4,: Bilateral talks between Sudan's internal affairs minister Gen. Abdel-ahim Mohammed Hassan and Ethiopian prime minister Meles Zenawi focused on regional issues, officials said. The talks centered on a meeting on Sudan later by the IGAD, Sudan's ambassador to Ethiopia Osman al-Sayed said. 

5: The National Congress reported a breakthrough in reconciling the political feud between President Bashir and Turabi that led to Bashir declaring a state of emergency and the dissolution of parliament last December12 - just before a parliamentary vote was due on whether or not to curb his presidential powers. The party's national consultative council decided that Bashir should stay on as party chairman and Turabi, as secretary-general, recommended that the dissolution of parliament should be referred to the constitutional court, and called for the state of emergency to be lifted "as soon as possible", Associated Press reported. 

5: The SPLA promised Sudanese deputy president and Southern States Co-ordination Council chairman Riek Machar at a recent meeting in Uganda to study the current political situation in the light of recent decisions by President Bashir that have "resulted in openness in Sudan's political relations with the opposition and neighbouring countries," the Sudanese newspaper 'Al-Ra'y al-Amm' reported. Machar, who has also met Kenyan government and members of the IGAD mediating peace talks between Khartoum and the SPLA/M, said the recent political developments in Sudan raised hopes for the success of the next round of IGAD talks proposed for January 15 in Nairobi, the paper added. 

5: Col. Garang says his movement supports a peaceful solution to the over 40 years' conflict between Khartoum and southern Sudan. In an interview with the Kenya Television Network (KTN) in Nairobi Garang said: "Khartoum insists on its vision for the Sudan - an Islamic state, an Arab state". "On the issue of religion and the state, it is clear that we cannot agree on this issue," he said. "They are not going to abandon shariah, and we are not going to accept to be governed by shariah," he said. 

5: A coalition of government, opposition politicians, and political activists in Sudan have called for a referendum on self-determination for southern Sudan, the Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) reported. The group urged all Sudanese, foreign governments, regional and international institutions to support a ballot for self-determination. 

7: Turabi has said he had agreed to a Qatari mediator's proposal that he step down as secretary-general of the National Congress, but not that he be replaced by president Bashir. "Qatar's foreign minister proposed that I resign as secretary-general of the NC party," AFP quoted him as saying. 

7: Sudan's acting minister for culture and information Ghazi Salah al-Din has said the Qatari initiative had not achieved its objectives, Sudanese Television reported. He told journalists that Sudan was grateful to the Qatari government for its "constant" and "ardent" determination to effect the resolution of Sudan's problems. 

7: Talks between Egyptian foreign minister Amr Musa, the secretary of the Libyan General People's Committee for External Liaison Umar al-Muntasir and the Sudan foreign minister Mustafa Uthman Isma'il ended with the three ministers signing a joint communiqué in which they stressed the strategic relations linking the three countries. The communiqué stated that the Libyan-Egyptian initiative derives its special importance from the fact that it pursues the path of a comprehensive solution toward realising peace and national accord in  the Sudan, affirming the importance of uniting their efforts to support this initiative, the Sudanese News Agency (SUNA) said. 

7: USAID's Famine Early Warning System (FEWS) has said that crop conditions are "generally good" and favourable harvests are anticipated in most of southern Sudan due to abundant rainfall. In its latest report, FEWS said many farmers have received crop seeds and have managed to plant them, "easing fears of another devastating famine in southern Sudan this year". 

10: Two Sudanese working for the charity Care International were killed in an attack in southern Sudan and two others were missing, a government body and Care official said. The Sudanese government's humanitarian aid commission blamed the SPLA for the attack on January 2 between Bentiu and Mayon in Al-Wihda state. The dead were identified as Bentiu Care office director Ibrahim Ishaq and his driver Mekki al-Khair. 

10: The SPLA has denied involvement in the recent attack of aid workers. SPLA spokesman Samsom Kwaje said in Nairobi that his group had no forces operating in Western Upper Nile where the incident occurred, noting that most of the rebel forces there are pro-government. 

10: Five years after their relations soured, Eritrea and Sudan have resumed diplomatic ties and are working to reopen embassies and restore air traffic between their capitals, an Eritrean official said. Relations were restored at the conclusion of a visit by a five-man Sudanese delegation to Eritrean capital Asmara, and the installation of a Sudanese charge d'affaires in the newly restored embassy, said Eritrean ambassador to Kenya Ghirmai Ghebremariam. 

12: Uganda has released 72 Sudanese prisoners of war captured in battles in northern Uganda in 1997. The Sudanese prisoners of war have been kept under tight security at the Makindye military barracks near Kampala. The move is seen as a gesture of reconciliation between Uganda and Sudan who last December signed a peace deal in Nairobi. 

13: Col. Garang has denied that his forces were responsible for the killing of two relief workers in southern Sudan on January 2. "The Sudan's People's Liberation Movement was not involved because it (was) not on their territory," he told reporters. 

13: Colonel Garang has said he had lobbied South Africa's government to take a role in mediating an end to his country's civil war, in which nearly 2 million people have died since 1983. Garang briefed South Africa president Thabo Mbeki on a plan to involve south Africa, Nigeria and Egypt in efforts to end the war.

14: Sudan and Uganda are set to exchange ambassadors and resume air links as part of a process to normalise relations and end rebel activity along their border, a senior Sudanese official said. Mr. Ali al-Nimeiri, minister at the Sudanese foreign ministry told state-run Omdurman radio the issue would be discussed at a meeting in Khartoum with Mr. Amama Mbabazi, minister in charge or regional cooperation.

16: Eight Sudanese aid workers were killed in southern Sudan when their vehicle was attacked and burned near the border with Uganda, an official of Norwegian Church Aid said. The attack occurred about 7 kilometres (4 miles) from Parajok- about 5 kilometres (3 miles) from Ugandan border - said Eigil Larsen, NCA regional financial co-ordinator for Eastern Africa. 

17: Save the Children, a Connecticut-based aid organisation, has joined most of the private and religion-based aid agencies that operate a US$1 million-a-day relief programme in Sudan in beginning to criticise US policy as one-sided in its hostility toward Khartoum government and insufficiently committed to promoting a just peace. 

17: The SPLA has expressed concern over the killing of aid workers and said it had stepped up security in the area. "Most of the victims are our people, we know them by name," SPLA spokesman Samson Kwaje said. 

17: Individual consultations between the facilitators of the Sudan peace talks the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and the Khartoum government on one side, and the SPLA on the other, continued in Nairobi, Dr Kwaje said. "We have not started the face to face talks," he confirmed. Discussions are to continue on the Declaration of Principles (DOP) and the issues of self-determination for southern Sudan and the use of shari'ah. 

18: A little-known opposition group has bombed a portion of an oil pipeline, which supplies Khartoum, a Sudanese government spokesman said. The attack damaged a three-metre section of the 1,600 kilometre pipeline, Mr Amin Hassan Omar, a top official at the Culture and information ministry said. 

18: The Sudanese government has vowed to deal severely with those responsible for blowing up an oil pipeline in Haiya, some 170 km south of Port of Sudan, Sudanese television reported. "While successive steps are being taken by the government to realise the national consensus, some quarters which felt uneasy decided to practise violence and destruction against the gains of the nation and citizens," it said. 
18: Both the rebel SPLA and the Sudanese government have extended their respective humanitarian ceasefires for three months. The SPLA announced the extension of a partial ceasefire in Bar el Ghazal, western Upper Nile (Bentiu and Panaru/Pariang areas) and Central Upper Nile (Bor, Fangak, Waat, Akobo and Pibor areas). 

19: Peace talks aimed at ending Sudan's 17-year civil war have started in eanest after lengthy opening consultations, officilas said. The talks opened in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. 

20: Mediators in Sudan's ruling party have proposed a compromise solution to the country's month-old political crisis, a senior official was quoted as saying. The suggestion by a reconciliatory committee of the National Congress (NC) would see president Bashir assume executive power in the party while Turabi takes over other party duties, the official Al-Anbaa daily quoted committee member Mahdi Ibrahim as saying. 

20: A Sudanese presidential visit to Eritrea underlines a warming of relations once strained by mutual accusations of supporting each other's rebels. Egypt's Middle News Agency reported today that president Bashir stopped unexpectedly in Eritrean capital a day before on his way back from a trip to Bahrain and Yemen. 

21: Bulls were slaughtered and sweets distributed as Eritrea re-opened it's embassy in Khartoum, a day after Sudan's president made a surprise visit to Asmara. The ceremony in downtown Khartoum was attended by hundreds of Eritreans. 

21: Sudan-based Ugandan rebels have freed eight girls kidnapped more than four years ago from a school in northern Uganda and handed them over to the UN Children's Fund in Khartoum, a UNICEF official said. UNICEF's Nans Webber said eight of the Ugandans had been handed over. 

24: The Ugandan rebel group Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has handed over 53 abducted Ugandans to the UN children's fund UNICEF, the agency said. All of the 53 abductees, 48 of whom are children, were handed over to UNICEF at Juba in southern Sudan. 

24: The Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Association, which is the SPLA humanitarian wing, has issued an ultimatum to NGOs working in southern Sudan to sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) or leave the area, Dr. Kwaje confirmed to IRIN. "It is true, we want to have a memorandum of understanding between us and the NGOs working in the area," he said. 

24: The Sudan government and SPLA have issued a joint communiqué in which they reiterated their commitment to a peaceful resolution of their conflict. The communiqué, issued after talks in Nairobi under the auspices of the IGAD, said they agreed on self-determination for the people of southern Sudan. 

24: The Sudanese government denied recently that it was using the south-eastern airport of Hallij for military purposes, the Sudanese News Agency (SUNA) reported. In a letter to his Canadian counterpart, Foreign Minister Mustafa Uthman Isma'il said the airport was being used for the civilian purposes of transporting equipment and employees of the oil companies. 

25: President Bashir and Turabi have accepted proposals to end their six-week power struggle, a senior official of the ruling party said. The proposals, adopted by the ruling party's consultative council, appear to strengthen president Bashir's hold on power after he ousted Mr. Turabi as parliamentary speaker last month. 

26: President Bashir fired his entire government and appointed a new cabinet in an effort to consolidate power in a long-simmering rivalry with his party-strongman. In the expected purge, Bashir fired 10 ministers and retained 15 others, including the foreign, interior and defence ministers to pack the government with loyalists. 

February

2: Two supporters of Turabi are challenging in court president Bashir's appointment of new governors in the country's continuing political crisis, the pro-government Akhbar al-Youm newspaper said. Bashir cut short terms of serving governors to 25 of Sudan's 26 states in a government reshuffle. 

2: Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni has expressed doubt over December 1999 Nairobi peace accord with Sudan. He has also ruled out normalisation of relations between Kampala and Khartoum until Sudan disarms and relocates rebels operating from its territory and also helps in the return of abducted children. 

4: A Sudanese opposition leader has said opposition factions were awaiting an announcement from Khartoum on its negotiating stand to end the country's 17-year-old war. The head of Sudan's National Democratic Alliance (NDA), Mr Mohammed Osman el-Mirghani suggested a preliminary meeting with the government to pave the way for a wider one. 

4: Sudan wants to implement its Nairobi peace deal with Uganda, a senior Sudanese official was quoted as saying. "Khartoum is keen to implement the Nairobi peace deal with Uganda," the official SUNA quoted Ali Nimeiri, state minister at the foreign ministry, as saying. 

6: Dr. Riek Machar, the rebel leader who convinced six rebel factions to lay down their arms and sign a peace agreement with the Khartoum government in 1997, abandoned the agreement, throwing the peace process into confusion. Dr. Machar, who under the Khartoum peace agreement became the assistant president of Sudan and administrator general of Southern Sudan, tendered his resignation to president Bashir on January 31. 

9: Negotiations for the release of four UN officials taken captive with their light plane by a south Sudanese militia in Upper Nile State have reached a deadlock, the UN chief official in Khartoum said. The four hostages, identified as a Kenyan, a South African, a US national and a Sudanese were seized on February 3, 2000. They were working with UN-sponsored Operation Lifeline Sudan. 

10: Sudan said that the UN itself is to blame for one of its aid delivery planes being seized by an armed military in the south along with four occupants. In a statement, foreign minister Mustafa Osman Ismail suggested that the UN invited trouble when a plane on a WFP mission flight "transported military men" belonging to a militia on January 28. 

10: Sudan and UN have agreed to work together for the release of four UN workers as well as pro-government Sudanese militiamen held by rebels, SUNA said. SUNA said foreign minister Mustafa Osman Ismail and UN coordinator Phillippe Borel agreed during a meeting to cooperate to resolve the seizure of our UN workers by militiamen demanding the release of their men. 

14: Upper Kauda Holy Cross School in southern Sudan was still in shock three days after a government air attack killed 14 children in a hail of shrapnel. The Antonov aircraft dropped four bombs that landed near the school building while an outdoor lesson was going on. A 22-year-old teacher also died and 17 students sustained injuries ranging from fractured limbs to severe wounds. 

14: Two Kenyan pilots and an American official, held hostage by pro-government militia in the southern Sudan for a week have been freed and flown to safety in Kenya, the UN announced. But a Sudanese aid worker who had been held with them stayed behind after the release at Old Fangak, about 750 km south of Khartoum where they were held captive since February 3. 

15: Anglican Church of Kenya Arch-bishop Rev David Gitari has urged the Synod of the Episcopal Church of Sudan to work for peace and reconciliation in their country. He said if achieved, peace in Sudan will be a benefit for the entire African region. 

17 - A humanitarian crisis is developing in Bentiu, the capital of oil-rich Unity State in south Sudan, with up to 25 families arriving everyday in search of food and security, a relief officer said. The American-based group, Care International and British charity Oxfam, pulled out their staff from the town, some 780 km southwest of Khartoum, because of what they said was a deteriorating security and humanitarian situation. 

18 - The United Nations World Food Programme has launched a US$58 million international appeal for funds to feed 1.7 million hungry Sudanese each month in both rebel and government held areas of the country until the end of the year. The majority of the needy are in southern Sudan. 

22 - Talks to end Sudan's 17-year civil war resumed in Nairobi with the SPLA accusing the government of indiscriminate attacks on civilians. In a statement, the SPLA said the daily bombardment of many areas of the SPLA-held south did not create a conducive atmosphere for the talks".

24 - Sudanese junior minister Amin Benanai Nio announced that Khartoum will cease restrictions on political parties by scrapping one law and replacing it with another. Nio said the 1998 Political Associations Law has "officially been cancelled and will be substituted by the Political Parties and Associations Law" formulated by his ministry, the official SUNA news agency reported. 

24 - Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS) has been forced to suspend humanitarian flights to Western Upper Nile due to the constant shifting of political allegiances and consequent insecurity that threatens the lives of humanitarian workers. This was especially so in light of confusion over where former vice-president Riek Machar stands since he tendered his resignation to President Omar al-Bashir last month, an OLS official said. 

24 - Human rights activists have criticised as inadequate the Canadian government's response to a report it had commissioned that linked the oil industry in southern Sudan with human rights abuses. Ottawa commissioned the report under pressure from human rights groups to sanction the Canadian oil company, Talisman Energy Inc, which has a 25 per cent interest in the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company (GNPOC), accused of contributing to the war and human rights abuses in Sudan. 

24: The US Department of the Treasury announced on February 16 that  the GNPOC would be added to its list of companies considered to be owned or controlled by the Sudan government, and to which US sanctions are applied. It did not place sanctions on Talisman directly, or de-list it from the New York Stock Exchange - as had been demanded by human rights groups in the US. 

25: A programme to immunise 77,000 children in the Nuba Mountains region against polio has been launched, as part of a national immunisation campaign that started on February 17 and will continue to the end of the month, a UNICEF press release stated. The Nuba Mountains portion of the polio campaign marks the first time in almost 19 years that the UN has gained access to deliver humanitarian relief in this region, contested by the government and rebel SPLM. 

26: Olara Otunnu, Special Representative of UN secretary-general Kofi Annan for Children and Armed Conflict, has called on all parties to the conflict in Sudan "to take measures to ensure that their forces do not attack civilian populations and sites". The call followed reports that 14 children and a teacher in the Nuba Mountains were killed, and 10 other children injured, when a bomb was dropped from an aircraft close to where lessons were underway. 

26: The Constitutional Court has decided to close the constitutional petition filed by some members of the dissolved National Assembly against the December 12 decree by president Omar al-Bashir, which declared a state of emergency and dissolved parliament, Sudanese television reported. Bashir dissolved parliament to thwart an attempt by former parliamentary speaker Hassan al-Turabi - with whom he was engaged in a power struggle - to have the assembly limit the president's powers. 

28: The US has repeated a warning to Sudanese rebels not to expel relief organisations from territory they control in the south of Sudan. State Department spokesman James Rubin said such a move, which  has been threatened if the agencies do not sign a controversial Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), could jeopardise Washington's support for the SPLA. 

28: At least 11 international aid organisations were leaving southern Sudan after refusing rebel demands for higher taxes and more control over assistance to the war-ravaged region. Nearly 160 expatriate aid workers began pulling out following a rebel ultimatum to comply with new terms, aid group officials said in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. 

28: The Sudanese government barred Turabi from speaking at a public meeting, his spokesman said. Jamal Angarah told reporters at a meeting that he was supposed to address that Khartoum state authorities had ordered him not to speak at the event. 

28: Disagreement over what constitutes southern Sudan has scuttled the latest round of talks aimed at ending the 17-year civil war in the largest nation in Africa, a Sudanese government official said. Nafie Ali Nafie, an adviser to president Bashir, said the disagreement with the SPLA centred on the configuration of part of Sudan that would be subject to a referendum on self-determination. 

29 - Sudan has condemned the SPLA for their "irresponsible" treatment of aid agencies in rebel-held parts of the south, SUNA said. The SPLA has given relief agencies until March 1 to sign the MOU or leave. The ultimatum has prompted some to leave ahead of the deadline, saying signing would compromise their independence. 

March: 

2 - The humanitarian agencies, which have been forced to leave southern Sudan, have appealed to the Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Association to reopen negotiations on the MOU. Humanitarian agencies that were unable to sign the current draft of the memorandum have completed the forced withdrawal of their staff, in accordance with the instructions of the SRRA. 

4 - Turabi has installed his supporters in key posts in the ruling National Congress (NC) party, showing he is far from a spent force, political analysts said. In December Bashir declared a state of emergency and dissolved parliament in a bid to curb the powers of Turabi, an Islamist ideologue. 

4: Sudan has accepted Egypt's nominee for ambassador to Khartoum in a new sign of better ties after a decade of tension, Khartoum newspapers said. The independent al-Sharia al-Siyassi newspaper said Sudan notified the Egyptian charge d'affaires in Khartoum that the nomination of Mohammed Assem Ibrahim had been accepted. 

6: US presidential envoy Harry Johnston arrived in Khartoum "with an open mind" on a groundbreaking visit to discuss peace, rights and relief in Sudan, a foreign ministry official said. US officials have said Washington is trying to re-engage the Islamic government in Khartoum. 

7: Sudan has accused Uganda of seeking an African empire and violating a deal under which the two countries pledged to end support for each other's rebels, the independent al-Ayam newspaper reported. "Uganda has an illusion that it can form an empire in the heart of Africa," the Khartoum daily quoted Sudanese foreign minister Mustafa Osman Ismail as saying.

7: Canadian foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy, often criticised for being soft on Sudan issued a public rebuke of its Islamist government for bombing a hospital and a grade school in the south of the country. "The sustained and intentional bombing of civilian targets by the government of Sudan is reprehensible and clearly demonstrates to the world that this administration is unconcerned with the human security of its population," said the statement. 

7: Rebels in southern Sudan who demanded private relief organisations sign agreements with them or leave should reopen discussions with those groups to avoid massive civilian suffering, a human rights group said. "Hundreds of thousands of civilians in southern Sudan face the cut off of essential services, including food, because the SPLA refused to extend the deadline for negotiations with NGOs," the New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a statement. 

8: More than 500 south Sudanese students demonstrated outside the US embassy in Khartoum, demanding self-determination for the war-torn south in a petition delivered to US special envoy Harry Johnston. After listening to the students' demands for UN intervention in the 17-year-old civil war and an end to Islamic law in Sudan, Jonston asked them to avoid any confrontation with police who watched without intervening, witnesses said. 

8: Three policemen were killed and a fourth wounded when soldiers opened fire, mistaking them for saboteurs preparing to attack a section of the oil pipeline in northern Sudan, newspapers reported. The shootings occurred at night as police approached an army vehicle they thought belonged to smugglers in an area north of the city of Ad Damar, a police commander told Al-Akhbar Al-Yom daily and other papers. 

8: The National Congress said in a statement it issued that Johnston's declared visit was "evidence of the failure by the US administration to topple the government by assisting the rebel movement." It said Johnston had earlier paid a number of undeclared visits to southern Sudan. 

9: The US State Department strongly condemned what it said was an intensification by the Sudanese military of aerial bombardments of civilian targets in southern Sudan. Spokesman James P. Rubin said there have been repeated bombings of relief sites, hospital facilities, schools and other civilian population centres in southern Sudan. 

9: Sudan's constitutional court has dismissed an appeal by a dozen members of Sudan's parliament against president Bashir's actions in dissolving parliament and declaring a state of emergency. Bashir dissolved parliament on December 12 and declared a three-month state of emergency pending new elections in moves aimed at curbing the influence of Turabi. 

11: Sudan said it had reached a compromise deal with Egypt on the future of a formerly Egyptian-run Khartoum college, which it confiscated seven years ago. Higher education minister al-Zubair Beshir Taha said the Khartoum branch of Cairo University would re-open alongside the two Niles University, which opened in its place. 

11: Sudanese government has cancelled a law that regulates party politics in the country. Opposition parties had been complaining that the political association's act was too restrictive to ensure fair democratic practice. 

13: Fosters Resources Ltd., a fledgling Canadian junior oil company, said its affiliate Melut Petroleum Co.Ltd. has acquired a concession to develop a new oil project in Sudan. Melut will spend US$30 million on exploring the concession in the Melut Basin in central Sudan over  the next three years. 

14: A leading member of National Congress has denounced a government decision to extend a three-month state of emergency, an independent newspaper said. It was one of several measures that had taken Sudan "into a series of continuous violations of the rule of the constitution," Ali al-Haj Mohammed, deputy secretary general of the party was quoted as saying in al-Rai al-Aam newspaper. 

14: Sudan signed an oil exploration agreement with a consortium covering around 70, 000 square kilometres stretching southwards from White Nile state, state-owned Alwan newspaper reported. It said the energy ministry signed the agreement . The consortium consists of a joint venture of the Qatari Gulf Petroleum Company and local al-Ghanawa firm with a 46 per cent stake, three unnamed Canadian and European companies also with 46 per cent, and state oil firm Sudapet with eight per cent. 

14: The UN's emergency relief co-ordinator, Carolyn McAskie, has called for an end to attacks on civilians in Sudan, where UN agencies are about to resume polio immunization campaign. McAskie said she was "alarmed over reports of recent bombings in Sudan of civilian targets in Nuba, Yirol and Lui." 

14: Col. Garang has said he was optimistic that the NDA will agree to a shake-up of the umbrella opposition group. Garang expressed the sentiments in an interview with AFP just before entering the final phase of the NDA leadership council meeting in Eritrea. 

15: A close aide of Turabi threatened in remarks published a popular uprising against president Bashir's government over its decision to extend a state of emergency until the end of the year. The government also approved the formation of political parties, but opposition groups complained that it retained aspects of an original Islamic-based law, which they had rejected. 

15: Egypt has formally resumed ties at ambassadorial level in Khartoum, seeking to dispel any idea it was promoting an Arab-Islamic alliance with the north against an African-Christian alliance in the south. Egypt's new ambassador Mohammed Asem Ibrahim presented his credentials to president Bashir, telling SUNA he would try to remove residual tension and "open a new chapter in ties" between Sudan and Egypt. 

16: The SPLA has urged the international community to declare the south a no-fly zone for Sudan's government planes, which they say have continued to bomb civilian targets there. "As a concrete move to discourage Khartoum in its policies of depopulating southern Sudan and other marginalised areas of the country, we urge the international community to declare New Sudan (rebel-held south) a no-fly zone for government of Sudan planes," the SPLA said in a statement. 

16: The Sudanese authorities have closed a Ugandan-owned trading company suspected of links with the rebel group, the Lord's Resistance Army, and arrested two of its staff. One has been deported to Kenya, the second remains in detention, while a third Ugandan working for the company, apparently fearing arrest, has disappeared. All three had their passports confiscated last December, when Sudan and Uganda signed an agreement to improve relations. 

16: Egypt, which has resumed ties with Sudan at the ambassadorial level, will maintain its policy of backing the integrity and unity of Sudan, the Sudanese daily Alwan reported. The newspaper quoted Egypt's new ambassador in Khartoum, Mohammed Asem Ibrahim, as saying that Egypt objects to the calls for self-determination of southern Sudan, which may lead to Sudan's disintegration. 

17: The leadership structure of Sudan's political and armed opposition was thrown into disarray when the influential Umma Party of ex-prime minister Sadek al-Mahdi walked out of coalition talks to protest at a decision to re-organise the alliance's leadership. 

20: Sudanese government forces have launched a big counter-offensive against rebels in eastern Sudan near the border with Eritrea, the two sides said. The Sudanese army said in a statement that the rebels attacked border areas and that fighting was continuing. 

20: The pullout of 11 major NGOs from Sudan has seriously affected relief operations in the Bahr el-Ghazal and Upper Nile regions and may lead to serious food shortage. The NGOs working under Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS), have refused to sign an agreement that sets out the conditions given by the Sudanese Relief and Rehabilitation Association (SRRA) they have opted to leave. 

21: After attacks by opposition forces based along the border with Eritrea, the eastern Sudanese state of Kassala has declared a state of maximum war preparedness, a newspaper reported. The governor of Kassala, Ibrahim Hamid Mahmoud, was quoted by al-Rai al-Aam, an Arabic daily, as saying that there was no cause for alarm as the government forces assisted by militiamen were in full control on the war fronts. 

22: The SPLA has accused a pro-Khartoum militia of attacking opposition forces in the southern Bahr al Ghazal region. "In the last three days a huge militia has attacked the town of Aweil from two directions," SPLA spokesman Yassir Arman said. 

22: Sudan's army said it had repulsed rebel attacks in the eastern region of the country, inflicting heavy losses and capturing foreigners-reportedly Eritreans-in five days of fighting. The rebels said they have regained two border positions lost to the government in the early days of the fighting, and claimed government planes had bombed a school in the region, killing several teachers and students. 

23: A foreign ministry spokesman said Asmara still hosts Sudanese opposition political parties and armed forces which Khartoum believes launched the attack from Eritrea, despite last January's establishment of full diplomatic relations between Sudan and Eritrea and border security accords. He did not directly accuse the Eritrea authorities of involvement in the offensive. 

23: Sudan, one of Africa's poorest countries, has sent 36 tonnes of relief aid to flood-hit Mozambique, a newspaper reported. The independent al-Sahafi al-Douli said several groups, including Daawa Islamiya and the Sudanese Red Crescent had contributed supplies of sacks, tents, clothes and drugs. 

23: The European Union has said it had allocated 11 million Euros (US$11.3 million) of humanitarian aid to Sudan for the rest of this year, but that no funds would go to rebel-held areas until conditions were right. The 15-nation bloc suspended aid deliveries to rebel-held areas in southern Sudan on March 1, saying the rebel movements were preventing NGOs from carrying out relief work. 

24: Meningitis has killed 50 people mainly children and old people, in Juba, in the last two weeks, a newspaper reported. The privately owned Alwan daily said Juba, which has a population of a quarter of a million people, is short of drugs to combat the epidemic. 

24: Umma Party, which broke away from the National Democratic Alliance, an umbrella organisation comprising exiled opposition parties, is moving its forces from Eritrea to Ethiopia, the Sudanese daily al-Anbaa reported. 

28: The SPLA has accused the government of violating its own cease-fire by launching a four-pronged military offensive on Heiban, Buram, Western Jabal and Dalami in the Southern Kordofan area of the Nuba Mountains. SPLM spokesman Samson Kwaje said 8,000 people had been displaced in Buram alone, and needed urgent humanitarian assistance having had their crops and granaries looted or burned. 

29: The government intended to pursue a peaceful resolution to the war in Sudan, even if it meant the secession of the south, the ambassador to Kenya, Farouq Ali, said in Nairobi. However, he warned against international pressure on Khartoum which, he said, "translates to direct support to the rebel movement with its intransigence". Farouq also deflected criticism of recent government bombings in the Nuba Mountains, saying the region was not designated as a cease-fire zone. 

29: Sudan's foreign minister Mustafa Osman Ismail has commended the UN's role in providing humanitarian assistance to war victims in the south, and looked forward to improving performance "in line with directives set out for humanitarian work, and respect for the state's sovereignty and national security". 

30: SPLM commander John Garang said his fighters had been responsible for attack on the airport at Kassala in which, he claimed, an Antonov bomber, the airport's fuel depot and main ammunition stores had been destroyed. The Sudanese army admitted that the airport tower had been attacked but made no mention of any damage, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reported. 

30: The Arab League has re-affirmed its support for the sovereignty, unity and integrity of Sudan, and voiced its opposition to any attempt to boost "separatist trends" through extending material and military aid, or imposing 'no-fly zones' within Sudan, SUNA reported. The League was responding to the SPLM's call for a no-fly zone to be declared for government aircraft in south Sudan because of indiscriminate bombing of civilian populations. 

30: The office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, has agreed with the government to field an international expert on human rights in Sudan, initially for one year, in order to build the country's capacity to promote and protect human rights. The expert would help formulate technical cooperation projects in the field of human rights, bearing in mind the report of a UN expert mission to Sudan in September 1999. 

31: The government has returned to the Umma Party its headquarters in Omdurman, which were confiscated when President Omar al-Bashir seized power in a coup in 1989. Siddiq al-Mahdi, the son of party leader Sadeq al-Mahdi, said the party would "immediately resume political activities" from the offices. 

31: The leading opposition activist Ghazi Suleiman, leader of the National Alliance for the Return of Democracy, was arrested in his home, the Associated Press agency quoted the Sudanese Association for Human Rights as saying. The human rights group had noted that Suleiman's arrest followed a press conference earlier in which he accused Bashir's government of curbing political freedoms and systematically abusing human rights, the report added. 

31: The ministry of health has issued a warning to Sudanese civilians to avoid crowded places and direct sunlight in a bid to curb the spread of meningitis, which claimed over 2,000 lives in 1999. "We expect more meningitis to occur with the increasing summer heat," the PanAfrican News Agency quoted a ministry statement as saying. 
 

April 

1: Security at Kassala airport was boosted following a rebel attack on the airport, the governor of Kassala state, Ibrahim Mahmoud, said in a statement. He said despite the rebel attack, Kassala was calm. 

2: President Bashir has vowed that his troops would soon win back parts of eastern Sudan that were invaded by opposition forces last month. "There will never be negotiations with the rebels and agents before Hamoshkorib area is liberated," said Bashir in a fiery speech at a rally of tens of thousands of people bussed from different parts of the Sudanese capital and suburbs. 

3: Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi has expressed his hope that peace negotiations aimed at ending the 17-year-old civil war in Sudan would go ahead and reach an acceptable conclusion. Moi made the remarks when he had a lengthy discussion with Sudanese president Hassan el-Bashir in Cairo, Egypt, where they were attending the Afro-European Summit. 

3: Sudan's government began a new round of peace talks with rebels to end 17-year-old war, which has recently forced thousands to flee the country. A Sudanese government delegation met representatives of the SPLA in Nairobi, Kenya, for the last round of talks, which have so far been largely fruitless. 

4: The Sudanese army said it had driven rebels from the Red Sea town of Garora, the official Sudan News Agency reported. "The armed forces have cleaned the border area of Garora in eastern Sudan of attackers after inflicting on them huge losses in lives and equipment," said armed forces spokesman Mohammed Osman Yassin in a statement. 

5: The World Food Programme has earmarked US$15 million in food aid for Eritrean and Ethiopian refugees living in Sudan, according to a memorandum of understanding signed between Sudan and the Programme. Sudan' commissioner for refugees, Mohammed el Aghbash, said in a statement reported by the local media that the amount will be used to provide various food items for about 132,000 Eritrean and Ethiopian refugees in the eastern parts of Sudan for 18 months from May 1. 

6: Leading members of Umma Party were given a rousing welcome when they returned to Khartoum after more than a decade in exile. Speaking to reporters at the airport, Omar Nur al-Daim, the party's secretary general, said the leadership was returning to work for peace and democracy. 

6: More than 25 Sudanese government opponents, including at least three senior Umma Party officials, returned home from more than 10 years of leading anti-government activities abroad. Sudan's former prime minister and Umma Party chief Sadeq al-Mahdi, who has also been living in self-imposed exile since he was ousted by president Omar el-Bashir in a 1989 coup, was absent from the homecoming. 

11: Meningitis has claimed 206 lives across Sudan over the last four months, press reports said. The Al Ayam daily quoted a health ministry official as stating that they were among 2,647 people infected with the disease. 

20: The Sudan has announced that it was immediately suspending air raids against southern rebel positions, apparently to allow international relief flights to the region, the official news agency reported. But president Omar el-Bashir, who ordered the halt of air bombardment, warned that the government warplanes would strike back if they were shot at by the SPLA.

22: The ICRC has signed a new agreement with the Sudanese ministries of defence and social planning, to extend support, by three years, to the National Centre for Prosthetics and Orthotics in Khartoum. Work started in 1998 to upgrade the Centre's facilities to increase assistance to mine victims and other war amputees. 28: Nearly two million Sudanese could face starvation if food stocks are not replenished by June, WFP warned in a statement released from Khartoum. The statement said there was an urgent need for pledges of food aid to avert a crisis. It warned existing stocks would run out in June.

29: The opposition umbrella National Democratic Alliance (NDA) group said it had captured the government's military headquarters, Osman Dakna camp, north of Kassala, AFP reported. According to an NDA news release, the coalition said it captured five soldiers and repelled an attack by government forces.

29: The Sudanese government has urged SPLA John Garang, to participate in Egypt and Libya's efforts to reconcile Sudan's feuding parties. Foreign minister Mustafa Ismail told a press conference in Khartoum that the SPLA should "stop vetoing" the Egyptian-Libyan initiative within the opposition NDA, news organisations reported.

30: A tripartite commission set up to facilitate the voluntary repatriation of Eritrean refugees in Sudan, formed by Sudan, Eritrea and UNHCR, held its first meeting in the Eritrean capital, Asmara, Eritrean radio reported. Eritrean commissioner Werku Tesfamikael of the Eritrean Relief and Refugee Commission thanked Sudan for its hospitality to refugees, and said in an opening speech that Eritreans had become refugees in Sudan because of atrocities by Ethiopian regimes.
 

May

1: The spiritual leader of Anglican Christians preached for peace during a visit to southern Sudan to swear in a new arch-bishop for Sudan. "I do not believe there is any reason either here in Sudan or anywhere else in the world for Christians and Muslims to commit violence against one another," Arch-bishop of Cantebury George Carey said in his sermon in the southern city of Juba.

2: Archbishop Carey has called for an end to the country's 17-year-old civil war. "Fighting does not solve problems of Sudan," Dr Carey told a huge congregation gathered for the enthronement of a new Anglican Archbishop of Juba Joseph Marona.

3: The Sudanese government has denied that it discriminated against its Christian minority, saying some Muslim groups have criticised it for being too tolerant. "Any talk about religious oppression in Sudan is actually far away from the reality experienced in our communities," said Abdel-Jabir Osman Mara'ie, the head of the churches department in the ministry of social affairs.

3: The pipeline carrying Sudan's crude oil to a Red Sea port has been blown up, state television reported. The secretary-general of the ministry of energy and mining was quoted as saying the export pipeline at Singat, about 345 km east of Khartoum, had been "subjected to a limited act of sabotage". State television said exports would not be delayed because of the volumes of oil stored at Port Bashir, on the Red Sea.

3: UN secretary-general Kofi Annan has welcomed an announcement by the Sudanese government of a humanitarian ceasefire until July 15 this year. In a statement, the secretary-general said he also acknowledged the decision on April 19 "to suspend air bombings in Southern Sudan to protect civilian lives and facilitate the continuing delivery of humanitarian assistance".

4: government media quoted Sudanese minister of agriculture Dr Al-Hajj Adam as saying the food situation in Sudan was "satisfactory". He said Sudan did not suffer a food gap, and that available food met domestic consumption. The comments follow a warning by WFP that aid supplies in Sudan would run out by June, leaving about 2 million people in danger of starvation.

5: Col. Garang has described the halt to air strikes announced by the government a "public-relations exercise aimed at improving international relations". The London-based newspaper 'Al-Sharq al-Awsat" said in a telephone interview from the field that, Garang rejected national elections scheduled for October, and also dismissed as "illegitimate" an internationally supported conference of southern forces, scheduled to be held in Geneva in mid-May.

5: An exiled spokesman for Massaleit civilians in western Sudan claimed in a statement issued from Egypt that government-supported Arab militia had caused death and displacement in escalating attacks over the last two years. The statement said that in February more than 50 people from the Massaleit village of Geriko, on the Sudan-Central African Republic border, were killed by attackers on horseback carrying automatic weapons.

6: The Sudanese government has urged Col. Garang, to participate in Egypt and Libya's efforts to reconcile Sudan's feuding parties. Foreign Minister Mustafa Ismail told a press conference in Khartoum that the SPLA should "stop vetoing" the Egyptian-Libyan initiative within the opposition National Democratic Alliance, news organisations reported.

6: A tripartite commission set up to facilitate the voluntary repatriation of Eritrean refugees in Sudan, formed by Sudan, Eritrea and UNHCR, held its first meeting in the Eritrean capital, Asmara, Eritrean radio reported. Eritrean commissioner Werku Tesfamikael of the Eritrean Relief and Refugee Commission thanked Sudan for its hospitality to refugees, and said in an opening speech that Eritreans had become refugees in Sudan because of atrocities by Ethiopian regimes.

6: President Omar el-Bashir has accused his former ally-turned-rival Hassan al-Turabi of plotting against the government and vowed to act decisively against the party's secretary-general. General Bashir was speaking during a meeting of leaders of the ruling Islamist party , the National Congress, in Khartoum.

9: The SPLA has suspended its participation in peace talks aimed at ending a 17-year civil war in protest at what it called reckless bombing of civilian targets by the government. The SPLA said in a statement issued in Nairobi that the government had flouted its own moratorium on aerial bombardments and had bombed several civilian targets in rebel-held areas over the last week.

11: Supporters of Al-Turabi have expelled president Bashir from the ruling National Congress Party, a newspaper reported. The report of the expulsion, the latest move in a power struggle between the two men, was dismissed by government officials as meaningless.

14: The United States has again named Sudan as one of seven countries allegedly sponsoring international terrorism despite US acknowledgement of the Khartoum regime's "efforts to distance itself publicly from terrorism". In a new report on "Patterns of Global Terrorism" in 1999, the State Department says Sudan serves as a "central hub" for Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda (The Base).

15: Sudan faces an Aids disaster on the scale afflicting its neighbours without swift action to combat the deadly virus, United Nations officials say. "Sudan today is like the data for Uganda 10 years ago," said Abdalla Ismail, national country programme adviser to UNAdis, a UN group charged with fighting the disease.

16: Sudan has called on neighbours Eritrea and Ethiopia to stop fighting to maintain stability and security in the Horn of Africa, a newspaper reported. According to the daily-al-Rai al-Aam, a cabinet meeting chaired by first vice-president Ali Osman Mohammed Taha said it would exert efforts to "stop the fighting between the brothers in the two countries. 

16: Sudanese Islamist leader Hassan al-Turabi, ousted as speaker of parliament by president Omar al-Bashir in December after a power struggle between the two, has threatened to turn to the people and refused to rule out the possibility of violence after Bashir moved to restrict his political influence even further. Bashir issued a presidential decree suspending the national secretariat of the ruling National Congress party - including Turabi, its secretary-general - and closing down the offices of the party's secretaries in Sudan's 26 states, Sudanese media reported. 

16: Southern Sudan last month lost one of it's most colourful leaders, Mr Adhol Achuil Aleu. A lawyer and politician of long standing, Mr Dhol died in Nairobi, Kenya, on May 9. He had been bed-ridden since the beginning of this year when he suffered a massive stroke. 

17: Turabi said he would ignore the presidential decree and continue his political activities within the party, the Sudanese paper, Al-Ra'y al-Amm, reported. The former speaker said that the suspended 60-member general secretariat had expelled Bashir and six senior aides for violating party rules, though Sudanese media suggested this would have no effect on Bashir's power base, including the army, whose senior officers pledged their "full support" for the president. 

17: Khartoum has made public its stated wish to see the use of a humanitarian rail corridor between Kosti and Wau - across the front line in the Sudanese civil war - to assist and drastically reduce the cost of humanitarian service delivery to affected populations. The government, encouraged by US Envoy to Sudan, Harry Johnston, in March, had formally written to the US to request the exemption from its economic embargo of parts needed by WFP to rehabilitate the rail line, according to a statement from the ministry of external relations. 

17: The US has said it was "perplexed and concerned" by reports of renewed bombing attacks on Sudanese civilians since Bashir's April 19 announcement that his forces would stop all air raids against civilians. Washington urged Sudan "to live up to its commitment ... and ensure an end to all aerial bombardments in all parts of southern and eastern Sudan," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. 

18: SPLA leader John Garang told Egyptian foreign minister Amr Musa in Cairo that the movement favoured combining the Egyptian-Libyan peace initiative on Sudan with the IGAD process "so that there would only be one track of negotiations, not two," the Egyptian news agency MENA reported. Garang said the Bashir-Turabi machinations meant a crisis existed within the Sudanese regime. He said they were "both competing about who was more fundamentalist and extremist," MENA stated. 

18: The damage inflicted on Sudan's oil pipeline in a rebel attack in the Bramio area, 30 km north of Sinkat town in Red Sea State, on May 1 was limited in scope, has since been repaired and did not affect the country's exports because it had enough fuel in stock at the Basha'ir Port to meet requirements, the official SUNA news agency quoted energy and mining minister Mohamed Ali al-Tawn as saying. Even if the physical impact of the bombing was limited, the fact that the rebels had struck successfully for the third time at such a huge and prestigious project pointed to the ease with which they operated in the Sinkat area and would boost their morale, a former foreign affairs official, Lt-Gen Sirr Mohamed Ahmad, was quoted as saying on Sudanese television. 

18: Sudan and Tunisia have agreed to restore international relations and exchange diplomatic representation as a result of contacts established during recent summit meetings in Egypt and Cuba, according to Sudanese radio. Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said the move was an important event and would support the two countries' positions in regional and international fora, particularly with Tunisia currently being a member of the UN Security Council, it said. 

18: An Egyptian official has said that Col.Garang preferred to resolve Sudan's civil war without dividing the country. Mustafa al-Fiki, under-secretary at the Sudanese foreign ministry, said Garang had told foreign minister Amr Moussa that a reconciliation agreement was still possible. 

18: Sudan has concluded two contracts totalling US$ 17 million with China for the purchase of power engines and irrigation water pumps. Under the first contract, China will provide Sudan with 40 electric power engines worth US$9 million, a release from the ministry of finance in Khartoum said. 

20: The United Nations has said thousands of Eritrean civilians and soldiers were crossing into Sudan to escape renewed fighting with Ethiopian forces. The Geneva-based UNHCR said up to 18, 000 Eritreans have entered Sudan. Ethiopia and Eritrea, two of the world's poorest countries, are at war over a border dispute. 

20: Sudanese government has termed as "irresponsible" the decision by the SPLA to withdraw from the country's peace talks brokered by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development. The talks were scheduled for Nairobi from May 17-23. 

21: An anti-tank mine exploded under a vehicle owned by the Sudanese Catholic Church, killing 14 children and injuring 10 others, some of them seriously, a catholic missionary news agency reported. The MISNA agency said the blast took place when a four-wheel drive vehicle owned by the parish priest of Dilling drove over the mine near Dellami, some 100 km (60 miles) east of Dilling. 

22: The Sudanese rebels' grip on the province of Hamashkureib is loosening as a result of the Ethiopian military operation in western Eritrea, the official al-Anbaa Arabic daily reported. Hamashkureib was captured last month by a combined force of the northern opposition parties in exile and southern-based SPLA. 

22: The Sudanese government has decided to evacuate all Sudanese living in Asmara as the Ethiopian Eritrean war escalates. The first trip from Asmara to Khartoum by Sudan Airways was scheduled for May 22, 2000. However, the government said the embassy staff would continue to discharge their duties at Asmara until further notice. 

22: President Bashir has directed the prison authorities to release all women convicted under the public order law. According to al-Ayam daily Omdurman prison had identified 757 inmates to be set free. 

24: Rida Mining Company, a Sudanese-Saudi business has won a contract to prospect for gold in Berber area, some 40 km north of Khartoum. The director of the Geological Research Corporation, Omar Mohammed Khair, said the company considers the area promising of gold. 

26: A mysterious fire gutted a Roman Catholic building in the Sudanese capital Khartoum, missionary sources have reported. The fire, said the sources, gutted part of a new extension of the Catholic Bishops' Conference building in Khartoum, causing damage estimated at about US$150, 000. 

26: Sudanese rebels claimed to have killed at least 30 government troops including three army commanders during a six-hour battle in eastern Sudan. The battle in Rissai, near the border with Eritrea, left "heavy casualties" with 30 government soldiers killed according to an initial tally, Gen. Abdel Rahman Said of the opposition NDA said in a statement. 

28: An Ethiopian diplomat in Khartoum has said the Sudanese armed opposition in Eritrea was not involved in any way in the ongoing war between the Horn of Africa nations. Ethiopia's charge d'affaires in Khartoum Abdu Legesse Bushra told a press conference his government's forces had not clashed with the Sudanese opposition. 

29: The US-based Carter Centre, which brokered the failed Uganda-Sudan peace accord, is frantically trying to revive the pact. The Carter Centre is organising a Joint Ministerial Committee Meeting that will seek to have the two parties recommit themselves to the speedy implementation of the accord, signed in Nairobi last December by presidents Yoweri Museveni and Bashir. 

31: The separation of religion and state is not appropriate for Sudan, which employs Islamic law, first vice-president Ali Osman Mohammed Taha told a news conference. The Islamist government "is committed to its declared principles, including Islamic law,' he said. He was replying to a statement attributed to him by the Egyptian government newspaper Al-ahram that the Khartoum is willing to separate religion from the state for the sake of national reconciliation. 

31: The SPLA claimed that its forces had beaten off a major government attack on its positions in eastern Sudan. In a statement , SPLA spokesman Samson Kwaje said that its units within the opposition NDA forces repulsed major attempt by Khartoum forces to recapture Hamashkureib in eastern Sudan, inflicting heavy casualties on the attackers. 

June 

1: Seven people have been killed by SPLA fighters in the north western Kenya town of Lokichoggio, in a week, a Member of Parliament has alleged. Turkana North MP John Munyes said he had been informed that the local district commissioner, Mr Peter Mooke, visited the scene of the killings. 

2: A Kenyan MP has claimed that Turkanas are planning to raid an SPLA camp near Lokichoggio and forcibly evict more than 500 rebel soldiers who live there because they have become a security threat to the region. MP Munyes told a press conference that the Turkana people will now take the risk of confronting the heavily armed militias after the government's decision to ignore their persistent demands that they be moved. 

2: The Kenya government has denied knowledge of the illegal presence of Sudanese rebel fighters in Kenya's Turkana District. The minister in charge of internal security, Mr. Marsden Madoka, said he was yet to get information on the alleged activities of the SPLA in Lokichoggio. 

4: Rebels have not launched attacks in which 312 troops have died in a month, the Sudanese government said. The SPLA issued a statement in Kenya's capital Nairobi, claiming it had scored victories over government forces in the Bentiu area in the last five weeks, killing some 312 troops. 

5: More than 300 government troops were killed by rebel forces during separate confrontations in eastern Sudan, a spokesman for the SPLA said in a statement in Cairo. Yasser Arman said the soldiers were killed between May 29 and June 3 in fighting with rebel forces who also seized weapons and ammunition, according to the statement. 

6: An upsurge of fighting has forced the Sudanese government to stop work at six key oil wells in the south west of the country, the SPLA said. "After the fighting by the SPLA in April and May in the Upper Nile region, during which 600 government troops were killed, the Khartoum regime was forced to order work to stop at six oil wells in the Heglig region, said SPLA spokesman Yasser Erman in a statement. 

6: The deaths of two conscripts in Khartoum have alarmed a Sudanese public still traumatised by the 1998 drowning of 52 students who were fleeing a military training camp on the Nile. Officials say the deaths were from natural causes, with one recruit suffering malaria and other sunstroke---temperatures in the capital have been hitting a scorching 46 Celcius (115 Fahrenheit). 

7: Nobody has been killed by the SPLA in Lokichoggio, Kenya police said. They were denying an allegation by the local MP that the Sudanese freedom fightrs killed seven Turkana pastorlists. 

14: A Kenya police officer was shot dead by SPLA rebels at Kakuma Refugee Camp. Three SPLA soldiers are said to have been visiting their relatives at the camp when the incident occurred.

15: The Auxiliary Bishop of the Diocese of Torit, John Akio Mutek, will on June 18 preside over the ordination of Deacon Alphonce Muras Chacha into priesthood. The ceremony will take place at Ikotos in the Diocese of Torit. Deacon Chacha of the Apostles of Jesus, has been serving at Yirol in Rumbek Diocese. 

17: Sudan will mark the 11th anniversary of the coup that brought president Omar Bashir to power by making its own weapons, the independent al-Wifag newspaper quoted the leader as saying. "Sudan will celebrate the festival of the revolution this year with the production of tanks and heavy equipment by Sudanese hands," Bashir was quoted as saying during a public address at Umruwaba Province in Northern Kordofan State. 

19: Two days after the United States and Kenya agreed to push for resumption of peace talks to end Sudan's 17-year civil war, SPLA said they were willing to return to the negotiating table. Samson Kwaje, a spokesman for the SPLA, said the group's leadership had met in southern Sudan and passed a resolution lifting suspension of participation in peace talks with immediate effect. 

20: In a little more than a month since it has been operating, a Chinese-built refinery has increased supplies so much that the price of gas cylinders has dropped by half for Sudanese consumers. Attif Ahmad Hamid, deputy director of the Khartoum Refinery, said as he guided reporters around the facility located some 50 km (30 miles) north of the capital. 

21: One student was killed and six others wounded when police opened fire during anti-government protests at a university in central Sudan, provoking the university's closure, officials said. Sudanese police spokesman Major General Abu Bakr Adel Qadir said in a statement that the clashes occurred when students chanting anti-government slogans tried to enter Sennar University campus for an illegal rally. 

21: The Egyptian ambassador to Khartoum has said his country is strongly opposed to the idea of separating the south from northern Sudan "and is determined to prevent such a separation by all means.''
Speaking at a symposium organised by Azhari University in Omdurman, Ambassador Mohamed Asim Ibrahim said Egypt's "regional and international pressures have been the sole obstacle in the way of separating southern Sudan." 

22: President Bashir, seeking to end his country's 17-year-old civil war, has granted a general amnesty to anyone who committed an act of rebellion since he seized power in 1989. The official Sudanese news agency SUNA reported that Bashir had decreed an "unconditional general amnesty" to any Sudanese civilian or military, who committed an act of rebellion between June 30, 1989 and June 20, 2000 

22: Essam Mirghani, deputy commander of a northern opposition group named the Sudan Alliance Forces, has dismissed president Bashir's amnesty as a smokescreen aimed at propping up Bashir's own position rather than a serious bid to solve Sudan's conflict. 

23: Sudanese rebels said they had killed 430 government troops in a three-day battle in Sudan's oil-rich Western Upper Nile region. Fighting began between the government-held towns of Mayoum and Bentiu when the rebels ambushed a government convoy, said Mr. Yassir Arman, spokesman for the SPLA in the Eritrean capital Asmara. 

23: Talisman Energy Inc. said it is considering selling its 25% interest in Sudan's Greater Nile Oil production and pipeline project. "We have been contacted by a number of people over the possibility of selling it. In time we might do that," James Buckee, the company's president and chief executive, said at the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers investment symposium. 

25: Sudan has confirmed that three more areas are being opened up in the country for oil exploration. The energy and mining ministry said the new areas are the Blue Nile Basin, the extreme west of Sudan near the Chadean border and the Red Sea zone. The energy and mining ministry's under-secretary, Hassan Mohammed Ali el Taum said a new bid round will begin in July with licenses being granted before the end of the year. 

25: Members of the UN Security Council have began examining a draft resolution to remove sanctions imposed on Sudan in 1996 after an attempt on the life of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Diplomats said experts were studying a draft submitted by Mali, one of three African countries with non-permanent seats on the council. 

26: The SPLA has captured the strategic town of Gogrial in the Bahr-el-Ghazal region of southern Sudan, SPLA spokesman Samson Kwaje said in Nairobi. Kwaje said the town fell at 1300 GMT on June 24 after four days of heavy fighting, triggered when government forces came out of Gogrial and started attacking SPLA positions and undefended civilian villages around the town. 

26: International oil companies are sizing up a number of new opportunities in Sudan, following the success of the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company (GNPOC) in bringing on stream the Heglig and Unity fields, some 800 kilometres southwest of Khartoum. "I know of at least 10 companies interested in acquiring new blocks," says Hassan Mohamed Ali, a Khartoum-based consultant who was involved in the Heglig scheme. 

26: Five of the 12 relief agencies that suspended operations in rebel-held southern Sudan plan to return to the region following assurances by the Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Association (SRRA) that it would respect their humanitarian principles. The SRRA has agreed to review its memorandum of understanding to recognise the principles of neutrality and impartiality. 

26: Sudan's ruling National Congress party met for a session that could result in a formal split between partisans of president Bashir and his rival, Islamic ideologue Hassan al-Turabi. The party's shura (consultative) council, which has about 580 members gathered behind closed doors at the Chinese-built Friendship Hall in Khartoum, party sources said. 

27: President Bashir won another major battle against his main political rival, Mr Turabi, when the ruling National Congress party chose a new secretary-general. In a 10-hour meeting, the party's Shura Council chose Mr. Ibrahim Ahmed Omar, president Bashir's assistant for political affairs, as the new secretary-general . 

27: The US state Department said that it opposes the lifting of UN sanctions against Sudan until that country takes verifiable steps to end its support for terrorism. "In terms of the sanctions position, we do not support the lifting of sanctions until the government of Sudan takes concrete, verifiable steps to end its support for terrorist groups," spokesman Philip Reeker said in response to question about recent contacts between the US and Sudan. 

29: Turabi has formed his own party, after he was replaced as head of Sudan's ruling party. Thousands of Turabi's supporters gathered outside his Khartoum house to celebrate the founding of his Popular National Congress Party. 

29: Sudan's National Congress party said a rival group founded by an ousted Islamic leader posed no threat, despite news that a second minister had quit the government to join it, newspapers said today. "The new organisation will not affect the march of the National Congress, on the contrary we have surpassed the stage of obstacles," Khartoum governor Mazjoub al-Khalifa 

29: Representatives of the international humanitarian community operating under the auspices of Operation Lifeline Sudan have urged the parties involved in the Sudanese conflict to keep to mutual agreements and declared humanitarian ceasefires, and to work with the humanitarian community to achieve unimpeded deliveries of humanitarian assistance. They called on the parties to ensure the protection of the civilian populations at all times. 

July 

1: Sudan's opposition National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has accepted a proposal by president Bashir to convene a forum of all the country's political forces provided the meeting is held outside Sudan. NDA official Ali Ahmed al-Sayyed said the forum plan, which Bashir's proposed, was "a positive step" but fell short of NDA demands for more political freedoms, a halt to the civil war and calling of presidential and legislative elections set for next October. 

3: A team of USA experts visited Sudan to examine and assess the security situation in the country prior to reopening the US embassy in Khartoum, foreign minister Mustafa Osman Ismail was quoted as saying by a newspaper in Khartoum. The experts had talks with Sudanese officials on differences between Khartoum and Washington, including the US accusation against Sudan of sponsoring terrorism, and humanitarian rights issues, as-sahafi ad-Dawli daily reported. 

3: Khartoum has agreed to let the UN fly relief to areas controlled by the SPLA in the Nuba Mountains in central Sudan, a senior relief official said. Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Sulaf al-Din Salih said the government had agreed for the assistance, which includes farming tools, seeds and medicines, to be flown to the region from El-Obeid airport in central Sudan's Kordofan province. 

5: A government aircraft bombed Rumbek village in southern Sudan killing a young girl and a pregnant woman, villagers said. It was the latest violation of a humanitarian ceasefire in the southern province of Bahr el Ghazal between southern rebels and the Islamist government in Khartoum. 

6: The SPLA mainstream said it had captured the town of Maban in the upper Nile region of southern Sudan. Mr. Justin Yaac, spokesman for the SPLA, said the forces took the town after a 12-hour battle with government troops. 

8: A group of 49 Sudanese rebels from the opposition Democratic Unionist Party army have returned to Sudan from bases in Ethiopia and surrendered their weapons, a press report said. The militiamen crossed the border in Ghazra in eastern Sudan, Akhbar Al-Yom daily said, following orders from Ethiopia for all Sudanese opposition groups to leave its territory. 

8: An Anglican bishop from Sudan has appealed to the United States to come to the aid of Christians in the African country he said were being persecuted by the ruling Muslim majority. Bishop Peter Munde of Yambio, told the General Convention of the US Episcopal Church, part of the worldwide Anglican Communion, that the effect of the 17-year-long civil war has been brutal on average citizens. 

8: The US Commission on International Religious Freedom has issued a statement urging Congress and the Administration not to lift sanctions on Sudan before that country takes verifiable steps to end religious persecution and engage in serious negotiations to end the country's 17-year civil war. The Khartoum government is trying to end United Nations sanctions imposed after Sudan gave refuge to would-be assassins who attacked Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 1995. 

9: Thousands of panic-stricken civilians are deserting the southern Sudan town of Wau for fear of an imminent showdown between the SPLA and the government. Speaking in Nairobi on return from Sudan, Bishop Caesar Mazzolari of the Catholic Diocese of Rumbek, said the massive human traffic has been triggered off by fears of a possible attack on the town by SPLA forces. 

9: Sudan's security and defence councils held a rare joint meeting a day after rebels claimed to have taken a strategic southern town. The official news agency SUNA said that President Omar Hassan al-Bashir had presided over a meeting of the security and national defence chiefs at which undisclosed security measures were taken. 

10: An African body seeking to end Sudan's civil war will send a delegate to Khartoum to arrange a fresh round of peace talks in Nairobi next month between the Sudanese government and rebels, an official said. Daniel Mboya, an official for the east African Inter-governmental Authority on /Development (IGAD), will arrive in a few days to discuss arrangements with Sudanese officials, said one of them, Mutref Siddeiq. 

10: South Sudanese rebels claimed to have seized a government garrison town in the oil-rich Southern Blue Nile state, killing 15 government soldiers and wounding many. Anambul, situated on the banks of River Nile, fell to fighters of SPLA, the rebel movement said in a statement released in Nairobi. 

10: The UN said fighting in Southern Upper Nile province had forced at least 4,000 people to flee their homes, shortly before a six-month caesefire was scheduled to expire on July 15. Fighting between SPLA and government forces erupted earlier this month around Gogrial in Bahr el-Ghazal province and Maban in the Upper Nile region. 

11: President Bashir cancelled a trip to Togo for the African summit for health reasons, his office said. President Bashir was to have left for Lome, Togo, for the OAU meeting, but "doctors advised him not to go so that his fatigue would not be aggravated", a presidential spokesman said on a customary condition of anonymity. 

12: European parliament has tabled a resolution urging the Sudanese government to stop supporting the Ugandan rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and particularly to cooperate in freeing all children abducted by the rebels. The resolution noted that thousands of children had already died in captivity from hunger, disease, beatings, stabbings and the fighting itself. 

15: The SPLA said it killed 93 government troops and captured a key bridge linking the south and north of the country in recent clashes. The SPLA said its forces took the heavily defended railway bridge on Lol River near Aweil in Bahr el-Ghazal. 

16: The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said that it has withdrawn its representatives from a clinic in a southern Sudan village after one of its planes was damaged by a bomber. Juan Martinez, spokesman for the ICRC, said he was unable to confirm allegations that the bomber belonged to the Sudanese military or that the Red Cross clinic nearby was severely damaged. 

16: Sudan has been selected to represent Africa as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, amid strong opposition from Washington. The 53 African nations picked Sudan over Mauritius and Uganda, to succeed Namibia on the Council for a two-year term beginning January. 

17: Sudanese and Ugandan delegations are expected to hold reconciliation talks in the US city of Atlanta under the auspices of former US president Jimmy Carter, foreign ministry officials said. The Sudanese delegation led by Junior Foreign Minister Ali Abdel Rahman Nimeiri left for Atlanta in the southern state of Georgia, Carter's home state, they added. 

17: President Hosni Mubarak has received a message from his Sudanese counterpart Omar el-Bashir on the present situation in Sudan especially in the eastern and southern regions, said Sudanese foreign minister Dr Mustafa Uthman Ismail following his meeting with the president. President Mubarak asserted the importance of promoting bilateral relations and of good preparations for the joint ministerial committee meeting to be held in September. 

17: SPLA leader John Garang says the Sudan government is “in a crisis” after failure of a three-month offensive against rebels in the south and part of the north. In a telephone interview from southern Sudan, Garang said the crisis in the government had led to the dismissal of two key ministers and prevented President Bashir from travelling to an OAU summit in Togo. 

18: Thousands of Sudanese are fleeing into neighbouring Uganda to escape fighting in their country's civil war, the UN refugee agency said. Since mid-June, when fighting intensified in the 17-year conflict, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees has registered at least 5,0000 refugees from Africa's largest nation, said Ms Bushra Jofar , the agency's spokeswoman in Kampala. 

19: President Bashir has met top security and defence officials to launch a stronger government response to recent attacks by southern rebels, a newspaper said. The daily Al-Anbaa said Bashir chaired a joint meeting of the security and national defence councils to raise the level of mobilisation around the country following gains by the SPLA. 

19: The government in Khartoum has “concrete evidence” that Eritrea is helping Sudanese rebels plan an offensive in eastern Sudan, a Sudanese official charged in remarks published in Khartoum. The Eritrean government “is involved in a military plan targeting east Sudan” in reprisal for Khartoum's alleged support for Ethiopia in its war with Eritrea, eastern Sudan's Kassala State governor Ibrahim Mahmud Hamid said. 

19: Intermediate Technology Development Group's (ITDG) Shambob Brick Producers Co-operative Society (SBPCOOP) of Kassala, Sudan, has been selected as one of the winners of this year's Dubai International Award for Best Practices. The award is given to successful programmes and projects that have made positive contribution to improvement to the quality of life in cities and communities around the world. 

24: President Bashir has accused aid organisations of helping southern rebels and has threatened to end their operations, newspapers reported. “The Sudanese government is to reconsider the operations of the Lifeline programme and all the international organisations working in the field of relief in the south and to close Sudan's airspace to relief planes specialising in providing support for the rebel movement,” he was quoted as saying. 

24: China's largest oil producer, China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC), has completed oil exploration and construction projects valued at USD 1.5 billion in the Sudan, which is the largest ever oil projects constructed outside China by China, an official with CNPC, confirmed. The oil projects in the Sudan include oil exploration projects, construction of oilfield infrastructure and refinery, and building pipeline for crude oil transmission. 

26: Sudanese rebels have said the government had stepped up bomb attacks on rebel-held areas of the south after a limited cease-fire accord came to and end. The main rebel group, SPLA, said government bombers had raided a string of towns and villages in the southern province of Bahr el-Ghazal, where a two-year-old truce expired. 

26: The Sudanese government has made it mandatory on planes working for relief organisations and agencies and the Operation Lifeline Sudan to obtain clearance from the government to allow them transport relief supplies to the affected people in the south. The move is seen as a measure that would step up the surveillance of relief organisations and settle the issue of how the government should relate to them. 

26: Sudanese finance and national economy minister Dr Muhammad Khayr al-Zubayr left for Washington to take part in the meetings of the board of directors of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) from July 28-31. He will also attend the meetings of the executive directors of the fund. Dr Zubayr pointed out that the meetings of the board of directors would look into the issue of restoring the membership of Sudan. 

27: The foreign minister of Sudan, Mustafa Ismail, and his Vatican counterpart Jean-Louis Tauran have discussed the peace process in the African country, a Vatican spokesman said. Democratisation and the introduction of a multi-party system were also on the two leaders' agenda, said spokesman Joaquin Navarro Valls. 

27: The Sudanese government has decided to immediately begin contacts with all international organisations and donor countries with a view to discussing the violations and lack of commitment to the agreed upon conventions governing humanitarian operations which have had the negative effects of prolonging the war and undermining confidence in humanitarian operations in Sudan. In an important meeting held at the Republican Palace, the government decided to implement several special measures to correct the overall course of relief and humanitarian operations in Sudan in the future. 

27: The SPLA has accused Khartoum of murdering dozens of civilians in oil-producing regions of southern Sudan as part of a policy of "ethnic cleansing." An SPLA statement received in Cairo said government forces had taken control of the Nayal Dio region, "killing tens of civilian residents and looting a large number of cattle." 

28: The repatriation of the first of more than 90,000 Eritreans who fled to Sudan during recent fighting with Ethiopia began with 574 refugees going home. The UN refugee agency said that the next year it would look at the possibility of returning up to 160,000 more Eritrean refugees in Sudan, whose repatriation was suspended when Eritrea went back to war in May. 

30: One person was injured in an attack by SPLA on a Unicef boat in southern Sudan, the official Sudan News Agency (SUNA) reported. “A group of infiltrating rebel elements attacked a boat belonging to Unicef at Nagotar on the Sobat River, some 40 km south-east of Malakal,” the official Humanitarian Aid Commission said in a statement released to SUNA. 

August 

2: Sudan has accused aid groups of providing funds and supplies to rebels fighting the Khartoum government and said it had asked the UN to move its relief operations from Kenya to southern Sudan. The independent al-Ayam newspaper reported that Mr. Gutbi al-Mahdi, minister of social planning, had “notified the UN representative in Khartoum on the government's wish to transfer the activities of the southern sector of OLS which is launched from Lokichoggio airstrip in Kenya to within Sudan”. 

5: The SPLA has captured the strategic southern Sudanese railway town of Maker in the Bahr el-Ghazal region, SPLA spokesman Samson Kwaje said. Mr. Kwaje said that Maker, a strategic garrison railway town north of Aweil near the Southern Kordofan region, fell to SPLA forces on August 3, 2000. 

5: Two Sudanese army officers were killed in fighting with SPLA, the SPLA said in a statement faxed to The Associated Press in Cairo. The SPLA said its fighters repulsed a government attack on the rebel-held town of Mabaan near the Ethiopian border when it ambushed an army column. 

7: Sudanese foreign minister Mustapha Ismail has reaffirmed both the government's opposition to any eventual secession by the southern part of the country and its determination to retain a unified federal system. “The government strongly opposes the secession of the southern part of the country and is determined to keep Sudan a united state based on federal system and a just distribution of wealth and power,” Mr. Ismail told reporters. 

7: Uganda has accused Sudan of undermining the December 8, 1999 Nairobi peace accord, and charged that its neighbour had handed over its own nationals disguised as Ugandan children abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels of Joseph Kony. "These people who were released by Sudan and whom we received with fanfare were mostly Sudanese and they are now living in Sudanese camps,” said Mr. Amama Mbabazi, the minister of state for regional cooperation. 

7: An influx of displaced people into Bentiu, the capital of Unity state in war-torn southern Sudan, has greatly strained humanitarian and food aid in the town, government and aid officials said. World Food Programme (WFP) official Makena Walker told Reuters about 20,000 people displaced by recent fighting had reached Bentiu in the last three weeks with thousands of cattle. 

7: A Sudanese businessman who has been linked by the American CIA to the world's most wanted terrorist is the leading shareholder in a company that provides security systems to the Houses of Parliament.
Salah Idris, 48, whose pharmaceutical factory in Sudan was flattened by American cruise missiles after it was linked to Osama Bin Laden, the Saudi terrorist, owns 25% of IES, a company specialising in high-technology surveillance and security management. 

7: Since 1994 the Sudan-backed LRA has abducted more than 12,600 children in its guerrilla war against Uganda's government. While half of those children are now free, more than 6,000 remain unaccounted for, according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). Four thousand are presumed dead, and reports from returning abductees lead officials to believe 2,000 children remain with the LRA. 

8: In recognition of Sudan's progress since 1997 in implementing appropriate macroeconomic and structural policies under staff-monitored programmes, and in making payments to the IMF, the IMF's executive board has lifted the suspension of Sudan's voting and related rights in the IMF, which had been in place since August 9, 1993. The executive board's decision is the second step in the process of de-escalation of the remedial measures that were applied earlier to Sudan. 

8: China's state oil giant China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) is expected to more than double its overseas oil output to around 120,000 barrels per day (bpd) this year, Chinese industry sources said. CNPC produced about 2.5 million tonnes of crude oil in 1999, or 51,000 bpd, up one third from the previous year. Overseas production increases this year would come primarily from the company's operations in Sudan where it is expected to reach 60,000 bpd, from Kazakhstan at 30,000 bpd, and Venezuela at 24,000 bpd, the sources said. 

9: Sudanese government warplanes have bombed two rebel-held towns in the south of the country, killing at least seven civilians and narrowly missing a UN relief plane. Russian-built Antonov bombers circled over the towns of Tonj and Mapel in Bahr el Ghazal province and dropped more than a dozen bombs on each location, said Samson Kwaje, spokesman for the SPLA. 

9: Sudan, which became a crude oil exporter last year, has begun exporting natural gas, the official Suna reported. It quoted Hassan Ali al-tom, under-secretary at the ministry of energy and mining, as saying the first consignment of the 2,600 tonnes left Port Sudan, the country's main sea outlet, for the international market. 

9: The UN announced it had suspended relief flights in southern Sudan, where humanitarian agencies accused the government of stepping up bombing raids on civilian targets. In a statement through its spokesman, UN secretary general Kofi Annan said he was “deeply concerned over the security of humanitarian personnel and facilities belonging to OLS. 

10: Khartoum has urged UN secretary-general Kofi Annan to intervene for the resumption of UN relief flights to southern Sudan. Minister of state for social affairs Chuol Deng warned that the UN's decision to suspend relief flights would “add to the suffering'' in the south, where a 17-year civil war is being waged. 

10: A statement released by the US Committee for Refugees condemned the US government for failing to speak out against the government bombing campaign in southern Sudan. It said that the US government had been silent over the bombings because it was working towards increasing diplomatic relations with the Sudan government. 

10: The US intelligence community fears new reports may indicate Iraq is financing construction of a Scud missile assembly plant in Sudan, enlisting North Korea's help, ABCNEWS has learned. Sources say North Korean personnel would build and run the plant, with the assembled Scuds to be held in Sudan for Iraq's future use - a prospect that worries US officials. 

10: Canadian foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy and minister for international co-operation Maria Minna have condemned the recent escalation of the conflict in Sudan as evidenced by the Government of Sudan's aerial bombing of civilian targets, including aid operations, and the breaking of a humanitarian cease-fire in Bahr el Ghazal by the SPLA. 

11: Churches in southern Sudan have strongly condemned Khartoum government's bombardments of civilian targets describing the acts as a “direct violation of international law”. A statement issued jointly by the New Sudan Council of Churches (NSCC) and the Sudan Catholic Bishops' Regional Conference (SCBRC) in Nairobi said they firmly supported the latest condemnation of the Government of Sudan (GOS) by the UN. 

11: Sudanese rebels accused the government of launching “terrorist” campaign against civilians in the rebel-held south and said this could cause a humanitarian disaster. The repeated bombing of civilian targets by government warplanes over the last few weeks has forced aid agencies to suspend their operations in southern Sudan. 

11: The WFP accused the Sudanese government of deliberately bombing relief facilities in the rebel-held south and said two fresh attacks were carried on August 9. A spokesman for WFP headquarters in Rome said low-flying aircraft had attacked relief facilities at Mapel twice during the day, dropping nine bombs the first time and 11 in the second raid. 

13: President Bashir is due to lead Sudan delegation for the Millennium Summit of the UN General Assembly, which is scheduled to be held in New York during September 6 - 8. Sudan permanent envoy to the UN, Al-Fatih Errwa, said in a statement to SUNA that the Millennium Summit, in which more than 120 world leaders are expected to take part, would focus on the report of the UN Secretary General concerning the international organisation's role in the 21st century, challenges facing the international community such as the globalisation issue, environment and combating poverty as well as modernisation of the United Nations. 

15: Efforts to provide relief to Sudan will continue despite the suspension of UN flights to the region, Catholic Relief Services said. “Because the areas in which we work can all be reached by road from Kenya and Uganda, CRS can still meet 100 per cent of our programming needs without air support,” said Mr. Thomas Wimber, acting country representative for the group's Sudan office based in Nairobi 

16: Relief agencies working to feed millions of people in war-torn southern Sudan will resume their activities following a week-long suspension, called after facilities were bombed from the air, allegedly by Sudanese government aircraft. Masoud Haider, a representative for the World Food Programme in Khartoum, said Sudanese officials had assured him relief planes would be able to fly safely 

16: Routine bombing continues in the life of the peoples of Bahr el Ghazal region in Southern Sudan. This province has been attacked for weeks by the air force of the military government, escalating the number of victims, the missionaries in the area reported. This has gone on since 1983, causing over 2 million dead, and it cannot go on any longer," stated Bishop Caesar Mazzolari of Rumbek in an interview with the MISNA missionary information agency. "We appeal to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan to send a contingent of blue helmets to Southern Sudan. This is the only way to guarantee a truce in the confrontations and bombings," the Bishop said. 

16: Minister of justice Ali Mohammed Osman Yassin has underlined that the Sudanese-Chinese relations are witnessing tangible progress in all fields, especially in the economic domain for realising common benefits. Upon his return from a seven-day visit to China, the minister said in a press statement that these common interests necessitate cooperation in exchange of legal information in such fields as investment, companies and trade, besides judicial cooperation. 

17: The UN's WFP has begun distributing food in two towns in Sudan's oil-rich Unity state, where fighting has left thousands homeless, a spokeswoman said. Makena Walker said the agency had begun distributing 240 tonnes of food in Bentiu and Rubkona, about 750-km (470 miles) southwest of Khartoum, on August 12. 

17: Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani and Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak began talks on the Middle East peace process and Sudan, presidential officials said. The two leaders are expected to discuss the latest efforts to reach a peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians, Foreign Minister Amr Moussa told reporters. 

21: Sudan marked the second anniversary of the US cruise missile raid on a Khartoum pharmaceuticals factory, reviving its claim for compensation and saying it "will never keep silent" over the incident. A foreign ministry statement said Khartoum maintains its complaint to the UN Security Council over the attack, which destroyed the Al Shifa factory in the capital. 

21: Relief operations in Sudan have been proceeding normally since the decision to resume relief flights on 16 August, UN officials have said. The UN suspended the flights on August 8 after bombing raids in which the property of some humanitarian organisations was damaged. 

22: Sudan's social planning minister Chol Deng has discussed the "problems and obstacles" facing OLS with the ambassadors of donor nations, according to a state television report. It said the ambassadors had stressed the importance of the humanitarian operation being able to operate normally and that he had asked them in turn to redouble international efforts aimed at achieving a "comprehensive" cease-fire between government forces and rebels in the south of the country. 

22: WFP said it had started emergency food distributions to nearly 50,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) who had started arriving in the Bentiu, Upper Nile State, and in Rubkona in Unity State since the beginning of the month. "Recent nutritional surveys showed global malnutrition rates of 28.6 percent in Bentiu, and 30 percent in Rubkona," the statement said. 

22: The Sudanese government has said that it hoped diplomatic relations with the United States would be fully restored. In a statement released by its embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, it said: "The government of Sudan hopes that reason will prevail in the US external policy towards Sudan and that the current US-Sudan dialogue will embrace all issues, including bilateral matters in order to pave the way for the full restoration of diplomatic ties between Sudan and the US." 

22: A Sudanese newspaper editor and supporter of the government's once powerful Islamic ideologue has been fined 11 million Sudanese pounds (US$5,500) for accusing another journalist of spying. Alwan daily editor Hussein Khogali was found guilty by the Khartoum Criminal Court of libeling Abdel-Gader Abdel-Hafez, a Sudanese journalist who works for the Saudi daily Al-Jazeera. 

22: Sudan has urged the USA to engage in dialogue, pay compensation for the 1998 bombing of a medicine factory and help end UN sanctions on Khartoum, a newspaper reported. "Sudan calls on the US to be rational, to retreat from its stubborn positions and respond to the wishes of the international community to remedy the injustice and damage our country suffered," the government-owned al-Anbaa quoted a foreign ministry statement as saying. 

23: The United States, responding to a Sudanese request for dialogue, said the government in Khartoum must first take steps to end violence and terrorism and make progress on human rights. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher noted that the United States does have contact with the Sudanese government, through diplomats who visit Khartoum, special envoy Harry Johnston and teams of security and counter-terrorism experts. 

23: A Sudanese air force plane dropped 15 bombs near a relief agency compound in southeastern Sudan, destroying five buildings, an aid official said. No casualties were reported in the morning raid, but several head of cattle were killed, said Kristen Flogstad of the Norwegian Church Aid. 

24: Responding to government concerns that UN relief may be helping rebels, a UN official signed onto a joint statement calling for Sudanese monitoring of aid operations staged in neighbouring Kenya. "The government of Sudan emphasised the importance it attaches to the establishment of a presence in Lokichoggio in northern Kenya," read the statement signed by Sudanese foreign minister Mustafa Osman Ismail and UN special envoy Tom Eric Vraalsen. 

24: Sudanese opposition leader and former prime minister Sadeq al-Mahdi, in a fresh attack on his former allies, said in remarks published in Cairo that southern rebels were blocking peace in Sudan. "The SPLA is the only obstacle on the road to comprehensive political solution," he told London-based Arabic-language daily al-Hayat. 

25: The rebel movement in the Sudan has rejected a proposal, accepted by the UN that would allow Khartoum to monitor relief flights entering Sudan from Kenya. "We will not accept the proposal because it will be against the tripartite agreement," Dr. Samson Kwaje, spokesman for the SPLA said referring to a 1989 arrangement between the UN, Khartoum and the SPLA, which spawned the multi-agency relief effort OLS. 

26: Fifty people, many of them schoolchildren, are now known to have drowned when a boat taking them across the River Nile capsized in central Sudan, a senior provincial official said. Younis el-Sharif el-Hassan, governor of the Sennar State where the accident happened, said that a total of 67 people were on the boat when it capsized in the Blue Nile outside Sinja, a town that is 700 km (477 miles) south of Khartoum. 

26: UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) chief Jacques Diouf arrived in Sudan for a one-day visit that will include discussion on the food situation in Africa. Addressing reporters at the Khartoum airport, Mr. Diouf said he would talk to Sudanese officials about ways to cooperate with Sudan and about "issues related to food security in Africa". 

28: Sudan has accused the US of fanning the flames of the civil war in south Sudan by supporting and assisting the SPLA. The US "openly sides with the rebel movement and offers it political and military assistance", foreign minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said in remarks published by the independent Al-Sahafi Al-Dawli newspaper. 

28: The Communist Chinese government has sent tens of thousands of soldiers to the African country of Sudan in the past year as preparation for an offensive against rebels, according to the London Telegraph newspaper. The report said the soldiers acting as security guards and prisoners forced to work at oil fields operated by the state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation, are being prepared to enter a big offensive against the rebels to bring to an end a war that threatens their access to oil. 

29: Beijing rejected reports that hundreds of thousands of Chinese soldiers were helping Sudan defend oil fields in which a major Chinese petroleum company has a financial interest. Chinese officials told CNN in a faxed statement that recent reports that approximately 700,000 People's Liberation Army soldiers had been placed on alert in Sudan to protect the fields -- in which China National Petroleum Corporation had a stake -- were false. 

30: State Department and military intelligence sources are disputing reports that China has deployed "tens of thousands" of troops to Sudan to help guard oil fields in which a Chinese corporation is a key partner. "The figure of tens of thousands of troops is just not credible based on the information available to us," a State Department official said, on the condition his name was not be used. 

30: As the Sunday Telegraph reported, China may have as many as 700,000 troops in Sudan and is preparing to enter that country's civil war. Some of these Chinese are to serve as guards at oil fields and facilities controlled by China's oil companies. But mostly these Chinese in Sudan are officially considered "cheap labourers," working in Sudan according to special contracts and agreement between Beijing and Khartoum. 

30: Persecuted Christian Concern, a voice for the voiceless in Sudan, is organising a memorial service for the millions of Christians who have been martyred, tortured and enslaved because of their faith in Jesus Christ. The service, planned to coincide with the United Nations' Millennium Summit, will take place in front of the UN (47th street and First Avenue) from 2-4 p.m. on September 9, 2000. 

September 

3: The foreign ministers of Egypt and Sudan have met for the first session in 10 years of the joint Egyptian-Sudanese committee. Sudanese foreign minister Mustafa Osman Ismail told reporters that the meeting was the "crowning" of the process of normalisation between the two Nile Valley countries and said he hoped it would boost exchanges. 

4: A pro-Khartoum government militia said it had killed 250 rebels and seized 150 in an oil-rich state in southern Sudan. The Southern Sudan United Army (SSUA) claimed to have captured the area of Mankien, 900 km southwest of Khartoum, in Unity State from the SPLA. 

11: Sudan's Constitutional Court has suspended a controversial decree by the Khartoum state governor banning women from working in some public places. "Women in the private and public sectors who were prevented by the governor's decree from working should continue to work in their places until a final decision is taken on the case," the court said in a ruling, according to the official Sudan News agency SUNA. 

11: The SPLA said they had seized three strategic areas in oil-rich Unity State. "The forces of the SPLA repulsed a government offensive in Unity State and took control of the three strategic zones of Boudh, Rier and Mankien," SPLA spokesman Yasser Ermane said on the telephone from Asmara. 

12: A woman student was killed and 19 people were wounded, including five policemen, in clashes between police and anti-government demonstrators in the western Sudanese town of al-Fasher, newspapers reported. The independent Al-Sahafi al-Douli said the demonstrators took to the streets of al-Fasher, 750-km (470 miles) west of Khartoum, to protest at water and electricity shortages and delays in the payment of teachers' salaries. 

13: The United States has launched a lobbying campaign to stop Sudan from getting Africa seat on the UN Security Council next year, arguing that it is "an unsuitable candidate," a State Department spokesman said. The United State is telling other UN members, especially African countries, that the Sudanese government should not be eligible because it is under UN sanctions and because the Sudanese air force has bombed airfields in the south while the UN relief planes are on the ground, State Department spokesman 14: Sudan has reiterated its claim to a seat at the United Nations Security Council, despite United States efforts to prevent it from succeeding Namibia next month. Addressing the UN general assembly, the Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustapha Osman Ismail said his country was confident of getting the endorsement of all the UN members. 

14: The Arab foreign ministers reiterated their support to the nomination of Sudan to the membership of the UN Security Council, affirming that the permanent Arab representatives to the UN are to extend all the necessary support to the Sudan with respect to Sudan's efforts and contacts with the other geographical groups to back the nomination. This came in the annual meeting of foreign ministers of the Arab states in New York on the fringes of the 55th session of the UN general assembly. 

14: Sudanese minister of energy and mining Dr Awad Ahmed Al-Jaz, has affirmed his ministry's readiness for cooperation and providing Sudanese expertise and technical assistance in the petroleum field to Ethiopia. This came when Dr Al-Jaz received in his office the visiting Ethiopian deputy minister of energy and minerals, Ms Sinkesh Egiju. 

16: Students in the Red Sea city of Port Sudan attacked government buildings and set vehicles ablaze in a second day of protest against higher school fees, a Khartoum newspaper reported. The independent newspaper al-Rai al-Aam said students were protesting at an increase in primary and secondary school fees of almost 200 per cent. 

17: The Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) has released seven Sudanese detainees to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). An ICRC press release said the detainees had been handed over by the SPLA in Kurmuk, southeastern Sudan, on the border with Ethiopia. 

17: The Sudanese news agency, Suna, monitored by the BBC, carried a statement by the secretary-general of the Peace Advisory Office, Muhammad Ata, welcoming the release as a "positive indicator" for the peace process. He said it would promote the peace efforts expected to be exerted during the peace talks due to be held in Kenya under the auspices of the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD). 

18: Violent clashes rocked Sudan for the third time in less than 10 days when students rioted in Kosti, a strategic railhead 280 km south of Khartoum, and capital of White Nile State. Students protesting against military service, burned government buildings and banks during clashes with security forces, AP reported. With at least two dead and several injured, the council of ministers called on the ministry of internal affairs to apply all necessary measures to guarantee the safety of citizens and property. 

18: The SPLA announced that they had captured Nhialdiu in Western Upper Nile, after a battle on September 13. In a press release, Samson Kwaje, the SPLA spokesman in Nairobi, said the town was strategic in its proximity to neighbouring oil fields. 

18: Canadian oil company, Talisman came under heavy criticism recently in Canada. According to a recent report in Toronto's Globe and Mail, former Ontario NDP leader Stephen Lewis said in a speech before delegates of the International Conference on War-Affected Children in Winnipeg that, with regard to the Canadian government, "Talisman Energy remains a terrible cross of dishonour. 

19: A Sudanese government aircraft destroyed a Catholic medical dispensary when dropping 15 bombs on Narus in southern Sudan. One person was killed, and at least five wounded, including two children, humanitarian sources said. Narus, which is 45 km from the Kenyan border town of Lokichoggio. 

19: Sudanese government security forces have arrested large numbers of people belonging to opposition groups in different towns in Sudan after accusing the Popular National Congress (PNC) of inciting riots. A press release by the Sudanese Victims of Torture Group (SVTG), a Sudanese human rights body based in London, named 58 male detainees. 

19: John Garang, leader of Sudan' biggest rebel group, said he is ready to meet president Omar el-Bashir to try and end the country's 17-year-old civil war. Garang's comments follow last week's conference in neighbouring Eritrea of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), an umbrella for Sudanese opposition groups including Garang's SPLA. 

19: Informed Sudanese sources in Cairo said that "it is expected that the Sudanese president will arrive soon in Asmara to meet the Eritrean president Isaias Afeworki, expecting that a similar meeting would take place between Bashir and head SPLA Col. Garang. The meeting will be the first of its kind, yet diplomatic sources in Cairo did not confirm it. 

20: Sudanese government spokesman said recent statements by the leader of the SPLA, Garang, were encouraging for a peaceful solution. The minister of culture and information, Dr Ghazi Salah al-Din Atabani, was reported to have said by Sudanese state television, monitored by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), that the fact that Garang had expressed readiness to take steps towards a peaceful solution indicated "a new language". 

20: Sudan urged the United Nations to pressure Sudanese rebels to halt military operations in order to facilitate the distribution of relief aid and help prevent another disastrous famine in the south of the country. The rebels continue to violate a partial cease-fire agreement, creating obstacles in the distribution of humanitarian relief in the Bahr al-Ghazal region of southern Sudan, Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail told the UN General Assembly's ministerial meeting. 

20: Police used baton charges, tear gas and warning shots to disperse anti-government protestors in two demonstrations in the east and west of Sudan, the press in Khartoum said. In Nyala in the west, police charged students who had gathered to protest the arrest of 17 members of the opposition, including members of the Popular National Congress, who were accused of participating in other protests. 

21: A Sudanese government aircraft bombed a rebel-held town in southern Sudan close to the Kenya an border killing one person and damaging a laboratory and pharmacy at a Roman Catholic Church health centre, rebel spokesman said. The lone Antonov aircraft dropped 18 bombs on Narus , 25 kilometres (15 miles) northwest of the Kenyan border, killing one person and injuring 12 others, George Garang of the SPLA said in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. 

21: Sudan's government and rebels fighting for the self-determination of the southern region will resume peace talks in Kenya, Khartoum's deputy ambassador in Nairobi said. Ahmed Dirdeiry said negotiations between the government and the SPLA will take place in the Lake Bogoria Hotel in west Kenya Rift Valley district of Baringo. 

21: After months of relentless divestment pressure, all 186,000 shares of Talisman Energy in the pension plan accounts of New York City have been sold. This dramatic divestment comes in the immediate wake of New York City Comptroller Alan Hevesi's impassioned speech on Sudan before a crowd of thousands in New York City's UN Plaza on September 9, 2000. 

23: The Sudanese government has declared a two-week ceasefire in all parts of southern Sudan to coincide with peace talks with southern rebels, state radio announced. "The ceasefire has been decided to create an atmosphere conducive to reaching peace and stopping the bloodshed among the Sudanese people," said a statement from information minister Ghazil Salah Eddin Atabani. 

24: Six Ugandans abducted as children and taken to Sudan by Uganda's rebel Lord's Resistance Army have left for home, Unicef said. The six Ugandans were seen off by officials of several embassies and by a representative of the Ugandan government. 

24: More than 14,000 Belgian children have signed a petition to Sudanese President, Omar el Bashir, to release children abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) since 1986. The children signed the petition in reaction to the facts written by Belgian writer Els De Temmerman in her new book The Children of Aboke. 

25: While the Aids epidemic and malaria are killing thousands of people everyday in most of Africa', in most areas of south west Sudan , it is sleeping sickness that is causing distressing mortality figures. As many as 10, 000 people are said to have the disease.

27: President Bashir began talks with the NDA in Eritrea, the first since the formation of the opposition alliance about eight years ago, sources said. Bashir earlier held talks with president Afeworki who is trying to mediate between the two sides. 

28: The London-based Sudanese human rights organisation, Sudan Victims Torture Group, has called for the immediate release of an opposition delegate arrested at Khartoum airport on September 20. A press statement said that Adam Muhammad Ahmed, member of the political bureau of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) was arrested at the airport on his return from a general opposition conference held mid-September in the Eritrean port town of Masawa. 

28: Khartoum has asked Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffi to intervene following reports of clashes between Libyans and African expatriates, including many Sudanese nationals, the BBC reported. Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir sent a message to Gadaffi, asking for his intervention, after the Sudanese independent newspaper 'Akhbar-al-Yom' reported 50 people were killed in recent clashes between the nationals of Sudan and Chad. 

28: President Bashir met with leaders of the Sudanese opposition coalition, the NDA, in Eritrea. The meeting between Bashir and opposition leader Mohamed Osmane al-Mirghani in Asmara was the first time the two men had met since 1989 when Bashir seized power in a military coup supported by Islamic "fundamentalists". 

28: Sudanese foreign minister Mustafa Uthman Isma'il has expressed his hope that the meeting in Asmara "would be a step towards unifying ranks and boosting the efforts of peace and national accord". He added: "the government will spare no efforts to realise peace and national accord," in pursuing a solution to the 17 year-old civil war, the report said. 

28: Government officials have banned the Sudanese press from reporting on the September 21 alleged assassination attempt on a pro-government journalist there, AFP reported. The National Press Council issued the memorandum to editors under orders from the attorney general office, saying media coverage would undermine the case and its investigation. 

28: Sudanese authorities announced that they had closed the border with Kenya in an effort to prevent Sudanese livestock from being infected with disease after a recent outbreak of Rift Valley Fever this month in Saudi Arabia. Khartoum took the measure after Saudi Arabia banned imports of sheep and other livestock from Yemen and several African countries, including Sudan. 

29: Parliamentary and presidential elections in Sudan that were scheduled for next month have been delayed until December. Voting in the 26 provinces will begin on December 11 and continue for 10 days. Final results will be announced on December 24, a statement issued by the general election committee said. 

30: The US has jolted the annual campaign to fill five of the 15 UN Security Council seats, pursuing a late and intensive effort to remove Sudan as the chosen African candidate and promote a rival instead. Sudan, which is under UN sanctions, has denounced the US intervention. Other nations have questioned it. The action has forced an unexpected vote for the African seat on October 10, when the General Assembly selects five new countries to join its top decision-making council for two-year terms. 

30: A Sudanese teen delegate at the recent international conference on war-affected children is preparing to file a refugee claim and wants to stay in Canada. "He retained me yesterday and we have filled out an application to at least give notice of our attention to file a claim," his lawyer, David Langtry, said. Mr. Langtry is representing Jiel Gatcak, 16, who has been in a Winnipeg hospital since the conference ended two weeks ago. 

30: Sudan is planning to send a plane to Iraq in the coming days carrying food and medicines for Iraqis suffering from "an unfair blockade," an official for a non-governmental body said. The chairman of the Popular Organisation for Supporting the Iraqi people (POSIP), Fathi Khalil, said his group was preparing to send a plane loaded with "humanitarian assistance" for the Iraqi people. 

30: More than 100 members of a breakaway faction of Sudan's ruling Islamist party have been arrested, at least half of them accused of formenting a wave of anti-government protests, faction members said. Yassin Omar Imama, a senior official with Hassan al-Turabi's PNC faction, said half were being held in eastern and western Sudan in connection with September riots. 

October

2: Foreign ministers from Egypt, Libya and Sudan arrived in Uganda for talks to help improve ties between Kampala and Khartoum. "We will be discussing how to disarm the (Uganda rebel) Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) as well as instituting a mechanism for the normalisation of relations between Uganda and Sudan Government," said Amama Mbabazi, minister of state for foreign affairs in charge of regional cooperation. 

2: The US is intensively lobbying Kenya and other key African states to reverse their support for Sudan's bid to win a seat on the UN Security Council. Sudan was nominated as the sub-Saharan region's candidate for the seat at the organisation of African Unity 's (OAU) summit in Togo in July. 

2: Sudan has obtained a loan of 23 million US dollars from OPEC development fund for the rehabilitation of some of the country's irrigation facilities. The finance minister Mohammed Kharir Zubair announced that the loan agreement was signed on the sidelines of the recent joint board meeting of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. 

2: Sudanese peace talks ended in Kenya with an agreement by both parties to hold another meeting this month. The talks, held under the auspices of the regional IGAD, failed to overcome major differences between the delegations on issues of state and religion, and self-determination for the South. A statement released by IGAD said there had been extensive consultation and discussion on the relationship between state and religion, but "divergences on the issue could not be reconciled". 

2: The SPLA has rejected the Sudanese president's nomination of himself for a further presidential term. Official spokesman Yasir Arman said in Asmara, Eritrea, that the president's self nomination, announced to the ruling party's general congress, showed a "lack of seriousness" to reach a comprehensive political agreement. 

2: Efforts by; the SPLA to obstruct a rail convoy heading for Bahr al-Ghazal, southern Sudan, have been thwarted by government forces. A statement issued by; the general command of the Sudanese armed forces on September 29 said efforts by the SPLA to prevent the convoy from reaching Aweil, southern Bahr al-Ghazal, had been repulsed by the armed forces and People's Defense Forces (PDF). 

3: Peace talks aimed at ending 17 years of war in Sudan have collapsed over stumbling blocks including the role of Islamic sharia law, the SPLA said. The talks, which were held in a hotel on the shores of Lake Bogoria in Kenya's Rift Valley, ended with the Islamist government in Khartoum still insisting that sharia be included in the country's constitution, the SPLA said in a statement. 

3: An opposition party led by Hassan al-Turabi said it would boycott upcoming elections, the privately owned Alwan newspaper reported. "PNC announced its boycott of the forthcoming presidential and parliamentary elections due to what it called an unsuitable political climate," the pro-PNC daily said. 

4: As the United Nations General Assembly prepares to vote on granting Sudan membership in the Security Council on October 10, 2000, Freedom House's Centre for Religious Freedom will hold a comprehensive briefing on Sudan's brutal human rights record, hoping to generate momentum toward denying the country a council seat.. 

4: Meat prices in Sudan have fallen sharply over the past week after Gulf countries banned livestock from Sudan and other African countries, residents said. An outbreak of Rift Valley Fever in the south of Saudi Arabia and Yemen last month led Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Qatar to ban livestock imports from a number of African countries, including Sudan. 

4: Libya and Egypt are to deploy military observers at the Uganda-Sudan border, the minister for the presidency Dr. Ruhakana Rugunda told The Monitor newspaper. Rugunda said a technical team from Uganda is to travel to the Sudan capital Khartoum to discuss the modalities of the deployment at a meeting. 

6: Human rights campaigners and a former Sudanese slave strongly backed a US campaign to deny Sudan a seat on the UN Security Council, saying that granting the country a seat would be like giving Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot or Slobodan Milosevic representation in the world's top peacemaking body. 

6: At a briefing attended by officers of United Nations missions from Asia, Europe and Africa, Freedom House, an American non-governmental organisation that promotes democracy and civil liberties worldwide, denounced the Sudanese regime for flagrant human rights abuses and systematic acts of religious persecution against its traditionalist, Christian and other minority populations. 

6: Rebutting Sudan's claim that it is the consensus choice of African nations for a UN Security Council seat, the US State Department said that Mauritius has the backing of 15 countries on the continent. Department spokesman Richard Boucher reaffirmed US support for Mauritius in the contest, touting it as a "vibrant democracy" which has played a positive role in African regional institutions. 

6: The chairman of the Sudanese governmental delegation to Igad has described the last session of the talks with the rebels as having been held in a better atmosphere of less tension, despite the fact that only little progress was achieved. The advisor for the Sudanese president Ahmad Ibrahim al-Taher said that these negotiations, which have started since 1993, under the auspices of the Igad, which includes seven states in East Africa will be resumed by the end of October in Kenya, yet differences are still there concerning future condition in Southern Sudan. 

6: The opposition Sudanese Umma party has decided on the return of its leader El-Sadek El-Mahdi to Sudan and moving its activities to inside the country while keeping limited external offices for diplomatic and informational work. The party froze its activity in the preparatory meeting urged on by the gove 

7: Sudan has announced that negotiations which took place in Kenya between the delegation of the Sudanese government and the rebellions led by John Garang have realised a relative progress and the two sides agreed to continue the dialogue until the end of the current month. Sudanese minister of state Mutrif Saddiq said in a statement upon the return back of the negotiating governmental delegation from Kenya that the fourth round of talks came as an extension to previous rounds and achieved a progress, adding this round is considered a success, due to the spirit which prevailed during the discussions that increase the possibility of rapprochement in the view points between the two sides. 
 

8: The Umma party has started preparations for convening its general congress in al-Khartoum and three preliminary committees were formed to this effect on the constitution, preparation and party programmes. 

8: An Islamist lawyer has been arrested in western Sudan for defending dissident Islamists involved in recent anti-government riots, a human rights activist said. Ahmed Kamal Eddin was arrested while leaving court in Nyala, south Darfur, where he was helping to defend followers of dissident Turabi's PNC party, the activist said. 

8: The first of some 3,000 traumatised Sudanese returned home from western Libya where a wave of violence targeted expatriate Africans, newspapers reported. Ninety-six Sudanese landed at Fashir airport, capital of North Darfur state, in western Sudan and 3,000 more were expected to return from Libya in the coming days, As-Sahafi Ad-Dawli daily reported. 

9: University students chanting anti-government slogans in downtown Khartoum opened fire at riot police trying to disperse them, injuring four policemen, an interior ministry statement said. The injured policemen underwent surgery and were in intensive care, the statement said. 

11: Sudan ended in August its first year of exporting raw petroleum produced by Sudanese, Canadian, Malaysian and Chinese companies. The exported oil volume from three fields in south west of the country reached 64 million barrels, which produced revenues worth 1.16 billion dollars. 

11: The UN General Assembly held four rounds of voting for filling the seat of Africa in the Security Council as Mauritius won the seat. Sudan permanent envoy to the UN Ambassador Al-Fatih Irwa told SUNA that America had exerted intensive efforts to deprive the Sudan from obtaining the seat, pointing that Sudan had played a considerable role. 

11: Some 255 Sudanese have fled home from Libya, the first of several thousand expected to return after a wave of violence against migrant workers, the privately-owned Akhbar al-Youm newspaper reported. Thousands of expatriate labourers from sub-Saharan Africa have fled Libya after a series of recent attacks. The violence began late last month after Libya's top legislative and executive body ordered a crackdown on employing foreigners. 

11: A leading member of Sudan's largest political party was attacked and sustained a head injury, sources in the party said. They said Omar Nur al-Deim, deputy head of the opposition Umma party of former Prime Minister al-Sadeq al-Mahdi, was attacked by Umma party activists who had returned to Sudan shortly after Deim himself returned to Khartoum from exile in April. 

11: The southern Sudanese town of Ikotos, eastern Equatoria, was bombed. Humanitarian sources told IRIN the government bombing took place while a food distribution by the Catholic Relief Services (CRS) was underway and six dwellings were destroyed. CRS is an NGO operating under the UN-sponsored Operation Lifeline Sudan relief operation. 

13: A senior Sudanese official said the rioters who shot and injured police in a university demonstration would be dealt with harshly. National Congress party secretary-general Ibrahim Ahmad Umar said the security organs would "not be lenient towards any organisation supporting these acts," Sudanese newspaper 'Al-Ra'y al'Amn' reported. 

16: The government of Sudan's Popular Defence Forces (PDF) have raided villages in Aweil West County of Northern Bahr-El-Ghazal. In one village alone, Goc Machar, they enslaved at least 21 black African women and children on October 7, 2000, according to the Civil Commissioner of Aweil West County, Simon Wol. 

16: Former Sudanese president Jaafar al-Numeiri, who is the chairman of the people's forces, has announced his nomination for the next Sudanese presidential elections. In his electoral programme, al-Numeiri said that the period after the elections will be for revisions and construction aiming at eliminating poverty, building the homeland and rehabilitation of the individual in Sudan. 

17: The SPLA has declared a 10-day ceasefire to enable immunisation of children against polio to proceed smoothly. The SPLA leadership has ordered all the SPLA forces to strictly observe the ceasefire from midnight of October 16 to midnight to October 27 so that Unicef carry out this immunisation and noble campaign for the interest of our children," the statement said.

18: Fresh from the canonisation of Sudan's first saint earlier this month at the Vatican, Roman Catholic Bishop Macram Max Gassis of El Obeid Diocese in Sudan, planned a month-long coast-to-coast tour of the US and Canada to garner support for the needs of the war-torn populations of central and southern Sudan. 'It is wonderful to have our own saint canonised in this time of religious persecution,' Bishop Gassis said in a recent interview on the canonisation of St. Josephine Bakhita, herself a victim of slavery and racism in Sudan, who died as a Canossian Sister in Italy in the late 1940s. 

18: A UN human rights investigator has accused Sudan's military of systematically bombing civilians in its war with rebels in the south, calling the policy a serious violation of international law. Leonardo Franco said he was "profoundly shocked" by bombings that have killed an estimated 45 people and injured some 230 this year, rejecting the government's explanation that pilots had a standing order not to bomb civilian targets. 

18: Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) ministers of transport and communication will meet in Sudan to implement the full liberalisation of transport and communication in the region. Comesa director of infrastructure development Jerome Ntibarekerwa said in Lusaka that before the actual meeting of ministers on October 25-26, a committee on infrastructure will meet to review progress made among member countries in the infrastructure sector. 

18: Sudanese government planes bombed two relief centres in the south of the country, killing several people and wounding 32, the SPLA said. SPLA spokesman George Garang said the attacks violated a 10-day ceasefire agreed to allow the Unicef to carry out anti-polio immunisation drive. The raid had targeted two relief centres run by international organisations at Tali and Terekeka in the southern region of Eastern Equatoria. 

18: Deputy chairman of the Sudanese Hizbul Ummah Party Omar Nour al-Dayem has stressed that his party is serious to continue its march to achieve reconciliation and peace in Sudan regardless to sacrifices. In a statement to the Sudanese daily al-Anbaa, Nour al-Dayem described the statements made by the Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the chairman of the preliminary forum of the national reconciliation Abdul Rahman Sewar al-Dahab and member of the forum Ahmad Abdul Halim as valued and excellent. 

18: Malaysia's national oil and gas corporation Petronas has said that one of its subsidiaries was awarded a contract to service more oil fields in Sudan. OGP Technical Services was appointed project manager for the second phase of the Muglad Basin Oil Development project in the African nation, it said. 

18: Little attention has been paid to the development needs of the people of southern Sudan, where chronic conflict has "systematically destroyed the social fabric of institutions sustaining food security, education and health care". In a joint statement, Christian Aid and Oxfam said despite humanitarian efforts in the war-affected south, underdevelopment had become institutionalised. 

19: South Korean car manufacturers Hyundai are to open an assembly line in Khartoum. According to an agreement made public in Khartoum, Hafiz Barbari Incorporated will assemble and market the Hyundai 1,500cc and 2,000cc limousines in Sudan. 

19: OGP Technical Services Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary of Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas), has been appointed project management consultant by Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Co Ltd (GNPOC) for the second phase of the Muglad Basin oil development project in Sudan. Under the contract, OGP will provide the management of engineering and construction of facilities for the development of two new oil fields, Munga and Bamboo, in the basin. 

19: Ambassadors of the 15 European Union countries discussed means of finding a peaceful solution to the Sudanese crisis during their meeting in the headquarters of the European Union chairmanship in Cairo in a response to the invitation of El-Sadek El-Mahdi - the former Sudanese prime minister and chief of Umma Party. The meeting tackled the democracy issue in Sudan, the south, the raised peace initiatives to solve the crisis in addition to Sudan's regional and international relations in addition to human rights and terrorism. 20: The Ebola outbreak now unfolding in Uganda is caused by a strain of the virus previously seen in neighbouring Sudan, health officials said. This would seem to confirm the leading theory that the outbreak began in Sudan. Dr. Robert Swanepoel of the Institute of Virology outside Johannesburg, South Africa, confirmed that the virus involved in the current outbreak in Gulu, Uganda, matches the virus that caused outbreaks in 1976 and 1979 in Maridi, Sudan, about 200 kilometers north of Gulu. 

20: The United States will lift sanctions on a key source of income for Sudan's radical Islamic regime if a trade bill passed unanimously by the House of Representatives becomes law. In July the House passed the Miscellaneous Trade and Technical Corrections Act of 2000, which would suspend sanctions on gum arabic, an important ingredient in products such as soft drinks, candies, printing ink, and pharmaceuticals. 

20: The United States has condemned the renewed bombing of civilian targets and international relief centres by Sudanese government warplanes. Analysts described the latest Sudanese action as a sign of frustration at its recent failure to be elected to the UN Security Council by a majority of General Assembly members. 

23: Aid agencies working in southern Sudan said that warplanes of the country's Islamist government attacked a rebel-held southern town and dropped bombs on a pre-school and several houses. Dan Effie of Norwegian People's Aid said 23 bombs were dropped on the town of Nimule in two separate attacks, but there were no casualties. 

23: The Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak convened a meeting with the Sudanese President Omar Hassan El Bashir. The Sudanese president informed his Egyptian counterpart with the results of his meetings with head of the opposition Sudanese National Alliance Mohammed Osman El Merghany and the communications held by the government with the opposition leadership to achieve the rapport in Sudan. 

24: The executive director of UNICEF, Carol Bellamy, visiting Sudan to launch the countrywide polio immunisation campaign, received "the fullest assurance yet" from the SPLA/M that no children under the age of 18 would be recruited, or allowed to stay in the ranks if already recruited, a press release from the agency stated. At the UNICEF-supported Deng Nhial School for demobilised child soldiers in the central southern Sudanese town of Rumbek, Bellamy received the renewed commitment from Commander Salva Kiir Mayardit, deputy chairman of the SPLA. 

24: The government ignored its commitment to having 'days of tranquility' in Sudan's civil war during a polio vaccination campaign, and dropped 24 bombs on Nimule town in Eastern Equatoria, SPLA spokesman George Garang Deng stated. This was the second time the government had bombed civilian targets during the current polio campaign, a statement from Garang said. 

24: Officials of the Sudanese and Ugandan governments were in continuing contact to arrange for the deployment of Egyptian and Libyan monitors to prevent border violations by opposition rebels, the semi-official Ugandan 'New Vision' newspaper reported. The monitors were expected to assure that no support reached the SPLA from Uganda, and to help relocate the Ugandan rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) away from the Ugandan border, deeper into Sudan, the paper quoted Sudanese Foreign Minister Ali Abdel Rahman Nimeiri as saying. 

24: Conflict, more than any other issue, poses the biggest problem to relief projects such as the anti-polio campaign launched in Kenya and Sudan, the executive director of UNICEF, Carol Bellamy, said. Speaking in Nairobi at the end of a four-day visit to the two countries where she helped launch polio immunisation efforts, Bellamy said the obstacles were man-made, rather than problems associated with logistics or equipment. 

24: The Ugandan army - the Uganda People's Defence Forces (UPDF) - were on high alert at strategic border areas in Adjumani, Pakelle and refugee settlements for fear of a possible attack by the LRA, humanitarian sources in northern Uganda said. The alert followed a report that the rebels had crossed from their Sudanese bases, and were probably heading towards Adjumani or Pakelle, they said. 

25: The Sudanese minister of justice has admitted before the constitutional court that the decision of the Wali (governor) of the capital Khartoum Majzoub al-Khaleifa to prevent women from working in hotels, restaurants and tourism area is not comprehensible and needed to be dealt with.
In his statements before the court, the justice minister added that the decision of the Wali embarrassed the president of Sudan who was then at the UN to attend the third Millennium Summit and that the Wali did not consult the ministry of justice to this effect. 

27: Sudan's armed forces have regained control of a town after clashing with the country's main rebel group, an army statement said. The army entered Hamash Koraib, about 250 miles east of Khartoum, after battles with the SPLA, which had controlled the town since March. 

27: Sudan soon will be producing its own tanks and heavy artillery, president Bashir said at the recent inauguration of a US$450 million industrial complex. Sudan, which buys most of its weapons from Arab and Asian countries, already produces rocket-propelled grenades, machine-guns and mortars, Bashir said at the ceremony 50 kilometres (30 miles) south of Khartoum. 

27: US president Bill Clinton sharply criticised the government of Sudan after aid agencies reported that government planes bombed a village while aid workers were distributing food. "I am deeply concerned by reports that the government of Sudan is bombing innocent civilians in the southern part of the country,' Clinton said in a statement released by the White House. 

28: Pro-government militia killed 53 rebels in an assault on three camps in southern Sudan, the government-owned al-Anbaa newspaper said. The daily said the militia destroyed the SPLA camps in attacks that lasted three days in the Fanjak area in the Upper Nile State. 

28: Sudanese Islamist opposition leader Hassan al-Turabi said his party will boycott the coming elections, saying they are both illegitimate and unconstitutional and will not be free and fair. Turabi said his party would continue exposing "all unconstitutional shortcomings and corruption", and would not resort to force but warned: "If all avenues are blocked before us, there will be an uprising." 

29: The Khartoum government has decided to sell its 45-percent share in the Sudanese Telecommunication Company (Sudatel). "The government has decided to sell its share in Sudatel in keeping with the declared policy of privatisation," Hafiz Atta, chair of the technical commission assigned to privatise some public utilities, told reporters in Khartoum. 

30: Sudan will join its neighbours in tarrif-scrapping agreement to be launched by Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa). The independent Sahafial-Douli daily said that president Bashir has decreed the move, which puts Sudan among nine of 20 Comesa member states to implement the first stage of a planned Free Trade Area (FTA). 

31: El-Sadek El-Mahdi, the former Sudanese prime minister and chief of Umma Party said that the date of his return to Sudan will be on the 23rd of the coming month. This came during his meeting with the Eritrean President Asias Afeworki in Asmara. Afeworki assured during his meeting with El-Mahdi that he will continue his communications with the Sudanese government and all the Sudanese political forces to support a comprehensive political solution. 

31: Sudan's foreign relations minister Mustafa Othman Ismael has held the US responsible for the continued war in Southern Sudan, through its continued backing to the rebellion movement in southern Sudan led by John Garang. In press statements issued by the Sudanese dailies, Ismael called on the UN to reconsider its relations with the rebel movement and instead to invest these relations for establishing peace and reconciliation in Sudan. 

31: Sudan is forging ahead with plans to hold simultaneous legislative and presidential elections in December despite civil war and threats of a boycott by almost the entire opposition. The General Electoral Commission (GEC) has began publishing preliminary lists of the names of eligible voters -- men and women aged 17 or older -- in Africa's largest country and one of its poorest. 

November 

1: The US House of Representatives has quietly passed legislation that aims for the first time to restrict corporate access to US capital markets in order to influence the behaviour of a foreign government. The House has approved the Sudan Peace Act, which contains measures that, if enacted, would effectively de-list from the New York Stock Exchange companies doing business with the Sudanese regime. 

2: Eritrea is proposing that Sudan accept a transitional government as part of a six-point plan to end a 17-year civil war with its mainly Eritrea-based opposition, a newspaper said. The independent As-Sahafi Ad-Dawli reported the plan, which it said, was being conveyed by a high-level Eritrean delegation. 

2: President Bashir lashed out at Mauritius for ignoring an African consensus and successfully running for a UN Security council seat at the behest of Washington. "The United States has always been against us. That behaviour is not justifiable, but they have maintained it. In the case of the UN Security Council seat, they found a tool to bar us from getting what was rightfully ours," Bashir said in an interview at Lusaka airport. 

6: USA author, minister, and Christian broadcaster, Dr. D. James Kennedy, is launching a campaign in November to liberate women and children held under brutal conditions as slaves in Sudan. The "Free the Slaves" drive will be announced on The Coral Ridge Hour, Dr. Kennedy's weekly nationwide television programme, on Sunday, November 12, 2000-also designated as the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. 

7: The United Nations is planning to send a needs assessment mission to Sudan in advance of the country's upcoming parliamentary elections on December 11, a UN spokesman announced in New York. A UN spokesman said at a press briefing that the mission by the UN's Electoral Assistance Division follows a request from the government of the Sudan for international observers during the elections. 

7: Sudan's Islmamist government must put its peace proposals in writing if an Eritrean effort to mediate between Khartoum and opposition groups is to succeed, a Sudanese opposition spokesman said. Eritrean foreign minister Ali Said Abdella left Khartoum after talks with the government aimed at brokering an agreement with the umbrella NDA, Mohammed al-Mutasim Haakim said in Cairo. 

7: Ambassador Tom Eric Vraalsen, UN secretary-general Kofi Annan's Special Envoy for Humanitarian Affairs in Sudan, has criticised "the collapse of the unilateral humanitarian ceasefires" in Sudan which had been in effect since July 1998. Vraalsen, who chaired a meeting of the Technical Committee on Humanitarian Assistance (TCHA) in Geneva, expressed displeasure during the meeting at the cessation of the ceasefires, and noted the loss of life and damage to property from war-related ground and air offensives. 

8: The UN has offered the Sudanese government the right to deal with any air, land or river conveyer working in the humanitarian field areas inside Sudan, illegally. The Sudanese minister of state and social planning Shoul Denq unveiled tough measures agreed upon by the Sudanese government and the UN as well as the rebel movement led by John Garang in meetings held in Geneva during the past few days. 

8: An agreement for the encouragement and protection of investment has been signed between the OPEC Fund for International Development and the Republic of Sudan, in Beirut. Drawn up within the framework of the Fund's Private Sector Facility, the convention was initialed by Mohamed Kheir al-Zubeir, Minister of Finance and Saleh Al-Omair, chairman of the Governing Board of the OPEC Fund, said a press release. 

8: A bill passed by the United States House of Representatives would ban companies that do business with the Sudanese government from raising capital on US stock exchanges. The measure, if it becomes law, could affect Talisman Energy Inc. of Calgary, which is one of three partners with Sudan's state oil company, and also trades on the New York Stock Exchange. 

9: The Sudanese government will urge the UN Security Council to lift diplomatic and economic sanctions against it after more than four years, despite the threat of the US blocking any such move with its veto in the Council, Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said in Khartoum. He said the US had sent Sudan a message threatening to use its veto on November 15 if Khartoum requested a lifting of the sanctions, imposed in 1996 in the wake of Sudan's refusal to hand over suspects in an assassination attempt on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Ethiopia, and its alleged assistance and support for terrorist elements. 

9: Sudan's main opposition alliance said it had captured the major eastern town of Kassala after a day of heavy fighting. A spokesman for the NDA said the town of some 300,000 people close to the Eritrea border was overrun by rebel soldiers before dawn. 

9: Pope John Paul II's October 1, 2000 canonisation of Josephine Bakhita, a former Sudanese slave, has been the first news on Christian life to appear in a national newspaper in Sudan in recent years. The news was reported by Khartoum sources of the Vatican missionary agency Fides. The Catholics in this capital city, who for years have suffered the government's Islamisation programmes, were surprised to see that the Al Ra'I Al Akher newspaper dedicated a page to the new saint. 

11: More than 130 people were killed in fighting between government forces and rebels for the control of the eastern border town of Kassala, a Sudanese official has said. Kassala province commissioner Mohammed Yousif told state television that 52 civilians and soldiers had been killed in the fighting. The station said 80 SPLA rebels were also killed. 

11: A spokesman for NDA has confirmed that the government was in control of Kassala. "We completed our withdrawal from Kassala this morning around 5 am. Our plan was to destroy the enemy and we did so," Mr. Yousif Arman said. 

11: The Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir has stressed that the Sudanese army will continue to fight the rebels led by John Garang until the matter is ultimately settled because the " call advocated by the government for peace and reconciliation is considered by some as a weakness." In a statement issued by the Sudanese dailies on Friday al-Bashir added that "instructions were given to the armed forces not to stop the fighting until an end is put to the rebels." 

13: Some 3,800 young Sudanese refugees who have been living in Kenya's Kakuma camp for nearly 10 years will be resettled in the US over the next several months in the largest-ever population transfer of its kind. Many of the immigrants are orphaned male teenagers, leading US officials to refer to the group as the "Lost Boys", a designation derived from the story Peter Pan by Scottish author James M. Barrie, in which young orphans are helped to find a home. 

14: Sudan has signed an oil exploration agreement with several local and international companies for an area in central Sudan. The government-owned Al Anbaa newspaper said "Sudan has signed a production agreement _covering prospecting, development and transportation of oil with Gulf oil companies, the Chinese National Petroleum Corp, Al Than Sudapet. 

14: Thousands of parcels and letters have formed a heap at Khartoum airport, as the strike by postal workers entered its second day. The Sudanese Post and Telegraph trade union declared a three-day strike to press demands for the payment of salary arrears and increments. 

14: Chinese vice premier Wu Bangguo has arrived in Khartoum for three-day official visits to Sudan. The visit came at the invitation of Sudanese first vice president Ali Osman Taha. "I'm very pleased to visit this great country at the invitation from the Sudanese government," Wu told reporters upon his arrival at the Khartoum International Airport. 

16: East African leaders plan to meet in the Khartoum to discuss the next round of Sudanese peace talks. Hamad Bashir, the IGAD executive secretary, told journalists that the meeting in Khartoum would review an IGAD proposal on solving the problems in southern Sudan and ending the armed conflict. 

16 The governor of Kassala State, eastern Sudan, said more than 1,000 southern rebels carried out the attack on Kassala. Ibrahim Mahmud Hamid said in an emergency session held by the legislative council of Kassala State that there had been a total of 52 military and civilian deaths, according to the official news agency, SUNA. The many wounded in the attack had received treatment at a number of hospitals. 

16 Sudanese minister of national defence Bakri Hasan Salih has visited the Red Sea area and met officers and troops. Travelling with a delegation from the general command of the armed forces, the minister praised the forces for ridding the area of "aggressors", Sudanese state television said. 

17 The Sudanese government has asked nongovernmental relief organisations to temporarily suspend activities in Kassala. The state minister of relief, Chol Deng, was reported by the state media as saying the move was necessary for security reasons. 

17 Sudanese authorities are investigating the attack on Kassala, in which more than 130 people were killed. The commissioner of Kassala Province, Muhammad Yusuf, said on state television on November 9 that 52 civilians and soldiers had been killed in the fighting. State media reports said 80 fighters from the SPLA had also been killed, and state television showed bodies of the rebels. 

17 Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir has vowed that his government would conquer his country's rebels before undertaking any negotiations. "There will be no negotiation with the rebels before defeating them on the battlefield, only then will be they resigned to reconciliation," Bashir was quoted as telling a military rally in Nyala, capital of South Darfur state in western Sudan. 

17 The Committee on Conscience of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum issued a genocide alert for Sudan and launched an exhibit of photographs and findings on the suffering in the southern part of the Horn of Africa country and in refugee camps farther north. This is the first time the museum has presented a display about a situation outside of Europe. 

17 Somalia will take up its seat on IGAD for the first time in 11 years. Somalia's interim President Abdiqasim Salad Hassan had been invited to attend an IGAD summit meeting in Khartoum, sources close to the president said. 

17 Sudan reportedly has the largest number of internally displaced people (IDPs) in the world, with estimates of about 4 million. The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said in a report that the 30-year-old conflict in Sudan had gone through several phases and had created a complex IDP situation with different causes of displacement in different regions of the country. 

17 Former Sudanese prime minister Sadiq al-Mahdi plans to return to Sudan. He announced his plans to foreign journalists in Cairo, Egypt. However, he said he would not participate in next month's parliamentary and presidential elections, which he called "a one-team football game". 

17 The governor of Kassala State said more than 1,000 southern rebels carried out the attack on Kassala. Ibrahim Mahmud Hamid said in an emergency session held by the legislative council of Kassala State that there had been a total of 52 military and civilian deaths, according to the official news agency, SUNA. 

18 Military forces of Sudan's Umma Party crossed the border from Eritrea and returned to Sudan's Kassala region in fulfillment of an accord the party reached with Khartoum in late 1999, a senior party official said. Abdul Rasoul el Nur, a leading Umma Party figure, told reporters in Kassala that the returning troops would be moved to a camp in Fao region, west of Kassala. 

18 The United States, which accuses Sudan of sponsoring terrorism, has again postponed discussion in the Security Council of a draft resolution to lift limited sanctions against the country, officials said. The Security Council was supposed to have taken up the resolution, but the United States successfully persuaded Sudan to wait until a new American administration is in place, US officials said. 

18 The ruling National Congress party in Sudan has refused proposals made by the leader of the Umma Party Sadeq al-Mahdi on postponing presidential and parliamentary elections due to be held in December. The party's secretary general Ibrahim Ahmad Omar said in press statements issued in Khartoum that the return of al-Mahdi, which is due on November 23, comes following extending the period of nomination for the presidential elections. 

18 Moved by the accounts of freed slaves, a senior US official pledged America's diplomatic, humanitarian and moral support to the people of southern Sudan caught up in a 17-year-old civil war. Dr Susan Rice, the assistant secretary of state for African affairs, said their problems; " including abductions, slavery and air strikes" have captured the sympathy of Americans. 

20 Sudan s ruling party has nominated president Bashir to run again in next month s presidential elections, government radio reported. President Bashir called for parliamentary and presidential elections earlier this year in an attempt to resolve the country s political deadlock, and in recent months has made several overtures toward opposition parties, though many have announced that they will boycott the upcoming elections. 

21 The governor of the Sudanese Central Bank left Khartoum for Abu Dhabi in a bid to reschedule a US$400 million debt with the Arab Monetary Fund, Egypt's official news agency said. The Middle East News Agency (MENA) quoted governor Saber Mohamed Hassan as saying he would discuss a Sudanese proposal to cancel or freeze interest payments and reschedule the rest of the debt in long-term installments. 

21 Talisman Energy Inc., Canada's biggest global oil producer, will soon drill three new exploration wells in Sudan that could double its reserves in the African country, the company said. The Calgary company has been subject to intense scrutiny from activists who say its activities in Sudan are prolonging an 18-year civil war pitting the mainly Christian and traditionalist black African south against the Arabised north. 

22 The United States is deeply concerned at the flagrant human rights abuse in southern Sudan by the current government, Dr. Rice has said. The US meanwhile has announced that it has urged the international community to exert pressure on Sudan to force reforms demanded by rebels. 

24 President Bashir used a six-nation regional summit in Khartoum to accuse the United States of interfering in its internal affairs by supporting rebels in a 17-year-old civil war. Sudan has already barred American officials from Khartoum in protest of a visit earlier by Dr Rice. 

24 Five gunmen kidnapped the deputy Sudanese ambassador to Kenya and terrorised him for an hour before releasing him. The incident occurred at around noon along Nyerere Road in Nairobi. The gunmen had trailed the envoy, Mr. Dirdeiry Mohammed-ahmed from a bank. 

27 The Sudanese government will protest to the UN Security Council over the recent violation of its territory by a top United States official. Sudanese minister for foreign affairs Dr. Mustafa Ismail said the tour by Dr Rice to Marial Bai, in southern Sudan , without seeking a visa from Khartoum was a provocation of the highest order. 

27 Former Sudan prime minister Sadeq al-Mahdi held talks with president Bashir, the man who ousted him in a 1989 military coup, on how to end Sudan s devastating civil war, a Khartoum newspaper reported. Also present at the talks was Djibouti president Ismail Omar Geuelleh, the privately owned Akhbar al Youm said. 

28 The American Anti-Slavery Group (AASG) has hailed Dr. Rice, for her courageous visit with survivors of slavery in Sudan. AASG president, Charles Jacobs, called on President Clinton, Vice President Gore and Governor Bush, to follow suit by publicly condemning slavery in Sudan. 

29 Sadeq al-Mahdi, who returned from four years of exile to a spectacular welcome from tens of thousands of his followers, has an important role to play in the search for an end to Sudan's political crisis, Sudanese commentator Abdelwahhab al-Effendi said in pan-Arab al-Quds al-Arabi. Over the past four decades, he notes, Mahdi has faced an astonishing array of adversaries, some from within his Umma Party and Ansar religious sect, and many from without. 

29 Sudanese air force planes unleashed a deadly attack on a Catholic school in the village of Panlit in southern Sudan's Bahr al-Ghazal region, according to officials of the diocese of El Obeid, which sponsors and administers the school. Eyewitnesses report that the November 24 bombing raids over Panlit village began at 1100 AM, at a time when the maximum number of the Panlit Missionary School's 700 students would be attending classes. Early reports from aid workers in the area indicate that many children are in a deep state of shock. 

December 

1 President Bashir said he is ready to give a share in power to Sadeq al-Mahdi, a newspaper reported. We are ready to go along with Sadeq al-Mahdi till the end of the road. I mean he will fully participate in power, Mr. Bashir was quoted by the independent Al- Ayam daily as saying. 

4 The governor of Kassala Ibrahim Mahmoud Hamid has denied the existence of Eritrea's military buildup on the Sudanese borders, stressing that these buildup on the eastern border of the province are for the rebellion and the opposition forces. In statements issued by the Sudanese dailies, the governor explained that the Sudanese forces, the forces of the people's army and the security forces are observing these build ups and security measures were taken to counter these forces which include the rebel movement, led by John Garang and other opposition forces aboard. 

4 Sudan has complained to the United Nations over a visit to southern areas by a senior US official, state radio said. It said Sudan had written to UN secretary-general Kofi Annan protesting at last month's visit by Dr. Rice to highlight the controversial issue of slavery in Africa's largest country. 

4 The UN General Assembly has told Sudan to should stop the indiscriminate bombing of civilians, torture of prisoners and the abduction of women and children. The vote on a resolution criticising rights abuses in Sudan as well as complimenting the government for improving civil liberties was 85 in favour, 32 against and 49 abstentions. 

4 The UN General Assembly has told the SPLA to stop indiscriminate artillery shelling, the planting of landmines, arbitrary executions and, the forced recruitment of children as soldiers and the rape of women. Most affected are the Didinga populations in Eastern Equatoria province, thousands of whom have fled to Kenya. 

5 Sudan government planes have carried out two more bombing raids in Bahr al-Ghazal, southern Sudan. Humanitarian sources said that two villages northeast of Yirol were hit, in an area not previously targeted. In the first raid, on a village about 15 km from Yirol, three bombs were dropped, killing two people and injuring three others. The second raid targeted a village about 18 km from Yirol. 

bThe State of Qatar has resumed imports of meat from Sudan. The importations have been resumed after a regional ban was imposed by the Gulf States due to Rift Valley fever. The undersecretary of the Sudanese Ministry of Livestock, Dr Muhammad al-Jabalabi, said that Sudan was continuing its meat exports to Saudi Arabia and Jordan, Sudanese television said on December 1. 

5 Anti-slavery campaigners in the US have challenged America's next president to publicly condemn slavery in Sudan, and challenged President Clinton to end his "mysterious and tragic silence on the black slave trade" before he leaves office in January. 

5 Atrocities continue in Sudan, according to John Eibner of Christian Solidarity International, a Swiss-based organisation that has helped campaigns to free more than 38,000 enslaved Sudanese, mostly children, since 1995. In mid-November, President Bashir encouraged 12,000 troops in a western town that serves as a centre for the slave trade to continue their jihad in the south. 

6 Sudan's relations with Ethiopia are moving towards wider horizons of strategic cooperation in the political and economic fields. This view was expressed by Uthman al-Sayyid, the Sudanese ambassador to Ethiopia, during an interview with the Sudanese News Agency, Suna. The ambassador said that, during their meeting on the fringes of the recent IGAD summit in Khartoum, presidents Umar al-Bashir and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi had agreed that work should begin on drafting a programme to strengthen bilateral relations in the political, economic and commercial fields. 

6 Court officials in Sudan said the Supreme Court would consider a suit filed by the opposition alliance demanding the postponement of this month's general elections, the BBC reported. A lawyer for the opposition National Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy, Ghazi Suleiman, said the suit argued that the General Election Commission (GEC) could not conduct the forthcoming elections in the absence of a parliament, as it was answerable to both the parliament and the president. Parliament was dissolved on December 12, 1999 by president Bashir. 

6 An 11-member delegation from the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), led by the organisation's former secretary-general, Ambassador Pascal Gayama, is due to arrive in Khartoum to observe the presidential and parliamentary elections. This was reported to the Sudanese News Agency, Suna, by the Sudanese ambassador to Ethiopia, Uthman al-Sayyid. 

7 In an address to mark Human Rights Day, president Clinton singled out Sudan as being guilty of human rights atrocities, news agencies reported. Clinton, who also criticised Afghanistan and China in his speech, paid tribute to human rights activists "who have done so much to publicise the atrocities of Sudan". 

7 An eight-person observer team from the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) arrived in Khartoum to monitor the presidential and parliamentary elections due to take place from December 11-20, Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) reported. It said Ambassador Gayama led the team. 

8 Sudan has ordered a US diplomat to leave the country within 72 hours after he allegedly met with opposition leaders accused of plotting a popular uprising. The government has decided to expel the political officer in the American embassy, regarding him as persona non grata, and he has to leave the country within 72 hours, Foreign minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said. Sudanese authorities said earlier they arrested seven leading opposition figures during a meeting in Khartoum with the diplomat , Mr. Glenn Warren. 

9 Uganda is ready to normalise relations with the Sudan as soon as Khartoum stops supporting terrorist acts against Uganda and returns the abducted girls from Aboke College, regional cooperation State minister Amama Mbabazi has said. The minister was responding to the report of the committee on legal and parliamentary affairs on the Uganda Human Rights Commission report for 1997, presented to Parliament. 

9 A Canada-sponsored plan to free thousands of kidnapped, brutalised children from rebels in southern Sudan has bogged down, with only a handful of youngsters sent home and key talks postponed indefinitely. The plan, heralded as a breakthrough in September by former foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy, aimed to get a steady stream of Ugandan children released from the rebel Lord's Resistance Army. But so far, the only abductees sent home under Canadian auspices are a group of 16, several of them adults, who escaped on their own from LRA camps. 

9 An armed Muslim fanatic shot dead 21 persons and wounded 55 others, some seriously, over a religious dispute. Police said Abbas el Bagir Abbas had attacked Muslims performing the Esha (night) prayer at Jarrafa Mosque in Omdurman, twin-city of Khartoum across the White Nile, with a machine gun. Patrol police passing nearby heard the shooting and engaged the assailant, who hurt a policeman, until the force finally overcame and killed him. 

9 Sudan and Eritrea have agreed not to escalate stances and to maintain the process of normalising relations between the two countries, following the visit made by president Bashir to Asmara and the visit of president Asyas Afeworki to Sudan. A high ranking Sudanese official told the Sudanese daily al- Khartoum issued that contacts were made between Asmara and al-Khartoum at the level of foreign ministers that stressed the need of attempts made by the two sides to eliminate all reasons that obstruct the breakthrough in the relations between the two countries. 

9 The Sudanese economy grew by 7.2 percent in 2000, according to the country's finance minister, Mohammed Khair Zubair. Reading his budget speech in Khartoum, Zubair said the growth rate was higher than the originally projected 6 percent. He attributed the high growth rate to improvements in the industrial sector that grew by 39.4 percent, up from 11.4 in 1999. 

9 The American Anti-Slavery Group has hailed President Clinton's condemnation of the black slave trade in Sudan, and called upon the outgoing -- and in-coming --administrations to put these words into action. The president's remarks at a ceremony commemorating Human Rights Day, focussed on "the scourge of slavery in Sudan" and said countries engaged in slavery "cannot join the community of nations." 

10 The first day of voting in Sudanese presidential and parliamentary elections has been postponed to December 13, election officials said. The two-day postponement was necessary due to a decision by the General Election Commission, the election watchdog, "to extend the electoral campaign for two days, to close on Tuesday," GEC member Chagai Matet said. 

10 A gunman who killed 20 worshipers in a mosque in Sudan had a long-standing grudge against their Islamic sect and had threatened its members, a police chief said. Police shot dead the gunman, Abbas Baqer Abbas, after he walked up to the Sunna Mohammediyya mosque in the village of Garaffa and fired an automatic rifle through its window. 

10 Sudanese authorities detained a leading human rights activist, two days after he strongly condemned the detention of an American diplomat and seven opposition leaders, one of his assistants said. Ghazi Suleiman, a lawyer who heads the Sudanese Human Rights Group, was taken from his house in Khartoum by police just after midnight, said Mohammed Zein Mahi, a member of the rights group. 

14 Polling booths opened a t the start of a 10-day election that Sudan s incumbent Islamist military leader Bashir and his ruling party look set to win amid a massive opposition boycott. Few voters in Khartoum appeared to be heading to polling stations, which were scheduled to open at 9 am Sudan time, although some opened as much as an hour late. 

15 : The bombing of civilian and humanitarian targets by the Sudanese government aircraft doubled in the year 2000 as compared to the previous year, according to a statement released by the US Committee for Refugees (USCR) in Washington DC. Sudanese air force planes had attacked civilian and humanitarian targets 132 times in the year 2000 as compared to 65 times in 1999, the statement said. 

15: Libya and Uganda have agreed to convene a second quadripartite meeting in Tripoli to discuss the follow up of the process to normalise relations between Sudan and Ugandan, frozen since 1995, diplomatic sources said in Tripoli. The secretary of the Libyan people's general committee on African unity and the foreign ministers of Egypt, Uganda and Sudan are expected to attend the meeting aimed at restoring relations between the two neighbours. 

16: Sudan has arrested more than 65 leading members of the outlawed Muslim fundamentalist group believed to be behind the massacre of more than 20 people in a mosque, a newspaper reported. Akhbar al-Yom newspaper said security officials were interrogating the detainees of the Takfir wal-Hijra group, one of whose members gunned down Muslims of the rival Ansar al-Sunna sect during evening prayers. 

16: Sudan has urged US president-elect George W. Bush to change US policy towards Sudan, although it appeared skeptical of any change in this policy would materialise. Minister of state for foreign affairs Gabriel Rorec, in a statement to independent as-Sahafa daily, congratulated Bush and his Republican party on winning the election and called upon the president-elect to "take a new political course" and to "abide by full neutrality towards Sudan and its issues." 

16: The People's Congress party led by Hassan al- Turabi and the Democratic Federation Party led by Muhammad Osman al-Merghani, have launched strong criticism against the Sudanese government, accusing the regime of investing the new laws to liquidate its political opponents through detention and confiscation of freedoms. In a statement issued by the Sudanese daily Alwan, the People's Congress party said that "the government has used the incident of al-Jarrafah mosque in Um Durman and amended the national security law so as to detain for a period of three months, noting that this amendment came from a system which does not have the right to do so at the absence of the national council." 

17: More than 3.2 million people in Sudan are facing serious food and water shortages because of the combined disruptions of a civil war and a widening drought, according to the director of the United Nations World Food Programme."We see a looming crisis in the Sudan," Catherine Bertini, the programme's executive director, said in an interview from the agency's headquarters in Rome. 

17: Sudan has complained to Dutch authorities about their support for a planned Christian radio station, which has been accused of links to southern rebels, newspapers reported. The Netherlands' acting charge d'affaires in Khartoum, Jan Waltmans, told AFP his country was helping finance the New Sudan Council of Churches' radio station. He could not confirm or deny a link between the station and the SPLA. 

19: The controversial Atbara cement factory, located 300 km north of Khartoum has finally been sold for US$40 million to Dal Company, a Sudanese business and its French partners, la Varge. The deal will end a row over the factory's privatisation that continued for over a year now 

19: Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has congratulated the US President elect Bush. A Sudanese governmental source said that Khartoum hopes to have the rule of the new president a further understanding for pending issues in the relations between the two countries, stressing " the readiness of the Sudanese government to deal seriously and to maintain a dialogue with the new US administration so as to explain and clarify the points of differences in the relations between the two countries. 

19: Ballot centres spread in 56 Sudanese embassies have been witnessing increasing turnout in the number of voters as the rate of voters who cast their votes reached between 50 to 70 % of the total number of eligible voters of 350,000 Delegations representing regional and Arab organisations headed for the Southern Sudanese city of Juba to inspect the process of the elections in the cities of Wau and Malakal. 

19: The chairman of Sudan s general elections commission Abdul Menem al-Zein al-Nahas leaves Khartoum for the Arab Gulf region to monitor the process of the elections at the Sudanese election centres and embassies in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. In another development, the Sudanese Umma Party led by al-Sadeq al-Mahdi said that its consultations have continued with the government in order to reach a final agreement that will lead to a comprehensive solution that will be debated with other political forces to be agreed upon and then to move to a new phase that will lead to democracy and freedom. 

20: Animals stolen from the Kenyan Turkana community will be returned following a four-day peace meeting with three Sudanese tribes, which ended in Lokichoggio town. The meeting, which is the second in the last two weeks between the Turkana, Toposa, Didinga and Dongiro youth, accused community leaders of sponsoring raids for their own selfish gains. 

20: Sudan has accused Uganda of sending arms to the SPLA and of furthering US policy by helping to thwart Sudan's bid for a seat on the UN Security Council in October. AFP quoted Sudanese external affairs minister Mustafa Osman Isma'il as saying during a news conference that Uganda had allowed NGOs "unregistered with Sudan or with the UN to move arms and ammunition" from Uganda to the SPLA in southern Sudan. 

24: President Bashir affirmed that Sudan wants to deal with the new American administration by opening a new page in the two countries' relations. Interviewed by the Doha-based Jazeera TV Channel, president Bashir expressed his hope that the new American administration accepts this proposal so as to resume normal relations between Sudan and the United States. 

25: President Bashir has ordered the release of more than 600 prisoners from jails in Khartoum and across the country, the official Sudan News Agency (SUNA) reported. "The decision was taken on the occasion of celebrations marking independence and Eid al-Fitr al-mubarak (Muslim holiday following the fasting month of Ramadan)," the agency said. 

25: In an interview with London-based al-Mustaqillah TV, in conjunction with the Sudanese satellite TV channel, president Bashir, has said that the decision to hold elections in the country was a fulfillment of the pledge by the [National] Salvation Revolution to achieve democratic transformation in the country. He added that the elections were postponed several times to enable various political forces to take part in it.