Monday, April 6, 2009

Adopting Fadi

World Vision Report
Week of 28 March 2009
http://www.worldvisionreport.org/Stories/Week-of-March-28-2009/Adopting-Fadi



In Sudan's capital, Khartoum, scores of babies are abandoned every year. Most are born out of wedlock, but, for some, their parents simply can't afford to keep them.

Muja Kadeeb, a 29-year-old doctor, wanted to give one of those babies a chance. Here is the story, in her own words, of her fight to adopt a boy named Fadi.

Reporter Heba Aly produced this story.

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Sudan's Bashir, Wanted for War Crimes, Meets Mubarak

Bloomberg News
25 March 2009
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aKOuKxl7pKwQ

CAIRO - Sudanese President Umar al-Bashir visited Egypt in a show of defiance after the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for his arrest on charges of war crimes in Darfur.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak greeted al-Bashir at Cairo airport today, the state-run Middle East News Agency reported. Al-Bashir made his first trip abroad after the court’s decision, to neighboring Eritrea, on March 23.

“He is back safely,” Osman Nafie, the director of the political department at the Sudanese presidency, said in a telephone interview. “He arrived at Khartoum International Airport around 6:30 p.m.”

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Al-Qaedas Al-Zawahiri Calls for Sudan Guerrilla War

Bloomberg News
24 March 2009
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aWrum3Uvu1fo

CAIRO - Al-Qaeda’s second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, urged the Sudanese people to prepare for a “long guerrilla war” following the International Criminal Court’s decision to charge President Umar al-Bashir with war crimes.

In a video released today, al-Zawahiri urged the Sudanese to defend their country against attempts to eliminate Islam, the Alexandria, Virginia-based IntelCenter said in an e-mailed statement. The new video, featuring a still photograph of al- Zawahiri and an audio message with English subtitles, was the fourth released by al-Zawahiri this year, IntelCenter said.

“The Sudanese regime is too weak to defend the Sudan, so you must do what was done by your brothers in Iraq and Somalia,” IntelCenter, an intelligence group that monitors terrorist Web sites, cited al-Zawahiri as saying. “So make preparations -- by training, equipping, storing and organizing for a long guerrilla war, for the contemporary Crusade has bared its fangs at you,” he added.
Al-Zawahiri used the tape to criticize

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Darfur Displaced Refuse Aid, Demand NGOs' Return, UN Says

Bloomberg News
24 March 2009
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=azOBU3AuyBr4

CAIRO - Leaders of some civilians displaced by the war in Sudan’s Darfur region are refusing humanitarian aid until foreign agencies expelled by the government are allowed back, a United Nations official said.

Sudan’s government ordered out 13 international aid groups, including Oxfam and Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders. after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for President Umar al-Bashir on March 4 for alleged war crimes in Darfur. The government said the agencies were spying for the ICC, a charge the aid groups have denied.

Since then, leaders of the 86,000 residents of Kalma camp in southern Darfur have refused aid from Sudanese authorities, the UN and other non-governmental organizations, said Eddie Rowe, the UN World Food Programme coordinator in the region.

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Sudanese Aid Worker for Canadian Charity Shot Dead

Bloomberg News
24 March 2009
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a38zPqUsJgaE

CAIRO - A Sudanese aid worker for a Canadian charity was killed yesterday in the western region of Darfur by unidentified gunmen who demanded his satellite phone, his employer said.

“They shot him in front of his family,” Mark Simmons, the Sudan director for Fellowship for African Relief, said in a telephone interview from Khartoum, the capital. “He died on the spot.”

Adam Khatir, 39, ran agricultural programs for the organization in the village of Kongo-Haraza in western Darfur along the border with Chad, Simmons said. “It’s a very tense area at the moment,” he said.

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Sudan: Fallout scenarios

UN humanitarian news service (IRIN East Africa)
20 March 2009
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=83556

CAIRO - The expulsion or closure of 16 aid groups in Sudan could worsen North-South relations, stall the Darfur peace process and deter future humanitarian action, analysts said.

The decision, and the 16 March announcement that Sudan would "nationalise" all humanitarian work within one year, have attracted condemnation from the highest levels of the UN and the US.

"The ICC [International Criminal Court] row in general, and the expulsion of the aid agencies in particular, certainly have the potential to destabilise North-South relations," says Wolfram Lacher, a Sudan analyst with the London-based Control Risks Group consultancy.

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