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South Sudan general killed in fighting, rebels say

Rebels in South Sudan said Sunday they had killed an army general during fighting near the town of Bor, at the same time direct negotiations between warring factions began in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. Rebel spokesman Moses Ruai said the general, Lual Mayok, was killed along with his deputy in an ambush on Friday, and said he was in charge of government troops trying to recapture Bor, capital of Jonglei state, situated 130 miles north of the capital Juba. "Our forces are well organized. They are not just hit-and-run. The next target is now Juba, but I cannot tell you exactly when they will attack Juba, but they are heading there," the rebel spokesman said. South Sudan’s Defense Minister Kuol Manyang Juuk dismissed the claim, saying there was no general of that name in the country’s armed forces. "I have no information of any general killed," he told […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Talks Don't Halt South Sudan Conflict

South Sudan’s warring parties began talks Friday with mediators in Ethiopia, as both sides ignored calls for a cease-fire. Negotiators met separately with representatives from the regional trade block, known as the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, or IGAD in Addis Ababa. These preliminary talks aim to narrow differences that have led to clashes killing more than 1,000 people and displacing nearly 200,000. The mediators hope both sides of the conflict can hold direct talks on Saturday, according to a spokesman for Ethiopia’s foreign ministry, Dina Mufti. The modest beginning marks a breakthrough for African-led efforts to end more than two weeks of fighting in the world’s youngest nation. The conflict—which pits the country’s President Salva Kiir, against his former deputy, Riek Machar —threatens to render South Sudan along ethnic lines and upend its oil industry. Energy exports account for nearly all of South Sudan’s exports and foreign revenue. […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Talks Don’t Halt South Sudan Conflict

South Sudan’s warring parties began talks Friday with mediators in Ethiopia, as both sides ignored calls for a cease-fire. Negotiators met separately with representatives from the regional trade block, known as the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, or IGAD in Addis Ababa. These preliminary talks aim to narrow differences that have led to clashes killing more than 1,000 people and displacing nearly 200,000. The mediators hope both sides of the conflict can hold direct talks on Saturday, according to a spokesman for Ethiopia’s foreign ministry, Dina Mufti. The modest beginning marks a breakthrough for African-led efforts to end more than two weeks of fighting in the world’s youngest nation. The conflict—which pits the country’s President Salva Kiir, against his former deputy, Riek Machar —threatens to render South Sudan along ethnic lines and upend its oil industry. Energy exports account for nearly all of South Sudan’s exports and foreign revenue. […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Oil flowing again from Yemeni pipeline damaged by saboteurs

Repairs were made and oil was flowing again from a pipeline damaged by saboteurs in Yemen’s central Marib province, a provincial leader said. Ali al-Fatimi said Sunday engineers managed to repair damage to the line, which was attacked last week. Oil deliveries though the pipeline resumed at an undisclosed rate, the official Saba News Agency reported. Saba said the pipeline was "attacked by saboteurs" but didn’t indicate who was responsible. The Marib provincial leader said local officials and citizens had been able to provide security following the the attack. Yemen is struggling to control violence amid threats from al-Qaida, southern separatists and northern Shiite rebels. Energy company Yemen LNG said its facilities at the Balhaf export terminal were attacked by unnamed saboteurs in December. Al-Qaida took credit for a December attack on the Yemeni Defense Ministry. Pastor prays for ‘plantation called New York […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Uganda Receives 10 Oil-Output Applications for Albertine Graben

Uganda , the country with sub-Saharan Africa’s fourth-largest oil reserves, received 10 production applications for 21 discoveries in the Albertine Graben region as the nation moves closer to starting output in 2017. Tullow Oil Plc, Total SA, and China National Offshore Oil Corp. all sought licenses, according to a statement today on the website of Uganda’s Petroleum Exploration and Production Department in Entebbe near the capital, Kampala. The government is in talks with Tullow about its eight applications, CNOOC got its first license in September, and Total’s request was made in December, the notice shows. Total may submit five more applications this year in Exploration Area 1, and one for EA 1A, according to the statement. Tullow has until the end of April to appraise the Waraga discovery in Exploration Area 2, where it is the operator, and is also drilling at Waraga-3, a second appraisal well, the department […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Talks Don't Halt South Sudan Conflict

South Sudan’s warring parties began talks Friday with mediators in Ethiopia, as both sides ignored calls for a cease-fire. Negotiators met separately with representatives from the regional trade block, known as the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, or IGAD in Addis Ababa. These preliminary talks aim to narrow differences that have led to clashes killing more than 1,000 people and displacing nearly 200,000. The mediators hope both sides of the conflict can hold direct talks on Saturday, according to a spokesman for Ethiopia’s foreign ministry, Dina Mufti. The modest beginning marks a breakthrough for African-led efforts to end more than two weeks of fighting in the world’s youngest nation. The conflict—which pits the country’s President Salva Kiir, against his former deputy, Riek Machar —threatens to render South Sudan along ethnic lines and upend its oil industry. Energy exports account for nearly all of South Sudan’s exports and foreign revenue. […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Talks Don’t Halt South Sudan Conflict

South Sudan’s warring parties began talks Friday with mediators in Ethiopia, as both sides ignored calls for a cease-fire. Negotiators met separately with representatives from the regional trade block, known as the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, or IGAD in Addis Ababa. These preliminary talks aim to narrow differences that have led to clashes killing more than 1,000 people and displacing nearly 200,000. The mediators hope both sides of the conflict can hold direct talks on Saturday, according to a spokesman for Ethiopia’s foreign ministry, Dina Mufti. The modest beginning marks a breakthrough for African-led efforts to end more than two weeks of fighting in the world’s youngest nation. The conflict—which pits the country’s President Salva Kiir, against his former deputy, Riek Machar —threatens to render South Sudan along ethnic lines and upend its oil industry. Energy exports account for nearly all of South Sudan’s exports and foreign revenue. […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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U.S. Is Facing Hard Choices in South Sudan

South Sudan is in many ways an American creation, carved out of war-torn Sudan in a referendum largely orchestrated by the United States, its fragile institutions nurtured with billions of dollars in American aid. But a murky, vicious conflict there has left the Obama administration scrambling to prevent the unraveling of a major American achievement in Africa. With at least 1,000 people killed in fighting between government and rebel forces, and with disturbing reports of ethnically motivated atrocities by both sides, President Obama faces the real prospect that South Sudan could become Africa’s next failed state. On the first morning of his Hawaii visit, two weeks ago, Mr. Obama woke up to an urgent conference call with his national security team about the fighting in South Sudan, and efforts to evacuate American citizens. He has been briefed on it every day since, his aides said — a […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Fear Keeps Thousands of South Sudanese on the Run

As the city of Bor fell into chaos, Lual Alier watched a fellow teacher pick up a Kalashnikov rifle and kill a shopkeeper. Then the man turned and began firing at him, too. “He wanted to kill me, but I ran into the water,” Mr. Alier, 28, said. What left him in shock was more than the violence and the threat to his life. Until that moment Mr. Alier thought that the two, who came from different ethnic groups but went to a teacher training institute together, were friends. They lived together “as brothers and sisters,” Mr. Alier said of the two groups, his disbelief evident as he stood beside a tree that was now the only shelter for his extended family of more than 30 people. As the halting talks to end the conflict in South Sudan finally got underway on Friday, international negotiators […]

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U.S. Orders Evacuation of Staff From Embassy in South Sudan

The United States on Friday ordered a further reduction of American Embassy staff in strife-torn South Sudan and said it would cease to provide consular services for its citizens as of Saturday, apparently reflecting a somber assessment of the country’s prospects even as the country’s warring factions were reported to have opened preliminary, indirect talks in neighboring Ethiopia. A travel advisory on the website of the State Department said that Washington “ordered a further drawdown of U.S. Embassy personnel because of the deteriorating security situation” in South Sudan, which has been seized with conflict between its main political factions since December. “We continue to urge U.S. citizens in South Sudan to depart the country,” the message said, offering an evacuation flight on Friday “to the nearest safe haven country” on a “first-come, first-served basis.” “The U.S. Embassy will no longer be able to provide any consular services to U.S. […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple