not being heard in the West.
Formerly warring north and south Sudan were at loggerheads on Sunday as the south pulled out of a national census, a cornerstone of their fragile peace agreement, citing a barrage of grievances. ”We have deferred the census until sometime this year,” the information minister in the southern government confirmed.
Thousands of rebels massed in Sudan are about to attack neighbouring Chad in an attempt to destabilise it, Chad’s defence minister said on Wednesday. ”Once again the regime of [Sudanese President] Omar al-Bashir … is massing, training and heavily arming thousands of its mercenaries,” said Defence Minister Mahamat Ali Abdallah.
Fighting broke out between rebel and government forces in eastern Chad on Tuesday, nearly two months after a failed insurgent bid to oust President Idriss Déby Itno, rebel officials said. The clashes occurred in the eastern Ade region bordering Sudan, said Ali Gadaye, spokesperson for the main rebel group, the National Alliance.
Sudan President Omar al-Bashir on Tuesday raised doubts over a peace deal that Senegal said the leaders of Sudan and Chad are to initial in Dakar on the eve of an Islamic summit. Bashir referred to a Saudi-brokered deal signed in Riyadh in May 2007, when the two leaders made a pilgrimage to Mecca and prayed together inside the Kaaba, the holiest Muslim shrine.
No image available
/ 29 February 2008
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband called Friday for Sudan to speed up the deployment of peacekeepers to Darfur and to end aerial bombing in the troubled region’s western districts. Miliband said the international community is united in the need for a hybrid United Nations-African Union force, but the effort is stalled by a lack of necessary support from Khartoum.
No image available
/ 28 February 2008
France is giving a R15,5-billion (â,¬1,4-billion) coal-fired power station to South Africa as a gesture of friendship. The agreement was signed on Thursday between Buyelwa Sonjica, the Minister of Minerals and Energy Affairs, and Jean-Marie Bockel, the French Deputy Minister for North-South cooperation.
No image available
/ 27 February 2008
Chad’s foreign minister said the government is holding secret discussions with rebel groups who support peace and national reconciliation following a coup attempt earlier this month. But Foreign Minister Ahmad Allam-Mi said on Tuesday that the government is not negotiating with any of the rebel leaders who attacked and destroyed much of the capital Ndjamena.
No image available
/ 21 February 2008
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has urged the Sudanese government and all rebel groups to agree to a ceasefire in Darfur, saying deteriorating security is undermining efforts to help thousands of civilians caught in an upsurge in fighting.
No image available
/ 31 December 2007
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on Monday pardoned 30 opposition members accused of plotting against the state and ordered their immediate release. ”I have decided to pardon the accused of their attempt at sabotage and I have ordered their immediate release,” Bashir told a large crowd gathered in Khartoum to mark the country’s 52nd anniversary of independence.
No image available
/ 7 December 2007
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned that the new 26 000-strong peacekeeping force for Darfur ”is at risk” unless it gets 24 critically needed helicopters and he appealed again to all countries for help. ”While helicopters alone cannot ensure the success of the mission, their absence may well doom it to failure,” Ban said in a letter.
No image available
/ 5 December 2007
The United States and Africa’s Great Lakes states agreed on Wednesday to rapidly strengthen Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) security forces in their drive against rebel and foreign forces. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave no details when she announced the agreement in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
No image available
/ 4 December 2007
A delegation of the world’s elder statesmen on Tuesday called for an immediate ceasefire in Sudan’s Darfur and for the international community to urgently honour its pledge to send in a peacekeeping force. ”The future of Darfur, and indeed the whole of Sudan, sits on a knife-edge,” said a report following a fact-finding mission.
No image available
/ 4 December 2007
A British teacher jailed in Sudan for insulting Islam by naming a teddy bear Muhammad voiced relief at her release on Tuesday, as she arrived back home after a presidential pardon. ”I’m just an ordinary middle-aged primary school teacher. I went out there to have an adventure and got a lot more adventure than what I was looking for,” said Gillian Gibbons.
No image available
/ 28 November 2007
The Sudanese government is putting up obstacles to the deployment of a 26 000-strong peacekeeping force for Darfur that could destroy the effectiveness of the joint United Nations-African Union mission, the United Nations peacekeeping chief warned on Tuesday.