A Japanese freighter, whose crewmen include five South Koreans, was hijacked by an armed group in waters off Somalia on late Saturday (Seoul time), South Korea’s foreign ministry said Sunday.
The 20,000-ton cargo ship named Chemstar Venus was abducted 96 miles east of the Gulf of Aden in Somalia at 6:10 p.m., the ministry said.
Of the ship’s 23 crewmen, five were South Korean and 18 were Filipino, it added.
“It was not yet learned who the hijackers are and whether the crewmen are safe,” a ministry official said.
Ships operating in Somali waters often fall prey to pirates. There were 63 reported kidnappings this year as of end of September.
In September, eight South Koreans were abducted after their freighter was seized by pirates off the coast of Somalia. The sailors were released unharmed after more than a month of captivity.
Also in 2007, two South Korean fishing vessels were seized by Somali pirates. The crew was released after six months in captivity. In 2006, a South Korean tuna ship with 25 crew members was hijacked by Somali pirates. The vessel and its crew were released for a ransom after four months.
The latest hijacking came as the Korean government plans to send a warship to Somali waters to combat piracy there. The mission to send a 4,500-ton destroyer loaded with SM-2 Block IIIA missiles and other cutting-edge weaponry as well as the Navy’s special forces is expected to cost about 6 billion won (US$4.3 million).
The U.N. Security Council approved a new resolution in October designed to step up the fight against piracy off Somalia.
It calls for all states to actively contribute to anti-piracy efforts in Somali waters, including the dispatch of warships and warplanes in order to stop pirates.
Once again, President Omer Al-Bashir continues to do what he does best, to confuse the Sudanese people, virtually on all the utmost challenges facing the country, including, of course, his indictment by the International Criminal Court (ICC), for war crimes and genocide in Darfur.
The embattled Sudanese President, who seems not to resist attacking various world leaders, was among the first leaders who frantically and enthusiastically sent congratulatory and well-wishing messages to the United States’ President-elect, Barrack Obama, on his historical victory, only to turn around a couple of days later, to drop yet another bomb shell of the same old rhetoric of trying to intimidate the Western World, particularly the United States of American, the Republic of France and the Great Britain, not to mention the International Criminal Court Prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo.
Consider: Why President al-Basher, increasingly is becoming angrier and angrier? Evidently, his guts feelings are telling him something all of us have no clue of. As it appears, he has no other place to dump his anger except on the Western countries, or the Sudan People Liberation Movement(SPLM). A few days ago, while he was addressing a pre-paid audience in al-Gadarif, in Eastern Sudan, al-Basher shouted: “ I am not concern about the powers of evil ( the United States, France and Great Britain), they are all under my shoes, he told the hand-picked crowd.” This is as bizarre as it gets. How could he possibly congratulate President-elect Obama, only to insult him, before he even had a chance to go over the congratulatory message? Clearly, the President of Sudan, not only is he becoming an embarrassment and a liability to the country, but also an impediment in the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, that brought an end to a two decades long civil war, between South and North Sudan.
In addition, one couldn’t agree more with Ustaz Abdulrahman al- Rashid in his description of President al- Basher as frighten and a fugitive! The well- respected columnist and former editor-in-chief of the London- based Arabic daily newspaper- ASharq al-Awsat, authored an article that sparked a wide range of anger among the extremists in the party of President al- Basher- the National Congress Party (NCP). He blamed President al- Basher for not giving President-elect, Obama a fair chance of framing his foreign policy, let alone assuming the office of the presidency. He went on to say: “lucky, being under someone’s shoes, might not be seen as an insult, in the Western World.” In fact, if I might add, it might even be a comfort zone, in the first place, if you consider that Westerners, in general love their shoes, and they have their women to prove it.
Further more, President al- Basher has proven, more and more, that he is, indeed, his own worst enemy. By unleashing his media to disparage the alliances that were formed to protect him from the (ICC), he will soon undoubtedly find out the difficult truth, that his back is literally against the wall, because the loyalist extremists he now surrounds himself with, will most likely face the same fade. And the(SPLM) leadership, which has taken enough punches, at the hands of the President’s uncle, the owner/ editor-in- chief of Al-Intibaha, Al-Tayeb Mustafa, may not be enthused enough to come to his rescue.
The latest victims of the regime’s vicious personal attacks, are Professor, Dr. Peter Adowk, the Federal Minister for Higher Education, for daring to criticize the failed educational system in the country. The other is Ustaz Ezekiel Lol Gatkuoth, the GOSS’ representative and it’s chief diplomat to the United States of America. In Lol’s case, his problem was that he helped engineered the (SPLM) initiative to bring the Darfur’s rebel factions, into a negotiating table, which resulted in the most recent monumental meetings between the SPLM’s delegation with Chad’s President, Idris Deby and with Dr. Ibrahim Khalil, respectively. Unfortunately, Ezekiel’s diplomatic success in strengthening South Sudan’s relations with Washington, makes him a legitimate target and a security threat to the NCP best interest.
Consequently, President al- Basher’s freakish and preposterous conduct, makes his believability around the world, all the more questionable, as al-Rashid puts it. By now, all of the Sudanese people should know who President al- Basher really is. Those who still believe that he holds the keys to a resolution to Darfur’s conflict, haven’t done their home work. They have now had to confront the reality that it’s not going to happen. As the head of the state, the military and the ruling party, President al- Basher could have solved the country’s outstanding problems in an instance. The new Arab’s initiative- headed by Qatar, is really about buying time. All along, The Arab countries have shown that they had better things to do, than to save the lives of the marginalized people of Sudan, Darfur in particular.
The Author is a former anchorman with Juba Radio. He can be reached at: [email protected]
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush, reflecting on his time in office, said Wednesday that “one of the most uplifting” experiences of his nearly eight-year tenure has been witnessing the gains Africa has made in education and fighting hunger and disease.
Speaking at a charity dinner, Bush called the work done for Africa by his administration and family “a labor of love.” Before his remarks, he accepted the Bishop John T. Walker Distinguished Humanitarian Service Award, which pays tribute to leaders in humanitarian fields for Africa.
The dinner benefits Africare, a U.S.-based charity that aims to improve the quality of life in Africa by addressing needs in food security, agriculture, health and HIV/AIDS.
His voice rising, Bush said the heart of the U.S. policy in Africa is knowing that its people have the “talent and ambition and resolve to overcome” great challenges.
“We do not believe in paternalism. We believe in partnership, because we believe in the potential of the people on the continent of Africa,” he told an audience of about 1,500 in a hotel ballroom. “One of the most uplifting (experiences) has been to witness a new and more hopeful era dawning on the continent.”
Bush was honored for U.S. initiatives that have supported education, helped to suppress HIV/AIDS and helped to end hunger in African countries.
The White House has said the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief has supported care for more than 6.6 million people worldwide and allowed nearly 200,000 children in Africa to be born HIV-free through mother-to-child prevention work. The U.S. has trained more than 700,000 teachers, distributed more than 10 million textbooks and provided hundreds of thousands of scholarships to help girls go to school in Africa.
Bush defended his large contributions to Africa against those who say “What good does it do me, Mr. President, for our government to support Africa?”
“One, it is in our national security interest that we defeat hopelessness. It is in our economic interest that we help economies grow,” he said. “And it is in our moral interest that when we find hunger and suffering, the United States of America responds in a robust and effective way.”
The dinner is in memory of Bishop John T. Walker, the first African-American Episcopal Bishop of Washington and the longtime chairman of Africare’s board.
The Togolese government, in partnership with the network of the Central Supply of Essential and Generic Medicines (CAMEG), recently announced that it will start distributing antiretroviral drugs to HIV/AIDS patients at no cost, according to the International Herald Tribune.
IHT reports around 25,000 Togolese will benefit from the program, up from the near 8,000 who currently have access to drugs from CAMEG.
In the United States, preferred treatment using HAART (Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy) can cost anywhere from $1000-$2000 per month.
The program is a huge step forward; the UN pledged global access to treatment by 2010. As of December 2007, only about 33% of those needing treatment in developing countries were receiving antiretrovirals.
The treatment, according to UN, can severely decrease the amount of HIV virus in the bloodstream, helping to prolong life.
Currently, about 3.2 per cent of the Togolese are HIV positive.
Sachin Seth is the Blast Magazine world news reporter. He writes the Terra blog.
KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) — A Darfur rebel group is accusing Sudanese troops of attacking an area in northern Darfur despite a government-declared cease-fire.
The Justice and Equality Movement says the group repelled an attack Saturday from government vehicles backed by helicopters and suffered no losses. Rebel spokesman Ahmed Hussein says the attack indicates the cease-fire is a “big lie.”
A military spokesman denies any raid, but says army forces intervened to stop an attack against a relief convoy.
President Omar al-Bashir announced the cease-fire Wednesday.
Up to 300,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million driven from their homes in the vast region of western Sudan since fighting erupted in early 2003.
KAMPALA (AFP) – A rebel group that has waged a low-level insurgency in western Uganda for more than a decade has agreed to enter formal peace talks with the Ugandan government, an official said Saturday.
The deal between President Yoweri Museveni’s government and the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) was announced in a statement from Jeremy Haslam, chief of mission in Uganda for the International Organization of Migration (IOM).
“After months of dialogue between the ADF and the government of Uganda, the ADF command group have committed to enter a formal peace process,” it said, without mentioning when negotiations might begin.
“As a sign of their commitment, the ADF has agreed to the immediate repatriation of ADF dependent women and children, irrespective of the progress of the formal peace talks.
“We have achieved an important milestone in the process. However, all parties are under no illusion that there is considerable work still to be done, which is complicated by the challenges created by the current crisis in the DRC,” the statement said.
The ADF, a mix of Islamist and secular guerrillas, had been fighting the government since 1996, and was blamed for bombings and massacres in the late 1990s.
Based in western Uganda and across the border in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the rebel group had been considered dormant for some time.
The Ugandan government is currently trying to revive talks with the Lord’s Resistance Army, another rebel outfit that has been battling Museveni’s government since 1988.
