KHARTOUM, SUDAN (Reuters) – Sudan has been indirectly hit by the global financial crisis and will have to raise taxes to make up for the falling price of its main export, oil, the finance minister said on Thursday.
Sudanese government officials earlier this year said their country was largely immune to the worldwide slowdown, partly because U.S. trade sanctions over Sudan’s alleged support for terrorism and the war in its Darfur region had insulated it from the American economy.
But Sudanese finance minister Awad al-Jaz told reporters Sudan had been hit indirectly through the oil price, and by the fact that some of its trading partners did have sizeable U.S. investments and business dealings.
Al-Jaz said he planned to raise vehicle import duties in his budget for calendar year 2009 as well as taxes on telecoms services. He did not release figures or go into greater detail about which services would be taxed.
His 2009 budget had already been approved by Sudan’s coalition cabinet and would go before parliament next week, he added. The government has a strong majority in parliament, which has not rejected a national budget in years.
“We must search for other resources besides oil and develop other products to protect our country and our economy from the effect of the international financial crisis,” he told a news conference.
Sudan says it currently produces 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude, and the mining and energy minister last week said it would raise that figure to 600,000 bpd in 2009.
(Reporting by Khaled Abdelaziz, writing by Andrew Heavens, editing by Mark Trevelyan)
JERUSALEM, ISRAEL – The UN’s refugee agency has confirmed that ninety one African refugees expelled by the Israeli army to Egypt as part of Israel’s controversial “hot return” policy have gone missing.
A spokeswoman in Cairo for the United Nations High Commission on Refugees said that Egypt has not responded to requests for information about the 91, who were returned shortly after crossing illegally from Sinai into Israel, in at least some cases without any chance to present asylum requests.“We don’t have access to this group, we do not where they are,” the UNHCR spokeswoman said
According to an IDF reserve soldier who participated in a hot return in August, refugees were blindfolded and forced back to Egypt only twenty minutes after they had been shot at by Egyptian police for trying to cross into Israel.
Israel revived the hot returns policy in August for the first time since 48 refugees, most of them Sudanese, disappeared after being forcibly returned a year earlier. At least five of them are known to have been sent back to Sudan, despite what the government said were assurances from Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that this would not happen. The punishment for visiting Israel is protracted imprisonment or death, according to Sudanese law..
Andy David, Israeli foreign ministry deputy spokesman said: “Complaints that they are disappearing in Egypt should not be brought to Israel. We can’t be held responsible for what the Egyptians are doing.” He said there was an “understanding” with Egypt that refugees should be well treated, “but it is not Israel’s responsibility to not deport someone back to Egypt because of the chance he will be treated differently.”
“Most of those trying to cross are not from Darfur and are not refugees. They are deported back to where they have come from and this is what every country does,” he said. The New York based Human Rights Watch says Israel’s position contravenes the 1951 International Convention on Refugee Rights, to which it is a signatory. The convention bans expelling refugees to places where their lives and liberty are in danger
Anat Ben-Dor, head of the refugee legal clinic at Tel Aviv University, said in response to the disappearance of the 91 persons “We have been very disappointed with the state’s position that unless UNHCR says otherwise, Egypt is a safe country. We would expect the state to halt the returns in light of this.”
Since 2007, Egyptian guards have killed at least 33 migrants
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) – Egypt should stop shooting migrants attempting to sneak across the barbed wire border into Israel, a desperate journey that has gone from dangerous to deadly, Human Rights Watch said Wednesday in a new report.
Since 2007, Egyptian border guards have killed at least 33 migrants, many from Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region, including a pregnant woman and a 7-year-old girl, the report said. Many more have been wounded in shootings as Egypt attempts to respond to international criticism that it doesn’t do enough to secure its borders, it said.
Those detained by Egyptian guards at the border are put on trial in secret military courts and often denied access to the U.N. refugee agency in violation of international law, the 90-page report by the New York-based group added.
The report also accused Israel of forcibly returning at least 139 African migrants to Egypt, where they risk arrest and deportation.
“Egypt should stop shooting migrants who pose no threat and deporting others to possible torture,” said Joe Stork, Human Rights Watch’s deputy Middle East director. “Israel should not be forcibly returning people to Egypt, where they are detained arbitrarily and even deported to abusive home countries.”
One Sudanese refugee from Darfur talked to The Associated Press about his unsuccessful attempt to cross the rugged Sinai Peninsula border in July 2007. He spoke from his home in Cairo, but refused to give his name, fearing reprisals from the Egyptian government.
He said Egyptian border guards opened fire on him, his family and about three dozen other African migrants as they waited for their smuggler to finish cutting a hole in the barbed wire fence border.
“We all fell to the ground. I saw one pregnant woman with blood pouring out of her skull after she was shot in the head,” the 45-year-old refugee said. The 28-year-old woman died, and four others were injured, he said.
The guards arrested the group, beat them and took their belongings. The former farmer said he spent more than a year in several Egyptian prisons before his release in late August.
“Now we are struggling to live in Cairo, and there is no way we can go back to Sudan,” he said.
The stream of migrants from poor, conflict-ridden African countries crossing the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt to Israel has increased since 2007, apparently as word spread of job opportunities in Israel and chances for resettlement from Egypt to other countries dwindled. Steady work and social services are scarce in Egypt, a country of 76 million where 20 percent live on just $2 a day.
“The situation here is so bad. They (refugees) don’t have jobs or work in Egyptian homes and are mistreated. They become hopeless. So they try to leave, and Israel is the only place to go,” said Mohammed Adam, a Sudanese refugee living in Cairo.
Egypt has long been under pressure from Israel to do more to control its nearly 100-mile border. But it appeared to have adopted a “shoot-to-stop” policy after a meeting in June 2007 between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Human Rights Watch said.
“We are used to hearing about people dying trying to cross the desert from Mexico to the U.S. or at sea trying to get to Spain, but that’s not what we are talking about here. People are being killed for migration control and that is unusual and very, very worrisome,” said Michael Kagan, a senior fellow in human rights law at the American University in Cairo.
Egypt has defended its methods, saying the growing number of illegal border crossings jeopardizes security. An Egyptian security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the media, described the situation as a “challenge” but sees “success.”
Human Rights Watch also criticized Israel for sending back migrants to Egypt. Of the 139 migrants Israel has sent back, at least 20 were then deported to Sudan, while the whereabouts of the rest are unknown, the report said.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Andy David said Israel has agreed to grant refuge to 500 asylum seekers from Darfur, but most illegal migrants are not from Darfur.
“Israel does not share a border with Sudan, a country which does not have diplomatic relations with Israel, and maintains a formal state of war with it. Those seeking to enter Israel have already crossed into Egypt, and therefore … (Egypt) is responsible for their safety,” David said.
(Associated Press writers Omar Sinan and Salah Nasrawi in Cairo and Matti Friedman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.)
There was no debate or intervention, the MPs went to the Palais des Nations only to raise their hands in support of the change
L’Expression
Algerian newspapers say Wednesday’s vote in parliament to approve constitutional changes allowing President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to run for a third term was expected. The Berber-dominated opposition denounced it as a “hold-up”, while the government parties hailed it as “historic”.
(BBC) – The private French-language daily newspaper El Watan said that “by adding itself to the handful of states in the world, the Arab world in particular, which have written lifetime presidencies into their constitutions and consolidated personal or hereditary powers, Algeria is jumping backwards”.
‘Presidency for life’
El Watan added that the constitution changes were voted in “even as society has evolved considerably, showing itself to be extremely sensitive to individual and collective freedoms, human rights and justice, democratic attributes that the country discovered in adversity, having, in just one half-century, confronted three huge tests, those of the colonial yoke, the single party and terrorism”.
The vote is synonymous of a “presidency for life” for Mr Bouteflika, said the paper.
‘Red carpet for re-election’
“Bouteflika treats himself to a third mandate”, the private French-language daily newspaper Le Soir d’Algerie said.
The paper added that the current authorities had “killed the principle of alternation of power by organizing its funeral at the Palais des Nations Hall [where the vote took place]”.
Another private French-language newspaper L’Expression pointed out that “there was no debate or intervention, the MPs went to the Palais des Nations only to raise their hands in support of the change”.
“Within two weeks only, the revision of the constitution, which has been widely discussed for so long, has finally taken place. But no-one was excepting it to be wrapped up in such a short time,” the paper said.
For its part, the private French-language daily newspaper Liberte described the vote as a “red carpet for [Bouteflika’s] re-election”.
On the political level, the leader of the secular and Berber-dominated Rally for Culture and Democracy (RCD), Said Sadi, said after the vote that the revision of the constitution was a “hold-up”, “a way of institutionalising the tribal character of power”.
An ‘insult’ to MPs
Said Sadi, who the press said left the hall a few minutes after the vote, was quoted by El Watan as saying: “Is it credible to announce at the beginning of the session that a message from the president was going to be read, while it was expected to be read at the end of the proceedings?
“A message in which he congratulated the MPs who have approved this procedure. This is an insult to the lawmakers and the people in particular.”
‘Political, spiritual bankruptcy’
The first secretary of the other Berber-dominated Socialist Forces Front party (FFS), Karim Tabbou, told the private Arabic-language daily newspaper El Khabar that “Algeria is being managed like a supermarket, and we have been living under the regime of one term since [independence day in] 1962”.
The constitution changes “reflect a political and spiritual bankruptcy and a general sense of frustration”, said Mr Tabbou, before asking: “Was the revision of the constitution a people’s demand?”
“Genuine democracy should have been established in 1962,” he said.
‘Historic’
Political parties in the coalition government, the National Liberation Front (FLN), the National Democratic Rally (RND) and the moderate Islamist Movement of Society of Peace (MSP) have hailed the vote as “historic”.
The RND leader and prime minister, Ahmed Ouyahia, said through the revision of the constitution, the people had provided a “clear response” to those who have been criticising the government.
“In our beloved Algeria today, there is nothing that can limit the president’s mandates,” he said.
LUSAKA, ZAMBIA (AFP) — Zambian police arrested 38 people Thursday after violent protests in the Copperbelt province following the arrest of a priest who allegedly incited violence on a radio programme.
Police used tear-gas to disperse hundreds of Patriotic Front (PF) supporters who torched vehicles and blocked roads in Kitwe, Zambia’s second-largest city, a police commander in the area told AFP.
“They burnt some tyres and vehicles before we intercepted them,” he said on condition of anonymity.
Political tensions have heightened in Zambia since an October 30 election narrowly won by President Rupiah Banda in a poll that PF candidate Michael Sata claimed was rigged.
The riots were sparked by the arrest and detention of Frank Bwalya, a Catholic priest and journalist, who allegedly incited post-election violence on a live radio programme, police said.
Bwalya, a station manager of the Catholic broadcaster Radio Icengelo, was arrested and detained on Wednesday by police for refusing to stop the broadcast dealing with post-election issues.
He was released on bail Thursday after being charged with inciting violence and will appear in court soon.
Private radio stations also reported the riots, which they described as “serious.”
Police had earlier agreed to allow PF members to stage peaceful demonstrations on Saturday against the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ), which declared Banda winner of the polls.
GREENVILLE, SOUTH CAROLINA – Al Befekadu, an immigrant from Ethiopia, said today he was alone in his Pendleton convenience store when a gunman came in and asked for money.
“Sure,” Befekadu recalled saying, “Give me a second.”
Befekadu said he went into his back office during Wednesday night’s encounter and came out with a handgun — the same one he bought after a previous robbery on July 23.
“I just fired one warning shot, and he just dropped to the ground,” Befekadu said.
After the gunman bolted, Befekadu said he followed outside, fired another shot without aiming and then called the police.
Anderson County sheriff’s deputies are now searching for a suspect in Wednesday’s incident at the Corner Stop at 5630 U.S. 76, according to an incident report. They got the call at 7:53 p.m., the report states.
Befekadu, 54, said he’s a father of three who works 18 hours a day.
He said the gunman got away with money in the July incident but not on Wednesday.
The gunman in Wednesday’s robbery wore a ski mask and was 30-40 years old, according to the incident report. In July, two men between 19 and 23 years old, including one wearing a bandana, were listed as the suspects, according to an incident report.
Two people were arrested in the July incident, but it’s too early to know whether one of them was involved in Wednesday’s robbery, said Susann Griffin, a spokeswoman for the Sheriff’s Office.
Cameroon rebels have released 10 hostages they were holding after they had been taken in a raid on an oil vessel in October. Most of the captive men are reported to be from France.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said he was relived to hear that the captives were free and that he was very grateful to the Cameroonian government for its help.
Flag of CameroonRebels took prisoner the hostages off the Bakassi peninsula, and they said they would kill their captives if Cameroon did not agree to further talks.
All the hostages who have been released work for the French shipping group, Bourbon, and the company says the men are in good health and are now safe in the Cameroonian capital, Yaounde.
Eight of the ten men – seven Frenchmen and a Tunisian – would be going back home very soon and the other two that had been held captive were from Cameroon.
AFP news agency reported that no ransom had been paid to secure the release of the men but that it took place after talks involving the Cameroonian authorities and the kidnappers.
There was no debate or intervention, the MPs went to the Palais des Nations only to raise their hands in support of the change 