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OPINION P.6 EDITORIAL:

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PagesVOL. 17 ISSUE NO 4802

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Window of Objectivity

The Illusions of the Opposition

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3rd October 20194th Safar,1441

THURSDAY

YOUTH AND PEACE

Sudan Vision Youth and Peace

Initiative

In response to H.E Prime

Minster Dr. Abdul-lah Hamdok call to sup-

port the peace process and also on the occasion of the World Peace Day. Sudan Vision News-paper editorial board is delighted to announce the initiation of a new page Youth and Peace. In this page, the focus will be on youth activates regarding restoring and promot-ing peace in Sudan. Moreover, the news paper will act as a platform for all youth organizations to intro-duce their mandate through Sudan Vision pages.

Sudan Vision Youth and

In response to H.E Prime

Minster Dr. Abdul-lah Hamdok call to sup-

News Report Sudanese Women Premier League.. Why Not?

By: Muawad Mustafa Rashid

It is a historic event in Sudan football and women in particular by the kick-off the first-ever women’s club football league, with two teams clashing in front of crowds of fans and diplomats inside a Khartoum stadium.It was a historical game not only for wom-en’s sport but for Sudan.The start of the women’s club football league comes amid expectations that the current three-year transition period will see liberal policies implemented across the country, including measures to promote freedom of speech, women’s rights, sport and arts.Sudan joined FIFA in 1948. In 1957, Sudan co-founded the Confederation of African Football with Egypt, Ethiopia and South Af-rica at a meeting in Khartoum. The women’s championship, which in-volves 21 clubs, would have seemed unlike-ly just months ago when the ousted regime was in power.The first club match was played between

Tahadi and Difaain in the capital on Mon-day. Matches are also scheduled for Wad-Medani, Al-Obeid and Kadugli.No doubt those women were the most af-fected victims of the ousted regime through

Public Order Act which enforced a set of laws that are particularly infused with a conception of women as problematic actors whose movements and presence in pub-lic and private life are dangerous to those

around them.Offences such as sharing a public or private space including walking on the road with a man, indecent dress, dancing and many more are interpreted with great latitude and en-forced by a special police and court system (The Public Order Police and the Public Order Court). As a result, even where provisions of the Public Order Act are not ex-pressed in gender specific terms, women are the core targets for the application of ill-defined moral stand-ards. Despite the repression of the ousted regime against women, they were strug-

gling against this hostile environment and that was apparent by qualifying 30 female referees out of which 5 are in the interna-tional level.

Security Council President Calls for Lifting Sanctions from Sudan Agencies

Khartoum : President of the United Nations Security Council Jerry Matthews Matjila the international envoy of South Africa has called for lifting the sanctions im-posed on Sudan since the year 2005.Lifting the international sanctions imposed on Sudan re-quires issuing a decision from the Security CouncilMatthews told the journalist at the United Nations venue in Washington “ we stand by the side of lifting the sanc-tions for assisting Sudan in the transitional phase it is currently going through’ he said .Sudan is subjected to sanctions imposed by the Security Council under the resolution 1591 which was issued in the year 2005 The Council had set up in March of the same year a special committee for monitoring the execu-tion of the related penalties.There are two sets of sanctions imposed on Sudan , these are the blockade imposed on arms , banning travel and freezing the assets of the persons involved in the dispute flaring up in Darfur for more than eleven years.Responding to journalists questions on the possibility of Security Council intervention in the stalled negotia-tions between Egypt and Ethiopia on renaissance dam , the President of the Council expressed hoped that the discussions taking place for years would reach a suitable solution for both of them. He added that “ we know that there are turbulences on the road but it is imperative to sit down and negotiate for the benefit of all the popu-lation of the Rive Nile form the river upstream to its mouth.

Hamdok Briefs Cabinet on Outcomes of His External Tour

Sudan, France Discuss Requirements of Agricultural Development By: Najat Ahmed

Khartoum- Undersecretary of the Ministry of Agri-culture and Natural Resources Engineer Babiker Os-man has affirmed that the openness in cooperation between Sudan and France following the visit by Prime Minister Dr. Abdalla Hamdok to Paris would contribute to increasing agricultural production and productivity.This came when the Undersecretary met at his office here yesterday delegation of the French Treasury Directorate and the French Development Agency. The meeting discussed the requirements of the agricultural development in the coming period, which are represented in modern technology, produc-tion of inputs locally and the value chain of the agri-cultural products.The Undersecretary called for supporting training at the agricultural sector as well as providing the Ag-ricultural Research Corporation with modern tech-nologies in the field, affirming that agriculture is the pioneering sector in Sudan and needs international technical support at this stage

Meetings of Ethiopian Dam Committee Continue in Khartoum

Agencies

The Tripartite Technical Committee for Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance Dam met on Monday in the Sudanese capital Khartoum, Al-sharq.com has reported. The initial agenda includes the issues between Egypt and Ethiopia about water supplies following the completion of the dam on the River Nile.According to Anadolu, the head of the Sudanese technical department, Khader Mohamed Al-Sayy-id, said that the meetings will continue until Thurs-day. He added that the Irrigation Ministers from Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia are then scheduled to meet on Friday and Saturday.Under discussion will be the proposals from each country regarding the water to be used to fill the lake above the Ethiopian dam. Al-Sayyid said that he is sure that the three ministers will reach an “understanding” based on the previous successes of the principles agreed to by the respective Presi-dents of Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia on 23 May 2015.The Technical Committee was formed after the failure of previous talks. The committee succeeded in laying down a schedule to fill the lake within seven years. The last round of talks in this regard was held last month in Cairo, but no progress was made.

UNAMID Affirms Support to DDR Commission in Human Rights and Child Protection FieldsBy: Al-Sammani Awadallah

Khartoum- The Commissioner of the Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) Commis-sion, Major General Abdul-Rahman Abdul-Hamid, has stressed keenness of the Commission to develop the programs and plans necessary to cope with re-alization of peace in the coming period, through na-tional and international partners.During a meeting with representatives of UNAMID on human rights and child protection, Abdul-Hamid said that the meeting is an extension of ongoing meetings to prepare the commission to build peace and strengthen friendship with partners, especially UNAMID, UNICEF and human rights organiza-tions. He pointed out that the meeting discussed a number

of topics, including technical and logistical support for organization of workshops and seminars, add-ing that this would only come by completing the ef-forts being exerted to achieve peace throughout the country.UNAMID’s representative on child protection has praised the efforts being exerted by the DDR Commission to protect children, especially child soldiers, and called for a unified plan between UN-AMID, DDR Commission and UNICEF in the com-ing period. For his part, the UNAMID human rights repre-sentative said that the DDR Commission has con-tributed a lot in dealing with human rights issues, stressing that this meeting is a continuation of the implementation of what was previously agreed upon and promised to help the commission in train-ing of personnel in the field of human rights.

By Zuleikha Abdulraziq

Khartoum: Prime Minister Dr. Abdalla Hamdok has affirmed the commitment of his government before the Sudanese peo-ple and the whole world to protection of press freedom.Hamdok has directed , according to the Minister of Culture and Information , the spokesperson of the cabinet Faisal Mo-hamed Salih the concerned ministries and the security sys-tems to take the necessary measures that guarantee the safety and non-exposure of any journalist to any harassments while performing his tasks.The Cabinet listened in his yesterday’s session to a report presented by the Prime Minister on his participation in the meetings of the United Nations General Assembly session No. 74 .During the session Hamdok briefed his government on the outcomes of his external tour .Meanwhile the Minister of Foreign Affairs Asma Mohamed Abdalla said she will be arranging her ministry and her em-bassies abroad to be able to cope with the current phase, She added in a regular session of the Cabinet on Tuesday that she has held a totality of meetings with her counterparts on the conditions in Sudan during her participation in the events of the United Nations General Assembly in New York recently.In a related development the spokesperson of the Govern-ment Faisal Mohamed Salih said the Forces of Freedom and Change did not ascend till now to the cabinet the names of

their nominees to the two Ministries of Animal Resources and Infrastructures For his part the Minister of Finance announced arrangements for appointing 100 thousand youths to work as monitoring committees in the fuel stations and flour warehouses and bak-eries in the Capital city and the states to curb the leakage of these commodities in addition to its setting out in executing electronic monitoring to track the routes of the trucks operat-ing in transport of fuel and flour.Salih said the Minister of Finance briefed the cabinet on the arrangement to be executed by his ministry for securing peo-ple’s livelihood top of which is encouraging cooperatives once again noting that the Ministry of Finance has allocated budgets for starting these projects .Salih added that the Minister of Finance requested Hamdok to conduct legislations so that the ministries may be able to tackle the structural defect in them and conducting changes in their administrations.Salih disclosed to the media outlets that the Minister of Fi-nance Dr. Ibrahim Al Badawi requested the Prime Minister that the properties , the assets and headquarters of the dis-solved national congress party which were sequestrated by a previous decision of the ministry of finance to be owned by the Ministry of Finance so that they may be exhibited by an action in hard currency and their returns are to be allocated to direct support of the ministry’s resources to pay entitlements falling due to some Arab funds

SC and Council of Ministers Ratify Constitutional Document in Its Final Form Sudan Vision Khartoum - Joint meeting be-tween Sovereign Council (SC) and Council of Ministers met at Republican Palace Wednes-day and discussed a number of issues. The spirit of under-standing mastered the situation during the meeting, minister of culture and information and government spokesman Faisal Mohamed Salih, said in state-ment. He added that the meet-ing ratified the constitutional document which content 78 articles in its final form as an official document governing the transitional period. Mean-while he said the document would be tabled to ministry of Justice and be published in the Official Gazette. The document in its current form determined appointment of the chief jus-tice and attorney general who both of them would be declared later on by Sovereign Council, the spokesman has said.

Daglo: Country’s Prisons Free of any Political Prisoner By: Al-Sammani Awadallah

Khartoum- Member of the Sovereign Council 1st. Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, has di-rected arrest of the culprits in the incidents of Mersheng, Gereida and Kadner in South Darfur State and bring them to justice immediately.Addressing the people of Mersheng Locality, Daglo expressed his regret for the acts of sabo-tage that affected the institutions that provide services to citizens, calling on the local people to strengthen their social fabric and forget the bitter past for a safe and stable life, saying that

accepting the other is a virtue that must be im-plemented among the local population compo-nents.1st. Lt. Gen. Daglo renewed the call for the arms holders to make peace, declaring that the coun-try’s prisons are free of any political prisoner.He said that the state has taken this step to create a conducive climate for comprehensive peace in the country, pointing out that protection of the agricultural season lies with the security organs, calling on citizens to cooperate with the regular forces in order to integrate the harvest opera-tions, noting that herdsmen and farmers consti-

tute the mainstay of the national economy.Daglo called for the need to support women in Mersheng Locality to develop handicrafts and directed to empower young people to see their roles towards the rehabilitation of the locality. The Acting Governor of South Darfur, Maj. Gen. Hashim Khaled Mahmoud, has announced that the committee investigating the incidents of Mersheng has finalized its mission, noting that the committee has submitted its report and that the justice bodies would play their full role to-wards the implementation of the recommenda-tions of the committee.

Al Burhan Discloses Urgent Visit by Sovereignty Council Members to North Darfur State HOME2

EDITORIAL

Hamdok Affirms Concern to Promote Relations with Eritrea

Al-Kabbashi: Decision of Setting Free 15 Accused of Coup Attempt Issued

By: Najat Ahmed

Khartoum: Member of the Transitional Sovereign Council Lt Gen, Shams Al-din Al-Kabbashi said a decision of set-ting free 15 accused of the recent coup attempt totaling 31 accused was issued.Al-Kabbashi said in a special statement that the most outstanding names of those who will be released is Lt (PSC) Nasr Aldin Abdulfatah the commander of cavalries corps and Gen (PSC) Adam Haroun Idris the Chief of the Joint Op-erations. He noted that ten of the arrested in con-nection with the coup attempt will be prosecuted including the previous chief of Staff 1st lt Gen Hashim Abdulmutal-

ab and a number of brigadiers top of them is the commander of People’s De-fense Forces Brig. Abdulazim Al amin He outlined that those who will also be prosecuted is the previous governor of Gedarif state Brig, Mohi Aldin Ahmed Al hadi and Brig. Pilot Abulgasim , Brig. Bahar Ahmed Bahar along with six retired officers top of them is Brig. retired Mohamed Ibrahim as well as a civil person who will be prosecuted with them.The member of the Sovereign Council has earlier disclosed that interrogation of the arrested accused was nearly com-pleted and all the military arrested per-sons in connection with the recent coup attempt will be court-martialed

Energy Minister Meets Canadian Chargé d› Affaires in Sudan

By: SUNA

Khartoum - The Minister of Energy and Mining Eng. Adel Ali Ibrahim has dis-cussed, with the Chargé d’ Affaires of the Embassy of the Republic of Canada in Sudan Mr. Adria Ronald Norfok, ways of cooperation between the two countries in light of new developments in the coun-try. During his meeting with the Canadian Chargé d ‘Affaires at the in Sudan, the Minister appreciated Canada’s pioneering role in supporting the transition that took

place in Sudan and in de-veloping joint cooperation between the two countries, stressing his endeavor to develop cooperation in the field of energy and mining with Canada so that Sudan can benefit from the use of modern technologies in Canada. Engineer Ibrahim re-viewed the ministry’s pol-

icy in encouraging foreign investments in the energy and mining sector, calling on Canadian companies to engage in invest-ment in the field of energy and mining in Sudan, pointing to Sudan’s openness to the world through smart partnerships. Norfok revealed his country’s keenness to invest in the opportunities available in the energy and mining sector, stressing his desire to build economic relations between the two countries, he added that Sudan was a coun-try rich in natural resources and mineral resources, in particular.

Thursday, October 3, 2019

Trade Unions Are for All Indiscriminately

They Say Sudan Call Is to Get Dismantled in Case of Refusal to Preside It: Al Mahdi

By: Ahmed Ibrahim Khartoum-Leading figure of the freedom and change forces (FCF), Mohamed Ismat, says that he has been an opponent to the former Ingath regime since its advent in 1989, going further to tackle the issue of corruption, explaining that

his upbringing does not co-exist with something as such. He goes on to pose these crucial questions; ‘where are the returns of gold? Where are the returns of oil? especially between 2000 and 2005. And what about the credits and donations; where have they gone?’

The leading figure of FCF indi-cates that the government of the Sudanese that they support vigor-ously is the one that is assigned the task to return back from abroad all the stolen money. Ismat concludes his remarks to talk about the trade unions, ex-plaining that they and for more

than 30 years are deprived to get involved and participate in trade union activities, adding that the most important thing in the trade union work is the democratic process. ‘ Each one has their own party, but, when it comes to trade unions they are for all indiscrimi-nately’.

By Ahmed Ibrahim Ballal

Leader of the National Umma Party (NUP), Imam Al- Sadiq Al-Mahdi, says that they do often keep reiterat-ing that there should not be exclusion except for the national congress party and the criminals who are legally criminalized, pointing out the project of the transitional justice should not just get restricted to trial of corrup-tion during the 30 years of the Ingath regime, emphasizing that the matter should even extend to cover the pe-riod since 1956.He goes further to stress that they

do support the transitional period to achieve the following aims; peace, economic reforms, balanced foreign relations, accountability and disman-tlement of establishment. The head of the national Umma party discloses that his presidency to the Sudan call is not something optional, but, rather it is because of insistence on part of all of them. ‘They say if I am to refuse not to do so, the Sudan Call will get dismantled. Therefore, I do succumb to their demand’, con-cluding his remarks to reveal that dur-ing his presidency to the Sudan Call, the country has benefited nationally.

Sovereignty Council Directs Enhancement of IDPs Protection

Hamdok: Participation in UN General Assembly Signals Sudan’s Return to International Community

By Khalda Elyas

Khartoum: Member of the Transitional Sovereignty Council Aisha Mousa has di-rected setting up a plan for the return of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) due to war to their regions and setting up the region of voluntary return by provid-ing basic services like water, electricity . health and education facilities .She stressed the need for IDPs safety and security inside and outside their houses , guaranteeing their rights in lands and availing decent life for them.She said while addressing the inauguration

of a workshop on protecting the IDPs of Sudan which was organized by the na-tional committee of interactional humani-tarian law in cooperation with the Interna-tional Committee of Red Cross in Grand Holiday Villa yesterday that the return of the IDPs and securing them is one of the most important elements of the process of peace, stability and development calling for securing livelihood sources for them , enhancing their self-confidence in addition to opening the door for humanitarian as-sistances door hailing the role of the donor agencies and the interactional organiza-tions in this regards.

Towards Inclusive Economic Growth in Sudan: Stabilization and RecoveryPress Release

In 2019 the Chatham House Africa Pro-gramme convened a series of Sudan Stake-holder Dialogues. These roundtables fos-tered constructive exchanges among diverse Sudanese and international experts on the causes of the economic crisis, the steps that need to be taken to stabilize the economy in the near-term, and the longer-term struc-tural reforms required to set Sudan on the path to recovery. As the new government, led by Prime Minister Dr Abdalla Hamdok, undertakes the design and implementation of reform programmes, this conference will discuss the durable solutions to Sudan’s

pressing challenges.Prime Minister Dr Abdalla Hamdok will give the opening keynote at the conference. In addition, Hon Ibrahim El-Badawi, Min-ister of Finance, will be participating and giving the closing keynote. Please find the agenda for the conference here. On the day of the conference the Chatham House Africa Programme will also launch the paper Sudan Stakeholder Dialogues: Options for Economic Stabilization, Recov-ery and Inclusive Growth. This paper draws together the key themes and findings from each of the three roundtables and contains a foreword by Prime Minister Dr Abdalla Hamdok.

By: Zuleikha Abdul Raziq Khalda Elyas

Khartoum- Prime Minister Dr. Abdalla Hamdoh has said his participation in the activities of the UN General Assembly in its 74th. session in New York and his visit to France affirm return of the Su-dan to the international community.Dr. Hamdok described in a press confer-ence upon arrival at Khartoum Airport Tuesday evening his visit to France and lengthy meeting with President Emma-nuel Macron as a start for distinguished relations with France.He pointed out that his official visit to France was suc-cessful, during which he held bilateral meetings and participated in the funeral of former French president Jacques Chi-rac.The Prime Minister labeled his par-ticipation in the works of the UN Gen-eral Assembly heading the Sudanese delegation as affirming return of the

Sudan to the in-ternational com-munity.On her part, Minister of Foreign Affairs Asma Mohamed Abdalla has ex-plained that the Prime Minister had held a total of 55 meetings with his coun-terparts, digni-taries and or-ganizations, all

affirming support to the transitional government to over-come the challenges.The minister pointed out that she had more than 50 meetings, including bi-lateral meetings with representatives of states besides international and regional organizations including Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Non Aligned Movement, Arab League, African Un-ion and IGAD.She said that they had felt during those meetings strong desire by the interna-tional community to support Sudan.The Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Dr. Ibrahim Al Badawi, on his part, said the visit of the Prime Minister to France constituted a turning point for Sudan, pointing out that France has af-firmed its support to removing the name of Sudan from the list of states sponsor-ing terrorism besides economic support to the country.

Al Burhan Discloses Urgent Visit by Sovereignty Council Members to North Darfur State

By Zuleikha Abdulraziq

Khartoum: The President of the Transi-tional Sovereign Council , Abdulfatah Al Burhan has disclosed yesterday a visit to be paid by the members of the transitional sovereign council to North Darfur state in the coming days.The President of the Sovereign Council was acquainted with the totality of the se-curity, economic and political conditions and the efforts made by the government

of the state to secure people’s livelihood and the realization of social stability through pushing work in the services fa-cilities for supporting health services and achieving the success of the agricultural season.Al Burhan directed during his meeting at his office in the general command of the army the assigned North Darfur Governor to follow up and support services and developmental projects and boosting the process of peace and stability.

Sudan, S. Sudan Discuss Opening Border Crossings By: Sudan Tribune

KHARTOUM - Sudan and South Sudan Joint Political and Security Committee (JPSC) will hold a two-day meeting in Juba to discuss the opening of border crossings between the two countries.Sudan Army’s Chief of General Staff Mohamed Lt. Gen. Osman al-Hussein will travel Wednesday to Juba for a JPSC meeting in Juba that will take place on

Wednesday and Thursday.The border crossing points will top the agenda of the 14th JPSC meeting in Juba as President Salva Kiir recently agreed with Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok to open border between the two coun-tries.The meeting also will discuss the acti-vation of the Safe Demilitarized Border Zone (SDBZ), and the Joint Border Veri-fication and MonitoringMechanism.

Last March, the joint mechanism dis-cussed the redeployment of forces out-side the Safe Demilitarized Border Zone and agreed that any forces left in the Zone would be withdrawn within 30 days.Also, the meeting which was held in Khartoum agreed to open six out of the ten border crossing corridors within 30 days.Political developments in both countries prevented the implementations of these decisions.

By: Alula Berhe Kidani

The reputable Sudanese international econo-mist Dr. Ibrahim Ahmed Al-Badawi has writ-ten a very important paper (Freedom, Peace and Justice: The Foundation of the Revolu-tion Economic Policy), last April before he was appointed a minister of Finance.The paper is based on the concept of for-mulating the December, 2018 Revolution (Freedom, Peace and Justice) as the founda-tion for the December Revolution Economic Program. This program legitimacy should depend on been endorsed by the December revolution masses and political elite who sup-ported he revolution and are with the change for a development that will lead the country to the gates of the Twenty First Century. Same time, revolutionary legitimacy need consensus on publically documented pro-grams that can be monitored, evaluated and accessed during the Transitional Period or the electoral legitimacy after. We have before focused very brief-ly on this 26 pages document but after the reaction from many ex-perts and economist who have in a very logical method pointed to some shortcomings in the paper decided to first review the paper in more detail and then focus on these remarks in the same way. The Revolution UltimateThere is drastic need to table the question of why the revolution be-came an ultimate and what are the implication of this choice on the economic thinking and concepts suitable to at-tain the revolution aims? The Sudanese people reached the solid convic-tion on Decembers, 2018 that the ousted Al Ba-shir authoritarian regime was not only brutal and inhuman but was also ignorant with a banker mentality and have not been able to give the peo-ple anything during thirty years, In addition has failed to preserve the country unity. Economic literature indicate that such regimes are totally in competent to attain any form of economic legitimacy as a forklift for the sustain-ability of its rule vide what is labeled “ enlight-ened self-interest” . This is also impacted by the fact that it have achieved nothing to justify the continuation of it rule and domination or enter into a sincere dialogue with the other national forces.In this context, Prof. Dean Rodrick ,lecturer in Economics in Harvard University has made an analysis which concluded that Ignorant au-thoritarian regimes by their nature don’t own a developmental programs and don’t understand the implications of its economic policies that is based on narrow parasitic interests instead of investment on public goods like health ,educa-tion, infrastructure, etc. This in turn lead to mass corruption, instructional collapse and ultimately eliminating it chances of remaining in power. On the other hand literature show that there are a few number of programs authoritarian regimes which have been able to achieve major devel-o p m e n t a l transforma- tions that

enabled it to be relatively publi-cally acceptable and that paved the ground for a real democratic transformation. And according to Rodrick these regimes despite their authoritar-ian nature at the

political level were able to understand the importance of building strong

pub- lic goods institutions. And at THEsame time curtailing the expenditure on parasitic interests to a large extent. This was be-cause it understood the importance of economic legitimacy for its existence. This at the same time qualified these regimes political parties to compete in the coming demo-cratic transformation period. This was the case in North East Asia in Twain and South Korea and in Chile in Latin America. It should be not-ed here that the fork-left for these democratic transformations was the expansion of the middle class as a result of the broad based sustainable development which these countries have been able to attain. The open question now in the political economy debate arena is when will the Chinese Commu-nist Party take the decision on democratic trans-formation like other Asian countries and which if taken will have drastic worldwide implications. EPRDF and Ingaz Regime

It may be useful to make a quick comparison be-tween the Ingaz regime and the EPRDF (Ethiopi-an People Revisionary Democratic Front) which rule Ethiopia. While Sudan is suffering from complete economic collapse, same time Ethio-pia is steadily moving towards more structural economic transformation based on high employ-ment industries and broad based development. Despite that both regimes are authoritarian but the highly qualified Ethiopian leadership have understood very well the importance of compre-hensive economic development. This have led the EPRDF to establish of the first developmen-tal political party in the African content. The attainment of inclusive sustain-able economic development has enabled the EPRDF to re-spond to the people demand for democratization which can be seen now in the ho-rizon despite the deep ethnic divisions that hinder its pro-gress. On the other hand, the Ingaz regime didn’t have the pro-gram political party that can achieve economic legitimacy on the contrary the political party the NCP (Nation-

al Congress Party) lack the competence to do so and have led the country to economic crises. The strongest evi-dence of the lack of a strategic vision and the weak economic administration was the squan-dering of the resources that was available during the oil boom which could have been utilized to establish a diversified economy that could have observed the South Sudan secession which was clearly looming on the near horizon. The economic situation in the pro-period of the secession was in a very week state which can be summarized in: The ex-Vice President of the Republic in a rare moment of truth that the economic system has failed and there is a need for a new economic school. But in this context we must say that his regime have never been a regime of a compre-hensive development or seeking economic legit-imacy. The regime program in the first 10 years was to enable the control and monopolization of the all the resources by the Islamic Movement cadres. Then after losing it ideological compass deteriorated to geographical and regional levels lead by regional and tribalism clientleism and violent ethnic alliances which became the domi-nant factor in the monopolization and allocation of resources.If we make a comparison between the qualifica-tions of the policy makers in the Ingaz regime and the EPRDF regime in Ethiopia it will be quite clear that from the start the first couldn’t have any vision or even a program that can at-tain any manful developmental transformations due to lack of competence and cor- r u p -tion and these corrupted incompetent controlled the administration of the country resources for al-most one third of a cen-tury. The most important manifestation of this stupid authoritarian-ism was the methods adapted in the admin-istration of the macro-economic policy which manifested a very high degree of disregard to the people welfare and as well as total ignorance of its catastrophic impact on the re- g i m e

itself and as well as the whole coun-try.While at the same time neigh-boring Ethiopia was able to stabilize the macro economy, control the inflation rate and stabilize the exchange rate which led to high export competitiveness due to the

financial policy that gave pri-ority to production and building a strong exports sector not de-

formed by any structural factors that curb production and exports flexibility.

This is while rentalism mentality continued to prevail even after the secession of South Su-dan and the loss of the bulk of the oil wealth. The monetary policy focused on financing of the purchase of gold by printing banknotes, this in turn led to multidimensional crises rep-resented in the one hand by a hypo-inflation and the collapse of the national currency rate and the decrease in the exports competitive-ness in the medium and long term. There is also another aspect that should be mentioned. That while Ethiopia which is by any standard not in economic crises have organized several scientific and popular conferences and seminars discuss the state public policies and the future development strategies. We find that the ousted regime in Sudan have not expressed any desire to dis-cuss for example the public budget-which allocate less than 10 percent to health and education- with economist, education and health experts and those with visions and ex-perience, etc. When I was working with the World Bank was asked to prepare a report on the business and investment environment in Ethiopia based on a scientific survey of the institutions. The report was presented in 2004 in a whole day meeting attended by a large number of business-

m e n , a c a -d e m i a and decision m a k e r s what was unique was the participation of the late Ethiopian Prime Minister Males Zienao not only as a participant but as well as in the discussions for the whole day. In my view this was an expression of the importance the government gives to scientific research in the formulation of public and developmental poli-cies. Also, this was quite evident in the growth and development Ethiopian economy as we have seen later. On the other side a similar report was prepared in 2009 also by a Sudanese expert from the World Bank Alwalid Faried Al Atabania on Sudanese Industries which concluded that

there are 60 obstacles facing these in-stitutions. Just look at what have happened to these in-stitutions in the next ten years after the report.I was really delighted when the above when the above analyses of the Ingaz poli-cies was affirmed by an article written by the rep-utable ex-diplomat Awad Mohd Al Hassan and I quote the following from

his article:

“The 30 June, 1989 Military Coup of the National Is-lamic Front and the Islamic

Movement concept was based on the solid belief that they will rule Sudan forever and the determination to use all means legal and illegal to remain in power and any cost and in this used deception, embezzlement, grave violence, brutal torture and in addition utilized in this respect as well the state and country resources (which in the end a short sighted policy to remain in power). The part of this policy was the institutional de-struction of the national economy by the Lib-eralization Policy and Privatizations which led to sale of the state public institutions at very cheap prices to the regime members and sup-porters. In addition to opening the gate wide for the armed and security forces to enter to the commercial, services and industrial arena companied with the destruction of the produc-tive sectors and strangling the experienced na-tional capitalism. Also, the gross exploitation of the banking sector to enrich it supporters and weaken the authority of the Central Bank of Sudan, and end the mandate of the Finance Ministry over public resources as well as mar-ginalization of the role of the Auditor General. So, it was not a surprise that corruption have spread and banks are not able to meet deposi-tor’s demands, collapse of the national curren-cy value and the high rocketing of commodi-ties and services prices».

The aim of the above analysis was not to fa-vour intelligent authoritarianism but want to quickly affirm that the present copy of the programs parties may not lead necessary to democracy or a transformation to democratic governance in a reasonable time like in the ex-ample of Taiwan, South Korea and Chile but it was to only compare it was stupid authoritar-ian regimes like the Ingaz. In this lay the genius youth slogan “Just Down” which demonstrated that the youth have understood by experience the true nature of the ousted regime.

3 HOME

Towards a Sustainable Political Transformation in Sudan (1)

able economic development has enabled the EPRDF to re-

regime didn’t have the pro-gram political party that can achieve economic legitimacy on

try.While at the same time neigh-boring Ethiopia was able to stabilize the macro economy,

which led to high export competitiveness due to the

financial policy that gave pri-ority to production and building a strong exports sector not de-

formed by any structural factors that

Ignorant au-thoritarian regimes by their nature don’t own a developmental

programs

tion and these corrupted incompetent controlled the administration of the country resources for al-

manifested a very high degree of disregard to the people welfare and as well as total ignorance of its catastrophic impact on the re-

stitutions. Just look at what have happened to these in-stitutions in the next ten years after the report.I was really delighted when the above when the above analyses of the Ingaz poli-

quote the following from his article:

“The 30 June, 1989 Military Coup of the National Is-lamic Front and the Islamic

Movement concept was based on the

The most important manifesta-

tion of this stupid authori-tarianism was the methods adapted in the administra-tion of the macroeconomic

policy.

The rentalism mentality continued to prevail even after the

secession of South Sudan and the loss of the bulk of the oil

wealth.

m e n , a c a -

The part of this policy was the in-

stitutional destruction of the national economy by the Liber-

alization Policy and Privatizations which led to sale of the state pub-

lic institutions at a very cheap prices.

grams that can be monitored, evaluated and accessed during the Transitional Period or the electoral legitimacy

We have before focused very brief-

There is drastic need to table the question of why the revolution be-came an ultimate and what are the implication of this choice on the

enabled it to be relatively publi-cally acceptable and that paved the ground for a real democratic

their authoritar-ian nature at the

political level were able to understand the importance of building strong

lic goods institutions. And

The 30 June, 1989 Military Coup of

the National Islamic Front and the Islamic Movement concept was based on the solid belief that they will

rule Sudan forever

Thursday, October 3, 2019

Freedom, Peace and Justice: The Foundation of the Revolution Economic Policy (2)

4 AFRICA IN FOCUS Edited by: Alula Berhe Kidani

Thursday, October 3, 2019

By Kieron Monks, CNN

Could Africa provide clue to can-cer metastasis?

Reliable and up-to-date informa-tion on new occurrences of cancer within Africa is notoriously difficult to collect. The team wants to work towards faster data collection with-in South Africa and more widely across the African continent. «By tracking data digitally and pooling efforts across Africa, we can at-tempt to improve the accuracy of incidence figures,» explains Siwo (pictured).Could Africa provide clue to cancer metastasis?Greater access to technology means «we are looking at solving problems in Africa in a way we never thought possible before,» Siwo says. «We are not only looking at how technol-ogy will enable us now but we are starting to think about how technol-ogy will work in the future.»

Could Africa provide clue to can-cer metastasis?

Siwo believes cancer and other non-communicable diseases will start to impact Africans more so than else-where, due to how unprepared the region is to handle new cases. «We are attempting to find long term so-lutions,» he says.Could Africa provide clue to cancer metastasis?Geoffrey Siwo, a biologist at IBM Research Africa, says that when people think about Africa, «they think about infectious diseases like TB or malaria, but the elderly popula-tion in Africa is growing and with that comes increased risk of cancer and other non-communicable diseases.»

Could Africa provide clue to cancer metastasis?

Siwo and his team in South Africa were interested in data driven genomic healthcare. «We found that breast can-cer patients expressing low levels of [the Duffy Antigen Receptor (DARC)] gene, a pattern more frequent in Afri-cans, have lower survival rates com-pared to those expressing high levels of this gene, a pattern frequent in Cau-casians,» he says.

Could Africa provide clue to cancer metastasis?

«The knowledge that low expres-sion of DARC might influence breast cancer outcomes, especially in some breast cancer patients means that in future it could potentially be used for personalizing therapy or precision medicine,» says Siwo.Could Africa provide clue to cancer metastasis?Reliable and up-to-date information on new occurrences of cancer within Af-rica is notoriously difficult to collect. The team wants to work towards faster data collection within South Africa and more widely across the African continent. «By tracking data digitally and pooling efforts across Africa, we can attempt to improve the accuracy of incidence figures,» explains Siwo (pictured).

Could Africa provide clue to cancer metastasis?

Greater access to technology means «we are looking at solving problems in Africa in a way we never thought pos-sible before,» Siwo says. «We are not only looking at how technology will enable us now but we are starting to think about how technology will work in the future.»

Could Africa provide clue to cancer metastasis?

Siwo believes cancer and other non-communicable diseases will start to im-pact Africans more so than elsewhere, due to how unprepared the region is to handle new cases. «We are attempting to find long term solutions,» he says.

Could Africa provide clue to cancer metastasis?

Geoffrey Siwo, a biologist at IBM Re-search Africa, says that when people think about Africa, «they think about infectious diseases like TB or malaria, but the elderly population in Africa is growing and with that comes increased risk of cancer and other non-communi-cable diseases.»

Could Africa provide clue to cancer metastasis?

Siwo and his team in South Africa were interested in data driven genomic healthcare. «We found that breast can-cer patients expressing low levels of [the Duffy Antigen Receptor (DARC)] gene, a pattern more frequent in Afri-cans, have lower survival rates com-pared to those expressing high levels of this gene, a pattern frequent in Cau-casians,» he says.

Could Africa provide clue to cancer metastasis?

«The knowledge that low expression of DARC might influence breast cancer outcomes, especially in some breast cancer patients means that in future it could potentially be used for personal-izing therapy or precision medicine,» says Siwo.

(CNN) In 2006, US scientists pub-lished a landmark study that linked lower levels of a gene known as PCSK9 to lower rates of heart disease.Researchers then sought to test the the-sis by identifying subjects with a rare mutation that resulted in even lower levels of PSCK9. Just two were dis-covered, including a young woman living in South Africa.The discovery allowed drug manu-facturers to produce what became Praluent, the first FDA-approved cho-lesterol-lowering drug of the 21st Cen-tury, which would be prescribed to

guard against strokes, heart attacks and other deadly conditions.The location of the South African sub-ject was not by chance.There is greater genetic diversity in Af-rica than in any other continent, studies have consistently shown.Such variations have the potential to reveal insights that enable the devel-opment of treatments for health con-ditions that affect Africans and non-Africans alike.But scientists say African DNA is be-ing largely excluded from the field of genomics, the study of full gene sets.

‹Lack of ethnic diversity›

Research published earlier this year showed just 2% of samples used in genome-wide association studies came from Africans, while 78% came from Europeans. This imbalance may be in-forming the production of treatments that don›t work for non-Europeans.Inside the lab rewriting the origins of humanity«Calculations developed based on evi-dence from primarily European popu-lations may not apply to people of oth-er ethnic backgrounds,» the authors of the study wrote.«The lack of ethnic diversity in human genomic studies means that our abil-ity to translate genetic research into clinical practice or public health policy may be dangerously incomplete, or worse, mistaken.»The study authors called for the crea-tion of ethnically-diverse biobanks to address the imbalance.One such project is already under-way and making rapid progress: Ni-gerian health tech startup 54gene, billed as «the world›s first pan-African biobank,» with a mission to address some of the continent›s most serious health challenges.

Building a network

54gene was launched earlier this year in Lagos. Co-founders included Abasi Ene-Obong, a veteran of US pharma companies with a PhD in cancer biolo-gy, and Francis Osifo, a technology en-trepreneur whose clients have included Visa and Microsoft.The founding members recruited spe-

cialists from across the world, drawing diaspora Nigerians back from compa-nies such as Cancer Research UK and the World Bank.The team began with a pilot project in three Nigerian hospitals, securing the necessary regulatory and ethical per-missions to allow doctors to obtain an initial 6,000 blood and tissue samples.The project has scaled up since then. Osifo says there are now partnerships with 17 hospitals and the target is to secure 40,000 samples by the end of this year, rising to 200,000 in 2020.54gene makes the genetic material in its biobank available to pharma com-panies and academic and clinical re-searchers to facilitate the development of healthcare solutions. Core targets for treatment include cancer, cardio-vascular disease, and neuro-degenera-tive disease.«We want as much data as possible to get unique insights,» says Osifo. «We have thousands of cancer cases in Ni-geria but little research on the muta-tions to develop new therapies and treatments.»

Part of 54gene›s work is developing diagnostic facilities within African countries. Currently some samples have to be sent abroad for testing.«There are no datasets to produce new drugs and to fill this gap we need a wide range of test subjects,» he says, adding that hospital patients have gen-erally been happy to volunteer their DNA. «They know if we can discov-er solutions it helps not just them but wider communities in Africa - and eve-rywhere.»Osifo points out that study of African DNA can deliver benefits that extend beyond Africa, as demonstrated in the case of Praluent.

Investor catnip

54gene›s progress quickly drew inter-est from investors.The company was recruited to a Y Combinator accelerator program and in July raised $4.5 million in seed funding from venture capital firms, a record for a Nigerian health tech start-up. Backers included Y Combinator, Fifty Years, Better Ventures, and Hack VC.

«By building datasets that are more inclusive, 54gene will help democ-ratize molecular medicine while unlocking insights that will lead to better therapeutics for everyone,» said Seth Bannon, founding partner at Fifty Years.«We backed 54gene because they can not only generate massive prof-its but can help level the playing field in genetics.»The company was also chosen from thousands of applicants for the «Google for Startups» accelera-tor scheme, which will see the firm benefit through mentoring and fun-draising support from the software giant, as well as access to Google technology.

Osifo says the plan is to strike while the iron is hot through expansion of operations and into new markets.«We are scaling very rapidly and our team is growing,» he says. «We have a commercial team in the US, most of our operation is in Nigeria,

and we are trying to enter other Afri-can markets.»The team hope to begin work soon in Rwanda and Botswana, as well as deepening their presence in Nigeria.

Cultivating an ecosystem

Osifo says there are specific challeng-es to building a health tech company in Nigeria relative to the US and Europe.Highly-skilled workers are often tempted by jobs abroad, and entrepre-neurs must play a part in developing necessary infrastructure rather than re-lying on a pre-existing framework.54gene has launched its own advanced diagnostics lab in the absence of a comparable facility, which supports local hospitals as well as its own work. Currently, the company must send DNA samples abroad for sequencing, but this could soon be bought in house.This does at least have the upside of developing the wider healthcare sec-tor, and Osifo is confident that other entrepreneurs will follow 54gene›s lead. Several Nigerian health startups have gained funding in the past year such as Helium Health and MDaas global, suggesting the industry could be ripe for growth.There are also signs of greater interest from African governments, according to Dr. Jenniffer Mabuka-Maroa, head of genetics at the African Academy of Sciences (AAS), which is pursuing its own biobank initiative.«The governments are slow but even-tually they get it,» she says, adding that scientists need to be more effective in communicating the value of their pro-grams. «Data to show money saved as a result of an intervention will be easy (for them) to buy. We also need a few scientists in government offices to help in pushing this agenda forward.»Both 54gene and their new partners at Google talk about creating «eco-systems» in African markets - a virtuous circle with mutually sup-portive ties between investors, en-trepreneurs, and state institutions that leads to improvements in edu-cation, employment, and patient outcomes.The study of African genomics remains under-explored, but is rich with promise.

Unlocking the Life-saving Secrets of African DNA

5 ECONOMY

Mohamed Abdalla

Economic Vision

Email: moabd31@yahoo.com

Customs Authority Destroys 150 Tons of Expired Commodities in the Red Sea State

The International Dimension of Sudan Economy Issues

From time to time, we write about the economic impact of keeping Sudan on the list of countries sponsoring terrorism, the following article was published a long time ago, again we republish it to support both the national and international voices that demand for urgent respond to Sudanese aspira-tion.The appeal of Sudan Prime Minister before the re-cent UN assembly affirms the necessity of removing Sudan from US terror list, to restore its economy.The main issue that dominates the minds of Suda-nese is “Economy” they talk about the livelihood, minimum wages, unemployment, gross domestic product, inflation, import and export activities, the uprising of prices and the corruption. those are the economic common ground to any country, the whole world is suffering from the dramatic trade changes and economic deterioration following the world economic crisis in 2008, but the challenges that face each country were different, in case of Sudan the challenge is “External” nearly 80% of the economic problems associated with the conse-quences of the US unilateral economic sanctions which was imposed in 1997.The sanctions affected the trade activity and invest-ment process alongside the movement of “capitals” which rely on international banking relations. we know that internal economic resources and poten-tials alone, can’t change the fact, unless it access to international banking system.Sudan has endowed with all the types of economic factors, land, labor and various kinds of resourc-es, but the question is why do we still complain? the answer is so simple, because US isolated Su-dan, the influx of foreign investment was affected by the financial instructions issued by US central bank, while the Sudan products were siege by the restrictions that paralyzed both import and export business.The future of Sudan economy is not related to the currency rate exchange, it links to the “freedom of capitals” and money transactions, the government must focus on persuading the influenced largest economic countries to remove Sudan from the list of the banking banned countries, this is the num-ber one issue, now the economic disease has been diagnosed, so it is easy to prescribe the suitable medicine that draws the brilliant future of Sudan economy.US is responsible for the ongoing bad situation, it uses double standard to deal with Sudan, Sudan has met the conditions of being removed from the list of the countries sponsoring terrorism, all the US of-ficial statements and intelligence reports confirmed and assured that Sudan contributes to fight against “terror” and cooperates to realize the regional and international security and peace, I think hammering on changing US stances against Sudan is the only way out to the better economic situation.

Thursday, October 3, 2019

Report by Neimat al Naiem

Customs Authority destroyed 150 tons of expired commodities, not according to the national standards and measures on Monday 1st Octo-ber 2019 at the Red Sea state .The campaign was implemented in the presence of Brig. Hafiz al Taj Mekki ; Governor of the Red Sea State and Police Brig. Mohamed Musa Omer ; Police Director , and Police Brig. Awad Allah Al Sheikh Awad al Ka-rim, General Manager (GM) of the Customs Corporation and the con-cerned committee. The campaign destroyed 150 tons of

expired commodities and commodi-ties not admitted to the national stand-ards and measures .It is estimated to total cost of SDGs 200, 000. Some of these items are not listed in the permitted commodities to enter Su-dan through the ministry of health in Sudan. These commodities included some crops like nuts, rice, besides cosmetics, medicines, toys and fire games for children, Used and old Clothes of expired dates. Police Birg. Awad al Sheikh, GM of the Custom Authority assured that the expired commodities are illegal, and are not suitable to be used by human beings. He described the campaign

as one of the aims of the Sudanese Customs Administration to protect the national economy and the so-ciety from such negative practices. He added that the combating and eradicating of this phenomenon is

considered the strong hand to curb these practices of smuggling in the Red Sea state. On his part , Police Col. Muhei Al Din Hassan Ali Hassan , manager of Smuggling Control department de-scribed this campaign as the biggest one , added that the campaign is suc-cessfully organized .He appreciated great efforts exerted by police and Custom Corporation leaders and of-ficers . Police Col. Khalf Allah al Abeid Hus-sein, manager of information and pub-lic relations at the Customs Authority pointed to that all these expired com-modities entered the Red Sea State

through smuggling processes that threating the State which character-ized with its tough geographical na-ture of series of mountains, desert and valleys, despite the successful cam-paigns adopted by police and Cus-toms leaderships. He explained that most commodities entered through smuggling and had been controlled according to the Custom law, and against to the articles 198, and 199. Regards to the environmental nega-tive impact of burning such com-modities , Al Abeid explained that all safety procedures are adopted , noted to the campaign took place far away in the West of Port Sudan from the citizens areas .He expected more logistic support to the Customs Authority and Police forces to implement such successful campaigns to combat these negative practices in the Red Sea State.

Sudan Poverty Alleviation PolicyReport by Mohamed Abdalla

In 2007 the Central Bank of Sudan (CBOS) has issued an order to the commercial Banks to allocate 12% of its capitals to finance mi-cro economic projects, as an attempt to fight against poverty, the ordinary people want to know how do they get finance? What is going to be happen in case of failure, what types of projects that funded.Everyone looks for finance, due to the eco-nomic pressure, which has change the men-tality of people who began to save money, to overcome livelihood challenges, the first step is to prepare a feasibility, to invest in certain project, there are a lot of projects, like invest-ment in transportation sector, telecommunica-tions, stores and others. The amount of money specified for micro finance is so limited, many projects were controlled individually, more than 60% of those who get finance failed to provide a successful samples.According to my experience, most of the cli-ents who have been funded from the Family Bank or other Banks don’t utilize the allocated money to support the project, they take the money and spend it to meet daily requirements,

the objec-tive is to reduce pov-erty rate, but unfor-t u n a t e l y the major-ity of those poor people were jailed, they didn’t cover the monthly in-stallments, I don’t say the micro fi n a n c e policy has failed, it has realized positive aspects, but it needs amend-ments of regulations and policies, also it needs well skilled clients and trained project direc-tors to deal with small business activities.The idea itself is good in terms of theory, but when it comes to practice, a lot of mistakes were appeared on the surface to prove that a comprehensive revision to the policy must be conducted, to address the new challenges,

people complain of lack of transparency in fi-nancing alongside mismanagement and lack of following up from the micro finance offic-ers.The main obstacle on the way of poor people is the bureaucracy of the Banks, the applicants stay for along times to get finance, while the prices of commodities was changing, also many people can’t find the person who candi-dates him to be fulfilled the conditions.

Animal Wealth in Sudan… Achievements and Challenges (1-2)Interview by SUNA

Sudan Vision republishes the inter-view conducted by SUNA which fo-cuses on the contribution of animal resources to Sudan economy.Official authorities depend on Ani-mal Wealth sector as one of eco-nomical sectors to support directions of production and exporting via pro-viding hard currency to the Public Treasury and achieve food security for people.Sudan News Agency interviewed Acting Undersecretary of Fishery and Animal Wealth ministry, Dr. Ah-mad Mahmoud Shiek-Al-deen to shied light on plans, projects and ac-tivities of the ministry to promote the sector’s production:-

Q: Could you give us idea on cur-rent plans to develop animal wealth exporting the two kinds live and slaughtered animals ?A:Concerning plans, we work to decrease exporting live cattle to increase added value and export instead of that, slaughtered meats through building modern and a new slaughterhouse according to interna-tional standards. New slaughterhouse in Al-Kadaro is ready for operating , while the old slaughterhouse was re-habilitated according to international

standards . Saudi delegation had vis-ited some Slaughterhouses last pe-riod and pointed to some notes , as it expect a visit by another delega-tion from Saudi authority of Food and Drugs in next month to approve on quality of these slaughterhouses to admit them in exporting system, what will raise meats exporting.

Q: In this year how many number of exported meats and cattle comparing with number of last year?A: It didn’t decrease but increased. In between current January till July the number reached to 2 ,978, 570 Head of cattle. Exporting of Sheep raised increased to 2% comparing to the last year, as it expected to reach more than 5 million by end of this year.

Q:Are there intention to open new markets for exporting after Saudi Arabia and Gulf states?A:It is responsibility of Ministry of Trade . we have favorable chance to opening new markets , particular exporting meats to west Africa states. In a meeting with group of Nigerian businessmen in Dubai last period , We knew that they import chilled meats from Brasilia , while Sudan is the nearest for Nigeria. In addition there are another demands from Qatar and United Arab Emirates to import Sheep for Eid Al-Adha.

Q: What about challenges that face veterinary quarries and your vision to improve them according to the in-ternational standards?A: They are in need to great efforts. Working is going on and near to ac-complish new Slaughter House “ Heydob” at Port Sudan. It is a huge and designed according to high mod-ern standards what will facilitate many obstacles in this field.

Q: Are there finance for export ? and

does there are encouragement poli-cies via central bank to improve export sector?A: Yes, there are some obstacles. It is supposed to rearrange sector of the Cattle Exporters in order to en-able their funding and unify them in companies or groups. Generally , Central Bank is in charge of prob-lems of export revenues, as its poli-cies should review and they need to return for system of in-advance pay-ment to secure revenues of export.

Madani Affirms Importance of Activate Border Trade

Sudan Vision

The importance of the reactivating of the border trade with the neighboring countries is so important, said the Minister of Trade and Industry, Madani Abbas Madani, who also drawn attention to necessity of exchanging interests.He added that opening of borders contribute to realize social and economic development.Madani said in a statement to SUNA that the priorities of the ministry include reactivation of the border trade and the exchange of goods and services between border with neighboring countries for ending the smuggling and saving resources.

China Central Government Renews Efforts to Cast off Impoverishment by End of 2020By Li Lei China Daily – SUNA

Beijing -The central government has ear-marked 13.5 billion Yuan ($1.89 billion) this year for poverty alleviation in regions plagued by deep-rooted issues, the most difficult part of the country’s fight against poverty, a senior official said on Friday.These areas, mostly home to a mosaic of ethnic communities, are scattered across western China, including the Tibet autono-mous region, the southern part of the Xin-jiang Uygur autonomous region and sev-eral autonomous prefectures in Qinghai, Sichuan, Yunnan and Gansu provinces, according to Liu Yongfu, director of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development, the top poverty reduction agency.The regions have seen notable progress in living standards over the last few years, as the central government pumped billions of Yuan and enormous human resources into relief efforts there.Some 12 billion Yuan, or 60 percent of the

central government’s annual relief funds, was injected into the regions last year. The fund this year will account for 65 percent of the national total, he told a news confer-ence in Beijing held to mark achievements since the founding of the People’s Repub-lic of China in 1949.The central and local governments have also ramped up efforts to supply the re-gions with much-needed talent.“Let’s take Liangshan Yi autonomous pre-fecture in Sichuan province as an example. The provincial government sent 5,700 of-ficials to villages within the prefecture to aid its development,” he said, adding pro-gress was obvious.Figures provided by Liu’s office showed that the regions were home to 3.05 million impoverished people at the beginning of 2018, which was slashed by 1.33 million by the end of last year, dropping at double the average pace of other western regions.China had almost 100 million poor farm-ers in 2012, when the central government renewed its push for a poverty-free society by the end of 2020.

EditorialThe Illusions of the

Opposition

OPINION6 Thursday, October 3, 2019

At a time when the whole world expresses admiration towards the change in Sudan and the moves of the transitional period

government, we find that some of the opposi-tion entities are addicted to criticizing the gov-ernment.The reasons of those are enormous starting from the deep state and not ending with the shallow thinking individuals.The opposition entities are in an unannounced alliance to put the government in a narrow cor-ner to start lashing it.Those are the enemies of the freedom, equality, justice, democracy, development and prosperity. They are the supporters of the dictatorship and corruption.They are part of the Sudanese crisis, but defi-nitely they are not the solution.They call the government (Hamdok govern-ment) to draw the attention from the fact that it is the government of the revolution which finds all the support from the Sudanese people.It is not like any other government in Sudan be-cause it came to implement a certain programme in a certain time.It is the government of assuring the democratic transformation and not to rule by iron fist.A government with such dimension should not be opposed.There is difference between the rational oppo-sition and the opposition which only wants to topple the government.We should recognize that the ousted regime did not express the desire of the people, but it was a one-party rule which decided to confront the whole world, a matter that resulted to isolating Sudan economically and politically.Now the prestige of the state is back through Dr. Hamdok who is well versed in the dynamics of politics, legislation and administration.Hamdok is bringing back the lost gains through a thoughtful address that represents the majority of the Sudanese people who protested against the ousted corrupt regime.We are now emerging from the darkness of a dictatorship to the lights of democracy and openness towards the world.Hamdok brought back the respect of the interna-tional community.No place for the illusions of the enemies of the revolution.

Following the Ukraine scandal, the White House staff were restricted from access-ing the Phone Call Transcript between Trump, Vladimir Putin, and the Saudi Crowned Prince Mohamed Bin Salman (MBS). According to Vox, White House aides were said to have supposedly at-tempted to hide records of that Call by putting the word-for-word transcripts on a computer server usually reserved for ‘top secret’ information, rather than the usual ‘secret’ information server. This measures is taken only to prevent the contents of the call from being leaked. In his complaint, the whistleblower wrote ‘According to White House offi-

cials I spoke with, this was “not the first time” under this Administration that a Presidential transcript was placed into this code word-level system solely for the purpose of protecting politically sen-sitive - rather than national security sen-sitive - information.’ This allegations by the whistleblower proves the indelible impression every-body had about Mr. Trumpís type of per-sonality. He cares much about himself rather than caring about his own country or his political party. He likes to get to his goals regardless the means used to achieve these goals. To smash his po-litical opponents, he can do whatever it takes to satisfy his ego which con-trols his conduct every single moment. He pushed Montenegro Prime Minister Dusko Markovic to get in front of the pack at a NATO Summit. He ordered

American companies to stop doing busi-ness in China against their will; Trump is really acting like a king amid silence of Republicans. Now he is denying access to Call Tran-scripts with two foreign leaders he has sided with so many times against his own intelligence agencies. The billion US dollar question is why access is de-nied to such transcripts? What are you hiding Mr. President? The world and the Americans already suspects the med-dling of Russia in the 2016 election, the close relation between you and Mr. Pu-tin, and the cover up of Saudi column-ist Jamal Khashoggi killing, when your administration failed to send Congress a report determining who was responsible for his death. Therefore, it is pretty clear why you are hiding such transcripts from going publicly.

In Donald Trumpís era we came to know that the United States of America is the home to many brave people but no long-er the land of free. During the 2016 cam-paign, then-candidate Trump called on Russia, China and other hackers to turn over Clinton’s emails. Now he pressured Ukraine President to investigate the Joe Bidenís son. What else can the man do to destroy the US with his addiction to lying, disordered personality, unhealthy patterns of thinking, detachment from reality, and his demand for total loyalty from all those around him while showing none to others.The world is watching closely this con-troversial presidency at this perilous time and anticipating the dire consequences. US image has changed dramatically in the minds of so many people around the globe including us as ìshitholeî nation.

Phone Call Transcript between Trump, Vladimir Putin, and MBS is Restricted

Who Opened the Window?

It isnít everyday that a country is ruled by a strong man who has a dream for his nation. This ruler enjoys complete le-gitimacy and the ability to predict future changes. This ruler believes that becom-ing embroiled in the battle for modernity will act as a guarantee for the interests of the people and protect the country, its heritage and history.The dream transforms into a national project when it attracts people, especially the young generations that want to come to terms with this age and its scientific and technological wealth in order to provide appropriate job opportunities and prom-ising education. The ruler breaks the wall of fear because he has confidence in his people and dream.This took place in Chin and Singapore and is taking place in Saudi Arabia.China will celebrate its national day on Tuesday. President Xi Jinping will pre-side over a military parade at Beijingís Tiananmen Square. It is the same place where Mao Zedong stood 70 years ago to announce the establishment of the People’s Republic of China. The world would not have batted an eyelid had the country been full of poor people or been begging for aid. But today we are talking about the worldís second largest econo-my and the belief in the imminent rise of the Chinese age. We can understand the Chinese authori-tiesí need to remind the world of its mili-tary might. A new world is taking shape and China is currently engaged in a trade war with the United States, the worldís greatest power.

More important, however, than missiles and tanks is the message that the Chinese dream is ongoing and so is its massive global economic onslaught in the shape of its Belt and Road initiative.Tomorrowís celebration is also signifi-cant because China is currently ruled by the strongest ruler since Mao as Xi is now allowed by the constitution to remain in power indefinitely. The truth is Xi would not have reaped such power if it were not for Deng Xiaoping, who left his mark on Chinaís future when he kicked off a mas-sive transformation that paved the way for prosperity, while maintaining stabil-ity. Deng deviated from Maoís path. He may have preserved the great leaderís mausoleum, but he took the decision to reconcile with the times. He made the choice to become part of the world and progress away from stiff ideology and policies. Deng did not burn the Red Book, but he steered the country towards a mar-ket economy, technological progress, competition and openness to others.Dengís journey was not at all easy. Ma-jor transformations strike major fears. He had to persuade the majority and confront the old guard, who were still clinging on to Mao from beyond the grave. He had to assure those who feared that opening the window would pave the way for col-lapse, not change. He had to change men-talities and methods. He had to respond to doubters with achievements and let the numbers confirm the fulfillment of dreams, especially since major transfor-mations always bring about the danger of errors and setbacks.Had Deng only ruled to maintain conti-nuity and stability, China would not be where it is today and Xi would not be able to address the world tomorrow in his capacity as a major player. Major trans-formations demand exceptional figures.

Deng is the man who opened the window. Another similar pioneering experience was witnessed in Singapore. The small island could have been mired in poverty and ethnic tensions. But Lee Kuan Yew was no ordinary prime minister. He had a piercing vision and iron will when he assumed his post. When he came to pow-er at the age of 35, he ruled over a poor country devoid of hope.He realized that changing the fate of his country demands difficult, bold and sometimes painful decisions. Shaping the future cannot be achieved without introducing the dream of modernity into homes, schools and the peopleís daily lives. The transformation needs a plan, stages, patience and amendments.Lee Kuan Yew kicked off the project, waging a relentless war against corrup-tion and bureaucracy. He opened the door to foreign investors and provided the necessary legal environment. He was extremely keen on preserving stability as without it, everything would fall apart. When he later recalled his journey, he said that countries are built on education. He explained that he came to power in a poor country and showed more atten-tion to the economy than politics. He focused on education, built schools and universities, sent students abroad to learn and then used their experience to develop Singapore.The project ended with a prosperous and stable Singapore. The island transformed into a global modern financial hub. Lee Kuan Yew was the man who opened the window. After the experience in China and Singapore, we are now witnessing a unique one in an Arab and Islamic coun-try. It is the major transformation taking place in Saudi Arabia. Vision 2030 is no longer the dream dreamed by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman alone and

with encouragement of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Ab-dulaziz. It is now a comprehensive Saudi dream. It has seeped into every home, school and university. Whoever visits the country would not be exaggerating in saying that he was visiting a new Saudi Arabia. It is a Saudi Arabia that adheres to its principles and beliefs, but also real-izes the importance of joining the battle for modernity. It is a Saudi Arabia that is confident of its ability to open up to the world and partner with it in building the future.Experience has shown that awakening hope in the regular citizen is a form of enrichment that is added to a countryís already existing wealth. They hope that the coming days will be better in provid-ing job opportunities, education and liv-ing conditions and empowering women. This is no easy feat in a region where de-spair eats away at the people and incom-petence paralyzes governments. Within this context, we can understand the march towards modernization and reform, diversifying sources of income for the post-oil period, attracting invest-ments, combating corruption and bu-reaucracy and investing in local wealth and tourism. This is a solid project that is forging forward undeterred by attempts to obstruct it, the last of which was the attack against the Aramco oil facilities. Perhaps maintaining the project accord-ing to plan is the best response to increas-ingly hostile anti-Saudi policies that stem from concerns that the country will be-come a major modern economic power to add to is significant Arab, Islamic and international standing.The transformation and success in Saudi Arabia may become an example and in-spire others. Mohammed bin Salman is the man who opened the window.

China is qualified country to promote South- South cooperation in upcoming future, but this requested the third world developing countries to work hand-in-hand with China for achieving this common project. This should be depend on the Silk Road belt that represents the strong connecting link between the third world developing countries and Beijing the upcoming month there will be a com-mon economic demonstration will hold in China between African countries and Peopleís Republic of China, the histori-cal meeting paves the way for the two sides to touch the possibility of promot-ing the South- South Cooperation. In response to the current situation and under the framework of BRICS cooper-ation mechanism, this is a strong call for deeper South-South Cooperation and joint approaches to global development. The Chinese leaderís remarks are of far-reaching significance and will lend a strong impetus to global economic growth and joint development.The growing risks of downward pres-sure and uncertainties in the world econ-omy should not be ignored. Multilateral trade negotiations are stalled, and the implementation of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change is encountering re-sistance. Some countries have become more inward looking and less inclined to engage in international development cooperation, and spillovers of their pol-

icy adjustment are deepening.As the world, economy enters a crucial stage where new drivers of growth are replacing traditional ones at a quicker pace, there is mounting competition fo-cused on interests and rules. This makes the external environment for emerging markets and developing countries more complex and challenging. However, as President Xi said, ìA boat sailing against the currents has to forge ahead or risks falling behind.î ìEmerging mar-kets and developing countries represent the future of the world. Therefore, it is our responsibility to promote coopera-tion on international development and implement the Sustainable Develop-ment Agenda.î Since 2013, China has set great store by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Devel-opment, by developing a national pro-gram to implement the Agenda and set-ting up innovation demonstration zones on sustainable development. Thanks to these efforts, China has attained early harvests on economic, social, environ-mental and many other fronts. Interna-tionally, China will work through such mechanisms as the Assistance Fund for South-South Cooperation, China-UN Peace and Development Fund and South-South Climate Cooperation Fund to boost cooperation on development and help fellow developing countries in implementing the Sustainable Develop-ment Agenda.At the Dialogue, President Xi announced that China would provide 500 million U.S. dollars to the Assistance Fund for South-South Cooperation, to help fel-

low developing countries tackle famine, refugee, climate change, public health and other challenges. This demonstrates to the full how China is shouldering its responsibilities as a representative of the developing world and giving its firm support to South-South Cooperation.The past decade has not only seen solid progress in the BRICS coopera-tion mechanism; in China it has also witnessed the unfolding of all-round reform and opening up and rapid eco-nomic and social development. Over the past 10 years, Chinaís economic aggre-gate has grown by 239 percent and the total value of imports and exports has risen by 73 percent. China has become the worldís second largest economy and the lives of its 1.3 billion-plus people have significantly improved. China has made an ever-greater contribution to both regional and global economic de-velopment.At the opening ceremony of the BRICS Business Forum, President Xi made a commitment that ìas we go forward, China will continue to put into practice the vision of innovative, coordinated, green, open and inclusive develop-ment. China will adapt to and steer the new normal of economic development, push forward supply-side structural re-form, accelerate the building of a new system for an open economy, drive eco-nomic development with innovation, and achieve sustainable development. China will stay firmly committed to peaceful development and make even greater contribution to global peace and development.î South-South Coop-

eration aims to promote the sharing of knowledge and experience among de-veloping countries. China is a member of the developing world and an active advocate of South-South Cooperation. In the process of its own development, China has always sought to combine its domestic interests with those of other developing countries, and to assist fel-low participants in South-South Coop-eration to the very limits of its capacity. In recent years, China has set up such platforms as the Center for International Knowledge on Development, Institute of South-South Cooperation and De-velopment, Global Poverty Reduction & Inclusive Growth Portal, and Global Poverty Reduction Online Knowledge Sharing Database. These are all designed to promote the sharing of knowledge and experience among developing countries, and to help them find solutions to the blight of poverty. China is committed to promoting global development through its own development, and to working with the international community to identify win-win opportunities.South-South Cooperation remains a long-term project, and the implementa-tion of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is a responsibility shared by every developing country. As Presi-dent Xi said at the opening ceremony of the BRICS Business Forum, ìLet us work together with other members of the international community, let our co-operation deliver more benefits to the peoples of our five countries, and let the benefits of global peace and develop-ment reach all the people in the world.î

China Keen to Enhance South-South CooperationMoonlight

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A Closer Look

By: Alsir Sidahmed

Asharq Al-Awsat

Ghassan Charbel

THURSDAY

Thursday, October 3, 2019From Our Archive

8 SCIENCE Thursday, October 3, 2018

Golden Coffin Stolen during 2011 Revolution Returned to Egypt

AFP

SYDNEY: An Australian teenager has been charged over the deaths of 20 kangaroos, which he allegedly mowed down with his truck in a killing spree that lasted an hour.The dead kangaroos, including two joeys, were found littered over roads in Tura Beach, 450 kilometers south of Sydney, on Sunday morning.At least three other joeys were orphaned as a result of the dis-turbing attack, according to wildlife rescue group WIRES.Police said Wednesday the man, 19, had been arrested and charged with animal cruelty offenses on Tuesday.The man allegedly hit and killed the marsupials with his utility vehicle late on Saturday night.“We take incidents such as these very seriously and anyone who engages in activities such as these will face the full brunt of the law,” Bega Valley chief inspector Peter Volf said.Though the sight of dead kangaroos by the roadside is not un-common in New South Wales state — where about 90 percent of car crashes are caused by collisions with the animals — the scale and allegedly intentional nature of the incident shocked locals.“It was a very unpleasant sight,” resident Rob Evans told the ABC. “Police see an awful lot of things, but you could see that they were shocked as well.”WIRES said the incident came to its attention when police brought a six-month-old orphaned joey to one of its volunteers at 1.30am on Sunday. Two others aged around nine months old were discovered later.The group said it was “horrified” by the “apparent act of cru-elty,” with the three surviving joeys now requiring round-the-clock care.Eastern grey kangaroos usually begin venturing out of their mother’s pouch at about nine months of age, but are not fully independent until they reach 18 months.

Australian Teen ‘Deliberately’ Mowed down, Killed 20 Kangaroos

Laila Mohamed

CAIRO: Egyptian and American au-thorities have announced that the golden coffin of Egyptian priest Ned-jemankh, which was stolen during the 2011 revolution, was this week returned to Egypt after it was fraudulently sold to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.The large decorated coffin dates back to the first century BC. It was exca-vated from Minya governorate in Up-per Egypt, stolen by antique gangs eight years ago and then smuggled out of the country. According to the Daily Mail, the Met purchased the coffin from a Paris art dealer in July 2017 for about $4 million. It came with bogus documentation, in-cluding a forged 1971 Egyptian export license. The museum believed that the art dealer, Christophe Kunicki, was acting in good faith and had a legal right to sell the cof-fin. As a result, the museum was deceived into believing that it could legitimately purchase the golden coffin. The object was placed on public display and soon became a major hit with visi-

tors. It was not long before 500,000 peo-ple had been to see the coffin, which is in the shape of a mummy, is 2 meters long and is skillfully made from wood and metal, with a covering of sheets of gold.Ahmed Fathy, a restoration official at Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities, said that the Met was approached by the dis-trict attorney’s office in New York in February this year. It came forward with evidence indicat-ing that the prized artifact was stolen as part of an international smuggling op-eration. After reviewing the evidence,

the museum’s officials agreed to return the golden coffin to its rightful owners, the Egyptian people, and removed the item from public display.Fathy said that the coffin was identified as stolen thanks to the efforts of the Antiqui-ties Anti-Smuggling Unit, which is affiliated with the office of the district attorney in New York, and with the cooperation of officials from the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Antiquities. The unit had previously succeeded in re-trieving stolen Roman, Greek, Indian and Buddhist monuments and returned them to their countries of origin. He added that

Egypt has become more determined to re-cover its monuments that have been stolen or illegally sold.A press conference was held last week an-nouncing the imminent repatriation of the coffin. It was attended by Egyptian Foreign Min-ister Sameh Shoukry, the New York district attorney and senior officials. Shoukry stated that the coffin “is not only for Egyptians but this is for our common human heritage.”Investigations into the theft and illegal sale of the historic item are ongoing. The authorities have not indicated if

they have identified any suspects. The Met is reportedly deeply an-gered by the incident and is review-ing how it acquires new items. The museum has also vowed to retrieve the money that it gave to the French art dealer for the stolen item.An official at Cairo’s Egyptian Mu-seum, who preferred to remain anony-mous, told Arab News that the coffin will be displayed in the new Grand Egyptian Museum, which is due to open next year.History researcher Abdel-Meguid Ab-del-Aziz said that Nedjemankh’s coffin dates back to when Egypt was ruled by the Ptolemaic dynasty.

Nedjemankh was a senior priest of the ram-god Heryshef of Herakleopolis (now the Ehnasia district in Beni Suef). The coffin no longer contains the mummy of the priest.The coffin of Nedjemankh is elaborately decorated with scenes and hieroglyph-ic texts meant to guide the priest on his jour-ney to eternal life. The gold symbolized the priest’s special re-lationship with the Egyptian gods. A unique feature of the coffin are the thin layers of silver inside the casket, possibly de-signed to protect the face of the priest during his journey to the afterlife.

Arab News

JEDDAH: The World Robot Olympiad (WRO) in Saudi Arabia opens tomorrow at the Prince Faisal bin Fahd Olym-pic Complex in Riyadh.The tournament is organized by Ministry of Communica-tions and Information Tech-nology (MCIT) in partnership with a number of government and private entities, including the Ministry of Education, the Saudi Federation of Cyber Security and Programming, King Abdul Aziz City for Sci-ence and Technology and the Saudi Wireless and Remote Control Sports Federation.WRO 2019 in Saudi Arabia is sponsored by ThinkTech, an initiative launched by MCIT that explores technology de-velopments, achieving sustainable de-velopment and building an innovative and informed generation, all integrated with the Kingdom’s Vision 2030. It aims to enhance the role of the ICT sector in building a digital society, digital gov-ernment and a thriving digital economy throughout the Kingdom.ThinkTech is linked to the STEAM ap-proach, an educational method which focuses on the use of science, technol-ogy, engineering, arts and mathematics as access points for youth in robotics and artificial intelligence applications. Eight hundred trainees have benefited from the ThinkTech platform, paving the way for the local, regional and international WRO competitions.Three hundred contenders will compete in the 2019 competition in four catego-ries and four age groups. The Regular Category, where teams design, construct and program their robots to solve specific challenges in a field for four age groups — up to 10 years, Elementary (up to 12 years). Junior (13-15 years) and Senior (16-19 years); the Open Category where participants create their own intelligent robotics solution relating to the current theme of the season, which is for two age

groups (13-15 years and 16-19 years); the Football Category of autonomous robots playing football, which is for one age category (10-19 years old); and the Advanced Robotics Challenge, where games are designed to test older and more experienced students’ engineering and programming skills to the limit, and is for one age group (17-25 years old).The winners will qualify for the first time for the WRO 2019 International Final to be held in Gyor, Hungary, on Nov. 8-10. FASTFACT• 300 contenders will compete in the 2019 competition in four categories and four age groups.• The winners will qualify for the first time for the WRO International Final in Gyor, Hungary from Nov. 8-10.The Kingdom today is using robots in all sectors, including Hajj and Umrah. For example, “robot” technology has been used for medical consultations during Hajj season in August.The Saudi Health Ministry launched ro-bot technology to offer diagnoses to pa-tients and offer medical consultations at hospitals in Mina, and in medical cara-vans.The technology includes tools such as specialized cameras to check eyes and

ears, as well as cameras to inspect the skin, to enable doctors to make a diagno-sis and offer consultations.In June, Johns Hopkins Aramco Health-care (JHAH) became the first hospital in Saudi Arabia to perform a robotic-assist-ed hysterectomy using fluorescent dye.JHAH’s robotic surgery program began in December 2016 when Dr. Tareq M. Al-Tartir, JHAH sub-specialist surgeon, and his team collaborated with Dr. Mo-hamad Allaf, professor of urology, on-cology and biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (JH-SoM) and director of minimally inva-sive urology, and his team. They joint-ly conducted the first surgeries in the Kingdom using the da Vinci Xi robotic surgical system. The program has since expanded and includes gynecological and bariatric surgeries.It should also be noted that Saudi Arabia is the first and perhaps the only country in the world that has granted citizenship to a robot, in this case one named So-phia.Saudi Arabia is in the midst of an un-precedented economic, social, and de-velopment-accelerated transformation, all in the context of Saudi Arabia’s Vi-sion 2030.

Robot Olympiad Kicks off in Riyadh

Baby Arabia

Morning sickness or nausea, some-times accompanied with vomiting, is caused by pregnancy hormones dur-ing the first trimester of pregnancy, and sometimes begins as early as two weeks after conception. Some wom-en find that nausea and vomiting are worst in the morning. But symptoms can occur at any time of day or night. Most women feel better at the begin-ning of the second trimester (around

the 12th- 14th week), while some others continue to feel ill throughout their pregnancies.Morning sickness affects a large pro-portion of pregnant women though it tends to be worse in first-time preg-nancies. Morning sickness can range from mild, occasional nausea to se-vere, continuous, and disabling nau-sea with bouts of vomiting. Rarely do pregnant women get morning sickness that is so severe that it may require hospitalisation and treatment.

What causes morning sickness dur-ing pregnancy?Early in pregnancy, hormone levels (pregnancy hormones hCG and es-trogen) increase dramatically caus-ing that nauseous feeling as the body is not yet used to the new hormone levels. Also women carrying twins or more have higher hormones lev-els and tend to have severe morning sickness.Increased levels of progesterone make the muscles of the digestive

tract more relaxed which slows di-gestion and make the stomach take more time to empty.Pregnant women develop a height-ened sense of smell, making previ-ously mild odours strong enough to cause vomiting.Skipping meals and pregnancy food aversions could also contribute to the nauseous feeling.How to cope with morning sickness:* An empty stomach may aggravate nausea.

* Eat small meals or snacks every two to three hours rather than three large meals to ease the symptoms. Chew your food slowly and completely.* If nausea is a problem in the morn-ing, eat dry foods like cereal, toast or crackers before getting out of bed to lessen the nauseous feeling. * Eat a high-protein snack– such as lean meat or cheese– before going to bed could lessen the nausea in the morning as protein takes longer time to digest.

How to Cope with Pregnancy Nausea and Morning Sickness

WORLD NEWS9 Thursday, October 3, 2019

Over 1,000 Migrants and Refugees Died in the

Mediterranean this Year, Says UNHCR

Two Dead, 200 Injured as Police Use Live Fire to Disperse Protesters in Baghdad

Trump Denounces Impeachment Inquiry as a ‘Coup’

AP, ReutersCAIRO: More than 1,000 migrants and refugees have died in the Mediter-ranean Sea this year, the sixth year in a row that this ‘bleak milestone’ has been reached, the UN said on Tues-day.The UN refugee agency UNHCR called for European Union (EU) mem-ber states to reactivate search and res-cue operations and acknowledge the crucial role of aid groupsí vessels in saving lives at sea.‘The tragedy of the Mediterranean cannot be allowed to continue,’ Char-lie Yaxley, spokesman of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNH-CR), said in a statement.The bodies of five migrants were found on Moroccoís Atlantic coast near Casablanca on Monday, bring-ing to 12 the number killed when their boat capsized on Saturday, the state news agency reported.The EU struck a deal with Ankara in 2016 to cut off refugee and migrant flows to Greece from Turkey. Depar-tures have fallen sharply from a peak

of more than 1 million in 2015 to some 78,000 so far this year, UNHCR fig-ures show.BACKGROUNDï The EU struck a deal with Ankara in 2016 to cut off refugee and migrant flows to Greece from Turkey. ï Depar-tures have fallen sharply from a peak of more than 1 million in 2015 to some 78,000 so far this year, figures show.‘Of course the number of people at-tempting to cross the Mediterranean are much lower. So, that points to the fact that the journeys themselves are much more dangerous,’ UNHCR spokeswoman Liz Throssell told Reu-ters Television.‘It is also worth highlighting that 70 percent of the deaths actually occur on the central Mediterranean, namely people attempting to get from Libya across to Italy or Malta.’More than 18,000 people have lost their lives in Mediterranean crossings since 2014, according to figures from both the UNHCR and the website of the UNís International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Suadad Al-SalhyBAGHDAD:’At least two people were killed and 200 injured on Tuesday as security forc-es used tear gas, water cannons and live fire against Iraqis protesting against unemploy-ment and corruption.The main demonstration was in central Bagh-dad, with others in seven Shiite-dominated southern provinces. Police in the capital fired in the air as about 3,000 protesters tried to cross a bridge leading into the fortified Green Zone, chanting ‘People want to overthrow the regime.’Security forces blocked roads and used stun grenades and water cannons to push back the crowd, but protesters refused to leave.’They set fire to the building used by an Iraqi army detachment, clashed with secu-rity forces and threw missiles at riot police and troops. ‘Our youth is lost. There is no work, no services, no clear future, so why we should keep silent?’ one protester, Moham-med, told Arab News. ‘All the governments and political forces that came after 2003 stole our future, and now they are shooting at us just because we want to protest.’ There were also protests in the southern oil hub’ of Bas-ra, where 15 people were arrested; friction in Dhi Qar province, where demonstrators tried to storm the provincial council; and unrest in Diwaniya, Najaf, Karbala, Babil and May-san.Calls for protests in Baghdad have inten-sified since last week, when Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi fired the commander of the military counterterrorism squad, Lt. Gen. Abdulwahab Al-Saadi.’Many Iraqis believe the decision was aimed at removing the leaders of the Iraqi army and official military institutions that led the fight

against Daesh.Observers and analysts said the dissatisfac-tion of most Iraqis was clear, but the publica-tion of provocative videos suggesting a mili-tary coup had created tension between police and demonstrators.When security forces opened fire it was ‘the fastest reaction against demonstrators since 2003,’ analyst Abdulwahid Tuama told Arab News.‘This could have been avoided, but Abdul Mahdi appears to be provocative.’“This is not a government, it is a bunch of parties and militias who destroyed Iraq,” said one protestor who declined to give his name out of fear of reprisal. Shi’ite Muslim militias

known as Popular Mobilization Forces play a large role in Iraqi politics and have represen-tation in parliament and government.Prime Minister Mahdi, who chaired the weekly cabinet meeting on Tuesday, issued a statement promising jobs for graduates. He instructed the oil ministry and other govern-ment bodies to start including a 50 percent quota for local workers in subsequent con-tracts with foreign companies.Iraq saw massive protests last year which first erupted in the south, heartland of the Shi’ite majority. Clashes took place between securi-ty forces and protesters incensed by collaps-ing infrastructure, frequent power cuts, and widespread corruption.

Arab NewsGAZA CITY: Palestinian President Mahmoud Ab-bas told the UN General Assembly last week that he plans to set a date for the first general election in 13 years in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Je-rusalem. Is it possible to hold such an election, and is the best option to turn the page and start a new chapter after the internal split between Fatah and Hamas, which has caused more than a decade of division and fragmenta-tion?Observers believe that Fatah leader Abbas is serious this time in his intent to call the elec-tion, after the failure of repeated attempts to rec-oncile and heal the divi-sions among Palestinians. The road will not be easy, however, with the pos-sibility that Hamas will block any voting in Gaza, and Israel might do the same in Jerusalem. Re-sponding quickly to the pledge by Abbas, Hamas announced its readiness to contest an election, but added that it must be in-clusive and take place as

part of presidential, legis-lative and Palestine Lib-eration Organization Na-tional Council elections.Raíafat Morra, the head of Hamasí foreign media department, said that the announcement by Abbas was ‘vague and unclear,’ and added: ‘We cannot deal with elections and national issues in a piece-meal way. We need a comprehensive Palestin-ian vision that addresses the issues of Palestinians at home and abroad. This requires a comprehen-sive dialogue, leading to inclusive elections at

all levels and a national consensus.’ He said that Hamas, which controls Gaza, would not accept an election for only the Palestinian Legislative Council; any vote would have to include the Legis-lative Council, the presi-dency and the National Council. Hamas won a majority in the last elec-tion for the Legislative Council, in early 2006. The constitutional term covered by that election ended on January 2010, while Abbasí presidential term ended in 2009. In the absence of any sub-

sequent elections, they remained in place. The Constitutional Court, which was formed by Ab-bas in 2016 without a na-tional consensus, issued a ruling last year ordering that the Legislative Coun-cil be dissolved.The focus on legislative elections only during Ab-basí announcement, Mor-ra said, was ‘a systematic sabotage and disruption of any Palestinian under-standing that achieves the supreme national inter-est.’ The road will not be easy, however, with the possibility that Hamas

will block any voting in Gaza, and Israel might do the same in Jerusalem.Fatah views the call by the president for a gen-eral elections as timely and appropriate after ex-hausting all attempts to end the split with Hamas, according to Revolution-ary Council spokesman Osama Al-Qawasmi. He added that the move will not be subject to the con-sent of any party, because elections are a political and constitutional right of Palestinians.Abbas did not specify whether his call includes a presidential election, but Al-Qawasmi said it would be limited to ‘leg-islative elections leading to the formation of a new government, which would restore the political sys-tem and fill the vacuum left by the absence of the Legislative Council.’Abbasí announcement of his election plans was widely welcomed by Pal-estinian groups, including the eight factions that last week launched a recon-ciliation initiative that is officially approved by Hamas.

AFPWASHINGTON : Donald Trump on Tuesday denounced the im-peachment inquiry threatening his presidency as a ‘coup,’ as his administration pushed back hard against the investigation.Trumpís comments came after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pressed to prevent or delay five former or current State Depart-ment staffers from testifying in the investigation probing accu-sations that Trump abused his of-fice by seeking dirt from Ukraine on a 2020 election rival.‘As I learn more and more each day, I am coming to the conclu-sion that what is taking place is not an impeachment, it is a COUP,’ Trump tweeted.It is ‘intended to take away the Power of the People, their VOTE, their Freedoms, their Second Amendment, Religion, Military, Border Wall, and their God-given rights as a Citizen of The United States of America!’ he wrote.‘The Greatest Witch Hunt in the history of our Country!’ he said.Pompeo meanwhile accused

three Democratic House com-mittee heads conducting the im-peachment inquiry of ‘an attempt to intimidate, bully and treat im-properly the distinguished pro-fessionals of the Department of State.’But Democrats accused the top US diplomat of ‘stonewalling’ the investigation and, accord-ing to media reports, scheduled interviews with at least two of the diplomats who both had di-rect involvement in the Ukraine matter.It was the first major clash of the days-old impeachment probe, pointing to a dramatical-ly mounting political and legal siege as Trump battles to save his presidency.Trump faces the possibility of becoming only the third presi-dent ever impeached by Con-gress, which could lead to his going on trial in the Senate.Democrats decided last week to seek impeachment after a whistleblower complaint, sup-ported by a White House call transcript, showed Trump pres-suring Ukraine President Volo-

dymyr Zelensky to supply him with politically useful informa-tion on Democratic former vice president Joe Biden.Biden is the most likely Demo-crat to challenge Trumpís reelec-tion bid next year.The first move of the three powerful House Democrats ó Adam Schiff of the Intelligence Committee, Eliot Engel of the House Foreign Affairs Commit-tee and Elijah Cummings of the Oversight Committee ó was to subpoena Pompeo and Trumpís private lawyer Rudy Giuliani for documents and to summon the five diplomats to testify.‘Secretary Pompeo was report-edly on the call when the Presi-dent pressed Ukraine to smear his political opponent,’ they said.Pompeoís letter suggested that the committees could be forced to subpoena the five diplomats, and that the State Department and White House could seek to limit what they can talk about.‘I will use all means at my dis-posal to prevent and expose any attempts to intimidate the dedi-

cated professionals whom I am proud to lead,’ Pompeo said.But news reports said the State Departmentís former special envoy to Ukraine, Kurt Volker, would testify Thursday and that the ex-ambassador to Kiev, Marie Yovanovitch, would ap-pear behind closed doors on Oc-tober 11.Volker had been sought by Giuliani to help pressure Zel-ensky, while Yovanovitch was removed earlier this year as am-bassador after she reportedly re-sisted that effort.The three committee heads warned Pompeo in a statement Tuesday that any effort to pre-vent witnesses from speaking to them was ‘illegal and will con-stitute evidence of obstruction of the impeachment inquiry.’Trumpís personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani suggested he might not comply with a House subpoena issued on Monday.Giuliani spent months earlier this year contacting Ukraine officials to encourage them to investigate Biden, whose son had business ties to Ukraine.

Sit-in at School of Hong Kong Protester Shot by Police

AFPHONG KONG: Hundreds of Hong Kongers staged a sit-in Wednesday outside the school of a teenage protester who was shot by police on Chinaís National Day in a dramatic escalation of the vi-olent unrest that has engulfed the territory for months.The international finance hub has been left reeling from the shoot-ing, the first time a demonstrator has been struck with a live round in nearly four months of increas-ingly violent pro-democracy pro-tests. Hong Kong was battered by the most sustained political clash-es of the year on Tuesday as China celebrated 70 years of Communist Party rule with a massive military parade in Beijing.The spiralling violence under-scored seething public anger against Beijingís rule and shifted the spotlight from Chinaís careful-ly choreographed birthday party, which was designed to showcase its status as a global superpower.Running battles raged for hours across multiple locations as hard-core protesters hurled rocks and petrol bombs. Police responded for the most part with tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannon.In Tsuen Wan district, a police officer fired his weapon at close range into the chest of Tsang Chi-kin, 18, as his unit was attacked by protesters armed with poles and umbrellas.Police said the officer feared for his life on a day that saw his col-leagues fire five warning shots from their pistols throughout the city. ‘In this very short span of time, he made a decision and shot

the assailant,’ police chief Stephen Lo said. But protest groups said the officer charged into the melee with his firearm drawn and con-demned the increasing use of live rounds. ‘HK (has) fallen into a de facto police state,’ democracy ac-tivist Joshua Wong tweeted. ‘The paramilitary security forces com-pletely took over this city.’The shooting was captured on video that quickly went viral. Out-side Tsangís school on Wednesday students chanted slogans and held pictures of the incident, taken form videos posted on Facebook.‘No rioters, only tyranny,’ they chanted, alongside other popular protest slogans. Tsang, who was filmed trying to strike the officer with a pole as he was shot, was taken to a nearby hospital in a crit-ical condition but authorities said his condition had since improved.‘According to the latest informa-tion of the Hospital Authority, the current condition of the man is stable,’ the government said in a statement. A friend and classmate of Tsang, who gave his first name Marco, said the 18-year-old was a keen basketballer who was infuri-ated by sliding freedoms in Hong Kong and the police response to the protests. ‘If he sees any prob-lems or anything unjust, he would face it bravely, speak up against it, instead of bearing it silently,’ Marco told AFP.Police said 25 officers were in-jured in the National Day clash-es, including some who suffered chemical burns from a corrosive liquid that was thrown at them by protesters. The liquid also wound-ed some journalists.

After Election Pledge from Abbas, what next for Palestine?

10 Thursday, October 3, 2019 Edited by: Alula Berhe Kidani - Haffiya Elyas

CHILDREN FIRST

Children First Why?

The welfare of children is fundamental to the future sustainable development of every nation in all spheres; economically, politically, culturally, etc. The page will focus on the various issues relating to children welfare and rights both at the national level and at the regional and international levels when major events will impact directly or indirectly the children of Sudan. At the same time the Page welcomes contributions from our readers and in particular from children and youth.

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Homeless

hafielyas@yahoo.com

Haffiya Elyas

The National Council for Child Welfare NCCW organized a workshop to assess and review Sudan›s experiences in deal-ing with children in streets in collabora-tion with the Italian Agency for Develop-ment and Cooperation The workshop addressing the issues of homeless or street children, announc-ing the beginning of the renewal of the policy that has been developed since 2009 so as to put model for the social integra-tion which will be applied in Khartoum State and then to the different StatesThe homeless or street children are suf-fering from miserable conditions and they are living in streets, abandoned buildings, tunnels and sewers, besides that they are exposed to physical and psychological abuse, not to mention that they do not have access to education.Experts attribute the phenomenon of homeless children to the ongoing wars in Sudan, particularly at Darfur, South Kor-dofan and Blue Nile regions in addition to the economic conditions in the country The homeless or street children are suf-fering from miserable conditions and they are living in streets, abandoned buildings, tunnels and sewers, besides that they are exposed to physical and psychological abuse, not to mention that they do not have access to education. Despite the efforts been exerted by the official Sudanese concerned authorities, the phenomenon of homeless children in Sudan is still continuing, which pushed many trends to demand finding a differ-ent methodology to address it together with its causes and to limit its negative consequences.Experts attribute the phenomenon of homeless children to the ongoing wars in Sudan, particularly in Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile regions in ad-dition to the economic conditions in the country.Street-based services to improve children›s health and safety are urgently needed. Re-integration programs may help large numbers of children volun-tarily and permanently leave the streets. Advocacy campaigns and collaborative efforts with the police, judiciary and leg-islature should be intensified.

By: Haffiya Elyas

Khartoum - Ministry of Education and the Sudanese Coalition for Education for all and Civil Society Education Fund and partners organized last Mon-day a national workshop on adaptation of education of partners strategies to achieve goal 4 of the sustainable devel-opment, under the theme «My Educa-tion My Rights» .Minister of Education Dr. Tahir Hassan al-Tahir said children have the right to education, calling on the international organization to support the education strategy to achieve the sustainable de-velopment goalThe head of the Arab Campaign for Education for All, Dr. Mubarak Yahya said, the Ministry of Education has to mobilize funding from all, pointing to the human development actors as the most important for sustainable devel-opmentThe Secretary General of the Suda-nese Coalition for Education for All, Dr. Naji Al-Shavei said the aim of the World Week of Public Education to mobilize the energies to implement its strategy to promote education in ac-cordance with the goals of sustainable development and to achieve its fourth goal, adding that the coalition is work-ing with education partners and the Ministry of Education to support the educational process and the Arab Cam-paign for Education for All

Realising the Global Commitment to Leave No One Behind Anders Jacobsen ,Country Director In-ternational Aid Services (IAS) /Sudan Leaving No One Behind said Access to Education The objective of Sustain-able Development Goal (SDG) 4 is to achieve “inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learn-ing opportunities for all” including per-sons with disabilities. IAS advocates for inclusive education as advocated in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN CRPD, 2006) Article 24 and General Comment 4 (2016). «Inclusive education means having one inclusive system of education for all learners, at all levels, (early childhood, primary, secondary and post-secondary) with the provision of specific supports to accommodate learners with disabilities

and the existence of quality bilingual schools in national sign language and national written language» he said. Jacobsen stated that particular attention needs to be paid made to include learn-ers most likely to be excluded, such as children with intellectual, psychosocial or multiple/ complex disabilities, chil-dren with deaf, blindness, those living in remote areas, or from language and cultural minorities, or those affected by humanitarian crises. Jacobsen said that Children with dis-abilities are among the most marginal-ised, often invisible in household sur-veys and administrative data, as well as excluded from national and global strategies that target out-of-school chil-dren. In low and middle-income coun-tries children with disabilities make up for half of the estimated 65 million pri-mary and lower secondary school-aged children out-of-school. There is also a

significant genderSince 2000, there has been enormous progress in achieving the target of uni-versal primary education. The total enrolment rate in developing regions reached 91 percent in 2015, and the worldwide number of children out of school has dropped by almost half.There has also been a dramatic increase in literacy rates, and many more girls are in school than ever before. These are all remarkable successes.Progress has also faced tough challeng-es in developing regions due to high lev-els of poverty, armed conflicts and other emergencies. In Western Asia and North Africa, ongoing armed conflict has seen an increase in the proportion of children out of school. This is a worrying trend.While sub-Saharan Africa made the

greatest progress in primary school enrolment among all developing re-gions – from 52 percent in 1990, up to 78 percent in 2012 – large disparities still remain. Children from the poor-est households are four times more likely to be out of school than those of the richest households. Disparities between rural and urban areas also re-main high.Achieving inclusive and quality edu-

cation for all reaffirms the belief that education is one of the most power-ful and proven vehicles for sustainable development; this goal ensures that all girls and boys complete free primary and secondary schooling by 2030. It also aims to provide equal access to affordable vocational training, and to eliminate gender and wealth disparities with the aim of achieving universal ac-cess to a quality higher education.Quality education is one of 17 Global Goals that make up the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. An inte-grated approach is crucial for progress across the multiple goals.Education is also central to the SDG Fund programmes to promote gender equality, improve nutrition and create livelihoods opportunities.

Realising the Global Commitment to Leave No One Behind

My Education My Rights

Report by Haffiya Elyas

A three-day regional consultation on strengthening the social service workforce, hosted by the UNICEF Middle East and North Africa Re-gional Office with support from the Global Social Service Work-force Alliance and the World Bank began on Monday in Hammamet, with the participation of 12 coun-tries including Sudan, from Sep-tember 30 October 2.Secretary of the Protection Sec-retariat NCCW, Sudan ? Ustaza/ Amira Azhari said that the work-shop will lead to a roadmap to strengthen the social service work-force in the region and encourage governments and donors to invest more in the region›s social systemsOn the sidelines of the opening session, Minister of Social Affairs Mohamed Trabelsi told TAP «the eradication of violence, terrorism and the reduction of extremism and migration hinges on the fight against social disparities, the estab-lishment of social peace, as well as the protection of children in re-

gions, as this vulnerable group of the population is the most exposed to violence».«The MENA is the region of all contradictions,» said Trabelsi, not-ing that «although it is among the richest in the world, it is plagued by difficulties that translate into rates of social disparity, illiteracy, poverty, unemployment and in-equality, considered among the highest in the world».Deputy Regional Director «UNICEF-MENA» Bertrand Bainvel said that social service workforce are at the heart of the child protection system, noting that this regional workshop is a prelude to the development of a network of organisations and social service workforce to make economic and social inclusion and poverty reduc-tion efforts more effective.He added that the results of a study on the role of social service work-ers in the region will help identify good practices and benefit from them to contribute to the develop-ment of more effective child pro-tection legislation, especially in a

region marked by numerous hu-manitarian crises.According to UNICEF, four out of five children between the ages of 2 and 14 in the MENA region are victims of violence, 14 million children are out of school, and 29 million live below the poverty line.This consultation follows an ex-tensive process to map and ana-lyze the social service workforce within the region. Over the course of 12-months, the Alliance led this

multi-country review which en-tailed a participatory process led by government and included tech-nical support from Maestral Inter-national. Countries involved in the mapping all established country task groups who worked together to collect mapping data, verify findings, develop action plans and contribute to regional recommen-dations.

The Multi-Country Review of the State of the Social Service Work-force in the Middle East and Afri-ca Region Reportshows that gaps in workforce support and funding negatively affect the quality and effectiveness of social services, leading to missed opportunities for protecting children and improv-ing the well-being of the region’s most vulnerable populations. The report is a review of the social ser-vice workforce in eight countries: Djibouti, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Sudan and Tu-nisia.

There are many countries within

the region that have made great progress in planning, developing and supporting their social service workforce, through establishing policies, codes of ethics, minimum standards, licensing, registration, and training and degree programs. Learnings from these countries can be applied to support countries still in the early stages of workforce development. Low ratios of social service workers to child popula-tion reduce access to and quality of

care. The number of workers per 100,000 children ranges within the eight countries from 19 to 140. The global target ratio is 2000 workers for every 100,000 children.

Lack of available data on this workforce negatively affects al-locations of proper human and financial resources, resulting in decreased quality and availability of services. With up to 173 dif-ferent job titles for social service workers reported, comparing data across countries can be challeng-ing; however, this also highlights progress and importance of cultural and contextual application of titles between English, French and Ara-bic.

The engagement of stakeholders across sectors in each country and across countries in the region shows that many of the challenges faced by this workforce are similar in differ-ent countries and contexts, and thus provides an opportunity for regional and international collaboration to address these challenges.

Sudan Participates in Strategic Framework for Strengthening Workforce for Child Protection in Tunisia

UNICEF: Four Out of Five Children between in the MENA Region are Victims of Violence, 14 Million Children are Out of School, and 29 Million Live Below the Poverty Line

The Future is Bright for Digital Accountability

Emily Tomkys Valteri

Reflections from Programme Manager, Emily Tomkys Valteri on the Your Word Counts Programme as the Hu-manitarian Innovation Fund (HIF)’Responsive Listening through Improved Feedback Mechanisms Project’ends.The Your Word Counts pro-gramme has sought to strength-en accountability through feed-back mechanisms which are safe, confidential and trustwor-thy. Beginning as a small HIF pilot in Zaíatari refugee camp in Jordan, this grew to a HIF implementation ëResponsive Listeningí project spanning five countries in the Middle East which looked to innovate the way in which feedback data is collected, managed and re-sponded to using technology. The’evaluation’has been com-pleted showing positive results and real impact in accountabil-ity and feedback mechanisms. It shows that collecting, man-aging and responding to feed-back received through multi-ple channels from people with whom we work enables staff to be more informed, take swifter action when required and use evidence to influence the pro-gramme where valuable.Staff consistency has been a key benefit in making this project a success. Not only from my side in Programme Management and the wider ICT in Programme team, who have provided invaluable support over the two years, but also at the country level. Focal points

in each country have remained consistent across the two years which has been instrumental to success. The passion and commitment of these staff members, to be accountable to the people Oxfam supports in each country, has created posi-tive programme changes based from the priorities and percep-tions of the community mem-bers themselves.

Watch the team in Iraq ex-plain how the project works:What has been surprising?I always knew that shifting culture takes time and can be painstakingly slow. I am sur-prised that we have seen a no-ticeable positive culture shift in accountability. Not only from our staff and partners but also seeing a change at the com-munity level which has filtered down from the work our coun-try teams are doing.ëI am proud that we built trust through transparency, and that communities feel like someone is listening.í Quote from coun-try MEAL staff from the learn-ing event in Iraq, 2019This remains the largest chal-lenge of the Your Word Counts programme but a shift in this timeframe is a positive path to be on and one that can continue to improve over time.What hasnít been surpris-ing?I am not surprised that the tech-nology worked. There has been widespread satisfaction on the use of’SurveyCTO’as a mo-bile case management system and’PowerBI’for data visu-

alisation (connected through Oxfamís programme Data-Hub). Not only has the technol-ogy delivered on expectations, it has proven to be both sus-tainable and scalable. We made distinct decisions to not build bespoke technology for this (beyond integration) and utilise tools that were available for a manageable price at the country level. Having Oxfamís’ICT in Programme’team on hand has been a key reason for success but the technology has been the simplest part of this projectThe future is brightAlthough the Responsive Lis-tening HIF project has ended, the future is bright for digital accountability. The positive outcomes of this evaluation have shown that the technol-ogy and methodology provide an effective platform to im-prove responsiveness and over-all country-level accountability towards staff, partners and the communities Oxfam works in. This project also kickstarted a human centred design re-search project, where we are further developing our holistic understanding of the varying barriers relating to misconduct reporting among community members and field staff, to un-derstand the conditions where people can come forward and speak up.The Your Word Counts pro-gramme is set to scale. Con-tinuing and scaling within four countries in the HIF project, to an ambition for all Oxfam countries to locally adapt this way of working. This wonít simply be a replication of what has been done to date. Strate-gically, we will be working to-wards how we can localise and put this in the hands of commu-nities and local partners; adapt to improve ways to safely re-port misconduct; coordinate with other agencies; use the technology for social account-ability to link citizen feedback with governments. We canít do this all at once, but scaling will look to push the boundaries further so that we can continue to harness the power that dig-ital technology can bring to the accountability journey both for Oxfam and the wider sector. I would love to hear from others facing similar challenges and we are looking for ways col-laborate and share learning.

Papy Muzuri

Papy Muzuri’is an independent researcher and col-laborator with LSEís Centre for Public Authority and International Development. Here, he talks about sav-ings clubs and protection committees, and their ability to support informal markets in Goma, DRC. This post forms part of a series exploring’Going Against the Flow, an ongoing project on water governance in Goma.As part of a research team’examining water governance’in the city of Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, I collected data on social networks and finan-cial diaries from 28 of the cityís poorest households. The project is run through IMAGINE, a large-scale five-year DFID-funded urban WASH programme that will reach up to 1 million beneficiaries in Goma and Bukavu through improved access to water, sanitation, and hygiene promotion. The overall goal is to decrease diarrhoea rates among children under five through an in-tegrated approach improving infrastructure, promoting effective behaviour change, reinforcing market systems for WASH services, and improving governance and community accountability of these systems. Despite a lack of employment, poor banking infrastructure and rampant insecurity, members of the studyís participat-ing households can be found making a living in infor-mal markets along Gomaís roadsides, every day. Here, I suggest that part of reason why they can survive and, in some cases, thrive is attributed to savings clubs and management committees which protect them from a predatory state. There are few banks in Goma that serve the informal marketís stallholders, and those that do are not widely trusted. Stallholders can also struggle to ac-cess the lump sums needed to buy the raw materials for their enterprises. Alongside selling enough to feed their households, this can mean they can find it hard to plan or save for their futures. Informal credit and savings groups, commonly known in Lingala as ëLikelembaí, are organised by smallholders to address these issues. They are essentially social networks of people involved in shared or connected economic activities. Because of this networks, members know and trust one another despite often living in different neighbourhoods. New members are also initiated by existing members who testify before the Likelembaís management that the new member is honest.ìDespite a lack of employment, poor banking infra-structure and rampant insecurity, members of the stud-yís participating households can be found making a living in informal markets along Gomaís roadsides, every day. Here, I suggest that part of reason why they can survive and, in some cases, thrive is attributed to savings clubs and management committees which pro-tect them from a predatory state.î Likelembas’ñ which can have anything from a few to hundreds of members ñ work by asking for daily, weekly or even monthly contributions. The amount can vary from 1000 CF per day to more than 100 US dollars per month, all de-

pending on the consensus among members. Through peer pressure, members help one another to stick to the mutually agreed regime. The collected money is then given to one or two members as credit or returned savings according to their turn on a rota. In Gomaís Katoyi district, a’sambaza’(small fish) seller told us:ëIn our group there are 30 of us and every day we con-tribute 2,000 Congolese francs per person. This means that with this group each member receives in turn an amount equivalent to 60 thousand Congolese francs and this for thirty days. To be explicit, in less than two months, I can raise this amount in the form of savings or credit. Those who receive this amount at the begin-ning of a savings period receive it as a credit and the last ones as savings [Ö]’ You know, itís not easy for me to raise so much money with the sale of sambaza. Thanks to this sum, I can either strengthen my activi-ties or pay my childrenís school fees without touch-ing my capital. Thatís how I manage to hold on with my family.í Likelembas set rules and sanction those who break them. For example, in smaller groups late contributors may have to buy beers for the others as form of a gentle fine. Meanwhile, those who are con-sistently unable to pay must find another to take their place. Some groups also allow wealthier individuals to hold multiple memberships so as to be able to contrib-ute more money and have a greater share than others. Yet, stallholders in Gomaís informal markets also face daily harassments from the Congolese National Police whom, following accusations by the City Hall, argue that they cause traffic jams and disorder. Dishonest of-ficers sometimes take advantage of the smallholdersí precarious positions to charge unofficial taxes and to loot their goods under the guise of moving them away from the roads. It does not seem to matter that they are peaceful and clearly not the cause of Gomaís pain-fully slow traffic. Women stallholders who we spoke to revealed that they often organise themselves into committees to manage their patches and protect them-selves. For example, they help one another to keep the market clean, act as mediators between stallholders in conflict and engage in advocacy when one of their number is arrested. To afford these activities, mem-bers often contribute a small fee and ask that whoever wants to start selling in the market also join their com-mittees.In a recent example, a committee close to the research teamís office leapt into action after one of their mem-bers was arrested for not paying a $25 debt on time. The committee entered negotiations with the local po-lice commander, eventually arranging for their mem-ber to be released and the debt to be repaid. They used roughly $15 of the committeeís funds to ensure the end of the policeís involvement in the issue.Through the informal marketís savings clubs and man-agement committees some of our poorest households find ways to survive in a city with high levels of unem-ployment. Furthermore, they overcome the formal

11HUMAN DEVELOPMENT Edited by: Alula Berhe Kidani

Thursday, October 3, 2019

Betting on Blockchain to Deliver Cash in the PacificSandra Uwantege Hart‘Sandra Uwantege Hart, Pacific Cash & Livelihoods Lead, describes how Oxfam successfully used blockchain technology to make cash accessible to communities and small businesses in Vanuatu’ñ’one of the worldís most remote and hazard-prone locations.

We are told that blockchain technology will change the world ñ harnessing a decentral-ised, distributed ledger, removing expen-sive middlemen and resolving core issues of trust in financial transactions.Blockchain offers solutions to some of the most difficult aspects of delivering human-itarian cashFor some, itís a’revolution. A’trust ma-chine. An opportunity to’expand financial inclusion, and create’digital identities’for the worldís most marginalised groups. Blockchain offers solutions to some of the most difficult aspects of delivering human-itarian cash: difficulties tracking payments, lengthy reconciliation times, and costly monitoring and reporting.The infrastructure provides a running ledg-er of live, traceable transactions, from the moment funds are loaded to the system, to the moment they are spent. Cross-border transactions are made quicker, and easier - ’using’stable denominations of digital cash.’Smart contracts’help automate rec-onciliation processes, and cryptography ensures security without compromising transparency.In my work with cash and vouchers, I was excited by the potential of blockchain, but I couldnít shake the feeling that there was something wrong with this hype-charged

discourse. It was dominated by decision makers and technology experts. Where were the voices of the communities we work with?

The UnBlocked Cash projectIn launching the’UnBlocked Cash’project, we wanted to ensure that blockchain tech-nology was grounded at the community level. In Vanuatu, the communities of Pango and Mele Maat played a central role. With partners, we designed a pilot process that would give people in poverty the posi-tion to determine if, and how, blockchain solutions could work for them.We wanted to ensure that blockchain tech-nology was grounded at the community levelWe had been spearheading efforts to intro-duce, and scale cash and voucher approach-es across the Pacific region for the past year. In early 2018, we developed a model for’assessing cash transfer feasibility’in Vanuatu. By the end of the year, we had launched the first multi-purpose grant pro-gramme ever implemented in the Pacific ñ to assist’families displaced by the Ambae volcano.Our teams are used to innovating and find-ing solutions. We are a group of small country and regional offices, working on the front lines of climate change, across a massive geographic area. We were ready to leapfrog, and see if blockchain presented a solution.’Oxfam Australia’supported these efforts, forming a multi-disciplinary inno-vations team to push the initiative forward.UnBlocked Cash’is only the’second exam-ple, globally, of a blockchain platform be-ing used by a global agency to deliver hu-manitarian cash. Choosing the right partners

was critical.’Sempo’is focused on block-chain solutions for financial inclusion, and getting cash to vulnerable people in crises. And our second partner,’Consensys, is one of the worldís largest blockchain firms.

Blockchain from the bottom upWe needed a system that was robust, and that could bridge gapsIn Vanuatu, smartphones are rare, and the internet can go down for days at a time. Most people donít have photo ID or a debit card, and many are without bank accounts. We needed a system that was robust, and that could bridge gaps in connectivity, dig-ital and financial inclusion. It was important that money could circulate and stay within the community ñ’essentially an e-voucher system running on a blockchain platform.Communities agreed that single mothers,

widows, people with disabilities and LGB-TIQ+ members of the community would be the most appropriate recipients. Everyone played a role. Sempo went through a three-week, adaptive training, testing and design process in villages, to gather feedback that fed directly into on-site product develop-ment and app updates.

The impact of using blockchain tech-nologies- Tap and pay cards were issued to 187 re-cipients, and smartphones to 28 vendors. Simple, easy to use, and safer than carrying cash.- We could register recipients, issue cards, and disburse funds on the spot. Within the day, people could start shopping for what they needed ñ’ with choice and control.- Because of a faster, weekly payments

process, smaller shops and market stall-holders were able to participate in the proc-ess ñ’creating a more localised and inclu-sive delivery model.- We could see how funds were allocated and spent on a live dashboard, allowing us to troubleshoot issues and resolve com-plaints within hours instead of days.UnBlocked Cash dashboard

Taking UnBlocked Cash to scaleThis initial pilot was an achievement in several ways: improving our speed and performance in delivering assistance, and including communities in the innovations process. It has been exceptionally well re-ceived, locally and globally. ‘Success in such a complex and challeng-ing environment means that we can now explore and scale the use of this platform elsewhere. Iím thrilled that we now have a tool that could accelerate the delivery of cash and voucher assistance across the Pa-cific, and a team who knows how to use it.Even more promising ñ the blockchain in-frastructure it is built on can accommodate multiple donor funds for coordinated and transparent distribution to a designated group of recipients. Donors, partners, and coordinators can all trace how funds are used ñ like a common cash platform. ‘This year, we plan to scale’UnBlocked Cash’at country level, to test the possibil-ity of multi-stakeholder delivery. Weíd like to teach our civil society partners how to use it. Next, weíd like to take it regionally, and explore global applications across the Oxfam confederation and INGO networks.While blockchain is not a silver bullet, for Vanuatu and the Pacific region, it is certain-ly a giant leap forward.

The Role of Social Networks in Household Survival

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Dr. Thoraya Obaid, Former Under-Secretary Generalof the†United Nations

BRIEF

Arab NewsFrom a young age, Dr. Thoraya Obaid took adversity in stride. In 1951 she was sent to the Amer ican College for Girls in Cairo, as education in the King-dom, at that time, was limited for girls. But that didnít stop her ex-celling in studies, and being noticed in her home country.She became the first Saudi woman to re-ceive a government scholarship to con-tinue her studies in the US in 1963, earning a bachelorís degree in English literature from Mills College, Oakland in 1966, and her mas-terís from Wayne State University, Detroit in 1968. From there she completed her educa-tion with a doctorate in 1974.In 1975, Obaid started working for the UN Economic and Social Commission for West-ern Asia (ESCWA). She served as head of social affairs at ESCWA until 1993, when she became the deputy executive secretary.She also serve d as a member of the League of Arab States in 1984, serving for a year for-mulating its social de-velopment strategy.With 25 years of expe-rience at the UN, she was well-respected at all levels of the UN, and her influence and success in pushing for female empowerment pushed former UN Sec-retary-General Kofi An-nan to make her head of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) in 2001, where she worked until 2010.

Press Release

The Embassy of Italy in Sudan, the Italian Min-ister of Cultural Herit-age and Activities and the Italian Agency for Development Coopera-tion on stage with Life at the curve of the Nile inspired by a novel of Tayeb Saleh Season of migration to the North On September 18th in at Rashid Diab Arts Center in Khartoum, the Em-bassy of Italy in Sudan, the Italian Minister of Cultural Heritage and Activities and the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation, together with PAV, the Sudanese National Theatre and the College of Music and Drama della Sudan Uni-versity of Science and Technology di Khartoum present the Community Development Theatre Life at the curve of the Nile inspired by a novel of Tayeb Saleh - revered as a founding father of Sudanese literature - Season of migration to the North. Published in 1966 the novel has been chosen as one of the top 100 novels of the 20th century of the Arab lit-erature. The community theatre has been realised within the programme ‘Italia ñ

Cultura - Africa 2019’ aimed at fostering mu-tual exchange and en-hancement of social and cultural identities. Our goal tonight is to pro-mote awareness on Ital-ian Cooperation’s pri-ority sectors in Sudan among which migration/forced displacement, so-cial inclusion and gender equality and women’s empowerment, added the Ambassador of Italy, H. E Fabrizio Lobasso. More than 700 guests participated with en-thusiasm to the thea-tre performance which has involved 15 actors

among which 5 persons with disability who has tackle the topic of the double absence of mi-grants - their absence within their host society and from their place of origin once they are back in their homeland ñ and the gender issue such as the FGM and the forced marriage. In theatre there is a spe-cial license: the unsay-able can be said, the hidden can be reveled people can cover and discover aspects oth-erwise overlooked and unknown, conclude the Italian Ambassador.

Sony, Marvel Strike Deal for New ‘Spider-Man’ Film

AFPLOS ANGELES: Spider-Man will spin his web on the big screen once again.A breakdown in talks between Sony Pictures and Marvel had imperiled the web-slinger’s celluloid future, but the two companies announced a deal Friday for Marvel Studios to produce the third Spidey film starring British actor Tom Holland.The film ó which follows up on ‘Spider-Man: Homecom-ing’ and ‘Spider-Man: Far from Home’ ó is set for re-lease on July 16, 2021, the studios said.Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige will take up his usual role as producer.‘I am thrilled that Spidey’s journey in the MCU (Mar-vel Cinematic Universe) will continue, and I and all of us at Marvel Studios are very excited that we get to keep working on it,’ Feige said in a statement.‘Spider-Man is a powerful icon and hero whose story crosses all ages and audiences around the globe.‘He also happens to be the only hero with the superpower to cross cinematic universes, so as Sony continues to de-velop their own Spidey-verse, you never know what surpris-

es the future might hold.’Sony and Disney, which owns Marvel Studios, had reached an impasse over the summer on a new financing deal ó sparking despair for fans who have embraced Holland’s take on the teen hero.As part of the deal, the char-acter will also appear in a fu-ture Marvel Studios film.Holland reacted to the news on Instagram, posting a smi-ley face with a clip from ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ in which Leonardo DiCaprio’s charac-ter says: ‘I’m not leaving. (...) The show goes on.’Amy Pascal, who produced the first two Holland-led movies, will also have a role in producing the new film.‘Peter Parker’s story took a dramatic turn in ëFar From Home’ and I could not be

happier we will all be work-ing together as we see where his journey goes,’ said Pas-cal.The Marvel Cinematic Uni-verse films have together grossed almost $23 billion at the global box office, and Holland’s Spider-Man has become an increasingly cen-tral figure in the most lucra-tive franchise in film history.But while Spider-Man has for decades been one of the stars of the Marvel comic book empire on which the films are based, Sony owns the charac-ter’s movie rights.He only began appearing in Marvel’s films after the Hol-lywood giants stuck an al-most unprecedented, and still highly secretive, 2015 deal to co-produce and split profits across the films.

France 24 The discovery in a French kitchen of a 13th century panel, attributed to Florentine mas-ter Cimabue, is set to revive interest in a pio-neering artist dubbed the ‘father of Western painting’ ñ and whet the appetites of art col-lectors around the world.Early in June, French auctioneer PhilomËne Wolf showed up at a designer home in the northern town of CompiËgne for a routine house clearance. The property’s owner, an elderly woman, had asked Wolf to value her belongings and sift through a pile of junk bound for the dump. Little did she know she was poised to make a discovery that would send ripples of excitement across the art world.Hiding in plain sight above the bar in an open-plan kitchen, a small wooden panel caught the young auctioneer’s eye. Exqui-sitely crafted, it was an unsigned painting depicting a scene from Christ’s Passion.‘The lady said she thought it had belonged to her family for a long time, but that it was just a religious icon,’ Wolf recalls. ‘It could well have been destined for the bin.’The auctioneer thought there was more to the small poplar panel and its vivid portrayal of Jesus surrounded by an angry crowd. Meas-uring just 24 centimetres by 20 and painted in egg tempera, it bore the hallmarks of the work of late Medieval Italian artists, known in France as primitifs italiens, and appeared to have been sawed off a larger opus.Following her hunch, Wolf took the paint-ing to Eric Turquin, a prominent Paris-based

expert in Old Masters. After examining the find, Turquin’s team stated with ‘certitude’ that its author was none other than Cimabue, the legendary Florentine master whose known works are so rare ñ and so jealously guarded ñ they have never been auctioned in modern times.A giant in art historyThe ‘Mocking of Christ’, Turquin conclud-ed, was part of an eight-part diptych painted by Cimabue around 1280, of which only two other pieces are known: the ‘Flagella-tion of Christ’, part of the Frick Collection in New York, and the ‘Madonna and Child En-throned between Two Angels’, found under a staircase in an English country house two

decades ago and now at the National Gallery in London.Turquin said there was no doubt about the authenticity of the painting, as it reflected the innovative style pioneered by Giotto’s master.‘We can see the likeness in the facial expres-sions, the movement and the tentative per-spective that define Cimabue’s contribution to art,’ said StÈphane Pinta, an art specialist with the Cabinet Turquin in Paris. Further-more, tests using infrared light prove that tunnels made by woodworms in the panel match those on the other two Cimabue paint-ings, he added.‘This kind of find is what we wake up for

every morning,’ said Pinta, hailing ‘a major discovery’ for art historians. ‘Cimabue is the father of Western art, the one who broke with some of the rules of Byzantine art, introduc-ing the rudiments of expression and perspec-tive.’Around the world, Cimabue specialists have marvelled at the news.‘This is an extremely unusual discovery,’ said Holly Flora, a profess or of art history at Tulane University and the author of several works on the Florentine painter. ‘The number of surviving panel paintings by Cimabue is small ñ fewer than ten accepted works. So this painting is a hugely important discovery for Cimabue>s oeuvre.’In the artist’s native Florence, Angelo Tartuferi, curator of early paintings at the world-famous Uffizi Galleries, hailed ‘one of those extraordinary events that can mark a turning point in our knowledge of the his-tory of early Italian painting’. He added: ‘Cimabue is a giant in the history of Italian art, the greatest painter of the 13th century.’In the shadow of GiottoIn the beginning, there was Cimabue ñ or so Giorgio Vasari recounts in his famous ‘Lives of the Painters’.The Florentine painter, whose real name was Cenni di Pepo, is the first protagonist of Vasari’s 1550 classic, a survey of three cen-turies of Italian artistic genius culminating with Michelangelo. Cimabue’s reputation as the forerunner of Renaissance painting owes much to his depiction as such by art history’s precursor.

Daisy-May Demeter presents a creation by designer Eni Hegedus-Buiron for luxury chil-drenís wear label Lulu et Gigi during Paris Fashion Week in Paris on Friday, September 27, 2019. (Reuters)

African migrants res-cued from a ship off the coast of Zawiyah, about 45 kilometres west of the Libyan cap-ital Tripoli, sit at the dock at the capital’s naval base on March 10, 2018. (AFP)

Long-lost Masterpiece ‘the Holy Grail’ for Curators and Collectors Alike