Sudan

UNITED NATIONS -- A high-ranking Sudanese government official colluded with militias to commit atrocities against civilians in the Darfur region, the International Criminal Court's prosecutor said yesterday. Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo presented results of a 21-month investigation that he said shows "reasonable evidence" that Ahmad Muhammad Harun, then Sudan's minister of state for the interior, and imprisoned militia leader Ali Kushayb "bear criminal responsibility" for mass executions, rapes and the forcible removal of thousands of people from their homes.

UNITED NATIONS -- The Security Council authorized yesterday an extensive United Nations peacekeeping operation in Darfur aimed at protecting civilians and aid workers in the violence-racked region of Sudan. The council voted 15-0 to begin sending a joint U.N.-African Union force of up to 26,000 troops and police to Darfur before the end of the year to quell the violence that has killed more than 200,000 people and displaced more than 2 million in the past four years. It will take a year to muster the full force, and the cost will be about $2 billion, said peacekeeping chief Jean-Marie Guehenno, who added that a substantial number of troops will arrive in Darfur before year's end. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon called the resolution "historic and unprecedented," and said it would help "improve the lives of the people of the region and close this tragic chapter in Sudan's history."

WASHINGTON -- President Bush said yesterday that if U.N. efforts to bring peace to Darfur do not soon bear fruit, the United States would expand and tighten economic sanctions intended to end what he described as the genocide taking place there. In his most extensive remarks on the issue, Bush threatened new restrictions on Sudan and those doing business there. He also raised the possibility of seeking international steps to block Sudan's government from flying military aircraft in the region.

Our T-shirts will read, the `Genocide Olympics?' The question mark is there because we're still hoping that China will come around and do the right thing. But we're not giving up until they do." - MIA FARROW, actress and activist, on a new campaign to pressure the Chinese government into action on the crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan, a country where China is a big investor; Beijing is hosting the 2008 Summer Games

IT IS a year before the millennium and Theresa Nybol Deng is a slave. In May, she was taken captive when the government-armed militia stormed her village in southern Sudan. Soldiers shot the men, looted the village and carted off as many women and children as they could. Theresa is 12 years old. She can be purchased for $50.If her fate is anything like that of tens of thousands of black Africans who have become chattel in Sudan's civil war, Theresa has been sold and bought. She is likely serving a master somewhere in northern Sudan, Libya or the Persian Gulf.

IT IS a year before the millennium and Theresa Nybol Deng is a slave. In May, she was taken captive when the government-armed militia stormed her village in southern Sudan. Soldiers shot the men, looted the village and carted off as many women and children as they could. Theresa is 12 years old. She can be purchased for $50.If her fate is anything like that of tens of thousands of black Africans who have become chattel in Sudan's civil war, Theresa has been sold and bought. She is likely serving a master somewhere in northern Sudan, Libya or the Persian Gulf.

YOU probably don't know their names: Courtney Hutt, Tia Jackson, LaTasha Peele, Nikki Harley and Anissa Brown. They're members of the Mu Pi chapter of Delta Sigma Theta sorority. They attend the University of Delaware. And they're very concerned about the reports of slavery in Sudan and Mauritania.So concerned, in fact, that they sponsored a forum on May 7 to learn more on the subject. They did some research themselves. Then they brought in a speaker. At the program, attended by some 40 to 50 students, they read from the testimony of one escaped Sudanese slave who told how she was captured by government soldiers, forced on a tortuous march in which she was raped repeatedly and then given to an Arab family as a slave.

THE NAACP has prided itself on issuing report cards on politicians and businesses, handing out A's to those sympathetic to the "civil rights agenda" and flunking those who supposedly fall short of the organization's criteria.So let's grade the recent NAACP conference, held last week in New York City, during which the organization made several resolutions and covered numerous topics, several of which have generated controversy.Emergency resolution on Sudan: The NAACP gets an A+ for this one. In a powerfully worded, three-page resolution, the NAACP condemned the government of Sudan for human rights abuses, genocide, slavery and supporting terrorism.

KHARTOUM, Sudan -- At Khartoum's outdoor market, Hawa Sabboon leans listlessly against a pole. Her trays of watermelon seeds and dates remain nearly full. As an ocher sun wallows in the dust-filled sky, she assesses the day's trade."No customers. No buying. No selling," says the 18-year-old street vendor, who, at dusk, will board a crowded bus for the 1 1/2 -hour ride home.Sabboon knows little of the United States' military strike that destroyed a Khartoum pharmaceutical plant Aug. 20 and focused the world's attention on her African homeland.

CAIRO, Egypt -- At the Al Rahman Mosque on the street of the Pyramids, Sheik Shabain Shalaby preaches to the faithful about terrorists who kill innocent people, those with God in their hearts.Whether the victims work in a factory in Sudan or an American Embassy in Kenya, an act of terrorism is the work of the devil, says the Muslim cleric. "No aim is to be achieved in these attacks," he says, as the call for afternoon prayer rings out.But not all of the Muslims who pray at this corner mosque view the issue as simply as the sheik.

WASHINGTON - -Former Rep. Albert R. Wynn's first client as a registered lobbyist is a unit of a Finnish company that has been sharply criticized by human-rights advocates for its work in Sudan, according to a recently filed disclosure report. The Maryland Democrat quit his House seat last year, months before his term was up, in order to join a powerful Washington lobbying firm. The early departure gave Wynn a head start on an ethics law that requires members of Congress to wait one full year after leaving office before they begin lobbying their former colleagues.

The doctor in Sudan told the young mother she was expecting. At least three babies, the doctor said, maybe four. Adwai Malual, a 28-year-old married bank teller, considered following the doctor's advice and going to Jordan for medical care. But then she thought of her older sister living in Prince George's County and her mother-in-law in Minnesota. Malual's mother, Anne Abyei, explained yesterday how her daughter decided to head to the United States. The trip would allow Malual to accomplish two goals: get medical care for herself and her unborn children, and meet with her mother-in-law before giving birth, the custom in Sudan.

Pakistani troops kill 30 militants near border ISLAMABAD, Pakistan : Pakistani forces killed at least 30 militants near the Afghan border, as the region's provincial chief called for "peaceful dialogue" in a meeting with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher. North West Frontier Province Chief Minister Amir Haider Khan Hoti said he told Boucher during the meeting in Peshawar that he wanted to "to resolve all political problems through peaceful dialogue, but there wouldn't be any compromise on maintaining the writ of the government."

A Carroll County-based aid organization has secured more than $26 million in funding from the World Bank to help build a health system in south Sudan, one of the most disease-ravaged, impoverished areas of Africa, officials at the nonprofit agency said. This award brings to nearly $100 million the African relief that IMA World Health, headquartered in New Windsor, is managing, primarily in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. IMA, formerly known as Interchurch Medical Assistance Inc., entered into a 40-month contract this month with the World Bank's multidonor trust program.

WASHINGTON - Filling up at the gas pump isn't just financially painful. Paying $4 a gallon also is creating headaches for the United States that are likely to spark new fighting overseas and to aggravate old conflicts. Iran, which trains, arms and finances terrorists across the Middle East, is raking in an extra $4 billion a month thanks to the increased price of oil. That money may show up as sophisticated new roadside bombs in Iraq or as rockets raining down on Israel, experts say. The cascade of cash also gives Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad extra protection against the economic sanctions the U.S. is hoping will force Iran to give up its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

ABU SUROUJ, Sudan -- As Darfur smolders in the aftermath of a new government offensive, a long-sought peacekeeping force, expected to be the world's largest, is in danger of failing even before it begins its mission because of bureaucratic delays, stonewalling by Sudan's government and reluctance from troop-contributing countries to send peacekeeping forces into an active conflict. The force, which officially took over from an overstretched and exhausted African Union force in Darfur on Jan. 1, has just more than 9,000 of an expected 26,000 soldiers and police officers, and will not fully deploy until the end of the year, U.N. officials said.

BEIJING -- China has expressed "grave concerns" to the Sudanese government about the recent violence in western Darfur and is actively working to resolve delays in establishing an international peacekeeping force, China's special envoy to Darfur said yesterday. The envoy, Liu Guijin, who recently returned from his fourth visit to Sudan, offered a detailed defense of China's role in Darfur at a news conference at the Foreign Ministry here and repeated Beijing's stance that activists are wrong to link the strife in Darfur to the Beijing Olympics in August.

N'DJAMENA, Chad -- A rebellion aimed at toppling Chad's president appeared to falter yesterday as France declared that it would intervene to protect the Chadian government if called upon, and a Darfur rebel group with close ties to the Chadian government said it had sent troops to help bolster the president, Idriss Deby. French military officials in Chad said the rebels were far from N'Djamena, the capital, and the streets of the city were quiet. For the first time since the weekend, the sound of automatic gunfire disappeared.

Crawford, Texas -- President Bush signed legislation yesterday intended to restrict U.S. investment in Sudan, despite his administration's concern that it improperly gives state and local governments a hand in foreign policy. The House and Senate, ignoring the administration's objections, approved the bill unanimously, and Bush signed it at his home near here while reserving the right to enforce it "in a manner that does not conflict" with the federal government's authority to conduct the nation's dealings with other countries.

The 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing are nearly a year away, but for China and Sudan, the games have already begun. As China preens in the world spotlight, its leaders have proved unusually susceptible to suggestions that Beijing should no longer be involved in the nasty business of financing genocide in Darfur through oil trade with Khartoum. The small steps China has taken to lean on Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir are significant, but not nearly enough to keep pace with the rate at which Darfur is descending into a deeper level of hellish chaos.