Nigerian peacekeeper killed following ambush by 40 to 60 unknown attackers wearing civilian clothes nr Menawashei, S. Darfur, UN says

+ + + So sad another peacekeeper was murdered yesterday in Darfur + + + One of the 60 attackers was captured and turned over to Sudanese forces which means his identity will be made public. Let's hope that any attack on a peacekeeper is treated as a war crime and a crime against humanity with a punishment of life in prison.

Tuesday October 7, 2008 report for Bloomberg by Karl Maier in Rome - Nigerian Peacekeeper Killed in Sudan's Darfur Region, UN Says:

A Nigerian soldier serving with the United Nations-backed peacekeeping contingent in Sudan's western region of Darfur was killed when his patrol was ambushed by as many as 60 gunmen, a spokesman for the force said.

The gunmen opened fire yesterday on a convoy of UN-African Union peacekeepers, known as Unamid, spokesman Kemal Saiki said today in a telephone interview from El Fasher in northern Darfur. The identity of the attackers is unknown, he said.

"By the time the medivac helicopter arrived, the sergeant died of his wounds,'' Saiki said. "One of the attackers was wounded and captured, and has been handed over to the Sudanese authorities.''

At least nine Unamid soldiers have been killed in Darfur since July. Unamid has deployed about a third of the 26,000 soldiers and police officers planned for the operation to help halt a five-year conflict that has killed as many as 300,000 people and forced 2.5 million more to flee their homes.

The Darfur conflict started in February 2003 when insurgents demanding a greater share of Sudan's political power and wealth attacked forces loyal to the government of President Umar al- Bashir.

To contact the reporter on this story: Karl Maier in Rome at kmaier2@bloomberg.net.

- - -

There has been a rise in attacks on peacekeepers in Darfur

Tuesday 7 October 2008 report for BBC by Amber Henshaw in Khartoum, Sudan - Darfur ambush kills peacekeeper - excerpt:

A peacekeeper has been killed in an ambush by dozens of armed bandits in the Sudanese region of Darfur, a UN official has said.

The Nigerian peacekeeper died on Monday during an exchange of fire between a Unamid patrol and 40-60 bandits north of Nyala, the official said.

The BBC's Amber Henshaw in the capital, Khartoum, said it was not immediately clear who had launched the attack.

An estimated 300,000 people have died in five years of conflict in Darfur.

Some 2.7 million people have been displaced, according to the UN.

The killing of the peacekeeper comes amid a recent rise in the number of attacks against the joint UN-African Union (Unamid) peacekeeping force in Darfur, our correspondent says.

The situation on the ground in Darfur has become increasingly complicated and anarchic as more and more groups take advantage of the lawless situation there, she reports.

- - -

UN Peacekeeper killed in Darfur as the new head of the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, Alain Le Roy, is visiting the country
.
Tuesday 7 October 2008 report by Derek Kilner from VOA's East Africa bureau in Nairobi - UN Peacekeeper Killed in Darfur - excerpt:

A Nigerian soldier serving with the U.N. peacekeeping mission in the Darfur region of western Sudan has died after gunmen ambushed the convoy he was traveling in.

As many as 60 gunmen ambushed U.N. peacekeeping vehicles late Monday north of Nyala, the capital of South Darfur.

A spokesman for the mission, Daniel Adekera, spoke to VOA from Darfur. He said, "One of our convoys in South Darfur was ambushed. One of the soldiers was critically wounded and it resulted in his death. From preliminary reports it appears to be a banditry attack."

Another U.N. spokesman said one of the attackers was wounded in the gunfight and was captured and handed over to Sudanese authorities, but the attackers have not been identified.

Nine peacekeepers from the U.N.-African Union mission, known as UNAMID, have been killed since July.

Meanwhile, the new head of the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations, Alain Le Roy, is visiting Sudan. After arriving Monday in Khartoum, he is scheduled to visit the capitals of Darfur's three states, beginning with El Fasher, on Wednesday.

The United Nations also deployed a 10,000 member peacekeeping mission following a peace agreement that ended a north-south civil war in 2005, and Le Roy will also visit a number of sites in southern Sudan.

Le Roy took over his position in June this year, succeeding Jean-Marie Guehenno, who had cautioned against deploying a mission to Darfur without a viable peace agreement and commitments for troops and equipment.

- - -

Ninth UN officer to die in action in three months

Tuesday, 7 October 2008 report for Reuters by Andrew Heavens in Khartoum, Sudan - Nigerian peacekeeper killed in Darfur ambush - excerpt:

A Nigerian peacekeeper was killed after up to 60 armed bandits ambushed his convoy in Sudan's Darfur region, the ninth officer to die in action in three months, his force said on Tuesday.

The sergeant was shot when the attackers opened fire on the UN/African Union UNAMID patrol around 5 p.m. (1400 GMT) on Monday and died of his wounds before he could be evacuated to hospital, said force spokesman Kemal Saiki.

Saiki said the convoy was attacked on patrol about 75km (50 miles) north of Nyala, the capital of South Darfur.

He said it was not immediately clear who the attackers were.

Seven members of the under-manned UNAMID force were shot and killed, and another 22 injured, in an ambush by militia fighters in North Darfur in early July.

Just a week later, another Nigerian officer was killed in a car-jacking in west Darfur.

UNAMID is responsible for keeping the peace in a war-torn region about the size of Spain.

+ + + Rest In Peace Nigerian soldier + + +
- - -

Another Ugandan police officer dies in Darfur

Sunday 5 October 2008 New Vision report by Herbert Ssempogo in Kampala - Sudan: Another Ugandan Police Officer Dies in Darfur - excerpt:

ANOTHER Ugandan Police officer has died in Sudan. Assistant Inspector John Okwir was on a UN peacekeeping mission in the troubled region of Darfur.

His death brings the toll among the Ugandan peace keepers to three since the year began.

Okwir, who left for Darfur early this year, died last Thursday, according to Police commissioner Benson Nyeko.

Nyeko said Okwir developed "stomach complications", which resulted into diarrhoea to which he succumbed in a Darfur clinic.

Attached to the Menawashi community policing centre, an ailing Okwir had been evacuated from Khor-Abeche.

"He died of natural causes. Death can occur regardless of where a person is," Nyeko said, adding that a postmortem check would be done. Arrangements to fly in the body are underway,

Inspector John Kennedy Oketcha was the first to die in May when he was ambushed and shot on the way back to his base at the airport in El Fasher.

A month later, Julius Osega, a lawyer by profession, suffered the same fate when his convoy was ambushed and sprayed with bullets by a militia.

He died alongside six other peacekeepers.

Last week, a South Africa soldier died after being stung by a scorpion.

In May, a Rwandan peace-keeper died of diabetes. There are about 70 Ugandan policemen in Sudan.

+ + + Rest In Peace + + + John Okwir + + + John Kennedy Oketcha + + + Julius Osega + + +
God bless all the peace workers and their families.
- - -

UPDATE WEDNESDAY 08 OCTOBER 2008:

Excerpt from UN News Centre report dated Tuesday 07 October 2008 - Darfur: Ban outlines timetable towards full deployment of peacekeeping force:

Yesterday a Nigerian soldier serving with UNAMID was killed following an ambush of a routine mission patrol in South Darfur state by 40 to 60 unknown attackers wearing civilian clothes. He was the ninth UN soldier to die in Darfur in the past three months.

The blue helmet, who was taking part in a nine-vehicle, 50-strong patrol between Nyala and Khor Abeche when the ambush occurred near Menawashei, died during his medical evacuation to Nyala.

The mission reported that UNAMID forces later captured one of the attackers and handed him to Sudanese Government police in Nyala, which is the South Darfur state capital.

UNAMID said it would investigate the cause and circumstances of the attack, adding it was stepping up its patrols in the area near Menawashei.

The financial contagion that has swept Europe has now infected every stock market in the world. Is this catastrophe heading 1929-wards?

This is the day when the credit crunch hit Europe with a vengeance. Excerpt from Jon Snow's Snowmail dated Monday, 06 October 2008 18:09:31 BST

At the beginning of the beginning

Confused, baffled, worried, staggered as we have all been by the tumult, I do feel that we are still at the beginning of the beginning of this finance and banking crisis.

How do I know? Well, no-one KNOWS anything at all about the financial contagion that has swept Europe and now infected every stock market in the world. 7 per cent the average fall today or thereabouts, as I write.

Confidence has collapsed, shares in banks and other financial institutions appear to be in free fall

Iceland has suspended trading in financial stocks, the Russians have shut their market twice after it fell a staggering 15 per cent - poor oligarchs (not yet, I suspect)!

You saw it on Channel 4 News first: http://tinyurl.com/4n2v5o

The cause? There is no natural, organic method by which banks can re-capitalise. Worse, no-one trusts any of them. Further, the reason they don’t trust them is because they don’t KNOW how bad their situation is. And if they do know, they may take fright about being open about it.

Take the German Hypo real estate bank. In deep trouble, the Germans managed to come up with a rescue plan last week –only to then have the bank ringing up over the weekend to say they had found another black hole of 25 billion euros. This prompted German Chancellor Merkel last night to follow Ireland in declaring all savings guaranteed.

Only, it wasn’t really clear if she had indeed followed the Irish route, or done something similar but different. Now she has had to clarify the position – or row back, perhaps – saying they will do everything they can to ensure no-one loses their savings. Which sounds more of a political guarantee than a formal specific mechanism.

The fear is that this catastrophe is heading 1929-wards. If it runs out of control, at risk would be the high street, pensions, savings - the lot. Politicians appear powerless to do enough to contain it – what are their options? We are riding the rollercoaster, at seven.

Watch today’s Commons statement by Alistair Darling: http://tinyurl.com/3ox35m

- - -

MARKET DATA
Monday, 6 October 2008 19:08 UK (BBC):

FTSE 100 4589.19 down -391.06 -7.85%
Dow Jones 9743.24 down -582.14 -5.64%
Nasdaq 1809.40 down -137.99 -7.09%

Right now here in England it is 19:17 and I am watching Jon Snow on ITV's 7pm Channel 4 News. Sounds like world stock markets in freefall. Germany has created a shambles. Iceland's economy is at risk. Oil has dropped below $90 per barrel. eBay is cutting 10% of its workforce. Everything is moving so fast, the news is changing by the minute.

See BBC News report: Financial crisis at-a-glance: 6 Oct 2008.
- - -

UPDATE - POSTED TUESDAY 07 OCTOBER 2008:
Excerpt from Snowmail by Jon Snow

From: snowmail daily at channel4.com
Subject: Bank crisis talks
Date: 7 October 2008 18:53:18 BST

Well, another absolutely diabolical day for UK and international financial institutions.

Shares in British banks have plummeted. Royal Bank of Scotland shares crashed in value today by a staggering 39 per cent. And shares in Halifax Bank of Scotland dropped 42 per cent.

Right now, as I write, there’s a meeting in Downing Street between the prime minister, the chancellor, the Bank of England and the banking regulator for talks about how to stabilise the banking system.

Speculation and rumours abound about possible government action to bolster the banks by taking some sort of stake in them. There are now grounds for believing that some or all the major banks could be partially owned by the tax payer by the end of all this.

Crumbs where does this cascade stop? Beijing?

See our latest report: http://tinyurl.com/3efg9w

ICESAVE SAVERS WARNED
And an estimated 300,000 British savers are casualties of the collapse of the internet bank Icesave, a victim of the meltdown engulfing Iceland’s financial system.

This morning Icesave stopped handling transactions after its Icelandic parent bank was taken over by the government - and subsequently went into receivership.

There’s anger and confusion about how and when British savers will get their money back.

See our latest report on Iceland's banking crisis: http://tinyurl.com/3gpd9n
- - -

MARKET DATA (BBC) Tuesday 07 October 2008 22:01 UK

FTSE 100 4605.22 up 16.03 0.35%
Dow Jones 9447.11 down -508.39 -5.11%
Nasdaq 1754.88 down -108.08 -5.80%
- - -

UPDATE - POSTED WEDNESDAY 08 OCTOBER 2008:
Excerpt from Snowmail by Jon Snow

From: snowmail daily channel4.com
Subject: It doesn't get much bigger
Date: 8 October 2008 17:39:54 BST

I’m going to stick my neck out – I THINK it doesn’t get much bigger than this. But then, I could have said that yesterday.

This is massive, almost beyond financial description.

The taxpayer is investing up to £50bn some in our high street banks, but we will have nobody on the board and nobody inside the bank who represents us - the ultimate sleeping partner.

Instead, it seems the regulator, the FSA, will play a chivvying role to try to get the banks to do what we want them to do. But in the words of one treasury minister, “there is no conditionality”. In other words, our money is not conditional upon the banks doing what we want them to do, which is to lend to each other and lend to us.

So tonight we’re going to try to explore this with the chancellor, whom I’m just about to go off and interview, and with Lord Adair Turner, chair of the Financial Services Authority, who will be live in the studio. We’ll also have a number of other experts to try and look at what’s going on.

Now, quite separate from this, it’s been revealed that we, the taxpayers, are also guaranteeing loans between banks up to a combined value of £250bn. That's intended to encourage them to start lending to each other without worrying about the collateral turning out to be toxic.

Once you add in the £200bn the Bank of England is providing via its Special Liquidity Scheme, it seems that potentially half a trillion pounds is in play in an effort to get the money markets going. And those money markets, expressed in that quarter of a trillion pounds, are basically our money.

Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown on the rescue plan: http://tinyurl.com/4jcotd

RATE CUTS AGOGO
At the same time there’s been a concerted effort to cut rates. The Bank of England has done an emergency cut of half a per cent; the Fed in America has cut by half a per cent; and the European Central bank has also cut by half a per cent. So, incidentally, have the Chinese, the Swedes, the Swiss and the Canadians. OK – don’t get offended if I’ve left you out.

And this is all going to free up the world’s financial system. And it’s almost as if the inflationary implications are not even worth mentioning.

Watch our today’s rate cut: http://tinyurl.com/43defk

HELP FOR ICESAVERS
Now, there’s one more thing. Any individual who saves with the Icelandic Icesave is going to have their savings guaranteed, however big they are. And now we discover that local authorities have been dumping millions of pounds of our money into these semi-unprotected funds, at some considerable risk. Clearly, they can be praised for trying to get a higher percentage for the money. But as tens of millions are at stake, and probably much more, they could have lost the lot.

Anyway, the good news is that Steven Burton, the solicitor we interviewed last night, has saved his £150,000, and many other smaller savers too.

I’ve got to fly to that interview. I’ll see you at seven and maybe together we can make sense of the whole thing. Jon.

And if you missed our interview with moneysavingexpert.com's Martin Lewis, it’s here: http://tinyurl.com/4aobnt

Watch highlights from the McCain-Obama debate: http://tinyurl.com/3rw5cm

AND ON MORE4 NEWS WITH KEME NZEREM
We are all bankers now. Congratulations, the main high street banks will now belong to you the taxpayer or at least, big chunks of them will.

It's not quite clear yet how much control the government will exercise in your name, but we want to know what the incoming owners think they should do - sack the board? Cut overdraft rates for small business? Ease credit for first-time buyers.

And we'll be discussing whether this part-nationalisation of the commanding heights of the financial sector marks the end of the post-1980s consensus that private ownership is best.

BUSINESS
At the time of sending the FTSE-100 index was 4539.48
The US Dollar to Sterling was: 1.74745
The Euro to Sterling was: 1.28070
- - -

Listen up you Sudanese and Chadian rebels: ICC renews call for Ugandan rebel leader Kony's arrest

Oyeeeeee! Copy of AFP report via MONUC Monday, 06 October 2008:

ICC renews call for Ugandan rebel leader Kony's arrest

THE HAGUE, Oct 6, 2008 (AFP) - The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court renewed calls Monday for the arrest of Lord's Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony following attacks by the Ugandan rebel group on Congolese citizens.

"In the light of serious and converging information on attacks by the LRA against civilians in the DRC, ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo calls for renewed efforts to arrest LRA leader Kony and his top commanders," said a statement issued in The Hague.

"The criminals remain at large and continue to commit crimes and they are threatening the entire region. Arrest is long overdue."

Full report at Sudan Watch's sister sites Congo Watch and Uganda Watch Monday, 06 October 2008.

Darfur no-fly zone impossible says top EU soldier - Sudan criticizes US VP contenders Palin, Biden over Darfur flight ban

In April 2006, a panel of UN experts proposed a possible no-fly zone over Darfur. As noted here at Sudan Watch on 27 April 2006, the panel's report recommended that with both the Sudanese government and rebels in Darfur violating UN resolutions, the Security Council should move swiftly to impose further sanctions, expand an arms embargo, and consider setting up a no-fly zone for government planes.

One year later, in April 2007, and noted here at Sudan Watch on 22 May 2007, US President George W Bush raised the prospect of a no-fly zone over Darfur, and Britain said it wanted the UN Security Council to impose a no-fly zone on Sudan as part of sanctions including broadening an arms ban.

Darfur no-fly zone impossible says top EU soldier

On 22 May 2007, a Reuters report by Mark John quoted a top European Union soldier as saying that to stop Sudanese military aircraft flying over Darfur is technically impossible - quote:

".... General Henri Bentegeat, the Frenchman who heads the EU's top military body, said the size of the 500,000-square-km (200,000-square-mile) territory made such a plan unfeasible.

"A no-fly zone is technically impossible. Darfur is around the same size as France," Bentegeat, who heads the EU Military Committee on which the bloc's 27 member states coordinate defence policy, told Reuters in an interview.

"You would need at least 60 combat aircraft to enforce it correctly. And there would be the question of distinguishing between helicopters," Bentegeat warned of possibly lethal confusion between Sudanese, UN and other aircraft.

He said there was no alternative to maintaining pressure on Khartoum to let international troops join a 7,000-strong African Union force that has so far failed to quell the violence.

"Darfur has descended into chaos," said Bentegeat, whose postings in the French army included Senegal and Djibouti. "The only viable solution is the deployment of a very large force that would throw a security net around the region."

Sudan criticizes US VP contenders Palin, Biden over Darfur flight ban

And so here we are today, Monday, 06 October 2008, noting the following Reuters report by British journalist Andrew Heavens based in Khartoum, Sudan (editing by Dominic Evans) dated Sunday, 05 October 2008. Excerpt:

Sudan criticizes Palin, Biden over Darfur flight ban

Sudan criticized both U.S. vice-presidential contenders on Sunday for suggesting they might support a no-fly zone over Darfur, saying the plan showed they knew little about the conflict.

United Nations officials, aid groups and rebels have repeatedly accused the Sudanese government of using Antonov aircraft and helicopters to attack rebel positions and villages in more than five years of fighting in Darfur.

Many activists have called for the U.N. to police a no-fly zone over the region to stop attacks.

Sarah Palin, the Republican governor of Alaska, said she supported a flight ban in Sudan's remote west during a televised debate with her Democratic rival Joe Biden on Thursday.

Biden, the Democratic senator from Delaware, did not explicitly call for a ban but said: "I don't have the stomach for genocide when it comes to Darfur. We can now impose a no-fly zone. It is within our capacity. We can lead NATO if we are willing to take a hard stand."

But Sudanese foreign ministry spokesman Ali al-Sadig on Sunday dismissed the statements of both candidates saying a no-fly zone would be impractical and useless.

"They know very little about what is going on here," he said. "Their statements were meant for local consumption. They had nothing to do with Darfur."

Sadig said an air ban would be ineffective because the Sudanese armed forces were not using aircraft in their ongoing struggle against rebel groups in Darfur.

He said government planes and helicopters were only being used to fight bandits and protect humanitarian convoys.

"It would be a very short-sighted move. Curbing the actions of the armed forces would impede the flow of humanitarian aid to Darfur and tie the hands of the government in its efforts to prevent attacks on aid convoys," he added.

Earlier his year, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he would like to move ahead with a no-fly zone for Darfur "if it were at all possible."

But British foreign ministry officials later said they were not pursuing a ban because it would restrict humanitarian work. Darfur's size and a shortage of planes to monitor the ban would also make it "a major logistical challenge," they added. The remote western region is roughly the same size as Spain. [Sudan Watch Ed: or the same size as Turkmenistan!]

Click here to view some reports in Sudan Watch archives re no-fly zone over Darfur.
- - -

UPDATE WEDNESDAY 8 OCTOBER 2008

Currently and over the past day or so, news content at Sudan Tribune has, for some reason, disappeared or been removed but I was able to obtain, via a Google search, Google's cache of the following report:

US-led no-fly zone would ‘impede’ aid to Darfur - Sudan
Monday 6 October 2008 04:31.

By Daniel Van Oudenaren

October 5, 2008 (WASHINGTON) – Sudanese foreign ministry spokesman Ali al-Sadig on Sunday responded to U.S. politicians who suggest enforcing a no-fly zone over Darfur, saying it would be impractical, useless, and would restrict humanitarian aid.

Both Senator Joe Biden and Governor Sarah Palin, respectively the Democratic and Republic nominee for vice president of the United States, spoke favorably Thursday of imposing a no-fly zone over Darfur.

The government of Sudan has repeatedly used Antonov aircraft and helicopters to attack rebels and villages in Darfur, according to official experts’ reports to the United Nations Security Council.

This violence has prompted activists to encourage the U.S. president to use military aircraft to enforce a no-fly zone, as the U.S. did in Iraq in the wake of the first Gulf War, where it worked with the United Kingdom and France in an effort to protect Shiite and Kurdish populations that had been targeted after they revolted against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

"They know very little about what is going on here," said Sadig, in response to Palin and Biden. "Their statements were meant for local consumption. They had nothing to do with Darfur."

The presidential candidates themselves, Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain, have endorsed a no-fly zone over Darfur, in response to identical questionnaires submitted by the Enough Action Fund, the Save Darfur Coalition and the Genocide Intervention Network – all United States activist groups.

McCain said that he would “seek a Security Council resolution endorsing such a mission and work to persuade our allies [in NATO] to join us in its implementation.”

Obama said, “I have co-sponsored resolutions calling on the President to work with international partners to enforce a no-fly zone in Darfur. While the U.S. has provided aid and military resources to the African Union mission in Darfur, I believe this is America’s moment to lead the way toward ending this crisis.”

Sadig said an air ban would be ineffective because the Sudanese armed forces were not using aircraft in their ongoing struggle against rebel groups in Darfur. McCain, however, in his response to the activist groups, referred to “recent bombing of civilian targets in Darfur—including a school, water works, and a market.”

He said government planes and helicopters were only being used to fight bandits and protect humanitarian convoys.

"It would be a very short-sighted move. Curbing the actions of the armed forces would impede the flow of humanitarian aid to Darfur and tie the hands of the government in its efforts to prevent attacks on aid convoys," he added.

Likewise, British foreign ministry officials also recently reportedly said they are not pursuing a no-fly zone because it would restrict humanitarian work. They also cited a shortage of planes and referred to the idea as "a major logistical challenge." (ST)

US on course for first black president?

Here in England, our beloved Jon Snow, the top presenter of ITV's Channel 4 News, has stuck his neck out in this Snowmail dated Friday 03 October 2008:

FROM JON SNOW IN WASHINGTON

The $700bn bill is going to go through in one form or another and the markets will jump with joy but the joy won't last long...

It's a hell-uva day news-wise what with the Mandelsonian rescue of Labour one side of the water and this side of the water Biden's performance for Obama and Palin's for McCain and then the amazing drama on Capitol Hill and yet perhaps the real story is only just emerging.

Let's take the financial collapse and the economic downturn. New figures today reveal 159,000 Americans lost their jobs last month alone, the ninth straight month in a row, bringing unemployment to about 6.1 per cent. Around 9.5 million Americans are now out of work and what's hurting the working American is destroying the McCain campaign.

Watch a brief history of the credit crunch here.

US ON COURSE FOR FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT?

This country looks increasingly like it is on course for its first black president and it is hard to see how, in the remaining 32 days that can change.

McCain has just abandoned his campaign in Michigan. Obama now has a seven-point lead there, with 17 electoral votes written off for the Republicans.

In Ohio and Nevada, both critical swing states, Obama is now sporting significant leads. In Ohio it's 2 per cent; in Colorado it's 4.4 per cent; he even has a 3 per cent lead in once un-winnable Florida.

These are the daily tracking polls, add significant leads in states like New Mexico, and a surging 5 per cent in Minnesota and this is Barack Obama's "change you can believe in".

OK so I have stuck my neck out...but the way it looks at the end of this devastating two-week period (and that's not the end of the matter) is that the crisis may have tipped it the Democracts way.

BIDEN AND PALIN SPAR IN DEBATE

Tonight we'll be reflecting that and reflecting on the vote in the house on the great bailout bill. It's almost certainly going to pass as I said and in our time, so quite a programme in prospect, not to mention the amazing Biden-Palin debate.

I witnessed the first man/woman debate between Bush senior and Geraldine Ferraro in 1984. She won that then.

Last night Palin won too, so did Biden. She did what she had to do to stay alive and not drown the McCain ticket. If he sinks now he'll take himself down. She remains an icon for the right after last night. It was almost like something out of Come Dancing....

Yet despite being asked to do the foxtrot she persuaded with her samba instead, a dozen times simply avoiding the question and retreating to her strengths. Biden took the fight to McCain as Obama never has, Bushed him endlessly, for Biden a brilliant and ticket enhancing performance.

Watch Sarah Palin and Joe Biden's TV clash: here.

This is a week in which American and world history is being made, not to mention British political history too, a week when for a journalist it's a joy to be alive. Watch tonight, you won't regret it, at seven on four, Jon.

- - -

We Brits LOVE Jon Snow!

P.S. Afterthought, an hour later: If I had to vote, I would base my decision on what the Democrats have done and said over Iraq, Darfur and Israel - ever since the time that Senator John Kerry started his race for the White House. I admire Hilary Clinton but her husband bombed Sudan and recently she said something really shocking about her intentions to wipe Iran off the map if it attacked Israel. It seems to me that the Democrats go with the tide and are easily swayed by minority groups who shout the loudest. They appear willing to do or say anything to get into the White House but one can never be sure of how well they would handle foreign affairs after they got in. I believe that George W Bush and his family are warm, kind, decent, honest, hardworking people who want the best for America, and that history will judge them (and Tony Blair) kindly. For all of those reasons, even though I am a Blairite and would not vote for the Liberals or Conservatives here in Britain, I would vote for the American Republicans.

Listen up you noisy, under-informed, rebel supporting, Darfuri activist groups

Take note of the following copy of indepth commentary by Dr Hassan Haj-Ali (lecturer at the University of Khartoum, Department of Political Science) and Ibrahim Adam (independent country risk consultant from and based in El Fasher, North Darfur, Sudan) posted to Alex de Waals's blog Making Sense of Darfur, Sunday, October 05, 2008.

Illiquid, Toxic and Not an Asset:
End the ICC’s involvement in Sudan

It has been unfazed by the turmoil in US financial markets; but Sudan faces a bigger exogenous toxic threat to its stability if the demand by the International Criminal Court prosecutor to arrest Omar al-Bashir, Sudan’s president, succeeds. Supporters of the move, like Save Darfur Coalition, Amnesty International and other activist groups, argue charging President al-Bashir will not scuttle much in Darfur since, they say, there is no peace to keep there anyhow. Tossing oil on a fire is always feeble logic, and it will push even further away an end to the suffering in Darfur; the region’s fractious, estimated twenty-five, warlords will have no incentive whatsoever to commit to peace talks unreservedly.

Emboldened by an arrest warrant for Sudan’s president, more assaults on the capital, Khartoum, and spreading the war to Kordofan and other regions close to Darfur will be the predictable response by the militarily strongest rebel group, Khalil Ibrahim’s Justice and Equality Movement (which forcibly recruited, and pumped with amphetamines, 92 child soldiers, during its coup attempt in Khartoum four months ago).

It is equally wrong for activists and some Western diplomats and politicians to claim President al-Bashir will simply do nothing to settle the Darfur conflict peacefully, should the UN Security Council invoke “Article 16” to freeze the court’s involvement in Darfur for a year - or permanently, as demanded by the feverish lobbying by the Sudanese authorities at the UN (and backed by the African Union, the Arab League amongst others). Surely, the Sudanese government has the most to gain from not sitting on its hands and settling Darfur, not least acceptance into the international mainstream and, in turn, relief on its crushing $30 billion foreign debt? That’s the real breathing space President al-Bashir and his National Congress party crave.

In fact, one of the most damaging distortions of the narrative about Darfur - and there are many - by the court’s prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, and activist groups has been casting doubt on the earnestness of the Sudanese president to bring a fair and lasting peace to Darfur, rather than on the 3000 or so remaining rebels who have done everything so far to avoid sorting out their differences - let alone sit at the negotiating table with coherent and realistic Darfur-specific demands. This prism exists in spite of the Sudanese authorities signing an internationally-brokered peace agreement for Darfur in May 2006, providing armed escorts to international humanitarian aid groups in Darfur whose convoys have been repeatedly hijacked largely by rebels or their offshoots, and accelerating cooperation with the UN ‘peacekeeping’ force in Darfur, as publicly noted by its military leader, General Martin Agwai, last week.

It has also been obscured by the focus on a possible ICC arrest warrant against Sudan’s president that the reason why the pointless war continues in Darfur is that those same rebels were allowed to walk away from the May 2006 peace agreement in full view of the international community, return to the bush, and resume war.

So, if the UN Security Council votes to permanently unbolt the court from Darfur, as it should, or, more likely, invoke Article 16 for the sake of re-invigorating the moribund political process - peace talks – long overdue emphasis and demands must be placed not on Omar al-Bashir. Instead, the international community must focus on making the rebels demonstrate their sincerity to working for political accommodation with Khartoum.

A good start here would be France ordering Abdul-Wahid al-Nour, who has most support amongst Darfuris in the internally displaced camps, to end his two-year self-imposed exile in Paris and return to Sudan (if need be with bodyguards from the French and/or US intelligence services), and start talking seriously with Khartoum to end the conflict.

Mandating the ICC’s involvement in Darfur has, in any case, always been a clear breach by the Security Council of long cherished principles of national sovereignty. Sudan never ratified the Rome Statute for joining the court. The ICC’s pursuit of cases in Darfur, however, now also runs contrary to its own charter – intervene only where there is a clear unwillingness or inability for the national judiciary to perform its role.

The Sudanese state – with support from all main political parties – has recently established special courts, which will involve lawyers appointed by the African Union and the Arab League, to re-visit cases of abuses in Darfur. These courts must be given adequate time and space by the international community to prove their worth; the ICC should not be misused by activists as an instrument for forcing regime change in Sudan. Nor should the willingness of the special courts to prosecute Omar al-Bashir or Ahmed Haroun, the infamous state humanitarian affairs minister, become a litmus test for their credibility. Due process must be followed to the letter. Prosecutions against Sudan’s president or other National Congress figures cannot take place on the basis of hearsay, insinuations and politically-manipulated testimonies that insiders say forms the bedrock of ‘evidence’ assembled by Mr Ocampo. The charge sheet facing Sudan’s president already looks exceptionally flimsy.

The Security Council rejected claims of genocide back in 2003, and no mass graves have ever been found to support Mr Ocampo’s assertion of 35,000 killed in the conflict. Even the renowned Havard academic and ‘Sudan expert’ Alex de Waal, certainly no chum of the Sudanese government, has noted that the charges against Sudan’s president make Mr Ocampo “look like any other polemicist speaking about Sudan without understanding the nature of the Sudanese state and society.”

Allegations of ‘crimes against humanity’ and ‘war crimes’, levelled by the court prosecutor against Omar al-Bashir, underline the degree of polemics that the Darfur conflict has evidently descended to. These politicised slogans can be credibly applied to all conflicts; Sri Lanka, Colombia, Kashmir, Chechnya, Palestine, Iraq, and Afghanistan, to name a few.

Siren voices calling for the ICC to issue the arrest warrant because it will act as a powerful deterrent to other current and future heads of states also miss one key point. The ICC would have closed shop after its first case if that were true. Proceeding with a warrant will, moreover, be especially meaningless: there is no way for enforcement.
Omar al-Bashir will never go to The Hague, and neither of the two UN missions in Sudan (one in Darfur, the other in the south) will jeopardise their critical humanitarian and peacekeeping operations by trying to arrest Sudan’s president. Nor will his colleagues in the National Congress, as has been suggested by some external commentators, hand him over. Mr Ocampo’s adoption of a ‘joint criminal enterprise’ theory as the underlying driver of his charges levelled at the president has seen to that; the charge sheet would logically cascade downwards through the ranks of the National Congress. In other words, going ahead with an arrest warrant against Omar al-Bashir will advance neither peace nor justice for Darfur.

The stark choice facing Sudan and the international community is not, in any case, peace versus justice or vice versa, as has been framed by Mr Ocampo and activists. For one, justice for Darfur can take many forms. The lowest – and most enriching and sustainable - hanging fruit would be a comprehensive peace settlement and utilising traditional financial compensation mechanisms, allowing displaced Darfuris, whose status should take precedence over the dead, to return to their homesteads in security and steadily re-incorporate themselves back into the civic mainstream of Sudanese life. For that to happen, though, the US government (outgoing and incoming) must finally face down Save Darfur Coalition and other activist groups that it has given succour, courage, and ceded excessive policy ground on Darfur to, and create the necessary wiggle room to make the right policy choice for Darfuris and other Sudanese – and not the US electoral colleges.

Indeed, the US government (and to a similar degree the UK and France) ending its – public - support for the ICC process of issuing an arrest warrant against Omar al-Bashir is now the final missing piece of the jigsaw for the future of Darfur and Sudan as a whole. If these three permanent members of the Security Council do not wield their devastating veto against suspending the ICC’s involvement in Sudan and, concurrently, go full-throttle towards finding a comprehensive political settlement to the Darfur conflict, then an end to the misery in Darfur would surely be in sight. Focusing mainly on humanitarian and external peacekeeping interventions, while easier and more alluring to domestic audiences in the West, can only ever be a transitory response.

In contrast, wielding their vetoes in the Council against suspending the court’s work in Sudan will trap Washington, London, and Paris (and implicitly the rest of the Western world) into a cul-de-sac in dealing with the dominant party of the Sudanese state – the National Congress – from which they would not be able to emerge. Failure to halt the ICC’s likely criminalisation of Sudan’s head of state (the panel of judges have thus far never turned down warrant requests by the court’s prosecutor) would make it morally impossible or hypocritical for any Western nation to help with implementation of the anchor of Western re-engagement with Sudan – the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between north and south Sudan. The CPA ended Africa’s longest and bloodiest conflict, which marked the structural fault line running through the Sudanese state since even before independence in 1956.

As the president of the National Congress, the signatory party to the CPA and Sudan’s other peace agreements in the east and west of the country, an arrest warrant for Omar al-Bashir would make continuing ‘business as usual’ morally impossible for Western nations and their agencies. How could they even justify sitting down with a member of the National Congress if its leader has been issued with an ICC arrest warrant, not to mention the ‘Joint Criminal Enterprise’ premise? American and other Western technical assistance to the joint integrated units, the nucleus of Sudan’s post-CPA national army, already highly constrained by existing sanctions, would have to grind to halt because Omar al-Bashir is the commander-in-chief. The same goes for technical assistance to advance political and economic federal capacity building across Sudan.

The timing of forced disengagement from Sudan would also be highly unfortunate for the American and other Western governments - and not only because it would dim chances of peace for Darfur. Sudan is nearing two critical milestones, which the US and UK governments in particular have invested a lot of capital to achieve. Democratic national elections, which Omar al-Bashir has already said he will contest, are around the corner (due by July 2009), and a referendum is slated in 2011 for southern Sudanese to determine if they want to stay within a unified country.

Put simply, failure by the US, UK, and France to lend their support to freezing the ICC’s process against Omar al-Bashir will not only undermine the search for peace and justice for Darfur in practical terms. It will also qualitatively undermine delivery of a greater and far more valuable and durable justice to all Sudanese – the CPA.

Sacrificing the CPA, which Sudan still needs much time and support to help grow into (reconfiguring a state is never easy – just ask Germany), and supporting an ICC arrest warrant for Omar al-Bashir to placate noisy, yet under-informed, Darfuri activist groups, would be like investing in US mortgage-backed securities; good on paper and giving a feeling of worth, but with an underlying asset of zero value. Unlike the current mess in the US financial system, however, cleaning up the debris in Sudan created by the ICC if it proceeds with issuing an arrest warrant against Omar al-Bashir will even be beyond America’s wisest men.

- - -

Sudan Watch Ed: Personally speaking, I do not understand why an ICC arrest warrant has not been issued for rebel leaders Abdul-Wahid al-Nour and Khalil Ibrahim. Nor do I understand why, after all these years, we still don't know much about them and their lifestyles. Who funds them and their gunmen? The way I see it, they are all criminals and opportunistic terrorists who have cost an incalculable number of lives and a fortune from the world's tax payers and charities. Why are those two men and their civilian army allowed to get away with creating anarchy, mass murder and slaying of peace workers? It's a mad, bad world. Spit. Rebel supporting Darfuri activists make me puke.

Related reports

Jul 13, 2008 - Sudan Watch: ICC should not indict Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir

Sep 24, 2008 - Sudan Watch: ICC prosecutor to investigate Sudan's Darfur rebels crimes - What happened at Haskanita? (Part 1)

Sep 24, 2008 - Sudan Watch: Re ICC indictment: UK to back immunity for Sudan's President Omar Al-Bashir in bid for peace

Sep 19, 2008 - Sudan Watch: ICC prosecutor says decision on Sudanese President Al-Bashir arrest warrant unlikely in October

Sep 19, 2008 - Sudan Watch: France says will block any UN resolution seeking to suspend ICC indictment of Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir

Sep 14, 2008 - Sudan Watch: UK works with France to block ICC's prosecution of Sudan's President Al-Bashir

Aug 21, 2008 - Sudan Watch: Sudan's leader al-Bashir says ready to go to war

Sudanese born billionaire entrepreneur Dr Mo Ibrahim is named as Britain's most powerful black man

The 100 powerful black Britons who are changing the world. They have transformed lives, governments and even continents. A new Powerlist of the most influential black people in Britain paints a portrait of a confident, dynamic group who are defying stereotypes and reshaping the society around them.

Source: David Smith's report in The Observer - The 100 powerful black Britons who are changing the world - Sunday October 05 2008. Excerpt re Dr Mo Ibrahim:

Born in Sudan into humble surroundings, he used to describe himself as a Marxist. He became a billionaire entrepreneur credited with transforming a continent. You might not have heard of Dr Mo Ibrahim, but today he is named as the most powerful black man in Britain.

Ibrahim is credited with bringing the mobile phone revolution to Africa, making it the only continent where mobiles outnumber landlines and improving millions of lives. It is this achievement which gained the recognition of a judging panel which, after six months' research, has drawn up a 'Powerlist' of Britain's 100 most influential black people.

Celebrity is a stranger to Ibrahim, who has an estimated personal fortune of £1.2bn and runs a foundation for good governance in Africa. Yet the judges decided that he wields more influence than high-profile figures including the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu; equality campaigner Trevor Phillips; government minister David Lammy; and England and Manchester United footballer Rio Ferdinand.

The top 20 achievers

Men

1 Mo Ibrahim, founder and chairman, Mo Ibrahim Foundation

2 Tidjane Thiam, group finance director, Prudential

3 Damon Buffini, chairman, Permira

4 John Sentamu, Archbishop of York

5 Trevor Phillips, chairman, Commission for Equality and Human Rights

6 David Lammy, Skills Minister

7 Rio Ferdinand, footballer, Manchester United and England

8 Kenneth Olisa, director, Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation

9 David Adjaye, architect

10 Daniel Alexander QC, barrister

Women

1 Baroness Scotland, Attorney General

2 Claire Ighodaro, independent director

3 Michelle Ogundehin, editor-in-chief, Elle Decoration magazine

4 Vivian Hunt, director, McKinsey & Co

5 Pat McGrath, global cosmetics design director, Proctor & Gamble

6 Carol Lake, managing director: head of philanthropy, JP Morgan

8 Tandy Anderson, co-founder and chief executive, Select Models

9 Sonita Alleyne, director, Somethin' Else

10 Abigail Blackburn, editor, Now magazine

Judging panel

Baroness Amos (chair); Annmarie Dixon-Barrow, headhunter; Kwame Kwei-Armah, actor and playwright; Michael Prest, physical oil trader.
- - -

UPDATE WEDNESDAY 08 OCTOBER 2008 -
Mo Ibrahim shows interest to invest in Ethiopia

See Ethiopia Watch (sister site of Sudan Watch) Wednesday, October 08, 2008: Sudanese born billionaire entrepreneur Dr Mo Ibrahim, named as Britain's most powerful black man, shows interest in investing in Ethiopia
- - -

UPDATE THURSDAY 09 OCTOBER 2008 -
Mo Ibrahim's annual $5 million African prize

Further details at Sudan Watch, October 09, 2008: Message for African leaders: Annual $5 million African prize is a 'developmental project', says Sudanese born British billionaire Dr Mo Ibrahim

YouTube videos of US Vice Presidential Debate 02 Oct 08: Biden vs Palin on Darfur, Nuclear Weapons & Bailout Bill

US Senator Joe Biden from Delaware and US Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska, the vice presidential nominees of the Democratic and Republican parties, respectively, debated each other in the Athletic Complex at Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, USA, 8pm October 02, 2008.

Biden vs Palin - Darfur



Added to YouTube by Illusive71b on 02 October 2008
Views: 1,852 as at 04 October 2008
- - -

Biden vs Palin - Nuclear Weapons



Added to YouTube 02 October 2008 by Illusive71b
Views: 1,744 as at 04 October 2008
- - -

Biden vs Palin - Bailout Bill



Added to YouTube by Illusive71b on 02 October 2008
Views: 2,453 as at 04 October 2008
- - -

Inside view from some students

Excerpt from commentary at the website of Washington University in St Louis - "The vice presidential debate as seen from inside the hall"
By Leslie Gibson McCarthy:

Moments later, Sen. Joe Biden enters from stage left; Gov. Sarah Palin from stage right. They meet in the middle, shake hands. "Nice to meet you," Palin says. "It's a pleasure," Biden replies. "Hey can I call you Joe?" she asks.

Palin is wearing a black suit; Biden a black suit with a light blue tie. Earlier in the day at his dress rehearsal, attended by the students who were stand-ins for the candidates the day before, he asked senior Julia Latash if she preferred the dark blue tie or the light blue. "The dark blue," she told him. "But what do I know. Listen to your wardrobe people."

Biden listens to the wardrobe people, the tie being among the least of his concerns at this point in the night. He has won the coin toss and has the first question from Ifill, who asks Biden if the week's events in Congress and the bailout was the "worst of Washington or the best of Washington."

Biden launches into an attack on the Bush Administration, a theme he will carry throughout the night. "(The bailout) is evidence of the fact that the economic policies of the last eight years have been the worst economic policies we've ever had."

Palin looks down at the podium, taking notes and waiting her turn. Her first response indicates the theme she will go back to throughout the night -- a message directly to the American people. "Go to a kid's soccer game on Saturday, and turn to any parent there on the sideline and ask them, "How are you feeling about the economy?"

Throughout the next 90 minutes they debated the economy, climate change, carbon emissions, same-sex marriage, an exit strategy in Iraq, diplomacy in Iran and Pakistan, and the role of the vice presidency. Both candidates listened intently and took notes on legal pads while the other was talking.

Biden played up his foreign policy experience and avoided the missteps he is known for; Palin played up the Washington outsider's role and a desire to appeal directly to the American people. Both were forceful, pointed and emotional.

In the end, the students in section B thought both candidates had done well, but many remained undecided on how they would vote. "It was a thrill just being here," Jimoh said.

- - -

Official transcript and photo slideshow of the Debate

Click here for photo slideshow and Official transcript from the Commission on Presidential Debates (PDF) courtesy of Washington University in St Louis.
- - -

Related reports

August 25, 2008 Sudan Watch: YouTube videos featuring Joe Biden and Barack Obama on Darfur - Barack Obama answers the Save Darfur Coalition's questions about his plan to end the genocide in Darfur" - Obama’s choice of Biden as VP is Sudan’s NCP worst nightmare.

Arrr! Somali pirate captain aboard hijacked Ukrainian ship says: "Whoever attacks, we will defend ourselves"

"We hijack every ship we can," Sugule Ali, a pirate captain, told TIME by satellite phone this week.

The MV Faina fitted the bill. Slow, low-sided and sailing under a Belize flag, the freighter seemed no different from any of the 60 other ships attacked by pirates this year in the same waters. And Ali and his men had no reason to believe the outcome of this hijacking would be any different.

But the Faina's cargo surprised Ali and his men and sent alarm bells ringing around the world — the unprepossessing freighter was carrying 33 Russian T-72 tanks and a host of other armaments that had originated in Ukraine. By the end of this week, U.S. frigates and a Russian warship were bearing down on the pirates, the European Union had decided to launch a multinational antipiracy patrol, and Ukraine and Kenya found themselves embroiled in an arms scandal.

On Thursday, 02 October 2008, French Defense Minister Herve Morin announced that at least eight European countries had agreed to contribute to an international naval antipiracy patrol in the Gulf of Aden, in addition to the U.S. and Russian naval presence already there.

Faced with such overwhelming force, Ali said his men would fight to the last. "If someone attacks you in your home, you need to defend yourself," he said. "Whatever weapons they have, you must fight. A person in his home cannot be afraid. Whoever attacks, we will defend ourselves."

Source: Time report by Alex Perry with reporting by Abdiaziz Hassan Ahmed Dhoore/Nairobi Friday, 03 October 2008 - Arrr! The Somali Pirates and Their Troublesome Treasure
- - -

Previous reports

Sudan Watch Thursday, October 02, 2008 - US warships surround Ukrainian ship hijacked nr Somalia: Cargo for Sudan - Moscow sends warship - Germany joins EU forces - Kenyan official arrested

Sudan Watch Friday, October 03, 2008 - Three killed in pirates' shoot-out aboard Russian arms ship - UK to attack al-Qaeda pirates
- - -

See Sudan Watch Update - Thursday, October 09, 2008 : MV Faina cargo was for Ethiopia? NATO agrees to join anti-piracy operations off coast of Somalia: seven of its frigates will arrive within two weeks

Three killed in pirates' shoot-out aboard Russian arms ship - UK to attack al-Qaeda pirates

The pirates who seized a ship carrying military hardware off Somalia turned on each other yesterday as three were shot dead in a dispute over what to do with their hijacked cargo.

For a third day yesterday the pirates on the Ukrainian vessel - anchored a few miles offshore - remained cornered by several warships from a US-led task force patrolling off Somalia.

Source: 01 October 2008 Financial Times report by Barney Jopson in Nairobi and Robert Wright in London - Pirates in shoot-out aboard arms ship. Excerpts:

"We are covering 2.5m square miles of water. Policing all of it would take more ships than we could ever get," said Commodore Keith Winstanley, deputy commander of coalition naval forces in the Middle East. "We're not going to solve the problem. No naval force is going to solve it. The root cause of this problem rests ashore in Somalia."

Piracy was stamped out in 2006 by the Islamic Courts Union, an Islamist group that restored a semblance of order. The group was ousted by Ethiopian troops, with US backing, but the Islamists were not eliminated and, in recent months, have retaken some territory.

Possible links between pirates and the Islamists drove the United Nations' naval response to the hijacking of the Ukrainian ship.

Andrew Mwangura, of the East Africa Seafarers' Assistance Programme, which monitors piracy, said: "Some of the pirates are paranoid about the presence of the US navy. Among them there are moderates and radicals: some who want to unload the cargo and some who don't; some who want to abort the mission and some who don't."

- - -

Related reports

Sudan Watch Thursday, October 02, 2008 - US warships surround Ukrainian ship hijacked nr Somalia: Cargo for Sudan - Moscow sends warship - Germany joins EU forces - Kenyan official arrested

- - -

UK to attack al-Qaeda pirates

The Royal Navy is hoping to crack down on pirate activity off the Horn of Africa. Al-Qaeda is said to dominate the lucrative trade.

Source: Daily Telegraph report by Damien McElroy 06 December 2007 - UK to attack al-Qa'eda pirates. Copy:

Britain has launched a drive for an international accord granting the Royal Navy and Western warships rights to enter Somali territorial waters in pursuit of pirate gangs linked to al-Qa’eda.

Pirate activity has soared off the Horn of Africa this year with the emergence of highly sophisticated gangs that use fast patrol boats, launched from “mother ships” to board cargo vessels in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean.

The lucrative multi-million-dollar kidnap and ransom trade, which is dominated by al-Qa’eda, according to terrorism experts, threatens to disrupt international shipping lanes used to carry cargo from the Far East to Europe.

A meeting in London of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), the United Nations’ watchdog of the seas, is to consider a resolution today instructing Somalia’s interim government to drop its legal right to block foreign navies from entering its waters.

A declaration would pave the way for Royal Navy vessels to rescue ships held for ransom in Somali coves or pursue pirates involved in attacks on ships in international waters.

A spokesman for the regional naval command in Bahrain said that passage of the IMO resolution would be an important step to “help deter piracy off the coast of Somalia”.

There have been 26 attacks or attempted boardings by pirates so far this year, up from a handful in 2006. Somalia has been plagued by civil war. It has seen a succession of weak, temporary administrations run by warlords or hard-line Islamic factions sympathetic to al-Qa’eda, unrecognised by the international community and with little remit on the coastline.

Pirates used the haven provided by Somalia’s lack of leadership to defy 46 warships from 20 countries in the international coalition centred around America’s Bahrain-based 5th fleet.

“Piracy has become a lucrative business based on ransom demands and cargo theft inside Somali territory,” said Cdre Keith Winstanley, the deputy commander of the coalition. “It has not been possible to suppress it because vessels pirated, sometimes a long way off the coast, are held somewhere in the vicinity of the Somali coast.”

It is a murky situation and even the figure of 26 reported incidents is thought to vastly underestimate the extent of the problem.

While vast sums of money are involved - ransoms can exceed £500,000 — Cdre Winstanley said that official concern had been expressed over intelligence reports that little of the money filtered down to the Somali regions.

“Piracy and terrorism is a difficult picture to build,” he said. “The extent of money diverted to terrorism is not known, but I don’t see evidence that the money is going into houses, schools and jobs onshore.”
Complicating the picture for the navies involved is a human wave of refugees on the move out of the Somali capital, Mogadishu.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that 200,000 have fled fighting in the last month, many of whom are ready to pay $150 (£75) to be smuggled across the Gulf of Aden.

“It’s very seasonal, depending on the trade winds, but right now conditions are very favourable,” said Peter Kessler, a spokesman for UNHCR.

“These vessels loaded with people cross the trade route but don’t even dock in the harbours. They unload the passengers at sea.”

The crowded waters are an ideal haven for al-Qa’eda operatives crossing between training camps on both sides of the Gulf.

“The scale of the threat has changed since the physical penetration of the region by al-Qa’eda,” said Rohan Gunaratna, a terrorism expert at Nanyang Technology University in Singapore. “With large Somali communities in Europe, it is critically important that those on the move through this area are visible to Western intelligence.”

David Nordell, the chief executive of New Global Markets, a specialist consultancy on terrorist financing, said: “Terror in piracy is ultimately aimed at building up to offences like the next USS Cole [a suicide attack off Yemen in 2000] or hitting an oil tanker.”

- - -

SNAPSHOT OF GOOGLE'S NEWSREEL
Friday 03 October 2008 13:30 GMT

Hijackers off Somalia show no sign of giving up
The Associated Press - 11 minutes ago [13.44 GMT]
The allegation is highly embarrassing to Kenya, which brokered Sudan's north-south peace deal in 2005. Southern Sudan is due to have a referendum on ...

Somali pirates report progress in talks on Ukrainian cargo
AFP - 49 minutes ago
NAIROBI (AFP) — The negotiations to secure the safe release of a Ukrainian ship loaded with military hardware and hijacked off the coast of Somalia last ...

Somalia: Report implicates Somali president in piracy
Somali Press Review, Somalia - 1 hour ago
London, October, 28 (Somali Press Review)—A new report from Chatham House on the Somali pirates has implicated Somali president in the surge in piracy off ...

Portugal: Portugal offers ‘political support’ against Somali piracy
Portugal News, Portugal - 2 hours ago
Portugal is ready to give “political support” to possible EU military intervention against maritime piracy off the coast of Somalia, but will not commit ...

Somali pirates holding arms ship 'will fight back' against ...
Daily Mail, UK - 3 hours ago
By Daily Mail Reporter Somali pirates holding a hijacked arms ship have demanded a $20 million ransom to release it and warned they will fight back against ...

Pirates warn against rescue bid
Toronto Star, Canada - 3 hours ago
AP MOGADISHU–Somali pirates on a hijacked cargo ship holding battle tanks and hostages said yesterday they were ready to battle any commando-style rescue ...

UN Draft Resolution Calls for Actions against Piracy along Somalia ...
Sofia News Agency, Bulgaria - 5 hours ago
Bulgaria UN Draft Resolution Calls for Actions against Piracy along Somalia Coast: A draft resolution of the Organization of the United Nations is calling ...

Pirates off Somali Coast Raise Global Concerns
Cornell University The Cornell Daily Sun, NY - 6 hours ago
By Therese Lahlouh Tensions are escalating in the Gulf of Aden off the Somali coast, where 20 Somali pirates have hijacked a Ukrainian vessel loaded with 33 ...

Somalia Piracy Update
YachtPals.com News, Spain - 7 hours ago
East Africa - Strange happenings in both Somalia and Kenya this past week, and while they don't all have something directly to do with yachts, ...

$20m and don't try to attack us, pirates warn
The Mercury (subscription), South Africa - 8 hours ago
MOGADISHU: Somali pirates holding a hijacked ship loaded with arms said yesterday they would not release it for less than $20 million (R165 million) and ...

Spokesman for pirates says they'll fight back
Winston-Salem Journal, NC - 8 hours ago
MOGADISHU, Somalia -- Somali pirates on a hijacked cargo ship holding battle tanks and hostages said yesterday that they were ready to fight off any ...

Egypt backs anti-piracy efforts off Somalia coast: FM
Balita.org, UK - 8 hours ago
CAIRO, Oct. 3 — Egypt fully supports the efforts of the international community exerted to fight against piracy off the Somalia coast, Foreign Minister ...

Somali pirates to resist commando raid
PRESS TV, Iran - 9 hours ago
Somali pirates holding hostages on a hijacked cargo ship have warned that they are ready to fight any form of commando-style rescue attempts. ...

Somali pirates say they will fight commando raid
The Associated Press - 12 hours ago
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Somali pirates on a hijacked cargo ship holding battle tanks and hostages said Thursday that they were ready to battle any ...

Pirates in shoot-out aboard arms ship
Financial Times, UK - 12 hours ago
By Barney Jopson in Nairobi and Robert Wright in London The pirates who seized a ship carrying military hardware off Somalia turned on each other yesterday ...

Somali pirates' message to world: Think of us as the coastguard
Scotsman, United Kingdom - 13 hours ago
By Jeffrey Gettleman in Nairobi TO THE developed world they're criminals, brigands of the high seas, seizing commercial vessels regardless of their flag and ...
- - -

See Sudan Watch Update - Thursday, October 09, 2008 : MV Faina cargo was for Ethiopia? NATO agrees to join anti-piracy operations off coast of Somalia: seven of its frigates will arrive within two weeks

US warships surround Ukrainian ship hijacked nr Somalia: Cargo for Sudan - Moscow sends warship - Germany joins EU forces - Kenyan official arrested

Military experts say the cargo of Russian tanks on the arms-laden Ukrainian freighter Faina, hijacked by Somali pirates in small boats off the Horn of Africa last Thursday, 24 September 2008, was destined for South Sudan. The cargo of 33 Soviet-made T-72 tanks, rifles and heavy weapons 'were for Sudan arms race'.

Right now, several American warships surround the freighter. Moscow is sending a warship to protect the Russian hostages and Germany is to take part in an EU anti-piracy campaign. A Kenyan has been arrested in connection with the hijack.

Today's report by the BBC, copied here below, reveals that the Southern Sudanese are said to be seeking supplies of heavy weapons -- and -- "If these reports are true, they could change the regional military balance" says Helmoed Heitman of Jane's Defence Weekly.

Full story in the following reports. [Note, the report from PressTV Iran that says their correspondent, last Friday, quoted a number of Somali politicians as charging that the ship was originally taking the weapons to the pirates]
- - -

From The Washington Post Saturday 27 September 2008 AP report by STEVE GUTTERMAN - Crew member says pirates want ransom:

MOSCOW - Pirates who seized a ship laden with tanks off the Horn of Africa were seeking ransom and keeping most of the 35 people aboard in a single stuffy room, a man identified as the captain's aide said in a report on a Russian news Web site Saturday.

In a telephone conversation posted on the site Life.ru, the purported crew member said the ship, the Faina, had anchored close to shore near the Somalian town of Hobyo and that there were two other apparently hijacked ships nearby.

An international anti-piracy watchdog group said Saturday that armed pirates on Friday seized a Greek chemical tanker with 19 crew members in the Gulf of Aden off Somalia.

The tanker, carrying a cargo of refined petroleum from Europe to the Middle East, was ambushed, chased and fired upon, said Noel Choong, who heads the International Maritime Bureau's piracy reporting center in Malaysia.

In the telephone conversation on Life.ru, the man issued what sounded like a coded call for help, repeating part of the Russian word for 'seals' twice.

The 530-foot cargo ship Faina was seized Thursday. Ukraine's defense chief said Friday that it was carrying 33 Russian-built T-72 tanks and a substantial quantity of ammunition and spare parts. Russia's navy said it dispatched a warship to the area, and U.S naval ships were monitoring the situation.

Nobody aboard the Faina was injured, but the captain, Vladimir Kolobkov, was suffering from heatstroke and his condition was "not so good," the man in the report said. He identified himself as Vladimir Nikolsky, the captain's senior assistant, and said the hijackers demanded that he speak only in English.

"They asking that we make contact with the owners about his money," Nikolsky said. Asked how much they were demanding, he said: "I'm not sure, approximately - I cannot say he exact price." He suggested the hijackers indicated that would be matter for negotiations.

"They would like to speak directly to our owner," he said later.

Ukrainian news agencies have identified the ship's operator as Tomex Team, a company based in the Black Sea port of Odessa. A person who answered the phone at the company's office on Saturday declined to comment and refused to give his name.

Kenyan Defense Department spokesman Bogita Ongeri said on Saturday that Kenyan authorities have had no contact with the pirates or received any demands for ransom.

Ongeri said that the Ukrainian vessel was seized in international waters in the Gulf of Aden, one of the world's busiest shipping lanes. He said that the pirates hijacked the ship beyond 200 nautical miles away from the coast of the northeastern Somali region of Puntland. Two hundred nautical miles in maritime law mark the end of a country's territorial waters.

It was unclear exactly when the conversation with Nikolsky took place, and phone calls to Life.ru were not answered.

Speaking in imperfect English, Nikolsky said he had recently spoken to the captain of what he said was a U.S. Coast Guard ship, who asked about the situation aboard the Faina.

"I tell him that everything in normal condition," he said.

While Ukrainian officials had said there were 21 people aboard - 17 Ukrainian, three Russian and a Latvian - Nikolsky said there were 21 crew and a total of 35 people aboard. Life.ru showed images of Russian passports for both Nikolsky and the captain, Kolobkov.

"Everybody in normal condition. Not good, but normal," he said.

He said he was speaking from the bridge but that the rest of the crew members were all "collected in one room without free air."

At the beginning of the posted audio report, the reporter asks a person answering a call if she can speak to a Russian on board. After a few barked words in an unfamiliar language, the man identified as Nikolsky starts speaking.

He explains that he has been ordered to speak only English "so that they understand."

At the end, when the reporter asks whether he sees a way out, he replies: "You are so clever that you are understanding everything" and switches to Russian, saying "kotiki, kotiki, kotiki" - part of the word for "seals" - an apparent reference to the possibility of an operation by special amphibious forces to rescue the hostages.

Russian navy spokesman Capt. Igor Dygalo told The Associated Press on Friday that the missile frigate Neustrashimy, or Intrepid, left the Baltic Sea port of Baltiisk a day before the hijacking to cooperate with other unspecified countries in anti-piracy efforts.

But he said the ship was then ordered directly to the Somalia coast after Thursday's attack.

It's precise mission was unclear. A spkesman for Russia's Baltic Fleet, Sergei Kuks, told the ITAR-Tass news agencuy that it was premature to say exactly what the Intrepid and its crew would do and whether they wold participate in an effort to free the hostages.

The hijacking of the Greek vessel brings the number of attacks off Somalia to 62 this year, or more than one every week. Of them, 26 ships were hijacked, and 15 remain in the hands of the pirates with 300 crew.

Associated Press writer Tom Maliti in Nairobi, Kenya contributed to this report.
- - -

From BBC News Thursday 02 October 2008 report by MARTIN PLAUT, Africa Analyst - Tanks 'were for Sudan arms race':

Military experts say the cargo of tanks captured by Somali pirates off the Horn of Africa was destined for South Sudan.

They believe the shipment is an indication that an arms race between the government in Khartoum and South Sudan is under way.

Experts say the south may have 100 Russian-built tanks in its arsenal.

Both northern and southern Sudan are reported to be building up their forces ahead of the possible independence of the south in 2011.

'Arms build-up'

The seizure of the Ukrainian vessel off the coast of Somalia has lifted the lid on what experts say is an arms build-up in Sudan.

Western sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the BBC that the tanks on board the ship were going to southern Sudan, despite denials from Kenya and from Ukraine.

The experts say that there has been more than one shipment of tanks - a previous delivery took place in November last year.

Helmoed Heitman, Africa correspondent for Jane's Defence Weekly, says he has reports that more than 100 T-72 and T-55 Russian tanks have been received by the southern Sudanese.

"If these reports are true, they could change the regional military balance," he said.

"Kenya could be seen as playing the same role as Cuba did during the Angolan civil war - when they armed the MPLA."

Tanks are notoriously difficult to operate and require frequent maintenance.

The Western sources who spoke to the BBC suggest their most likely use would be dug in along Sudan's north-south border, with the tanks using their guns to protect military installations.

- - -

From The Scotsman Thursday 02 October 2008 report by MOHAMED OLAD HASSAN - Sudan agrees US and Russia may use force against tank pirates:

SOMALIA will allow foreign powers to use force if necessary against pirates who are holding a ship loaded with tanks for $20 million (£11.3 million) ransom. This raises the stakes for bandits currently facing off against the United States, who will soon be joined by Russia on the high seas.
Last week's hijacking of the Ukrainian ship MV Faina – carrying 33 Soviet-made T-72 tanks, rifles, and heavy weapons – was the highest profile act of piracy in the dangerous waters off Somalia this year. The ship is surrounded by several US warships and American helicopters are buzzing overhead.

Moscow has sent a warship to protect the few Russian hostages on board, but it will take a week for the ship to arrive off the coast of central Somalia, where the Faina has been anchored since Thursday. Most of the 20 crew are Ukrainian or Latvian; one Russian has died, apparently of illness.

"The international community has permission to fight with the pirates," Mohammed Jammer Ail, the Somali foreign ministry's acting permanent director, said yesterday.

He also said negotiations between the ship's Ukrainian owners and the pirates were taking place by telephone, but that "no other side is involved in negotiations".

Somalia's president, Abdullahi Yusuf, also urged foreign nations to help Somalis to fight piracy.

"The government has lost patience and now wants to fight pirates with the help of the international community," the president said yesterday in a radio address.

But there was no reaction yesterday from the estimated 30 hijackers on board the Faina to the prospect of facing two of the world's most powerful navies. Their spokesman did not answer his satellite phone.

A day earlier, the pirates denied reports that an argument over whether to surrender led to a shootout that killed three pirates. Instead, the spokesman said, they were enjoying a feast to end Ramadan.

The dangerous cargo on the Faina has drawn worldwide attention.

American military officials and diplomats say the weapons are destined for southern Sudan, but Kenyan officials insist the weapons are bound for their country.

- - -

Somali Pirates Tell Their Side: They Want Only Money

From The New York Times 30 September 2008 report by JEFFREY GETTLEMAN - Somali Pirates Tell Their Side: They Want Only Money:

NAIROBI, Kenya - The Somali pirates who hijacked a Ukrainian freighter loaded with tanks, artillery, grenade launchers and ammunition said in an interview on Tuesday that they had no idea the ship was carrying arms when they seized it on the high seas.

“We just saw a big ship,” the pirates’ spokesman, Sugule Ali, said in a telephone interview. “So we stopped it.”

The pirates quickly learned, though, that their booty was an estimated $30 million worth of heavy weaponry, heading for Kenya or Sudan, depending on whom you ask.

In a 45-minute interview, Mr. Sugule spoke on everything from what the pirates wanted (“just money”) to why they were doing this (“to stop illegal fishing and dumping in our waters”) to what they had to eat on board (rice, meat, bread, spaghetti, “you know, normal human-being food”).

He said that so far, in the eyes of the world, the pirates had been misunderstood. “We don’t consider ourselves sea bandits,” he said. “We consider sea bandits those who illegally fish in our seas and dump waste in our seas and carry weapons in our seas. We are simply patrolling our seas. Think of us like a coast guard.”

The pirates who answered the phone call on Tuesday morning said they were speaking by satellite phone from the bridge of the Faina, the Ukrainian cargo ship that was hijacked about 200 miles off the coast of Somalia on Thursday. Several pirates talked but said that only Mr. Sugule was authorized to be quoted. Mr. Sugule acknowledged that they were now surrounded by American warships, but he did not sound afraid. “You only die once,” Mr. Sugule said.

He said that all was peaceful on the ship, despite unconfirmed reports from maritime organizations in Kenya that three pirates were killed in a shootout among themselves on Sunday or Monday night.

He insisted that the pirates were not interested in the weapons and had no plans to sell them to Islamist insurgents battling Somalia’s weak transitional government. “Somalia has suffered from many years of destruction because of all these weapons,” he said. “We don’t want that suffering and chaos to continue. We are not going to offload the weapons. We just want the money.”

He said the pirates were asking for $20 million in cash; “we don’t use any other system than cash.” But he added that they were willing to bargain. “That’s deal-making,” he explained.

Piracy in Somalia is a highly organized, lucrative, ransom-driven business. Just this year, pirates hijacked more than 25 ships, and in many cases, they were paid million-dollar ransoms to release them. The juicy payoffs have attracted gunmen from across Somalia, and the pirates are thought to number in the thousands.

The piracy industry started about 10 to 15 years ago, Somali officials said, as a response to illegal fishing. Somalia’s central government imploded in 1991, casting the country into chaos. With no patrols along the shoreline, Somalia’s tuna-rich waters were soon plundered by commercial fishing fleets from around the world. Somali fishermen armed themselves and turned into vigilantes by confronting illegal fishing boats and demanding that they pay a tax.

“From there, they got greedy,” said Mohamed Osman Aden, a Somali diplomat in Kenya. “They starting attacking everyone.”

By the early 2000s, many of the fishermen had traded in their nets for machine guns and were hijacking any vessel they could catch: sailboat, oil tanker, United Nations-chartered food ship.

“It’s true that the pirates started to defend the fishing business,” Mr. Mohamed said. “And illegal fishing is a real problem for us. But this does not justify these boys to now act like guardians. They are criminals. The world must help us crack down on them.”

The United States and several European countries, in particular France, have been talking about ways to patrol the waters together. The United Nations is even considering something like a maritime peacekeeping force. Because of all the hijackings, the waters off Somalia’s coast are considered the most dangerous shipping lanes in the world.

On Tuesday, several American warships — around five, according to one Western diplomat — had the hijacked freighter cornered along the craggy Somali coastline. The American ships allowed the pirates to bring food and water on board, but not to take weapons off. A Russian frigate is also on its way to the area.

Lt. Nathan Christensen, a Navy spokesman, said on Tuesday that he had heard the unconfirmed reports about the pirate-on-pirate shootout, but that the Navy had no more information. “To be honest, we’re not seeing a whole lot of activity” on the ship, he said.

In Washington, Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, declined to discuss any possible American military operations to capture the ship.

“Our concern is right now making sure that there’s a peaceful resolution to this, that this cargo does not end up in the hands of anyone who would use it in a way that would be destabilizing to the region,” Mr. Morrell told reporters at the Pentagon. He said the United States government was not involved in any negotiations with the pirates. He also said he had no information about reports that the pirates had exchanged gunfire among themselves.

Kenyan officials continued to maintain that the weapons aboard were part of a legitimate arms deal for the Kenyan military, even though several Western diplomats, Somali officials and the pirates themselves said the arms were part of a secret deal to funnel weapons to southern Sudan.

Somali officials are urging the Western navies to storm the ship and arrest the pirates because they say that paying ransoms only fuels the problem. Western diplomats, however, have said that such a commando operation would be very difficult because the ship is full of explosives and the pirates could use the 20 crew members as human shields.

Mr. Sugule said his men were treating the crew members well. (The pirates would not let the crew members speak on the phone, saying it was against their rules.) “Killing is not in our plans,” he said. “We only want money so we can protect ourselves from hunger.”

When asked why the pirates needed $20 million to protect themselves from hunger, Mr. Sugule laughed and said, “Because we have a lot of men.”

Mohammed Ibrahim contributed reporting from Mogadishu, Somalia, and Eric Schmitt from Washington.

Hat tip White African's Twitter
- - -

From China Daily News (Agencies) 28 September 2008 - US destroyer watching hijacked ship off Somalia:

MOGADISHU, Somalia - A US destroyer off the coast of Somalia closed in Saturday on a hijacked Ukrainian ship loaded with tanks and ammunition, watching it to ensure the pirates who seized it do not try to remove any cargo or crew.

As Russian and American ships pursued the hijackers of the Ukrainian-operated vessel, pirates seized another ship off Somalia's coast, an international anti-piracy group said.

- - -

Germany to take part in EU anti-piracy campaign

From Bahrain News Agency 01 October 2008 (Paris):

Germany intends to send a naval force to Somalia within a short period to take part along with the European forces in a campaign against piracy, announced German Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung.

- - -

Helicopters to Darfur -- if Ukrainian politics or pirates don't stop them

From UN Dispatch 30 September 2008 blogpost by JOHN BOONSTRA - Helicopters to Darfur -- if Ukrainian politics or pirates don't stop them:

Neil MacFarquhar of The New York Times reports that some tangible good news for Darfur may have come out of the UN General Assembly.

United Nations officials emerged with a commitment for 18 helicopters for the peacekeeping force there from Ukraine. There were so many conditions attached by Ukraine, however, including using private contractors and getting approval from the embattled Parliament, that it remained unclear whether a solution for the long quest for 24 helicopters had really been found.

Given the tumultuous state of Ukrainian politics right now, this latter requirement seems a daunting obstacle. Plus, Ukraine's last shipment of military vehicles to Sudan (if Kiev even knew that was their likely eventual destination) probably would have violated an arms embargo had it not first been seized by pirates. There's certainly no embargo on equipping a UN peacekeeping mission, though, nor is there any doubt how desperately the blue helmets in Darfur need the helicopters, so let's hope that the political hurdles are cleared and that the choppers don't run into any sort of "air pirates" en route.

- - -

HAAAAAAGGGGH ME ‘EARTIES

Here is a copy of a blogpost by funny ha ha foreign correspondent ROB CRILLY - 26 September 2008 - entitled Pirates of the Indian Ocean:

I thought it might be instructive for any students of journalism who read this blog to detail my typical interaction with one of the foreign desks for which I work.

FD: Good morning, Foreign.

ME: Morning. You are probably no doubt sick of pirates…

FD: HAAAARGGGGH

ME: …but I wondered whether you might have noticed the Ukrainian vessel…

FD: HAAAAARGGGGH

ME: that has been hijacked with a load of tanks on board and would like a piece today.

FD: HAAAAAAGGGGH ME ‘EARTIES

ME: I could wrap in the latest fighting, the fate of the suspected pirates held in France and the fact that the Canadian frigate is staying on to escort food supplies into Mogadishu.

FD: Yes please, give us as much as you can. Bye.

Heh.
- - -

RELATED REPORTS

From ROB CRILLY 29 September 2008: Kenya, The Pirates and those Rather Embarrassing Tanks
- - -

From ROB CRILLY 30 September 2008: It's All Our Fault
- - -

Kenyan official arrested in connection with hijacked ship

Kenyan police were still holding Thursday a maritime official arrested Wednesday for allegedly giving sensitive news to the press about the hijacked arms freighter off the Somalia coast.

From www.rfi.fr Thursday 02 October 2008:

Mombasa police arrested seafears' rights campaigner Andrew Mwangura on Thursday after he told the international media that arms on the hijacked ship Faina might be smuggled to Sudan via Kenya.

From en.afrik.com Thursday 02 October 2008:

Andrew Mwangura, head of the East African Seafarers Assistance Programme, was arrested and detained by police for being a source of ’sensitive information’ on the hijacked cargo ship.

Mwangura has kept the press updated on the freighter-hijack drama, to the chagrin of the police who felt he was revealing too much.

Coastal province police chief Kingori Mwangi says police detained seafaring expert Andrew Mwangura on Wednesday night, but declined to specify the law he may have broken.

The freighter, headed for the Kenyan port of Mombasa, and whose cargo was military hardware, was hijacked by Somali pirates few days ago off the Somali coast.

The pirates are demanded a hefty ransome to release the crew of the cargo ship which originated from Ukraine.

The vessel was ferrying armaments which included tanks and anti-aircraft guns among other weapons, to Mombasa.

A row has broken between Kenyan authorities and the United States Navy over the destintion of the weapons.

The US Navy sources say the weapons were destined for the semi- autonomous Southern Sudan, while Kenyan authorities insist they were to be used by the Kenyan military.

By Thursday, the destination of the hardware remained a mystery as the Government Spokesman, Alfred Mutua, appeared to be awaiting the final word from higher authorities.

The situation has put Kenya in an embarrassing situation, because if it’s true they were destined for Southern Sudan then Kenya would be violating the UN arms embargo it slapped on Sudan becauseof the conflict in Darfur in western parts of the country.

Meanwhile, the international community is stepping up efforts to rescue the freighter crew and arrest and bring to justice the hijackers.

Reports indicate that a number of battle ships are headed for th Somali waters in a bid to rescue the captured ship crew.

Kenyan authorities have remained tight-lipped, preferring not to talk the matter that has taken an international dimension.

- - -

From ROB CRILLY Thursday 02 October 2008 Shooting the Messenger Again - see photo of Andrew Mwangura, piracy expert, in Mombasa - excerpt:

The Kenyan government has already slagged off journalists for reporting on piracy, the UN’s special representative has accused us of passing on pirate propaganda, and now it’s my old pal, Andrew Mwangura, who is getting it in the neck. For the past decade or so he has been monitoring piracy from the Kenyan port city of Mombasa, making himself a key expert on the phenomenon. Lost your oil tanker in the Gulf of Aden? Andrew is the man to track it down using his network of pirate contacts.

My phone started beeping late last night with news of his arrest. It seems the Kenyan government is not very happy that he was telling journalists the shipment of 33 T-72 tanks was on its way to South Sudan. So they arrested him on suspicion of making inflammatory remarks. He is still in custody, as I write, and has not yet been charged.

- - -

From PressTV Iran (HN/RA) Thursday, 02 October 2008 19:19:45 GMT - 'Biggest suspect' in ship piracy arrested - excerpt:

Our correspondent, last Friday, quoted a number of Somali politicians as charging that the ship was originally taking the weapons to the pirates.

- - -

SNAPSHOT OF GOOGLE'S NEWSREEL Thursday 02 October 2008 21:05 GMT

EU to take military action against pirates
Radio Netherlands, Netherlands - 1 hour ago
The European Union is to set up a military operation to combat piracy off the coast of Somalia. At least eight countries have agreed to participate, ...

Somali insurgents call on pirates to destroy hijacked Ukrainian ship
Xinhua, China - 2 hours ago
MOGADISHU, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- A Somali insurgent group Thursday urged the pirates holding a Ukrainian ship carrying military hardware to destroy the ship ...

Pirates refusing to back down
The Press Association - 2 hours ago
Pirates holding a hijacked arms ship have insisted they will not release it for less than
20 million dollars (£10m) and warned they would repel any ...

Pirates, warships continue tense standoff near Somali coast
Christian Science Monitor, MA - 5 hours ago
By Jonathan Adams A battle of nerves continued off Somalia's coast today, as the US and Russia turned up the heat on a group of vastly outgunned Somali ...

America, Russia and terrorists of the seas
International Herald Tribune, France - 5 hours ago
There is nothing romantic about the pirates who have been hijacking ships off the coast of Somalia. Theirs is a vicious business that endangers maritime ...

Somali pirates stick to $20 million ransom demand
The Associated Press - 6 hours ago
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — A Somali pirate spokesman says his group will not release a hijacked Ukrainian cargo ship loaded with arms for less than $20 ...

'The cargo is ours' govt insists
Kenya Broadcasting Corporation, Kenya - 6 hours ago
The Government is actively monitoring the situation of the hijacked ship MV Faina containing cargo for the Kenyan Military. Government spokesman Dr Alfred ...

EU vows action against pirates, Kenya arrests source
Reuters South Africa, South Africa - 6 hours ago
By Celestine Achieng MOMBASA, Kenya (Reuters) - The EU vowed quick military action against Somali pirates on Thursday, and Kenya arrested a maritime ...

Report: Somali pirates rake in up to $30M in 2008
The Associated Press - 8 hours ago
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Pirates off Somalia's lawless coast have raked in up to $30 million in ransoms this year alone, a London-based think tank reported ...

Pirates drop ransom to $5 million as talks heat up
Toronto Star, Canada - 11 hours ago
NAIROBI, Kenya–Negotiations over the arms-laden freighter hijacked by Somali pirates intensified yesterday, and several people close to the talks said the ...

Somalia accepts international help against pirates
Telegraph.co.uk, United Kingdom - 11 hours ago
The Russian and US navies have been given permission by Somalia to use force against the pirates who have hijacked a ship carrying 33 tanks and other ...

EU force to fight Somali pirates
BBC News, UK - 11 hours ago
The European Union has agreed to establish an anti-piracy security operation off the coast of Somalia. French Defence Minister Herve Morin said at least ...
- - -

See Sudan Watch Update - Thursday, October 09, 2008 : MV Faina cargo was for Ethiopia? NATO agrees to join anti-piracy operations off coast of Somalia: seven of its frigates will arrive within two weeks