Washington loses .. Sudan wins

[sudan]

Washington did not react quickly to the Sudanese visa application for its high level delegation, supposed to be led by President Al-Bashir, to participate in the 68th session of the UN General Assembly meetings in New York.

Surely, the intention of the US move was to make the application futile since the visa will be delayed until the UN meetings are over.

The best evidence that the US was intending to obstruct the visit of the US delegation, led by President Al-Bashir, was the fact that the visa applications of the participating Presidents are normally do not take so long time as the US, in this particular case, is committed to issue visas for the presidents who want to come to the UN.

According to the UN charters, the issuance of visa in these cases is a routine step.

Therefore, the US took this grey step with the aim of making the visit of the Sudanese president and the accompanying delegation impossible as it could not say it decided not to issue the visa nor be able to issue the visa due to the influence of the pressure groups.

However, this stance will result in a package of legal and political complexities that will have its impact on the US administration top of which is the failure of the US in respecting the UN regulations.

The US has also caused a legal problem to the UN that will face a huge embarrassment due to this American stance.

The UN has the right to obtain a legal explanation from the US even after the conclusion of the UN general assembly meetings.

The UN General Assembly can make decisions on the participation of its members to the General Assembly meetings.

Thus, Sudan has the right to table a complaint against the US stance obstructing the participation of the Sudanese President in the meetings.

Finally, the US stance could increase the number of the countries that reject the ICC charter.

 

[waltky]

First violence, now hunger killing So. Sudanese...

After Violence, Hunger Kills Hundreds in South Sudan
February 07, 2014 — A county commissioner in South Sudan's Jonglei state has called for urgent help from international aid agencies after he received reports that villagers are dying of starvation in parts of the county.

“The hunger is very severe. People are dying because of the hunger. They have nothing to eat. Even in the shops and the markets, there is nothing that you can buy,” Twic East County Commissioner Dau Akoi Jurkuch said. Officials in the county are still working to establish the exact number of fatalities from hunger, Jurkuch said. He blamed the severe food shortages on a combination of flash floods during last year's growing season, which washed away large swathes of edible crops, and the deadly violence that has raked South Sudan for nearly eight weeks

To make matters worse, thousands of people who fled the state capital, Bor, some 75 miles (120 kiklometers) away, as pro- and anti-government forces fought for control of it, headed to Twic East. Aid workers left the area completely as the fighting raged. Further exacerbating the county's problems, the presence of an anti-government base just outside Twic East has made traders who used to sell food in the county in northern Jonglei state too frightened to travel there.

A map by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) showing the number and percentages of South Sudanese facing severe, acute food insecurity

Jurkuch appealed to humanitarian groups to return to the region and distribute emergency food rations to save lives. “I want to appeal to NGOs and humanitarians that have been working in Twic East and also any other humanitarians that can assist this population because of the hunger and any other services that can be provided,” he said. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 70 percent of Jonglei state's population of 1.7 million, or 1.19 million people, are severely food insecure.

The United Nations appealed last week for $1.27 billion to help its agencies and NGOs to strategically position aid supplies for delivery before the start of the rainy season, usually in March. Jurkuch said flood waters from last year still have not fully subsided in some villages in Twic East, posing yet another danger to locals: diseases. "There are issues of malaria, there are issues of diarrhea, there are issues of common cold," he said. "There are people who are sick because there are no drugs in the hospitals and there are no drugs in clinics. So people are just staying like wild animals," he said.

After Violence, Hunger Kills Hundreds in South Sudan