The Sudanese government has signed a framework peace accord with a small Darfur rebel group, officials have said.

The three-month ceasefire agreement, signed with the Liberation and Justice Movement (LJM) on Thursday in Doha, the Qatari capital, came as talks with the larger Justice and Equality Movement (Jem) stalled.

Ali Osman Taha, the Sudanese vice-president who attended the signing of the Qatari-sponsored agreement, said: “This is an important step which will give momentum to peace efforts in Darfur.”

Qatar has been mediating between various Darfur groups and the government in Khartoum with a view to finding a lasting peace in Sudan’s western region.

Jem dismisses deal

As the signing ceremony got under way, Jem dismissed the deal saying the LJM had no military force on the ground.

But Al-Tahir al-Feki, a Jem senior official, told the Reuters news agency that his movement would not immediately act on its threat to walk out of Doha talks in protest at the deal. ”The ceasefire is meaningless. It is a ceasefire without any fire,” he said, speaking just before the signing.

“We’ll not leave Doha. We can’t respond now in a reflex reaction. We’ll see how it [the new accord] goes.”

Tijani Seisi, leader of the LJM – a newly formed umbrella group of 10 movements – that signed the framework deal paving the way for further talks, told Al Jazeera the peace deal will “underpin confidence between the two parties in order to move into the peace process”.

“There is a need to unite all these movements because peace will only be achieved if everybody is involved. But the Jem movement does not want to recognise the existence of the other factions on the ground,” he said.

Sudan and the Jem signed a pact in Doha last month, seen as a major step towards bringing peace to Darfur, but it has since run into difficulty. Omar al-Saleh, Al Jazeera’s correspondent at the talks in Doha, said: “What we witnessed today is a framework agreement with the government of Sudan and the ceasefire for three months.

“This is the important thing. The breakthrough came last month when 10 rebel groups decided to join forces and they called themselves the Liberation and Justice Movement.”

But the Sudan Liberation Army, a major faction led by Abdelwahid Nur, has so far refused to have any negotiations with the government.

Earlier this month it clashed with the army in the fertile Jebel Marra plateau in the heart of Darfur.

On Wednesday, Sudanese authorities re-arrested 15 members of Jem after releasing them following a truce with the group. Adam Bakr, the lawyer representing the rebels, said they were arrested when they went to Al-Fashir, the capital of north Darfur.

Our correspondent said one of the important things at the signing ceremony was the presence of some regional players like the foreign ministers of Eritrea and Chad.

Chad and Eritrea have been accused in the past of aiding rebel groups fighting Sudan. Qatar’s diplomatic efforts to find peace in Darfur have been complemented by Western powerful countries.

US appeal

Scott Gration, the US envoy to Sudan, urged all parties to the Darfur conflict to seize the “little window” for a peace agreement before presidential, parliamentary and state elections next month.

“If we can get a jump on a Darfur peace agreement, then we should, because there’s going to be a lot of things keeping us from focusing on Darfur,” Gration told reporters in Nairobi last week before he travelled to Doha.

“The framework agreement “has to be turned into a more formalised agreement … If there is going to be a comprehensive and lasting peace in Darfur, all rebel groups need to be involved.”

The conflict in Darfur has pitched ethnic African tribesmen against the Arab-dominated Khartoum government, claiming up to 300,000 lives – from the fighting as well as famine and disease – and displacing 2.7 million people, according to the UN.

Sudan, whose president Omar al-Bashir has been indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) over war crimes in Darfur, disputes the toll and says only 10,000 have died. Source: (Aljazeera)

SUNA News Agency reports that Sudanese Minister of Energy and Mining Al-Zubair Ahmed Al-Hassan Thursday received the Russian envoy for Sudan, Mikhail Margelov.

Both discussed ways of enhancing the economic co-operation between Sudan and Russia in the fields of energy, mining, petroleum and infrastructures in the field of processing industry and petro-chemicals. Present at the meeting were representatives of a number of Russian companies.

The minister welcomed the desire of the Russian side to consolidate its economic relations with Sudan, affirming Sudan’s readiness to engage in real partnership with Russia and to enable the Russian companies to operate in Sudan.

Meanwhile, representative of the Russian companies expressed their desire to establish investment projects in the oil, mining, gold and electricity power sectors in Sudan.

Both countries reviewed means for boosting the Sudanese – Russian bilateral relations and to consolidate them further.

The meeting, which was attended by the Russian Ambassador to Sudan, and a number of the representatives of the Russian companies in Sudan discussed horizons of investment in the fields of energy, oil, electricity, petro-chemical industries and heavy industry.

DOHA, Feb 24 (SUNA) — The Grand Hall of the Sheraton Hotel in Doha on Tuesday evening was thevenue for the signing of the framework agreement for a ceasefire in Dafur in western Sudan between the government of Sudan and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).

The signing took place amidst a high-level regional and international presence led by the President of Sudan, Omar Al Bashir, the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani, President Idress Debby of Chad, President Isaias Afwerki of Eritrea and Dr Khalil Ibrahim, the JEM Chairman.

It was also attended by Djibril Bassoule, the joint mediator for Dafur, and Professor Ibrahim Gambari, the Joint Special Representative of the African Union (AU) and the United Nations to UNAMID, and representatives of the permanent members of the UN Security Council, and other countries as well as representatives of the Arab League and the AU.

Dr Amin Hassan Omar signed on behalf of the government of the Sudan while Ahmad Tagad signed for the JEM, a rebel group involved in the Dafur conflict. The two sides shook hands and exchanged documents following the signing of the framework agreement.

The framework agreement is considered the first step towards the achievement of comprehensive and lasting peace in Darfur and it was well received by the international and regional communities as well as international organizations and relevant bodies concerned with peace in the region.

The Qatari government, its people and leadership played an important role, as mediator in the peace talks, a role highly appreciated by all concerned parties to the deal, with all parties nodding to the wise intelligent and informed role they played in the negotiations.

Chad’s President Idress Debby equally played an important role through his hosting of the initial signing and also showed the transformation in the Sudanese-Chadian relationship.

The government delegation to the event included a number of senior officials, representatives of the parties to Sudan’s government of national unity, civil society representatives, leaders from Darfur and members of the Sudan People’s Forum.

On the side of Justice and Equality Movement, those who attended the ceremony included the senior leaders of the movement who flew to Doha for the event.

The JEM declared a cease-fire as of the midnight of Tuesday as part of the implementation of the framework agreement.

JEM Chairman Dr. Khalil Ibrahim said at the signing ceremony that the agreement wais a step forward in the peace process and paved the way for negotiations for realizing peace in Darfur.

He added that the JEM was committed to the implementation of all items of the agreement, stating that the path for peace still needed great efforts, and that both parties should be ready to make concessions so that comprehensive peace in Darfur could be achieved.

Dr. Ibrahim called on the armed groups to establish a unity and partnership among them for the interest of the people and the homeland, a partnership of no loser or winner.

He called on the Emir of Qatar to sponsor the implementation of the agreement, expressing his appreciation of the great efforts being exerted by Qatar and its leader, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa bin Hamad Al-Thani.

He also thanked the Emir of Qatar for his generous donation for the rehabilitation and development in Darfur.

Dr. Khalil Ibrahim also praised the role being played by Chad, Libya, the Arab League, the African Union and the joint mediation team, led by Qatar, for realizing peace in Darfur.

Djibril Bassole welcomed the framework agreement and described it as a positive step for the comprehensive solution for Darfur issue. He appreciated the efforts exerted by all parties for the signing of the agreement by the government and the JEM.

Bassole said that the agreement paves the way for beginning the negotiations in Doha for realization of comprehensive peace in Darfur.

AU Commission Chairman Jean Ping reiterated the commitment of the African Union to help Sudan and all parties to implement all clauses of the framework agreement to bolster peace and development all over Sudan.

Ping, who described the agreement as a landmark step in peace process and a real addition to the accomplishments in this regard, urged parties in the agreement to be committed to the implementation of all clauses of the agreement.

This accomplishment would be added to the accomplishments of Africa and assured the capability of the African people to overcome their differences without foreign intervention, he added.

President Deby affirmed the commitment of Chad to co-operate with the concerned parties to boost the implementation all the items of the agreement and said that Chad would work out a plan to guarantee implementation of the agreement.

He said Chad would exert efforts toward making all the Darfurian movements and Sudan’s government sign similar agreements. He said the role of Chad was a duty that was necessitated by the fact that Chad and Sudan are neighbours.

He referred to the suffering of Chad and Sudan from the armed movements and the clashes at the joint border area, adding that there would be no return to that past.

Sudan – The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has launched an information campaign in Sudan on the risks of irregular migration as part of a broader effort to tackle key migration issues in East Africa and the Horn of Africa.

The campaign, which will target seven states in eastern Sudan, will be implemented as part of an Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) programme to address gaps in migration management in the IGAD region. It aims to inform irregular migrants and potential migrants of the risks they face on their journey to Europe and the Middle East.

With more than 7,600 kms of land borders, 853 kms of coastline and nine neighbours, Sudan lies in the middle of the East African route to the Mediterranean. It is one of the three main routes used by mainly Ethiopian, Eritrean and Somali irregular migrants en route to Europe via Libya and Egypt as they seek to escape poverty, conflict and increasing environmental degradation at home.

Sudan is also a country of origin and destination for irregular migrants. More than 100,000 refugees from the Horn of Africa are currently being hosted in camps in Khartoum, Gedaref, Red Sea, Kassala, El Gezira, Sennar and Blue Nile states, with the camps recognized as a source and transit point for flows of both asylum-seekers and economic migrants to, within and through Sudan.

Sudanese nationals seeking a new life abroad using irregular means can often become stranded in transit. All irregular migrants are vulnerable to human trafficking and abuse during their journey, often because of a lack of knowledge about what the journey will actually entail.

Posters and flyers with information and advice are being distributed in Arabic, Amharic and Tigrinya in the seven states. Dialogues are also being held with community leaders in the camps. The campaign, funded by the European Commission, is also using radio and other means to reach irregular migrants and potential Sudanese migrants with materials based on true-life stories designed to target specific ethnic groups, cultures and motives for migrating.

As well as highlighting the risks of irregular migration, campaign materials will inform migrants and potential migrants on the requirements and opportunities for regular migration. This will include information about how to obtain travel documents, work permits and visas, and and about the immigration laws of host countries.

Implemented in collaboration with the Immigration and Passport Department of the Ministry of Interior and the Sudanese Commission for Refugees, the campaign is a step towards a more established response to combating human smuggling and human trafficking in the country by building the government’s capacities on migration issues.

January 31, 2010 (ADDIS ABABA) — U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Sunday said he will name Haile Menkerios, a former Eritrean diplomat as his special envoy to Sudan making him the third head of the UN Mission in Sudan.

“I have the intention to appoint Haile Menkerios as head of UNMIS as of the end of February with a view to facilitate the political process,” disclosed Ban Ki Moon during remarks delivered at special meeting on Sudan at the sidelines of the AU summit in Addis Ababa.

Menkerios, is currently the United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs.

At the UN, he was Director of the Africa I Division in the Department of Political Affairs from June 2003 to June 2005. On September 26, 2005, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced his appointment as Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General for the Democratic Republic of the Congo; he assumed this post in October 2005. Subsequently, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced his appointment as UN Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs on May 16, 2007, and he assumed this post on July 1, 2007.

From 1991 to 2000, Menkerios was Eritrea’s Ambassador to Ethiopia and the Organisation of African Unity, and was Eritrea’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations.

Ban Ki-Moon said yesterday he would work with the African Union to maintain united Sudan and avoid southern Sudan secession.

The UN Secretary General reiterated during the special meeting his call for the Sudanese parties signatories of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement to make unity attractive. He also urged them to reach an agreement on the key post referendum arrangement.

“To the CPA parties, I urge an acceleration of efforts to make unity attractive. I call on them to ensure an environment in which candidates can campaign freely and the people of Sudan can vote without any interference,” he said.

“The referenda in Southern Sudan and Abyei need to be held without hindrance and the results duly respected, he added.

In a recent report to the UN Security Council, Ban said a new civil war in Sudan could break out, given the atmosphere of deep mistrust between various key players in the country.

Also, Sudan Rice, US envoy to the UN, expressed concerns about arms flowing to South Sudan saying “We heard today from the U.N. that it is not just small arms but some heavier munitions that seem to be flowing in,” adding Washington believes some were coming from northern Sudan.

But Khartoum denied the accusations. Source:(Sudantribune)

London – Band members from Pink Floyd, Radiohead and Snow Patrol have teamed up to call an end to the ongoing conflict in Sudan.

Drummers from the groups are taking part in the Beat for Peace campaign, a film which calls for an end to conflict in the African country after millions died in the civil war there, which ended in 2005.

The documentary, which is part of the wider Sudan 365 campaign, features other artists from Sudan, Australia and Japan as well.

“I wanted to be involved in this project because I think music is such a powerful way of bringing people together,” the Daily Express quoted Radiohead’s Phil Selway as saying of the drive created by Faithless drummer Jamie Catto.

“Of course, I’m biased in thinking that what’s underpinning it all is always the beat – always drummers!

“Hopefully this film will show that together people can make a huge noise and through this film I hope people’s focus will be brought back to what is happening in the Sudan over this very important next year,” he added.

A referendum is due to be held next January (11) on independence for the south of the country, but campaigners fear there could be a return to conflict this year. Source: (ANI)

By Patrick Werr

CAIRO, Reuters- An Egyptian and a Sudanese company signed an agreement on Tuesday to build a key section of the Cape-to-Cairo highway, an Egyptian official said.

The road has been a dream since the late 19th century, when British officials planned a road to connect their colonies in Africa. Under the agreement, a 400-km (250-mile) stretch of highway will be built between Aswan in Egypt and Dongola in Sudan at a cost of $500 million, Osama Saleh, chairman of the General Authority for Investment, told reporters.

This is the last section to be built between Khartoum and Cairo, although major gaps remain unfinished in East Africa.

“The project aims to connect Egypt’s Alexandria and Cape Town in South Africa,” Saleh said.

Egypt’s state Holding Co. for Building and Construction and Sudan’s privately owned Zawaya Group for Development and Investment signed the memorandum of understanding.

Reuters reports that Sudan has begun exporting its first 5 million litres of ethanol to the European Union, at an initial price of around 450 euros a cubic metre, according to officials from the Kenana Sugar company.

Kenana, Sudan’s largest sugar company, this year inaugurated the ethanol plant which aims to produce 65 million litres a year of the bio fuel.

“Yesterday a vessel carrying 5 million litres of ethanol went to Rotterdam,” said company secretary Fareed Omer Medani.

“This has been purchased by the European Union,” he said, adding by the end of February a further 20 million litres would be exported in four separate shipments.

Kenana’s Managing Director Mohamed El Mardi told Reuters the price per cubic metre for the December shipment was about 450 euros FOB. But he said prices for the four further shipments would vary, depending on the market.

“The prices are not fixed prices,” he said. “For the five shipments we will have 5 different prices — January/February prices are higher than in December.”

Mardi said it was the first export of ethanol from Sudan, adding the shipments would continue regularly at 5 million litres every month. Mardi said the plant’s capacity would rise to 200 million litres of ethanol a year by 2013.

The factory uses by-products from Sudan’s sugar industry to create a renewable energy source for a country whose economy is largely dependent on crude oil output of almost 500,000 barrels per day. He added some European companies had contacted Kenana about possible ethanol exports to West Africa.

Brazilian company Dedini Industrias de Base S.A. built the ethanol plant.  Sudan aims to produce 750,000 tonnes of sugar in 2009/2010.

DOHA: Qatar is one of the leading investors in the agricultural sector in Sudan, says a former minister of irrigation of Egypt.

Mahmoud Abu Zaid is currently chairman of Arab Water Council. The Arab world is rich in water resources and agriculture. It’s lands are fertile. This is especially true of Sudan which is indeed the food basket of the Arab world.

Such resources are in need of capital-intensive investment as well as management. So the government and the private sector have already begun setting up food growing and processing projects in Sudan.

The investors in Sudan, which are commercial entities and not individuals, are all from Arab countries. Qatar has the largest investment in Sudan’s agricultural sector besides having investment in other areas of economy.

Other GCC states which have sizeable presence in Sudan through their investments in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Abu Zaid said in Cairo that there is the need to support the private sector by providing the necessary political backing to protect and encourage investments.

He pointed out that the Arab world is the largest importer of food in the world and is so affected by international food price fluctuations.

Speaking about water, he said that 80 percent of water requirements of the Arab world is sourced from other countries. A good example is the Nile which is the longest river in the world but its source is from the Victorian lake and Ethiopian highlands.

Also, the water available to Syria and Iraq are sourced from Turkey. So Abu Zaid said that there is the need to have a strategy in place to preserve and exploit the water resources of the Arab world.

In remarks to Al Sharq correspondent in Cairo, the former Egyptian minister talked of various projects being launched with NASA and World Bank to use satellite images to estimate the water resources of the Arab world for preservation and exploitation.

A number of programmes have been launched to train people in the Arab world in the realm of water management in collaboration with international organizations. Irrigation systems in the Arab is generally outdated so there is a need to modernise them, said Abu Zaid. Source: (The Peninsula)

Habi Hazaimeh from the Jordan Times reports that an updated feasibility study on a Jordanian Government-led mega-project to invest in Sudanese agricultural lands has been finalised.

“The study was expected to be sent to the Cabinet last week, however, the change of government put it on hold. We are optimistic about the project and we believe that it will soon see the light of day,” Masri told The Jordan Times over the phone yesterday.

He noted that the government is considering a proposal by a regional private sector company to participate in the project.

“We have been officially contacted by a financing and agricultural company based in the [Arab] Gulf, which showed interest in taking part in the Sudan project,” Masri said, stopping short of naming the potential partner.

In a previous statement to The Jordan Times, Masri said the main challenge facing the project’s implementation is securing the required funds for infrastructure. The government’s decision to go ahead with the project hinges on the findings of the feasibility study, which will determine the financial needs of the agricultural project, he said.

In early October, Masri stated that the Sudanese government intended to take back the land allocated for the mega-project, some 87,000 dunums, if Jordan did not implement it by the end of that month, more than a decade after the original deal was signed.

Sudan has yet to cancel the project, however, and Masri said yesterday the ministry has received “positive indications” from the Sudanese embassy in Amman that the Khartoum is considering a one-year extension of the deadline.

The feasibility of the project, which entails Jordan cultivating agricultural products near the Nile to be shipped directly to the Kingdom’s markets, needed to be reviewed due to the economic climate, according to the ministry.

The government conducted a $359,000 feasibility study on the project in 2003, funded by the Islamic Bank in Jeddah.

Citing the findings of that study, ministry officials have said that yields from the project would provide the Kingdom with at least 60 per cent of its annual needs of meat, 100 per cent of clover, 40 per cent of garlic, 100 per cent of bananas and 100 per cent of mangos. Source: (Jordan Times)

KHARTOUM — Sudan’s leaders have settled their differences Sunday over the hotly disputed 2011 referendum on southern independence, the official news agency reported, clearing a main hurdle facing the fragile four year-old north-south peace deal.

The referendum bill has been straining relations between the former rivals for months.

Northern officials have demanded at least 75 percent of registered southern voters turn out in order for the referendum results to be valid. The south insists on a lower threshold.

Senior southern official Pagan Amum said President Omar al-Bashir and the southern President Silva Kiir met with their political advisers and finally agreed on the bill.

The two sides also agreed on the referendum rules for three areas laying on the yet undemarcated north-south border, including the oil-rich region of Abyei.

“We announce with this agreement the end of the disagreement between the (northern) National Congress Party and the (southern) Sudan People Liberation Movement over the three laws (on the referendum for the border areas). We will present them to the Parliament in two days,” Amum said, according to the official SUNA news agency.

He didn’t explain how the differences were settled. Southern officials said they are holding a party meeting to discuss the agreements.

The 2005 peace deal ended more than 20 years of civil war in which 2 million people perished.

The peace deal also created a national unity government and a semiautonomous south. It provides for nationwide parliamentary and presidential elections to be held in April 2010, and a referendum in 2011 to determine whether the south wanted to secede from the northern Arabized north.

As part of the peace deal, the two parties agreed to work to make unity attractive. But southerners, increasingly frustrated at the lack of peace dividends, have openly favored independence.

Many northerners fear the secession of the oil-rich south would deprive their government of the much prized oil revenues.

Last month, Kiir called on his people to vote for secession in the referendum if they do not want to end up as second class citizens. His call, the first ever favoring a split, angered his northern partner and was described as a violation of the spirit of the peace deal.

Southern officials complain the north is reneging on many elements of the peace deal, including power and resource sharing and abolishing laws that violate freedoms of expression and religion.

The partners are still bogged down in disagreement over the law regulating the responsibilities of the powerful national security services. Southerners and other opposition groups say the law in place grants the security agencies wide-sweeping powers, and undermines free and fair elections scheduled for April 2010.

Amum and other southern officials were briefly detained last week for participating in a rally demanding changes to the law. Source: (AP)

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved

News Agencies NNN-SUNA report that President Omer Al-Bashir of Sudan and the visiting Eritrean President, Isaias Afwerki, Monday held talks here on a number of issues of mutual concern to the two countries.

The two presidents reviewed means of consolidating relations between Sudan and Eritrea and gave directives for strengthening the co-operation between the Sudanese Red Sea State and Eritrea’s Northern Red Sea Region.

They also gave directives for completing the establishment of the road between Massawa and port-Sudan, giving concern to the establishment of tourism projects and benefiting from the large resources and capabilities at the Red Sea coastal area.

President Al-Bashir briefed the Eritrean president on the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), the registration for the coming elections and the efforts for a solution of Darfur issue.

Presidents Al-Bashir and Afwerki also reviewed the regional and international issues, especially with regard to the situation in the Horn of Africa sub-region.

On Sunday Sudanese News Agencies reported that President Omer Al-Bashir is going to inaugurate on Monday the Industrial Town and the Strategic Reserve Silos in Port Sudan and that President Isaias Afwerki will attend when President Omer Al-Bashir is intending to plant two palm trees to mark the National Tree Festival and address a mass rally at Al-Bayya Square.

In addition the reports stated that President Omer Al-Bashir will attend a sea carival and show and inaugurate the Third Tourism and Marketing Festival of the Red Sea State.