Finding Punt; Africa’s Last, Lost Great Civilization Is In Eritrea

After many years of often rancorous debate, Africa’s last, lost, great civilization, The Land of Punt, has been proven to be located in the modern east African country of Eritrea.

Using laboratory analysis of Baboon mummies from Punt found in ancient burials in Egypt scientists have conclusively established that the nearest relatives to the Punt baboons are found in Eritrea on the Red Sea. The closest relatives were found in the hills behind the modern port city of Massawa which lies at the mouth of Zula Bay behind which can be found the ruins of the ancient city empire of Adulis.

In Africa’s Nile Valley civilization known today as Egypt, The Land of Punt was frequently written of as “Punt, the land of the gods”.

From Punt came, amongst other precious goods, Frankincense and Myrrh, which when combined with Onycha, styrax benzoine, an operculom shell found only along Eritrea’s coastline, were used to create the sacred incense used in Egyptian (and Hebrew) temples. Myrrh oil was used to anoint the bodies of the Pharaohs, a requirement for their souls to pass into the after life.

From Punt came other trade goods of high value such as gold (from the highlands of the northern African Rift Mountains), salt (still harvested in Massawa and used as currency in much of the region in not so ancient times) and ebony and ivory (ebony wood is found at its furthest point north in east Africa in Eritrea’s western lowlands where even today a herd of elephants still roam).

Such was the prestige of Punt that the female Pharaoh Hatshepsut sent a flotilla of ships there during her reign in the 18th dynasty that some historians claim was an attempt to legitimize a female head of state in ancient Egypt by linking her rule with this most ancient and sacred of lands.

Though the ancient libraries of Africa’s Nile Valley were destroyed by order of the Emperor of Rome in the 4th century A.D. (the burning of the Library of Africa a.k.a. the Library of Alexandria, the greatest destruction of knowledge in the history of mankind) records of Punt going back to the 4/5th Egyptian dynasties remain.

Punt is again found mentioned in the 12th dynasty and of course, found carved into the walls of the Temple of Hatshepsut on the Nile River from the glorious 18th dynasty, where frankincense and myrrh were planted upon the return of the mission.

In later periods Punt became the center of a major maritime trade between first Greece and then Rome.

Known as the “Persepolis of the Erythrean (Red) Sea” (equating Punt with the city of Persepolis in Persia, considered one of the wonders of ancient times is a major mark of respect if not awe) the civilization based in today’s Zula Bay was a critical port of trade between Greece and Rome, and India and the far east.

At one point Rome had a colony of several thousands on the eastern coast of India and a major maritime trade was carried on bringing spices, silks, precious stones, animals and asian manufactured goods to meet the demand of the Roman Empire. All of this passed through Punt, or as it was later known, Adulis.

History shows that in ancient times, as is still the case today, sailors stick to the west, African, coast of the Red Sea where water is available, safe anchorage easily found and the sudden storms that blow up out of the Arabian Desert do not threaten disaster. When sailing down the Red Sea from present day Egypt or up from the Indian Ocean, landing in Massawa is still a preferred safe harbor.

Today all that remains of this great, glorious, lost African civilization are sand covered ruins a few miles from the coast of Zula Bay where the city empire of Adulis is only now being uncovered.

It is only in the past two decades since Eritrean independence in 1991 that any significant archeological work has begun along the Red Sea coast where once a long lost civilization flourished. In 2006 a British team did a very cursory survey of Zula Bay and discovered at least 4 major maritime complexes (multiple ports to each complex).

This writer is the only historian so far to lay the foundations of a survey of what must be thousands of years of shipwrecks from Punt, the worlds earliest and longest lived maritime civilization, along the windward reefs of the islands lining the channels leading into Zula Bay.

What great discoveries lie under thousands of years of coral reefs still waiting to be discovered? Gold and silver from Greece and Rome headed for India (the Indian’s like the Chinese, had little use for the crude manufactured goods of Europe, forcing Rome to bleed its precious metals in exchange for the precious goods from the east).

Rubies, Emeralds, Sapphires and Jade along with porcelain from the east may still survive though the silks and spices would have long since disappeared.

Much has still to be learned about Punt but studying modern Eritrean society has already lead to a major breakthrough in historical research with the language of the Nara ethnic group known now to be a survival of ancient Kush, today’s Sudan, and is being used to finally decipher the mysteries of the Demotic scripts.

And what of the lost land of Saba or Sheba, which most historians seem to think lay in the modern land of Yemen?

An Italian linguist has found pre-Arab dialects in remote Yemeni villages that are cousin to the Eritrean language of Tigrinia making a connection between the Land of Punt and Saba even more interesting.

Geez, the “Latin of Africa”, used today in the Eritrean and Ethiopian Christian Orthodox Churches is reputed to have come from Yemen, where today little trace of it can be found.

One must not forget that before the rise of Islam, Christianity spread across east Africa from Egypt in the north, to the pre-Islamic Christian kingdoms of Meroe and Napata (found in present day Sudan, both of which successfully resisted the military invasion of the Islamic armies from the north for hundreds of years) across the Ethiopian highlands to the Christian city empire of Adulis on the southern Red Sea coast.

Time will bring more discoveries and more discoveries will certainly bring more light to Africa’s last, lost, great civilization, Punt, land of the gods.

Thomas C. Mountain is the most widely distributed independent western journalist in Africa, living and reporting from Eritrea since 2006. He created and co-taught with an Editor of The Journal of African Civilization the graduate level course The African Influence on World Civilizations beginning in 1993. He can be reached at thomascmountain at yahoo dot com.

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Malawi: New president ‘to decriminalise homosexuality’

by Stephen Gray for PinkNews.co.uk
18 May 2012, 4:06pm

The Malawian president has said she will repeal the laws which make it illegal to be gay in the central African state, it has been reported.

The BBC and Associates Press report a speech to parliament in which president Joyce Banda said: “The Indecency and Unnatural Acts laws shall be repealed”.

Ms Banda took office last month after president Bingu wa Mutharika died of a heart attack.

He had pardoned two men sentenced to Mutharika pardoned two citizens on “humanitarian grounds only” after they were charged on homosexuality offences.

Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga had attempted a marriage ceremony, with confusion over whether the latter identified as a trans woman in some reports.

Pardoning the couple from charges of gross indecency and unnatural acts, Mr Mutharika had said: “These boys committed a crime against our culture, our religion and our laws.

“However, as the head of state I hereby pardon them and therefore ask for their immediate release with no conditions.”

Last year, the UK government confirmed aid would be redirected away from the central governments of countries who do not protect citizens’ human rights, including the rights of gay people.

In December 2011, the Malawian Justice Minister included the country’s anti-gay laws in a list of legislation he wants reviewed, saying the rules may not reflect “public opinion”.

Ephraim Chiume said: “In view of the sentiments from the general public and in response to public opinion regarding certain laws, the government wishes to announce to the Malawi nation that it is submitting the relevant laws and provisions of laws to the Law Commission for review.”

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City’s consent letter reverses ‘06 stance on state default

May 19, 2012

By Matt Helms and Suzette Hackney
Detroit Free Press Staff Writers

To view City documents log on to the URL below:
http://www.freep.com/article/20120519/NEWS01/205190411/City-s-consent-letter-reverses-06-stance-on-state-default?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE%7Cs

Detroit’s top lawyer advised city officials that they could still hold the state in default for $224 million in disputed revenue sharing — even though they had been told in 2006 by another city attorney that they had no legal claim to the money, according to secret documents released Friday.

The issue of the state being in default would be crucial to Detroit’s case should the city try to stop the consent agreement with the state — a possibility City Council President Charles Pugh would not discount.

Pugh was the council’s lone vote Friday against releasing a privileged legal opinion from the city’s Law Department chief challenging whether the April 4 consent agreement between the city and state is legally binding.

The document says Councilwoman JoAnn Watson requested the Law Department explore the validity of the agreement and whether it violated the city charter. Watson couldn’t be reached for comment after the meeting.

Pugh said he voted to keep it secret only because Krystal Crittendon, the city’s corporation counsel and the document’s author, requested it remain confidential.

As the Free Press first reported Thursday, Crittendon sent Gov. Rick Snyder a letter informing the state that the consent deal is “void and unenforceable” based on her legal opinion that was kept secret until Friday.

“Politically, I think we should have released it first — that we should have fired the first shot to explain” why city officials are concerned about whether the consent agreement violates state and city laws, Pugh said Friday.

But exactly what’s so legally sensitive about Crittendon’s analysis remained unclear. The city long has argued that the state owes it money. And city officials have expressed concerns publicly that the consent deal — preventing, for now, the appointment of an emergency manager but giving the state broad oversight of the city’s finances — could violate the city charter and state law on how cities govern themselves.

Crittendon wrote that, in addition to the revenue-sharing funds, the state owes Detroit $4.75 million for a water bill from a broken main at the state-owned Michigan State Fairgrounds and $300,000 for 600,000 unclaimed property claims being held by the state.

But Crittendon also acknowledged at a meeting last week — and attached as an exhibit — a 2006 opinion by John Johnson Jr., the city’s former law chief, that Detroit “does not have a legally enforceable claim against the state for the difference in amounts of revenue sharing actually received and the $333,900,000 initially provided in 1998 … as there is no clear legal duty incumbent on the state to provide the $333,900,000.”

Council members, Mayor Dave Bing and city attorneys met last week in the closed session to discuss Crittendon’s findings. It was at the meeting where it was discussed and decided that Crittendon send a letter to Snyder informing him that the consent agreement is void based on the state owing the city money.

On Thursday, Bing said he did not authorize the sending of the letter. But some council members told the Free Press that the mayor made it clear he approved of sending the letter.

Earlier Friday, Bing seemed to retract assertions that he did not approve of sending the letter. Bing conceded at an event in Birmingham that he had supported it.

But “when we look into the legal ramifications, I don’t think we have the capacity to get into a lawsuit and still concentrate on fixing the city,” Bing said. “There’s a signed consent agreement in place, and we’re moving forward with that.”

His statement came during the Pancakes and Politics forum that also featured and the county executives of Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties: Robert Ficano, L. Brooks Patterson and Mark Hackel, respectively.

“I believe him when he says he wants to be supportive of Detroit,” Bing said of Snyder.

“I don’t think anyone is satisfied with the consent agreement or where we are now,” Bing added. “With the agreement that’s in place, we have to work as diligently as we can to do what we can to make improvements. We’re not consumed or happy with the agreement, but we have to work with our partner in Lansing, and I intend to do that.”

The $333.9 million was the total amount Detroit was to receive in state revenue-sharing over a decade for gradually rolling back the city income tax to 2% from 3% under a 1998 deal with then-Gov. John Engler.

The city never made it to the 2% mark, and the state stopped paying the agreed-to revenue sharing amid difficult budget times in Lansing and Detroit.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm granted the city a hardship waiver from having to continue cutting the income tax in 2004, according to city documents.

Bing and council members had argued for months that the state still owed Detroit at least $220 million in revenue sharing. But Snyder’s office has made clear that whatever deal happened years ago will not result in the state paying the city.

In effect, Crittendon’s analysis says nothing is stopping the city from holding the state in default for not keeping up the revenue-sharing payments, despite Johnson’s opinion. What changed between 2006 and now?

Crittendon argues that a 2010 opinion by former Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox, who was asked by a state lawmaker to clarify state law concerning the rights of cities, makes it plain that city governments are prohibited from entering into contracts with people or entities considered in default.

And Detroit, she argues, should consider the state in default because on Jan. 3, state Treasurer Andy Dillon told Mildred Gaddis on her “Inside Detroit” radio show on WCHB-AM (1200) that the state didn’t meet its share of the 1998 bargain.

“The state failed to live up to that 10-year deal, and if you add up the last revenue sharing, it totals up to $224 million. So we don’t deny that the deal was not kept,” Dillon told Gaddis, according to the documents.

Dillon did not say at the time that he believed the state should or would ever pay, and he and Snyder say Detroit will not get the money.

Pugh said he was not sure whether the city will take legal action to stop the consent deal.

“Whether the consent agreement is on hold or not, this does not stop us from our responsibility of sending a responsible budget and living within the consensus we’ve already agreed to,” Pugh said. “As far as what is the next step, hell if I know. I’m not an attorney.”

Contact Matt Helms: 313-222-1450 or mhelms@freepress.com. Contact Suzette Hackney: 313-222-6678 or shackney@freepress.com. Staff writer Kathleen Gray contributed to this report.

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May 18, 2012

Chicago Protests Draw Thousands Before NATO Event

By MONICA DAVEY and STEVEN YACCINO
New York Times

CHICAGO — Several thousand demonstrators, many of them nurses, filled a plaza in the heart of downtown Chicago on Friday for the first major rally in what is expected to be a weekend of protests as President Obama and foreign leaders gather in the president’s hometown for a NATO summit meeting.

In a plaza named for former Mayor Richard J. Daley, members of the National Nurses United union, wearing green felt caps, called for a “Robin Hood tax” on Wall Street. Some demonstrators later marched through the streets of downtown, at times deflecting police efforts to stop them but eventually scattering as scores of police officers, some in riot helmets, arrived in a pack of unmarked white vans and blocked off access to the Michigan Avenue Bridge over the Chicago River.

One demonstrator was seen ripping at a giant banner posted along the bridge promoting the NATO meeting, the first to take place in an American city outside of Washington. The police, who lined the streets downtown in clusters, reported at least one arrest during Friday’s sometimes tense march.

A far larger “anti-NATO” march was expected on Sunday, and violent images from earlier global gatherings, like a World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle in 1999, have left some in Chicago on edge — businesses closed, windows boarded and the Loop oddly quiet.

For some, the outcome of the weekend’s protests will be viewed as a trial of the strength of the Occupy movement months after the groups emerged in cities around the nation with messages about income inequality. Demonstrators have been arriving on buses from Occupy-related groups around the country, and some observers have suggested that the number of protesters who ultimately appear here will serve as a sign of the movement’s current state.

“This is the spring — this is the rising,” said Christina Cooke, a member of an Occupy group from Buffalo who took part in the march here. “Everyone is still here after the long winter. We are still active with more passion than we’ve ever had.”

Occupy Chicago’s own efforts had never drawn quite the national attention of some other cities — places like Occupy Wall Street in New York and the encampment in Zuccotti Park, or in Oakland, Calif., where protesters this month clashed with officers in riot gear, who fired tear gas. Here, the protests never escalated to violent altercations. Last October, efforts by the Chicago protesters to stay overnight in Grant Park, the city’s front lawn beside Lake Michigan, were quickly halted with about 300 arrests.

By Friday night, the police confirmed that at least 13 people had been arrested over several days of protests leading up to the NATO meeting, which starts on Sunday.

Protesters said that at least nine other people had been taken into custody by the authorities on Wednesday night inside a home on the city’s South Side, on suspicion, some local media reports said, of making Molotov cocktails, but the police declined to comment or even confirm additional arrests, saying the case was continuing.

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Sudan: U.S. Congressional Committee Votes to Cut Aid From States Hosting President

17 May 2012
Tim McKulka/UN

Washington — A congressional committee in the United States House of Representatives voted to cut off aid to any state that hosts Sudanese president Omer Hassan al-Bashir who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for his alleged role in Darfur war crimes.

The amendment to the fiscal year 2013 State and Foreign Operations Appropriations bill was pushed for by Frank Wolf who is one of Bashir’s most vocal critic.

“Women are being abused and killed for the color of their skin,” Wolf shouted according to ‘The Hill’ website.

“This is a moral issue,” he added and threatened to send gruesome videos of violence in Sudan to any committee member who voted down the amendment.

“One lady she pinched her skin and said, ‘I’m black. Get Bashir!’ ” the U.S. Republican lawmaker said.

Wolf’s office released his prepared remarks in support of this provision which he said is necessary to further American interests.

“In a time when the foreign affairs budget is being squeezed, I believe our assistance should be a direct reflection of American values and priorities,” he said.

“Surely we can all agree that bringing a war criminal to justice is in our national interest. Leveraging our foreign assistance in this way sends a powerful message,” Wolf added.

The approval of the amendment does not guarantee that it will be included in the final appropriations bill especially that the democratically-controlled Senate will produce its own version which will later has to be reconciled with the House version and voted on.

The issue has already drawn concern by some of Wolf’s peers in light of its implications on the U.S. foreign policy.

“We all agree that the situation in Sudan is deplorable, that President Bashir must be held accountable for his crimes,” Democratic Representative Nita Lowey said.

She noted that Bashir has visited many countries including Ethiopia, China, Egypt, Chad, Malawi, Qatar, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

“My colleague’s amendment would cut off U.S. funding to all of these countries, some of them strategic allies,” had it already been in effect when the visits were made, Lowey said.

Last March, the US announced that it is suspending $350 million allocated to Malawi through the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) citing reasons which included receiving Bashir last year.

This month Malawi’s new president Joyce Banda asked the African Union (AU) not to invite Bashir to this year’s summit hosted by her country for fear of its implications on aid Malawi receives.

The Sudanese president denies the ICC charges and refuses to recognize the jurisdiction of the court which he denigrates as a tool of neo-colonialism by the West.

South Sudan calls for UN sanctions on Khartoum

* Negotiator says Sudan in violation of UN resolution

* Faults UN, AU for not being firm enough with Khartoum

JUBA: The United Nations should impose sanctions on Sudan for failing to obey a Security Council resolution calling for an end to hostilities and renewed negotiations with South Sudan over oil and border disputes, South Sudan’s negotiator said on Friday.

Pagan Amum told Reuters Khartoum had not complied with the May 2 resolution giving neighbours Sudan and South Sudan, under threat of sanctions, two weeks to resume talks over their differences, which boiled over into border clashes last month.

He said while South Sudan, which became the world’s newest independent nation last year, had signalled its readiness to restart talks immediately, its neighbour had carried out air attacks after May 2 and had not moved to resume negotiations.

“They have violated the timeline,” Amum, Secretary-General of South Sudan’s ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), said in an interview in the South Sudanese capital Juba. He urged the UN Security Council to “impose sanctions now and take measures against Khartoum”.

A spokesman for Sudan’s Foreign Ministry said Amum’s remarks were “unfortunate” and accused the south of violating the Security Council resolution by continuing its “aggression” in Sudan’s territory.

While insisting the South wanted to live in peace with Sudan, Amum criticised both the United Nations and the African Union for failing to deal firmly with Sudan, which he said routinely defied the international community.

“If the UN fails to take action, they will be judged by humanity and the people of South Sudan will lose trust and confidence in them,” the South Sudanese negotiator said. “We are going to ask them, ‘What are you going to do?’”

He said he had written to former South African President Thabo Mbeki, who is in Khartoum as head of the AU panel tasked with resolving the north-south disputes, asking when the negotiations with Khartoum would restart but had not so far received a response. El-Obeid Morawah, Sudan’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, said: “The Security Council and the AU have their own monitoring mechanisms and it is they who will say which side violates the decisions. I think it is better for them (South Sudan) and for us to put the negotiations first.”

On Thursday, the UN Security Council demanded that Sudan immediately withdraw troops from the disputed Abyei border region but Khartoum pledged only to do so after a joint military observer body for the area was created. Amum said South Sudan had withdrawn its police forces from Abyei in compliance with the UN demands and said Khartoum’s failure to pull out its military was a violation that should be punished by the Security Council.

Juba accuses Khartoum of launching bombing raids on South Sudanese territory after May 2. UN peacekeepers have verified damage and casualties from at least one raid and the UN’s top human rights official said last week she was outraged by “indiscriminate” aerial attacks by Sudan that she said were killing and injuring civilians. Sudan denies Juba’s accusations of air raids and independent verification of rival claims are often difficult because of limited access to remote conflict areas. Amum chastised the UN and the AU for what he said was inaction over repeated Sudanese attacks. “The UN sees it as normal for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir to bomb and kill the people of South Sudan.

The conscience of the international community is not pricked they are used to it, it has become normal,” he complained.

He said the international community only reacted when South Sudanese forces, in what he called self-defence, occupied the disputed Heglig oil region, as the two armies clashed on their border last month. Under international pressure, South Sudan withdrew from Heglig. The two Sudans, which fought a civil war for more than two decades before a 2005 peace deal that eventually led to South Sudan’s independence, sit on significant oil reserves.

The South’s independence gave it about three quarters of the oil output of the previously unified nation. A dispute over the fees South Sudan should pay to Sudan to export its crude through the north prompted Juba to shut off its oil production earlier this year, straining the two economies. reuters

Sudan set to devalue pound amid oil crunch

Fri, May 18 2012
By Ulf Laessing

KHARTOUM, May 18 (Reuters) - Sudan will allow foreign exchange bureaux and banks to trade dollars at a level close to the black market rate, effectively devaluing the pound, a senior banking official said on Friday.

Sudan’s economy has been battered since the country lost three-quarters of its oil production to South Sudan when the latter became independent in July. Even though the pipelines are in Sudan, the two have been unable to agree on how much the South should pay to transport its oil.

South Sudan shut down its output of 350,000 barrels a day in January after Sudan started seizing oil for what the latter calls unpaid fees.

The loss of oil revenues, the main source of state income and dollar inflows, has hit the Sudanese pound hard. One dollar bought 5.5 pounds on the black market on Friday, way above the official rate of around 2.7. The rate hit 6.2 during a military confrontation with South Sudan last month.

To close the gap the central bank will allow foreign exchange bureaux and banks to use rates close to the black market, said Abdel-Moneim Nur al-Din, deputy head of Sudan’s association of foreign exchange bureaux.

“From Monday on, foreign exchange bureaux can trade dollars at a rate of 5.2,” he told Reuters, adding that banks could set a rate of 4.9.

“We expect the situation to stabilise. We have eight million Sudanese living abroad whose money goes to the black market. With the (new) rate we can attract Sudanese workers to send their money to families through banks and official organisations,” he said.

He said the central bank, which could not be immediately reached for comment, had assured it would provide sufficient dollars supplies.

The central bank has for long time tried to clamp down on the black market which has become the unofficial benchmark for import firms and banks.

As a result of a dollar scarcity inflation shot up to 28.6 percent in April, more than triple the level of November 2010, as Sudan needs to import much of its needs.

Import firms have turned to the black market for dollars as banks and exchange offices struggle to meet supplies.

Nur al-Din said banks were allowed to trade dollars at 4.9 for letter of credits required by import firms. Essential goods such as wheat or medicine would be still guaranteed by the finance ministry at the official rate to keep prices down.

Deputy central bank governor Badr el-Din Mahmoud told al-Sudani newspaper he expected the currency situation to stabilise after the central bank managed to get new supplies. He did not elaborate.

UN Urges Sudan to Pull Troops from Abyei
Posted Friday, May 18th, 2012 at 2:50 am
The United Nations Security Council is demanding Sudan withdraw its troops from the disputed region of Abyei and that it reach an agreement with South Sudan on the status of the oil-rich border region.

The council on Thursday extended the U.N. security force mission in Abyei for six months. It also expressed concern at delays in forming a jointly-run administration and police force for the area.

The 15-member body welcomed last week’s withdrawal of hundreds of South Sudanese forces from Abyei, saying Sudan should follow suit “immediately and without preconditions.”

But Sudan’s deputy U.N. ambassador, Idris Ismail Faragalla Hassan, said South Sudan had taken the wrong approach. He said both sides should withdraw at the same time under the supervision of an international body.

“This withdrawal should take place simultaneously and it should be monitored by a body agreed upon by the two parties. The body will be composed of the two parties as well as the African Union. What happened is that the government of South Sudan took a piecemeal approach, not the comprehensive approach that the government of Sudan is calling for.”

The Security Council earlier this month threatened sanctions against the two Sudans if they do not cease fighting and return to negotiations. Although violence has lessened in the past week, the nations failed to meet a Wednesday deadline to resume talks.

Rising tensions have pushed the countries to the brink of war, just 10 months after South Sudan formally split from the north.

The countries have yet to resolve critical issues from their split, including citizenship questions and disputes over oil revenue and borders. The neighboring countries have accepted “in principle” an African Union roadmap for an end to the fighting.

The fighting has displaced tens of thousands of people along the two countries’ border area, creating a humanitarian crisis that aid agencies say is rapidly growing worse.

History repeats as war pushes Sudanese to Kenya

Fri, May 18 2012

* Some 1,200 S.Sudanese refugees arrive each month

* Swampy conditions bad for health, U.N. says

* Refugee matters “not popular” among locals - U.N.

By Katy Migiro

NAIROBI, May 18 (AlertNet) - When Nyajany Kutil left Kenya’s Kakuma refugee camp to return home to South Sudan in 2008, she did not imagine that war would force her back across the border again so soon.

But the exodus is repeating itself less than a year after South Sudan celebrated its independence from Sudan, dashing hopes of an end to five decades of war.

About 1,200 South Sudanese refugees are arriving in Kakuma camp each month, fleeing conflict and hunger in the world’s newest nation.

“When I came here in 2005, we had a lot of war,” Kutil, 20, said, seated on a wooden bench with her five-year-old daughter, waiting to register with Kenya’s Department of Refugee Affairs.

Kutil’s parents were killed in a night-time raid on their village, forcing the teenage girl to seek sanctuary in Kakuma, 120 km (75 miles) south of the border.

In 2008, she and her two young daughters were among the 50,000 South Sudanese refugees repatriated from Kenya, keen to rebuild their lives following a 2005 peace deal which led to a referendum on southern independence last July.

“When I returned to Sudan, I got the same war. So I am here. I don’t have any other place to go,” Kutil said.

Last month, her husband and four-year-old daughter were killed when raiders burned down their village in South Sudan’s troubled Jonglei State.

“I don’t have any hope to return back to South Sudan. I would like to stay in Kenya because I do not see any war here,” she said.

HISTORY REPEATING ITSELF

Many of those who are coming back have been here before, said Guy Avognon, the United Nations (U.N.) refugee agency’s head of office in Kakuma. “It’s history repeating itself.”

Like Kutil, the majority of new arrivals come from Jonglei where 170,000 people have been affected by interethnic conflict since late 2011.

“The journey was very hard. We suffered. There was no food and no water. We were scared so we used to run at night,” said Nyibol Mariar, 40, sitting on a mat in the camp’s reception centre with her eight surviving children.

Her first born son and husband were killed in a night-time raid on their village in Jonglei.

Kakuma receives 100 new arrivals each day. With a population approaching 97,000, the camp is likely to reach its 100,000 capacity in the next few weeks.

“We have never reached that number even at the peak of the Sudan crisis prior to the referendum,” Avognon said.

“The only place to accommodate these new arrivals is swampy,” he added, warning that such unsanitary conditions were likely to make people sick.

Some 60 percent of new arrivals are from South Sudan, 16 percent from Sudan and the remainder from neighbouring states like Somalia and Ethiopia.

Most Sudanese are coming from South Kordofan on the oil-rich, disputed border between the two Sudans. Rebels who fought on the side of South Sudan during the 1983-2005 war are fighting the Khartoum government once again, causing widespread displacement and hunger.

The United Nations and the local community have identified a new site called Kalobeyey with capacity for 80,000 people, 25 km from Kakuma.

But Kenya’s ministry of internal security has yet to authorise the U.N. to start building an access road to the site.

“Refugee matters are not very popular here. People immediately see the security side of it. The government is very cautious,” Avognon said.

The U.N. predicts that Kakuma will receive between 30,000 and 50,000 new arrivals in the next 12 months, largely because of interethnic feuds.

“If Kakuma remains the main destination of new arrivals, I don’t see how we are going to cope in the next dry season,” said Avognon, adding that water shortages could lead to conflict with the host community in Kenya’s arid north-west. (AlertNet is a humanitarian news service run by Thomson Reuters Foundation. Visit www.trust.org/alertnet) (Editing by James Macharia and Michael Roddy)

EXCLUSIVE - Sudan: The Blue Nile’s Forgotten Rebellion

By blade
Created 18/05/2012 - 10:55

Since September, war has been raging between the Sudanese Revolutionary Front and the Sudanese Armed Forces in the Blue Nile State. FRANCE 24’s James André, Chady Chlela and Stéphanie Braquehais went to the frontline with the rebels.

REPORTERS
2012-05-18 10:10-WB EN REPORTERS

Our convoy sets off at dawn, four Toyota pick-up trucks full of rebels armed with Kalashnikovs. We leave Southern Sudan for Blue Nile State, a province of the Republic of Sudan. After an hour’s drive on a bumpy dirt track through the forest, we cross the border illegally.

Our driver asks us to remove the batteries from our satellite phone. If we turn it on, the Sudanese army could locate and bomb us. We are now unreachable. The men stop to camouflage the 4×4 with mud. The area is bombed daily. Khartoum uses Antonovs - Russian transport aircraft - to drop bombs on villages and rebel positions. Most residents have fled the province; others live hidden in the bush.

The villages along the track leading to the frontline are deserted, some houses are burnt. Rebel fighters use these hamlets as bases. We soon realise that they lack everything. There is little food. One of the rebels tells us that their salaries have not been paid since the beginning of the war. They also lack fuel; most fighters have to walk between positions. Some are wearing flip flops, others sneakers.

Rebel positions on the frontline consist of groups of men who control tracks or intersections. It is a static war, with heavy yet sporadic fighting. Ground skirmishes are rarer than bombings.

Omar al-Bashir’s arch-enemy

The rebels take us to interview Malik Agar, the leader of the Sudanese Revolutionary Front. The man lives in a secret base hidden in the forest. The place is remote and heavily armed. There are only temporary buildings. We are not allowed to film or photograph anything that could give away his location.

Malik Agar is a former minister and governor of Blue Nile state who was dismissed by Khartoum. Almost two metres tall, he is President Omar al-Bashir’s arch-enemy. He speaks perfect English and Arabic in a calm voice. “What we are doing here is exactly what you Europeans did a few centuries ago… with the added value of the Kalashnikov”, he tells us. His popularity has allowed him to rally rebellions from Blue Nile, South Kordofan and also factions from Darfur to form a force of 45,000 men. His goal is to overthrow the government of Omar al-Bashir, which he considers racist, then to seize power and create a multicultural and secular Sudan.

During our meeting, he stresses the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the province. We leave to go and meet those who are displaced within Blue Nile state.

As night falls, our escort stops in one of the ghost villages. We are shown into a hut. We are offered a meal of roast goat. First, the liver and guts are served, then a few pieces of muscle. There is only one goat for the whole unit, roughly thirty men.

The day has been exhausting; we have travelled for hours on bumpy tracks in temperatures of 40 to 45°C. We sleep outside on string beds.

The Blue Nile is a province that has been deliberately abandoned by the Sudanese government over the years. There is no water, no electricity, let alone a telephone network. Nothing here has changed for thousands of years.

The next day, we set off at sunrise. Our escort takes us into what remains of one of the largest markets in the Blue Nile. Everything is closed except for two stores. There are a few products for sale; they are all imported from Ethiopia and South Sudan. The village is dotted with craters; the hospital was destroyed by a bomb dropped by the Sudanese Air Force.

We finally meet some residents who chose to hide in the bush. They live with nothing - no water, no food. Some shelter in caves. They receive no aid since the humanitarian NGOs have been expelled by Khartoum. The rainy season will begin in a few days. The rains will turn the area into a bog. In some places, there will be up to 50 cm of mud. Vehicles will get stuck, paralysing the region, and the already difficult situation of the Blue Nile’s displaced people will become impossible.

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latimes.com/news/politics/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-white-babies-20120517,0,6339751.story

White babies are the new minority in America

By David Horsey
9:58 PM PDT, May 17, 2012

Pudgy, pink Gerber babies are no longer the typical child being born in the United States. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, moms who are Latino, Asian, African American or mixed race are now giving birth to just over 50% of American babies.

Though the median age of Americans of European heritage is 42, the median age of Latinos is 28. The median for Asians and blacks falls somewhere around 33. You do not need a biologist or sociologist to tell you younger people make more babies, so this historic trend toward a more multiracial nation will continue.

When they grow up, all these little brown babies will be working hard to pay for the Medicare and Social Security benefits of a whole lot of old white people like me. It might be a good idea, then, for us all to pay more attention to the quality of K-12 education these youngsters will be getting and make sure they are ready and able to access higher education. We are not going to have a strong economy or a healthy society if we continue to be sanguine as minority kids fall behind and settle for a life of service jobs. We need them to aim much higher. Yes, I know it’s a cliche, but I have to say it: They are the future.

It is inevitable that America will change. That bothers some folks, I know, but it can be a dramatic change for the better if only we pull our heads out of the sand, stop clinging to outmoded definitions of “real Americans” and do the necessary work to bring all these new babies into the great American family.

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May 18, 2012

Martin Spoke of ‘Crazy and Creepy’ Man Following Him, Friend Says

By SERGE F. KOVALESKI
New York Times

A girl who talked on the phone with Trayvon Martin on the night of Feb. 26 has told a state prosecutor that she heard rising fear in Mr. Martin’s voice that peaked with words like “get off, get off,” right before she lost contact with him and he was shot to death.

In the sworn interview recorded on April 2, which runs more than 22 minutes, the unidentified 16-year-old said Mr. Martin described a man who was “crazy and creepy” and on the phone, watching him from a vehicle before he started to follow him on foot.

The girl implored Mr. Martin, 17, who said he put his sweatshirt hood up because of the rain, to run to the town house where he was staying with his father, his father’s girlfriend and her 14-year-old son.

“I could hear the wind blowing” and “he said he lost him,” said the girl, who is from Miami and who said she had known Mr. Martin since kindergarten. She has not been identified because she is a minor and a witness in the case.

“He was breathing hard,” she said, and “his voice kind of changed. I know he was scared. His voice was getting kind of low.”

The recording is one of several dozen released by State Attorney Angela B. Corey, who has charged the gunman, George Zimmerman, 28, with second-degree murder. It is part of the discovery material made public this week that also includes hundreds of pages of documents and photographs. Mr. Zimmerman has pleaded not guilty.

Mr. Zimmerman was a neighborhood watch volunteer at the gated community called Retreat at Twin Lakes, in Sanford, Fla., where the shooting took place. He suffered a broken nose, black eyes, cuts to the back of his head and back pains, all of which he said were the result of a struggle with Mr. Martin, who was unarmed.

Mr. Zimmerman has told the police that he saw a suspicious teenager roaming around the Retreat and followed him on foot before losing sight of him. As Mr. Zimmerman was walking back to his vehicle, he told investigators, Mr. Martin emerged and punched him in the nose before jumping on top of him and attacking him. Mr. Zimmerman said that he then shot Mr. Martin to save his own life.

Mr. Zimmerman’s lawyer, Mark O’Mara, said he was unable to discuss specific evidence. But he said the claims from Mr. Martin’s friend “make up one piece of evidence in the case and that it has to be taken within the context of all the other evidence.”

In the taped interview with Bernie Delario, the state prosecutor, the girl said that Mr. Martin, after evading Mr. Zimmerman for a while, noticed that he was being pursued again and mentioned this to her.

A sense of urgency grew. Mr. Martin alerted the girl to the fact that Mr. Zimmerman “was getting close to him.” She strongly urged him to run, but she could tell he did not because he was out of breath and tired, and kept saying he was close to the town house where he was a guest.

The girl, who talked with Mr. Martin several times that evening, told the investigator that she then heard Mr. Martin ask, “Why are you following me for?” She heard the other man ask, “What are you doing around here?” Earlier, Mr. Martin had temporarily sought cover from the rain by one of the buildings.

After calling out “Trayvon” several times over the phone, and getting no response, she heard somebody bump Mr. Martin.

Subsequently she heard him utter what sounded like, “Get off, get off.” Then the call ended.

Several weeks after Mr. Martin’s death, his father, Tracy, discovered that his son had been talking to the girl just before he was shot. He learned this by reviewing Mr. Martin’s phone bills. She was subsequently interviewed by the Martin family’s lawyer, Benjamin L. Crump, but not by the Sanford police.

One police document contained in the discovery concluded, “The encounter between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin was ultimately avoidable by Zimmerman, if Zimmerman had remained in his vehicle and awaited the arrival of law enforcement, or conversely if he had identified himself to Martin as a concerned citizen and initiated dialogue in an effort to dispel each party’s concerns.”

It added, “There is no indication that Trayvon Martin was involved in any criminal activity at the time of the encounter.”

Timothy Williams contributed reporting.

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News Analysis: Chicago summit to focus on Afghanistan, sharing expertise among NATO members

English.news.cn 2012-05-19 09:41:28

LONDON, May 19 (Xinhua) — The chief focus of the upcoming NATO summit in the American city of Chicago will be on Afghanistan, experts say.

The summit takes place on Sunday and Monday against the backdrop of the 2014 deadline for withdrawal from Afghanistan by NATO/ISAF combat troops.

Also weighing heavily on the minds of heads of state and leaders will be the effect of the financial crisis on their budgets, and its squeeze on military spending, and the worries of a collapse in the Euro.

The increasing role of Afghan forces in the country, and the opportunity that gives for NATO troops to be withdrawn, is an issue already settled and leaders will be looking for reassurance that they can keep to this target.

Alexander Nicoll, of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, said that the 2014 timetable was agreed among leaders and it would be highly significant if agreement were reached to bring it forward, something U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has campaigned for.

“For most leaders the issue is already settled; they are going to end the conflict by the end of 2014, and it means that mentally they can move on, although there are still a lot of challenges in Afghanistan for them to deal with,” Nicoll said.

Alexis Crow, of the policy institute Chatham House in London, told Xinhua, that last November’s Istanbul Process seeking greater regional cooperation over Afghanistan was being championed by NATO member Turkey, as well as the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar.

They were focusing on the era after NATO troops leave, and the legacy that the United States and Britain, primarily, will leave behind.

“The Turks and Qataris are emphasizing a political solution which, for a number of reasons, the Brits and Americans cannot,” said Crow.

“Obama will be looking for clear solutions to complex problems; most likely securitized military solutions. He is likely to emphasize the need for the withdrawal of combat troops,” she said.

President Obama’s surprise visit to Kabul recently did not involve anyone from the State Department, “which just goes to show how militarized the solution is,” said Crow.

The possible withdrawal of 3,300 French combat troops currently in Afghanistan, raises the question if this action would be destabilizing for NATO and its Afghan policy.

New French President Francois Hollande is going to be less Atlanticist than Sarkozy, said Crow, and it’s going to be a much more Europeanized France.

Nicoll said that there is an agreement to be reached on what foreign forces will be in Afghanistan after 2014, which requires an agreement with the Afghan government.

“I am sure all Western governments will be focused on that,” said Nicoll.

They will also need to discuss funding for the security forces in Afghanistan after 2014. The burden is likely to be far too great for the Afghan economy to bear without support.

“SMART DEFENSE” TO SAVE MONEY, IMPROVE CAPABILITIES

The second main item on the summit agenda is the Smart Defense Initiative, which is designed to best manage the cuts currently being made in budgets by member nations by promoting consultation and expertise sharing.

Nicoll said that Smart Defense was practical and possible, and with more effective cooperation countries across the alliance could get better value for money.

“The question is whether you can get over the political hurdles to doing that. That does require strong political commitment from leaders at summits, and then it requires determined implementation afterwards,” he said.

Lisa Aronsson, of the Royal United Services Institute, a London think-tank, said none of the nations want to lessen their political ambitions, and most nations are still spending a lot on military compared with other parts of the world.

“The strategy is to spend more efficiently, and to deliver more deployable forces,” she said.

Crow believed that there is the possibility that Smart Defense could see cooperation between partner nations with different visions — like a vision for the Scandinavian nations, another for Eastern Europeans, and yet another for the Anglo-French.

Nicoll believed the visit of Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari to the NATO summit could herald a thawing in relations with the United States and possible reopen the southern supply route to Afghanistan, currently closed by Pakistan until the U.S. apologizes for killing Pakistani troops in the country.

With withdrawal of all combat troops by 2014 along with their equipment the continued closure of this route is a “major logistical problem” for ISAF forces, said Nicoll.

Aronsson said Zardari’s attendance demonstrates the importance of the Pakistan relationship to the United States and NATO, despite the fallout over the killing of Pakistani troops by the Americans, and the killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil.

“There is still an understanding on both sides that it is a necessary relationship, and NATO understands there cannot be any transition and withdrawal and sustainable Afghanistan without Pakistan being a part of the narrative,” said Aronsson.

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