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Yei,  (Borglobe) … two days of curfew at Yei River County in the Central Equatoria State of Southern Sudan after two separate incidences occurred within a time frame when an SPLA soldier shot dead a colonel due to dispute over military affairs while another astray loner killed his in-laws, eight dead and two wounded are under medical care.
Government’s offices and businesses are closed for the last two days in Yei because both men are heavily armed and considered dangerous to residents, but local forces are searching for their hideouts in the suburban areas.
The man who is alleged of killing in-laws says his children have been concealed from his sight and perhaps his in-laws have a plan of stealing children and take them to “Gondoo” a far-reachingly local country side.
On Thursday the policeman committed suicide in Makol Cuei, northeast of Bor Town in the Jonglei State where he was deployed. He locked his hut’s door and shot himself. The victim was identified as Thon Mayen from Duk County (Duk Payuel).

NEW BUSINESS ETHIOPIA

Expanding its marketing, the state-owned Ethiopian Insurance Company (EIC) is set to open its first branch out of Ethiopia in Juba, South Sudan.

Presenting annual report of the company, this morning (August 28, 2010) at its headquarter in Addis Ababa, Managing Director of EIC, Yewondwosen Eteffa, stated that the company has completed the feasibility study and expecting final approval to open office in Juba.

When EIC opens the office it will be the second Ethiopian government firm to operate in juba next to Commercial Bank of Ethiopia, which more than 50 percent market share in the local banking industry.

EIC’s profit for the Ethiopian budget year ended July 7, 2010 (July 8, 2009 – July 7, 2010) has increased around 56 percent from previous year and reached 146 million birr (equivalent to 10.7 million US dollars at current exchange rate) before tax.

The company was expecting more than stated amount of profit. Meanwhile, the profit is less due to the compensation paid for the Ethiopian Airlines’ claim for its crashed plane while flying from Beirut to Addis in January 25, 2010.

The claim incurred in aviation was 1.2 billion birr (88.1 million US dollars at current exchange rate) than EIC expected this year. It is also higher by 1.3 billion birr (95.4 million US dollars at current exchange rate) from the aviation industry of the country claims last year, according to Yewondwosen.

“As a result of this, contrary to our expectation and the previous year the annual corporate loss ratio of EIC has climbed to 231.4 percent,” he noted.

Next to the aviation, the company has also paid 166.4 million birr (12.2 million US dollars at current exchange rate) for vehicle insurance claims, which is also increasing annually at alarming rate.

The total asset of the company has now increased to 1.4 billion birr (102 million US dollars at current exchange rate) from it was at 1.2 billion birr, according to Yewondwossen’s report. Out of this, the insurance company has invested so far a total of 150 million birr (around 11 million US dollars).

EIC is the largest and oldest insurance company in Ethiopia established by the government in 1976 and has a total of 39 branches in the country followed by Awash Insurance Company, which has 22 branches by the end of September 2009.

Including the new private one, Abay Insurance Company, Ethiopia has a total of 12 private insurance companies and one state-owned-EIC.

Like the banking industry of the country, the outreach of insurance companies was very low. According to the 2008/9 annual report of the National Bank of Ethiopia, one insurance branch serves about 409,694 people and about 49 percent of the total branches are operating in the capital - Addis Ababa.

JUBA, Sudan, Aug 28 (Reuters) - South Sudanese authorities have identified eleven sites in the semi-autonomous region where they plan to build hydroelectric plants to exploit the White Nile and other rivers, a government official said on Saturday.

The oil-producing south will vote in a referendum on secession on Jan. 9 and is widely expected to become an independent nation. Southerners will be building a country from scratch after decades of civil war destroyed what little infrastructure there was in the fertile region.

Isaac Liabwel, a senior official at the ministry of water resources and irrigation, said exploiting the Nile was central to development of the south, which has no electricity grid. Only a few towns have power provided by expensive generators.

"We have located more than 10 potential sites for hydro power, most are along the Nile and its tributaries," Liabwel said. "Developing this power is essential to build up industry ... for irrigation, agriculture."

Liabwel said five sites had been earmarked along the Nile, three others on its tributaries, and three at other water catchment sites in the region. He said they could potentially provide the south with 2,000 megawatt hours of power per day.

The final price tag and timeframe is unknown and costing studies are under way, said Liabwel, who singled out four of the sites along the Nile as the top priority. Each of these lies between the capital, Juba, and the southern border with Uganda.

"These are the main sites. Once they are operational we can link with Uganda and DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) and export power to them," he said.

The Blue and White Nile merge in Sudan into a single river that then flows into Egypt.

Southern Sudan Electricity Corporation general manager Ajuoi Chol said the cost for the four priority sites south of Juba would not be less than $1 billion.

Liabwel said the source of funding for the projects and their timeframes were unclear, an issue compounded by the looming referendum because so many question marks remained about the makeup of an independent south's economy.

Under a 2005 peace deal, south Sudan's government gets about half the revenues from oil in the south. With all the oil infrastructure in the north, wealth-sharing would likely continue after secession although the percentages are still being negotiated.

Use of Nile water remains a highly sensitive issue for Egypt, which has reacted angrily to plans by upstream countries to rewrite laws around the division of Nile waters.

Liabwel said Egypt was aware of the south's plans and was supportive of them as the plants would not significantly impair the annual flows.

NAIROBI — The U.S. Government-through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Office of the U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan-and the Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS) will host a conference August 24-25 in Nairobi, Kenya, to address challenges and priorities for revitalizing agriculture in southern Sudan.

Conference participants will examine both short- and long-term objectives to significantly increase agricultural production in southern Sudan, which was devastated by Sudan’s 22-year civil war that ended in 2005 with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Despite enormous agriculture potential, poor transport, limited storage capacity and processing facilities, and a poor investment climate are among the legacies of conflict that have hindered development of the agriculture sector.

As a result, most farmers produce for subsistence rather than profit. Meanwhile, consumers suffer from high prices of agricultural products, many of which are imported from neighboring countries. Though USAID and GOSS launched a new five-year Food, Agribusiness, and Rural Markets (FARM) program in May 2010, this conference will encourage and allow key stakeholders to increase investment and partnerships to support agriculture in southern Sudan.

Conference participants, including the GOSS, the U.S. Government and other international donors, agricultural research organizations, financial institutions, and multinational agribusinesses, will initiate development of an 18-month action plan to help subsistence farmers increase production and sell their surplus in local markets. For the longer-term, the conference will focus on establishing a five-year strategic plan for building a vibrant agricultural economy, including roads needed to transport items to markets.

“Agricultural development is a primary catalyst for future economic growth in southern Sudan. This conference will offer a unique opportunity for the Government of Southern Sudan and international partners to bring focus and momentum to a sector that will greatly benefit the Sudanese people,” said U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan Jonathan S. Gration, Major General (Retired). General Gration praised “the exemplary vision and dedicated efforts of southern Sudan’s recently departed Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Samson Kwaje.” He added that “this Agricultural Conference would be dedicated to honoring the example and furthering the legacy of our dear friend and agricultural leader.”

At the conference, USAID and the GOSS will launch an Agriculture Innovation Fund designed to finance public-private sector partnerships promoting new approaches to agricultural development in southern Sudan. USAID also plans to establish a United States-Southern Sudan Agriculture Advisory Council composed of agriculture experts from the two governments, and from universities in the United States and southern Sudan, to provide expert advice to the governments on the design and assessment of agriculture development programs in southern Sudan. USAID is also working to establish partnerships between Juba University, Catholic University of Sudan, John Garang University, and leading U.S. educational institutions.

For more information about USAID’s programs, please visit: usaid.gov. To read our blog, see blog.usaid.gov.

The American people, through the U.S. Agency for International Development, have provided economic and humanitarian assistance worldwide for nearly 50 years.

Press Office: 202-712-4320
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JUBA, Sudan (AP) — A city shaped like a giraffe? A rhino-shaped town? Even one that looks from above like a pineapple? Southern Sudan has unveiled ambitious plans to remake its capital cities in the shapes found on their state flags, and an official says the government is talking with investors to raise the $10 billion the fanciful communities would cost.

The plan in the war-torn region comes ahead of a scheduled January referendum on independence, which most people here believe will lead to the creation of the world's newest country. The south is rich in oil, but poverty and hunger is high throughout the region, which is struggling to recover after a civil war more than two decades long.

The $10 billion concept will take decades to carry out, officials concede, though it may never escape the planning stages. The southern government's own 2010 budget was only $1.9 billion, and the U.N. says more than 90% of Southern Sudan's population lives on less than $1 a day.

The plans have evoked bemused smiles — or outright laughter — in Juba, a town that until two years ago barely had any paved roads.

"It doesn't seem like the (Government of Southern Sudan) should be using its resources or staff time when the people of Southern Sudan lack basic services like health care and water," Nora Petty, an aid worker in Juba with the Malaria Consortium.

Government officials concede that a lot of money is needed to finance the project, which includes a plan to transform two state capitals into the shapes of a giraffe and a pineapple.

Juba — the capital of Southern Sudan — is to be reshaped into a compact rhino with two pointy horns. The new area will be called "Rhino City."

Officials said the plan would bring order to the city's chaotic layout.

"Juba is made up of slums," said Jemma Kumba, the minister of housing and physical planning.

Detailed architectural drawings of Rhino City show that Central Equatoria's police headquarters would be situated at the rhino's mouth, an amusement park at the ear, an industrial area along the back and residential housing throughout the four legs.

"It's very innovative. That's our thinking. It's unique. It's the Ministry of Housing thinking you have to be unique to attract the people," said Daniel Wani, undersecretary of Southern Sudan's Ministry of Housing and Physical Planning.

If the animal-shaped towns come to be, they will join other famously shaped cities around the world. Dubai created several palm-shaped residential islands off its coast. In Argentina, planners shaped the town of Ciudad Evita into the form of Eva Peron, an actress and wife of former President Juan Peron who was known as Evita.

Of course, per capita income in the United Arab Emirates, where Dubai is located, is around $42,000 a year. In Sudan, it's just $2,300.

And unlike well-developed Dubai, Southern Sudan still lacks basic infrastructure such as roads to connect its state capitals. Outside the southern capital Juba, structures aside from mud huts are rare, and in Juba, services such as electricity and sewage are a luxury.

The Minister of Roads and Transport, Anthony Makana, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he needed up to $6 billion to pave 8,000 miles of roads in the south.

Makana said the project would connect all of the southern state capitals, but he noted that funding is a concern, given that the government has not finished paying the contractors who built 4,350 miles of red clay and gravel roads since 2005, when the landmark peace accord between the north and south was signed.

Mr Nafie however accused SPLM of wanting to divide Sudan, adding if the movement decided on declaring south Sudan’s independence by a parliamentary vote without a referendum it would be committing political suicide.” - Daily Nation

JUBA Sudan, Aug 20 (Reuters) - Southern Sudan holds a referendum on Jan. 9 on independence from the north, and most analysts believe the south will secede.

But some question whether the region, which was devastated by decades of civil war but is rich in resources, can survive independently from the north, which it fought for so long.

Here are some questions and answers on an independent south Sudan.

WILL ANYTHING CHANGE?

Analysts who dismiss the doomsday scenarios for secession say that the semi-autonomous south has been effectively self-governing since a 2005 peace deal, and little will change after the vote.

After more than two decades of civil war with the north, the accord allowed the former rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) to govern Southern Sudan, securing billions of dollars in donor funding and oil revenues.

"Currently, the southern government has a lot of operational independence. It has its own legislature, its own security forces and control over an unprecedented amount of government wealth due to oil revenues," said Marc Gustafson, a Sudan scholar at Oxford University.

Many southern officials expect business-as-usual for their development projects and to continue coordination with their northern neighbour after secession.

Isaac Liabwel of the Ministry of Water Resources said a number of joint north-south funded agricultural development and hydro-electric projects in the south were under way, and could continue if funding issues were agreed.

There is general agreement that billions of dollars in aid will be needed to sustain development in the south. A U.N. peacekeeping mission is likely to remain to help with security issues in the south and along the disputed north-south border.

IS THE SOUTH ECONOMICALLY VIABLE?

The south gets 98 percent of its budget revenues from oil, but all the infrastructure and Sudan's ports are in the north, making the south highly vulnerable to any tension with its neighbour.

In the absence of a pipeline or refinery in the south, sharing of oil revenue is likely to continue after secession, but the two sides are debating whether it will remain at roughly 50-50.

The international community has spent billions of dollars to develop the south, and will continue to do so if it secedes.

But the establishment of new state institutions may mean new bureaucratic hurdles for donors already struggling to circumvent endemic corruption.

Since the peace deal, with donor help, the south has set up 29 ministries, built 6,000 km of rudimentary roads, quadrupled school attendance and stamped out outbreaks of polio and measles, according to Lisa Grande, U.N. humanitarian chief in the south.

But south Sudan starts off as one of the poorest parts of the world, which has been embroiled in conflict for all but a few years since 1955.

"(In 2005) there wasn't a functioning school system, there wasn't a functioning health system. So you are talking about constructing a system from the ground up," Grande said.

Private enterprise is severely limited by the lack of infrastructure -- the south has just 60 km of asphalted roads.

CAN THE SOUTH MAINTAIN SECURITY?

Tribal rivalries continue to dominate domestic politics, as groups freely arm themselves with guns left over from the war.

Renegade army generals and southern militias allied with the north clash sporadically with southern government forces.

In addition, the Ugandan rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has staged cross-border attacks from the Democratic Republic of Congo, displacing thousands and halting agricultural projects in the fertile belt.

But of most concern is the north-south conflict, which continues to bubble close to the surface. Clashes in Malakal and the still disputed oil-rich Abyei region have broken the ceasefire since 2005.

Diplomats and intelligence sources say the West and Africa cannot afford to have another Somalia in east Africa, and will spare no expense to prevent an independent southern Sudan becoming a failed state.

But Abyei is far from being resolved, and many believe it will remain a bone of contention and perhaps even spark a return to conflict.

A new war between two states might prove more devastating than the guerrilla insurgency of the civil war, which claimed 2 million lives, drove 4 million from their homes and destabilised much of east Africa.

"The south has a much more developed and conventional military than it did a decade ago, meaning that a new war would be much more destructive than previous ones. This is certainly a deterrent to both sides," said Gustafson.

The U.N. peacekeeping force has been helping to train south Sudan's police and army, but has so far not been able to prevent clashes. (Reporting by Jeremy Clarke, Editing by Opheera McDoom and Kevin Liffey)

          "Those Americans have strength and technology, so they can use that to catch Kony," said Anton Juma, another member of the village militia, now sheltering at Nzara. "Our arrows are no use against their guns."

Rebels from Lord’s Resistance Army shoot men, drag off others into forest to join their force. 
   

By Peter Martell/Middle East - NZARA

When the dreadlocked gunmen burst out of the jungle at night firing AK-47 assault rifles, the men of the village took up bows and arrows to defend their families.

But the brave defence was futile. The rebels from the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) simply shot the men and dragged off others into the forest to join their force.

"Two of us were killed, and three more wounded," said Vanetta Tamenda, who fled as the rebels began their work, torching his small farming village of Basukangbi, on south Sudan’s remote border with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The village’s simple defence force -- calling themselves the ‘Arrow Boys’ -- were swiftly overrun.

"They are too strong," Tamenda said, pulling up a ripped shirt to show bullet wounds in his shoulder and back. "We need guns to defend ourselves."

Tens of thousands of people have been killed in two decades of fighting since LRA chief Joseph Kony took up arms -- initially against the Ugandan government.

Driven out of Uganda, the guerillas have carved out a vast region of control in the dense forests of northeastern DR Congo, south Sudan and the Central African Republic (CAR).

The jungle allows easy movement across porous borders for the rebels, who abandoned faltering peace talks in 2008.

Their acts of startling brutality have forced more than 25,000 people to flee their homes in south Sudan since January, according to the United Nations.

"The attacks this year by the LRA seem to be on the increase," said Sapana Abuyi, deputy governor of Western Equatoria, the state in south Sudan hardest hit by the rebels.

"Not a week goes by without us receiving a message they have attacked a village."

They call the rebels here the "tong-tong" -- or "chop-chop" -- named after the machete attacks on their victims when they wish to save a bullet.

Its top leaders, wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, are accused of massacres, mutilation, forcibly enlisting boys as child soldiers, and taking girls as sex slaves.

Several hundred of those who most recently fled have gathered in the small settlement of Nzara, searching for security, shelter, food and medication.

"People left so quickly they could take little," said Daniel James Banjen, chief of the Sangwa area, which was attacked in early August.

"Some of us are staying with families, others under plastic sheeting, and all of us are living off the food that we are given."

The people here say an upsurge in attacks is linked to the ripe harvests currently in the fields.

"They leave us alone while we cultivate," said Terezina Mathew as a child clutched her skirt. "But when the crops are good they come, forcing us away so they can take all our food."

The United Nations and aid agencies are supporting the displaced, but prolonged attacks have weakened the population and officials worry there is little sign of finding a solution or ending the attacks.

"All along the border they have killed and abducted children for their evil army," said Lexson Wari Amozai, the head of the south Sudan government's humanitarian agency for Western Equatoria. "The peace that was ongoing has ended, and no one is talking about it."

Both southern Sudanese and Ugandan soldiers patrol the area, but the troops are stretched thin, with the guerrillas now experts in hit-and-run raids.

South Sudan is far from alone in being affected by the rebels.

Over 700 people have been abducted by the rebels in CAR in the past 18 months, according to a recent report by Human Rights Watch.

Meanwhile the rebels have carved out a kingdom in the Bas Uele of DR Congo by slaughtering over a hundred people and abducting at least 570 in the past 15 months, according to field research by the Washington-based Enough pressure group.

A new US law passed in May commits the Washington administration to develop a strategy that will ensure civilians are protected from the LRA, and to end the rebels’ campaign of carnage.

Those displaced said they would welcome any help, saying they have so little to defend themselves with now.