EUROPEAN UNION NEWS DIGEST
Sudanese opposition slate Al Bashir speech
(Radio Dabanga) The long-awaited speech President Omar Al Bashir delivered in the Friendship Hall in Khartoum on Tuesday evening received much criticism from the opposition parties who were invited to attend. The Popular Congress Party (PCP), led by Dr Hassan El Turabi, expressed its regret having accepted the invitation to attend the speech at the Friendship Hall. Kamal Omar Abdel Salam, the Secretary of the PCP, told Radio Dabanga that he and his party’s leader El Turabi, accepted to attend because of “leaked information”, saying that the President would announce major changes. Abdel Salam concluded that the “empty speech” was a blow for all who expected that the President could make a difference. “We have no choice anymore but to overthrow this regime by a popular uprising.” The PCP Secretary strongly denied the rumor that the attendance of El Turabi and National Umma Party (NUP leader Sadig El Mahdi was the result of a secret agreement with Al Bashir. The president of the Sudanese Communist Party, Sadig Yusif, pointed to the four issues the President tackled in his speech: peace, freedoms, economy, and identity. “Al Bashir is the first and main cause of the absence of peace, freedoms, a dying economy and an identity policy based on discrimination.” So the only solution for these issues is to “get rid of this regime”. Sara Nugdallah, the chairman of the NUP Political Bureau, considered the “disregard for the Sudanese people, the country and all its values” in Al Bashir’s speech as “very frustrating, to the extent it surely angered many of his followers,” she said. “The speech itself was incomprehensible.”
Read More: https://www.radiodabanga.org/
Political Powers: Al Bashir Speech should be Translated into Actions
(Sudan Vision Daily) The political forces and media leaders polled by the newspaper on the President’s speech Monday described the discourse as an important national dialogue at this stage and it should be continued and translated into action. Al-Bukhari Al-Ja’ali, Democratic Unionist Party leading figure, said the speech of the President carried several positive messages for the political forces especially the call for comprehensive dialogue on national issues. President of the Umma Party (collective leadership) Al-Sadiq Al-Hadi Al-Mahdi has described the speech as good.
Read More: http://news.sudanvisiondaily.com/
Russian diplomat, wife stabbed in Sudan
(Russia Today) Russia’s consul and his wife have been stabbed in Sudan’s capital of Khartoum outside the embassy’s gates by a man from the Central African Republic. The Russian Foreign Ministry has confirmed the incident to RT, specifying that the injured diplomat was Russia’s consul and not consul general as was reported by the media earlier. The names of the diplomat and his wife have not yet been made public by the police or Russian officials. The attack is believed to be a random act of revenge against a Westerner by a man whose brother was killed by European troops in the CAR. Following the attack the couple was rushed to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
Read More: http://rt.com/news/
Sudanese Security gags newspaper
(Radio Dabanga) The Sudanese Security Forces on Sunday indefinitely suspended El Jareeda daily newspaper. The suspension took place against the back drop of documents the newspaper published implicating the involvement of the current Finance Minister, Badr El Din Mahmoud, in corruption cases. At the time, Mahmoud was chairman of the Committee on Purchases of the New Ginneries. At the same time, the Security Forces informed the Deputy Secretary-General of the Popular Congress Party, Abdallah Hassan Ahmed that the party’s newspaper Rai El Shaab may resume after a stop of more than three years. The weekly newspaper of the Sudanese Communist Party, El Midan, was suspended a year ago for an indefinite period.
https://www.radiodabanga.org/node/65381
AU summit urges S. Sudan to end political dispute peacefully
(Sudan Tribune) The Africa Union executive council meeting, held in the Ethiopian capital Monday, has urged South Sudan’s warring parties to peacefully end their political dispute. The security situations in South Sudan and the Central African Republic (CAR) formed the main agenda of the meeting, mainly attended by African foreign affairs ministers. Tedros Adhanom, the Ethiopian foreign minister described the situation in both South Sudan and CAR “very alarming”, but congratulated the world’s youngest nation on its ceasefire deal. Also on the agenda at the two-day meeting are agriculture and food security issues.
Read More: http://www.sudantribune.com/