Sudan accuses Israel of bombing arms factory

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Sudan on Wednesday accused Israel of launching an airstrike that caused a large explosion at a munitions factory, killing two people, in a residential area of the capital, Khartoum.

Sudan Information Minister Ahmed Belal Osman said four planes bombed the Yarmouk complex housing a military arms factory in the south of the capital and that an analysis of rocket debris from the explosion confirmed Israel was behind the attack.

"We think Israel did the bombing," Belal said. "We reserve the right to react at a place and time we choose."

The government of Israel, which has been accused in the past of airstrikes in Sudan, didn’t comment on Sudan’s accusations Wednesday.

Belal said the planes used sophisticated technology to evade anti-aircraft systems. The Sudanese government would take the matter to the U.N. Security Council, he said.

Local residents reported seeing fighter jets launch the attack that caused the blast, journalists said.

“One resident I spoke to said he saw two planes. The first plane had large lights and it was basically guiding the plane behind it. When its light became bright, they heard a rocket that followed and there was a large explosion," said journalist Ishmail Kushkush. "I spoke to another resident who said he saw three planes."

Kushkush said witnesses reported two people had been killed.

“All said there was a very large explosion. Shrapnel went in all directions. Houses were damaged. One person told me his entire back room collapsed,” Kushkush said.

Sudan has accused Israel of other attacks in recent years, including the bombing of a truck convoy allegedly carrying arms in eastern Sudan in 2009. Last year, Sudan accused Israel of an attack on a vehicle in the same area, which killed two people. A similar attack occurred in May, killing one.

“The main purpose is to frustrate our military capabilities and stop any development there and ultimately weaken our national sovereignty," Belal said.

Israel has never confirmed or denied involvement in the incidents in 2009, 2011 and in May. There has been speculation, however, that the attacks on vehicles were linked to arms smuggling through Sudan to Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

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-- Robyn Dixon

Photo: A fire following an explosion at Yarmouk military factory in Khartoum, Sudan. Credit: EPA

Four peacekeepers killed in Darfur in evening ambush

Four peacekeepers were slain and eight injured in an ambush in West Darfur, the African Union and United Nations joint mission to the troubled region said Wednesday.

It remains unclear who was behind the Tuesday evening attack less than a mile and a half from the mission regional headquarters, which involved a Nigerian military patrol. Hit with heavy fire from several directions, the peacekeepers returned fire, according to a brief statement released by the mission.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday urged the government of Sudan to investigate the attacks and prosecute those responsible. He also expressed condolences for Nigeria.

The Sudanese region has been wracked for nearly a decade by a conflict that began with rebels waging war against the government in Khartoum, complaining about the marginalization of the western region.

President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of murder and other war crimes committed during Sudan's crackdown on the rebellion, estimated to have killed 35,000 people. At least 100,000 more people are believed to have died from disease and hunger caused by the campaign.

Sudan and South Sudan sign a deal to resume oil exports

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Oil exports are set to resume from Sudan and South Sudan after their leaders signed trade and security agreements Thursday aimed at ceasing hostilities and setting up a demilitarized buffer zone on their shared border.

The deal averts the threat of sliding back into a war that has lingered since clashes resumed in April between the uneasy neighbors.

But in a sign of the underlying hostility, there was no territorial deal resolving one of their most enduring sources of conflict: the disputed border and the region of Abyei, which both sides claim.

The two countries faced U.N. Security Council sanctions if they failed to reach a peace deal.

Talks between President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir of Sudan and President Salva Kiir of South Sudan, which were mediated by the African Union, had dragged on since Sunday before they finally signed the accords in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa.

The two sides signed a peace deal in 2005 that ended more than two decades of war and led to South Sudanese independence in July 2011. But many contentious questions, including the border and oil transit issues, were left unresolved. 

Solutions to poverty, population growth, global warming [Google+ Hangout]

As experts from three continents convene this week at UC Berkeley to discuss rapid population growth, climate change and other intractable problems, The Times will hold a live online video discussion -- via Google+ Hangout -- Thursday on potential solutions.

The newspaper explored such issues around the world in its recent five-part series on population growth in the developing world. Among other topics, the "Beyond 7 Billion" series examined chronic hunger and mass migration in East Africa -- trends that Dr. Malcolm Potts believes will soon extend across the Sahel, an arid region of Africa just below the Sahara desert.

LIVE VIDEO DISCUSSION: Join us at 3:30 p.m. Thursday

"What you've been seeing from Somalia is going to happen in all those countries, all the way across from the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean," said Potts, a UC Berkeley professor of public health. "You've just seen a fraction of what's going to happen in the next 10 or 20 years."

Potts, who co-organized the conference focused on the Sahel region, will join The Times at 3:30 p.m. Pacific time Thursday to discuss solutions to the problems facing this part of Africa and other impoverished nations with soaring populations. He will be joined by Dr. Ndola Prata of UC Berkeley, William Ryerson of the Population Media Center and Fatima Adamu from Usmanu Danfodiyo University in Sokoto, Nigeria.

We invite you to join the conversation by posting comments or questions below, on The Times’ Facebook and Google Plus pages, or on Twitter using the #asklatimes hashtag.

-- Kenneth R. Weiss

Photo: Somalia refugees, driven from their land by sectarian violence and drought, gather outside the United Nations' camps in eastern Kenya. Credit: Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times

Death toll rises as protests rage over Muhammad-mocking video

This post has been updated. See the note below.

CAIRO -- The death toll ticked higher Friday as protests swept the world over a video insulting the Islamic prophet Muhammad, with reports emerging of casualties in Tunisia, Lebanon, Sudan and Yemen as outraged protesters clashed with police near United States missions abroad.

Tunisian state media reported at least two protesters had been killed and 29 others were injured, including both protesters and police. A Tunisian employee of the American Embassy suffered a leg  injury and was taken out on a stretcher, the Associated Press reported.

Lebanese state media earlier reported one person killed in Tripoli, where security forces had sought to scatter a crowd of angry protesters attempting to storm a government building. And in Sudan, where protesters broke past riot police to raise a black Islamic flag at the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum, witnesses told Agence France-Presse that two people had lost their lives.

PHOTOS: Protesters attack U.S. embassies, consulate

Clashes a day earlier around the U.S. Embassy in Sana claimed the lives of four protesters and wounded 38 other people, the Yemeni Interior Ministry said Friday. Ten soldiers were reportedly among the injured after the Thursday assault and pillaging of the embassy, which led to the arrests of eight people in connection with the attack, Yemeni officials said.

Witnesses in Yemen said a fifth person was killed Friday as protests continued. Though religious scholars condemned the violence along with the Internet video in their Friday sermons, clashes flared on main roads and side streets as protesters tried unsuccessfully to reach the embassy.

“We will not stop till the U.S. ambassador leaves Yemen,” declared a young demonstrator dressed in white tribal robes with a dagger at his side. He carried a sign that read, “Defending the Prophet.”

TIMELINE: 'Innocence of Muslims' unrest

Shots fired, U.S. embassies stormed in furious protest over film

Furious protests exploded around the world Friday as outraged demonstrators from Bangladesh to Sudan condemned an amateurish movie that mocked the Islamic prophet Muhammad as a bloodthirsty womanizer and child molester.

One person was killed after Lebanese security forces clashed with angry protesters in the northern city of Tripoli who had hurled stones at a government building and tried to storm it, the official Lebanese National News Agency reported. A KFC was set ablaze and ransacked.

Infuriated protesters in Tunisia stormed the U.S. Embassy in the capital, Tunis, and tore down the American flag, state media reported. Security forces fired warning shots and tear gas to try to scatter the crowd, the official Tunisian News Agency reported. Black smoke was seen rising around the embassy compound amid reports that an American school nearby had been set on fire.

PHOTOS: Protesters attack U.S. embassies, consulate

In Sudan, hundreds of riot police fired tear gas and rubber bullets and used batons to try to prevent a wall of hundreds of protesters reaching the U.S Embassy in the capital, Khartoum, but a group managed to break through, breach the wall of the embassy and and raise a black Islamic flag.

U.S. Embassy officials in Khartoum said late Friday that police had dispersed the protesters.

The attack followed earlier riots by thousands of protesters at the German and British embassies in Khartoum. A furious mob stormed the German Embassy and set it on fire. Sudanese Islamic scholars had called on Sudanese people Thursday to protest "peacefully but with strength" to defend the prophet Muhammad.

TIMELINE: 'Innocence of Muslims' unrest

The Pentagon told reporters Friday that Marines were being deployed to Yemen to help protect the U.S. Embassy in the capital, Sana, which had been stormed Thursday by protesters who smashed security office windows and broke past barriers to hurl stones and set cars on fire.

Protests continued to rage in Cairo, where anger over the movie first erupted earlier this week, for the fourth day in a row. Hundreds of men tried to break a police barricade to storm the U.S. Embassy as tear gas wafted across Tahrir Square.

"The U.S. ambassador must leave!" a young man in a T-shirt and blue jeans shouted as he was lifted up above the cheering crowds. Angry protesters said Egypt's new Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi, had not been tough enough in condemning the movie and was beholden to the West.

Anti-American protesters attack U.S. and German embassies in Sudan

 
KHARTOUM -- Hundreds of protesters breached the wall of the U.S. Embassy in Sudan's capital on Friday, raising a black Islamist flag after breaking through a protective phalanx of police firing tear gas and rubber bullets.

U.S. embassy officials in Khartoum said late Friday that police had finally dispersed the protesters. They said protesters didn’t succeeding in tearing down the U.S. flag.

An eyewitness told The Times three protesters blockading a road near the U.S embassy were killed by police. The attack followed earlier riots by thousands of protesters Friday at the German and British embassies.

PHOTOS: Protesters attack U.S. embassies, conulate

A furious mob stormed the German embassy, broke in and set it on fire. The protests were led by hardliner Altayeb Mustafa, an uncle of Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir.

Sudanese Islamic scholars had Thursday called on Sudanese people to protest “peacefully but with strength” to defend the prophet Muhammad, who was mocked in the trailer for a film produced in the United States that was uploaded on the Internet recently. The images have led to a series of protests outside U.S. embassies across Northern Africa and in Muslim-dominated nations elsewhere.

Germany’s Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said in a televised address that German staffers were safe, news agencies reported. The protesters tore down the German flag and hoisted a black Islamic flag in its place.

Westerwelle said the film was “disgraceful” but that didn’t justify attacking embassies and endangering human lives. Although the film has been strongly condemned by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as “disgusting and reprehensible,” protests at U.S. and Western embassies erupted in Sudan, Egypt, Tunisia, Lebanon, Yemen, Iran and other Muslim countries after the end of noon prayers Friday.

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--Robyn Dixon and a special correspondent

 

Sudan and South Sudan reach deal on oil transit dispute

MOGADISHU, Somalia -- Uneasy neighbors Sudan and South Sudan reached a deal on oil transit fees Friday, a day after a U.N. Security Council deadline passed for them to reach an agreement or face sanctions, it was announced Saturday.

South Sudan recently marked a year of independence from Sudan, but things had gone so badly in recent months that there seemed little cause to celebrate. The countries tilted dangerously toward war earlier this year after South Sudan shut down oil production in January over the countries’ acrimonious dispute on oil transit fees.

The shutdown severely damaged both sides. As oil dried up, the economies of the countries faltered; consumer prices rocketed, shortages set in and their currencies fell.

While the two sides have now agreed on a transit price, an intractable dispute over territory and their shared border was set aside until late September.

African Union mediator Thabo Mbeki told reporters that the countries would discuss the steps to be taken so that oil companies could resume production.

Sudanese officials confirmed the deal but said it would not take effect until border security matters were settled. Sudan accuses South Sudan of supporting anti-government rebels in Sudanese territory,  while South Sudan says Sudan is guilty of supporting militias in its country.

Death rate soars in drenched South Sudan refugee camps

This post has been corrected. See the note at the bottom for details.

Soaked by rain yet short on clean water, refugees who have fled from Sudan to South Sudan are dying from diarrhea and other preventable diseases at devastating rates, aid agencies said as they made anguished pleas for more help.

In the Jamam refugee camp, now a muddy swamp, nearly three children are dying every day, according to the group Doctors Without Borders. The death rate is nearly double the emergency level and four times higher than normal in a developing country.

The deluge has soaked through blankets and pushed latrines to overflow, sullying the water that floods the camp. Some stretches of the camp have become a sea of thick mud as far as the eye can see, said Tara Newell, the group's emergency coordinator for the region.

"It's an overwhelming problem and an underwhelming response," Newell said. "The conditions are entirely unacceptable, even unlivable. If we don't relocate these refugees from this camp, we will see an even higher mortality rate."

The rain has cut off roads into Jamam and other camps, forcing aid agencies to rely on airlifts to bring in supplies and staff, Newell said, calling it the most logistically difficult situation she had ever seen. Malaria season is beginning, adding to the existing ailments of diarrhea, malnutrition and pneumonia.

Despite the downpour, clean water is scant, with many refugees getting less than a third of the water they need daily, according to the United Nations refugee agency. Rainwater is being harnessed, but it has yet to quench the demand.

"The night it rained, our tents filled with water. Everything was wet and no one was able to sleep. The children were cold and crying," 35-year-old Shaba told Doctors Without Borders on Wednesday. Her family has lived in Jamam since December. "There was no dry space to cook food, so we spent a day without food."

The outpouring of refugees into South Sudan has overwhelmed existing camps and available aid. More than 110,000 people have poured into Upper Nile State in Sudan; the U.N. had only planned for 75,000 refugees in the area. Refugees say they have been driven across the border by Sudanese army bombings, killings of accused rebels and their supporters, as well as food shortages.

Sudan revolt -- as far-fetched as licking your elbow? [Video]

The Sudanese government has derided protests calling for its ouster as "elbow licking" -- an impossible act. So protesters in Khartoum dubbed it "Elbow Licking Friday" and poured onto the streets of the Sudanese capital.

Protesters have staged nearly two weeks of demonstrations in Sudan, where the rallies have raised hopes for a "Sudan Spring" paralleling the protests that toppled leaders in Egypt and Tunisia.

Activists say thousands of people turned out for protests Friday in at least a dozen cities across Sudan. In the video above, uploaded to YouTube on Friday by opposition activists and said to be taken in Omdurman, protesters raise their fists and chant, "The people want the downfall of the regime!"

Triggered by a government decision to scrap fuel subsidies, the rallies have become a bigger push against President Omar Bashir, the repressive leader who has held power since a 1989 coup. The activist group Girifna, for instance, has demanded sweeping changes, including the resignation of the government, releasing political prisoners and ending "the ethnic monopoly over power."

"If the budget problems were solved tomorrow, would people stop protesting? I doubt it very much," a Girifna adviser said Friday, speaking anonymously for security reasons. "People are very frustrated with the regime. What does the government stand for? They talk about unity. We’re separated. They’re talking about peace. Now we have more war than before."