96,000 displaced in North South Sudan conflict: UN

Smoke rises from burnt homes in the town of Abyei in this handout photo released by the United Nations mission in Sudan on May 23, 2011.

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/183720.html

The United Nations says the tense situation in the border region of Abyei between North and South Sudan has displaced 96,000 people.

“As of 5 June, the estimated number of people to be displaced by the Abyei violence was 96,000 people,” the UN's humanitarian office said.

“The situation in Abyei over the weekend was reported to be tense and unpredictable with reports of sporadic gunfire, and tukuls (traditional thatched huts) being burnt,” AFP quoted the UN office as saying on Tuesday.

According to reports, northern troops seized the oil-producing region on May 21, two days after the southern forces attacked a convoy of northern troops, killing 22 people.

The 'humanitarian crisis' in Abyei comes “in the middle of the hunger period” in the South which is between March and August. Tens of thousands of people lessen their consumption until the South's first harvest.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees says more than 300,000 southerners who used to live in the North have returned to the South, adding to the woes of the fledging government.

Meanwhile, clashes between the Southern and Northern armies in Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan state, has claimed the lives of six people, the UN sources said on Tuesday.

“At one of the hospitals we visited, we saw six dead bodies, four of whom were government of Sudan police, and the other two civilians... Earlier we saw about 3,000 people taking refuge at the Kadugli police hospital,” Hua Jiang, spokeswoman for the United Nations Mission in Sudan said.

South Kordofan is situated in the North Sudan and is the only oil-rich state in the country.

Sudan rejects UNSC pullout demand

Sudanese Foreign Minister Ali Ahmad Karti

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/183374.html

Sudan has dismissed a request by the UN Security Council (UNSC) to pull its forces out of the oil-producing region of Abyei on the border between the South and the North.

“Sudan does not need to be asked to pull its army out of Abyei because this is a Sudanese territory,” AFP quoted Sudan's Foreign Minister Ali Ahmad Karti as saying on Sunday.

“The army's entering the area to handle the security situation there was necessitated by the continued security breaches committed by the other party,” Karti added, referring to South Sudan troops.

The Sudanese top diplomat went on to say that their forces will remain in the region until an agreement is reached.

Karti's remarks come a day after the UNSC called on Khartoum to withdraw its forces from Abyei. The council claimed Sudan's military operations in Abyei are “serious violations” of the so-called 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement.

The 2005 deal ended more than two decades of civil war between the rival sides. In January, majority of southerners voted for secession from the North in accordance with the agreement.

The agreement had left the fate of Abyei to a later referendum by the residents of the region to choose whether to join the South or the North.

Sudanese Armed Forces seized control of the oil-producing region on May 21. The measure came after troops from the South fired shots at a convoy of northern forces and UN peacekeepers on May 19.

Sudan to build 1st nuclear plant

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir was offered nuclear technology
by Iran earlier this year


Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/139759.html


Sudan is planning to build a nuclear reactor and its first nuclear power plant for peaceful electricity purposes by 2020, state media say.

Director-general of the Sudanese Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed Ahmed Hassan el-Tayeb, said on Sunday that his government had begun the plan for the development of the nuclear reactor at the beginning of this year.

The country "has already started preparing for the project ... in cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and is expected to build the first nuclear power plant in the year 2020," state news agency SUNA quoted Tayeb as saying.

An IAEA delegation is set to visit the African country this week to discuss the project, he went on to say.

Sudan has been an IAEA member since 1958, which means that it can develop nuclear energy with IAEA assistance.

Though the country has been under severe US sanctions since 1997, it has managed to boost both its oil production and increase its dam construction projects, thus encouraging growth.

However, in March, Khartoum announced that it needed to look for an alternate source of energy in an attempt to meet its growing demands.

Earlier this year, Iran offered to transfer nuclear technology to Sudan.

The African state has close economic and political ties with the Islamic Republic, which is locked in a dispute with the United States and some of its Western allies over its nuclear program.