1: Exiled Sudanese opposition leaders have vowed to increase resistance to Khartoum after it rejected their call for a new constitution and government. "We commit ourselves to escalating pressure on the regime in military, political, media and diplomatic aspects," former Sudanese prime minister Sadeq al-Mahdi, who is also leader of the UMMA opposition party, told a news conference. 

3: The Sudanese government has rejected the call by opposition leaders for a national conference to draft a constitution and system of government representing all Sudanese, an official newspaper reported. Al-Anbaa quoted a presidential source as saying the presidency had refused to receive the opposition's memorandum because a new law on political activity was the only permitted channel of political expression. 

3: Secret contacts are going on between Sudan and the United States to improve ties cut after the US bombed a Sudanese pharmaceutical plant last August, foreign minister Mustafa Osman Ismail was quoted as saying. He told the privately-owned Al Rai Al-Aam newspaper that extensive secret contacts were taking place between the two foreign ministries, adding: "Sudan's foreign policy stands on the principle of dialogue and listening to various viewpoints." 

7: Three people who allegedly attempted to assassinate top Sudanese rebel leader John Garang have been charged with murder. Justine Obute, Kul Garang and Amat Malual were charged with murdering Mr James Monywir Dogi Bol, a supporter of the SPLA but were not required to plead. 

8: Sudan has imposed a new dress code on women requiring them to wear Islamic attire and a headscarf and will deploy public order police to ensure that it is observed, the official news agency SUNA said. It said the decision was taken by the public order and appearance committee, set up to ensure behaviour conforms with Islamic law which took effect in Sudan in 1991. 

8: Foreign minister Ismail denied the country would enforce a new rule requiring women visitors to wear Islamic attire, the SUNA reported. "This news was completely untrue and there is nothing new in the procedure for entering Sudan,": it quoted him as saying. 

8: Sudanese diplomat and a compatriot were beaten in downtown Zagreb. Both were briefly hospitalised with slight injuries, Vecerniji daily reported. A group of young men approached the attaché, 35-year-old Ahmed Ali Abdel, and Adil Mekki Amin, 36, as they left the car to buy cigarettes at night. The men immediately started beating the two. The Sudanese eventually managed to run to their car. 

8: President El-Bashir has accused political opponents of "high treason" for supporting forces bearing arms against his government. General el-Bashir was quoted by Khartoum dailies as warning the opposition against violating the new constitution. 

9: A Sudanese rebel leader has defected to the government for a second time and is trying to revive his militia in a move that could threaten famine relief in south-western Sudan, rebels said. A senior rebel leader said Mr Kerubino Kwanyin Bol had defected from the SPLA just before Christmas and was preparing a return to his power base in the vast south-western region of Bahr el-Ghazal. 

12: A party representing the Nuba people has been registered under a law that Sudan's Islamist rulers say will restore a multi-party system to the country rent by war. The Sudanese National Party (SNP) of veteran Nuba politician Reverend Philip Gabboush became the 11th political party to register since the law took effect on January 1, state television reported. 

12: Fifteen people were killed and more than 40 injured when a bus and a truck collided head-on in central Sudan, newspapers reported. The privately-owned Alwan daily said the bus, travelling from Khartoum to Port Sudan, was trying to overtake another vehicle when it smashed into an oncoming truck at Al-Aribab, about 16 km east of Wad Medani. 

13: Members of two armed factions backing the Khartoum government were killed and wounded when they clashed in Juba, the Akhbar al-Youm daily reported. The fighting broke out late on Sunday with the hurling of a grenade into a gathering being held by one of the two factions, killing an unspecified number of people, the paper said. The two factions belong to the South Sudan Defence Forces. 

13: Seven people were killed and 25 injured in a rail crash and eight died in a traffic accident, Khartoum newspapers reported. Two passenger trains collided near the town of Abu Zeid in Western Kordofan. about 550 km Southwest of Khartoum, the government-owned Al-Anbaa daily said. it quoted Mr Omar Mohamad Nur, director general of the Railway Corporation, as saying the accident took place at 5 am after one train broke down at Darus, a small station. 

14: Sudan has repeated a complaint to the UN Security Council over the US bombing of a pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, the Al-Anbaa daily reported. Under-secretary of state for foreign affairs Mr Hassan Abdin told the paper that Khartoum had asked the Security Council to condemn the August 20 bombing raid and send a team to investigate US claims that the Al Shifa factory was producing ingredients for chemical weapons. 

14: Fearing new famine, the WFP urged Sudan's warring factions to extend a cease-fire that expires in three days. The cease-fire in Sudan's 15-year-old civil war covers the southern province of Bahr el-Ghazal, where hundreds of thousands of people depend on what's become the largest aid operation in the world. 

15: Sudanese war planes have bombed a hospital run by an international medical charity in southern town of Kajo Keji, completely destroying the immunisation block, the organisation has said. Three bombs, dropped on the hospital run by Medicines Sans Frontiers (MSF-Doctors without Borders), also caused extensive damage to the surgical theatre and the outpatient department, an MSF statement said. 

15: Sudan has charged neighbouring Eritrea with massing troops on the frontier in preparation for an attack. "Information available to us indicates an Eritrean troop build-up along the common border with the objective of launching an attack on the country in the next few days in the Red Sea sector," Lt Gen. Abdel Rahman Sir Al-Khatim said in a televised statement. 

16: The Khartoum government and the SPLA have agreed to a three-month extension of the cease-fire in Bahr el Ghazal, the UN Secretary general's special envoy for humanitarian affairs in Sudan ambassador Tom Eric Vraalsen said in Nairobi. He added that Khartoum was equally concerned over the activities of a maverick warlord Kerubino Kwanyin Bol, who recently defected back to the government's side with a force of 600 men, and is believed to be heading towards Bahr el-Ghazal. 

16: SPLA spokesman John Luk said in Nairobi the cease-fire would be unilaterally extended by the SPLA for the first time to cover Central Upper Nile help relief assistance. 

17: The opposition National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has denied government accusations that Eritrea troops were massing on the border. An NDA statement said Khartoum's allegations were "designed to attract support from radical extremist organisations and their allies". In a counter-accusation, the NDA said Khartoum had deployed 5,000 men close to "liberated": territories in eastern Sudan. 

18: A Khartoum government newspaper has reported that rebels abducted four civilians and three pro-government militiamen in eastern Sudan and took them to Eritrea. The 25 insurgents kidnapped the men from a government tax office in Shajarab area,. Al-Anbaa said. The report did not say which rebel group the insurgents belonged to and when the incident happened. 

21: The government of Sudan attacked the northern Blue Nile area (Menza District) controlled by Sudanese opposition, Care/ Amal Trust, Human Rights Unit has reported. The reports said the government used aerial bombing by Antonov and artillery shelling to indiscriminately bomb civilian areas. Several villages including Abu Ghadaf, Abugenger, Elazaza, Matongiya and Mokla were destroyed and burned. 

22: Committal documents for three Sudanese murder suspects have not been received, a Nairobi court heard. Mr. Justine Obute, Mr Kul Garang and Mr Amat Mulual have been charged with the murder of Mr James Monywir Dogi Bol, a supporter of Colonel Garang of the SPLA. Mr Bol's death occurred last year when a faction of the SPLA attempted to assassinate Col Garang in Nairobi. 

22: An opposition radio monitored by the BBC said the SPLA repulsed an attack by government forces in the Nuba Mountains . The report said 13 government soldiers were killed in two days of fighting near the town of Lagowa. 

23: Khartoum and Southern Sudanese rebels have denied Libyan media reports that both sides held peace talks in Tripoli earlier this month. Pro-government faction head Riek Machar told the Khartoum daily Al-Rai al-Am that Col. Garang had left Tripoli before a government delegation arrived on January 12. The official Libyan news agency had said Machar and foreign minister Mustafa Osman Ismail held talks with Garang "with a view to establishing a mechanism to settle the conflict". 

26: The Sudanese airforce bombed the southern town of Yei for the second time in three days, Norwegian People's Aid (NPA) reported. Five bombs landed close to the hospital run by NPA, but no casualties were reported. 

27: Sudan government has confirmed the extension of a partial cease-fire for three months in Bahr el-Ghazal and Western Upper Nile. But according to foreign minister Ismail, "I hope this will be the last partial cease-fire". He accused the SPLA of misusing previous truces to build up its military forces. 

28: The police arrested several members of the Ansar sect for illegal possession of arms and membership of a banned organisation, AFP reported party officials as saying. The sect, the religious wing of the proscribed Umma Party, had been banned from holding celebrations marking the independence of the Sudan and the 19th century victory over the British at the Khartoum by Ansar's founder, Muhammed Ahmad al-Mahdi. 

28: State TV reported the recapture of the Boing area of south-eastern Sudan. an army statement said 147 rebels were killed and weapons seized. It added that the region had been a base for attacks in southern Blue Nile. 

29: The Sudanese health ministry is to target 5 million people in a meningitis immunisation drive. The ministry said the campaign was aimed at citizens below 30 years old, known to be most vulnerable group. The programme to be completed by the by the end of February is to cover most districts of northern Sudan with the support of International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). 

29: In mid January the ICRC organised a four-day course on the law of armed conflict which brought together 31 senior officers of the SPLA in Bahr el-Ghazal region. At the same time, some 230 members of Sudanese government armed forces and 180 policemen attended presentations on international humanitarian law in Bentiu in Western Upper Nile, an ICRC statement said. 

30: Five people have been killed and more than 200 seriously injured in fighting between two Sudanese communities at Kakuma refugee camp in north western Kenya. More than 5,000 people from the Dinka and Didinga communities have been displaced since fighting broke out. Tension is said to have started following news of the killing of an SPLA commander, Mr Deng Akwang (a Dinka) in an ambush in Chukudum in Sudan, about 12 kilometres from the Kenya/Sudan border. 

February 

2: Administrative problems have delayed the arrival in Sudan of the special rapportuer on human rights, Leonardo Franco. A UN spokesman said Franco is now scheduled to leave Geneva for Khartoum on February 13. During his 12-day stay, he will investigate reports of slave trading as well as the general human rights situation. 

3: Sudan's civil war is absorbing half the country's budget, President Omar el-Bashir has said. He was quoted by the Al-Rai Al-am newspaper as saying: "The government is not able to provide the minimum limits for survival for the Sudanese because of the spending on war". 

5: The UN special rapporteur on human rights in Sudan has arrived in the country. Franco is expected to meet senior government officials and visit prisons and detention facilities. He will also hold talks with the SPLA in Nairobi. 

5: Tens of thousands of non-Muslim Sudanese live as slaves and are "branded, beaten, starved and raped at their master's whim", Sen. Sam Brownback said. Joining the Kansas Republican at a news conference was Fran Wolf, who said the Clinton administration "has done zip...nothing" to ease the plight of repressed Sudanese. 

5: The UN has launched a US$200 million inter-agency appeal for the Sudan for 1999. It covers the emergency and rehabilitation needs of more than four million war and drought-affected people in the south "transitional zone" and the displaced camps and settlement in the greater Khartoum area. 

5: A breakaway faction of Sudan's Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) has become the first registered group since multi-party system was reinstated at the beginning of the year. Reuters quoted a leading newspaper as saying . Al-Usbua daily published a notice by the registrar saying "The DUP is registered as a political organisation which gives it the right to practice political activities and to compete in elections". 

6: A total of 108 people were killed in recent tribal clashes in western Sudan, a state governor said. West Darfur state governor Ibrahim Yahia Abdel Rahman told a press conference that the fighting in and around the state capital Ginaina town had left another 140 wounded and 50 villages razed to the ground. the fighting broke out after farmers accused nomads of allowing their camels on to the farmers' fields. 

6: Sudan's assistant president Riek Machar has tendered his resignation from the National Congress party and kept his government posts after forming his own party. Mr Machar, who also chairs the South Sudan Co-ordination Council, was an ex-officio member of leading organs in the ruling NC. 

10: According to the UNHCR, 4, 000 Sudanese have fled Western Darfur into Chad. They have settled in the Adre region and are in "a very precarious situation", a UNHCR spokesman said. Arab and African communities clashed last month near the Darfur border town of al-Geneina in a dispute over grazing land. 

11: A pro-government newspaper said that the Sudanese interior minister and his top police aide are likely to be sacked over failure to check a tribal conflict that has killed more than 100 people. Alwan, a well-informed Islamic-oriented daily, said the country's "political leadership is not satisfied with the performance of the ministry and the police" over the recent tribal clashes. 

11: A conference of Sudanese human rights and civil society groups opened in Uganda aimed at reaching a "consensus for a democratic Sudan". The five-day meeting organised by the Kampala-based Pan African Movement (PAM), has addressed issues of self determination, religion, gender and human rights abuses committed by both the government army and rebel groups. 

12: The Sudanese government has pledged to prosecute slavers and has urged the population to report cases of slavery, Khartoum newspapers reported. The government Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights said in a communiqué yesterday that public prosecutors' offices across the country were open to all those who had information on slavery cases so that prosecutions could be started. 

13: A local initiative to reconcile the Dinka and Nuer communities has been launched by the New Sudan Council of Churches. A delegation of Nuer chiefs from Western Upper Nile and Dinka chiefs from Rumbek were due to meet in Thiet, Bahr el-Ghazal, with the support of the local authorities. 

16: A UN special envoy on human rights met Sudanese officials for talks on government abuses, including charges of slavery. Sudanese justice minister Ali Mohammed Osman Yassin urged the envoy, Leonardo Franco, to bring  "fairness and objectivity in his reporting," the state-run Omdurman Radio reported. 

17: Democratic Republic of Congo (DCR) president Laurent Kabila arrived in Khartoum for an unannounced visit and discussions with president Omar el-Bashir, a press report said. President Kabila, whose country has since last August been gripped by a conflict between his forces and a mainly Tutsi-initiated rebellion that began in the east, went into private talks with Gen. Bashir, the Al-Rai al-Aam daily said. 

19: UN special representative for children and armed conflict Mr Olara Otunnu has set off for tour of Sudan, Rwanda and Burundi, lasting almost three weeks. Mr Otunnu told a United Nations news conference that he would visit Rwanda before heading to Burundi. After spending a day and a half in Nairobi, he would then head to Khartoum on March 2. >From Khartoum, Mr Otunnu would tour rebel-held southern Sudan for a week 

19: The owner of a pharmaceuticals plant flattened by US missiles in August wants the Sudanese government to return control of the site to his company. Khartoum newspapers quoted Saudi-based Saleh Idris, owner of the Shifa plant, as saying he was unhappy that the government was still controlling access to the site and arranging visits to it without informing the company. 

22: A malaria epidemic in Sudan is the result of last year's US missile attack on the country's main pharmaceutical factory, the foreign minister said. "We have an acute shortage in malaria-treatment drugs and other drugs," foreign minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said in a statement to the official Sudan News Agency. 

27: A meningitis epidemic has killed 175 people in Sudan since December, with more than 1,000 cases counted, the World Health organisation has said. "WHO is very worried," spokesman Mr Gregory Harl said, adding that the incidence of meningitis in Sudan represented fully half of all cases reported in Africa since January. 

March 

2: Sudan and the DRC have denied that Khartoum had troops in the DRC following reports that a "Sudanese soldier" had been captured by the Congolese rebels and taken to Uganda. "The government of Sudan didn't and will not deploy troops in DRC. It's support to this friendly neighbour is purely political," Sudan embassy spokesman in Nairobi, Al Mansour Balad said. 

2: The death toll from an attack at Akoch Payam village in northern Bahr el Ghazal has risen to 35. Seventy-five 75 people were abducted, many are still missing , 200 houses burned and hundreds of livestock looted. 

2: WFP is facing critical shortages of non-cereal food for Sudan for the March-December 1999 period in its latest Sudan update. "If these commodities are not made available in the near future, the gained improvements in the nutritional situation will be reversed, the report warned. 

3: Many people died of hunger in parts of southern Sudan last year partly because a UN agency that co-ordinates relief in the war-torn region bungled the job, an aid group has said. OLS, an umbrella for about 40 UN and private aid agencies, failed to adequately assess the needs of the people and to control food distribution, Doctors Without Borders said in a report. 

3: The executive director of UNICEF and WFP together with the UN Emergency Relief Co-ordinator have said they were disappointed over MSF-France's "inaccurate and unbalanced criticism" of OLS and its efforts to provide humanitarian assistance to the people of Sudan. In a joint statement, they said that in 1998 , OLS members worked to turn around famine and reduce malnutrition rates from a high 45-50 per cent to 10-15 per cent in most affected areas. 

3: Fifteen OLS agencies have started distributing about 4,000mt of seeds in southern Sudan with a view to fostering self-reliance and reducing dependence on food aid, UNICEF said. In a statement dated February 28, 1999, UNICEF said the programme was targeting 500,000 households in Bahr el Ghazal, Upper Nile and Equatoria. UNICEF is providing 1,150mt of seeds for the programme, it said. 

5: A Sudanese government warplane bombed a rebel-held town in southern Sudan and extensively damaged a hospital, an aid agency said. A lone bomber dropped 24 bombs in Yei, about 160 kilometres southwest of Juba, which is the largest southern town still controlled by the government, said Dan Effie, a spokesman for Norwegian People's Aid (NPA), which operates the hospital. 

7: The NPA agency has vowed not to close a hospital in south Sudan despite repeated aerial bombing by the Sudanese government. The NPA hospital at Yei was so badly damaged in the last attack it will have to remain closed for around two months, Mr Halle Jorn Hanssen, NPA secretary general said.  7: The SPLA has decided to release two Swiss and two Sudanese Red Cross workers detained by the SPLA. The SPLA spokesman in Nairobi, Mr Samson Kwaje, said that two other Sudanese citizens who accompanied the Red Cross workers when they were detained would stay in  SPLA custody. 

8: Sudan's president has reshuffled his cabinet, bringing four new faces into the government, the official news agency SUNA reported. President Bashir appointed chief spokesman of the army, Lt. Gen Abdul Rahman Sir Al-Khatim, as the new minister of national defence. 

8: Gunmen in southern Sudan have offered to free some of the people they abducted last month, including two Swiss citizens working for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the Sudanese news agency, SUNA, has said. The armed men, currently negotiating with the ICRC, said they would release the two Swiss nationals and two Sudanese Red Crescent employees but keep holding three local government employees, the agency said. 

8: Sudan has told the United States that it was not involved in an attack last week on the vacant US embassy building in Khartoum, a Khartoum newspapers reported. The Akhbar al Youm daily, quoting an "executive source", said Khartoum had told the US diplomatic mission to Sudan, based in Nairobi, Kenya, that it was "not connected" with the shooting on the US embassy building in the Sudanese capital by "anonymous" gunmen. 

9:  The SPLA  and southern factions loyal to the Khartoum regime have agreed to observe a cease-fire, an official of one of the factions said. Teny Youk of the United Democratic Salvation Front  (UDSF) and a state minister in an interim governing body, said SPLA leader Col. John Garang himself gave instructions for the accord, calling for a comprehensive cease-fire across south Sudan, to be signed. 

10: The Sudanese government has sent at least 1,000 recruits to war fronts where its forces are fighting the SPLA and its allies in the opposition National Democratic Alliance. president Bashir attended a ceremony for the departing convoys of popular Defence Force fighters, a paramilitary force formed in November 1989 to fight alongside the regular armed forces against the SPLA.. 

12: Rich nations warned all sides in Sudan's long-running civil war that relief aid could dry up unless they made faster steps towards peace. Officials from 20 nations, the UN and the European Union met for a day in Oslo and urged talks to settle a conflict between rebels and the Islamist government that began in 1983. "The participants voiced their concern that the current aid flow from the donor community to Sudan would be difficult to maintain in the long run. 

13: The government of Sudan and rebels in the south of the country have agreed to stop using anti-personnel land mines in a civil war now entering its 16th year, a senior UN official said. Mr Otunnu, president Bashir and Col. Garang agreed to his proposal to end use of the mines. 

14: UNICEF has proposed to the government of Sudan, a plan of action to combat slavery, considering that efforts by Non-Governmental Organisations to buy back slaves from traffickers, was not the way to stamp out the scourge.  Last month, Sudan invited UNICEF to investigate the phenomenon of slavery on its territory, following widespread reports of the Swiss-based NGO, Christian Solidarity International, buying back thousands of slaves in order to give them back their freedom. 

15: Since 1995, CSI and more recently Christian Solidarity Worldwide have been buying the freedom of slaves in Sudan. The UNICEF and a number of other people have raised serious objections against this activity, arguing that this fuels the market, promotes slave raids and continues the vicious circle. 

16: A Sudanese official dismissed as "unfounded" allegations by the UN Children's Fund of continued slavery in Sudan and challenged UNICEF to provide names of sellers, buyers and victims. Mr. Ali Ahmed al-Nasry, the chairman of a government-appointed committee investigating allegations of women and child enslavement, said UNICEF was seeking to weigh in on UN human rights rapporteur who is preparing a report on Sudan, according to the Suna news agency. 

19: Sudan has protested a UN agency claim that slavery is increasing in the African country, the official news agency reported. The foreign ministry summoned UNICEF"s representative in Khartoum after Carol Bellamy, head of the UN children's fund, said Sudan's 16-year civil war led to an upsurge in "grotesque practices" such as slavery, it said. 

20: Sudan's adherence to Islam is in the root of many of its problems, president Omar el-Bashir has said at a recruitment rally, while vowing that Khartoum would continue to defend the faith at all costs. "Sudan bears all forms of sanctions, problems and wars due to its raising the banner of la ilah alla Allah (there is no god but Allah)," Gen. Bashir said at Marinu in Sennar State, according to press reports. 

23: Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni and Rwandan leaders have said their adversaries are Sudan and the Rwandan interahamwe militia.  At a press conference following Museveni's visit to Kigali, the Ugandan president said the "crucial element" in the Great Lakes conflict was "Sudanese terrorism and the interahamwe." 

24: Sudan has said it wanted to see Egypt admitted to the international forum, which is attempting to resolve the conflict between the government and the SPLA. Sudanese junior foreign minister Ali Abdel Rahman Nimeiri told the official Suna news agency his government would seek to admit Egypt into the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), in view of the "common interests" of Sudan and Egypt. 

24: President Bashir has left Khartoum for Saudi Arabia to take part in the hajj, or Islamic pilgrimage, to Mecca, palace officials said. President Bashir was accompanied by his presidency affairs adviser Mr. Ahmed Ali el-Imam, they said. 

24: The Sudanese government relief workers have distributed more than 10, 000 tonnes of relief food to displaced people in Sudan so far in March, according to Humanitarian Aid Commission (HAC). A commission official, Mr. Khalid Faraj, said more than 6,000 tonnes were distributed to more than 245,000 beneficiaries in the north Sudan. 

25: A Sudanese government official who once supported independence for the south of the country has accused guerilla leader John Garang of "brutal dictatorship" and mass human rights violations. David de Chand, a Christian from southern Sudan who broke with Garang's SPLA movement in 1991, also said that Western groups campaigning against alleged slavery were trying to provoke US intervention in favour of rebels. 

25: The US and 19 other nations providing aid to Sudan want help jump-start the peace process in Africa's largest country, a Clinton administration official has said. J. Brian Atwood, head of the Agency for International Development, said the US was working with these nations to "increase the pressure on both sides to extend the cease-fire scheduled to expire in April 15. 

26: WFP urgently needs funds to prevent its emergency food supplies for Sudan from running our in June, a statement from the UN food agency said. An additional US$63.8 million is urgently required to provide food for the rest of 1999. Some 2.3 million Sudanese rely on WFP food for their survival. 

26: The United States Agency for International Development has warned those Sudan risks becoming a "forgotten tragedy". Announcing aid to Sudan worth over $130 million to date in the 1999 financial year, USAID's administrator Brian Atwood said: "Sudan continues to be the world's greatest humanitarian crisis but tends, due to the ever growing number of disasters, to be what has come to be called forgotten tragedy". He told a US sub-committee on African affairs. 

26: The European Commission has approved humanitarian aid worth $14.7 million for victims of conflict in Sudan. The aid managed by European Community Humanitarian Office (ECHO) will support about 30 health water and food security  programmes over the next year, according to an ECHO statement. 

30: Ugandan authorities have detained 104 rebels of the SPLA for selling firearms in northern Uganda, a newspaper reported. The rebels are being held in northern district headquarters of Kitgum, 420 kilometres north-east of the Ugandan capital, Kampala, according to the independent daily, The Monitor. 

April 

1: Sudan's national assembly speaker Hassan al-Turabi has said Sudanese opponents abroad, including former prime minister Sadek el-Mahdi, will be welcome back home to practice politics. "I do no see any reason that makes the opponent remain abroad after the constitution has been passed…It is their right to return to Khartoum and participate in politics," Mr. Turabi said, according to Akhbar al Youm daily. 

1: Humanitarian agencies working in the Malakal area of Sudan's Upper Nile region have reported a decrease in the number of patients suffering from an outbreak of watery diarrhoea and vomiting that killed some 213 people over the past month. Since March, 2,746 cases had been recorded, aid workers said. 

1: SPLA said it inflicted massive human and material losses on Khartoum  forces during a three-day battle in southern Blue Nile state, a claim rejected by Sudanese government. Intensive fighting was reported between the two sides around the town of Ulu. 

2: The ICRC has said it was appalled by the deaths of a Sudanese Red Crescent worker and three government officials who had accompanied an ICRC team in southern Sudan. In a press release, the organisation said the four were killed by SPLA who had detained them since February 18 when they strayed  into SPLA/M territory near Bentiu. 

6: The Sudanese government, reacting to the deaths of four Sudanese hostages last week, said it would review accords made with the SPLA. All necessary measures including military, security, administrative and legal steps would be taken to prevent a re-occurrence (of the deaths of the hostages)," said foreign minister Mustafa Osman Ismail, adding he was setting up a committee to review the accords. 

7: President Bashir has said he was prepared to extend a partial cease-fire in Bahr el-Ghazal and Western Upper Nile to all of southern Sudan. Gen. Bashir called on the SPLA to respond to the call for the extension of the cease-fire, which expires on April 15. 

8: President Bashir has unilaterally extended a cease-fire in southern Sudan and urged the rebels to reciprocate. Speaking in parliament, Bashir said the cease-fire would take effect on April 15. He did not say how long the truce would last, nor did he define the operational zones. 

9: SPLA has dismissed Khartoum's "comprehensive cease-fire" offer and instead announced a three-month extension of the "humanitarian cease-fire" in Bahr el Ghazal western and central Upper Nile. The SPLA acknowledged that a comprehensive cease-fire was "part and parcel of overall solution" to the present conflict in Sudan. 

10: Sudan's foreign minister has rejected assertions by a UN investigator that Khartoum allowed Arab tribesmen to seize civilians in the war-torn south and sell them as slaves. Mr. Ismail told a news conference the investigator, Argentine lawyer Leonardo Franco, had presented no real evidence to support his allegations in a report to the UN's Human Rights Commission which is now in session in Geneva. 

12: The first few hundred of an anticipated influx of thousands of Sudanese refugees have crossed into Uganda from north eastern parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), joining other Sudanese refugees in camps and settlements in the Ugandan district of Arua, according to WFP weekly report. With insecurity having dispersed many of an estimated 30,000-50,000 Sudanese refugees in eastern DRC, aid agencies are preparing for up to 10,000 of them to enter Uganda. 

12: Sudanese rebels have overrun two camps of the pro-government militia, killing more than 120 militia fighters and wounding about 300, their spokesman said. The battle took place when guerrilla of the SPLA stormed camps of the Islamic Front in the eastern province of Blue Nile, SPLA spokesman Yasser Armsan said in a statement. 

17: Peace talks between Sudan's Islamic junta and rebels from the mainly black south are scheduled to resume in Nairobi on April 20, Kenyan officials said. The negotiations, under the auspices of the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), are expected to end on April 25. 

17: Presidents of Sudan and Eritrea have sat down together for their first meeting in years, apparently in an attempt to ease tension between the two east African countries. Libyan leader Col. Muammar Gaddafi participated in talks in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, Egypt's Middle East News Agency reported. 

20: Sudan's government has decided indefinitely to postpone peace negotiations with the SPLA, which were due to open in Nairobi on April 20. The decision was due to the "murder by the SPLA of four Sudanese working with the Red Cross last month'', according to an unidentified government source cited by Al-Anbaa daily. 

20: Sudanese assistant president Riek Machar said both parties had agreed to postpone talks for two weeks for "more consultations for bringing their viewpoints closer." Mr. Machar, chairman of the South Sudan Co-ordination Council, added that the IGAD committee chaired by a representative of  Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi would make contacts with the government and SPLA for "narrowing the gap" between the rival sides. 

21: The SPLA has said it was greatly disappointed by the government's decision to postpone peace talks. Khartoun decided to postpone the negotiations with the SPLA, because the rebels had "murdered" Sudanese Red Crescent workers and refused to hand over their bodies to the government. 

23: Sudanese authorities freed a prominent anti-government lawyer from jail only to promptly put him back behind bars when he refused to sign a pledge of good behaviour , a Khartoum newspaper reported . The lawyer , Ghazi Suleiman, who is also leader of the  opposition National Alliance for the Restoration of Demcracy, was originally jailed for 15 days for taking part in an illegal assembly outside the Khartoum Bar Association, the official Sudanese News Agency reported. 

26: Sudan has renewed a partial cease-fire in the southern Bahr el-Ghazal region to allow relief teams to cope with a devastating famine and reiterated  a call for a comprehensive truce. At the same time, Sudan rebels are claiming victory against Khartoum government but their military advance has slowed dramatically, according to observers of the conflict. 

26: Sudan rebels are claiming a series of mini-victories in their struggle against the Khartoum government but their military advance has slowed dramatically, according to observers of the conflict. The SPLA is boasting about recent success close to the Ethiopian border but is making almost no progress towards its main target, the southern city of Juba, hundreds of kilometres further south-west. 

26: The SPLA has reacted warily to reports from Khartoum of a new mediation effort by former vice-president Abel Alier. Sudanese foreign minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said Alier had met SPLA leader John Garang in London and Uganda , and had also been in contact with the government, state radio reported. 

26: Col. Gaddafi met a delegation from the Sudanese opposition National Democratic Alliance in Tripoli. Former Sudanese prime minister Sadeq al-Mahdi whose government was overthrown in a coup by president Bashir in 1989 led the delegation. 

27: Over 4,00 returnees are facing food shortages in the Liethnon area of Bahr el Ghazal state, according to World Food Programme. In its latest weekly report, the UN food agency said around 4,800 returnees could no longer depend on kinship for their food needs. 

30: More than 180 people have died of cholera in southern Sudan's Akobo area since April 6 when the first cases were cited, humanitarian workers in the region said. A doctor with the New Sudan Council of Churches, Margaret Ito, said many of them died because they could not make it to the hospital in Akobo. 

30: Sudan will resume peace talks with southern rebels in Nairobi next month, a government official said in Khartoum. The official, who asked not to be named, said the talks, originally scheduled for April 20, were likely to start on May 10, now that the government had heard the proposals  of  former vice-president Alier, trying to mediate in the conflict. 

May 

3: The Sudanese government has rejected a peace initiative from Alier, Sudan's minister of state for culture and information Amin Hassan Omar has said. "The government cannot and will not accept confederal proposals," Omar said in the pro-government Alwan newspaper, adding that Alier's proposals ignored the Khartoum peace agreement and violated the constitution. 

3: Sudan's president arrived in the Qatari capital Doha where he is expected to meet his Eritrean counterpart in a Qatari mediation bid in the conflict between the two African countries. Omar el-Bashir arrived in Doha one day after Eritrea's president Isayas Afeworki held talks with Qatar's Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani. 

4: A top Sudanese politician is holding peace talks in Geneva with an exiled opposition leader whose party is working with Sudan's biggest rebel group to oust the government, the party said. It is the first meeting between parliament speaker Hassan Turabi and former prime minister Al-Mahdi since he fled Sudan in 1996. 

4: The International Red Cross has described as "furious" the spread of meningitis in the seven worst-affected states in eastern Sudan where more than one million people are at risk of catching the disease. The worst-affected states are white Nile, Gezira, Sennar, Kassala, Gedaref, Blue Nile and Red Sea Province. 

5: Sudan wants a joint committee with Eritrea to meet within a month to try to resolve security and political disputes, the Khartoum daily newspaper, Al-Anbaa said. The pro-government paper quoted Hassan Abdin, under-secretary at the foreign ministry as saying Sudan had proposed dividing the committee into two- a political committee and a security committee. 

5: A Sudanese government plane bombed the compound of an NGO Operation Save Innocent Lives (OSIL) in Yei, wounding one person and destroying property worth over $10,000. A UNICEF press release said six bombs fell on the compound injuring one of 25 trainees who were attending an awareness workshop organised by UNICEF and OSIL.

6: Asmara had denied that its forces shelled a Sudanese village along the countries' joint border. A report in a Sudanese government-owned newspaper Al-Anbaa, said the attack took place in Rasai region, but the BBC quoted an Eritrean government spokesman as saying the report was totally false and made no sense in the wake of a reconciliation accord. 

6: Khartoum has sent out the first batch of  "protectors of oil Brigade" mujahadeen (Islamic volunteers ) to defend the industry, army spokesman Lt..Gen. Mohammed Osman Yassin said on Sudanese TV. He accused the SPLA "and those who supply them with funds and equipment" of wanting to deny the Sudanese people their resources." Sudan is building a 1,000 mile oil pipeline from southern oilfields to Port Sudan and plans to export its first shipment of crude oil by June 30. 

6: The death toll from a meningitis outbreak has risen to nearly 1,500 in the past week, the Sudanese health minister told parliament. Mahdi Babour Nimir said more than 20,000 people have been infected since the outbreak in December, according to the Akhbar Al-Youm daily. 

6: Sudan said today it hoped the United States would pay compensation after unfreezing the assets of the businessman whose factory it bombed last year over chemical weapons charges. "The American decision confirms the baselessness of the charges against Sudan and the faulty attack on Al-Shifa medicine factory on the allegations that it was making chemical weapons," said Mr. Ali Abdel -Rahman Nimeiri, a state foreign minister.

 6: Sudan has accused Eritrea of shelling a village along their border after the two countries signed an accord to try to improve relations, a newspaper reported. 

7: Sudanese pro-government militias were quoted on Thursday as saying they had clashed with the army in a battle for control of oil fields in the south of the country. The pro-government newspaper Alwan quoted the leader of the Southern Sudan Defence Force group of militias  Riek Machar as saying there had been skirmishes this week between the two sides in the Kabah area of the Unity State. 

7: The NDA said its forces killed 64 government troops and captured 83 others in fighting in eastern Sudan's Kassala state. The troops were killed or taken prisoner when they tried to re-capture a garrison in Rasai region in northern Kassala, the NDA said in a message  received by AFP in Cairo. 

7: Al-Turabi said in remarks published that Al-Mahdi would return home soon after a self-imposed exile that began in January 1997. Mr. Turabi, who met Mr. Mahdi in Geneva earlier, said Sudan would soon see the fruits of his talks with the former premier. 

10: The leaders of Sudan and Ethiopia held talks in Djibouti to try to improve the cool relations between the two countries, Sudanese state Radio Omdurman said. It said presidents Al-Bashir and Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia met on the sidelines of inauguration of Djibouti's new president, Isamil Omar Guelleh. 

10: Armed Sudanese have taken 23 oil experts captive during nearly a week of battling the government in the southern town of Bentiu, a southern rebel spokesman said. The 23 hostages apparently were working for the Chinese National Petroleum Company. It was not clear whether all were Chinese nationals or precisely when they were taken captive. 

10: Peace talks scheduled in Kenya between southern Sudan rebels and the Sudanese government has been postponed indefinitely, a rebel spokesman said. "The talks have been officially postponed by the convenors," said Samson Kwaje 

11: More than 250 southern rebels and some 800 civilians have fled to government-controlled areas in southern Sudan, state-run radio reported. The 253 members of the SPLA and 840 civilians fled to the town of Kapoeta, 1,200 kilometres south of Khartoum, the report said. 

11: Al-Mahdi said after meeting Egyptian foreign minister Amr Moussa that political efforts were under way to solve his strife-racked country's problems. "I believe steps are being taken towards a political solution to the problems facing Sudan," he said. 

12: Sudanese rebels have accused government forces of bombing two civilian relief centres in southern Equatoria state, killing two men and two women and wounding three children. The SPLA said in a statement issued in Nairobi that an Antonov flying at high altitude dropped the bombs on the Loka and Lainya centres on the road between the towns of Juba and Yei. 

12: The WFP "pipeline" of food aid in Sudan will dry up substantially in August, at the peak of the hunger gap when supplies of locally-produced foods are unavailable, with the level of funding currently available, a situation report from the agency warned. The agency reported that while the overall nutritional situation has improved in many parts of southern Sudan, that could easily be reversed by a deterioration in the security situation. 

12: Sudan's defence minister Gen Abdel Khetin has claimed that forces in Uganda are "poised for an assault" on southern Sudan. Speaking at a meeting of the parliamentary defence and security committee, Khetim said there were "hostile gatherings in Uganda posed for an assault on the southern front". 

12: The promised return to Sudan of former president Gaffaar Nimeiri brought thousands of supporters onto the streets of Khartoum, media sources in the capital reported.  Nimeiri, who has lived in Cairo since his overthrow in 1985, was quoted as saying he hoped to return to Sudan between May 17 and 24. 

12: President El-Bashir has cancelled a planned meeting in Cairo between his top deputy, first vice-president Ali Osman Mohammed Taha and Mohammed Osman Al-Mirghani, chairman of the opposition NDA, claiming that its disclosure by the media led to the decision. "There are foreign hands and ill-intentioned people who do not want a détente and resolution of differences among people of Sudan," he said. 

12: A meeting of the Technical Committee on Humanitarian Assistance (an offshoot of the IGAD process), which was postponed in April, has been rescheduled for May 25-26 in Oslo. 

13:  Sudan has played down media reports that the 1997 peace agreement has been under severe strain by recent fighting over the control of oilfields in the state of Unity, and that the United Democratic Salvation Front (UDSF) wants the pact revised. 

17: Successive bombings of the Bahr el Ghazal villages of Akak and Nyamlell have provoked concern among humanitarian agencies working in the area. Humanitarian agencies said 24 bombs were dropped in Akak and another six a few kilometres from Nyamlell. In the former incident, a 10-year-old girl died and a boy was injured. 

17: Eritrean President Isayas Afeworki has denied reports that Asmara was evicting the Sudanese opposition National Democratic Alliance (NDA) from Asmara in an effort to improve relations with Khartoum, but admitted that Eritrea was looking for "practical and realistic ways of resuming diplomatic ties" with Khartoum. Sudanese media reports said the Eritrean government had ordered the NDA out of the Sudanese embassy, which it has occupied since Eritrea broke off diplomatic ties with Khartoum in December 1994. 

18: UN secretary-general Kofi Annan has expressed concern over fighting between government troops and rebels in southern Sudan and particularly its potential impact on humanitarian operations in the area. A statement from the secretary-general's spokesman said Annan called on both sides to "respect fully" the cease-fire agreed upon in April, and ensure the safe delivery of humanitarian assistance. 

18: An estimated 1,275 new internally displaced persons (IDPs) have recently arrived at Khor camp, Ad Da'ein, in south Darfur, according to a report from the UN Humanitarian Co-ordination Unit in Khartoum. They are reportedly arriving at a daily average of 35 families and entering via Safaha and Mairam from parts of northern Bahr el-Ghazal and Gogrial. 

20: Unidentified assailants attacked a Nile River boat bringing relief aid to southern Sudan, killing the co-pilot of the barge, the UN announced in Nairobi. WFP spokesperson Brenda Barton said 21 people aboard were wounded; a Kenyan working for the WFP was shot in the leg and a Sudanese crew member was shot in the back. 

21: The Sudanese opposition has warned the government over the expected return to Khartoum of former president Gaafar al-Numeiry, slamming the presidential pardon which paved the way for the "butcher" to come back. The NDA issued a statement saying that the agencies arranging for the return of  "the butcher" to Sudan would "bear the responsibility of the resulting consequences". 

22: The main political body in south Sudan has accused Khartoum of violating a peace accord reached in April 1997. "Repeated violations of the peace agreement and failure by the government to abide by (its) provisions "will be the focus of a forthcoming meeting between the United Democratic Salvation Front (UDSF) and Khartoum officials. 

23: Numeiry has returned to his homeland after 14 years in exile and pledged to work for peace and democracy. "The government has given political pluralism a chance by passing the Political Association Law,'' he said in a statement to state television. 

24: Sudanese police were out in force as Numeiry landed in Khartoum amid threats of protest demonstrations by the opposition, news organisations reported. Presidential affairs minister Bakri Hassan Salih led the government welcoming party. Numeiry was later met by President El-Bashir who hoped his return would"support the process of construction and development". 

24: A Sudanese opposition leader has warned of legal action against Numeiry for "crimes he committed" while in power, a day after he was welcomed back home by president El-Bashir. Mr. Numeiry returned to Sudan ending a 14-year exile in Egypt and was greeted at Khartoum airport by government officials and thousands of supporters who earlier formed a political party Numeiry is expected to lead. 

25: The authorities in Khartoum last week demolished two Christian church buildings and two schools at Hayy Barakah, a suburb of Khartoum, in what displaced southern Christians claim is religious victimisation, the BBC reported.  The two schools owned by Episcopal Church of Sudan (ECS) and the Presbyterian Church, had a combined roll of 1,440 students. Four other Catholic schools in the area, with a roll of about 2,500 pupils, were also served with a final notice of demolition on 27 April, the BBC said. 

25: The Sudanese legal authorities have turned down the first complaint made against Numeiry on grounds he was granted a presidential amnesty. According to Khartoum newspapers, Khartoum attorney Islam Abdel Qadir rejected a lawsuit filed by lawyer  Mahmoud Shaarani, who was sacked by Mr. Numeiry from his position as a judge, claiming damages for dismissal. 

25: A prosecution council set up by the NDA has announced it is presently considering applications it has received from individuals for filing lawsuits against Numeiry, including one by the family of late army officer Hassan Hussein, who was executed on orders by court-martial following an abortive coup detat in 1975.  26: Sudan government told Numeiry before his return home that he had been granted amnesty from prosecution, a government newspaper reported. Al-anbaa said the amnesty had been granted in May 1998 for crimes or alleged crimes Numeiry committed between seizing power on May 25, 1969 and his overthrow on April 1985. 

26: The Sudanese army and allied militias have said they destroyed a number of camps belonging to the SPLA in the southern state of Unity and "secured the oil area". They also claimed to have damaged Nhial Boi airport in the state, denying the SPLA supplies "from foreign organisations", and freed four Sudanese and one Chinese oil workers kidnapped by the rebels, according to media sources in Khartoum. 

26: The opposition Umma Party has denied a report in the London-based Arabic-language Al-Hayat daily which said party leader Sadeq al-Mahdi, a pillar of the NDA, had reached a secret deal with speaker of parliament Hassan al-Turabi. "The Umma Party completely denies the existence of such an agreement", a statement reported by Reuters said. 

26: The official spokesman of the armed forces staff Lt-Gen Mohamed Osman Yassin, has reported on Sudanese radio that government troops were again in full control of the Adok area, between Malakal and Juba in southern Sudan, where last week's attack on a food aid barge took place. He added that troops had "secured the waterway for navigation." 

27: A conference is currently underway in the capital of Western Darfur state, al-Junaynah, to try and end years of conflict between the African Masalit people and Arab tribesmen, the BBC reported. Drought and desertification, which have made grazing land scarce, are blamed for the tribal clashes in Darfur, although the Masalit, who are farmers, claim the nomadic Arabs simply want to drive them from their land. 

June 

1: A Sudanese party formed by former rebel factions has accused a rival southern militia of detaining 75 government officials in the oil-rich Unity State. Both sides are supposed to be fighting alongside forces of the Islamist-led government in Khartoum against the SPLA mainstream. 

3: The SPLA and the Kenya government have both denied that the June 16-17 had been set as a date for a long-delayed round of Sudanese peace negotiations in Nairobi. In Khartoum, the official Sudanese Al-Anbaa daily reported those dates had been decided by the warring parties and the Kenyan government on behalf of IGAD. 

3: Christian Solidarity International , a non-governmental organisation involved in a controversy over Sudan's slave trade, said it had freed almost 1,400 slaves in May. CSI has liberated a total of 9,112 Sudanese slaves since the start of its campaign in 1995.  5: Fifty Sudanese troops, including six officers, were killed when a military plane crashed near Khartoum, the army said. A military transport plane was flying Kassala in eastern Sudan to Khartoum when it suffered technical problems, according to the statement from the Sudanese armed forces general command. 

5: Sudanese rebels said they killed more than 3,000 government soldiers in this year's dry season battles of the 16-year-long civil war. SPLA and the NDA carried out the offensive in three provinces in the centre and east of the country- Southern Kordofan, Southern Blue Nile and Eastern Sudan, the SPLA said in a statement released in Nairobi. 

5: Riek Machar, the head of southern former rebels now allied to Khartoum, is facing an internal challenge to his leadership. Some members of the South Sudan Defence Force (SSDF), which groups six faction which made peace with Khartoum in 1997, said they had deposed Machar as SSDF leader and president of the co-ordination council supposed to rule the south. 

6: A Sudanese aircraft bombed a town held by rebels in northern Congo, killing 24 civilians and wounding 19 others, a rebel leader said. Mr. Jean Pierre Bemba, leader of the Congolose Liberation  Movement, one of two main rebel groups  fighting to oust President Laurent Kabila, said the Sudanese air force Antonov aircraft bombed Binga , about 300 kilometres northwest of Kisangani, a port on the Congo River. 

8: Sudanese rebel commanders believe only a series of battleground victories will push the government into serious peace talks but say they need anti-aircraft missiles to tip the war in their favour. Based in the strategic town of Yei, "capital'' of  rebel-held territory in southern Sudan, the military chiefs said diplomatic efforts to broker a peace deal were bound to fail without rebel gains on the ground. 

8: Sudanese security forces held 11 opposition politicians for several hours and charged them with organising an illegal gathering before freeing them on bail, their spokesman said. Outspoken lawyer Ghazi Suleiman said that he and other opponents of the regime were holding a press conference in Khartoum's twin city Omdurman to announce the foundation of the new political party, the Democratic Forces Front, when security agents burst in. 

8: Three US Congressmen visiting war zones in southern Sudan have said they would push for financial assistance to rebels fighting the Islamic government in Khartoum. The three- two Republicans and a Democrat- said the United States needed to help the SPLA and demanded an end to government bombing raids against civilians in the south. 

9: Sudan's foreign minister has indicated the time is right for dialogue with the United States, signalling a slight shift in the hostile relationship between the two nations . Mr. Mustafa Osman Ismail said Sudan has been adopting realistic policies toward the US that are "now in the stage of dialogue," the official  Al -Anbaa daily reported. 

10: Sudan has denied a report by Congolese rebels that its planes bombed two towns in the north of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a newspaper reported. The independent Al-Rai al-Aam daily quoted military spokesman General Mohammed Osman Yassin as saying no Sudanese planes had carried out any such air strikes and Khartoum did not interfere in the internal affairs of other countries. 

10: Two army convoys in Sudan that attempted to recapture the eastern town of Togan from the NDA have mutinied, rebel sources said. A statement in Nairobi by the SPLA said that the convoys, code-named Al-Shahid al-Tahir and Al-Gubush, rebelled after sustaining a major defeat at the hands of the NDA forces on June 3. 

11: A privatisation programme adopted by the Sudanese government in 1992 will result in some 200,000 workers losing their jobs by the time it is fully implemented in three years, a trade union official said. Mr. Hashim Ahmed Al-Bashir, the secretary of work relations at the Sudanese Workers Trade Unions Federation, said the studies show that the privatisation will force the dismissal of some 10 per cent of the work force  in the country. 

11: Sudan is ready to cooperate with the United States to ensure that it is not engaged in acts that could be construed as supporting terrorism,  president Bashir was quoted as saying. The remarks appeared in this week's Lebanese magazine al-Hawadith. 

13: The directors of  a hospital in Yei ordered the roofs of the pediatric and outpatient wards to be painted forest green. It was a decision they believe could save many lives. Until last month, both roofs featured a large Red Cross on a white background- a paint job intended to tell government bombers that this was a hospital and should not be targeted, but which was having exactly the opposite effect. 

14: A Sudanese opposition conference in Eritrea will not hamper the normalisation of Khartoum's ties with Asmara, Sudan's foreign minister said ahead of a meeting with Eritrean counterpart in Doha.The NDA meetings in Asmara are "a violation of the Doha agreement'' between El-Bashir and Eritrean leader Issayas Afeworki, Mustafa Othman Ismail told state television. 

15: The foreign ministers of Eritrea and Sudan have signed an agreement to advance the normalisation of their ties, their Qatari counterpart, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani announced. They agreed to establish a joint reconciliation commission to oversee the implementation of the reconciliation agreement signed on May 2 by the Sudanese president El-Bashir and Eritrean president Isayas Afeworki. 

15: Al-Turabi has left for a visit to Iran, an official at the Iranian embassy in Khartoum said. The government-owned Al Anbaa newspaper said Mr. Turabi would attend meetings aimed at setting up a union of parliaments in the Muslim world. 

15: Sudanese opposition leaders want democracy restored to the country as a condition of opening a dialogue with the government, one of them has said. "For a dialogue to be fruitful, it's necessary to return to democracy and freedom of expression," communist Party official Tigani al-Tayeb said from Asmara. 

16: Sudan and Eritrea have agreed on regular meetings to try  to resolve disputes between the Red Sea neighbours, Sudanese  State Radio Omdurman said. "The joint ministerial committee will  hold its first meeting in August," the radio quoted Sudanese foreign  minister Mustafa Osman Ismail as saying. 

16: Sudanese opposition leaders will meet Egyptian and Libyan  officials next month as part of a bid to reach a settlement with the Islamic -backed government in Khartoum, spokesman said. The  decision to seek Egyptian and Libyan support was contained in a  resolution adopted in Eritrea capital, Asmara, at the end of a  five-day meeting of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). 

18: An adviser to Sudan's president said in remarks published that  the government and rebels had agreed to defer peace talks aimed at  ending a conflict that has killed more than 1.5 million people. A  fourth round of negotiations was to have started between the  Islamist government and the SPLA. 

19: Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi begins a three-day visit to  Sudan during which he will have talks with president Omar  el-Bashir, Khartoum newspapers said. The privately-owned  newspaper Al Rai Al-Aam said Col Gaddafi's talks with Gen. Bashir  will cover bilateral relations and regional and international issues. 

19: Sudanese army spokesman Mohamed Osman Yassin has denied  allegations that opposition forces had taken over Dinder national  park in Blue Nile. News organisations quoted him as saying the  claim was "a tactic to raise the morale of their fighters" who had  "suffered great losses" in the war in the eastern front. 

19: The SPLA has confirmed that it had received official word from  Kenya's foreign ministry indicating that the next round of peace  talks mediated by the Inter-Governmental Authority on  Development (IGAD) was scheduled for July 19-24 in Nairobi.  President Bashir's advisor for peace affairs Nafi Ali Nafi told the  Sudanese News Agency (SUNA) that the postponement of the  peace talks with the rebel movement was intended to allow for a  broader opportunity for the attainment of peace. 

19: The UN World Food Programme (WFP) provided food to  nearly 1.5 million beneficiaries throughout Sudan in May to prepare  for the beginning of the "most difficult" stretch of the "traditional  hunger gap" period, WFP's latest weekly emergency report said.  The report said June marked the beginning of the period when the  food supply was low and WFP-assisted beneficiaries were "most  vulnerable." 

20: A cholera outbreak has been reported in Nimule and  Mogale displaced camps in eastern Equatoria. Forty cases were  reported on June 16 but increased to 81 cases and four deaths on  June 18. 

20: Gaddafi held talks with Sudanese leaders in Khartoum and was  due to visit a pharmaceutical  factory destroyed by US missiles last  year, state radio Omdurman said. Gaddafi said he had come to  Sudan to "visit the bunkers of confrontation", the radio said. 

21: Gaddafi toured the ruins of El-Shifa pharmaceutical factory,  which was destroyed nearly a year ago by US missiles. Gaddafi  walked through paved lower areas of the destroyed factory beside  President Bashir, who explained what various pieces of debris once  had been. 

21: The SPLA has dismissed as "propaganda" a report in 'The  Indian Ocean Newsletter' that claimed a planned SPLA offensive  against the government had been "fine-tuned" by several Rwandan,  Burundian and Ugandan officers. The newsletter, dated June 12,  also said some SPLA troops were under the supervision of  Rwandan, Burundian and Ugandan commanders. 

21: WFP has provided food relief to more than 10,200  internally-displaced persons (IDPs) who were recently displaced  again as a result of the demolition of their shelters in four Khartoum  squatter areas, a recent WFP report said. The food was distributed  through the NGO, ADRA. 

21: The Saudi-based Islamic Development Bank (IDB) and Sudan  have signed agreements that will provide US$ 9.5 million to help  address the effects of last year's serious floods in Sudan. SUNA  said the IDB will provide a US$ 8.5 million loan to help overcome  the effects of the floods while US$ 1 million will finance a project  to rehabilitate flood-affected schools, SUNA said. 

22: Commuters, politicians and religious leaders in Khartoum are  protesting hefty increases in public transport fares, press reports  said. Workers and student unions have issued statements protesting  the 50 to 75 per cent increases, while some members of parliament  are threatening to open debate on the issue in the national assembly  if the fare hikes are not dropped. 

24: The UN has launched its first humanitarian mission to Sudan's  Nuba Mountains region in more than a decade, hoping to assess the  needs of people in the rebel-held territory. The team includes  officials from UNICEF, the WFP and the UN Humanitarian  Co-odinator's Office. 

25: A joint Sudanese-Eritrean committee on security is to meet the  first week of July in a first round of discussions on normalising  bilateral relations, a press report said. The two countries broke off  relations in 1994, with Khartoum and Asmara each sheltering the  other's opposition groups. 

28: Sudan and Britain have agreed to partially restore diplomatic  relations after a 10-month hiatus caused by an American missile  strike on a Khartoum medical factory, a Sudanese newspaper  reported. The state-owned Al-Anbaa newspaper quoted foreign  minister Mustafa Osman Ismail as saying the two sides had agreed  to re-open their embassies at the level of charge d'affaires. 

28: Sudanese political circles regard a recent US Congress report  on alleged genocide and ethnic cleansing in southern Sudan a  prelude to armed foreign intervention, a newspaper reported. The  Al Rai Al-Aaam daily said the ruling National Congress, the  pro-government Political Association (Tewali) and an opposition  group agreed that the report was "a preparation for a direct  international intervention and invasion like what has happened in  Kosovo". 

28: Iranian foreign minister Kamal Kharazi has indefinitely  postponed a planned visit to Sudan. 

29: Forces allied to government troops have recaptured a border  town in southern Sudan, the pro-government's Alwan newspaper  said. "Forces in Jonglei State allied to the armed forces recaptured  the strategic town of Akobo on the Ethiopian border." 

29: The UN Committee on NGOs has withdrawn the accreditation  of a Swiss-based NGO, Christian Solidarity International (CSI),  after accusing it of hosting SPLM leader John Garang at the UN  Human Rights Commission's annual session in Geneva. CSI earlier  this year announced that it had bought the freedom of some  1,050-child slaves in southern Sudan at US $50 per person. 

29: The US House of Representatives has approved a resolution  condemning the Sudanese government for its "genocidal war in  southern Sudan." The resolution was passed by the full House by a  vote of 416 to 1. "It is the first time in six years that the full House  has passed legislation exclusively on Sudan," a statement from the  US Committee for Refugees (USCR), said. 

30: The NGO Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) has said the  cease-fire in southern Sudan had been broken in a series of attacks  designed to gain control of the area's oil fields. The organisation  said that, in the last month, government forces swept through  Ruweng County in western Upper Nile region, killing scores of  civilians, abducting hundreds and burning over 6,000 homes. 

30: Four bombs were dropped on Kajo Keji, of which one fell  inside the MSF-Switzerland compound and another on hospital  grounds. The bombs, which did not explode, were believed to have  been cluster bombs, a UNICEF/OLS report said. Another six  bombs were dropped on Yei on the same day, but no casualties  were reported. 

July

1: Kenya and Sudan are set for a major trade war if Kenya  carries out a threat not to allow a consignment of 3,000 metric  tonnes of Sudanese sugar into the country. Dr Ali Mansour, a  business development consultant for the importers, Sinnar Trading  Company, warned that should the consignment of white sugar be  re-exported to Sudan, it would initiate a chain of reactions that  would lead to a "definite" retaliatory action from the Sudanese  government. 

1: President Bashir, completing a troubled decade in power, has  offered a dialogue with his political opponents and renewed an  amnesty offer to rebels. In a televised address, President Bashir  reversed the government's previous refusal to summon a national  conference on the country's future. 

2: Northern Ugandan officials were planning to meet with the  Sudanese government over its support for rebels of the Lords'  Resistance Army. The semi-official New Vision newspaper of  Uganda, quoted Gulu district chairman Walter Ochola as saying his  team would travel to Sudan to meet National Assembly speaker  Hassan al-Turabi "and tell him to stop supporting rebel leader  Joseph Kony's war which is killing innocent people in Acholi". 

5: Sudan's central bank, The Bank of Sudan, has stopped dealings  in the pound, saying the Dinar was the official currency, the  pro-government Akhbar Al-Youm newspaper said. Ten pounds  equal one Dinar. "The Bank of Sudan has announced the  cancellation of the Sudanese pound," the daily said. 

7: Heavy fighting has raged between two pro-government factions  in the oil-richUnity State in southern Sudan, both sides have  reported. The fighting pits the South Sudan Defence Force (SSDF),  led by Riek Machar, chairman of a council ruling the south, against  forces of rival warlord Paulino Matip. 

8: The Ugandan government and SPLA have denied accusations by  Khartoum that they were planning an offensive, along with "allies",  against Sudan. "These are the usual lies about Uganda," Uganda's  Presidential Press Secretary Hope Kivengere told IRIN. The SPLM  termed the accusations a "big propaganda network" and "pure lies". 

8: The United Arab Emirates and Sudan have agreed to upgrade  diplomatic relations to ambassadorial level after a seven-year gap,  the official WAM News Agency reported. It quoted Sudan's foreign  minister Mustsafa Osman Ismail as saying that "meetings with  officials resulted in an agreement to return the level of diplomatic  representation between the two states to ambassadorial level." 

10: Sudan said government troops had killed 30 rebels and repelled  an attack southeast of the capital of Khartoum, the state Akhbar  al-Youm newspaper reported. "At dawn the day before yesterday,  outlaw forces attacked the area of Um al-Kheir, west of the Dinder  River, and the armed forces repulsed them, forcing them to flee,"  the daily quoted army spokesman Mohammed Osman Yassin as  saying. 

12: Sixteen civilians were injured when a group of soldiers attacked  customers at a club in Wadi Halfa Town in northern Sudan, a  newspaper reported. The Alwan daily said an army lieutenant had a  quarrel with a youth in the club, returned to his garrison just  outside town and came back with a group of soldiers, who blocked  the club's entrance and beat up customers at random with canes and  belts. 

12: A Sudanese rebel leader said the government wanted to torpedo   the opposition's unity as part of its strategy in the country's civil  war. "The regime's keenness to talk to several mediators at several  fora proves …a desperate attempt to break up our ranks," said Col.  Garang. 

14: Sudanese troops repulsed an attack by rebel fighters in eastern  Sudan killing 47 of them, an army spokesman claimed in published  remarks. The clashes took place in the eastern state of Gedaref,  some 350 km east of Khartoum, the pro-government daily  newspaper, Akhbar Al Youm, quoted the spokesman, Gen.  Mohammed Osman Yassin as saying. The claim could not be  confirmed independently. 

16: The next round of peace negotiations between the Khartoum government and the SPLA will be held in Nairobi from July 19, the government has said. Junior foreign minister Gebriel Rorec said he was notified of the two days earlier by the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), which sponsors mediation between the government and SPLA. 

16: The Sudanese government welcomed Egyptian mediation between Khartoum and the opposition in an effort to end the country's civil war, press reports said. President Omar el-Bashir praised his country's improved ties with Egypt whose president Hosni Mubarak was reported to have offered to host a national dialogue conference for the Sudanese government and the opposition. 

18:  Talks on ending 16 years of fighting in southern Sudan will resume in Nairobi on July 19 with both Sudanese government and southern rebels expressing hope for a break-through. "We are always hopeful for a settlement," Mr. Samson Kwaje, a spokesman for the SPLA, said. 

20:  Peace talks aimed at ending a long civil war in Sudan re-started in Nairobi with the rebels immediately declaring they would extend a partial cease-fire. The SPLA said it would extend a cease-fire in the vast southern provinces of Bhar el-Ghazal and Upper Nile. 

20: Donors have warned that it would be difficult to continue  humanitarian assistance operations in southern Sudan if the current  round of talks did not achieve progress. At the opening session of  the talks, a group of donors under the IGAD Partners Forum said  funding would not go on indefinitely. 

20: US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has announced that President Bill Clinton would "soon" appoint a special envoy to Sudan. The envoy's job would be to "focus on reducing human rights abuses, improving humanitarian responses and revitalising the regional peace effort led by Kenya," a statement from the US Information Agency said. 

20: Sudan's foreign minister Mustafa Osman Ismail has said his government would "study" the US decision to appoint an envoy, news agencies reported. "Our evaluation will be based on the principle of dialogue and keenness to normalise ties with the United States and the person proposed to implement the resolution." 

20: A rural development project to assist close to 700,000 people in Sudan's western provinces of Um Ruwaba and Bara will be financed through a US$ 10.5-million loan provided by the UN International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). "The overall goal of the seven-year North Kordofan Rural Development project and the target communities is to assure their food security and enhance the resilience of their way of life to drought and natural disaster," an IFAD statement said. 

20: Results of a nutrition survey conducted in several counties of Bahr el Ghazal in April/May indicate an average of 22 per cent global malnutrition, according to OLS. "This figure indicates a significant improvement in contrast to the situation last year, but pockets of serious malnutrition remain," OLS said.  21: The Khartoum state authorities have announced plans to relocate some 230,000 displaced people in the vicinity of the capital, humanitarian sources said. The announcement was made to aid organisations by the Humanitarian Aid Department (HAD) in Khartoum, in keeping with the government's decision to continue with the re-planning of Greater Khartoum. 

21: Faction fighting which has been raging in the oil-rich Unity State, appears to be spreading, the BBC reported. It said clashes between the South Sudan Defence Force (SSDF) of Riak Machar and the splinter SSDF-United - both of which have made a peace deal with the Sudanese government - had now moved to Upper Nile State. 

21: The UN Children's Fund, UNICEF, said heavy fighting in the western Upper Nile region was preventing a measles vaccination campaign from reaching tens of thousands of children. In a press release, UNICEF said nearly 50,000 children under-five were unreachable in the towns of Baw, Duar, Koch, Leer and Nhialdiu. 

22: Sudan's former military dictator returned from exile on a state-owned plane to a hero's welcome- to become just another politician. In an interview, Fatihi Ahmed Khalil of the ruling National Council party brushed off suggestions Gen. Gafaar Numeiry would be signed on by the government to act as a roving statesman for his troubled country, a role his aides had once said he expected to play. 

23: The Sudanese government and rebels have agreed at peace talks in Nairobi to set up a standing body to conduct peace negotiations, rebels said. The talks aim to end a war that has devastated Africa's largest state and led to death, through war and famine, of more than 1.5 million people since 1983. 

26: A civil administration workshop aimed at training county level administrators on local government procedures has began in Akot, Rumbek County in Bahr el Ghazal. The workshop has been organised by SPLM/SRRA with support from UNICEF and is funded by USAID. 

26: The fourth round of Sudan peace talks ended in Nairobi with "little progress" after the Sudanese government and the SPLA failed to achieve a breakthrough in any of the substantive issues. Apart from procedural issues for further talks, the two parties were unable to agree on the issues of self-determination for the south, defining a border, religion and a comprehensive cease-fire, news organisations said. 

26: The chairman of the peace committee in Khartoum's national assembly and a member of the delegation to the recent Igad talks, Abdullah Deng Nhial, has accused the SPLA of presenting a "new map" of southern Sudan which added the northern towns of Sinjah and Rusayris to south Sudan. SUNA news agency quoted him as referring to "foreign influence" over the movement. 

26: Operation Lifeline Sudan has warned that the failure of the Sudanese government and rebel SPLA to agree on extending the humanitarian cease-fire in southern Bahr al Ghazal state or extend it to other parts of the country "threatened to imperil the lives of hundreds of thousands of children". In a statement, OLS also expressed fear that renewed fighting could trigger "massive displacement" in region already weakened by the 1998 famine. 

27: The NGO, CARE-Sudan, has expressed disappointment over the outcome of the last peace talks between the Sudanese government and SPLA. "It would be nice if a strong peace process could be pursued which would forge ahead and stop the war," CARE Assistant Country Director Ann Morris said. 

27: Some 140 people have died in the past month following outbreaks of waterborne diseases, especially diarrhoea, in the Nile River state of northern Sudan, the BBC quoted Sudanese health ministry officials as saying. Over 1,300 people have been infected since the rains started in June, although the total number of people infected throughout the country stands at 6,500. 

27: The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) will inaugurate a new emergency ward in its Lopiding field hospital in Lokichoggio, northern Kenya, on the border with Sudan. In a statement, ICRC said the ward has 20 beds and a five-bed intensive care unit and will be manned by two doctors and 12 nurses. 

28: "A flight ban Khartoum imposed on an eastern region of Sudan this month could provoke a humanitarian catastrophe, the UN's World Food Programme warned in Nairobi. The ban, announced on  July 14, renders most of Western Upper Nile region inaccessible to the WFP and other relief agencies trying to deliver urgent humanitarian assistance to 150, 000 people affected by civil war. 

29: A senior Khartoum official is to ask Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi to act as mediator between south Sudan and Uganda, a spokesman said. Sudanese assistant president Riek Machar, who has defected to the Khartoum Islamic regime from the southern rebel movement, was due to meet president Moi, said Mr Makwac Teny Youk, spokesman of Machar's United Democratic Salvation Front (UDSF). 

August 

2: More than 250, 000 people in Sudan's Bahr el-Ghazal region face the prospect of famine due to continued drought, missionary sources have said. Monsignor Caesar Mazzloari, the Catholic Bishop of Rumbek Diocese in the affected region said: "There are undeniable signs of hunger in the counties of Yirol West, Rumbek and North Tonj as a result of a severe drought." 

2: Over 10, 000 children from Slovakia, Kenya and Austria have sent letters to president El-Bashir and Col. Garang expressing their hope for peace in Sudan. The Slovakian children belong to ERKO, a Catholic movement that champions the rights of under-privileged  children in the developing world. 

3: Sudanese opposition leaders ended a strategy session in Libya with a call for more political freedom in their homeland, according to a statement faxed to the press. In the statement, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) said its members discussed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's offer to mediate in Sudan's war. 

4: Donors will find it difficult to continue the current level of humanitarian aid to southern Sudan if there is no progress in peace talks to end 16 years of fighting, the Italian ambassador to Kenya said. Mr. Alberto Balboni chairs the committee of western nations known as partners of the regional seven-member Inter-Governmental Authority on Development. 

5: Col. Gaddafi has arrived in Egypt for talks with president Hosni Mubarak on the Middle-East peace process and efforts to end the war in Sudan, officials said. Gaddafi crossed the desert border post at Sallum in a motorcade headed for the nearby Mediterranean city of Marsa Matruh, where he was to meet with president Mubarak in a hotel that belongs to the defence ministry. 

5: Floods have killed at least 15 people and destroyed hundreds of homes in and round the Sudanese capital newspapers reported. The reports, which said 2,000 homes had been destroyed, predicted waterborne diseases would be the next crisis caused by recent heavy rains. 

6: Sudan is ready for any "impartial" investigation into allegations that it used chemical or biological weapons in its war against rebel-held territory, the foreign minister was quoted as saying. Foreign minister Mustafa Osman Ismail's statement was apparently in response to a UN announcement that it is sending two medical teams to two towns in southern Sudan to investigate the allegations. 

6: Two Sudanese planes were used in the deadly air raid carried out by government forces against rebel positions in the northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo, a rebel leader said. "The two planes were of the type Antonov-12, registered in Sudan," said Jean-Pierre Bemba, leader of the Uganda-backed Congo Liberation Movement. 

7: Colonel Garang has rejected a 70-day cease-fire declared by the government in the strife-torn south of the country, saying Khartoum was insincere. "They (government) are not serious, they do not mean it, they are lying, it is sadistic,'' Col. Garang said. 

7: A team of medical doctors sent by the United Nations to treat hundreds of civilians suffering from severe infections allegedly caused by toxic chemical weapons, arrived in the southern Sudanese towns of Lainya and Kaya, on the border with Uganda. Mr. Sharad Sapra, spokesman at the UN humanitarian office in Nairobi, said the team would determine the cause of the disease and provide treatment for the affected persons. 

7: The Sudanese government has gained a diplomatic advantage by announcing a unilateral cease-fire in its war with the southern rebels, analysts said. The declaration of a two-month cease-fire across Sudan was immediately rejected by the SPLA, which termed it a trick and said it was observing its own limited humanitarian cease-fire.  8: The Sudanese military spokesman, Mohamed Osman Yassin, has denied a DRC rebel claim that Sudanese military aircraft were helping President Laurent Kabila in his war against them. "These are false allegations that are part of a plot for finding excuses for an act of aggression against Sudan," journalists quoted him as saying.. 

8: Sudan said it is committed to a comprehensive cease-fire declared in its conflict with rebel fighters, an independent newspaper said. "The cease-fire announcement comes from a position of strength as the army is in control of the situation in all theatres of operations, in the south and the east," the deputy chief of staff Yassin, was quoted as saying by the independent Al-Rai Al-Aam newspaper. 

10: President El-Bashir has praised a Libyan initiative aimed at reconciling his government with the NDA, the Khartoum press said. "Libya was the only country that has offered a beneficial initiative," President El-Bashir said at a public meeting in El Obeid, capital of North Kordofan State in central Sudan. 

11: In the wake of their recent summit, Egypt and Libya have set the ball rolling for a peace conference involving the Sudanese government and opposition, a Sudanese opposition spokesman said. The two countries set up a joint committee to build international support for such a conference and formed another one to work out organisational details, Umma Party spokesman Hassan Ahmed al-Hassan told journalists. 

12: No churches will be built in any part of the Sudanese capital without the approval of the government if the decree being drafted by the ministry of social planning comes into force in a few days' time, Al-Rai al-Aam daily reported. The director of church administration at the ministry of social planning, Mr. Abdal-Jabar Osman, told the daily that a number of makeshift churches have mushroomed in shanty townships in the Sudanese capital without approval from the government. 

13: Heavy rains followed by floods have destroyed more than 100 houses, swept away over 1,000 livestock and left some 278 families homeless throughout Sudan, the daily Alwan reported. In a report from Sodary, some 750 km west of Khartoum, the pro-government newspaper said the floods and rains destroyed some 110 houses, the prison and four schools in the town. 

16: A Libyan emissary is due to arrive in Khartoum to discuss a bid by Tripoli to reconcile the Sudanese government and the opposition, Sudanese foreign minister Mustafa Othman Ismail said. Mr. Ismail reiterated his government's acceptance of Libya's five-point initiative and called on the opposition to do likewise. 

16: State-owned Sudan Airlines has resumed a once-weekly flight to Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa after a four-year suspension, thanks to improving relations between the two countries, officials said. Ethiopia cancelled all flights between the two countries in September 1995, as part of sanctions against the Sudanese government, which it accused of involvement in a June 1995 attempt to assassinate Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in Addis Ababa. 

16: Sudanese assistant president Riek Machar is ready to step down in protest at Khartoum's failure to implement a 1997-peace pact, an aide said. Dr. Machar, who is also set to quit his post as South Sudan Co-ordination Council (SSCC) chairman, has dissociated himself from responsibility for the "imminent collapse'' of the peace agreement signed between him, other rebel leaders and the government. 

18: An independent Arabic daily, Khartoum's al-Rai al-Akhbar, has been suspended for one week with immediate effect by the national Press Council for running an opinion article critical of the internal policies of the government. The opinion, written by an advocate, Mr. Bedawi Tajo, accused the government of creating an atmosphere conducive to international intervention in Sudan's internal affairs. 

20: The Sudanese government has demanded that the United States admit that its attack on a Khartoum pharmaceutical plant last year was a "mistake" based on false allegations it was producing chemical weapons. Information minister Ghazi Salah Edin Atabani also told a press conference on the eve of the anniversary of the missile raid that Khartoum was renewing a demand for an international fact-finding commission to examine the allegation. 

23: The SPLA has accused the UN of laxity in finding the truth about Khartoum's alleged use of poisonous chemicals in air raids against rebels. "We have received reliable information that the UN headquarters in New York objected to the investigations taking place because of pressure from the National Islamic Front government," the SPLA said in a statement. 

23: The Sudanese government is planning a committee to organise national dialogue conference to promote reconciliation in the civil war-racked country, the independent newspaper Al-Rai Al-Aam reported. 

24: The SPLA killed four policemen during a weekend attack on a police post near the Ethiopian border, an independent newspaper reported. "The police force at Khor Adar post, consisting of 47 policemen, repulsed the attack with courage," the daily al-Rai-al Aam quoted police spokesman Major General al-Tayeb Abdel Rahman Mukhtar as saying. "Four policemen were martyred." 

24: A joint Sudanese Eritrean security committee set up to ease border tension began meeting in the eastern Sudanese border town of Kassala, the government-owned Al-Anbaa newspaper reported. Eritrea, a country preoccupied by its conflict with Ethiopia, is keen to end tension with neighbouring Sudan, which itself is trying to mend fences with several of its neighbours. 

24: NDA secretary-general Mubarak al-Mahdi was quoted by Akhbar Al-Youm daily as saying that preparations for a dialogue with the government were progressing well. Mr. Mubarak said the way toward a dialogue had begun with a meeting in Geneva in May between opposition leader Sadek al-Mahdi, a former Sudanese prime minister, and National Congress (NC) secretary-general Hassan al-Turabi. 

25: Sudan information minister Ghazi Salahuddin will lead a government-approved delegation in peace talks with opposition parties, a government newspaper reported. The meeting will aim to prepare for a national dialogue conference to promote reconciliation in Sudan's 16-year civil war. 

26: A prominent northern Sudanese politician has urged president El-Bashir to end the country's 16-year-old civil war by letting the south secede, the independent Al-Sahafa newspaper reported. It quoted Mr. Musa Dirar, a member of the NC in parliament, as saying it would be better for the south and the north to live as good neighbours. 

27: Sudan government and an opposition alliance will meet in Cairo on September 13 to prepare peace talks in Sudan, a Libyan diplomat said. "The upcoming preparatory delegation meeting in Cairo...will  lay the basis for the national dialogue conference," Mr. Suleiman al-Shahoumi, a leader of an Egyptian-Libyan team trying to end Sudan's 16-year-old civil war, said. 

28: President Bill Clinton has named Harry Johnson of Florida special envoy to Sudan, a US-branded supporter of terrorism. Johnston, a Democrat, chaired the House Foreign Affairs Committee's subcommittee on Africa when he was in Congress. As envoy, he will press Sudan to improve its human rights record. 

30: The Sudanese opposition has reportedly declared its adherence to the Egyptian-Libyan initiative to solve the crisis in Sudan, the Egyptian news agency MENA said. It said that during a meeting of opposition leaders Al-Mahdi of the Ummah Party and Garang of the SPLA) in Cairo, they had stressed that a "political solution" was one of the options for the Sudanese opposition to resolve the current crisis in Sudan. 

September 

1: The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has lifted its 1990 declaration of non-cooperation with Sudan citing the country's commitment since February 1997 to a "schedule of payments" to the organisation and its progress in "implementing macroeconomic and structural policies." An IMF statement said the board also decided that it could consider lifting the suspension of Sudan's voting and related rights. 

2: Sudan has sent an inaugural shipment of 600,000 barrels of crude oil to Singapore, news agencies said. BBC quoted president El-Bashir as saying the exports were a reward from God for "Sudan's faithfulness". He dismissed threats by rebels that they would blow up the newly-opened 1600-km pipeline. 

2: Sudan's external relations minister Mustafa Uthman Ismail said his government was not in a hurry to issue a decision or statement on the recent appointment of US envoy to Sudan. Sudan "would monitor his movements and watch what happened in the corridors of the Congress and the American administration and would only then take appropriate measures in line with its national interests," Sudanese television reported.. 

3: The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies have appealed for funds and material support for more than 100,000 people in need of urgent assistance as flooding worsens in Sudan. A Federation statement received by IRIN said it had launched a 1.2 million-Swiss franc appeal to support relief operations. 

3: Poor weather conditions reportedly continued to impede humanitarian operations in Bahr el Ghazal, an Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS) report said. Distributions and assessments in Madhol, Marial Bai, Wuncum, Midel, Akon and Alek all in Bahr el Ghazal were cancelled due to heavy rains that have flooded drop zones. It also noted that the road from Kaya on the Ugandan-Sudan border northwards into western Equatoria remained closed to OLS agencies following bombings in that. 

3: WFP will provide food aid for nearly 30,000 people in eastern Chad, including Sudanese refugees, WFP reported. The US $2.6-million project will provide 2,590 mt of cereals, beans and oil for distribution by UNHCR to 23,000 Sudanese refugees and 6,500 Chadians. 

6: Increasing incidences of armed crime in Kenya could be linked to an illegal trade in weapons involving the SPLA, Uganda's pastoralist Karamajong warriors and Kenyan traders. The weapons, consisting mainly of AK-47 rifles, grenades and ultra-light G3A3 automatic guns, originating from the SPLA-controlled southern Sudan and are trafficked through Karamajo region in Uganda to West Pokot in north-western Kenya. 

6: Sudan is fully committed to a Libyan-Egyptian initiative aimed at reconciling the government and its opponents, newspapers quoted information minister Salahuddin as saying. "We are prepared to participate in the preparatory meeting of the national dialogue conference at any time and place requested by the other side," Mr Salahuddin said, according to the pro-government daily Akhbar Al-Youm. 

8: Sudan's junta has complained that Washington had named a special envoy without consulting Khartoum, a move it said could "confuse" aid operations. In a statement, a government spokesman said that Khartoum had "voiced its reservation over the improper manner in which the US envoy has been appointed without consulting it". 

9: Kenyan presidential envoy to the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), Daniel Mboya, has left Khartoum for Norway to discuss issues relating to the next round of IGAD-mediated peace talks, scheduled for September 24 in Nairobi. An official at the Kenyan foreign ministry said Mboya received an invitation from the IGAD Partners' Forum in Norway requesting him to pass through Khartoum before proceeding to Norway. 

9: Sudan's Energy Minister Awad Elijaz has invited foreign firms to invest in the development of the country's oil fields, news organisations reported. He reportedly told journalists that there are indications of oil in each of Sudan's 26 states. "These reserves could be large. 

9: A joint needs assessment team comprising WFP staff from the northern and southern sectors have carried out a mission in five locations along the lower Sobat river corridor where they noted "fewer than expected" people in some locations, indicating recent population movement. An Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS) southern sector report said the locations visited included Baliet, Adong, Abwong, Guel Achel and Dini in the Unity, Upper Nile and Jonglei areas. 

9: The international NGO, Action by Churches Together (ACT), is appealing for some US $82,255 to assist over 100,000 people in urgent need of humanitarian assistance following the current floods in several parts of Sudan. ACT says the floods_which have resulted from the "unusually heavy" rains have damaged and destroyed more than 20,000 homes, drinking water sources and latrines. This was posing "serious health hazards", especially in the form of malaria and diarrhoeal diseases. 

10: Two Sudanese MPs have concluded a five-day visit to Uganda in which they talked to victims of abductions by the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). The two were "physically shocked" at what they saw and heard, a UNICEF official told IRIN. "At the end of the visit, they were convinced that the humanitarian aspect of the insurgency should be separated from the political aspect," he said. 

10: Col.Garang is ready to meet president El-Bashir to end 16 years of civil war, a top ruling party official has said. Mr Mutasem Abdul Rahim, the secretary of the NC in Khartoum, announced that Col. Garang sent a message to the government to say he was willing to hold talks. 

10: A team of Sudanese Members of Parliament who have been in Uganda have offered to help in the retrieving and repatriation of Ugandan children held captive by the LRA in southern Sudan. The decision by the Sudanese MPs follows an on the spot assessment of the situation in northern Uganda. 

14: Commander Kerubino Kuanyin Bol, the man who fired the first shot of the 1983 rebellion that gave birth to SPLA, has been killed by a rival group in southern Sudan, the pro-government Alwan daily reported. Quoting what it called its "special source", the paper said Bol was killed at Wankai by an officer who had broken away from a government-supported militia headed by major General Paulino Matip. 

14: The International Monetary Fund loaned its member states a record US$30.5 billion in the financial year that ended April 30, but now believes the worst of the world's economic problems are over. Sudan, with a gross national product of some US$7.9 billion, owed IMF some US$1.57 billion on April 30 and was the biggest single debtor in terms of overdue payments.    S.C.IO.- Nairobi, September 15, 1999 

16: Veteran Sudan rebel leader Kerubion Kwanyin Bol, a warlord who is thought to have fired the first shot in Sudan's 16-year civil war, has died after being wounded in faction fighting, a relative said. "I can confirm the sad news," Acuil Malith told Reuters in Nairobi. "The commander has died. "

16: Flash floods have made more than 50,000 people homeless and cut off power and water supplies and telephones in the northern Sudanese town of Dongola, newspapers reported. The privately-owned Al-Sahafa daily quoted flood committee officials as warning of the danger of an epidemic from drinking water polluted by sewage and asking for donations to supply food, drugs, tenets and drinking water. 

17: A Sudanese court jailed seven people who stoned  the cars of Northern State governor Bedewi al-Khair and other officials. The demonstrators blamed authorities for not coping with floods. Al-Sahafa daily said a court in Dongola sentenced seven protestors to six months in prison. 

20: To some Sudanese, warlord Major-General Kerubino was a psychotic killer. But to his 10 wives and dozens of children, he was a loving husband and father. Kerubino was killed last week in a mutiny. 

20: Sudan's presidential advisor for authentication affairs Ahmad Ali al-Imam has said 75 per cent of the northern town of Dunqulah was under floodwater. Sudanese radio quoted him as saying the flood situation in the town and surrounding areas was "beyond the control of
individuals and institutions". 

21: Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir visited Dunqulah town and inspected residential areas affected by the floods, Sudanese television reported. He described the situation as "pre-destined by God" and urged citizens to be "patient with these afflictions".

21: A meeting of the preparatory committee for a national accord between the government and the opposition has been set for October, Suna news agency reported. The agency quoted Foreign Minister Mustafa Uthman Ismail as saying this agreement was reached during a meeting between Sudanese, Libyan and Egyptian foreign ministers on the fringes of the recent OAU summit in Libya. 

22: Sudanese rebels said they had blown up Sudan's newly-completed oil pipeline to deliver a message to Khartoum's Islamist government. "We wanted to show the government that we are able to do what we want," Lt-General Abdel Rahman, deputy commander of joint opposition forces said in Cairo. 

22: Up to four million Sudanese were internally displaced by the end of 1998, a US Committee for Refugees (USCR) report said. It termed this the "largest internally displaced population in the world". It also said a huge population of the exiles lived in Egypt and elsewhere, "many of whom considered themselves refugees although host governments did not give them official refugee status".

22: The SPLA is positioning its forces in the south in readiness to respond to "likely" attacks from the government side. According to SPLM/A spokesman Samson Kwaje "repositioning" of troops in the area is not new. "We do this every year especially towards October at the end
of the rainy season to make our army ready for attacks," he told IRIN".

28: Khartoum residents have filed lawsuits against Sudanese riot police for breaking into their homes and damaging property in a crackdown against a student protest, a newspaper reported. A number of people living in west Khartoum around the Two Niles and Sudan universities have taken cases to the attorney-general, suing the police for violations of privacy, the independent Al-Rai al-Aam daily said. 

29: Security police have detained an outspoken critic of the government, an independent newspaper said. Mr Ahmed Ali Al-Sayed has not been seen since he left home to report to the security police headquarters, said a family member who declined to be named.

29: Sudan will ask Egypt to extradite a rebel commander who said his forces blew up a new oil export pipeline in northern Sudan, newspapers said. Al-Rai al-Aam daily quoted public prosecutor Abdel Nasser Wonan as saying the request to hand over Rahman Said would be presented to the Egyptian justice ministry within two days under the terms of an Arab anti-terrorism protocol. 

October

4: Rebel leader John Garang said Sudan's opposition alliance will hold talks this month in Egypt or Uganda on the future of the war-ravaged country. Garang told Reuters in an interview that the talks would come up with a framework for any future negotiations with the country's Islamist government in Khartoum.

5: Sudanese security forces raided and searched the home of ousted premier Sadeq al-Mahdi, apparently seeking evidence connected with a bomb attack on an oil pipeline. The government agents went to Mr Mahdi's house in Omudrman, Khartoum's twin city on the Nile, and rifled through it for four hours in the presence of his wife, Sara al Fadil, and his son Siddek. 

6: Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa and Libya's special representative for Africa, former foreign minister Ali Tureiki said they had agreed on steps to implement a joint peace initiative for peace in Sudan. Reuters said they told reporters after a meeting in Cairo contacts were underway to prepare for dialogue and both sides in the Sudanese conflict should abstain from anything likely to obstruct the peace initiative and from hostile media campaigns against each other. 

6: Two humanitarian teams returned to Khartoum after completing the first phase of an inter-agency assessment of humanitarian needs in the Nuba Mountains, South Kordofan State, a UN press release stated.  The two-week mission - comprising representatives of the FAO, UNOCHA, UNDP, UNICEF, WFP, WHO and the NGOs: CARE and Save the Children Fund (UK) - visited several locations controlled by the SPLM in Heiban and Nogorban counties. 

6: In the southern state of Bahr el-Ghazal, humanitarian access to camps for internally-displaced people (IDPs) around Wau continued to be a problem. Negotiations between agencies and the Rehabilitation and Humanitarian Aid Commission (RHAC) for "free and unrestricted access to the IDPs camps" were ongoing but, in addition, the presence of the pro-government Arab Murahaleen militia was creating tension among IDPs in the area, OLS reported. 

6: Col. Garang has said that if the Khartoum government and opposition groups did not reach an agreement soon, the country would collapse totally. "We are now living in a double apartheid era, based on race and religion. Our struggle is for liberation, basic human rights and equality for women," the South African Press Agency (SAPA) quoted him as saying. 

6: Prosecutor-General Abdel Nasr Wonan has formally asked Egypt to extradite NDA military chief Abdel Aziz Khalid - in addition to spokesman Abdel Rahman Said, whose extradition Sudan had previously requested - on terrorism charges related to the 19 September rebel bombing of Sudan's new oil pipeline near Atbara, responsibility for which was claimed by the NDA, the official SUNA news agency reported. 

7: Sudanese foreign minister Mustafa Osman Ismail has asked the international community during his address to the UN General Assembly to take punitive action against Col. Garang, similar to the sanctions against UNITA rebel leader Jonas Savimbi in Angola, in order to pressure him into "meaningful participation" in the peace process. He said Sudan was committed to a comprehensive ceasefire in all parts of southern Sudan "for humanitarian reasons and to prepare the atmosphere for peace talks".

7: President Omar el-Bashir told the National Assembly that the proceeds of oil exports would go towards building the country's infrastructure, "with special consideration for southern states and other war-affected areas", according to an address broadcast on national television. He said government policy would focus on electricity, irrigation, roads, capacity-building, scientific research and social programmes, with special attention to be devoted to the south and other war-affected areas.

16: The Sudan government has extended a comprehensive cease-fire "all over the areas of operations" in the south for another three months, starting on October 15, news agencies reported. State television said the government's decision was based on its concern to create a "positive" and "conducive" environment for the attainment of peace and was in response to appeals made by "brothers and friends." 

16: Some 10,000 members of the founding conference of the ruling National Congress (NC) party have unanimously nominated President Omar al Bashir as the party's candidate for the next presidential elections. He was also elected party chairman while Hassan al Turabi was elected party secretary-general, Radio Omdurman reported. 

17:  Egypt has decided to expel two suspects in connection with the September oil pipeline bombing near Atbara in eastern Sudan, terming them "persona non grata", Radio Omdurman said. It said Egypt had decided to expel the two, Abdi al Rahman Sa'id and Abdal Aziz Khalid, prior to receiving a Sudanese government request for their extradition to Sudan. 

17: Insecurity in northern areas of Kassala State in eastern Sudan continue to hinder WFP activities in Hamashkoreib province, the latest weekly Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS) report said. Road transport between Kassala and Port Sudan remains cut, hampering the delivery of food aid in the area, it said.

17: The WFP barge convoy to Juba remained in Malakal because of concerns over the security situation in Unity State, affecting the delivery of food aid to thousands of vulnerable people in the area, the weekly OLS report said. The barge convoy was carrying food for over 300,000 beneficiaries in Unity, Upper Nile, Jonglei and Equatoria regions. 

17: Five WFP staff members, together with other UN/NGO personnel, were evacuated from Bentiu following further deterioration of the security situation in the state, the weekly OLS report said. The evacuation resulted in the suspension of OLS annual needs assessment missions in Mayom, Tong and Gezira, it added. 

18: A meeting of Sudanese opposition leaders set to take place in Cairo, Egypt, to work out a position on peace talks with Khartoum was postponed, opposition sources said. The meeting was rescheduled after some officials, including the head of Umma Party, former Sudanese prime minister Sadek al-Mahdi, failed to reach Cairo in time, Umma spokesman Ahmed al-Hassan said. 

20: Libya and Egypt are seeking to revive efforts to reconcile Sudan's Islamist rulers with their foes and end the civil war, a Sudanese opposition leader said.  "Egypt and Libya are trying to arrange a preparatory meeting for a national conference," Mubarak al-Mahdi, secretary-general of the NDA said. 

21: Two Sudanese rebel factions took no time at all to disagree on the best way to approach peace talks with the Khartoum government as they began a two-day strategy meeting in Cairo. Mohammed Osman al-Mirghani, president of the NDA, said a Libyan-Egyptian peace initiative launched last May was the best "comprehensive political solution". 

23: Calling on the government of Sudan to take the people of the rebellious south seriously, US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright committed US funding and support to end the 16-year civil war. Ms Albright who will be meeting with southern Sudan rebel leader John Garang said that despite hostile relations between Washington and the Sudanese government, she believed the US could play a role in helping to mediate the conflict. 

23: Bentiu, the main town in Sudan's oil-rich Unity State, is being constantly shelled by forces formerly allied to the government, witnesses said. Travellers who arrived in Khartoum in army aircraft and other means told Reuters that Bentiu is being bombarded by troops of renegade commander Peter Gadiet. 

24: Albright met Col. Garang to discuss possible food aid for his guerilla army and efforts to end the country's 16-year-old civil war. The US government provides diplomatic support to SPLA in its insurgency against the government in Khartoum but has refused to supply it with military aid. 

25: Egyptian foreign minister Amr Moussa held talks with Sudanese counterpart Mustafa Osman Ismail on the vexed question of how best to negotiate an end to Sudan's 16-year-old civil war. Ismail told reporters after the talks that Sudan's Islamist-led government saw merit in both peace channels now on offer. 

25: Pibor River province in Sudan faces evacuation after the worst floods for over 30 years caused devastation and brought life to a virtual standstill, a newspaper said. Floods have submerged most of the province, wiping out cattle and wildlife and destroying schools and hospitals after a week of unseasonable heavy rains, Ismail Konyi, the commissioner of the province was quoted as saying by the government-owned Al Anbaa newspaper. 

25: Albright has said Washington would seek more international pressure on the Sudanese government in a bid to end the long running civil war in the south of the county. Speaking in Nairobi after a morning of talks on the Sudanese conflict, she criticised countries, which think investment in Sudan will trickle down to the people. 

29: President Bashir, whose country's ties with Cairo have long been strained, will visit Egypt soon, foreign minister Amr Moussa said. Mr. Moussa told reporters in Cairo after talks between president Hosni Mubarak and Sudanese foreign minister Mustafa Osman Ismail that he felt "optimistic" about ties with Egypt's southern neighbour. 

30: Saying it was "deeply concerned" that oil extraction in Sudan may be contributing to the forced relocation of civilians, Canada has announced it would field a mission to examine allegations of human rights abuses in the country. "If it becomes evident that oil extraction is exacerbating the conflict in Sudan, or resulting in violations of human rights or humanitarian law, the government of Canada may consider, if required, economic and trade restrictions," Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy said in a press release. 

November 

6: WFP barges have started returning to Kosti from Malakal because insecurity has prevented the food aid convoy from proceeding towards Juba, WFP said. The barge convoy, which arrived in Malakal on September 21 carrying food for over 300,000 beneficiaries in rebel- and government-held locations along the Nile River corridor, had been unable to continue its journey upstream due to insecurity in Unity State, WFP said. 

6: Torrential rains in the southern Kordofan capital of Kadugli have affected over 18,000 people, including some 8,300 children, according to a report from the UN Humanitarian Co-ordination Unit (UNHCU) in Khartoum. 

7: OLS will be "condemned to fight a perpetual uphill battle against human misery and deprivation" without the full and uninterrupted co-operation of the warring parties, UN secretary-general Kofi Annan said in his annual report on emergency assistance to Sudan. Annan noted that the 1998 humanitarian crisis in Sudan had been exacerbated by a temporary ban on OLS flights. 

11: The French organisation, Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF) has branded Sudan among the 20 "enemies of the Internet". Some 45 governments control partial or total Internet use under the pretext of protecting their citizens from "subversive ideas" or content threatening national unity. 

11: Sudanese rebels have rejected an invitation to negotiate directly in Canada with the Khartoum government, but said they welcomed a Canadian initiative to end their war. Foreign minister Osman Ismail said he was ready to meet Garang in Ottawa, after Canada extended an invitation to both parties. 

15: Peace talks between Uganda and Sudan scheduled for South Africa have been postponed because Sudan's president is ill, a South African official said. The meeting, to have taken place in the port city of Durban, was aimed at smoothing relations between Uganda and Sudan, which have been tense in recent years as each has accused the other of helping rebel and dissident movements. 
 

17: The UN has officially transmitted a report on the findings of its humanitarian mission in the Nuba Mountains to the Government of Sudan and the leadership of the Sudanese People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A). Following this mission, for the first time ever, the UN humanitarian programme for Sudan will next year include multi-sectoral assistance for populations in the Nuba Mountains, a spokesman for UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

17: The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Sudan, Leonardo Franco, has reported some progress on the country's rights record, but said "the population was still being devastated by the low-level civil war in which neither side respected human rights or humanitarian law". At a UN meeting on human rights issues, Franco welcomed the 1998 constitution and Sudan's stated commitment to democracy and humanitarian law.

18: Children in Southern Sudan have been subjected to abuses during the 16-year war, they told a conference in Nairobi. The children were speaking during an Unicef-sponsored conference.

18: The European Community has proposed renewing a dialogue with the Sudanese government, cut off in 1996 amid alleged human rights abuses, in order to promote peace, democracy and human rights. The Finnish foreign ministry's Africa and Middle East director Tuunanen Heikki, leading a four-day mission to Khartoum, noted "some encouraging actions" by the government and said that, through dialogue, the EC could get to know how the government would implement measures it had taken to meet its declared objectives. Washington pushes for "humanitarian access" in Upper Nile.

18: Khartoum has agreed with a visiting South African delegation that peace in Southern Sudan depends on the IGAD (Inter-Governmental Authority on Development) process and a complementary Egyptian/Libyan initiative, and that "there was no military solution to the problem." The South Africans, led by deputy foreign minister Aziz Pahad, met foreign minister Mustafa Osman Ismail and speaker of the Sudanese Assembly Hassan al-Turabi among other senior officials during a four-day visit to discuss the economic and political situations in South Africa and Sudan, and to consolidate relations between the two, according to a joint statement reported by the South African Press Agency.

18: Sudan has said it is prepared to accept an offer by Canada to hold peace talks in Ottawa with Southern Sudanese rebels in an effort to end the 16-year civil war, Radio Canada International reported. Canadian foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy, who proposed the talks last month, has also invited SPLA leader John Garang but it is not known whether he will accept the invitation, the radio added.

19: Over 400 Sudanese refugees have arrived in Uganda over the past few days, a UNHCR spokesman said. The refugees reported fleeing clashes between the Dinka and Didinga ethnic groups in southern Sudan, he said. Another 210 refugees had arrived from Sudan to the Kakuma area of Kenya between November 7-13, the spokesman added. 

19: Sudanese parliament has backed a motion to debate proposals amending the constitution to reduce the powers of President Omar El-Bashir by creating a prime ministerial post answerable to parliament and allowing direct elections of the governors of Sudan's 26 states. The decision of parliament, which voted that the debate should go ahead despite Bashir's request that it be postponed, is seen as a victory for Turabi in his power struggle with the president.

19: Police in Khartoum arrested 17 people, including two journalists, on public order charges as they gathered for a telephone press conference with Garang, news agencies reported. The opposition Democratic Forces Front (DFF) leader Ghazi Suleiman had arranged the conference with Garang, who was in the Eritrean capital Asmara for a meeting with partners in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) on the future of Sudan.

19: UNICEF and OLS are to mark the 10th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child November 20, by hosting a non-political conference by stakeholders from various parts of south Sudan to "sculpt the future for Sudanese children". At a conference earlier, children themselves mapped out their own vision of their future. 

19: Sudan's external relations minister Mustafa Osman Ismail has told the national assembly that the government was following up the movements and activities of US Special Envoy to Sudan Harry Johnston "without taking any hasty position of rejecting or accepting him". He would still be allowed to visit Sudan "to get first-hand information about the country from the real sources" if he made an official request to do. 

19: Ismail told reporters in Khartoum that the US had influenced Canadian policy towards Sudan, particularly in relation to Ottawa's concern that the 25 per cent stake of Calgary-based Talisman Energy Inc. in a south Sudan oil consortium may be prolonging the Sudanese war.  "The statement about Talisman didn't start from the Canadian government, it started from (US Secretary of State) Mrs. Albright, and then the Canadian government made its statement," Reuters news agency quoted Ismail as saying.

19: Talisman chief executive Jim Buckee has disputed parts of a recent report by the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Sudan, Franco, who said the government had been forcing people out of southern oil-producing areas in order to help clear them of suspected saboteurs. "At least two of the facts are wrong," Buckee told the Canadian National Post newspaper. 

30: The Sudanese government charged that an attack on an oil pipeline was launched from a neighbouring state and aimed at undermining a new government agreement with an opposition party. Information minister Ghazi Sala Eddin Atabani, quoted in As-Sahafa daily, did not name the state but he was understood to mean the attack was mounted from Eritrea, where the opposition is based.

30: Sudan has urged all opposition leaders to follow in the footsteps of the opposition Umma Party and make peace with the Khartoum. Representatives of the government and Umma Party, the biggest opposition group intialled a "declaration of principles" after a meeting between president El-Bashir and Umma leader Sadeq al Mahdi in Djibouti.22: 30: Ethiopia and Sudan have agreed to improve relations after a period of strain dating from 1995, when Sudan was accused of complicity in an attempt to assassinate Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak inside Ethiopisa. The Ethiopian government said that two days of talks in Addis Ababa between El-Bashir and Ethiopian prime minister Meles Zenawi had been held in a spirit "that characterise the historical bond of friendship'' between the two nations.

30: WFP has warned of a "looming humanitarian crisis" in Southern Sudan because humanitarian agencies were being denied access to vulnerable populations by government restrictions on humanitarian flights and inter-factional fighting. Humanitarian agencies could not get access to many areas of Western Upper Nile in October and November, "and 140,000 targeted and vulnerable people could not get their emergency food assistance", the WFP representative in Sudan, Mohamed Saliheen, said.

30: One of the IGAD members, Eritrea, will not be attending the organisation's next summit meeting because it claims the host country, Djibouti, "has been making all sorts of accusations against it", its Nairobi embassy spokesman Kidane Woldeyesus told IRIN. Djibouti President Ismail Omar Guelleh warned of deteriorating relations between his country and Eritrea, and said there was "almost a state of war" between the two. 

31: The UN General Assembly has expressed concern at the impact of the conflict on human rights and the situation of the civilian population, especially women and children. It passed a resolution urging all parties to the conflict in Sudan "to grant safe and unhindered access to international agencies and humanitarian organisations" so that they could deliver assistance to civilians. 

December

1: Many of the people who fled Bentiu when fighting erupted in July have returned, and CARE has resumed emergency programmes in the town, including supplementary feeding. However, about 10,000 people are still living along the route between Bentiu and Rubkona, OLS reported.

1 : The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has launched its Consolidated Inter-Agency Appeal for the year 2000, appealing to donors for US $125.6 million - with US $67 million of that sum earmarked for food security. The appeal is divided into six main sectoral programmes, aiming to assist human rights protection and peace-building, while supporting food security and ensuring that vulnerable populations have access to basic services in health, water and sanitation, and education. 

2: The humanitarian situation in Sudan improved during 1999, particularly in the areas affected last year by famine in Bahr el Ghazal, the appeal said. A good harvest and relative stability had enabled humanitarian organisations to carry out both "life-saving operations and activities aimed at reinforcing local coping mechanisms and self-reliance".

3: The national department of malaria director Omar Zayid Baraka said an acute increase in malignant malaria in the Kordofan state capital of Obayid was due to exceptionally heavy rainfall of 650 mm, not seen in Kordofan in 50 years. He said the strain of malaria was particularly virulent - bringing spasms, coma, fracturing of red corpuscles and jaundice, among other complications, news organisations reported. 

4: President El-Bashir has had a meeting in Djibouti with the Umma Al-Mahdi, Sudanese television reported. El-Bashir and other heads of state in the regional IGAD were in Djibouti for a summit meeting, during which the conflicts in Sudan and Somalia were expected to dominate the agenda.

4: The third round meeting of the Technical Committee on Humanitarian Assistance (TCHA) is scheduled to be held on December 14-15, 1999 in Geneva.  Among the meeting's concerns will be policy and programme issues for agencies working in Sudan, including access to vulnerable populations, security and the continuation of humanitarian cease-fires, humanitarian sources told IRIN.

8: Sudanese opposition groups met in Kampala to review the progress of the various groups in Sudan, in the fight against Khartoum government. Mr. John Andruga Duku, the representative of the SPLA in Nordic countries said they were reviewing progress of the opposition groups in their fight against the Khartoum regime and charter new strategies of "advancing the struggle''.

8: President Daniel arap Moi of Kenya will chair talks between presidents El-Bashir and Uganda's Yoweri Museveni in Nairobi. The talks, which are brokered by Carter Centre headed by former USA president Jimmy Carter, are designed to find a lasting solution to the friction between the two countries.

9: Uganda and Sudan have signed a historic 10-point peace treaty in Nairobi. It seeks to re-establish diplomatic relations between the two countries. Museveni and El-Bashir signed the treaty after negotiations organised by the Conflict Resolution programme by the Carter Centre chaired by Moi and mediated by Carter.

9: Uganda and Sudan are to resume full diplomatic relations at the end of February next year following the signing of a peace agreement in Nairobi. The agreement compliments the IGAD peace process.

9: A surprise deal between El-Bashir and the man he ousted as prime minister in a 1989 military coup has split the opposition ranks, but seems unlikely to bring an early end to a 16-yearl-old civil war. Diplomats said the "declaration of principles'' agreed by El-Bashir and Al-Mahdi in Djibouti last month had blown apart the fragile unity of the NDA.

12: President El-Bashir has dissolved parliament and declared a state of emergency in preparation for a national legislative election. The general election authority, according to a presidential decree broadcast will set voting day for a new national assembly by the state television after an announcement by the president.

14: Sudan's president, appearing in full military uniform in his first news conference since declaring a state of emergency, said he acted to control a power struggle with the country's influential parliament speaker. The capital was quiet; a day after the president declared a three-month state of emergency. Extra troops guarded key government posts.

15: The streets of Sudan's capital were largely deserted during a tense political showdown between El-Bashir and Turabi, witnesses said. President El-Bashir, who installed a Turabi-guided Islamist government after a military coup in 1989, tossed a political bombshell at the nation by declaring a three-month state of emergency and dissolving the parliament.

15: President El-Bashir appeared to be consolidating his grip on power after striking out against his former ally, Turabi. Bashir dissolved parliament and declared a three-month state of emergency to pre-empt moves by Turabi, who dominates the ruling National Congress Party, to pass a constitutional amendment slashing presidential powers.

15: President Mubarak of Egypt flew unexpectedly to Libya for talks with Muammar Gaddafi that are expected to focus on the political turmoil in Sudan, officials said. 

16, Sudanese President Omar Hassan el-Bashir appeared to be consolidating his grip on power after striking out against his former ally, parliament speaker and Islamist  ideologue Hassan al-Turabi. Bashir dissolved parliament and declared a three-month state of emergency to pre-empt moves by Turabi, who dominates the ruling National Congress.

17: A minister in Bashir's government said that Sudan was stable but that emergency measures taken after a challenge to presidential authority were "irrevocable". Meanwhile,  Bashir and Turabi have agreed to discuss reconciliation within the National Congress, a Turabi supporter said. 

17: Sudanese defence minister Abdel Rahman al-Khitim, on a visit to Cairo, said he had reassured Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak about Sudan's stability following the emergency measures. "I assured president Mubarak about the stability of the situation in Sudan and told him that General Bashir's decisions are irrevocable," Mr. Khitim said after talks with Mubarak and Egyptian defence minister Hussein Tantawi.

17: President Bashir has accepted resignations tendered by a minister and a state governor who acted on instructions from Mr. Turabi, a newspaper said. President Bashir accepted the resignations of cabinet affairs minister Mohammed al-Amin Khalifa, a retired colonel who helped Bashir seize power in 1989, and Sennar State governor Yagub Abu Shura, Al-Rai Al-Aam daily said. 

19: Representatives from Caritas Italiana have completed an extensive fact-finding tour of southern Sudan aimed at helping the Italian aid agency make appropriate decisions regarding its operations in the region. The delegation comprised the organisation's manager in charge of international affairs, Mr. Paolo Cereda and Mr. Davide Invernizzi, who is the organisation's programme manager in the Great Lakes region. 

19: An independent daily suspended by president Bashir last September is to resume operation immediately, according to a report by state-owned Radio Omdurman. Quoting presidential press advisor, Mr. Sadik Bakheit, the report said the directive to allow al-Rai al-Akhar (The other Viewpoint) daily to resume operation was given by the president. 

19: Turabi warned his rival Bashir of civil unrest just hours before the two sides were to meet to try to end their feud. Mr. Turabi said, "certain parties," which he did not identify, "could benefit from the unrest, which could break out in the streets of Khartoum". 

20: Proposed reconciliation talks between president Bashir and Turabi have been postponed indefinitely. Information Minister Ghazi Salah Eddine Atabani said the talks had not taken place, as scheduled, and that no new date had been set for them, news organisations reported. Atabani said Bashir would accept mediation but that the state of emergency and dissolution of parliament were irrevocable, and there was "no question of compromise on the fundamental principle, which is that there will be no return to interference by the (National Congress) party in the affairs of state".  

20: Turabi, who denounced what he called "an assault on the people's constitution" and said "Sudan is now led by an autocratic regime", has called for an emergency meeting of the consultative council of the National Congress for December 27. It would have the party "examine the exclusion of Bashir and his supporters if mediation has failed to make the head of state go back on his decision to dissolve parliament", AFP reported.

20: There has been strong support for Bashir from Arab leaders, with Saudi Arabia saying it was "an internal affair" and both Libyan and Egyptian presidents Mubarak and  Gaddafi declaring their support for their Sudanese counterpart. A spokesman for the US State Department, which has led the effort to isolate Sudan internationally, said it was more a battle of personalities than policies.

20: Regional observers believe Bashir to be less bound by ideology than Turabi, pointing to improved relations with Ethiopia and recent peace deals with opposition leader Sadiq al-Mahdi and with Uganda as evidence of his political pragmatism. Senior lecturer and research analyst at the University of Nairobi, Professor Moustafa el Said Hassouna, told IRIN that although Bashir's declaration of a state of emergency was "ill-timed" and had caused "fear and apprehension" in Khartoum, his pact with Uganda's Museveni had given him a new dose of legitimacy in the region. 

21: SPLA leader John Garang has welcomed what he called "the Bashir coup" as a crisis that marked "the beginning of the end of the NIF (the National Islamic Front - renamed the National Congress) and its regime". The relative power balance in the Sudanese army between three factions; the Bashir and Turabi factions of the NIF, and "a non-NIF faction, by far the largest group in the army" would be critical in the resolution of the crisis in Khartoum, Garang said in a press release. 

21: There has been limited response from the leadership of the opposition umbrella National Democratic Alliance, perhaps because it has been highly divided internally in recent months over whether the NDA should negotiate with Khartoum or continue its armed struggle until the regime collapses. The NDA recently agreed in Uganda to support the Inter-Governmental Authority for Development (IGAD) peace talks, but with greater involvement by northern, Islamic elements of the NDA rather than leaving the southern-oriented SPLM/A to negotiate alone. 

21: An IGAD delegation arrived in Khartoum for preliminary negotiations on the possibility of holding peace talks in January between the government and the SPLA.The delegation, led by Kenyan presidential envoy to the peace process Daniel Mboya and including diplomats from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Uganda and Djibouti, is exploring the possibility of a new round of talks in Nairobi on January 15 and discussing how to make this work where previous negotiations have failed to make progress, news media reported. 

21: The Sudanese government, SPLM/A and humanitarian agencies – under the auspices of Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS) - agreed in Switzerland on a set of 'Principles Governing the Protection and Provision of Humanitarian Assistance to War-Affected Civilian Populations' in Sudan. They agreed that agencies accredited by the UN should have "free and unimpeded access" to vulnerable populations, with the UN to decide on routes and logistics for humanitarian assessments and deliveries. 

21: Both the government and rebels "reaffirmed their strong commitment to the opening of the Lokichokkio-Kapoeta cross-line corridor" through both the direct route (via Narus, Lolin and Buno) and the detour route (via Narus, Napotpot, Nakachori). It was agreed that arrangements should be made immediately to de-mine the direct route and that an assessment of the detour route should also be completed by February 2000. The UN is also to establish an office in Kapoeta for the receipt and distribution of humanitarian goods. 

21: Water and sanitation have become major health problems in Khartoum's camps for displaced people, with some 90 percent of water samples taken from households in Elsalam and Wad El Bashir camps found to be "highly contaminated", according to the International Federation of the Red Cross. While water sources were found to be clean and fit for human consumption, improper handling of water, poor hygiene and sanitation practices - in addition to stagnant water near distribution points - meant that water-borne diseases were a big threat in the camps, which cater for 100,000 and 26,000 people respectively, IFRC reported.  

22: A 'worsening political and economic crisis" grips Kenya, while "restrictive" rule in Uganda threatens to grow more dictatorial, an international human rights group warns in a year-end global survey. The group's generally negative assessment of East Africa encompasses Sudan as well, although Human Rights Watch does point to some abuses on the SPLA.

23: President Bashir came relatively late to politics after an army career, but has now turned against his mentor Turabi, who has long been regarded as the power behind the throne. Opponents of president Bashir often saw him as being merely a front-man for the now dissolved parliament, whom they believed was using the military to ensure his own hidden hold on power. 

23: Turabi has vowed to challenge a decision by Bashir to dissolve parliament and impose a three-month state of emergency. Turabi, secretary-general of the ruling National Congress, told a news conference Bashir had violated the constitution and betrayed the Sudanese people. 

23: Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni held talks in Kampala with former Sudan prime minister Sadeq al-Mahdi, Ugandan radio reported. An official statement said they discussed the Sudanese peace process, a reference to the long-running civil war in southern Sudan- and initiatives to resolve the conflict 

23: Reconciliation talks between representatives of president Bashir and Turabi have been postponed, information minister Ghazi Salah Eddine Atabani said. A new date for the talks has not been set, he said. 

23: President Bashir has offered the northern opposition in exile a chance to take part in power after its integration in a "broad national front". "We're calling for the formation of a broad national front which would group most political forces in Sudan on the basis of a precise political agenda," president Bashir said in an interview with journalists in Khartoum. 

24: President Bashir was to meet African leaders in Libya in a bid to patch-up strained relations with neighbouring countries after sidelining Turabi. The daily al-Anbaa said Bashir was scheduled to hold talks with Muammar Gaddafi in Tripoli, ahead of talks with Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo. 

24: President Bashir left Khartoum for state visits to Libya and Egypt during which he will discuss the political crisis in his country, the Sudan news agency reported. President Bashir was to have participated in a meeting between Gaddafi and Mubarak in Tripoli but was unable to attend because of the crisis at home.  

24: Gaddafi urged African leaders to put aside their differences,  saying they should not waste time squabbling over "backward ideologies," the Middle East News Agency reported. Gaddaffi spoke at an African mini-summit hosted in the Libyan capital of Tripoli grouping the presidents of Sudan, Eritrea, Uganda and Congo according to MENA. The Libyan leader eager to project himself as the continent "peacemaker," has been pursuing peace efforts in several African disputes. 

28: A high level meeting of Ugandan and Sudanese officials is scheduled to take place in Nairobi next January with a view to exchanging diplomats, Ugandan officials have said. The meeting is a follow up of the recently signed peace deal between Uganda and Sudan.  

29: About a dozen members of Sudan's parliament petitioned the constitutional court to annul a presidential decree that brought into force a state of emergency and dissolved parliament. The deputies told reporters that their petition said president Bashir had violated the constitution by declaring the state of emergency, dissolving parliament and suspending some articles in the constitution. 

30: Sudan and Ethiopia have agreed to boost trade and communication links, state-run Ethiopia News Agency reported. Sudan's minister for roads and communication Al-Hadi Bushra and Ethiopia's deputy minister for transport and communication Ayenew Bitewlgne held a two-day meeting at the border town of Metema where they agreed to enhance trade and build roads.