Sudan made minor headlines by expelling 20 staff members of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, with UNHCR accusing the government of "compromising the ability of the refugee agency to effectively undertake its work in Darfur." (Radio Dabanga, Aug. 6) The spat comes amid a re-inflammation of the Darfur conflict. The UN Security Council passed a resolution last week calling for an end to heightening violence in Darfur, and greater action by "peacekeepers" to protect civilians. The council extended the mandate of the joint UN-African Union force in Darfur until next August. (AP, July 30) Days later, Misseriya tribal leader Ahmed Khiri boatsed to AFP that his forces had killed 100 members of the rival Salamat tribe in a battle near Garsila, with 28 lost on his own side. (AFP, July 30) Estimates of the number of newly displaced in Darfur so far this year is estimated at over 240,000. (Radio Dabanga via AllAfrica, Aug. 2) 

Egypt's foreign minister Mohamed Kamel Amr, vowing not to give up "a single drop of water from the Nile," said June 16 he will go to Addis Ababa to discuss a giant dam that Ethiopia has started building in defiance of Cairo's objections. "No Nile—no Egypt," he said at a press conference. Last week, Ethiopia summoned the Egyptian ambassador after politicians in Cairo were shown on TV calling for military action or supporting Ethiopian rebels. Ethiopia says the $4.7 billion Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile will eventually provide 6,000 megawatts of power. Egypt was apparently caught by surprise when Ethiopia started diverting the Blue Nile to begin construction last month.

Deputy commander of the JEM-Bashar rebel faction and international war crimes suspect Saleh Mohammed Jerbo Jamus has reportedly been killed in Northern Darfur. The group reported his death on April 22, which was later confirmed by his defense team. Jamus was charged in connection with an attack on African Union peacekeepers in September 2007 at Haskanita, which resulted in the death of 12 peacekeepers. He was charged with three war crimes: violence to life and attempted violence to life; intentionally directing attacks against personnel, installations, material, units and vehicles involved in a peacekeeping mission; and pillaging. His hearing was scheduled to begin in May.

At least 163 were reported dead March 28 in clashes at Okello, in Pibor county of South Sudan's Jonglei state, pitting government troops against a rebel force whose commander David Yau Yau is said to be among the slain. (See map.) South Sudan accuses Khartoum of supporting the rebels, with military spokesman Col. Philip Aguer saying a seized airstrip was used for arms drops. He suggested Sudan is arming the rebellion in a bid to block the South's plans to build an oil pipeline through Ethiopia to a port in Djibouti. Aguer said the South's military, the SPLA, would continue to "deal with the militia group." (The Guardian, March 28) A Kenyan route for the pipeline has also been broached, with the aim of freeing the South from having to export oil through Khartoum's territory.

A provocative offering by Barbara A. Worley of the University of Massachusetts on the Tuareg Culture and News website, Feb. 20:

Some of the worst enemies of the Tuareg people are Westerners who make their livelihood by spreading fear and hatred for an entire population that they do not know.  Several days ago, USA Today published an article [Feb. 14] by a young American reporter who wrote that "Tuaregs have long kept slaves," and implied that Tuaregs are still "taking slaves" today and holding them captive.  This is incorrect.  The Tuaregs do not own slaves today, and do not capture people or hold them as slaves.  The reporter based her article largely on propaganda she heard from one individual in southern Mali. 

Six people were injured Dec. 9 as Sudanese police used tear-gas against hundreds of student protesters near the University of Khartoum. The protesters—who chanted the iconic Arab Spring slogan "The people want to overthrow the regime"—were marching to demand justice in the case of four students from the Darfur region who were found drowned in a canal near the campus of Gezira University, south of the capital, on Dec. 7, after they had participated in protests against tuition hikes. The Khartoum protesters marched through the city center, chanting "Killing a student is killing a nation."

The Sudanese government charged Oct. 23 that Israeli airstrikes were responsible for explosions overnight at the Yarmouk Military Industrial Complex, an armaments plant in the south of the capital Khartoum. Information Minister Ahmed Bilal Osman said four Israeli warplanes struck the factory, causing a huge fire and killing two. The Israel Defense Forces said that the military "will not comment on the report"; while the Prime Minister's office refused to say anything at all. Israel's daily Haaretz cited "opposition sources" in Sudan as saying the Yarmouk complex belongs to Iran's Revolutionary Guard, and is producing arms intended for use by Hamas. The account also claims that after the fall of Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi last year, the Revolutionary Guard's elite al-Quds Force succeeded in smuggling dozens of anti-aircraft and SA-24 missiles from the Libyan army's crumbling arsenals to Sudan, in order to later pass them on to Hamas in the Gaza Strip. (BBC News, YNet, Haaretz, Oct. 24)

Well, exactly what we feared is happening. Protests against the stupid Islamophobic "film" spread to Afghanistan Sept. 16, with hundreds of students from Kabul University marching, blocking roads and chanting "death to America!" There was no violence, but protesters in Herat burned a US flag and pictures of Barack Obama. (AFP, Sept. 16) Meanwhile, the Taliban launched an audacious attack on a British base, Camp Bastion in Helmand province, killing two US Marines there—and astutely claimed they were doing it in retaliation for the stupid "film." "The aim of this attack was revenge against Americans for the anti-Prophet movie," Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf said. (Radio Australia, Sept. 16; VOA, Sept. 15)