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Who is behind FFC Stubbornness?

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AU Commission Envoy Calls on TMC and FFC to Resume Negotiations

30th May, 201925th Ramadan,1440

THURSDAY

By: Muawad – Al-Sammani

Khartoum – The Principal Strategic Advisor to the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Prof. Mohamed El-Hacen Lebatt, has called on the Transitional Military Council (TMC) and the Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC) to ex-pedite their moves to resume the talks on the transformation of pow-er to civilian authority.The AU envoy warned against the failure of the negotiations, add-ing that there are only two options either heading to chaos or to the peace and negotiations path.Lebatt called on the TMC and the FFC to avoid tense atmosphere urging for availing conducive en-vironment between the two rivals for partnership based on exchanged respect and reducing the escalation.He added in a press conference held yesterday at the premises of the Af-rican Union Liaison Office in Khar-toum that the TMC and the FFC should urgently reach an agreement to avoid the consequences of some other countries.

Lebatt announced the satisfaction of the AU towards the agreement reached on the legislature and the transitional period, affirming that the negotiations between the two parties were affected by lobbying a matter that resulted to its stalemate.He affirmed that he met with some national mediators to bridge the gap between the two rivals add-ing that the mediators said that the dispute is over the formation of the sovereign council, disclosing that the AU supports the efforts of the national mediation which copes with the AU principles that the Af-

rican should resolve their issues by themselves.Lebatt said that they are endeavor-ing to create conducive environ-ment for the negotiations based on the spirits of partnership,He concluded the press conference by calling on the TMC and the FFC to avoid tensions, affirming that there are continuous contacts be-tween the two parties through dif-ferent channels, expressing hope that the two parties would strike a deal to run the transitional period and pave the way for free and fair elections.

Al Burhan Visits Ethiopia in Continuation of his External Trips

Kassala Governor: Our Relations with Eritrea are Distinguished and Strong

By: Neimat al Naiem

Khartoum-Chairman of the Transitional Military Coun-cil (TMC) 1st Lt. Gen. Abdel-Fattah Al Burhan con-cluded a brief visit to Ethiopia Tuesday during which he met the Ethiopian Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed, as part of his external official visits. The Ethiopian Prime Minister warmly welcomed the Chairman of the TMC and expressed support of his country to Sudan. Spokes-man of the TMC Lt. Gen. Shams-Eddin Kabbashi said Al Burhan briefed the Ethiopian Prime Minister during

the meeting on the current political situations in Sudan. Kabbashi added that the TMC Chairman met at the Su-danese Embassy in Addis Ababa Ambassador Ismail Sharfei, the AU Peace and Security Commissioner. Al Burhan conveyed his thanks to the Peace and Security Commission, affirming Sudan confidence in the AU Peace and Security Council and appreciation to the great efforts exerted by the AU and its envoy to Khartoum.Chairman of the TMC added that Sudan is looking for-ward for reaching agreement that achieve the aspirations of the Sudanese people.

By / Sudan Vision

Khartoum – Kassala Governor, Major General, Mahmoud Babiker affirmed that the Sudanese-Eri-trean relations are distinguished, reiterating the keen-ness of the two countries to continue joint coopera-tion.Addressing the Eritrean community in Kassala on the occasion of their 28th National Day, the gov-

ernor indicated to the economic and social historical relations between the two countries, saying that they intend to open the borders with Eritrea for the inter-est of the two countries. For his part, Charge d’Affaires of the Eritrean Em-bassy in Khartoum, Ibrahim Idris referred to the Eritrean achievements in all areas of development, despite foreign pressures.

Some 80% of Government Companies Don’t Support Public TreasuryBy: Zuleikha Abdul Raziq

Khartoum- The committee on review and listing of the govern-mental companies has disclosed that 80% of these companies don’t contribute to supporting the public treasury as it revealed that some government assets had been sold at sums that were less than their real values.

Chairman of the committee, Mo-hamed Ahmed Ali Al Ghali, the director of the legal department at the council of ministers, said that only 12 companies out of a total of 183 government companies sup-port the public treasury, indicating that there are violations in some of these companies according to the report of the auditor general that would be submitted to the Tran-

sitional Military Council prior to referring them to the public pros-ecution. He also disclosed that there are government companies that are not subjected to auditing by the auditor general, noting that they recommended liquidation of some of these companies besides continuation of some of the com-panies that are operating in a cor-rect way.

UK Government Continues to Support WFP Cash Programme and Humanitarian Sir Service (UNHAS) in SudanHOME2

Thursday, May 30, 2019

U.S. Diplomat Calls to Allow Rebels to Return to SudanFFC Warn of Formation of Government by TMCBy / Sudan Vision

Khartoum - Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC) warned of any attempt to form a government by the Transitional Military Council (TMC), announcing an open political strike and total disobe-dience in case of disagreement with the TMC.A member of the negotiation of FFC, Mo-hamed Naji Al-Asam revealed, in a press conference on Monday evening, the par-ticipation of a large number of govern-ment institutions and private sector in the declared strike, describing the divergence in visions between the forces of the gath-ering as normal, stressing their agreement on the minimum and its keenness on its unity and to transfer power to a civilian government in the coming period..FFC member, Mubarak Ardul warned of the repercussions of forming a govern-ment by the military council.

FFC leading figure, Wajdi Saleh stressed that all options are open if no result reached in negotiations with the TMC..

ST

KHARTOUM - Chargé d’Affaires Ste-ven Koutsis Monday called to allow armed groups disposed to negotiate a lasting peace agreement to return home.Koutis made his call in a statement re-leased after a meeting with Yasir Arman, Chairman of the SPLM-N Agar and Sec-retary for External Affairs for the Sudan Call alliance on Monday.The US Embassy in Khartoum said the meeting discussed ways forward on the establishment of a civilian-led govern-ment.“All factions willing to join in the pro-cess should be allowed to return to Su-dan immediately without restrictions,” stressed the statement.Also, the embassy said that “any ar-rangement for the transitional period must include an inclusive dialogue for lasting peace”.The Sudanese Revolutionary Front led by Minni Minnawi announced that it would dispatch a delegation to Khartoum very soon.Arman who arrived in Sudan on Sunday morning also met on Monday with the

leadership of the Sudanese Congress Party which is a member of the Sudan Call alli-ance.The meeting discussed at length the issues of ending war and peace-building in Su-dan.

Both sides stressed that there is no sustain-able democratic transformation without a just and comprehensive peace.Also, the two sides agreed that the issues of the country’s margin, women and youth should be at the forefront of the project.

Press Release KHARTOUM – The United Kingdom is contrib-uting £3 million (approximately US$3.9 million) in UK aid funds to support the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in providing cash assistance for vulnerable communities in Darfur and running the United Nations Humani-tarian Air Service (UNHAS) across Sudan. WFP will use £2 million (US$2.6 million) to-wards its existing Cash-Based Transfer (CBT) programmes across Darfur states, through which beneficiaries receive cash or food vouchers to cover their basic food needs. By injecting cash in local markets, the programmes can help to stim-ulate demand at a time when Sudan faces eco-nomic challenges. Consistent funding of these

programmes is essential to provide a complete assistance package of food, cash and vouchers to vulnerable populations.“The United Kingdom continues to support the people of Sudan during critical times, particular-ly as the CBT emergency response programme is significantly underfunded this year. Without con-sistent funding, it is difficult to reach additional people in need,” said Matthew Hollingworth, WFP Country Director in Sudan.Additionally, £1 million (US$1.3 million) will support WFP’s humanitarian air service (UN-HAS) which enables the movement of humani-tarian actors across Sudan. UNHAS aims to transport 24,000 humanitarian and development professionals in 2019, although the service faces regular funding gaps.

By: SUNA

Khartoum – Member of the Transitional Military Council (TMC) and Head of the Professional and So-cial Committee, Lt. Gen. (Pilot) Sala-Eddin Abdul-Khalig Saeed Monday paid a visit to Jebel Aulia Mili-tary Area, accompanied by the Deputy Chief of Staff of Ground Forces for Supply, Gen. Abdul-Rahman Yousif.Lt. Gen. Saeed has briefed the Military Area’s officers, non-commissioned officers and men on

the current situation and progress of the negotia-tions.He affirmed that the Armed Forces and the Sudanese people cus-toms will not be harmed, stating that Sharia will be the basis in all legisla-tions.He said that all the regular forces are operat-ing as one team.

He said that several op-tions are open if an agreement was reached with the Forces for Freedom and Change indicating that all these options are for the interest of the homeland and the Sudanese citizens

By: Ahmed Ibrahim

Khartoum - The crisis that plagues both the tran-sitional military council (TMC) and the decla-ration of freedom and change forces (DFCF) is still pending without solution-a situation that has triggered reactions from many quarters, especially the political experts. To begin with, there is the leader of the National Umma Party, Imam Al-Sadiq Al -Mahdi, who says that in case of insistence of TMC to conduct an ear-ly election, there are certain conditions that should be considered in advance; ‘the institu-tions of the former regime should be swept out. Return of the displaced persons; and the issu-ance of a law forbidding the National Congress Party and its partners to run in the elections’. Political analyst, professor Abdu Mukhtar, sees that relations between TMC and DFCF has

reached a dead locked road which is indica-tive that there is a crisis, advising that and as a way out from the sorry impasse, a committee of experts to overcome the predicament through compromises, is to be formed. Dr. Salah Al Douma, lecturer at the Sudanese universities, says that the call for an early elec-tion to end differences between TMC and DFCF, is not a solution, going further to explain the point like this; ‘no elections without consti-tution’. And prominent cadre of DFCF and head of the Sudanese congress party, Omar Al-Digair, af-firms that they in DFCF are still optimistic to reach an agreement with TMC, pointing out that they are still sticking firmly to using peace-ful methods as pressure cards whose manifes-tations are to be political strikes and civilian disobedience.

We Are Sticking Firmly to Use Peaceful Methods as Pressure Cards: Al-Digair

UK Government Continues to Support WFP Cash Programme and Humanitarian Sir Service (UNHAS) in Sudan

Saeed Visits Jebel-Aulia Military Area

SUNA

Khartoum – The Director of Sudanese Airlines Yassir Timo has announced continuation of Sudan Airways flights on schedule and that the company has not canceled any flights. Timo told SUNA, in response to a question about the com-pany’s position regarding the strike, that the implementation of the strike is due to personal estimates and that the Sudan Airways flights are on sched-ule.

Sudan Airways: Our Tours Are on Schedule

Why Sudan Won’t Hand over Former President Al-Bashir to the International Criminal Court Conversation

It has been a long fight for justice. Back in July 2008, the prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (ICC) requested an arrest warrant for the then president of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, citing his alleged criminal responsibility for crimes against hu-manity, genocide and war crimes in the Darfur region. Ultimately, two ar-rest warrants were issued, on March 4, 2009 and July 12, 2010.But justice did not swiftly follow. Despite the arrest warrants, al-Bashir won presidential elections in 2010 and 2015 and continued to travel around the region and further afield. In April, following months of protests, the Su-danese military toppled the president and announced a military-led transi-tional council. The former president is now being held in prison in Sudan.The military-led transitional council has declared that al-Bashir may be tried in Sudan, but not handed over to the ICC. It is unclear whether a return to civil rule will result in al-Bashir’s transfer to the ICC, but al-Bashir has been charged domestically with killing demonstrators and financial crimes.

Under international law, heads of state such as al-Bashir, enjoy various privi-leges, including immunity from crimi-nal jurisdiction. This simply means that a serving head of state cannot be brought before a court to answer for their alleged crimes. Indeed, even when they leave office, they continue to enjoy immunity for their official acts during their time in office, a privi-lege known as “functional immunity”. On several occasions, the Internation-al Court of Justice, arguably the most authoritative court ruling on matters of international law, confirmed that heads of state enjoy “full immunity from criminal jurisdiction and invio-lability”. This also appears to protect them “against any act of authority of another state which would hinder him or her in the performance of his or her duties”. Nevertheless, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998) (also known as the Rome Statute (1998)) is an international treaty which enables the ICC to make rulings on cases brought before it regardless of the official capacity of the defendants, including former and serving heads of state. But international law is widely

considered to be consent-based, so a state must ratify a treaty in order to be bound by its provisions. And Su-dan, like many other countries, is not a state party to the Rome Statute, and so should not normally be subject to the ICC’s jurisdiction.It is not, however, quite as simple as that. United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions are binding under international law. On March 31, 2005, the UNSC issued Security Council Resolution 1593, which referred al-Bashir to the ICC. As a consequence, Sudan was treated as subject to the Rome Statute, despite it not being a state party to the treaty.The African Union’s responseThe African Union (AU) plays a sig-nificant role, too. The AU comprises of 55 member states, Sudan being one of them, and functions similarly to the European Union. As some AU member states are also state parties to the Rome Statute, they have a duty to arrest and surrender al-Bashir to the ICC.The ICC, however, has a poor reputa-tion on the continent, where it is wide-ly seen as being overly preoccupied with targeting African states while

overlooking others. This led to a num-ber of African states refusing to arrest and surrender al-Bashir to the ICC. Indeed, al-Bashir has regularly visited other African states without being ar-rested.In fact, the ICC has made several rulings finding that Chad, Malawi, Sudan, Djibouti, Uganda and South Africa have failed to comply with its request to arrest al-Bashir. The AU even urged its member states not to comply with the ICC and went so far as to threaten its members with sanc-tions if they did so.Indeed, handing over al-Bashir to the ICC is neither in Sudan’s nor the AU’s interests as their consistent re-sponse may eventually result in the establishment of “custom”, which is a recognised source of international law. Consequently, Sudan is almost certainly going to take matters into its own hands and try al-Bashir in its domestic courts. And this precedent may well protect other African heads of states from being targeted by courts overseas in the future.How the US has respondedThe chances of al-Bashir being tried by the ICC have also been compro-

mised by the US’s stance. The US was one of the permanent members in the UNSC that originally referred al-Bashir to the ICC. Howev-er, the ICC has also expressed an inter-est in investigating the US for crimes against humanity and war crimes. The US has responded by threatening the ICC with sanctions and cancelling the visas of ICC investigatorsThe US, like Sudan, has not ratified the Rome Statute. Nor will it realisti-cally be referred to the ICC as it is a permanent member in the UNSC and can simply veto any resolution which seeks to subject it to the ICC’s juris-diction.Critically, this seems to advance the AU’s narrative. First, because the US’s ability to avoid ICC justice supports the idea that the ICC targets African states in a discriminatory fashion. And second, because the AU can cite the US’s noncompliance with the ICC as justification for its own stance.Either way, while al-Bashir may well be tried in Sudan, he is unlikely ever to face justice on the international stage. And this may well embolden other leaders who believe that they are above the law.

3 Thursday, May 30, 2019INTERVIEWS

Towards a Sustainable Political Transformation in Sudan (1)

An interview with Gilbert Achcar The recent uprisings in Sudan and Algeria show that the conditions that gave rise to the Arab Spring are not going away. But move-ments against authoritarianism and exploita-tion still face existential threats.

After years of counterrevolution and blood-shed, the Middle East began to see some glimmers of hope last month. In Algeria and Sudan, mass demonstrations emerged to chal-lenge the autocratic regimes of presidents Abdelaziz Bouteflika and Omar al-Bashir, respectively. And in that respect, both have been successful: both leaders have been re-moved, their decades-long rules at an end. But protests have continued, because as in Egypt after the 2011 revolution, the basic power structure behind those leaders remains intact. So do the material conditions driving the uprisings: the rock-bottom wages, mass unemployment, insecurity, and lack of a fu-ture for youth baked into the structural adjust-ment model imposed by the IMF.Thus, popular forces in Algeria and Sudan are in a precarious position. The specter of the counterrevolution waged against the actors of the Arab Spring looms large. But today’s protesters have learned from the recent strug-gles in the region, and may benefit from such retrospective vision. To discuss the dangers and hopes of these developments, Jacobin contributor Ashley Smith spoke to Gilbert Achcar, who has written extensively about the Arab Spring and the politics of the Mid-dle East.

Q: The uprisings in Sudan and Algeria have inspired renewed hope in the Middle East and North Africa after a long period of counter-revolution. What is happening in these two countries?A: In Sudan and Algeria, we are witnessing two waves of mass protests equal in magni-tude to the revolts that erupted in 2011. Back then it was called the Arab Spring. As a re-sult, in the mainstream media, we’ve had a lot of commentary asking whether we are in the midst of a new Arab Spring.In reality, the uprisings in these two coun-tries are the product of what I’ve been call-ing a long-term revolutionary process that started in 2011 for the whole Arab-speaking region. The main cause for this is the social and economic blockage brought about by the combination of IMF-sponsored neoliberalism and the rotten authoritarian political systems that impose it throughout the Middle East and North Africa. This blockage produces sys-tematic social problems, the most important of which is enormous youth unemployment.The blockage produces many other deep grievances among the populations in the re-gion that keep driving uprisings. In Sudan, the trigger of the revolt was the increase in bread prices after the state cut subsidies at the behest of the IMF. In Algeria, the immediate cause was political; the Algerian regime tried to secure a fifth term for Abdelaziz Boutef-lika despite the fact that he has been semi-paralyzed by a stroke for the last six years. This offended the democratic aspirations of people.So, again economic and political grievances are driving another wave of popular revolts just like those we saw in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, and Syria in 2011. This confirms that it was wrong to view those risings as a “spring” that would, just like the season, last a few months and end with mere constitutional changes, or end in failure. In reality, we are still in the midst of a long-term revolutionary process born out of the region’s very deep structural crisis.This means that there won’t be any kind of stabilization of the Arab-speaking region short of a radical change in the social, eco-nomic, and political conditions that have pro-duced this developmental blockage. Until this happens the crisis will go on and we’ll see more explosions of struggle and more coun-terrevolutionary offensives.If we look at the years after the first wave of

uprisings from 2011 to 2013, we have had six years dominated by counterrevolution. The counterrevolution took various forms but led either to the consolidation of the old regimes or degeneration into civil war and chaos. At the same time, social volcanoes continue to erupt throughout the region because the old regimes can offer no solutions to the people’s grievances. So, we’ve had important social movements over the last years all over the region from Tunisia, which started the whole process of uprising in December 2010 and witnessed several social upsurges since then, to Morocco and Iraq through Sudan and Jor-dan and beyond the Arab countries to Iran.This should come as no surprise. As every long-term revolutionary process in history has shown, there will be dialectic of revo-lution and counterrevolution as long as the key political and economic problems have not been solved. Short of that we risk having more and more mayhem and tragedies.

Q: What lessons have the activists in the new revolts in Sudan and Algeria learned from the earlier wave of struggle?A: There are two major lessons that politi-cal forces have learned from the past experi-ences. One is seen in their insistence on the nonviolent character of the movement. They are very keen on avoiding doing anything that would give the state the opportunity to use the full spectrum of its repressive means against them.The first wave of revolts too was actually very keen on that. They all raised the slogan “silmiyya, silmiyya,” which means “peace-ful, peaceful,” even in Syria. All attempted to stick to nonviolent means. Violence was started everywhere without exception by the regimes themselves. Of course, faced with a qualitative escalation of state violence, the mass movement has only two options left: one is to give up the struggle, and the other is to defend itself.Civil wars attracted foreign intervention of various kinds. In Libya, foreign interven-tion by the US and its allies came in favor of the insurgents in an attempt at co-opting their struggle. The result was that it is the only Arab state that has completely collapsed due to the victory of the insurgents. That’s because the whole state machine was organi-cally tied to Muamar Gaddafi and his clique.On the other hand, in Syria, foreign interven-tion mainly by Iran, its proxies, and Russia was on the side of the regime. It enabled

Bashar al-Assad’s regime to survive, com-mit terrible massacres, and destroy whole swathes of the country. The scale of atroci-ties has been far worse in Syria than in any country so far. Even Yemen comes second in terms of the scale of the tragedy. In light of these tragedies, new mass move-ments have become acutely wary of this risk of violence and foreign-backed civil war and are very much taking it into consideration. In a sense, what is most amazing is that the Algerians and Sudanese started their revolt at all given the tragic outcomes they saw in other countries. The regimes in the whole region have been using those outcomes as a powerful new counterrevolutionary argument to dissuade their peoples from rising. The Algerian regime explicitly warned the mass movement that they risked a Syrian scenario. But that was not enough to deter the people from going into the streets and fighting for their aspirations and demands.The second lesson that Sudanese and Alge-rian activists have learned is that the military command is not an ally. They learned that from the experience in Egypt, whose kind of state is most similar to theirs. These states have in common the fact that the military are in control of political power. The armed forces are not just a repressive backbone of the state, which is something common to all states, but the center of gravity of political power.The Sudanese and Algerians had watched how the army removed Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in 2011 on the background of the uprising only to restore the old order at first opportunity. So, when the military removed Bouteflika in Algeria and Bashir in Sudan, the popular movement knew that this was not enough. It understood that the removal of the president and his cronies was just the removal of the tip of the iceberg, that the mass of the iceberg — what people call the deep state — made up especially of the military-security complex, is still in place and that as long as power remains in its hands, there is no end to the regime.So, the movements in Sudan and Algeria have learned the lesson that one must get rid of the deep state. You can see the difference between the Egyptian uprising’s reaction to the military taking down of Mubarak and the Sudanese and Algerian movements’ reac-tion to the similar removal of their dictators. In Egypt, people thought it was victory and emptied the squares after celebrating. But

in Algeria and Sudan, people said that’s not enough and carried on demonstrating.They want to get rid of the whole regime, not just a few people at the top. Getting rid of the regime means giving back political power to civil society through democratic means in-cluding elections and provision of rights.

Q: Libya seems to stand in stark contrast with the hopeful signs in Algeria and Sudan. There we are witnessing an intense battle between factions for the reconstitution of state power. What’s your assessment of what’s happening there?A: Libya had — in the aftermath of the fall of Gaddafi, after decades of totalitarian rule — a period of democratic blossoming with large numbers of political groups and NGOs emerging, newspapers developing, and elec-tions, which were the first free elections in that country and among the freest the region has seen, with a remarkable rate of partici-pation. They were won by a liberal secular alliance that defeated the Islamic fundamen-talists. Then the counterrevolution started with the fundamentalists rebelling against the elected government.In the middle of the resulting chaos, a former military leader, Khalifa Haftar, launched a counterrevolutionary bid for power.

Q: This triangular scenario you describe doesn’t seem to fit in Sudan. Why is it dif-ferent?A: In Sudan, Bashir’s regime actually com-bined both counterrevolutionary poles. He ruled through the military just as the dicta-torships in Egypt or Algeria, but at the same time he did so in close collaboration with the Islamic fundamentalists. They were also part of the regime. That’s why I referred to Bashir as a combination of Morsi and Sisi; I called him “Morsisi.”The fact that the Islamic fundamentalists were part of the regime prevented them from playing a role in the uprising; the people were actually rising up against them. So, they were in no position to hijack the uprising as they did in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, and Syria. This difference is very important, and it has shaped the revolt itself, which has had to challenge the fused poles of counterrevolu-tion.This has helped make the Sudanese protest the most progressive of all the uprisings we’ve seen in the region so far. It’s the most advanced in terms of organization as well as

politics. The coalition of groups leading it is called the Forces of the Declaration of Free-dom and Change (FDFC). It includes origi-nally underground professional and workers associations, and political parties from leftists like the Communist Party to liberal Muslim, armed movements fighting ethnic oppression, as well as feminist groups.These progressive forces have shaped the politics of the revolt. In particular, women and feminist organizations, who have played a prominent role, have pushed for feminist demands to be included in the FDFC’s pro-gram. It now stipulates, for example, that the new legislative council must be 40 percent women.But we should not underestimate the chal-lenges the FDFC face. The coalition is locked in a tug of war with the military, who want to maintain power in their hands and only grant subordinate functions to civilians. The FDFC are instead demanding that sovereign power should be fully in the hands of a civilian majority and the armed forces limited to the apolitical defense role they ought normally to play in a civilian state.So, the Sudanese revolutionaries are con-fronting the military, who are backed by all the regional and international forces of coun-terrevolution. Qatar, the Saudi kingdom, the UAE, Russia, and the US are all supporting the military in that tug of war. Add to the picture the Islamic fundamentalists who are naturally backing the military.In this situation, the movement’s main strength has been its ability to win over the rank and file of the armed forces and some of the lower-ranking officers. That has so far dissuaded the military from attempting to drown the revolution in blood. Bashir wanted the army to crush the uprising, but his gener-als refused, not because they’re democrats or humanists, to be sure, but because they were not confident that the troops would follow their orders.The military command knew that part of the soldiers and lower-ranking officers sympa-thized with the uprising to the point of even using their weapons to defend demonstrators from attacks by the regime’s thugs and politi-cal police. The troops’ sympathizing with the popular movement was determining in lead-ing the generals to get rid of Bashir.The most important thing now is for the move-ment to consolidate its support among the rank and file and lower-ranking officers of the armed forces. The success or failure of that effort will determine the whole fate of the revolution.

Q: Why have the Sudanese progressive forces been able to make such a big breakthrough compared to the rest of the region?A: The FDFC are not much different in their political composition from the progressive forces everywhere in the region. But else-where, these progressive forces have been discredited by siding with one of the two counterrevolutionary poles. Where the Is-lamic fundamentalists were in the opposition they managed to jump on the bandwagon and hijack the movement thanks to the far supe-rior means they had in organization, funds, and media.Look at the example of Egypt. There the Muslim Brotherhood hijacked the popular re-volt. They spread illusions about the military in 2011. At the time of Mubarak’s overthrow and in its aftermath, the Brotherhood were working hand in hand with the military. That greatly helped the military defuse the popular movement.Because the two counterrevolutionary poles were combined in Sudan, a space opened for the progressive forces to break through on their own. This is not entirely the case in Algeria. While Islamic fundamentalist forces are not playing any visible role in the uprising there, they retain a powerful network and can thereby still play a counterrevolutionary role if the occasion arises. Moreover, unlike in Su-dan, there is no recognized leadership of the uprising in Algeria, and that makes the move-ment vulnerable to political manipulations.

The Long Arab Spring

4

AFRICA IN FOCUS Edited by: Alula Berhe Kidani

Thursday, May 30, 2019

AFRICA .COM

As the flight from Dire Dawa, Ethiopia de-scends into Djibouti airspace, it is hard to ignore Djibouti’s strategic location and im-portance. Bordering the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea and situated between Eritrea and Somalia, Djibouti is the route to the sea for African countries such as South Sudan and Ethiopia. Ethiopian imports and exports ac-count for more than 65% of the port activity at Djibouti’s container terminal.From the perspective of ‘the West,’ this is a strategic country in the middle of the un-stable Horn of Africa. It is home to the only U.S. military base in Sub-Saharan Africa and the largest French foreign military base. The Japanese opened a base in the past few years to help in the fight against piracy on the sea. And the Sheraton Hotel, at times, performs as a base for the Germans (absent the military aircraft and watercraft).From an investor’s perspective, Djibouti is a young country that presents untapped opportunities. Here are my recom-mendations in no particular order of importance, or potential internal rate of return (IRR):

Real Estate

Djibouti has an unemployment rate above 44% in urban ar-eas, in particular the city of Djibouti, and an approximate population of 984,325 as of 2019. In the absence of a lo-cal Djiboutian consumer base, the foreign military presence provides a major portion of the consumer spending. Ac-cording to local real estate builders, the biggest purchasers/renters of new villas are the Chinese, the Somalis, and the Americans. Chinese investors and contractors are slowly coming in numbers as interest from the China Africa Devel-opment (CAD) Fund grows particularly around the potential of logistics, energy (specifically geothermal) and tourism. “The Chinese, well, they are always around and present,” said one Djibouti investor.The Somalis, known as big players in the trading and in-

formal Djiboutian market, place their cash in real estate to avoid having money in banks. As with the Americans, it has been calculated by several local Djiboutian businessmen that one American soldier’s consumption is equal that of 100 local Djiboutian consumers. The American soldiers are gen-erally paid more, dislike staying on the military base 24/7, and will rent villas off the base, even if they can only stay there for 3-4 days per week. Prices—real estate and non-real estate—generally reflect this. A meal can go as high as $50 but this is also due to the tie of the Djiboutian Franc to the dollar.

Tourism

Djibouti is a welcoming city made in the reflection of its inhabitants. Locals generally speak French, Arabic and/or Somali with some locals sparingly speaking English. Ac-customed to a large foreign presence, locals often will want to socialize to understand where you are from and what you think of Djibouti.The country is also home to internationally renowned scuba diving places in the north. Unfounded and founded security concerns have kept the tourism sector from growing. At the

same time, Djibouti’s touristic areas could use a heavy boost from investment in moderately priced, quality hotels as well as other touristic amenities (i.e., tour guides, moderately priced restaurants, etc.).Salt Production

Djibouti is home to Lac Assal (Lake Assal) which is the salt-iest lake in the world and also sits at one of the lowest points in Africa. Prior to a joint venture investment in Salt Invest-ment SA by foreign investors, including Emerging Capital Partners, Djiboutian salt production was limited to the de-mand of the Ethiopian market and constrained by the lack of iodization machinery, energy and water supply. While Salt Investment SA has faced an uphill battle, investors strongly believe in the potential of Djibouti’s salt production.

Logistics and Warehousing

The Djiboutian ports are vital to Ethiopia and growing in importance to South Sudan. Imports can sit at the port for 3-6 months before making it to the final destination in Ad-dis Ababa. Prices for warehousing and transports are exor-bitant such that, after six months, it is often more profitable

to auction off goods than to store them longer. During the winter season (right after the Ethiopian rainy season), the port is further congested due to a major bump in imports and exports. The port bottleneck will only be relieved through expansion of the other ports, more affordable warehousing, and, in the longer term, better intergovernmental interaction over taxes and duties among other things.

Education

Djibouti is a country with a very small population that where more than 60 percent are of working age. The Université de Djibouti, established in 2006, is the only college-level education provider in Djibouti. Accordingly, those who can afford it still leave the country for schooling. In such a young economy, there is a great need for technical skills of-ten derived from management institutes and vocational pre-paratory schools. These types of schools can help develop local skills, especially entrepreneurial related skills, neces-sary to expand an economy dependent on foreign assistance and imports. If the local economy cannot consume the new workers, they become attractive to neighboring countries in search of workers with strong technical skills.

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Secretive Traders Netting Chinese Delicacy Leave Nile Perch under Threat Geoffrey Kamadi

A thriving trade in fish maw – made from the swim blad-ders of fish – could lead to the extinction of the Nile perch fish in east Africa’s Lake Victoria.Demand for fish maw has spawned such a lucrative busi-ness enterprise in the region that it is raising concerns of overfishing.The high profits involved mean that traders keep a low profile, and are secretive about their haul’s eventual desti-nation, according to the women who gut the perch to ex-tract the precious maw.“We don’t know where they take it. They come to col-lect it and we sell it to them,” said Francisca Odhiambo, a mother of five, who sells fish at Dunga beach, on the shores of Lake Victoria.Fish maw has various uses, including the manufacture of surgical sutures, but it is also a delicacy in China, where it is served in soups or stews in addition to being used as a source of collagen. It is also used to make water-resistant glue and in the production of isinglass, a refining agent involved in the manufacture of beer and wine.Ironically, Nile perch is an invasive species. It was intro-duced to Lake Victoria in 1950, and has been blamed for the disappearance of the native fish and interfering with the lake’s ecosystem. But it is now an important part of the local economy.“The fisherfolk [here] came to realise that the fish maw trade is a real business fetching lots of money in China and Hong Kong, and it’s not just a by-product,” said Tom Guda, regional chairman of the Lake Victoria beach man-agement unit.Guda explained that in the years between 2000 and 2005, Chinese traders came through Uganda looking to buy maw directly from the fishermen. The price of Nile perch shot up from $2 (£1.60) a kilo to between $3-$4.“That has continued to date so that the Nile perch prices have stabilised because of the fish maw,” said Guda.According to a report commissioned by the German de-velopment agency GIZ in collaboration with the Lake Vic-toria Fisheries Organisation in August 2018, the Chinese agents supplying maw had better opportunities for busi-ness growth compared with others in Uganda.

For example, Chinese traders provided working capital to agents supplying maw, a facility that was unavailable to local fish sellers.There is still little knowledge of this trade in the region, and this in itself contributes to unsustainable fishing. For example no guidelines or policy exist to regulate the fish swim bladder trade in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.This means data on the amount of swim fish bladder being exported to China, is hard to come by. The same goes for the information about the population of Nile perch caught solely for the purpose of bladder harvesting.According to a preliminary study by the Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute (KMFRI) conducted in March 2018, the bladder comprises an average of 2% of processed Nile perch byproduct. It is estimated that up to 290 metric tonnes of the organ is exported from Kenya.But this figure is only a conservative estimate, because “the value chain of fish bladder is poorly understood be-yond the lake region”, explained Chrispine Nyamweya, assistant director of Limnology at KMFRI.KMFRI said the price in Kenya ranges between 4,000 Kenya shillings (£31) for maw weighing between 100-200g and 16,000 Kenya shillings for a weight of between 601-999g.On the international market, maw will fetch between $450–$1,000 per kg depending on the market dynamics and quality of product.Overall, fish stocks have been declining in the lake, due to a number of factors, such as pollution, overfishing and the use of illegal fishing gear. The water hyacinth weed is affecting the perch’s survival chances as well.“Being a sight predator, clear waters are critical to the sur-vival of the Nile perch,” said Guda.And since the perch is an apex predator, it requires lots of oxygen – but widespread weed is preventing the fish from getting enough of it. What this means, explained Guda, is that fishermen are compelled to go deeper into the lake, where there are no water hyacinth, to find the fish.And it is not such an easy task. It takes five hours, using a twin-engine speedboat to travel from Mbita (a landing site) to Remba, where the fish are located. Ordinary boats take eight hours.Venturing deeper into the lake has its own dangers, ac-

cording to Guda. This is where the Kenyan fishermen and their Ugandan counterparts come into contact. Only one outcome is inevitable when this happens: conflict over fishing rights.Efforts are in progress to for-malise the trade, and introduce taxes, levies and inspection fees. “Plans are under way to develop guidelines to ensure that the trade is regulated,” said Robert Kyanda, a marine scientist in Uganda, and an official at the Lake Victoria Fisheries Organi-sation secretariat.

Nigerian Teens Challenge TraditionCNN

In a plush living room of a home in a wealthy sub-urb of Lagos, three teenagers are huddled around a computer.Kudirat Abiola, 15, Temitayo Asuni, 15 and Susan Ubogu, 16, want to change the law on child mar-riage in Nigeria and they’re deep in discussion, even ignoring calls to break for a hearty Sunday lunch of jollof rice and southern fried chicken.More than a third of girls in Nigeria end up in child marriages, and with 22 million married before the age of 18, the nation has among the highest num-ber of child brides in Africa, according to a 2018 UNICEF report.The girls are checking an online petition they’ve started. They know it’s a tall order to get lawmak-ers to close the legal loopholes that currently enable men to enter marriages with girls under 18. But they are unfazed by things others their age might be.Abiola, who aspires to be a children’s rights activ-ist, says it’s a very emotional issue for the three of them.”How do you give a young girl such a respon-sibility and have her education, friends, and family taken away from her?” she asks.Campaigning for human rights is second nature to Abiola, who comes from a family of prominent ac-tivists.Abiola’s grandmother, also called Kudirat, fought for Nigeria’s democracy before she was assassi-nated in 1996. It came three years after the military jailed Moshood Kola Abiola, the apparent victor of the annulled 1993 presidential elections and the teenage activist’s grandfather.Abiola is also inspired by her aunt, Hafsat Abiola, a prominent civil rights activist.“Those are my role models,” the 15-year-old says. “They have broken the stereotype that girls cannot achieve what boys can.”“At the age of 11, most girls should be getting an education — in the classroom, not the kitchen. Times are changing, and no one should think a

woman’s role is limited to the kitchen,” Ubogu told CNN.Asuni says she has been reading newspaper articles of young girls being married off to men old enough to be their fathers since elementary school.The 15-year-old says she felt helpless about it until she met Ubogu and Abiola at a workshop in De-cember organized by local NGO to educate students about the UN Sustainable Development Goals.“As we got talking, we realized we needed to start with a change in our constitution,” Asuni told CNN.The girls’campaign NeverYourFault specifically takes aim at a clause in Section 29 of the Nigerian constitution they say backs underage marriage.While Nigeria’s 2003 Child Rights Act says chil-dren under the age of 18 cannot get married, a sub-section of the country’s constitution tackling citi-zenship says “any woman who is married shall be deemed to be of full age.”Abiola, Asuni, and Ubogu want the second part of that section to be expunged.Read More: The 11-year-old girl divorcing her 38-year-old husbandEfforts to remove this loophole, which rights groups argue could be used to justify child marriage was met with stiff opposition at Nigeria’s Senate in 2013.“If you are 11 and you are married, you are deemed to be a woman. This is a serious problem because we follow the constitution,” Abiola told CNN.Their online petition asks lawmakers to raise the age of consent from 11 to 18 years, a change they believe would criminalize child marriage in Nige-ria.To date over 130,000 people have signed the change.org petition which is addressed to the Fed-eral Government of Nigeria.Aside from the petition, the three are organizing workshops on gender equality, partnering with Ni-gerian celebrities to rally support to their campaign. Global child rights group Plan International gave its support to their cause earlier this year.

5 Thursday, May 30, 2019BUSINESSRise in Makkah Grand Mosque’s Quota of Zamzam Water

SPA

MAKKAH: Pilgrims and visitors to the Grand Mosque who want to drink the Zamzam water and buy bottled Zamzam water for their families and friends have just received a helping hand.The General Presidency for the Affairs of the Two Holy Mosques is providing the Grand Mosque with 10,000 new contain-ers of Zamzam water through its Suqiya Zamzam department. The number of con-tainers provided has reached more than 25,000 daily, along with 650 drinking sta-tions and 216 stainless steel tanks.

Suqiya is working on distributing 11,570 containers at the mosque, including 6,282 main and 5,288 reserve containers, along with operating fountains and dispensing containers. People are also present to pro-vide the holy water to people with special needs.The General Presidency is exerting all ef-forts to provide visitors, worshipers and pilgrims at the Grand Mosque with services allowing them to perform their pilgrimage with ease.The new containers are known for their high quality; they keep the water tempera-ture cool and cannot be affected by weather conditions.

Briefs

Al-Jamila Magazine, Persil Promote Saudi Fashion Industry

Arab News

Arabic monthly women’s maga-zine Al-Jamila, a publication of the Saudi Research and Market-ing Group, has partnered with Persil Abaya Shampoo for a campaign promoting local talents in the fashion design industry.The Kachketna campaign aims to support young Saudi fashion designers in creating dresses and accessories inspired by the King-dom’s culture and heritage, and which blend the spirit of original-ity and modernity.“The initiative serves as a mo-tivation for designers, both ex-perienced and young, to create designs inspired by the Saudi environment, and allow them to feature and present their work to the larger audience, including companies that might be willing to sponsor fashion startups and small projects,” a statement said.A permanent section dedicated to the initiative on the Al-Jamila website was launched at the start of Ramadan. The website offers a wide selection of articles, inter-views and information that can guide upcoming Saudi design-ers on how to choose fabrics and colors, what designs to create for the Saudi market, latest fashion tips and trends, and much more.

Algeria Discovers New Gas Field in SouthwestReuters

ALGIERS: Algeria has made an important gas discovery in the southwest province of Tindouf, Energy Minister Mohamed Ark-ab said on Monday, which could help the country boost exports and maintain its market share abroad.Algeria is a major gas supplier to Europe but rising domestic consumption and a failure to in-crease production in recent years have threatened its export vol-umes.“This field has positive indica-tions. It has the capacity to pro-duce some 275 cubic meters of gas and nearly 300 liters of con-densate per hour,,” Arkab told state news agency APS as he vis-ited the new field.“The discovery of gas, for the fist time in this province, repre-sents an important phase for the economy.” He did not say when the field might start production.Arkab said state energy firm Sonatrach would make further evaluations of the field’s capac-ity.Algeria, which produces about 135 billion cubic meters of gas a year, has started to renew supply contracts with European clients as current contracts are due to expire by the end of this year or in early 2020.

Kuwait Oil Minister Sees Balanced Oil Market toward End 2019

Reuters

DUBAI: The oil market is expected to be in balance toward the end of 2019, as global inventories fall and demand re-mains strong, but OPEC’s job is not done yet, Kuwait’s oil minister told Reuters.There are still uncertainties around oil demand growth due to concerns about the impact of the US/China trade dispute on global economy, while US shale oil production is still rising, Khaled Al-Fadhel said on Monday.This uncertain outlook is making it tough for OPEC and its

allies to have a clear oil supply plan for the second half of the year. Fadhel said it was too early to say now if the oil pro-ducers will extend their current output targets after June.The Organization of the Petroleum Ex-porting Countries (OPEC), Russia and other non-OPEC producers, known as OPEC+, agreed to reduce output by 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd) from Jan. 1 for six months, a deal designed to stop inventories building up and weaken-ing prices.“There is great anxiety in the market today mainly related to supply concerns. For example, the impact of the USgovernment decision announced recently not to extend the waivers to ma-jor buyers of Iranian crude has yet to be felt,” Fadhel said in written answers to questions from Reuters.

He also cited the possibility of further US sanctions on Venezuela, political tensions in Libya, US shale oil production growth and trade dispute between Washington and Beijing as reasons why the global supply and demand outlook remains unclear.“If we are to look at the OECD commercial inventories, I think we are on the right track. OECD Inventories are fall-ing toward the last 5 year average, and the record level of conformity reached in April by OPEC and its non-OPEC partners have played a significant role,” he said.Oil producers’ compliance with the supply-reduction agreement was 168% in April.

“But we still have some more work to do. I believe the mar-ket is expected to be balanced during the 2nd half of 2019, more toward the end of the year.”Seasonal oil demand growth is expected to be strong in the next few months as refineries globally come out of main-tenance, but there is still uncertainty on the demand side, he said.OPEC’s share of the agreed cuts is 800,000 bpd, but its ac-tual reduction is larger due to production losses in Iran and Venezuela. Both are under US sanctions and exempt from the voluntary reductions under the OPEC-led deal.That shows that OPEC+ producers are cutting output by more than their share. Saudi Arabia has been pumping be-low its production target since January to keep oil invento-ries and prices in check.US President Donald Trump has called on OPEC and the group’s de facto leader Saudi Arabia to boost output and lower oil prices.Russia also wants to increase supply after June when the OPEC+ pact is due to expire, but Riyadh fears a crash in oil prices and a build-up in inventories.Asked whether an increase in oil supply is a possibility in the second half of the year, Fadhel said: “All options are on the table. It is not an unlikely scenario.”“You surely recall June 2018, what OPEC and its allies did last year when they decided to lower conformity level from 152% to reach 100% by increasing crude production when there was a growing perception of supply shortages back then,” he said.A long-term cooperation agreement between OPEC, Rus-sia and other non-OPEC producers will be on the agenda at the OPEC+ meeting in June, the Kuwaiti minister said.

Arab News

DUBAI: The number of expats working in certain engineering professions in Oman’s private sector fell by nearly 7 percent by March 2019, compared to 2018, as the country continued in its push to cut unem-ployment among its local population, na-tional daily Times of Oman reported.There were 758,929 expats working in prin-cipal and auxiliary engineering professions in the private sector by March 2019, that’s down from 813,599 in 2018 and 838,802 in 2017, a difference of 54,670 engineers over the past year, according to data from the National Center for Statistics and In-formation.The number of Omanis working in these positions in the private sector in-creased from 52,275 in 2017 to 55,731 in

2018, and again to 58,452 in 2019 – that’s an overall increase of nearly 12 percent - NCSI data shows.Approximately 55,000 expatriates who previously worked in Oman have been dismissed by companies in one year, up to March, 2019, according to data published by the Omani government.The change is part of Oman’s ongoing strat-egy to replace foreign workers with locals from the country’s labor pool, as the gov-ernment continues its Omanization drive.In Qatar, the expat workforce was as high as 95 percent while in the UAE it was 94 percent; 83 percent in Kuwait; 64 percent in Bahrain and 49 percent in Saudi Arabia.The Gulf states have since launched nation-alization programs to absorb more of their citizens into the labor force, as well as ad-dress high levels of unemployment.

India’s Economy Big Worry for Modi, Needs Stimulus: Trade Body

Oman’s Expat Engineers Fall as Visa Ban Continues

Reuters

NEW DELHI: India’s slowing economic growth is of serious concern and the country needs to urgent-ly cut tax and interest rates to revive the economy, a top industrial body said on Monday ahead of the inauguration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s second term.The economy grew 6.6% in the three months to December — the slowest pace in five quarters — and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Com-merce & Industry (FICCI) said the bigger worry was that domestic consumption was not growing fast enough to offset a weakening global economic environment.“The recent signs of slowdown in the economy stem not only from slow growth in investments and subdued exports but also from weakening growth in consumption demand,” FICCI said in a statement suggesting various measures the government could adopt in the next budget expected in a month.“This is a matter of serious concern and if not addressed urgently, the repercussions would be long term.”Modi — who won a thumping majority in the general elec-tion despite the agricultural sector’s economic woes, a shortage of jobs and the stuttering economy — takes oath of

office on Thursday and will need a finance minister who can help navigate through the challenges facing the economy.Some of the issues are slowing industrial output and manu-facturing growth, slumping car and two-wheeler sales, and a drop in airline passenger traffic.FICCI said the new government should cut corporate and individual taxes, expand a program of handing 6,000 rupees ($86) a year to poor farmers to boost consumption demand and consider tax concessions for export-oriented manufac-

turers.The Confederation of Indian Industry, another industry body, said it was crucial to reduce the income tax burden and expand the scope of in-vestment allowance to all sectors, while higher in-centives should be given to exporters.The FICCI also called for an interest rate cut from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), as real interest rates have remained high for a long time with com-mercial banks reluctant to pass on the benefits of recent cuts.When Modi took power for the first time in 2014, global oil prices slumped. But as he gets set for a second term, rising oil prices could push the cur-rent account deficit higher.The body also said the trade war between the Unit-ed States and China could further slow down glob-al trade and hurt India’s already sluggish exports.“Amidst rising uncertainties and economic chal-

lenges on both the domestic and global front, there is an urgent need to re-energise the engines of growth and pump prime the economy,” FICCI said.“The upcoming budget...is an opportunity for the govern-ment to boost consumption and investments through appro-priate fiscal stimulus and policies.”Government bureaucrats have started consultations with in-dustry bodies, such as the FICCI, before the budget.

EditorialWho is behind FFC

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Thursday, May 30, 2019

It is almost 47 days since the removal of the Salvation regime after the success of De-cember 2018 revolution.

We are inching to the second month and the country is still looking for a government to rum its machine and increases its production to come out from the deep hole of the economy.During all the past period the protesters and the sit-inners round the army HQ are aspiring that the Transitional Military Council (TMC) and the Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC) reach sat-isfactory results and strike a compromise deal.But unfortunately the FFC launched an over demanding approach despite the concessions provided by the TMC. The TMC rejected to re-spond to the unjustifiable conditions of the FFC a matter that brought the talks to a stalemate.We wrote several times that the FFC are not the only party to negotiate on behalf of the Suda-nese people, but the TMC accepted to negotiate with the FFC in order to preserve the security and stability of the country.However, the FFC thought that they can dic-tate all their conditions and the TMC should only accept it, so they escalated their stances and practices the utmost kind of inflexibility a matter that forced the TMC to issue a statement affirming that they will sit with all the political components in Sudan and not only the FFC to form the transitional government.In the recent few days the TMC Deputy Chair-man visited Sau di Arabia and met with the Sau-di Crown Prince as they reached several agree-ments for the interest of the two countries.Then the TMC Chairman travelled to Egypt where he met with the Egyptian President.Then he left to the United Arab Emirates and yesterday he met with President Salva Kiir in Juba. If we consider those shuttle moves we will recognize that the TMC desires to get the support from the sisterly Arab countries and the African neighbours.The TMC will go ahead if the FFC insist to practice its stubbornness and might form a tran-sitional government of technocrats for two years after which free and fair elections could be con-ducted. The other option for the TMC is to call for early election under the monitoring of the UN and the AU, and this case the big loser will be the FFC.

Economic and Trade Cooperation is the Foundation of China - Sudan Diplomatic Relations

Since China and Sudan established for-mal diplomatic relations in early 1959, bilateral political mutual trust has been consolidated increasingly, and the eco-nomic and trade cooperation deepened continuously. Especially since the mid-1990s, the fields of bilateral economic and trade cooperation have expanded continuously, cooperation scale grew rapidly, and bilateral cooperation yielded remarkable results. China has become the most important economic and trade part-ner of Sudan, and maintained number one investment nation, number one trading partner, number one aid providing coun-try, and number one project contracting partner of Sudan. At the same time, Su-dan has also become Chinaís important economic and trade partner in the East Africa. The bilateral economic and trade relation are very close. I. China ñ Sudan economic and trade co-operation achieved great resultsChina ñ Sudan economic and trade co-operation greatly promoted Sudanís economic development. A number of

Chinese funded enterprises participate in China- Sudan economic and trade cooperation, makes active contribution to Sudan socio- economic development, and becomes the pioneer in Sudanís vari-ous industries. Currently, there are more than 170 Ch inese enterprises in Sudan, involving in fields of Petroleum explo-ration, water conservancy, electricity, harbors, roads and bridges, municipal administration, communication, agricul-ture, mining, logistics, and services. After ten years, Chinese oil companies helped Sudan build three major oil fields with an annual output of 26 million tons and crude oil refinery which handles 5000,000 tons crude oil annually, built for Sudan an integrated oil industry mecha-nism with a complete system, advanced technology, and scientific layout, and realized oil Sudanís oil self-sufficiency and surplus for export. Chinese power enterprises help Sudan build four ther-mal power stations and one hydroelectric power station, and another two one hy-droelectric power station are under con-struction, the power generating capacity of finished project exceeds 107 million kilowatts, ensured both resident and in-dustrial electricity. China water enter-prises help Sudan build Merowe Dam on

the Nile with the total length of 10 Km, realized the millennium dream of the Su-danese people. The Roseiris Dam Heightening project and the Dam Complex of Upper Atbara project are of gigantic scale. Upon their completion, they will play an important role in facilitating Sudanís agricultural development and promoting Sudanís eco-nomic and social prosperity and stability.II: Chinaís economic assistance brings tangible benefits to Sudan people The friendship between Sudan and Chi-na has a long history, and Sudan has been Chinaís focus of aid recipient country since early times. China has always pro-vided economic assistance to Sudan with good results and wide influence. Since 1970, the Chinese government has pro-vided the Sudanese government a large number of selfless assistance, even in difficult times of the national economy, China has never stopped assisting to Su-dan. So far, China has completed about 100 bilateral cooperation projects by assisting to Sudan. Among the many as-sistant projects, the best representative is Friendship Hall, completed in 1976; the project has always been highly praised by the Sudan government and the people, and has become a symbol of Sino- Sudan

friendship. Despite the historical vicissi-tudes of the past by 40 years, the Friend-ship Hall is still regarded as Sudanís largest synagogue building where Su-dan hosts the international and domestic large- scale conferences, the Friendship Hall still plays an irreplaceable role.Chinaís assistance to Sudan is of a wide range of arenas. China ñ aided projects includes infrastructure and public wel-fare and livelihood projects such as roads, bridges, hospitals, schools, civil construction, vocational Training, ag-ricultural demonstrations, fish farming, power transmission, well digging and water supply and so on. China ñaided goods and materials include medical equipment, agricultural supplies, irriga-tion equipment, and construction ma-chinery, office equipment, food, medi-cines, and so on. A large number of aid projects by China run throughout the whole Sudan. The projects benefited people from all regions, significantly en-hanced the local public service capacity, improved the local self- development ca-pacity, improved humanitarian situation of poverty-stricken areas, promoted Su-danís economic prosperity and develop-ment, and pushed forward social peace and stability.

In spending, one should usually take medium way. He shouldnít be an ex-travagant nor does he turn to be a miser. One should take a route in between. In medicine, for example, exceeding a dose might give fatal results; a guy might sim-ply die because of one extra tablet. Kiss-ing your dear darling kids excessively, might badly spoil them. So, you have to take balanced steps in whatever you are ahead of, or you would like to approach.Thus, this rule is applicable all through. For every matter that you are engaged in, you have to mind your steps, you should watch out before you place your foot. Climbing two rungs a ladder might lead to failure; either the ladder slips or the climber may fall over. Donít tell me! Is

that excess in whatever you want to do, wouldnít be of good effects?Hey! Is rioting applicable to this rule or not? It is hilarious! Really it is. People to keep stationed in one hot place for four continuous months. They protest and complain their bad luck. The mid-day sun bakes their brains; in spite of all these difficult circumstances, it seems that they enjoy their dark nights. Those youth come from the no-where. They are very courageous to face live ammunition with bare chests. They really do not fear death; whatever its reason, they donít fear it. They believe in the wisdom that says: death is death. They also repetitive-ly chant something like: the martyr blood is to be avenged, and many more mottos.These generations of the 90s are really to be considered miraculous. They suc-ceeded in changing the unchangeable, they toppled the deep regime; the Salva-tion! Unbelievable! To easily change that

very strong system, who believes in that very quick hurricane that turned every-thing over! No NCP members. Alas! Just fall!Those youth together with the Transi-tional Military Council achieved a very miraculous event. They succeeded in making the victory, in shooting the lion dead, in shouting the victory anthems, and screening the victory sign; the v-finger sign. But, what really completes the picture is totally left behind; to be in that great harmonious mood, to share a beautiful common sense, to behave ac-cordingly, to leave part of yo ur portion to the welfare of your country, all these and many others are needed in such situ-ations. You have to leave some of your shares for the well being of your beloved country. One mustnít in such cases self-ishly be longing for the lion share.The two partners beautifully started their dialogues, they pull all the possible

threads to their ends, they even straight-ened the crooked ones, and they nearly culminate their efforts into a great his-torical event. But, ships wonít always navigate as the winds want. The military council insists upon having their ëyesí to always mean ëyesí, whereas the revolu-tionists find in the sit-in a sweet piece of cake that might lead to a civilian govern-ment.A complete waste of time .Who is in charge? The whatsApp isnít at rest; it shells the globe with blended strings of the true and false. Very foggy weather; complicated equation, every minute passes is never to regain .The econom-ics; that poor thing; never to get back its natural state, the prices started some new hikes .No pain no gain! Our dilemma is really chronic. The solution then, one of the two competitors is to release one edge of the pulling rope. This is in my opinion.

If we want to take the last reading of the “minutes” of the Sudanese political and social scene, we better read carefully the latest statement given by the spokesman of the military council, Lt. Gen. Shams Al-Deen Kabbashi. Asked about the ne-gotiations between them and the freedom and change group, the man “calmly and meaningfully” said that they are going in a “weak manner”! The statement seemed to be a bit “am-

biguous” if not “misleading”! But the in-fluential military commander didnít want his statement to be taken in that way. He explained what he meant by saying “weak manner”! He said that that “weak manner” will lead to a series of “options” that could better “observe” and verify the welfare of the Sudanese citizens and the safety of the homeland. Those words were chosen very carefully and the spokesman in fact was answering a series of questions and “con-cerns” about the agreement that was said to be reached between the military coun-cil and the freedom and change leaders. Two weeks ago that agreement was said to have concluded 90 percent of its terms

and that there was only 10 percent left. The leaders of the freedom and change (i.e.) the communists started to prepare their “Smoking” full suits to be ready for the “sworn-in” ceremonies at the Presi-dential Palace! So Kabbashi was actually saying that those “celebrations” were not that near! Political analysts said that it was true that the agreement was reached but the “devil is in the details”. No.No.No! It is not like that. This has nothing to do with neither the devil, nor the details. Things are quite different. The agree-ment between the military and freedom and change was not a well cooked meal. It was made in a hurry and there were a lot

of bad intentions behind it. It was not ac-cepted by top leaders in the military coun-cil itself, it was said. Most of the national and Islamist factions opposed it, on the ground that it gave the rule of Sudan to a “hated and isolated” faction that is the communists! It was said that the member of the military council who reached the agreement with the communists was not “authorized” to go that far! The military council “listened” to the “voices” of the “silent” and shouting majority of the Su-danese masses and decided to adopt the slow manner so that they can reach an ar-rangement that could serve the people of Sudan and not the communists!

Sudanís hostility toward Egypt, which lasted more than 20 years, has finally ended. During these years, Cairo and Khartoum were estranged and differ-ences dominated their relations, with each capital being an axis against the other.The visit of Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, the head of Sudanís ruling interim mil-itary council, to Cairo is an important political development toward positive arrangements that will restore the de-sired regional equation. Sudan under Omar Al-Bashir was aligned with Qa-tar, Iran and Libyaís militias, although it took part in the war in Yemen under arrangements that secured Khartoum and Bashir an additional regional role. As for Egypt, Bashirís rule witnessed the worst relations between the two countries since independence. Bashir and the ìIslamic nationalistî Muslim Brotherhood movement made Khar-toum a rival to Damascus as the capi-tal of extremist organizations, and

Cairo was suspicious of Sudanís role in the terrorist attacks that hit Egypt in multiple waves.The removal of Bashir thanks to an overwhelming popular desire has changed the regional equation. Al-Burhanís visit to Cairo reinforced the expectations of changing the removed presidentís policy and it was preceded by many meaningful signs, including the refusal to receive the foreign min-ister of Qatar and receive the Bahraini foreign minister instead; and, more importantly, Al-Burhan’s own state-ment that Sudan will not adopt hostile policies toward its neighbors.

The steps taken by Sudanís ruling interim military council seem to in-dicate that it wants to get rid of Ba-shirís political legacy and put an end to its intense animosity. These steps include international and national rec-onciliations, the most recent of which was the return of Yasir Arman, who was accused of serious charges when he decided to run for president.The arrangements of Sudanís internal affairs may take longer due to the dif-ficult legacy of the previous regime,

as well as the multiplicity of forces and different orientations. The ex-ternal affairs seem to have been de-termined by the Sudanese leadership through several messages, most no-tably Al-Burhanís visit to Cairo and his statements that have ended two decades of bad relations between the two neighbors, which were reflected in the poor relationships on the bor-der, water, security and political files. In addition, the visit of Al-Burhanís deputy, Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Da-galo, to Jeddah has stressed the new policy of Sudan and the continuation of its membership of the military alli-ance in Yemen.Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Sudan are the mainstays of the Red Sea security system. Attempts were made to estab-lish the system last year but the main obstacle to its implementation was the lack of confidence in the Bashir regime, which had already concluded a hostile agreement granting the is-land of Suakin to Turkey as a mili-tary base. A Turkish military presence in the waters of the Red Sea has no justification whatsoever, unless it is directed against Egypt and Saudi

Arabia. With the removal of Bashir, it seems that Turkey will not be able to harness the island as a military base against the Red Sea states. Among the first steps announced early after the fall of Bashirís regime was a review of the administration of ports that Ba-shir gave to hostile regional govern-ments. These ports were believed to have been used for suspicious non-civilian purposes.The interests of Sudan as a large country have come from the frame-work laid down by the former re-gime, which was based primarily on the policies of the extremist Muslim Brotherhood. Moreover, no one ex-pects Sudan to engage in another cy-cle of chaos. The ultimate goal is for Sudan to devote itself to internal de-velopment and benefit from its rela-tions with its neighbors, as the interim military council has done since the middle of last month, with the sup-port of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, to stabilize the Sudanese pound and fuel prices. It is in the interests of Sudan for the Red Sea to be a region free of war and enmity, including Somalia and Yemen.

Too much of Everything Is Bad!

The Last Reading of the Sudanese Scene

Nile Neighbors’ Relations Return to Normal

Dr. Kirya AhmedEmail: kiryafa7@gmail.com

Email: zumma1888@gmail.com

Abdul Rahman AL-Zuma

I Witness

By: Alsir Sidahmed

Asharq Al-Awsat

Abdulrahman Al-Rashed

Moonlight

hurga65@gmail.com

Ahmed Hassan Omer (Hurga)

7 Thursday, May 30, 2019CURRENT

Blow for Macron as Le Pen Tops EU Election in FranceAFP

PARIS: The far-right National Rally party led by Marine Le Pen finished top in European elections in France, final results showed Monday, dealing a symbolic blow, but not a knock-out punch, to pro-EU President Emmanuel Macron.Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) received 23.31 per-cent of the vote, with Macron’s centrist alliance trailing with 22.41 percent.The two groups will have the same number of seats in the European Parliament, 23, after Brit-ain’s expected departure from the EU.Le Pen, who lost out to Macron in a bitter presi-dential contest in 2017, called for the head of state to dissolve the parliament and call new elections, a proposal that was immediately rejected by the government.“It is up to the president of the republic to draw conclusions, he who put his presidential credit on the line in this vote in making it a referendum on his policies and even his personality,” Le Pen said in a brief speech late Sunday.But despite triumphalist comments from RN fig-ures, the final results were a mixed picture for the 50-year-old Le Pen: her party ended up losing ground since European elections in 2014 when it finished top with 24.9 percent.

In a first reaction after exit polls were released late on Sunday, an aide to Macron called them “respectable.” Leading allies of the 41-year-old president sounded satisfied that the margin of de-feat looked like it would be slender.A second-place finish for the ruling Republic on the Move (LREM) party was a disappointment for Macron after he put his reputation on the line by campaigning, but it is a symbolic setback that aides said would have no bearing on his policies.“The catastrophe that some people predicted for Macron has not taken place and the RN has a sig-nificant score, but not a spectacular one when you compare it to five years ago,” analyst Zaki Laidi from the Cevipof political institute said.

An aide to Macron, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, said that there would be “no change of line” and that he would intensify his planned reforms which include tax cuts for the middle classes and controversial changes to the pension and unemployment benefits system.Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said the results confirmed the “redrawing” of French politics, which was evident in the presidential election in 2017 when France’s traditional parties were eclipsed by Macron’s new centrist movement and the far-right.“The time is for action because the French peo-

ple will judge us ultimately on one thing: results,” Philippe said in a televised statement on Sunday.He also said the government had “received a message about the ecological emergency” after France’s main green party, EELV, looked set to finish third, with around 13 percent of the vote compared with 8.9 percent in 2014.Macron had made no secret of the significance he attached to the results, telling regional French newspapers last week that the EU elections were the most important for four decades as the union faced an “existential threat.”He is a leading champion of further EU integra-tion and is keen for further advances to link the economies, militaries and political systems of the bloc, which numbers 28 member states including Britain.

At home, the former investment banker started his five-year term as an energetic pro-business re-former intent on cutting unemployment and mak-ing France more entrepreneurial.But for six months he has faced so-called “yellow vest” protesters who have blocked roads and dem-onstrated to denounce him as a “president of the rich” who has ignored the plight of the working poor and rural France.Macron has since announced major tax cuts for the middle classes and a rise in the minimum

wage.His influence and Le Pen’s in the European parlia-ment will now depend on whether they can make alliances.Le Pen has previously called for the formation of a “supergroup” of euroskeptic parties, but the hard-right ruling party in Poland — PiS — has shunned her because of her pro-Russian views, while Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban re-mains aloof.“The gains for our allies in Europe and the emer-gence of new forces across the continent ... open the way for the formation of a powerful group in the European parliament,” the RN’s top cam-paigner, 23-year-old Jordan Bardella, told sup-porters on Sunday.Macron meanwhile is in alliance with the ALDE centrist and liberal grouping which is seen as fin-ishing third in the parliament behind the conserv-ative PPE formation and the center-left Socialists and Democrats (S&D).But the French president, who redrew French pol-itics in 2017, is still hoping to forge a new broader alliance of pro-European which would bring to-gether so-called “progressives.”“At the European level, the president is still ma-neuvering to form a large progressive alliance, a force that will be essential in the new parliament,” an aide said on condition of anonymity.

Six Women are all that Remain of a once-Thriving Jewish Community in Cairo

Arab News

CAIRO: In 1971, Egyptian daily newspaper Akh-bar Al-Youm published a story by journalist Ab-del Wahab Mursi about Cairo’s “Jewish Alley,” and how it had changed during successive migra-tions by Jews from Egypt.Mursi pointed out that the name is misleading and that this “alley” was in fact an entire neighbor-hood which, at the time of his report, was home to about 25,000 people. However, only 18 of them were Jewish, all of them elderly or widows. The rest were Muslims and Copts.“The Jews who did not sell their property during the time of immigration never allowed others to live in the houses they left,” wrote Mursi. He also writes about a number of synagogues, including one called Rab Ishmael at 13th Al-Sakkia Street. Another, called Moses Ben Maymon and also known as Hermban, at 15th Dar Mahmoud had collapsed suddenly on the first day of Ramadan in 1970. Other temples mentioned in his story in-clude Al-Torkeya, Al-Istaz, Rab HayiinQabous, Ram Zamra and Al-Yahoud Al-Feda’eya.Almost 50 years after the story was published, much has changed in Jewish Alley. Most nota-bly, the entire Jewish community in Egypt, led by Magda Shehata Harun, now numbers six women, according to a statement they issued in 2016 fol-lowing the death of one of their number, Lucy Sawel. As for the synagogues, all but one — the

Adli Temple in Downtown Cairo — have van-ished or become derelict ruins.“Both the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 and the outbreak of war between Jews and Arabs had a distinctive impact on the role of the Jewish community in Egypt,” said Egyptian his-torian and writer Mohammed Abul Ghar. Most of the Jews liquidated their businesses and property and migrated to Europe, America or Israel.”Egypt was once host to the largest Jewish com-munity in the Arab world. It was influential and involved in various aspects of Egyptian society. Although there are no accurate census figures, the Jewish population of the country was estimated to be between 75,000 and 80,000 in 1922, but had fallen to fewer than 100 by 2004.At its peak, it included Arabic-speaking, Rabbin-ic and Karaite Jews, along with Sephardic Jews who had come to Egypt after they were expelled from Spain. In addition, trade flourished after the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, attract-ing Ashkenazi Jews fleeing massacres in Europe. As a result, Egypt became a safe haven for Jews, who congregated in Jewish Alley and established a commercial and cultural elite. It would not last, however.

BACKGROUNDAfter the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, Egypt became a safe haven for Jews, who con-gregated in Jewish Alley and established a com-mercial and cultural elite.

“During the era of Gamal Abdel Nasser (Egypt’s president from 1954 until 1970), the conflict between Egypt and Israel increased dramatically,” said Abul Ghar. “From the moment the State of Israel was es-tablished and invited Jews from all over the world to immigrate to it, Muslims started burning well-known shops owned by Jews, such as Chicoril and Ads.“Several Israeli espionage networks, the members of which were Egyp-tian Jews, were discovered. In the 1980s, after Egypt’s victory in the October 1973 Arab-Israeli war, some attempts to emigrate to Egypt by a few families were made. However, according to the Egyptian constitution, after someone acquires Is-raeli nationality he is stripped of Egyptian citizen-ship and so faces rejection of all applications for emigration.”In the days when the Jewish community was thriving in Egypt, Abul Ghar said that wealthy Jews monopolized certain fields of commerce, including “Mosa Dubik,” “Marco E’nteibe” and “Jalabaj.” They traded in scrap and toys, while “Mizrahi” and “Mozaki” organized textile auc-tions in Al-Mahalla Al-Kubra city.Jewish Alley, meanwhile, was not very hospitable

to non-Jews. Hajji Abdul Latif Fawzi, an 82-year-old former assistant secretary at a medical center, said that when he went there one day at the age of 10 he was hit in the eye with a stone that had been thrown at him. The Jewish residents prevented any outsider from entering their neighborhood ex-cept for the few Egyptians who worked with them in workshops and textile shops.Fawzi said when he entered the alley, he heard someone saying “Joey ... Joey.” This was a word used to describe “someone who is not Jewish” though he did not know this at the time. Then a group of young men rushed toward him and at-tacked.“In the 1950s things began to change gradually in the neighborhood, as Jews started emigrating to Israel,” he added.

Albania’s Riotous Politics Rattle EU Dreams

AFP

Tirana - Molotov cocktails in the streets and a mass resignation in parliament -- Albania’s vola-tile political scene is exploding just as its Euro-pean future is on the table, threatening Tirana’s dreams of joining the bloc.EU member states are to decide in the coming weeks whether to open membership talks with the fragile Balkan state that sits above Greece on the Adriatic.But a political crisis is not helping cast Albania as a stable neighbour or healthy addition to a bloc already reeling from populist movements and as-sorted turmoil.In February, opposition politicians from the right to the centre-left walked out of parliament in a protest demanding the resignation of Socialist Prime Minister Edi Rama, who has led the coun-try since 2013.They want a transitional government and early elections, and refuse to negotiate with Rama who they accuse of crime and corruption links.The fight has spilled onto the streets, with weekly protests shrouding Tirana in tear gas and smoke as protesters tussle with police and try to break into government buildings, lobbing bricks, firecrack-ers and petrol bombs.The opposition, whose next protest is called for Sunday, has also vowed to boycott local elections at the end of June.

During a recent rally, the leader of the main right-wing opposition party, Lulzim Basha, urged sup-porters “to join the insurrection to overthrow Rama”, chanting: “Freedom or death! Democracy or death! I call on you to resist.”The drama has alarmed Western diplomats, who have issued regular warnings to opposition lead-ers to curb the violence if they want to see pro-gress with the EU.“Violent demonstrations are damaging Albania’s democratic reform efforts and the country’s pros-pects for moving forward on the EU path,” the US embassy said in a statement.Paris also condemned “violence that undermines democratic reform efforts and Albania’s image”.- ‘Fed up with the circus’ -Since the fall of communism in 1991, Albania’s efforts at democracy have been laced with bitter verbal attacks, accusations of corruption and ex-treme partisanship that has seen the country lurch from crisis to crisis.“Albania wants to open negotiations with the EU but its political class is unable to start by opening negotiations and dialogue among themselves,” commented Lutfi Dervishi, an independent politi-cal analyst.Last year, the opposition party boycotted parlia-ment for six months until December.When they did return -- for a brief period before their next boycott -- one of the party’s MPs hurled eggs at Rama as he addressed the assembly.Several months later, another opposition politi-

cian splattered the premier with ink before being removed by security guards. After that most of the opposition resigned en masse.The latest turbulence on the streets is erupting at an especially sensitive moment for Rama, who has staked political capital on pushing Albania closer to its EU dreams.Speaking about the opposition, he said, “they can-not do anything against the government but they can hurt, and even seriously, Albania in its path.”“Albania already deserved last year” to have its accession process opened, the premier told AFP in April, citing progress on judicial reform and tackling organised crime.

But despite some gains, the EU ambassador in Ti-rana, Luigi Soreca, said he expects the “current political situation” to be one of the elements taken into account by the member states.“The culture of compromise is not necessarily typical of Albania,” the diplomat added wryly.“But all parties should now unite behind the ob-jective of EU integration,” he said.The constant drama also helps fuel disillusion-ment among citizens, many of whom have joined a huge emigration exodus.Vera Bala, 49, mother of two children, says many Albanians are tired of the “madness”.

THURSDAY

SCIENCE8 Thursday, May 30, 2019

Jennifer BellDUBAI: Sabotage attacks targeting four oil tankers off the coast of the UAEís Fujairah port earlier this month not only highlighted a new threat to maritime traffic but also prompted a more immediate concern for environmentalists ó the damage to marine†ecosystems.The warning comes after satellite imagery from the US-based Planet Labs and Finnish company Iceye showed oil leaking from the Saudi VLCC supertanker Amjad ó one of the four vessels tar-geted ó and spreading over a large area†north of the Khor Fakkan section of the Arabian Gulf, with ocean trackers now monitoring the waters to determine the potential environmental after-math of the incidents.The attacks took place on May 12 east of Fujai-rah port, outside the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway through which most Gulf oil exports pass and which Iran has threatened to block in the event of a military confrontation with the US. The attacks drew strong condemnation from the Arab League and governments around the world.The ship was empty of crude oil, but it was car-rying fuel oil onboard. The oil spill is estimated to be about 235 barrels, according to Tanker-Trackers.com, an oil tanker tracking service.Its co-founder, Samir Madani, told Arab News: ìWe spotted this fuel oil spill on May 17 (the day after the image was captured) on Planet Labs satellite imagery (they have 300 satellites lined up in an orbit to line-scan the Earthís sur-face on a†daily basis) but waited a few more days before being able to confirm that it wasnít something else. As we saw that on May 20, the spill had started dispersing over a larger area north of Khor Fakkan.îNow experts have warned that the attacks may also threaten marine life and biodiversity.

Madani said that depending on the grade of oil, it will either float or sink based on density, but warned that it could have a longer-term impact on the surrounding marine environment.ìFuel oil is heavier than the average barrel of crude oil, so there is a chance that itíll settle to the bottom and pollute the marine life,î he said. ìCrude oil can be treated with dispersants such as weíve seen in incidents in Kuwait, but we donít†have enough knowledge of what impact such chemicals have on marine life, either.îThe radar images captured by Iceyeís X2 sat-ellite also detected a long trail leading from the Amjad two days after the attack, although it cannot state how much oil was present. ìOil on top of seawater is visible on radar satellite imaging because it changes the way the water surface reflects radio waves,î explained Iceye CEO Rafal Modrzewski.†† ìOil forms a layer on top of the seawater. This changes the waterís viscosity,†flattening and making the surface smoother. As a result, oil on water appears on the image as a dark patch.îAccording to the International Maritime Organ-ization (IMO), oil tankers transport some 2,900 million tons of crude oil and oil products every year around the world by sea. Most of the time, oil is transported quietly and safely.†Measures introduced by the IMO have helped to ensure that most oil tankers are operated safely and are constructed to reduce the amount of oil spilled in the event of an accident.However, when an accident involving ships or oil rigs occurs, the ocean water becomes con-taminated by liquid petroleum hydrocarbon, with oils spills not only killing fish, marine mammals and birds but also causing damage to beaches and wildlife†habitats.†ìWe run into spills all the time, and they are mostly fuel oil,î said Madani. ìThe most notori-

ous area in the Gulf region is off the coast of Iraq, at the Umm Qasr anchorage, where there are a lot of ship-to-ship transfers of fuel oil, and things†get sloppy when thereís no third vessel (tugboat) to quarantine the spill with the help of an oil boom.îWORLDíS BIGGEST OIL SPILLS1. DEEPWATER HORIZON Almost a decade on, it is still considered to be the largest oil spill in the petroleum industryís history. In 2010, the accident began after a spill from a seafloor oil gusher, leading to the explosion of the BP oil rig, Deepwater Horizon, in its Macondo Pros-pect. An estimated 53,000 barrels flowed into the Gulf of†Mexico every day for more than three months, killing more than 82,000 birds, 25,900 marine mammals,†6,000 sea turtles and tens of thousands of fish.2. GULF WAR In 1991,†Iraqi forces opened valves at the Sea Island oil terminal and dumped oil from several tankers into the†Arabian Gulf.†About 240 million gallons of oil were†believed to have been discharged, killing hundreds of fish and marine mammals.3. IXTOC I An exploratory oil well being drilled in the Bay of Campeche off the Gulf of Mexico, Ixtoc 1 suffered a blowout in 1979, and 10,000 to 30,000 barrels of oil were discharged into the sea over 10 months. The oil slick, which measured about 1,100 square miles, surrounded Rancho Nuevo, a nesting site for sea turtles.4. ATLANTIC EXPRESS In 1979, two oil tankers collided in the Caribbean Sea during a tropical storm, causing the supertankers ó the Atlantic Empress and Aegean Captain ó to leak their cargo. According to reports, around 88.3 million gallons of crude oil were discharged into the sea, making it the worldís largest ship-sourced oil spill.5. NOWRUZ FIELD During the Iran-Iraq war in 1983, an oil tanker hit the Nowruz Field plat-form in the Arabian Gulf, leading to a major spill. It is estimated that about 80 million gal-lons of oil flowed into the Gulf†during a seven-month period, causing harm to marine life.The waters of the Gulf have been affected a number of times in recent years, with Fujairah being pinpointed as a site that has had tankers causing oil spills; however, local measures have seen the number of†incidents decrease.Oil spills have long been one of the major con-cerns of the maritime world. According to Ma-rine Insight, a substantial spill ìcan completely disturb an entire ecosystem for a substantial pe-riod of time.î It can take month-long oil clean-ing operations to bring the areas back to nor-mality.No one has yet claimed responsibility for the incidents near Fujairah port, the main shipping route linking Middle East oil†producers with the rest of the world. At any one time, many tens of ships will be anchored a few nautical miles from the port.The official Saudi Press Agency reported the confirmation of the attack on the two vessels, quoting the Saudi Energy Minister.

Marine Ecosystems Endangered by Tanker Sabotage in the Gulf

The Elite Soldiers Protecting the Amazon Rainforest Malaysia to Send back Plastic Waste to Foreign

Nations

The TelegraphWhen many think of moths, their minds go regretfully to the holes in their favourite cashmere. However, a butter-fly charity has urged Britain to rethink their perception of the bug and argued that it is un-fairly maligned.Their reputation comes despite the fact that only two of the more than 2,500 UK species of†moth†in the UK are known to feed on fabrics, Butterfly Conservation said.A YouGov poll for the wildlife charity found 74 per cent†of people linked†moths†to negative things, including 64pc†who thought of them as eating clothes and a third who associated them with be-ing pests. Perhaps partly due to their reputation, two thirds of common moth species have declined in the last 40 years.†Since 1914 there have been 56 moth extinctions, and just six of these have since recolonised or been re-found.The abundance of the UKís larger moths has also crashed during the past 40 years with three species becoming extinct since 2000.This is a problem, as the crea-tures are important pollinators and a vital fixture of our gar-dens and parks.The wildlife charity is there-fore launching a new cam-paign, called Moths Matter, which will reveal how the in-sects are a key food source for many creatures, from bats to small mammals, and play an

Why Moths Matter more than Your Cashmere Scarf as Charity Warns they are under Threat

BBCFrench Guiana, a small French overseas territory on the north-eastern coast of South America, is one of the most for-ested nations on the planet, but its pre-cious ecosystem is under threat from illegal gold mining. Sergeant Vadim raises his left hand bringing his squad to a halt. His right hand remains firmly clasped around his rifle. “Here you can see clearly the path of gold miners,” he says, whilst pointing towards a faint track covered in leaves. “They were here three or four days ago carrying heavy goods.” Sgt Vadim is part of the French Foreign Legion - an elite infantry unit of the French army made up of mostly inter-national recruits tasked with patrolling the dense rainforest. After further surveying the jungle, Sgt Vadim gives a short sharp whistle. Sec-onds later, a reply emanates from some-

where deep in the undergrowth. A sec-ond unit of men is close by. Manoeuvring in a pincer movement, the two units hope to flush out anyone attempting to plunder the forest for its riches. “Every country must defend its borders and stop illegal trafficking,” says Capt Vianney, head of the opera-tion and Sgt Vadim’s commanding of-ficer. “But here in French Guiana we have a unique treasure, the jungle. Our mission is to protect it.”Beneath the Amazon rainforest lies treasure: gold deposits can be found just 15m (50ft) below the forest floor. For centuries, prospectors have been lured into these forests in the hope of finding a fortune. But just over a decade ago, when the economic crash of 2008 caused the price of gold to skyrocket, a gold rush began all over the Amazon jungle. Since then, the price of gold has continued to soar and rampant illegal

gold mining has destroyed swathes of jungle from Ecuador across Peru, Co-lombia and Venezuela to Brazil.In French Guiana, which has a popula-tion of less than 300,000 people, there are an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 illegal miners. As Dominick Plouvier, conser-vation expert and director of Amazon Conservation Team explains, the prob-lem lies in the use of one high volatile chemical. “Mercury, used in the extrac-tion process is the big problem. It pol-lutes the rivers, which then poisons the fish, which then in turn poisons the peo-ple who eat the fish.”Mercury is a highly toxic and inde-structible substance which is poisonous to humans. After excavating large amounts of earth, prospectors add mercury to separate out the tiny flecks of gold from the soil. Within minutes it binds with the gold, allowing miners to simply wash away the dirt. The mercury can then be sim-

ply burnt off leaving the gold behind. For every gram of gold extracted, at least one gram of mercury is also re-quired. Left to wash away, discarded mercury enters the huge Amazon river network. Accumulating in fish, it then enters the food chain. “Mercury acts very quickly,” explains Mr Plouvier. “Attacking the nervous system, it damages your lungs, your kidneys and your brain. We have seen its effects on local children brought into hospital.”Scientists estimate one third of all the mercury produced by human activity on the planet comes from small-scale gold mining. On the French Guiana-Brazil border, gold mining is mainly carried out by “garimpeiros”, the Portuguese word used to described small-scale miners who extract the metal illegally. “Most of the time, the garimpeiros are poor lads from Brazil looking for easy money. They live in the forest fo r months and months,” says Capt Vian-ney. “Back home they would earn 800 reais a month ($200; £150) for doing small labouring jobs. But in the forest, they can earn that in a few days.”It is the French Foreign Legion’s job to find the garimpeiros and to destroy their camps. With no mobile phone signal due to the thick forest canopy, the garimpeiros leave messages for each other hidden in the forest. Elusive machete marks in the trunk of a tree, or hidden amongst the undergrowth, the red arrow on Marl-boro cigarette packets are placed so as to point the way to their hidden camps. Operating here requires perseverance as it much as it does a machete. Lying in wait, in this inhospitable labyrinth is a menagerie of poisonous insects, frogs, spiders and snakes. Mosquitoes carry malaria, dengue, yellow fever as well as zika, while in the rivers, caiman com-pete for space with piranhas.

APPORT KLANG, Malaysia: Malaysia will send back some 3,000 metric tons (3,300 tons) of non-recyclable plastic waste to countries such as the US, UK, Canada and Australia in a move to avoid becoming a dumping ground for rich nations, Environment Minister Yeo Bee Yin said Tuesday.Yeo said Malaysia and many developing countries have become new targets after China banned the im-port of plastic waste last year. She said 60 containers stacked with contaminated waste were smuggled in en route to illegal processing facilities in the country and will be sent back to their countries of origin.Ten of the containers are due to be shipped back with-in two weeks, she said, as she showed reporters con-tents of the waste at a port outside Kuala Lumpur.The displayed items included cables from the UK, contaminated milk cartons from Australia and com-pact discs from Bangladesh, as well as bales of elec-tronic and household waste from the US, Canada, Ja-pan, Saudi Arabia and China. Yeo said the waste from China appeared to be garbage from France and other countries that had been rerouted after a ban imposed by China. ìThis is probably just the tip of the iceberg (due) to the banning of plastic waste by China,î Yeo told a news conference. ìMalaysia will not be a dump-ing ground to the world ... we will fight back. Even though we are a small country, we canít be bullied by developed countries.îIn one case alone, Yeo said a UK recycling company exported more than 50,000 metric tons (55,000 tons) of plastic waste in about 1,000 containers to Malaysia over the past two years.

important role in pollinating wildflowers including orchids, and garden plants.lready, research has indicated that a decrease in the abun-dance of bats over farmland is related to the decline in the moths that they depend on. Cuckoos may also have been affected.†Far from being the irritating creatures found in our ward-robes, many species of moth are so beautiful they could be mistaken for butterflies.The campaign is high-lighting some of the more unusual†moths†found in the UK, including the death’s-head hawk-moth†which can squeak like a mouse, the Mother Ship-ton which has a witch’s face on its wings and the caterpil-lar of the puss†moth, which can shoot acid out of its chest.British people will be asked to look out for caterpillars and plant moth-friendly gardens with plants including lavender and honeysuckle.Another way to protect moth species is to stop working so hard in the garden; moths and their caterpillars need fallen leaves, old stems and other plant debris to help them hide from predators.Leading†moth†scientist Dr Phil Sterling said the experts were not surprised by the find-ings. “People may think of a few times a large†moth†has startled them and then write them off as annoying or un-necessary; that is wholly un-fair,” he said.

WORLD NEWS9 Thursday, May 30, 2019

Arab NewsAMMAN: Jordanian officials have rejected Western media claims of a rift between Jordan and Saudi Arabia over Ammanís attempts to forge new alliances in the face of a growing economic crisis. Jor-danian Foreign Minis-try spokesman Sufian Qudah said the claims failed to reflect Jordanís foreign policy.Qudah was responding to a report in the UK daily newspaper The Times which claimed that Jordanís King Ab-dullah in recent months had opened talks with Turkey and Qatar, and had made subtle over-tures to Iran. The Jor-danian ruler was also angered by US Presi-dent Donald Trumpís aggressive support for Israeli interests, the re-port claimed.Foreign relations ex-perts were also quick to dismiss the claims.Musa Shteiwi, head of Jordan Universityís stra-tegic studies center, told Arab News there was ìabsolutely no changeî in Jordanian foreign policy due to the US plans. ìThere are some in the media who are on a fishing expedition, swinging in the dark and making accusations not based on the reality on the ground,î he said.Muhammad Momani, a former Jordan gov-ernment spokesman,

described claims of King Abdullah defying Trump and the Saudis as ìsurprising.îìOur relations with all Arab countries, and es-pecially our Gulf broth-ers, is excellent,î he told Arab News. Momani, now chairman of the independent Amman daily Al-Ghad, rejected suggestions by the Brit-ish newspaper that Jor-dan is moving closer to Iran and Qatar.ìThe fact is there is no Jordanian ambassador in Iran and the same ap-plies to Qatar,î he said.Several analysts pointed out that Jordan had end-ed its economic treaty with Turkey in Novem-ber 2018 and was yet to renew the partnership despite pressure from some in the business community.In its report on Monday, The Times claimed that ìKing Abdullah has in recent months opened talks with Turkey and Qatar, long-standing ri-vals of Saudi Arabia. It has even made subtle overtures to Iran, the Gulf stateís main enemy and a country about which the king was is-suing dire warnings un-til recently.îThe newspaper said the Jordanian moves come amid a mounting economic crisis with Riyadh reducing cash subsidies that have kept the country afloat for decades.

AFPTASHKENT: Uzbek student Luiza Muminjonova wanted to work in the countryís boom-ing Islamic tourism sphere but last year she was expelled from a university in the capital Tashkent.The 19-year-oldís only fault was being a pious Muslim and wearing the hijab, a staple of female Islamic dress.ìHow dare they discriminate (against) me and stop me from getting the education I want because of my religion?î she fumed in an interview with AFP.Instead of giving up, the student took a stand that has placed her at the center of Uzbekistanís re-ligious freedom debate.Her family has sued the Inter-national Islamic Academy of Uzbekistan, taking its legal bat-tle all the way to the countryís top court.Muminjonovaís case points to the Uzbeksí increasing readi-ness to openly practice their faith as believers become em-boldened by political change under President Shavkat Mir-ziyoyev.The formerly communist coun-tryís repression of the religion persisted long after it gained independence from Moscow in 1991.The first president Islam Ka-rimov frowned upon religious adherence and was criticized by rights groups for conflating piety with radicalism.Extremists mounted a challenge to Karimovís rule in the 1990s and were blamed for a spate of

car bombings in 1999. More re-cently, hundreds of Uzbeks are believed to have joined mili-tants fighting in Iraq and Syria including Daesh.Karimovís death and the com-ing to power of Mirziyoyev in 2016 has seen the government offer an olive branch to believ-ers.Last year mosques were al-lowed to call Uzbeks to prayer over loudspeakers for the first time in over a decade.During a visit to a shrine in the historic town of Termez last month, Mirziyoyev called the past approach of authorities to the religion ìour tragedyî and said Islam symbolized ìlight.îOver 90 percent of Uzbekistanís 33 million population is Muslim and social conservatism runs deep, especially in the prov-

inces. Amid an Islamic revival, school uniforms have recently become a cultural battleground between conservatives and sup-porters of secularism.A universal school uniform in-sisting on below knee-length skirts for female students was rolled out last year. A television report that criticized teachers and students for wearing short skirts immediately followed.The September report set the tone for an explosive debate that played out on social media and saw the channelís director demoted. Conservative blog-gers were reportedly detained the same month for calling for the right for girls to wear the hijab in schools.Muminjonova said the univer-sity that expelled her and nine other students last September

ìset a conditionî to around a hundred freshmen students.ì(They said) either you take off a headscarf, or you will be expelled,î Muminjonova re-called, smoothing her fingers over the rose-colored cotton headcovering.After she refused to comply, Muminjonova was kicked out of the dormitory and was not allowed to attend classes.She said that being asked to take off the hijab was ìlike be-ing forced to give up on my faith.îIronically, the school focusses on religious learning.What happened next was re-markable for a country where nationals have for decades toed the government line.Muminjonovaís family took le-gal action against the academy

in order to reinstate the student and affirm her right to attend university wearing the head-covering. Even more surpris-ingly, a local court agreed to hear the case, which saw over a dozen hijab-wearing girls and their mothers stand near the courtroom during hearings in a show of solidarity. After failing to secure a university climbdown in both district and city courts, Muminjonovaís family has taken the case to the Supreme Court. Seemingly in recognition of more breathing space for religion, the US State Department last year removed Uzbekistanís sanction-carrying designation as a ìcountry of particular concernî for religious freedom.But in April the US Commis-sion on International Religious Freedom said that ìsevere vio-lations of religious freedom persistedî and recommended the State Department put Uz-bekistan back on the watchlist.International rights groups have used a newfound dialogue with the new administration to push for more religious free-dom, both for Muslims and other groups. Steve Swerdlow, Central Asia researcher at Hu-man Rights Watch, cited an-ecdotal evidence ìthat perhaps hundreds of religious prisoners have been releasedî since Mir-ziyoyev came to power.Campaigners believe the ex-tremism charges the people were jailed on were brought without due process and that torture was used during the in-vestigations.

APKAWASAKI, Japan: A man carrying a knife in each hand and screaming ìI will kill you!î attacked a group of school-girls and adults as he walked toward a school bus parked at a bus stop just outside Tokyo on Tuesday, killing two and injuring 16 before killing himself,

officials said.Most of the victims were elementary school girls who were lined up at a bus stop near Noborito Park in the city of Kawasaki when a man in his 50s began slashing them with knives. City offi-cials, quoting police, said the suspect was captured but died from a self-in-

flicted cut to the neck.Witnesses described a hellish scene: children and adults falling to the ground, some with their shirts soaked with blood; dozens of children run-ning and screaming for help, with their school bags and books scattered on the ground. ìI heard a scream so I

stopped and turned around to see what happened. It was not a normal tone of voice,î said Yasuko Atsukata, adding that she then saw one person collapse, and then another one. ìThe color of their white shirts turned red after they collapsed, then I understood they got stabbed.îIn a nearby parking lot, a boy looking frightened and in shock had scratches on his face, hands and legs, apparently from falling to the ground as he ran for his life. Masami Arai, an official at the Kawasaki city office, said 16 peo-ple, most of them schoolgirls at a local Catholic school, were injured and three others, including the attacker, were be-lieved to have been killed. Arai said three of the injuries were serious and 13 others were not life-threatening.Police wouldnít confirm specifics about the attacker. His identity and motive werenít immediately known. Witnesses said that as the attack unfolded, a bus driver shouted at the man with two knives, and as he was running away he cut his own neck, collapsing in a pool of blood as the police seized him.Television footage showed emergency workers giving first aid to people inside an orange tent set up on the street, and police and other officials carrying the injured to ambulances.

Knife-wielding Man Attacks Schoolgirls in Japan, Kills 2

Beaten but not Vanquished, Macron Seeks to Shakeup EU Parliament Algeria’s July Election Date

Implausible: MediaAFPParis - French President Em-manuel Macron tasted defeat in European elections, but not disaster, and is set to continue pushing both his pro-EU agen-da and a re-alignment of par-ties in the EU parliament.Macron’s Republic on the Move (LREM) party finished second behind the far-right Na-tional Rally of his arch-rival Marine Le Pen, but the two parties ended with less than 1.0 percentage point separating them -- on 22.41 percent and 23.31 percent respectively.The vote was seen as a test for Macron domestically after months of anti-government protests, while his credibility in Europe as a champion of deeper integration was also judged to be on the line.«A disappointment, but not a defeat for the Elysee,» head-lined Le Parisien newspaper on Monday, while an edito-rial in the Les Echos business daily said Macron’s party was «resisting well» two years after his election.

The 41-year-old’s priority will now be trying to increase his influence in the European parliament where LREM and its centrist allies will send 23 MEPs, the same number as Le Pen’s RN.His long-standing objective is to re-draw the political map of the European parliament, long

dominated by the centre-right EPP grouping and the centre-left S&D -- in the same way as he broke the stranglehold of France’s traditional parties.Macron’s EU-level partners, who form the ALDE group, finished third in Sunday night’s vote, but the French leader is now aiming to broader the coa-

lition to include new partners, particularly Greens who made major gains. «The group that we are going to join is going to be a swing group which will try to be a driver in the creation of a progressive alliance. Why not with the Greens?» French government spokesman Sibeth Ndiaye told BFM television on

Monday. She added that ALDE would be renamed.On Monday night, Macron will hold talks in Paris with victo-rious Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez whose Social-ist party is set to become the biggest member of the S&D grouping after topping polls in Spain.«At the European level, the president is still manoeu-vring to form a large progres-sive alliance, a force that will be essential in the new parlia-ment,» an aide to the French leader told AFP on Sunday.- Tricky Greens? - But Macron’s ambitions, like his broader agenda for new EU initiatives, are likely to face resistance and it is far from certain that he can repeat his feat of fractur-ing Europe’s centre-right and centre-left parties, as he did in France. In a sign of the diffi-culties in proposing a deal with the Greens, influential and out-spoken Belgian MEP Philippe Lamberts appeared to rule out an alliance on Sunday, saying that Macron «couldn’t give a shit» about the environment.

AFPALGIERS: Algerian media said Monday there was very little chance a presidential election will be held as planned on July 4, after only two candidates ó both little known ó submitted their candidacies.ìThe election ... will without any doubt be postponed or canceled,î the francophone El Watan daily assert-ed.The poll was originally meant to take place on April 18, but longtime President Abdelaziz Bouteflikaís res-ignation early last month, on the back of huge street protests, forced a postponement.To be eligible, the candidates ó aeronautical engineer Hamid Touahri and Abdelhakim Hamadi, who heads a veterinary drug company ó have to be backed by 600 local councillors and lawmakers or 60,000 voters in more than half the countryís regions.ìThere is little chance that these two (candidates) will successfully collectî the required signatures, El Watan said.Arabic daily Echorouk said there was no doubt that ìthe Constitutional Council should officially announce the postponementî of the poll.Touahri and Hamadi met a deadline of midnight on Saturday to submit their candidacies, setting in mo-tion a 10-day period for the Constitutional Council to rule on their eligibility.Despite Bouteflikaís departure, protesters have con-tinued to stage mass demonstrations each Friday.They want regime figures including army chief Ahmed Gaid Salah and interim President Abdelkader Bensalah to step down ahead of any poll, and demand new independent institutions to oversee voting.

Muslims Seek Voice in Changing Uzbekistan

Jordanian Officials Deny Claims of Rift with Riyadh

10 Thursday, May 30, 2019

AFPPARIS: Defending champion Rafael Nadal got his bid for a record-extending 12th French Open title off to the perfect start by brushing aside German qualifier Yannick Hanfmann, while world No. 1 Novak Djokovic was also a comfortable victor in the first round at Ro-land Garros on Monday.Nadal, a 17-time Grand Slam champion, cruised to a 6-2, 6-1, 6-3 victory on the re-built Court Philippe Chatrier to set up a clash with another German qualifier ó world No. 114 Yannick Maden ó in round two.Nadal had suffered three consecutive semi-final defeats earlier in the clay-court season, but appeared to find his best in an Italian Open title success sealed with victory over old rival Djokovic, while his French Open win-loss record now reads 87-2.ìItís always amazing to play here, the new Chatrier is very nice,î the second seed said. ìItís been an important place in my career.ìI played a good tournament in Rome which was very important for my confidence. Now weíll see.îThe 32-year-old Nadal raced into a 3-0 lead in the opening set before a second break of serve in the eighth game sealed it after just 40 minutes.The second set was over in a flash as Nadal crushed nine winners past his beleaguered opponent.The winning line honed into view when Nadal broke after a lengthy game to take a 2-1 advantage in the third, and the Spaniard completed the job on his first match point as world No. 184 Hanfmann blasted long.Djokovic laid down an early marker in his bid to hold all four Grand Slam titles simul-taneously for the second time, powering past Polish youngster Hubert Hurkacz.The 15-time major champion impressed in a 6-4, 6-2, 6-2 triumph and will face Swiss lucky loser Henri Laaksonen in round two.ìI was very solid. Iím happy with my game today,î said the top seed. ìItís a long tourna-ment... But I just want to concentrate on my

next match.îTwelve months ago, Djokovic dropped out of the worldís top 20 after a shock quarterfinal loss to Marco Cecchinato and even pondered skipping Wimbledon, but he has instead re-claimed his place at the top of the game.The 22-year-old Hurkacz, who has claimed three wins over top-10 players this season, had no answer to the 2016 French Open win-ner, as Djokovic sealed a second-round spot without breaking sweat, hitting 27 winners.Earlier on Monday, former world number one Caroline Wozniacki collapsed to a 0-6, 6-3, 6-3 loss to Russian world number 68 Ve-ronika Kudermetova in the first round.The Danish 13th seed had retired injured from her two previous matches in the lead-up to Roland Garros, and fell away badly after a strong first set.ìI think she got very lucky at the start of the second set and took advantage of the oppor-tunities she got,î said Wozniacki.Sixth seed and two-time Wimbledon cham-

pion Petra Kvitova was forced to pull out before her scheduled opener against Sorana Cirstea with a left arm injury, but said she should be fit for Wimbledon, which starts on July 1. ì(Iíll be out for) two to three weeks, so Iíll do some fitness and everything that I can do to prepare my body for the tennis on the grass,î said the Czech.Dutch fourth seed Kiki Bertens looked in fine fettle, though, beating home player Pauline Parmentier 6-3, 6-4.Elsewhere in the womenís draw, Australian eighth seed Ashleigh Barty saw off Ameri-can Jessica Pegula 6-3, 6-3.In the menís event, three-time Grand Slam champion Stan Wawrinka progressed with a 6-1, 6-7 (3/7), 6-2, 6-3 win over Slovakian Jozef Kovalik.Australian Alex De Minaur, seeded 21st, beat the United Statesí Bradley Klahn 6-1, 6-4, 6-4, although Georgian 15th seed Nikoloz Basilashvili and Russian 12th seed Daniil Medvedev both exited the tournament.

Caline MalekDUBAI: In the natural scheme of things, sports and environment are not easy to combine. But a group of eight Saudi women are attempting just that through their football team, the Greens.The teamís members want to use their passion for sport to raise environmental awareness and bring about a mindset change across the Kingdom.The Greens were established by the Saudi Sports for All Federation two months ago ó specifically to promote environmental causes. The federation focuses on sports as a social, rather than professional, activity for women, men, adults, children, the elderly and people with special needs.Leading the Greens is Rawh Alarfaj, 34, who played football for 12 years before deciding to become a coach.ìI am very passionate about sports over-all, but my speciality is football and I feel I am good at it,î Alarfaj, who lives in Riyadh, told Arab News. ìOne of the things that keeps me going is that I am one of the founders of the Challenge Sports Club, which I manage right now.FASTFACTï The Global Goals World Cup is an al-ternative sports tournament that creates a community and inspires and engages

women from all over the world.ï A one-day football celebration was cre-ated for 30 teams in Copenhagen.ï All teams qualify by choosing and creating an action plan on how to work with one of the UNís 17 Sustainable De-velopment Goals.ìWe were focused at first only on foot-ball. But from the beginning of 2017, we have also had a basketball team for women in Riyadh.îìWe run programs for everyone in soci-ety because our goal is to increase the level of public participation in sports in Saudi Arabia from 13 percent in 2015 to 40 percent by 2030, based on a study we did at the federation,î said Alarfaj.ìToday, weíre at 18 percent. The pro-grams focus on all kinds of sports. Just days ago, in the Danish capital Copen-hagen, we took part in the Global Goals World Cup, which promotes causes such as environmental ones.îThe tournament, better known as GGWC, frames the UNís 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a sport, with 30 teams worldwide competing to create the kind of world they would like to see. Each team creates an action plan with a particular global goal and strives to achieve it in their own country.For the Greens, the focus was SDG 15:

ìLife on Land.î ìWe thought it would be a good global goal to choose right now because the issue has many sides,î Alar-faj said. ìAwareness of the state of the environment is a very important topic now. So we organized a number of cam-paigns across the Kingdom.îDuring a male professional football league game in Riyadh, Greens players distributed reusable bags as they edu-cated the crowds about the benefits of using them instead of plastic bags.After the event, the team ó with the help of a number of young Saudis ó cleaned up the stadium. They collected plastic bottles for use in building a ìplastic art workî ó due for completion in June ó which highlights the harm they do to the planet.The environmental protection campaign was not confined to Riyadh alone. A clean-up drive was undertaken by the Greens at a public park in Alkhobar, in Saudi Arabiaís Eastern Province, while awareness talks were held in Jeddah about how plastic harms marine life.ìThese campaigns are really important,î Alarfaj said. ìA lot of young people vol-unteered to help us and itís something that needs to be a part of the culture.îSuch campaigns gain the team points to-ward their final tournament score. ìGlo-bal Goals isnít just about football,î she said. ìItís about the SDGs and how to achieve them through sports, specifical-ly female football. Itís very good to take part in sports for a cause and to have this culture in Saudi Arabia.îHaving taken part in the GGWC this year, the Greens hope to host the tour-nament in the Kingdom in a couple of years. ìTo win, you canít just go out and play,î Alarfaj said. ìYou have to organ-ize these campaigns and engage society in the goal you choose.ìSports is the most peaceful activ-ity which people can use to espouse a cause,î she said. ìSo I recommend that people get more engaged with sport and use it as a tool to spread awareness about different causes.îLujain Kashgari, 28, discovered she loved football when she was only 8 years old. She used to play the sport with her relatives as children.

As she grew older, so did her passion for the beautiful game. ìItís my favorite hobby and biggest passion today,î said Kashgari, who was originally from Jed-dah but lives in Alkhobar at present.ìMy mission was to come up with an initiative that engaged the people of Eastern Province and also made a big impact on Life on Land through plastic recycling.îA lot of young people volunteered to help ñ itís something that needs to be a part of the culture.To this end, Kashgari asked residents and communities to donate 10,000 plas-tic bottles to a recycling center. She also targeted children by organizing a fun learning day in the Altamimi public park, while teaching others in schools about the importance of recycling through playing a game.ìWhat I really liked about the GGWC is that it combines sports with humanities and a good cause,î Kashgari told Arab News. ìI have learnt a lot about sustain-ability and simplicity, while enjoying every moment of the football tourna-ment and scoring three goals. It was an amazing opportunity and an unforgetta-ble experience.îShe said many Saudis lack awareness of ways to implement the specific goal of Life on Land.ìWhen I read about the Life on Land global goal, especially the concept of the three Rs (recycle, reuse and reduce), and looked around, even at myself, I re-alized that we might have known about it, but we needed a reminder,î Kashgari said. ìEven when we reached out to recycling centers, we found that they donít really take plastic bottles unless itís a massive amount. They donít support communi-ties or individuals, so I realized itís very important that we do something about it and give it more attention.îAs a football club, the Greens were able to collect plastic bottles over a period of two weeks to recycle them. It also collaborated with five schools and two sports clubs in Alkhobar to collect 100 tons of plastic bottles, utensils and plates ó the minimum required for recycling at the center.

OmnisportGennaro Gattuso has an-nounced he is to leave his position as head coach of AC Milan.Milan great Gattuso, 41, is to step down at San Siro after narrowly missing out on Champi-ons League qualification this season.The Rossoneri beat SPAL 3-2 on the final day of 2018-19 but it was not enough as Milan fell just a point short of a top-four spot.In an interview with Italian publication La Repubblica, Gattuso confirmed he is depart-ing on good terms with Milan, despite the dis-appointing end to their campaign.«My decision to leave AC Milan>s bench has

not been easy, but I had to make it,» Gat-tuso said, with the club expected to confirm the news later on Tuesday.«It>s been a hard choice but one I put thought into. I have given up two years left on my contract because my history with this club will never be about money.»Lazio coach Simone Inzaghi and Sampdoria boss Marco Giampaolo are two of the favourites to take over.Gattuso ñ a two-time Serie A and Champions League winner with Mi-lan as a player ñ replaced Vincenzo Montella in November 2017.The former Italy midfielder>s promotion from Milan>s Primav-era side sparked a resur-

gence, but the club still finished sixth in 2017-18, though they were Coppa Italia runners-up.Gattuso>s first full sea-son came after a change in ownership and the return of director Leon-ardo, who was forced to dismiss reports he was looking to appoint Anto-nio Conte.Amid the external noise, Gattuso oversaw a 10-match unbeaten streak in Serie A as Milan threat-ened to leapfrog rivals Inter into third position and the automatic Cham-pions League spots.However, March>s 3-2 derby defeat derailed Milan ñ who only won five of their remaining 11 games to finish fifth behind Inter and third-place Atalanta.

LONDON: Aston Villa were promoted to the Premier League on Monday after beating Derby County 2-1 in the Championship play-off final at Wembley Stadium.Anwar El Ghazi put Villa ahead with a head-

er on the stroke of half-time before John McGinn capitalized on a goalkeeping error to score Villaís second just shy of the hour mark. Derby substitute Jack Marriott ensured a nervous finish for Villa with a goal nine

minutes from time but Dean Smithís side held on to return to the top flight.Victory in the richest game in football could be worth as much as £200 million ($253 mil-lion) to Villa.

Nadal, Djokovic have it Easy at Roland Garros

Saudi Women Footballers Set their Sights on Green GoalsZamalek Use Penalty Power to End 16-year

African Trophy Drought

Gattuso Announces AC Milan Exit

Aston Villa back in Premier League after Beating Derby in Richest Game in Football

SPORTS

AFPJOHANNESBURG: Brilliant penalties enabled Zamalek Sporting Club of Egypt to win the CAF Con-federation Cup final near Alexandria Monday and end a 16-year African trophy drought.Mahmoud Alaa converted a 55th-minute VAR spot-kick to give Zamalek a 1-0 second-leg win over Ren-aissance Sportive Berkane of Morocco and leave the teams tied at 1-1 on aggregate.With no extra-time in CAF club matches, the final went to a shootout and Zamalek converted all five penalties to win 5-3 before a near-capacity crowd in the 86,000-seat stadium.The regular-time penalty and those in the shootout were all expertly taken, with their power and place-ment giving Berkane goalkeeper Abdelali Mhamdi no chance.Success came as a massive relief to the Cairo-based club, who play some fixtures at the Borg el Arab Sta-dium almost 200 kilometers (114 miles) north-west of the capital for security reasons.After winning nine CAF titles between 1984 and 2003, Zamalek failed to add another until the victory over Berkane in a match that kicked off late Sunday and stretched into Monday.There was a mix of relief and joy for the predomi-nantly Zamalek-supporting crowd after the shootout as they became the third most successful club in CAF competitions with 10 titles.Al Ahly, Cairo neighbors of Zamalek and their great-est rivals for more than a century, have won 19 Afri-can titles and TP Mazembe from the Democratic Re-public of Congo 11.It was the fourth time in 16 finals that a shootout de-cided the outcome with Hearts of Oak of Ghana, Sta-de Malien of Mali and MAS Fes of Morocco winning finals on penalties.Zamalek coach and former Tottenham Hotspur man-ager Christian Gross became the second Swiss handler to lift the Confederation Cup after Michel Decastel in 2007 with a Tunisian club.The second leg result in Alexandria could have been different had Hamdi Laachir not squandered a clear-cut early chance for Berkane, blazing over from close range.Soon after, Zamalek came close to canceling the 1-0 lead the Moroccans took into the return match when a Youssef ëObamaí Ibrahim lob beat the goalkeeper but went over the bar.The Ethiopian referee initially ignored Zamalek pen-alty appeals early in the second half, but was per-suaded by players to review a goalmouth incident and ruled that Najji Larbi handled.

11HUMAN DEVELOPMENT Edited by: Alula Berhe Kidani

Thursday, May 30, 2019

Five Facts about Food and Biodiversity

Industrial Policy: Is there a Paradigm Shift in Germany and what does this Imply for Europe?

Nandita Roy

The upsurge in warnings on shrinking biodiversity did not concern me very much as long as they were about dy-ing insects or obscure fish species. But I now know that bees and insects and even tiny organisms that we cannot see, all play a vital role in producing the food that we eat. As an avid eater, that has my full attention. According to a recent UN report, many species that are indirectly involved in food production, such as birds that eat crop pests and mangrove trees that help to purify water, are less abundant than in the past. Over 33% of the fish stocks are estimated to be overfished. Bee colony losses are on the rise and 17% of verte-brate pollinators, such as bats and birds are threatened with extinction. What is more, once lost, the species that are criti-cal to our food systems cannot be recov-ered. Clearly, the foundations of our food sys-tems are being undermined and this is unsustainable. It will be even more so as we increase food production to feed a growing population ñ nearly 10 billion by 2050. As we celebrate the International Day for Biological Diversity, let me highlight five facts that I discovered about food and biodiversity that showcase the po-tential for change and may interest you.1. ëDoomsday seed bankí aims to con-serve crop diversity for the futureDeep inside a mountain on a remote is-land in the Svalbard archipelago, some 1,100 kilometers from the North Pole, lies the Global Seed Vault. The CGIAR ñ the worldís largest global agricultur-al innovation network, along with the Gates Foundation, other corporations and the Government of Norway have invested millions of dollars in building this bank.Also called the ëdoomsday seed bankí, it is the largest collection of crops and has over a million different varieties of seeds from the entire world. Its aim is to conserve crop diversity for the future.

Seeds are specially wrapped to exclude moisture. The vault marked its 10th an-niversary last year. Safeguarding such a huge range of seeds means scientists will have the best chance of developing nutritious and climate-resilient crops for the future generations. 2. Eat-a-Rainbow initiative teaches chil-dren the benefits of eating nutritious foodSamoa has the perfect climatic condi-tions for growing fruits and vegetables. Yet, most food is imported into the coun-try. Today, Samoa has a high prevalence of non-communicable diseases such as blood pressure and diabetes due to poor diets. The WHO estimates that 70% of deaths in Samoa is caused by non-com-municable diseases. The World Bankís Samoa Agriculture Competitiveness Enhancement Project is working with Samoan farmers to improve the quality and quantity of lo-cally produced food, while at the same time collaborating with the Ministry of

Health to encourage kids to eat a greater variety of food. The Eat a Rainbow ini-tiative works with schools across Samoa to teach children the benefits of eating nutritious, local produce of all the colors of the rainbow and how a varied diet promotes healthy living.3. Agricultural diversity has a positive impact on the nutritional status of chil-dren in the householdThe Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (the FAO) esti-mates that there are roughly a quarter million plant varieties available for ag-riculture, but less than 3 percent of these are in use today. More than half of the worldís food energy comes from a lim-ited number of varieties of three ìmega-cropsî: rice, wheat, and maize. Many smallholder farmers engage in monocropping which renders food pro-duction to be less resilient. Analysis in Nigeria showed that when small farm households were encouraged to produce a more diverse set of foods (for example,

fruits and vegetables, legumes, milk, eggs, and fish) and were given nutri-tion awareness trainings, the result was greater diversity in diets, higher intake of micronutrients and a more positive impact on the nutritional status of chil-dren in the household. It highlights the need for a combination of interventions ñ improve nutrition lit-eracy; remove land use restrictions and price policy biases toward cereal crops; promote homestead gardens, nutrient dense crops, fish farming, and livestock. 4. Foods richest in micro nutrients such as fruits, vegetables and seeds depend on pollinationWhen we think of pollinators we often think of bees. But did you know butter-flies, birds, moths and beetles and even bats are pollinators too? Foods richest in micro nutrients such as fruits, vegetables and seeds depend on pollination. In fact, according to the FAO, 75% of all crops depend, in part, on pollination. Since bees and other pollinating insects

play a vital role in producing the food that we eat, a London Council is grow-ing a seven-mile long ìbee corridorî of wildflowers. 5. Alternative farming systems to pre-serve water, forests and landI am also intrigued by the potential of hydroponics and aquaponics: While the former refers to growing vegetables in nutrient-rich water, the latter combines growing fish and vegetables in water. Both are soil-free methods of cultivating crops and require: - 75-95% less water;- No arable land and soil; - Minimal use of space; and - Is portable and uses solar powerCan they change the future of food? I sure hope so ñ for biodiversityís sake. According to the World Resources Re-port, ìbetween 1962 and 2010 alone, almost 500 million hectares of forests and woody savannas were cleared for agricultureî, leading directly to todayís worrisome biodiversity crisis.

By Peter Bofinger

A paper from the German economy minister on a national industrial policy has gone down like a lead balloon. Peter Bofinger argues it needs to be reflat-edóand coloured greenóat a European level.

Industrial policy has a notoriously bad reputation in Germany. The prevailing opinion among its econo-mists is nicely reflected in the most recent report of the German Council of Economic Experts (to which I formulated a dissenting opinion):In order to be sustainably successful, however, an innovation location should refrain from a guiding industrial policy, which sees it as a state task to iden-tify future markets and technologies as strategically important Ö It is unlikely that policymakers have sufficient knowledge and understanding of future technological developments or changes in demand to make this a meaningful long-term strategy. If the government is concerned about sustainable progress, it should rather rely on the decentralized knowledge and the individual actions of various actors of the na-tional economy Ö The potential for failure is greater the more fragmented and targeted the policy is.In view of this, it was all the more surprising that Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the current chair of the Christian Democratic Union and potential successor as chancellor to Angela Merkel, had an-nounced a ëreal paradigm shiftí in industrial policy in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeinen Sonntagszeitung in September 2018. No less so was the fact that in February 2019 the CDU econom-ics minister, Peter Altmaier, presented a ëNational Industrial Strategy 2030í, in which he formulated strategic guidelines for a German and European in-dustrial policy. As expected, the reaction of German economists and business associations was almost unanimously negative.The paper starts with the following diagnosis: ëIn-dustrial policy strategies are experiencing a renais-sance in many parts of the world; there is hardly a successful country that relies exclusively and with-out exception on market forces to accomplish its tasks.í The strategy includes the following ëpoints of orientationí:* The share of German manufacturing in gross value added is to be increased from currently 23.2 per cent to 25 per cent. In the EU, the manufacturing share is to rise to 20 per cent by 2030.* National and European championsóësize mat-tersíóare needed In order to be internationally suc-

cessful.* The long-term survival of existing German cham-pions (Siemens, Thysssen-Krupp, the German auto-mobile manufacturers and Deutsche Bank) is in the national political and economic interest.* In the context of foreign takeovers of German companies, ëin very important casesí the state it-self should become active by acquiring shares in the company. For this purpose, a national participation facility is to be created.* In the case of battery cells, which are regarded as very important in terms of value chains, state sup-port, including support for the formation of consor-tia, would make sense.* Direct state participation is necessary and justified in the case of extremely important issues (the plat-form economy, artificial intelligence, autonomous driving).With this catalogue Altmaier has made himself very vulnerable. The idea of a quantitative target for the value-added manufacturing share is just as question-able as a survival guarantee for large corporations. With the very general plea for national champions, the paper has also upset the smaller and medium-sized companies, which fear they would be disad-vantaged in the process.In the general outrage, the fundamental question of how Germany can arm itself against Chinaís aggres-sive industrial policy in international competition has hardly been discussed. It is interesting to see with what simple arguments this fundamental question is wiped off the table by the Scientific Advisory Board of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technol-ogy, which includes leading German economists:* Chinese industrial policy led to the preservation of a highly subsidised heavy industry.* It was financed by the banking system, in which the first signs of an overload were seen, with loss-making industrial loans.* It remains to be seen whether Chinese industrial policy will still be successful once the race to catch up with the west has been completed.* Chinaís politics have had nothing to do with a so-cial-market economy.Overall, so far Altmaierís paper has unfortunately not yet succeeded in initiating a constructive discus-sion on how to shape a successful industrial policy. Rather, there is a danger that the short spring of Ger-man industrial policy has already come to an end. Despite some of the paperís weaknesses, it would be fatal, however, if one were to fall back into the market-loving paradigm of most German econo-

mists, which they describe with the strange slogan of Ordnungspolitik.Broader discussionIt should rather be a matter of using the impulse Altmaier has provided for a broader discussion of industrial policyónot only in Germany but through-out the European Union. At the European level, the debate on industrial policy has not been particularly passionate either.The industrial policy of the EU is essentially char-acterised by a horizontal approach. It aims to create a favourable framework for innovation but it avoids the targeted promotion of certain technologies. This approach differs fundamentally from the vertical dynamic of ëMade in China 2025í, in which indi-vidual industries and technologies are specifically promoted.How can the Altmaier paper be seen from a Euro-pean perspective? Here, even the title, ëNational In-dustrial Strategy 2030í, is questionable. Can it still be sensible today for the individual member states of the EU to respond to the Chinese challenge with national strategies for industrial policy? And is it the right approach, as suggested in the paper, to derive the European strategy from given national strate-gies?Furthermore, it does not seem optimal to concentrate on individual links in value chainsóthe promotion of battery cellsóinstead of advancing the whole eco-system. In October 2017, within the framework of the EU Battery Alliance, the EU explicitly spoke out in favour of a joint approach, which is showing initial success. But to promote electromobility fur-ther, it would be helpful if an appropriate network of charging stations were available throughout the union.So far, this only applies to northern and central Eu-rope. While China is aiming for five million charg-ing stations in 2020, there were only around 155,000 in the EU in 2018óa study by the Association of Eu-ropean Automobile Manufactures claims that at least two million will be needed by 2025. A holistic ap-proach would also consider the energy system that is required for a stronger promotion of electromobility, the potential for autonomous driving and the impli-cations for infrastructure of cities.A joint European approach is also suitable for the promotion of artificial intelligence. This is the only way to make appropriate use of synergies in research and industrial applications. In the case of digital plat-forms, such as payment systems, unilateral national approaches are ruled out from the outset.

Altmaierís strategy does not however suffer only from an inadequate European dimension and a partial focus on value chains. It is also too one-dimensionally oriented to-wards the goal of preserving industrial jobs. Nothing expresses this more clearly than the statement ëThe false distinction between ìold dirtyî industries and ìclean newî industries is misleadingí.Green industrial policyThe goal should be a ëgreen industrial policyí for Europe, which aims to achieve a balance between competitiveness and the most ambitious decarboni-sation possible. A stimulating proposal was recently made in this regard by Michel Barnier. He called for a ësustainability pactí for the EUís new policy cycle, as important in some respects as the stability and growth pact. As Barnier put it, ëOur ecological debts are no less a cause for concern than our fiscal debts.íThe pact would require concerted action on climate, trade, tax, agriculture and innovationóand massive investments. According to European Commission estimates, quoted by Barnier, the EU will need Ä180 billion ($203 billion) in additional investment each year to meet its commitments under the Paris agree-ment. An interesting proposal for financing ambi-tious green policies was recently made by Paul de Grauwe. He proffered a model in which the Euro-pean Investment Bank is entitled to finance environ-mental investments. The EIB would issue bonds re-financing these investments. The European Central Bank could buy these bonds at a pace dictated by the expiry of the old bonds on its balance sheet. The ECB could thereby create ëgreen moneyí without fuelling inflation.In a nutshell, Altmaierís paper is important because for the first time it has led to a lively discussion on industrial policy in Germany. Since it is to be feared that this impulse will sink into the German main-stream, it is of crucial importance to raise the discus-sion to the European level. And this does not prima-rily require national industrial policies, from which a European strategy is derived.On the contrary, Europeís entire potential must be identified to derive options for action at the national level. And it cannot primarily be a question of se-curing industrial jobs at any price. It must be about shaping the inevitable ecological transformation in such a way that it does not adversely affect the inter-national competitiveness of Europe and its member states. But a green industrial policy could even have a beneficial effect on jobs and growth.

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ìI am constantly being asked about individuals. The only way to win is as a team. Football is not about one or two or three star players.î

Pele

30th May, 2019 - 25th Ramadan ,1440

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Israel Open to US-mediated Talks withLebanon on Sea BorderReutersJERUSALEM: Israel voiced openness on Monday to US-mediated talks with Lebanon on resolving a dispute over the neighborsí maritime bor-der that has dogged Medi-terranean oil and gas explo-ration. Such talks, Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Stein-itzís office said in a state-ment after he met US envoy David Satterfield, could be ìfor the good of both coun-triesí interests in developing natural gas reserves and oilî by agreeing a border.There was no immediate comment from Lebanese or US officials. Technically at war since Israelís founding in 1948, Israel and Lebanon have long disagreed on bor-der demarcations, a dispute affecting a sea area of about 860 sq km (330 square miles) extending along the edge of three of Lebanonís southern energy blocks.

BRIEF

Muslim World League Launches Global Forum for

Moderate Islam

SPAMAKKAH: The Muslim World League (MWL) on Monday will organize an international confer-ence for moderate Islam under the patronage of King Salman.Mohammed bin Abdul-Karim Al-Issa, secretary-general of the MWL, said that he appreciated the ìgenerous patronage which comes within the framework of the great support for the joint Is-lamic action, deepening the harmony and cooper-ation among the scholars of the Islamic Ummah to achieve the goals and as-pirations represented by Saudi Arabia.îThe four-day interna-tional conference, ti-tled ìModeration and

Indications,î will be at-tended by dignitaries, scholars, senior officials and leading thinkers from the Muslim world.Al-Issa said the second theme of the conference will be ìthe Prophetic Ap-proach of Moderation,î in addition to the topics of ìMoral and Human Values Under the Guid-ance of the Prophetî and ìDealing with Viola-tions in the Light of the Prophetís biography.îThe conference will dis-cuss topics including ìModeration in Islamic History and Jurispru-dence Heritageî and ìNeutral Speeches and the Contemporary Ageî under the theme of ìMod-eration Between Authen-ticity and Modernity.

Mango: The Queen of FruitsRamadan in KSA: The Musaharati Tradition

By: Rogia al-Shafee - Sudanow KHARTOUM - Mango: This fleshy, pleasantly tasting equatorial fruit, is grown everywhere in the Sudan.The love of Sudanese for the mango fruit translates into a lot of songs when lyric writ-ers liken the purity of the sweetheartís com-plexion to that of a ripe mango fruit, specially the species grown along the banks of the Gash River in Kasala district, in the East. In apprecia-tion of this fruit an FM radio station now car-ries the name; Mango.Horticulturist Husamed-din Mohammad says the mango tree was brought from India dur-ing the Turko-Egyptian rule (1820-1885) and flourished spectacularly in its new home, thanks to the fertile soil, the favourable weather and the care it received.Some 35 mango spe-cies now grow in Su-dan. Some of the most favoured species are the Shendi variety which is

grown in Shendi district North of Khartoum and the big galb altoar (ox heart) variety.Kasala district grows the varieties: Hindiyya (Indian), baladiyya (lo-cal) alfons and alzibda

(butter) and, very re-cently, toateel, named after Kasalaís land-mark Toteel Mountain that contains one of Sudanís most amaz-ing water springs. The banks of the Rahad and

Dindir seasonal rivers (East) and the districts of Sinnar and Blue Nile (South) also grow lots of mango. The Nuba Mountains district also grows wide stretches of land with mangos. That

districtís mango has the characteristic of reach-ing the local markets very early, compared to other areasí product.The Jebel Marra area of Southern Darfur grows lots of good quality mangos. This big and diverse mango produc-tion has allowed the Sudan to open good markets in the Gulf Re-gion, North Africa and Europe.Health Benefits Mango is known to help in slimming, cementing the immune system, and soothing inflamma-tions. The mango is also rich in vitamins, miner-als and antioxidants.In recent years there emerged in Sudan many cafeterias solely specializing in mango juice. To attract cus-tomers owners of these shops choose to give them shouting names like: The Mango Home, The Mango Origin etc..During the fasting holy month of Ramadan families choose to add a jug of mango juice to the dusk breakfast table.

Arab NewsDespite the march of modern technology, old Ram-adan traditions continue to die hard for Muslims in the Kingdomís largest province.The job of Musaharati is the name given to the person who walks and beats a drum in residential areas to wake worshippers for their suhoor meal. In the East-ern Province, where the custom remains a deep-rooted part of the holy month, the drummer is known as Abu Tabila.The fasting month is not complete in Al-Ahsa gover-norate without him roaming the streets before dawn prayers. Adults and children often come out of their homes or peer from windows to watch Abu Tabila pass by beating his small drum while reciting prayers.The Musaharati profession is one of the oldest Ra-madan traditions in Al-Ahsa, and every town has its own Abu Tabila. He goes about his business until the end of Ramadan and people offer him money, gifts, sweets, and best wishes for Eid.Although modern phone apps can alert worshippers, Al-Ahsa communities continue to adhere to time-hon-ored ways. Omar Al-Faridi, director of the Saudi Com-mission for Tourism and National Heritage (SCTH) in Al-Ahsa, said that Abu Tabila was known for his traditional folk clothes and boisterous voice.

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Ramadan Kareem May Allah Accept Your Fasting, Night Worshiping And Good Deeds

Germany’s Yannick Hanfmann plays a forehand return Spain>s Rafael Nadal during their men’s singles first round match on day two of The Roland Gar-ros 2019 French Open tennis tournament in Paris on May 27, 2019. (AFP / Thomas Samson

Luiza Muminjonova wanted to work in the countryís booming Islamic tourism sphere but last year she was expelled from a university in the capital Tashkent. (AFP)

Liberty Steel backed by industry experience over 10 years in Sudan, hold immense expertise in offering

Ramadan Mubarak