2: Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika has expressed his country s willingness to help achieve national reconciliation in Sudan and called on government and opposition to sit down to negotiations for the sake of the nation s unity. President Bouteflika, who arrived in Khartoum on a three-day state visit, made the offer in a speech delivered at a celebration he attended with Sudanese president to mark the 45th anniversary of Sudan s independence. 

7: President Bashir has extended the of emergency in Sudan for a year, the official Sudan News Agency SUNA reported. The agency gave no reasons for the extension of the emergency, which was first declared on December 12, 1999, during Bashir s power struggle with former parliamentary speaker Hassan Abdallah al-turabi, an Islamic ideologue who was once a key ally. 

7: The Sudanese air force is avoiding targeting civilians but will not allow rebels to hide behind human shields, foreign minister Ismail said in remarks published in Cairo Egypt. The use of air power will continue against the rebels wherever they are and we will take care to avoid civilians, Ismail said in an interview with the Egyptian government news Al-Mussawar. 

8: The American Anti-Slavery Group (AASG) has announced that Sudanese government forces enslaved 72 black African women and children during slave raids, on January 5. AASG President Dr. Charles Jacobs condemned the raids as war crimes, and called upon President Clinton to explicitly condemn the raids and demand the immediate liberation of the enslaved civilians 

8: Egypt s Foreign Minister, Amr Moussa, is due to arrive in Sudan in a further effort to end the country's 17-year civil war. During his two-day visit to Khartoum, Mr. Moussa is expected to meet president Bashir, as well as foreign minister Ismail. Egyptian officials said the talks would focus on re-activating the Cairo-Tripoli peace initiative for Sudan, as well as the crisis in the Middle East. 

9: The Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company (GNPOC) plans to drill 17 exploration wells and 25 development wells in its four blocks in southern Sudan this year, an executive of consortium member Talisman Energy Inc. said. Ralph Capeling, Talisman's general manager in Sudan, told reporters the consortium, in which Talisman holds 25 percent, expected to spend about $66 million on exploration, $133 million on development and $73 million on production out of a total upstream budget of around $360 million in its Heglig and Unity fields in 2001. 

10: Eyptian foreign minister Amr Mussa has said in Khartoum, that the time was right for a peace conference involving all Sudanese factions. Before leaving Khartoum, he told journalists that Egypt was "seriously working toward holding a meeting soon of inter-Sudanese reconciliation, because the time is now more favourable than before. 

10: Large numbers of displaced people around Upper Nile in southern Sudan were putting pressure on local populations whose food needs were not secure, and fears were growing of a humanitarian crisis, UNICEF spokesman Martin Dawes said Humanitarian agencies have indicated that food needs will increase in Sudan, and contingency preparations are underway to address the approaching crisis. 

10: The human rights organisation Amnesty International has expressed concern about eight opposition political activists and two lawyers who have reportedly been held without charge in solitary confinement for over a month. In an urgent alert issued, Amnesty said one of the detainees, Ghazi Suleiman, a lawyer from the Sudanese Human Rights Group, had been hospitalised twice since his arrest and there was concern that he had been tortured in custody. 

11: Severe drought in western and parts of southern Sudan has put at least 900,000 people at risk of famine, a United Nations official said. "Wells have dried up for lack of rain in Northern Darfur and the water table is very, very low," Nicholas Siwingwa, deputy country director of the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP), told reported after a recent visit to the area. 

13: The Bishop of Diocese of Rumbek, southern Sudan, His Lorship Caesar Mazzolari, presided over the burial of two Sudanese sisters who drowned on January 8, 2001 when trying to cross a flooded canal on their way from school. Apout Mabuoc, 14, and Achol Mabuoc, 8, were pupils at Nairobi s Langata Road Primary School. 

15: This year s Sudan Catholic Bishops Regional Conference (SCBRC) annual meeting will be held at Dimesse Sisters, Nairobi, from January 22-27. The SCBRC brings together the six bishops working in the SPLA territory in southern Sudan, the Nuba Mountains and southern Blue Nile. 

16: Sudan's Islamist government refuses to ratify an international treaty on women's rights as it contradicts national traditions, President Omar el-Bashir said in remarks published. President Bashir told a rally held in Khartoum to celebrate his re-election as president last month that he found parts of the treaty "contradicted Sudanese values and traditions," the official Suna news agency reported. 

16: The British Archbishop of Canterbury has protested to the government about the destruction of the Episcopal Church Cathedral in Lui, Western Equatoria, southern Sudan. In a letter to the Sudanese ambassador in London, he said the bombing of the church "highlights the continued targeting of undoubted civilian centres by the government of Sudan." 

16: The European Commission has approved Euro 15 million (US$14.1 million) to maintain delivery of humanitarian assistance to Sudan. A statement posted on January 15 by the European Community Humanitarian Office (ECHO) said the assistance would aim to reduce morality rates among the most vulnerable sections of the population and to promote increased self-reliance in the war-affected society. 

16: The main peace forum for halting Sudan's 18-year-old civil war is not enough by itself to end the suffering of Africa's largest country, Egypt's foreign minister Amr Moussa has said. "Everyone should know that the Sudanese problem will not be solved via the IGAD initiative alone, or IGAD's partners in European and world capitals," Moussa told a seminar at Cairo University.

16: Six Sudanese opposition leaders accused of conspiring with the US to destabilise the Khartoum government are soon to face trial, justice minister Ali Osman Yassin announced. On December 6, 2000, Sudanese state security said in a statement it arrested six members of the opposition National Democratic Alliance (NDA) at a meeting they were holding with Glenns Warren, a diplomat in the US Embassy in Khartoum. The six were identified as Ali el Sayed of the Democratic Unionist Party, Mohammed Suleiman of the out-lawed Higher Council of Trade Unions, Joseph Okelo, the NDA Secretary, Mohammed Mahjoub of the Sudanese Communist Party, Mohammed Widatalla of the Arab Ba'ath Party, and Stance Jimmy, an assistant to the NDA Secretary. 

17: A Sudanese has been arrested in Nairobi, Kenya, over the smuggling of Kenyans to Saudi Arabia. He is alleged to have airlifted hundreds of Kenyans to the Middle East to work in dubious jobs. 

18: Seven Sudanese opposition members risk the death penalty if they are found guilty of charges of espionage and plotting violence against the government in Khartoum, Sudan's top prosecutor said. The seven members of the NDA were arrested when the authorities raided a meeting in Khartoum with the US diplomat Warren, who was expelled amid renewed tension with the US. 

19:Hundreds of horseback militia have looted a Red Cross clinic in an attack on a village in southern Sudan, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said. The Arab militia known as Murahaleen, loyal to the government, attacked the village of Chelkou in the far north of Bahr el Ghazal province on January 12, the ICRC's Nairobi-based spokesman Michael Kleiner said. 

19: Sudan's judiciary has temporarily freed a newspaper editor jailed for refusing to publish an apology for an article deemed "defamatory", her newspaper Al-Rai Al-Akher reported. "The judiciary ordered the release of Ms (Amal) Abbas temporarily until the appeals court hears the case", said the paper, adding that she was freed after spending a day in Omdurman women's prison near Khartoum. 

19: Amid the thunder of outdated mechanical presses, journalists at a Sudanese newspaper hunch over computers to pick foreign news off the Internet. While technology has lagged in some areas, growing access to the Internet, mobile telephones and satellite dishes means Sudan's radical Islamic government cannot hope to keep educated people from peering through new windows on the world. 

19: A leading South Sudanese opponent has warned that the South would break away if Khartoum continued the Islamist policies of the past 10 years." Mixing religion with politics is not conducive to the unity of Sudan," former vice president Abel Alier said during a panel discussion at the University of Khartoum. 

24: Three passports were seized from one of the eight people alleged to be trading in humans, a Nairobi court heard. The passports were issued in 1979, 1986 and 1996 to Mr. Ali Ahady, his lawyers told the court. 

25: The UN under secretary general for humanitarian affairs Tim Franklin has arrived in Khartoum for a five-day official visit to Sudan. He will attend the meetings of the UN- Sudanese technical committee pertaining to the "life line" programme in southern Sudan. 

23: Stung by criticism for its role in Sudan's nascent oil industry, Canadian oil company Talisman Energy is turning its attention to providing basic amenities and monitoring human rights abuses in the country's southern war zone. Talisman executives see activities such as providing schools, clinics and water wells as frontline defences against maraunding rebels as well as answering critics at home. 

25:Kenya's high court has dismissed a plea by four suspected Sudanese criminals to block government orders requiring them to leave Kenya. Justice J. K Mitey said he was satisfied that the commissioner of police had complied with court orders requiring him to produce in court eight suspects alleged to have been involved in slave trade. 

25: The four remaining Sudanese accused in Kenya of trafficking in human beings will now be deported. They lost their bid to be released pending their filing briefs challenging the deportation. 

25:Sudan's production of oil would increase to 400,000 barrels per day in the year 2005, compared to the current production of 200,000 barrels daily, said the secretary-general of the ministry of energy and mining, engineer Hasan Ali al-Tawm. He made the remark in a lecture he gave at the University of Khartoum, within the context of a cultural week organised by the faculty of economic studies. Engineer Al-Tawm announced that Sudan's share of oil, which is currently ranges between 40-50 per cent, will increase to 65 per cent by doubling of the oil production 

26: US president George Bush has sent a message to Sudanese president Bashir, signaling a possible thaw in relations, a Sudanese newspaper said. The message, due to be presented to Bashir by US charge d'affaires in Khartoum, comes in response to goodwill message Bashir sent Bush after he was named US president-elect, the independent al-Rai al-Aam said. 

26: Some organisations hostile to Sudan are currently staging a campaign against the country, Sudan's minister of external relations, Dr Mustafa Osman Isma'il, says. He indicated in a press statement that these circles are now reactivating their hostile campaign against Sudan due to a number of reasons, including their intention to distort the image of Sudan before the new American administration and to pave the way for a visit by SPLA leader John Garang to Europe for raising funds for his movement. 

26: Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni has said he had been right to send soldiers into Democratic Republic of Congo and he was prepared to send them into Sudan too if necessary. In a speech to mark the 15th anniversary of his rise to power after a lengthy civil war, Museveni said Uganda's military presence in Congo was needed to defeat rebels opposed to his government operating along the border between the two countries. 

28: The SPLA has said its forces destroyed three oil wells, a drilling rig and three army camps and killed dozens of government troops in southern Sudan. It said in a statement that its forces had fought government troops in the Altimish district between Wangkai and Miyoum on the Heglig_Miyoum road in western Upper Nile state. 

29:Sudan has denied a claim by SPLA that they had destroyed three oil wells and killed dozens of government troops in an attack on southern oil fields. An oil industry source said four government soldiers and 13 rebels had been killed in the fighting. 

29: Sudanese minister of state at the ministry of external relations, Gabriel Roric Jur, said there would be a referendum over the status of the south. He told Radio France Internationale, in a broadcast monitored by the BBC on January 27, that a referendum would improve relations between north and south, whatever the outcome. 

30: Police fought off an attack by Sudanese rebels on a major highway linking Khartoum with the Red Sea town of Port Sudan, a newspaper reported. Police units guarding the strategic 1,200 km (745-mile) road lost three men and sustained one injury in the attack; the independent al-Sahafa quoted a police spokesman as saying. 

31: A federal advisory panel on religious freedom overseas is hoping its findings of mass murder and rape of black Christians in Sudan will prompt the Bush administration to impose tougher sanctions on the East African nation. In its first recommendation to the new administration, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom urged the United States to clamp down on the Sudanese government for atrocities allegedly committed against the country's black Christian minority by the Islamic majority. 

February 

2: After the presidential and legislative elections, which took place in December 2000, Sudan is preparing for the trade unions elections. In this regard, the leading bureau of the national congress party, led by president Bashir discussed preparations for the trade unions elections and sub committees were formed to follow up this matter. 

2: The leader of al-Ummah Party Sadeq al-Mahdi has stressed that his party studied the possibility of taking part in the elections but he postponed taking a decision to this effect until he makes sure of the nature of the elections. The People's Congress party took a similar decision. 

2: Canada has sharply protested Sudan's amputations of the right hands and left legs of at least five men convicted of criminal offences. Foreign affairs officials called in Sudan's charge d'affaires in Ottawa, and also expressed concern to the Sudanese government, after human rights groups launched a protest against the five amputations, and 19 more that were on scheduled. 

4: A group of 30 Christian Missionaries working in the non-government-held areas in southern Sudan has denounced the war in the region as "immoral and tragic," and appealed for the fighting to stop. "We have come to the unanimous conviction that the situation of war in Sudan at the present stage has become immoral and a tragic farce," the Comboni Missionaries said in a statement after their recent meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, on February 19, 2001. 

5: A delegation from the New Sudan Council of Churches (NSCC) has completed a weeklong tour of South Africa, during which they appealed to the South African government to play a greater role in the Sudan crisis. The Catholic Bishop of Diocese of Torit, Paride Taban, led the delegation. 

6:A Sudanese defector from the militant Islamic group founded by Osama bin Laden has testified in the trial of four men charged in the 1998 bombings of two US embassies in East Africa. The identity of Jamal Ahmed al Fadl, one of bin Laden's first recruits, was kept secret by prosecutors until his testimony. 

8: A Sudanese court imposed crippling fines on two journalists and, when they could not pay them, sentenced them both to prison terms. On February 4, 2001, Amal Abbas and Hassan Ibrahim, editor-in-chief and journalist respectively with the independent daily newspaper Al Rai el Akhar, were fined 15 million Sudanese pounds (approx. US$5,800) each for an article that accused the local authorities in Khartoum state of squandering 

8: A former aide to bin Laden testified in the 1998 East Africa embassy bombing trial he was dispatched in 1993 to try to buy uranium, which prosecutors say the terrorist leader wanted for a nuclear weapon. Jamal Ahmed Al-Fadl told jurors that bin Laden was prepared to spend $1.5 million for black-market uranium as part of his holy war, or jihad, against Americans. 

9: Russian oil companies have been given the go-ahead in principle to look for oil in eastern Sudan, a press report said. The independent Al Rai Al Aam daily quoted Sudanese energy and mining minister Awad Ahmed al-Jaz as saying a memorandum of understanding has been reached with Russian companies granting those unnamed firms licences to look for oil in two areas of the country, which has an outlet to the Red Sea. 

9:An American Muslim leader of Sudanese heritage has been denied the right to attend a meeting on Capitol Hill designed to "galvanise US policy on persecution in Sudan." (The Washington Times, February 8, 2001 A representative of Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) told Imam Mohamed Magid of Herndon, Va., that his request to join the meeting in the congressman's office had been denied. 

12: Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has arrived in Khartoum to participate in a two-day third summit of the community of the Sahelian-Saharan states. He told reporters on arrival that he expected the summit to consolidate the projected African union as well as the Sahelian- Saharan community. 

13: Armed robbers attacked a bus in western Sudan, killing seven people and wounding five, the independent al-Ayam newspaper reported. The daily said the gang intercepted the bus about 60 km (38 miles) west of al-Fasher, the capital of Northern Darfur state, near the border with Chad. 

14: Leaders from the Community Sahelo- Saharan States (COMESA) rose from their third summit meeting in Khartoum, with a declaration supporting moves towards an African union. The "Khartoum Declaration" stressed the importance of the Syrte Declaration adopted by the 36th OAU Summit in Lome, and launched a vibrant appeal to all African states not yet up-to- date with the Union Treaty to sign and ratify it before the next Syrte confab due early next month. 

15:Five Sudanese had limbs amputated for armed robbery as the Islamist government resumes a practice applied only once in its 12 years in power, a human rights group and diplomats said. The five men each had their right hand and left foot cut off on January 25 and January 27 at Khartoum's Kober prison where another 19 prisoners were awaiting the same fate, the sources said. 

15: African leaders left Khartoum after trumpeted support for Libya, but paid little attention to drought threatening their religion. A closing statement called for Libya to be compensated for years of UN sanctions, which it said should be lifted immediately because the Lockerbie trial has come to a close. 

16:  With 10,000 signatures and a dusty 250-kilometre (155-mile) trek behind them, two young Swedes hope to teach the world how the people of southern Sudan are crying out for peace after 17 years of war. In the latest stage of an awareness-raising campaign, Adreas Zetterlund, 25, and Tommy Larsson, 29, both lay evangelical preachers, walked from Rumbek to Kotobe, in southern Sudan's Bahr-el-Ghazal province from January 29 to February 10

17: The Sudanese minister of livestock minister Abdullah Muhammad Sayed Ahmad has announced the consent of both Syria and Lebanon to import the Sudanese meat after they leant about the assurances on health and quarantine measures pursued in Sudan. In a statement to the Sudanese daily al-Anbaa the Sudanese minister added that his ministry is seeking in its 2001 plan to open new markets also in the countries of West Africa.

17: The Sudanese daily al-Anbaa unveiled that the forces of the rebellion Mushar had killed Veter Kouj, the former governor of the Sudanese Mayout provinces who was kidnapped by the Southern Sudanese rebellion movement in 2000. Well-informed sources said the paper added that the killing of governor Kouj came as a result of his rejection to co-operate with Mushar forces and the forces of the SPLA.

18:  Sudan has released two leading human rights lawyers detained for criticising the arrest of opposition figures, their families said. Ghazi Suleiman and Ali Mahmoud Hassanein were released, 72 days after their December arrest for speaking out against the arrest of seven opposition politicians detained during a meeting with US political officer Glenn Warren. Warren was expelled, but the seven are to stand trial on charges of spying and undermining the constitution.

18:  Sudan's foreign minister said Khartoum hopes better ties with its neighbours and increased aid to the south will deprive rebels of cross-border bases and speed the end of the 18-year-old civil war. "The more relations with neighbouring countries improve, the more this positively reflects on their relationship to the southern issue," Mustafa Osman Ismail told reporters.

19: Some 680 Sudanese refugees have arrived in the northwestern Ugandan district of Yumbe and  been transported to the Imvepi Refugee Settlement, said the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The process of registration is still in progress and the total number of recognised refugees will be available only at the completion of the process, said the document.

21: Leading Islamist leader and former speaker of the Sudanese parliament, Hassan al-Turabi, has been arrested. Armed men picked him up at his Khartoum home, party officials said. There has been no official confirmation of the incident yet, but the arrest follows an understanding struck by his party and the main southern rebel group.

23:  The United Nations has warned that starvation threatens over half a million people in Sudan. According to a statement from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 600,000 Sudanese are threatened with starvation in the extremely drought- and conflict-affected country. The total number of people in need of some food assistance is three million.

23:  The United States should organize a peace initiative for Sudan because efforts by the African nation's neighbours to end an 18-year-old war there ``hold no promise,'' says a report compiled with State Department and UN participation. “The time has come for the United States, in league with others, to make a strong push to end Sudan's war,'' said the report by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

24: Warning of an "impending catastrophe" in Sudan, where 600,000 people are at immediate risk of starvation, the United Nations Emergency Relief  Coordinator has expressed deep concern about the "very poor response" of donors to the country's deteriorating humanitarian situation. Kenzo Oshima noted that in addition to the pressing survival needs of several million displaced and vulnerable people affected by war and conflict, widespread drought was now threatening hundreds of thousands of others. 

24:  The editor and publisher of an independent Sudanese newspaper were arrested and held by police at their office for seven hours before being released on bail, the paper's managing editor said. Albino Okeny, editor-in-chief of the daily Khartoum Monitor, and publisher Alfred Taban, ``were arrested because of an article published in the paper on December 5 by Taban,'' said managing editor Nhial Bol. It was not clear what charges the two faced.

23: More than 7,000 people have fled fighting near southern Sudan's oil fields in the past 14 months, bringing the total to 36,500, a UN official said. "The oil-rich area of Sudan has seen a great deal of population displacement and in fact is currently one of the most insecure areas in Sudan," Nicholas Siwingwa, deputy country director of the World Food Programme (WFP), said in a statement.

24: Media reports of the arrest of Hassan al-Turabi, considered by many the world's leading Islamic militant, failed to mention Turabi's ties to Osama Bin Laden or the whole vast, sinister world of Islamic terrorism. Yet if the Islamic terrorist movement can be said to have a single mastermind, a single centralising and directing intelligence, it would belong to al-Turabi. The "real signal of change" took place late last year when Bashir suddenly made lightning raids and arrested opposition leaders, not close to Turabi, on charges that they had been conducting secret talks with "a foreign power," the United States. Bashir forced the US diplomatic representative in 
Khartoum to withdraw.

24: President Bashir has reshuffled key cabinet ministers while continuing to crack down on an opposition group run by a former  aide. The president, who was re-elected in December for a second, and last, five-year term, dismissed finance minister Mohammed Khari al-Zubeir and replaced him with Abdel Rahim Hamdi, a former finance minister, in a decree published by the government-owned al-Anbaa newspaper.

26: The Sudanese army and Muslim scholars came out in support of president Bashir’s crackdown on a jailed Islamic theologian and former parliament speaker whose group signed an agreement with the SPLA. Senior army officers called on Bashir to deal firmly with Turabi, his former ally, who was arrested after his Popular Congress Party signed a memorandum of understanding with the SPLA to jointly force the government into stepping down.

26:  Turabi is being held in solitary confinement in a rat-infested prison cell with no access to newspapers or writing material, his wife has said. Wisal al-Mehdi told Saudi Arabia's al-Watan newspaper that her husband was being held in a prison cell "full of rats" and that he was in solitary confinement with no access to "newspapers, magazines, papers and pens".

27:  Sudan's president has called former ally Turabi a liar and criticised his agreement with a rebel group in his first comments about the Islamic thinker since his arrest. ``Don't let him lie to you,'' President Bashir told a unit of the Popular Defence Forces, a pro-government militia, before they headed to the front line in Sudan's 18-year-old civil war, which pits the government and the Muslim north against the rebels in the mostly Christian and traditionalist south.

28: the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has airlifted More than 2,500 former child soldiers from volatile areas of southern Sudan to rehabilitation centres in a unique operation, the agency said. The boys, who have been demobilised from the SPLA in the southwestern Bahr el-Ghazal region, had gathered near airstrips to board transport planes operated by the UN World Food Programme.

28: The US state department found human rights gains in Nigeria and Ghana last year amid a number of rights setback in Africa including Sudan where  the government’s record was rated as “extremely poor”. In its annual report on rights conditions worldwide, the state department said the Sudanese government “continued to commit numerous serious  abuses”.

March 

1: Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has underscored the need for strong 
economic ties with Sudan, arguing that this would enhance bilateral cooperation between the two neighbours. Meles, the Ethiopian News Agency reported, launched his appeal while receiving a 25-strong Sudanese business delegation at in Addis Ababa. He said economic ties between the two countries had gained momentum since the recent signing of trade agreements that led improved road and rail links between the Ethiopia and Sudan.

1: Visiting Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid has denied that his country was in turmoil, saying trouble was localised, a Sudanese daily reported. "I cannot deny that there are problems in parts of the country, but it is a large country and problems in one part do not mean that the whole of Indonesia is in turmoil," the independent al-Ayam newspaper quoted him as telling a joint news conference with president Bashir.

2: Sudan has criticised the Unicef for secretly airlifting from civil war frontlines more than 2,800 child soldiers who had been serving with SPLA, a newspaper said. Announcing the evacuation, Unicef said SPLA had handed over the children, aged eight to 18, and Unicef would now try to trace  their families.

3:  The factional fighting in southern Sudan could widen into a devastating famine unless the US intervenes diplomatically with rebel forces and others, Human Rights Watch said. In a March 1 letter to US Secretary of State Colin Powell, Human Rights Watch called on the Bush administration to use its influence with the southern factions to stave off the potential crisis.

4:  President Bashir has stressed, before his departure of the Libyan Sirte town after participation in the extraordinarily African summit, that the African union has become a reality. He said, in a press statement that the number of the member states in the proposed union has increased to 36 countries.

5: Talisman Energy Inc. had been considering selling its oil operations in Sudan amid controversy pressuring its stock price, but signals from the new US administration about possibly loosening sanctions has given it reason to hang on, Talisman's chief executive said. Talisman CEO Jim Buckee, speaking after a presentation to an energy conference in New York, did not dispute recent speculation that a few select rival oil companies had taken a look at its stake in the Sudan project's operating consortium.

6: Sudan’s minister of energy and mining Dr Awad Ahmad al-Jaz has described the decision of Talisman to continue its oil investment in Sudan as evidence on prevalence of security and appropriate investment climate in the country. He said in press statements that Sudan is open for whoever desires to invest in it, and that it is secured for whoever wants to stay or work in it, pointing out that Sudan is rich of unlimited resources.

10: The US government is turning a spotlight on one of the world’s most sorrowful conflicts-the grinding 18-year-old war in Sudan. Secretary of State Colin Powell has met with senior State Department officials to talk about crafting a US policy for ending a war long accompanied by starvation, disease the taking of slaves and human rights abuses by both sides.

12: The new man appointed by the United Nations to investigate human rights in
Sudan, Gerhart Baum, has begun his first mission in the country. Mr. Baum met the prominent human rights activist, Ghazi Suleiman, of the Sudanese Group for Human Rights. Mr. Baum replaces Leonardo Franco, who resigned after submitting a report last year to the UN detailing allegations of gross human rights violations in the country.

12: Dozens of gunmen looted and attacked an aid agency compound in southern Sudan, kidnapping four aid workers and killing two people, an official said. Two Kenyans and two Sudanese, working for the US-based Adventist Development and Relief Agency, were taken hostage after the attack, said Nick Trent, programme director for ADRA's southern Sudan operations. A woman and 12-year-old girl were killed.

13:  The wife of detained Sudanese Islamist leader Hassan al-Turabi said in remarks published that she planned to discuss her husband's plight with the U.N. special human rights envoy in Sudan. Turabi was arrested along with close aides in February for signing a controversial agreement with the main rebel group in Sudan's 18-year-old civil war.

15: "There is perhaps no greater tragedy on the face of the Earth today than the tragedy that is unfolding in the Sudan," Secretary of State Colin Powell told the House International Relations Committee. Powell was referring to the campaign of genocide the Sudanese government is conducting on its ethnic and Christian minorities, and dismissed that Sudan would be a priority under the Bush administration.  The Washington Post highlighted the tragedy in Sudan, urging the new administration to take action before the situation worsens.

15: The Sudanese and Russian governments have concluded a deal, estimated to be worth more than $600m, which will see Sudan manufacturing Russian battle tanks in exchange for oil concessions for Russia. It is understood that Sudan will pay the Russians for the rights to assemble TU-72 tanks and that the Russians have undertaken to invest all the proceeds in oil exploration and development. Russian oil companies have already been given the green light to prospect in Eastern Sudan. 

16: Sudan’s main sugar manufacturer has denied claims the country lacks capacity to export to Kenya under Comesa’s zero tarrif regime. The firm denied that Sudan was flouting the trade bloc’s rules of origin, and announced that with its capacity of 450,000 tonnes a year, it was ready to sell bigger volumes to Kenya.

16: Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir has rejected a recent report by the Washington-based Strategic Studies Centre, proposing the formation of two political entities in the north and south of Sudan as a way out of the protracted civil war in the country. “We categorically refuse both content and implications of the paper,” Bashir told reporters in Khartoum, after a meeting at the offices of the ruling National Congress.

17: Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi has affirmed the commitment of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) to resolving the Sudan conflict, the local media reported. The president said the war, which has claimed over 1.5 million lives, is of major concern to the international community.

18:  Eight Sudanese opposition leaders accused of espionage and plotting to wage war against the state stood trial in a case that could further strain US-Sudanese relations. The Sudanese government said in December it had caught opposition leaders - members of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), an umbrella organisation for opposition groups - meeting with an American diplomat to allegedly plan an armed uprising.

18: Opposition leader Sadiq el-Mahdi, Sudan's toppled prime minister, said he had accepted a US invitation to discuss democracy and his country's 18-year civil war with US officials. The war is between Arab-descended, Muslim northerners, who control the military-dominated government, and African southerners, who mostly practice Christianity and indigenous religions.

19: Renowned Sudanese zoologist, Mohammed Abdallah el Rayyah, whose specialties are natural life and tourism, has launched a new private reptile zoo in Khartoum. Rayyah's Zoo, established under the company name of 'Umam', displays various types of indigenous and imported snakes, lizards and tortoises. 

20: The former speaker of Sudan's parliament, Hassan el Turabi is now almost a month behind the bars with no clear indication about his political fate. Turabi was jailed on February 22 when his party - the Popular National Congress (PNC) - signed a memorandum of understanding with the rebel SPLA.

20: Turabi's family and his PNC operatives have seized the opportunity of the recent visit by the UN human rights rapporteur for Sudan, Gerhart Baum to raise the issue of his imprisonment. In a memo to the UN envoy, the party said; "Turabi and his brothers were met with harsh treatment, were denied beds and made to sleep on the ground."

21: Turabi will be charged with a criminal offence, Sudan's president said. Turabi, an Islamic theologian, was arrested on February 21 in Khartoum.

22: The NDA and the SPLA said a fresh round of talks with the government could only be held if certain conditions were met. SPLA spokesman Samson Kwaje said that the conditions included the release of all political prisoners, the lifting of the state of emergency, and the suspension of clauses in the 1998 constitution relating to Islamic Sharia. Other conditions include the lifting of the Public Securities Act, and removing the ban on political parties, Kwaje told IRIN.

22: The government of Uganda is ready to enter fresh peace talks with the Sudanese government and rebels of the Lords Resistance Army (LRA), the minister of state for northern Uganda rehabilitation, Omwony Ojwok, said. "We hope to quickly resume dialogue with Sudan government which will help us have direct access to the leadership of Lords Resistance Army rebels," Omwony told eight ambassadors from the European Union at his office at Eden Road in Gulu.

22: Saudi Arabia beheaded a Sudanese man in the holy Muslim city of Mecca for killing a compatriot, the official Saudi Press Agency said. It was the 22nd execution in the conservative kingdom this year. The execution was delayed until the victim's children reached the legal age to decide on the murderer's fate. Under Islamic law a victim's immediate family can accept compensation known as "blood money" and spare the life of a convicted murderer.

22: A panel formed by the US Congress has recommended that more stringent trade and financial sanctions be imposed on Sudan in response to human rights abuses in that country. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom said the situation in Sudan has deteriorated since the commission reported last May that the impoverished African country was "the world's most violent abuser of the right to freedom of religion and belief."

23: The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination said that while Sudan had shown increasing willingness to cooperate with international agencies in the field of human rights, there was continued concern over abductions, displacements and discrimination. It said there were continuous reports and allegations regarding the abduction by armed militia of primarily women and children belonging to different ethnic groups.

23:  A bipartisan group of US lawmakers called on President George W. Bush to name a special peace envoy to Sudan. Headed by House of Representatives Republican Leader Dick Armey of Texas, they said the US must make it a top priority to help bring to an end Sudan's 18-year-old civil war, blamed for more than 2 million deaths.

26: Sudan residents in the southern Sudanese town of Wau say armed nomads known as the Murahiliin have abducted dozens of women and children. The residents told the BBC that some 3,000 men arrived in the city three weeks ago on trains and horseback and have been carrying out robberies and other attacks. The Murahiliin are reported to be demanding US$150 per person from relatives of the kidnap victims.

26: A key Republican leader in the US House of Representatives has said that the persecution of Christians and other minority ethnic groups in Sudan is "horrible" and the US must get involved. House Whip Tom DeLay said the White House view is that "we won't stand for what's going on in the Sudan" and asserted "we need to do whatever is necessary to stop this carnage that's going on in the Sudan."

27: House Majority Leader Dick Armey, taking on Sudan as a cause, urged President Bush to name a "nationally distinguished leader" as special envoy to the war-ravaged African nation. "The situation in Sudan is rapidly getting worse and must be seriously addressed before the scale of death and destruction increases," Armey wrote in a letter also signed by three other Republican and two Democratic lawmakers.

28: Detained Turabi said in remarks published that he would resist attempts by the government to send him into exile. “I will not leave. I will stay in Sudan,” Mr. Turabi told the Saudi Arabian Al-watan newspaper in answer to questions from the newspaper passed to him in prison by his wife.

30: Sudan is on the verge of a huge food crisis with three million people at risk of hunger as fighting and drought sweep the country, the World Food Programme (WFP) said. The Rome-based WFP said food in affected regions was expected to run out by mid-April while drought and civil war continue to plague Africa’s largest country.

31: President Moi of Kenya said he suggested to Sudanese President Bashir that there was need to allow the freedom of religion and worship in the country’s constitution. He called for speedy resolution to the conflict in Sudan to enhance stability in the region.

April 

4: Founding member and former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, Rev. Walter Fauntroy, and the nationally syndicated broadcaster, Joe Madison witnessed the liberation of 2,953 Black Sudanese slaves through the Christian Solidarity International (CSI)-sponsored "Underground Railroad" during a fact-finding visit to Sudan on March 29-April 1, 2001.

5: Sudan’s deputy defence minister and 13 other high-ranking military officers were killed as their plane crashed on takeoff in southern Sudan, state television reported. The television said the deputy minister, Col Ibrahim Shamsuldin, and the others had been touring a southern military area and were headed back to Khartoum at the time of the crash.

6: The Sudanese army blamed a sandstorm for the crash of a plane that killed 14 senior officers, including the deputy defence minister who directed the war in southern Sudan. A non-commissioned officer also died while 16 military personnel survived the accident, which occurred when the pilot of the Russian –built Antonov, overshot his landing amid poor visibility at Adar Yiel airport, the army said.

6: Sudan’s deputy defence minister and 14 other military personnel were immediately buried after a plane crash, which has thrown the capital into mourning, newspapers and television, said. They were laid to rest in the oil-producing area of Adar Yiel, after the crash in southern Sudan, the independent al-Ayyam paper said.

7: The death of a key player in the 1989 coup that brought President Bashir to power is another blow to the Sudanese leader after most of his confidantes have either resigned, died or were pushed aside, an analyst said. The deputy defence minister, Col. Ibrahim shasul-Din, one of Bashir’s top army aides, was killed along with 13 other high ranking military officers when their plane crashed on take-off in southern Sudan.

7: On April 5, 2001, Sudanese gathered at London’s Waterloo Park between 10:30 am and 12 noon for a demonstration against the National Islamic Front regime; the oil companies and the overall British policy on Sudan. The idea of going to the streets was a brain child of the Sudanese-British Human Rights Forum, an ad hoc committee created by Lady Baroness Cox last year to bring Sudanese to talk about their problems and how they can maintain advocacy in the British Parliament.

7: The opposition Ummah Party leader, Sadiq al-Mahdi, has called for an urgent probe into the crash of a Sudanese military plane at Adar Yiel, southern Sudan. Mahdi criticised the decision to put capable military commanders on board a single aircraft. He described the martyrs as "national resources" of all the people of Sudan and the armed forces.

8: The freeing of a Sudanese opposition leader has raised hopes for the release of other accused anti-government conspirators, a leading party figure said. Mohamed Hassan al-Amin, head of the PNC’s constitutional department, was detained in February along with PNC leader Turabi and three senior party members. Al-Amin was released without explanation.

10: Despite rising pressure from grassroots groups and Congress, the administration of President Bush is unwilling for the moment to impose new sanctions or take other actions that could worsen already difficult ties with Sudan, according to knowledgeable sources. The most it will do is begin spending some of the US$10 million which Congress appropriated last year for political and technical support for unarmed civil society groups active in the southern part of the country under the control of the SPLA.

10: Sudanese priest has accused the West of ignoring the appalling human rights situation in his country for selfish reasons. The interest in Sudan’s crude oil reserves seemed to be more important than the plight of the oppressed Christians and traditionalists. Hilary Boma - former treasurer of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Khartoum - was speaking at a meeting of the International Society for Human Rights, April 7-8 in Konigstein near Frankfurt (Germany). The priest was incarcerated in solitary confinement for nine months in 1998 and 1999.

12: Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has pledged to help resolve the conflict in Sudan, Sadiq el Mahdi, a former premier announced. "President Obasanjo has conveyed to me his intention to start intensive contacts with concerned parties for a comprehensive political solution to the armed conflict in the country," Mahdi declared on arrival from a Nigerian visit.

12: Sudan and Ethiopia have created a joint committee to speed up the proposed inter-connection of their electric networks. The Sudanese national corporation for electricity's director of planning and projects Sayed Ahmed Mohammed said in Khartoum that the committee's first meeting would be held in Addis Ababa next month.

12: Sudan has denied charges that it was producing chemical weapons with Baghdad and that Iraqi pilots were flying air raids in the Islamic regime's war against the rebel Christian and traditionalist south, a newspaper said. "This is an old allegation by the rebel movement for misleading world opinion," an unnamed official in the government spokesman's office told the independent Al-Ayam daily.

12: Leading Arab and Pakistani Muslim delegates have begun arriving in Khartoum in a bid to reconcile President Beshir and Turabi, party officials said. The rivalry, which burst into the open in 1999, has torn apart the Islamist movement, which has ruled Sudan since it took power in a military coup 10 years earlier.

12: The US has persuaded Sudan, which is on the US list of nations sponsoring terrorism, to delay its call for Security Council action to lift limited sanctions until August, diplomats said. The sanctions, imposed in 1996 to force Sudan to hand over suspects in the 1995 assassination attempt against Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, were never actively enforced, but they nevertheless remain on the books.

13: The European Union has expressed its satisfaction over the agreement between Kenya and Sudan to organise a regional summit on the peace process in Sudan. In a statement, the 15 EU member countries said they had taken note of President Moi's visit to Khartoum on March 29-30 with the aim of boosting the peace process in Sudan under the auspices of the IGAD.

14: Sudan-based Reuters and BBC correspondent Alfred Taban, who was arrested in Khartoum is still being held in an unknown location, his family said. A family source said, "he's still being held by the security services" and that his relatives "have no news of him and do not know where he is being held."

14: Southern Sudan, developmentally neglected by successive Khartoum governments, has become a hotly contested area with multinational oil companies, local authorities and Muslim interests vying for a piece of the oil revenue pie. When the US-based international oil company Chevron first came to Sudan in the 1970s, it started exploring for oil in areas designated by the central government that excluded southern Sudan, said Abel Alier, a former vice president of Sudan under Nimeiry.

14: Authorities flogged 53 Christians who were convicted of rioting over efforts to move their Easter ceremony out of a public square, the Sudanese Council of Churches said. Four women and two children received 15 lashes each before they were released. Authorities gave 20 lashes each to 47 men and sentenced them to 20-day jail terms, a council official said on condition of anonymity. 

16: The movement of refugees across the Uganda and Sudanese borders has been blamed for increased cases of sleeping sickness in some areas of northwestern Uganda, and health authorities say these movements make it difficult to control the spread of the disease. Uganda’s assistant commissioner for health services in charge of vector disease control said most of cases were identified among the Sudanese refugee population in the area.

17: The authorities in Sudan have freed a prominent journalist, Alfred Taban, who was detained almost a week ago. Mr. Taban, who works for the BBC and also for Reuters, telephoned colleagues from his home in Khartoum. He said he had been treated well during his detention.

18: Seven Sudanese refugees died while 42 others were admitted to various hospitals after fighting erupted at Kenya’s Kakuma Refugee camp. Another 150 were wounded when two rival groups of the Dinka community- one from Bor and another from Bahr el Ghazal regions of southern Sudan – engaged in a fierce fight following a disagreement.

19: The SPLA said its forces killed 257 government troops in major battles in southern Sudan in the last few days. It said in a statement received from Asmara, Eritrea, that its forces killed 187 troops and wounded 130 in heavy fighting in southern Blue Nile state, about 600 km (375) southeast of Khartoum.

20: Amnesty International took note of the presidential decree pardoning 47 people arrested over last Easter and called for an impartial and independent investigation into the shootings, beatings and arrests by the Sudanese riot police on April 11, 2001.  "Amnesty International is concerned that at least nine people, including children, were flogged as punishment, after being convicted with 47 others for causing 'public disturbance' in an unfair and summary trial."

23: Pop superstar Michael Jackson will travel to Sudan to campaign for an end to child slavery in the country. He decided to make the trip after hearing of a visit by American civil rights campaigner Reverend Al Sharpton to the war-ravaged state. Children are often taken from their homes by soldiers, sold into slavery and forcibly converted to Islam as part of an ongoing civil war between Muslims in the north and Christians and traditionalists in the south. 

24: Catholic bishops in the US have recommended that President George Bush name a special envoy for Sudan and that the US lead the way in seeking an end to the Sudanese civil war. Michael Perry, speaking for a National Conference of Catholic Bishops delegation that visited Sudan this month, said the US government should put pressure on oil companies also to ensure their activities in Sudan did not exacerbate the war between the Khartoum government and southern rebels.

24: Dr Mustafa Osman Ismail, Sudan’s external relations minister, has stressed that the government is endeavouring to adopt moderate foreign policies to confront the challenges and realise the hopes, wishes, aspirations and interests of Sudan. In a statement he gave before the National Assembly, he said the first challenge was the civil wars, disputes and conflicts raging in the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes region, the Israeli-Arab conflict and the problems of armament.

24: Belarussian oil major Slavneft said it could start drilling operations in Sudan within the next six months as part of its push into the oil-rich African nation. A Slavneft official said the company had received the results of seismic exploration at Sudan's Block-9 and Block-11 and would examine them before making a decision.

24: The American Anti-Slavery Group-organised talks between John Garang's SPLA and Riek Machar's Sudan People's Democratic Front (SPDF) held in Nairobi, Kenya, have failed so far to reach a formula for a merger, or to resolve differences over the leadership of armed opposition in southern Sudan. The committee had been examining ways to unify military operations, the Sudanese newspaper 'Al-Ra'y al-Amm' said.

26: The American Anti-Slavery Group (AASG) has called upon Fidelity Investments of Boston to rid its mutual funds of Talisman Energy, the Canadian oil giant accused of contributing to genocide and the enslavement of Africans in Sudan. Charging that Talisman oil fields are being cleared by enslaving and murdering Africans,`` Charles Jacobs, AASG President, asked Fidelity CEO Edward Johnson III to ''act quickly.`` 

26:The US has suggested to the Sudanese government that the two countries cooperate on a peace plan for the south, possibly leading to a higher level of US. representation in Khartoum, US. Secretary of State Colin Powell said. The Khartoum government would have to stop the aerial bombardment of southern towns and villages and ease the restrictions on humanitarian relief to the south, he added.

27: The SPLA claims to have seized control of five areas in Southeastern Blue Nile Province after defeating government troops. But Khartoum refuted the claims saying that its troops had the upper hand in an offensive it launched on March 28.

28: The conference of the pro-government southern Sudanese factions ended with the unification of the factions under the general command of Maj-Gen Paulino Matib. The resolutions of the conference will be presented to the chairman of the Coordination Council for the Southern States [CCSS], Brig Gatluak Deng, who will in turn submit them to the president of the republic, Gen Omar al-Bashir.

28: A chartered plane carrying the Ugandan delegation, that returned home from Libya was delayed for two hours after Sudan reportedly refused to grant it clearance to over-fly their airspace. Sources said that the delegation which included Uganda’s vice president, Specioza Wandira Kazibwe was held at Tripoli International Airport for more than two hours while the Libyan authorities tried to obtain clearance from Sudan.

29: Secretary of State Colin Powell is fending off calls from lawmakers for a special envoy to Sudan, a nation stricken with slavery, war, famine and terrorism. Speaking before the House Appropriations Committee Powell said he is considering alternatives including the restoration of diplomatic ties with Khartoum.

30: The Sudanese minister of information Ghazi Salah Eddine has described the three American conditions to build better relations with Sudan as more positive than the tone of the former US administration. In a statement to the Sudanese daily al-Rai al-Am, the Sudanese minister said "we hope the US administration had realised that the Sudanese government proposed a comprehensive position to cease fire in Southern Sudan," noting that the rebellion movement laid obstructive conditions before ceasing fire.”

30: International donors had pledged less than one third of the emergency food needed for drought-stricken Sudan, the World Food Programme (WFP). WFP information officer Lindsey Davis told IRIN that governments and agencies had pledged only 55,000 mt of the 171,699 mt of food aid required to feed both northern and southern Sudan this year.

30: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has agreed to a formula for Sudan to reschedule its debt repayments, the governor of the Central Bank of Sudan, Sabir al-Hasan, announced. AFP said it was the first time such an agreement had been made in 17 years.

30: The official Sudanese government spokesman, Information Minister Ghazi Salah al-Din al-Atabani, has expressed satisfaction at approach of the new US administration. He commended the "language" of the new US administration, regarding relations between the US and Sudan, and said it was more positive than that of the former administration, 'Al Ra'y al-Amm' newspaper reported. 

30: A joint Ethiopian-Sudanese ministerial meeting held in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, will discuss the fate of the five hijackers of an Ethiopian aircraft, who had pleaded not to be extradited, a Sudanese official told IRIN. The two sides had agreed, "not to make an issue of the extradition of the hijackers", the source said. 

May 

2: AASG, in coordination with the Washington-based Free Sudan Movement (FSM), will protest Sudan's trade in black slaves at the Sudan Mission to the UN --655 3rd Avenue between 41st and 42nd Sts. On April 13 FSM leaders, former Congressman Rev. Walter Fauntroy and DC radio host, Joe Madison were arrested for chaining themselves to the gate of the Sudan Embassy in Washington, DC in a similar protest against black slavery.

3: Human rights activists and Sudanese expatriates descended on Talisman energy Inc.’s annual meeting to accuse the Canadian oil company of fueling Sudan’s civil war, but Talisman’s chief executive said the firm’s presence was only improving the situation. Outside the hotel where the meeting took place, about 200 demonstrators beat drums and chanted their opposition to Talisman’s involvement in a big south Sudan oil project they say is giving the Islamist government financial muscle to wage war against traditionalist and Christian people in the southern part of the country.

4: The fight for freedom in Sudan hit the streets of New York as a pair of radio hosts and two human-rights advocates were arrested protesting slavery in the African nation. Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa, who hosts a WABC Radio morning show, led a quartet of protesters who blocked lunchtime pedestrian traffic outside the Sudan mission to the United Nations on Third Avenue near 42nd Street.

4: Sudanese government has rejected as “baseless” a report by an international relief agency warning about a looming famine among 40,000 people in southwestern Nuba Mountains. Mr. Abdel-Ati Abu-Kheir, deputy commissioner in Humanitarian Aid Commission, a government body in charge of relief in Sudan, said the Nuba Mountains areas were receiving regular food aid supplies.

6: Human rights groups involved in Sudan expressed shock that US has been voted off the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, while Sudan has been re-elected to the body despite blatant rights abuses, including slavery. They said the departure of the US would make condemnation of Khartoum's violations less likely, as the US had stood virtually alone in its firm stance on Sudan.

7: Canadian Foreign Minister John Manley has expressed concern at reports that Sudan's government could be using an airfield of the Canadian oil company Talisman Energy to launch offensive operations against rebels. Human rights groups, including Amnesty International and Christian Solidarity International, have reported bombing raids by the Sudanese military on civilians by helicopter gunships operating from the oil consortium's airstrips.

9: A 26-year-old Danish co-pilot was killed when his plane was shot over southern Sudan. Mr. Ole-Friis Eriksen, a co-pilot of an aircraft chartered by International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), died from what his pilot described as severe head injuries from a loud explosion in their aircraft that was on its way to Khartoum from the northwestern Kenya town of Lokichoggio. The light aircraft, on a routine flight to Sudan, belonged to Danish Aviation Assistance Company of Denmark.

9: Nigeria has sent an envoy to Sudan to pursue a new peace initiative a week after its President Olusegun Obasanjo met Sudanese rebel and opposition leaders, Sudanese media reported. Nigeria hopes its initiative will bring Sudan’s 18-year-old civil war to an end, Obasanjo’s special envoy Ibrahim Babangida was quoted on Sudanese news agency, SUNA, as saying.

10: Freedom House Chairman and former US ambassador to the UN, Bill Richardson, has indicated his willingness to discuss the recent ouster of the US from the UN Commission on Human Rights. The vote saw the election of Sudan among other countries, which Washington has been accusing of human rights abuses. Freedom House, an organisation accredited at the UN, is currently under attack by Cuba and Sudan who are seeking to strip it of its UN status

11: Oil production in Sudan is exceeding expectations as output in Africa's largest country reaches 220,000 barrels a day despite civil war and US sanctions, a senior official said. Energy and Mining Minister Awad Ahmed Al-Jaz Minister said a consortium of Canadian, Chinese, Malaysian and Sudanese companies has had 100 percent success with the wells in its concession, the first to come on line.

11: Sudan’s Islamist government has accused rebels of killing a Red Cross pilot on an aid mission in the south, the independent al-Ayam daily reported. The Danish pilot was killed when his plane came under fire over southern Sudan.

11: In a significant move, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has indicated that it will investigate all foreign firms listed in the country’s capital markets so as to determine whether these companies have disclosed everything about the foreign operations. More so, the move seeks to expose and deal with those companies that have contravened US rules on sanctions.

11: Sudan and Uganda have agreed to ease the tension that has characterised relations between the two countries for the last 15 years. The two countries have also agreed to implement an agreement they signed in Nairobi in December 1999. 

14: The presidents of Egypt and Sudan have agreed in talks in Cairo to reactivate diplomatic ties between the two countries that have been dormant since the mid 1990s when they fell out together. President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and his Sudanese counterpart, Bashir indicated that they will revive a joint cooperation commission and all suspended bilateral agreements. 

14: The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) began the process of repatriating Eritrean refugees living in camps in Kassala and Al-Qadarif [Gedaref] states in eastern Sudan. A first convoy carrying 932 refugees left Lafa refugee camp in Kassala, the agency told IRIN. The majority of Eritreans living in Sudan have been there since well before May 1993, when Eritrea declared independence after a long liberation struggle with Ethiopia, but tens of thousands more crossed into the country in May and June last year when war between the two countries caused tens of thousands of Eritreans to leave their homes.

15: United States Agency for International Development (USAID) recently donated about US$259, 740 for the newly-refurbished Rumbek Secondary School in southern Sudan. The money was channeled through the Catholic Relief services.