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Famine in Somalia is over, says UN

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - Feb. 03 - Exceptional harvest and food deliveries have improved conditions, but millions of people are still at risk An exceptional harvest after good rains and food deliveries by aid agencies have ended famine in Somalia, although conditions remain fragile and could worsen, the United Nations have said. The UN declared famine in two parts of southern Somalia last July and extended the famine warning in September to six out of eight regions in the country. The UN said initially 750,000 Somalis faced imminent starvation and lowered this to 250,000 by November. Six months after famine was declared, 4 million Somalis were in need of aid and the UN said the number now stood at 2.34m. "The gains are fragile and will be reversed without continued support," said Mark Bowden, the UN humanitarian co-ordinator for Somalia. "There are 1.7 million people in southern Somalia still in crisis. Millions of people still need food, clean water, shelter and other assistance to survive and the situation is expected ...

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South Sudan Massacres Follow Independence

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Jeffrey Jettleman - Jan. 13 (News Report) - The trail of corpses begins about 300 yards from the corrugated metal gate of the United Nations compound and stretches for miles into the bush. There is an old man on his back, a young woman with her legs splayed and skirt bunched up around her hips, and a whole family — man, woman, two children — all facedown in the swamp grass, executed together. How many hundreds are scattered across the savannah, nobody really knows.

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Fleeing Sudanese fill refugee camps

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

CNN - By Moni Basu - Dec. 29 (News Report) - Last July, the world celebrated the birth of its newest nation as South Sudan officially separated from the north. It was hoped then that after decades of bloodshed, the people of of both nations would finally know peace. But just a few months later, refugee camps are filling to the brim as fighting in the border states of Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile has intensified and displaced more than 400,000 people.

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South Sudan Accuses Sudan of Bombing Civilian Camp

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Josh Kron - Nov. 10 (Breaking News) - The United States condemned the airstrike by Sudan and what it called other “negative developments” that increase the potential for hostilities between Sudan and South Sudan.

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Sudan split was 'over-simplified' by media

Sun, 10 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Aljazeera - By Ali M Latifi - Jul. 10 (Opinion) - For many directly affected by the world's longest-running civil war, the Sudanese conflict has been over-simplified in the Western press as inter-religious or inter-ethnic strife. "The media tried to make us look like Jafar in Aladdin," says Khalid Albaih, a Sudanese political cartoonist. "Everyone looks alike [in Sudan], the Arabs and the Africans," he adds. John Prendergast, human rights activist and co-founder of the Enough project, told Al Jazeera: "One should not overplay this idea of north versus south or Christian versus Muslim." While Moez Ali, a Sudanese blogger and political commentator, said the conflict was an issue of disenfranchisement of a people "who were never given an agenda in the government" throughout the nation's 55-year history. Since independence in 1956, "a small group of people in power in Khartoum used race and religion to divide and conquer," says Prendergast. This conflict was further exacerbated in 2004 when the Khartoum government, headed by Omar al-Bashir, made a bid to control the oil and water resources of the south, he adds.

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South Sudan, world's newest nation, is instantly one of the most troubled

Sun, 10 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - Jul. 10 (News) - Africa's longest civil war gives birth to South Sudan, a country about the size of France that has broken away from its bitter antagonist to the north. Heads of state gather for a euphoric celebration in the fledgling capital of Juba, but poverty, corruption and questions about its leadership already plague the new nation.The countdown clock ran out, the flag ascended over the fledgling capital and a new nation born from Africa's longest civil war and the deaths of 2 million people joined the world Saturday.

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After Years of Struggle, South Sudan Becomes a New Nation

Sat, 09 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Jeffrey Gettleman - Jul. 09 (News Report) - After more than five decades of an underdog, guerrilla struggle and two million lives lost, the Republic of South Sudan, Africa’s 54th state, declared its independence in front of a who’s who of Africa.

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Sudan 'bombs oil-rich southern state'

Fri, 10 Jun 2011 14:05:37 -0700

Aljazeera - Jun. 10 (News Report) - North bombs a village in Unity State, southern officials say, as tensions rise ahead of south's secession next month.

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UN estimates 100,000 have fled South Sudan tension

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Associated Press - Jun. 07 (News) - The U.N. refugee agency says some 100,000 people have fled tension around the disputed South Sudan town of Abyei.

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Bashir says Abyei belongs to the north

Wed, 25 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Aljazeera - May. 25 (News Report) - Sudan president says his forces will not withdraw from disputed region, escalating fears of fresh north-south conflict. Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the president of Sudan, has said that Abyei belongs to the north and that his forces will not withdraw from ...Fresh Sudan violence at risk of escalatingABC OnlineUN calls for talks to end Sudan's Abyei crisisPakistan Daily TimesSouthern Sudanese wait, worry about how to get homeDaily Star - LebanonVoice of America -New York Times -Reutersall 1,927 news articles »

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South Sudan: Messy Divorce Or Amicable Split?

Fri, 13 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

AllAfrica - By Yohannes Woldemariam - May. 13 (Opinion) - The history of Sudan is a complex one which can't be reduced to a linear narrative of south versus north,' writes Yohannes Woldemariam. Can South Sudan resolve the sticking points standing in the way of successful secession?

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MADRE :: Press Room :: Getting Stronger Every Generation: Six Women's Stories

Mon, 02 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

madre.org - May. 02 (Special Report) - Great popular change is the result of years of sustained organizing, education and activism. Six women’s lives can tell this story. These are women who came together across generations to demand their rights and to fight for the safety and health of their communities.

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How Southern Sudan's 'ticking time bomb' was defused

Fri, 25 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

McClatchy - By Alan Boswell - Feb. 25 (News Analysis) - If it were held properly, the Sudanese government in the north faced the certain loss of not just a third of its land but also 80 percent of its oil. If the vote were blocked, or even delayed, conflict probably would erupt.

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George Clooney: 21st-Century Statesman

Sun, 20 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Newsweek - By John Avlon - Feb. 20 (News Report) - In the age of Twitter-shortened attention spans, fame is an increasingly powerful weapon of diplomacy. How George Clooney is helping to bring change—and a hefty dose of hope—to Sudan.

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The End Of History

Sun, 13 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

TechCrunch - By Jon Evans - Feb. 13 (Opinion) - The world is quaking. Egypt and Tunisia are overthrown; Algeria, Gabon, Jordan, Sudan, Syria and Yemen are rocking. Some say this is thanks to Twitter and Facebook. Others, notably Malcolm Gladwell and Evgeny Morozov, say that social media are politically irrelevant and/or dangerous. China has censored “Egypt”, Syria has legalized Facebook, and the president of Sudan has declared he will use social media to crush his enemies. You couldn’t make this stuff up. What’s going on? Who to believe? Fear not. I can explain. Everyone is right, and what’s going on is nothing more than the end of international politics and history as we know them. Welcome to our brave new world, and about time, too. The old one sure was miserable while it lasted.

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Is Mexico at war? Conflict prompts linguistic debate

Fri, 04 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

McClatchy - Feb. 04 - MEXICO CITY — Over a 48-hour period this week, gangsters tossed grenades, torched buses, set up roadblocks and strafed police units in Mexico's second and third largest cities.

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South Sudan referendum: 99% vote for independence

Sun, 30 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

BBC News - Jan. 30 (News) - Some 99% of South Sudanese voted to secede from the north, according to the first complete results of the region's independence referendum.

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Initial results: SSudan independence vote approved

Wed, 19 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - Jan. 19 (Breaking News) - Officials say preliminary results show more than 98 percent of voters in and near Southern Sudan’s capital voted for independence from the north.

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George Clooney focuses the camera on Sudan

Mon, 10 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Los Angeles Times - By Rebecca Keegan - Jan. 10 (News Report) - The actor's Satellite Sentinel Project is collaborating with other organizations to aim commercial satellites at the nation's north-south border in hopes of preventing possible genocide.

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First day of south Sudan vote ends

Sun, 09 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Aljazeera - By Ranjit Bhaskar - Jan. 09 (News Report) - Polling stations have closed on the first day of voting in Southern Sudan's week-long referendum on secession. The atmosphere was festive in the southern capital Juba on Sunday, with voters queueing for hours outside polling stations.

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Birth of a new country

Sun, 09 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - Jan. 09 (News Analysis) - (Graphic) Southern Sudanese will begin voting Sunday on whether to separate from Sudan. If they elect to do so, they will join the ranks of more than two dozen other countries that have formed since the beginning of 1990.

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Masses turn out to vote in S Sudan

Sun, 09 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Aljazeera - By Ranjit Bhaskar - Jan. 09 (News) - Southern Sudanese have turned out in droves to vote in a historic referendum to decide whether they want to secede from Sudan or remain united. The week-long poll started on Sunday at 8:00 local time [05:00 GMT] across Sudan.

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Swiss on hand to ease separation of Sudan

Sat, 08 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

SwissInfo.ch - By Frederic Burnand, Clare O'Dea - Jan. 08 (Interview) - Switzerland is poised to play a role in the discussions on the secession of Southern Sudan which is expected to be endorsed in Sunday’s independence referendum.

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Can Sudan's oil feed north and south?

Thu, 06 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

BBC News - By James Copnall - Jan. 06 (News Analysis) - Oil has fuelled conflict in Sudan, and rapid growth in the northern heartland of Africa's biggest country, as the 4x4s purring past shining skyscrapers in the capital, Khartoum, suggest. But now southerners seem certain to choose independence in Sunday's referendum - and when they go they will take most of Sudan's oil with them.

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In Sudan, Possible New Country Poses Health Care System Challenges

Mon, 03 Jan 2011 23:28:00 -0800

NewsHour - Jan. 03 - Listen to the Audio GWEN IFILL: Next tonight: the health care challenges that threaten to overwhelm an African nation as it prepares to cast a critical vote on independence.Special correspondent Jeffrey Kaye reports from Southern Sudan.JEFFREY KAYE: On the banks of the Nile River in South Sudan, entrepreneurs pump water to fill up tankers. Private water collection and sales from rivers and wells is big business here, particularly during the dry season. But, for customers, the water often comes at a high cost.DR. JUSTIN BRUNO, Al Sabah Hospital: It is a good business for them, but this is spreading diseases.JEFFREY KAYE: Dr. Justin Bruno directs the Al Sabah children hospital in the town of Juba.JUSTIN BRUNO: The water is not treated. It is just flowing naturally. And then it comes into the tanks and the tankers sell it to the people. And the people just drink them. It's not boiled. It's not treated.JEFFREY KAYE: And what happens as a result?JUSTIN BRUNO: Diarrheal diseases. People get acute diarrhea. People get what are bloody diarrhea and typhoid fever. And that is rampant in this town and in Southern Sudan.JEFFREY KAYE: And you can trace that right back to those tanks?JUSTIN BRUNO: Right back to the river water.JEFFREY KAYE: Patients suffer not only from preventable diseases, but, even if they make it to a health care facility, often from inadequate treatment.This is essentially the waiting room of the only children's hospital in South Sudan. The health care system, such as it is here, is barely functioning. Most people have no access to health care. So, the challenge is not so much to improve the system. It's to create one.JUSTIN BRUNO: The most pressing medical need is lack of medical supplies. The medical supplies is not enough for the patient.JEFFREY KAYE: What do you mean?JUSTIN BRUNO: The medications are not enough for the patients.JEFFREY KAYE: Besides the lack of drugs, the hospital's single X-ray machine is broken. It shares a storage room with a busted blood bank refrigerator. There's no ultrasound or C.T. machine. And even though there's an emergency ward, the hospital has no anesthesia.Inpatients here, most suffering from malaria, malnutrition, respiratory infections and diarrhea, often share beds or sleep on the floor.Mary Camisa (ph) walked here barefoot from her village 50 miles away, carrying her 3-year-old son suffering from convulsions brought on by cerebral malaria.JUSTIN BRUNO: They are very far distances to walk in. Some, they often drive two days to arrive here to get health care services here. So, we need to decentralize more these health centers, so that they're closer to the people.JEFFREY KAYE: South Sudan's dire health conditions are reflected in a recent United Nations compilation of what it calls ‘scary statistics.' Most people have no access to safe drinking water or sanitation. Malaria is hyperendemic. A 15-year-old girl is more likely to die in childbirth than finish school.Katie Morris is a program manager for Catholic Relief Services, which, among other projects, provides support for 43 health facilities in Southern Sudan.KATIE MORRIS, Program Manager, Catholic Relief Services: If you look at it by the numbers, it paints quite a grim picture. Maternal and infant mortality are among the highest in the world. Vaccination coverage is among the lowest for children and -- and pregnant women. It's a very sad picture.JEFFREY KAYE: Changing that picture will be among the biggest challenges facing an independent South Sudan if, as expected, people here vote to separate from the North in a referendum that begins January 9.Even now, South Sudanese officials are planning how to build a medical system, virtually from scratch. Member of parliament Dr. Martha Martin heads the legislature's health committee.DR. MARTHA MARTIN, Southern Sudan Legislative Assembly: So, we need to think about rural areas to be developed. Develop them through the primary health care.JEFFREY KAYE: A family doctor trained in Cuba, Martin says family health centers can be used as building blocks of a national system.MARTHA MARTIN: If have primary health care, you won't have difficulties when you have somebody. You receive first the patient in the center. You give them the first aid and then you send them to a big hospital. The patient will be saved.JEFFREY KAYE: So the first thing to do is develop a primary health care system?MARTHA MARTIN: We have to have a good, big hospital, well-equipped.JEFFREY KAYE: It's an ambitious undertaking. Clinics like this one, the Saint Kizito primary health care center in the town of Juba, are scattered throughout the country. But less than 30 percent of South Sudan's population has access to health care services. And, like the hospitals, many clinics also lack resources. When we arrived at the health center, women were waiting to have their children vaccinated. The mud floor clinic has no running water, no toilets, no delivery routes, no doctor. Medications were running low, and the staff of 10 shared two stethoscopes.This clinic is funded by the Catholic Church. Outsiders, including the U.S. government, the U.N., evangelical groups, and aid organizations, pay for most of South Sudan's health care.KATIE MORRIS: Over 60 percent of the health facilities in Southern Sudan are supported financially and in some cases operationally by international or national non-governmental organizations. So, the idea is that, over time, the government capacity will grow and that they will be able to absorb some of these facilities and take staff on to their payroll.JEFFREY KAYE: What few services the government currently provides are inefficient. After several hours at the Saint Kizito clinic, many women had given up waiting for vaccinations. The serum hadn't come, so patients had drifted away.Some clinics are trying to reduce maternal and child mortality rates by sending community health workers into villages. In the shanty neighborhood of Lologo on the outskirts of Juba, midwives from a U.S.-funded clinic visit huts to provide women with pre- and post-natal instructions and care. One in seven pregnant women in South Sudan is likely to die as a result of the pregnancy. Fourteen percent of children die before their fifth birthday.Midwife Rajibia Ahmad says simple lessons can save lives.RAJIBIA AHMAD, Midwife, Lologo Clinic: I will come here to see the baby, to see the mother, to check them, and to give her -- answer the question again, give them hygiene, how to eat, how to birth the baby.JEFFREY KAYE: Breast-feed.RAJIBIA AHMAD: Yes, breast-feeding.JEFFREY KAYE: Ahmad had delivered baby Emanuel (ph) seven days earlier. That's a rare occurrence in South Sudan, where only 10 percent of births are attended by a health care worker. The midwives urge pregnant women to deliver their babies in the clinic, to use clean water, and to avoid putting ashes on severed umbilical cords, a traditional treatment.Officials say they are optimistic about building a health care system in South Sudan. South Sudanese professionals who trained abroad during decades of civil war are returning to the country to practice medicine, among them, Dr. Bruno, who attended medical school in neighboring Uganda, where, as a teenager, he had fled by foot, a yearlong trek from his home. Bruno believes that independence might lead to less spending on the military and more on health.JUSTIN BRUNO: At the moment, more than 50 percent of our resources, of our budget go for security.JEFFREY KAYE: To the military?JUSTIN BRUNO: For the military.If independence comes, the reverse will be true. There will be less spending in the army and then there will be more spending in health care system and other service delivery. So, independence will mean a lot of development coming in, a lot of health care system improving, because the fact the money that go for security will have been put in development, the special health care system.JEFFREY KAYE: How much South Sudan spends on its military is likely to depend in part on whether the independence vote and its aftermath will be peaceful. In any event, economic development should go a long way to help reverse the abysmal health statistics by spurring the creation of water and sanitation systems. South Sudan's interim constitution guarantees free primary health care to all, clearly a long-term goal.For now, officials and health workers are combating preventable diseases with more basic steps: education, better nutrition, and simple drugs.

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