http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/309/blogs_01_kush.gif An uplifting short piece from the Sudan. Kush reports on a huge animal migration (to rival that of Serengeti) in Southern Sudan:

'Many people have thought that twenty years of war may have devastated the vast animal resource in South Sudan. But lo, and behold: they have survived! See the pictures for yourself.'

Looks like elephants, ostriches, and possibly wilder beasts running free on the plains.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/309/blogs_02_johnakec.gifJohnAkecSouthSudan comments on a recent statement by the new Sudanese ambassador to the US whose response to US sanctions was to threaten to block the export of 'gum arabic' used in the production of coca-cola...

'...asserted that there is no genocide in Darfur, and called Darfur’s armed groups 'terrorists'. He then issued a thin veiled threat that his country could retaliate by blocking the exports of Gum Arabic to the US. Gum Arabic, the Ambassador declared, is indispensable ingredient of Coca-Cola. Washington Post’s Dana Milbank coined the term "Khartoum Karl" to describe the ambassador.'

The surprise is not that Sudan should respond in this way but that the ambassador who is from the South should so easily and willingly parrot the words of the Khartoum regime.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/309/blogs_03_waridaad.gifVoice of Somaliland Diaspora-Ottawa writes on the new Scramble for African oil and the strategic preparations of the US which will become increasingly dependent on African oil.

'The Pentagon is to reorganise its military command structure in response to growing fears that the United States is seriously ill-equipped to fight the war against terrorism in Africa. It is a dramatic move, and an admission that the US must reshape its whole military policy if it is to maintain control of Africa for the duration of what Donald Rumsfeld has called "the long war". Suddenly the world's most neglected continent is assuming an increasing global importance as the international oil industry begins to exploit more and more of the west coast of Africa's abundant reserves.'

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/309/blogs_04_civilexp.gifNo Longer at Ease reports on Ethiopian brutality in the Ogaden region of Western Somalia. Abdulrahman also provides a brief background to the conflict which is one of those that receives little coverage in the press.

'In recent years Ethiopian troops increased their brutality of jailing, torturing and killing young Ogaden men suspected of being ONLF members. Their families have also been punished as well but worst of all is the rape of the rape of women by Ethiopian soldiers...In village after village, people said they had been brutalized by government troops. They described a widespread and longstanding reign of terror, with Ethiopian soldiers gang-raping women, burning down huts and killing civilians at will. It is the same military that the American government helps train and equip — and provides with prized intelligence.'

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/309/blogs_05_ethio.gifEthiopundit comments an article by Christopher Hitchens on the fall of ex-head of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz.

'He begins a customary flurry of blows to the heads and necks of assorted pundits (sadly, not all are as committed to truth and justice as we are) whose "eagerness for prurience, the readiness for slander, and the utter want of fact-checking" would have us believe that Paul Wolfowitz and Shaha Riza were financing some sort of "shameless lasciviousness out of the public purse and the begging bowls of the wretched of the earth.'

Hitchens states that it is hardly Riza's fault (no relation to THE RZA mind you) that she was working at a senior position at the World Bank when Wolfowitz, with whom she had a private adult consenting relationship, was appointed to head up the whole thing ALL THE WAY BACK in 2005. He told the Bank up front and the 'ethics committee' at the Bank decided she had to leave. The committtee suggested that any disruption to her career could be made up with a salary increase at her new job.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/309/blogs_06_filweha.gifFilwehapundit on ceremonial coffee drinking in the Semein Mountains in Ethiopia (a World Heritage site and National Park) which apparently is being discouraged in some local area by priests.

'Sometimes this country is as much amazing to me as it is to a foreigner. The Church banning coffee is unheard of- so far as I know. I do not really know how it works in remote rural places. As far as I know and as it is written elsewhere in the report, coffee-drinking is a ceremonial culture of the society. I guess this should be a local thing.'

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