"This is probably the first time in the history of Sudan something like this happens. The man was kidnapped from his house and found later with his head next to his body. That's murder Iraqi al-Qaeda style."Read more at Iraq Has Arrived.
Chinese officials were speaking to reporters ahead of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's trip to London next week when he will discuss Iran, the Middle East and Sudan, among other issues, with British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Wen and Blair are also expected to discuss a United Nations proposal to send a UN peacekeeping force to Sudan's Darfur region, where an African Union force has been unable to end the humanitarian crisis in the lawless west of the country.
A senior British official said China was in a unique position because of its booming trade links with Africa to bring its influence to bear on the matter.
"China now has the clout with many African countries to add real weight to the achievement of important international objectives. We're very keen to work with China more than we have done in the past on the problems of Africa," he said.
China, which is developing close contacts with Africa as a source of raw materials and market for cheap exports, abstained from a UN vote at the end of August which was in favour of creating the UN peacekeeping force.
"We think that for this issue ... it should get the agreement of the Sudan government beforehand because (it) is a very important party in this issue," Xu said.
Wen and Blair will also sign an agreement on climate change, the Chinese official said.
Wen is due in London on Sept. 12, with a delegation including Commerce Minister Bo Xilai and Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing, who will likely meet British Foreign Minister Margaret Beckett.
"We're pushing for an international presence to deal with the situation in Darfur," Coleman said.
"One of the problems we've had there is the Chinese. I anticipate meeting with the Chinese officials when I'm there to reiterate the call for a greater China cooperation in dealing with the situation in Darfur."
Earlier this week, as many as 10,000 locals protested in Nyala against last Thursday’s Security Council resolution calling for the deployment of a UN peacekeeping force in Darfur. The demonstrators threw stones at the offices and vehicles of the UN and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
Mr Dujarric added that in North Darfur on Monday, five armed men opened at AU staff at the Kassab camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs). No casualties were reported, but six bullets penetrated the AU post at Kassab.
France's foreign minister said Thursday it's a "real question" whether the United Nations should send a force into Darfur -- even in the face of resistance by Sudan's government.French FM speaks of Darfur "genocide" for first time
Philippe Douste-Blazy said he planned to visit the troubled region and meet with Sudanese officials soon, in hopes of finding a diplomatic solution to end years of deadly violence in Darfur.
He urged Sudanese authorities to accept a UN force for Darfur, which was called for in a Security Council resolution passed last week. It was quickly rejected by Khartoum.
"Do we go there, in spite of them?" Douste-Blazy told a news conference. "That's not on the table, nobody has asked the question like that. But it's a real question."
"It is essential that the Sudanese ... accept the arrival of this force," he told reporters, adding that the prospective 20,000-strong peacekeeping force would be the largest in UN history.
The minister said he would go to Sudan "very soon," in part to listen to Khartoum's concerns about the council resolution. He did not specify when the trip was planned.
"What's most important is to take up the subject politically," he said. "But in the world today, we don't have a right to let these women and children die."
In some of harshest language yet about Darfur by French officials, Douste-Blazy, speaking Wednesday on RMC radio, denounced a "veritable genocide" in the region.
Sudanese government forces last week launched a major offensive believed to involve thousands of troops and aircraft to combat rebel strongholds in Darfur.
The resolution called for the continuation of the AU peacekeeping force in Darfur after Sept. 30 when its mandate expires.
The resolution also urged to promote dialogue between Sudan, the UN, the AU and the AL to agree on the implementation of the Darfur peace accord.
The pan-Arab forum also urged the Arab and African countries to boost their participation in the AU mission in Darfur.
It further called on the international community to meet its obligations to save the Darfur peace accord and offer the necessary assistance to the AU mission in Darfur.
Despite the arrival of the rainy season in south Darfur the country is still faced with critical water shortages, International Committee of the Red Cross has reported.
In response to the critical water shortage facing the displaced camps in South Darfur, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) at the start of the conflict installed emergency water supplies in the expanding camps around Gereida town.
Currently about 100 000 internally displaced people (IDPs) now live in five makeshift settlements that are spread out over many square kilometres around Gereida town.
Only Joghana, which houses people who fled from the village of the same name when it was attacked in April 2006, is still without ready access to water, says ICRC report.
The arrival of the rainy season has its advantages and disadvantages.
Even though it has brought sudden beauty to the landscape its arrival is a also a curse as it is turning water courses into stagnant lakes and sandy roads into impassable bogs, as well as bringing water-borne diseases, ICRC said.
According to the humanitarian organisation, in mid-August, the water truck which delivers water to the people on temporarily basis was unable to make its daily round to the Joghana camp for several days because of the rain.
The vehicle got stuck in the soft, sticky sand and could not move. People were obliged to walk several kilometres to the next camp to get water, added the report.
Although it is a temporary measure the truck will continue to supply water if the weather permits until the permanent water system has been installed.
The ICRC report came after the World Health Organisation and Unicef’s recent report that the world is in danger of missing targets for providing clean water and sanitation unless there is a dramatic increase in the pace of work and investment between now and 2015.
According to the report, more than 1.1 billion people in both urban and rural areas lack access to drinking water from an improved source and 2.6 billion people do not have access to even basic sanitation, notes the report.
"We're in very close contact with the AU," [US] spokesman Sean McCormack said.
"They are going to have to make some crucial decisions about their force in Darfur," he told reporters.
"We are confident that there will not be a vacuum, one way or the other, in Darfur, that there will be an international force presence there," he said.
"There are a number of different ways to come at this. In terms of the AU, I'm not going to get into the various diplomatic options at this point, but we're in close touch with them.
"And the AU doesn't want to see a vacuum there.
"They realize the importance of this mission."
The Peace and Security Council (PSC) of the African Union (AU) will meet 18 September at ministerial level in New York to review the situation in the war- wracked Darfur region of western Sudan, an official of the PSC said here Monday.
AU Peace and Security Commissioner Said Djinnit said the transition of the African peacekeeping force into a UN operation will feature high on the agenda.
Djinnit was speaking to journalists at the end of a meeting of the PSC, apparently convened at the request of the government of Sudan in view of the UN Security Council decision last Thursday to expand the mandate of the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) to include Darfur region.
"Till such time the AU Mission in Sudan (AMIS) remains in place to do its work as it has been doing," Djinnit said.
According to the Commissioner, Sudan`s Charge d`Affaires in Addis Ababa, El Tayeb Ahmed, had on behalf of his government asked the AU to state its position on the UN Security Council resolution and the transition issue.
"Sudan was expecting the AU to clarify its position on the issue of transition before it considers its own position on what needs to be done based on their own national considerations," Djinnit explained.
Without elaboration, however, Djinnit said that the PSC recalled its previous decision on the matter.
He said the AU expected all the parties, including the government of Sudan and other stakeholders in the Darfur situation to cooperate with the AMIS and to refrain from any movement and action that could jeopardize the Darfur Peace Agreement as well as the security of the AU mission.
"The PSC encouraged all initiatives to strengthen the morale of our mission on the ground, which is faced with increasing challenges in view of its limited strength and resources," Djinnit added.
On the face of it, this protest was about a recent rise in fuel prices.Note, the report points out that Sudan's police rarely permit opposition protests.
But it is also the frontline of an increasingly bitter struggle between the Khartoum government and an alliance of opposition political parties.
Several demonstrations in the last few weeks have been banned and then violently disrupted.
What was once about fuel has turned into a question of freedom of expression.
The planned United Nations peacekeeping force in Darfur will only be effective if the Sudanese Government gives its consent and cooperation, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said today as the Security Council unveiled plans for a high-level meeting on the issue next week.
The African Union will pull its troops out of Darfur by Sept 30 unless Sudan drops its opposition to the deployment of a U.N. peacekeeping force there, a spokesman said Tuesday.- - -
The AU reached this decision at a meeting in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa Monday, said spokesman Nouredinne Mezni. "We are ready to review the mandate in the event that Sudan and the U.N. agree on the transition to a U.N. peacekeeping force," he said.
On Monday, Sudan gave African Union troops a one-week ultimatum to accept a deal that would block the proposed 20,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping force in Darfur or else leave the region, a step that would likely worsen the world's worst humanitarian disaster.
The AU's formal mandate expires on Sept. 30 and it has asked the U.N. to take over the peacekeeping mission.
At an emergency meeting of the AU Peace and Security Council in Addis Ababa held after the Sudanese ultimatum, diplomats agreed that the African peacekeepers could stay on for a few months if Khartoum approved the transition to a U.N-led force, said Mezni.
African foreign ministers will meet in New York on Sept. 18 on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly to discuss the crisis, he said.
U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said:
"My understanding is that this refusal to allow in a UN force, as well as asking the AMIS force to leave, has not been officially conveyed to any of the international partners. So we would hope that that is not, in fact, the position of the Sudan government."
"Certainly it's very troubling, the reports of a buildup by the Sudanese army," McCormack told reporters.
He said the foreign countries backing the placement of a UN force in Darfur would like Khartoum's consent to do so.
"But as the resolution makes clear, it (consent) is invited, but not necessary," he noted.
Author is the Head of the Bureau for Training and Strategic Planning of JEM and was a JEM negotiator at Abuja Peace Talks. He is currently based in Ireland where he works as a university lecturer. El-Tom can be contacted through his email: Abdullahi.eltom@nuim.ieIreland eh? Who ARE these people getting away with waging war and criminal activity? Surely it's about time journalists reported on it and lifted the lid on the so-called Darfur rebels resident in Europe.
South Africa's official opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA) chief whip, Douglas Gibson, urged the government to urgently use "its respected position and diplomatic muscle within Africa to prevent a further bloodbath in the Darfur region".
He said the government must urgently use its respected position and diplomatic muscle within Africa, to do all it can to prevent a continuation of violence in Sudan's Darfur region.
"Reports from Sudan indicate that the Sudanese government is massing thousands of troops in Darfur to crush rebel groups in the area. Three years of fighting between rebels and the government have left over 200 000 people dead and displaced 2.5 million people, creating a massive humanitarian disaster," he said.
"The Sudanese government has rejected last week's United Nations (UN) resolution to send 17 000 peacekeeping troops to the region, and is now calling on the African Union (AU) to withdraw its small and under-resourced force of 7 000 troops when its mandate expires at end of September 2006.
"Unless the government of Sudan gives permission for the UN force to replace the AU force, there will no longer be any peacekeepers in the region, leaving millions of civilians at the mercy of both rebel and government forces."
He said Khartoum wants all peacekeepers out of Darfur so that it can mount an unhindered attack on areas where rebels are still operating.
"I know that yesterday an important decision was taken by the Sudanese government, which I don't consider initially positive," Annan said.
The UN chief was speaking in this Mediterranean city north of Cairo after a meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
"The international community has been feeding about 3 million people in camps and if we have to leave because of lack of security, lack of access to the people then what happens? The government will have to assume responsibility for doing this and if it doesn't succeed, it will have lots of questions to answer before the rest of the world," he said.
"I've always said that international forces will go there to help the Sudanese people, to help the government protect the people. We're not going to invade," said Annan.
