In the News

The U.S. Congress has passed a bill calling upon the administration of President Barack Obama to lead international efforts to end the threat to civilians posed by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). The bill was passed late yesterday. 

Time is running out to salvage a peace accord that ended Africa's longest-running war, a key U.S. official said Wednesday, but he rejected suggestions that the Obama administration is not paying enough attention to the political turmoil in Sudan.

If special envoy to Sudan J. Scott Gration expected to take a victory lap on the Hill today, he was sorely disappointed.

Sudan risks a return to violence if President Barack Obama's administration does not pressure parties on the ground to work for peace, a group of eight NGOs wrote in a report released Thursday.

This election is more complex, more ambitious, and more byzantine than even most Western countries would attempt. Southern voters, 85 percent of whom are illiterate, have 12 separate ballots to fill in. Voters in the North must fill in six. Just three days of polling will have to accommodate 15.7 million voters.

 KHARTOUM, Sudan – Sudan's first multiparty elections in decades have been thrown into disarray by allegations of government violations and opposition threats of a boycott. The disputes wreck hopes of transforming a conflict-plagued nation and could instead end up fueling violence in Darfur and the south.

Sudan's controversial elections will go ahead this month, the deputy head of the country's election commission has said.

The leader of Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels has left western Sudan and crossed back into the Central African Republic (CAR) due to food shortages, Uganda's army said on Friday.

KHARTOUM, Sudan — Sudan's major opposition parties threatened late on Thursday a total boycott of the country's first multiparty elections in decades, citing irregularities and government bias.

Despite harsh condemnation from US legislators in response to Uganda's draft bill criminalising homosexuality, the Senate passed a bill in mid-March that will prop up Uganda's government by authorising military action in the highly volatile region of Central Africa.

There's a deafening silence over the humanitarian crisis in Sudan's Darfur region. Few on the ground are talking and the powers that be are pushing out a single line - the war between Darfur rebels and the government is over.

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Last night one of televisions’ most successful franchises, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, took on the issue of rape as a weapon of war in Eastern Congo. Anchor Jeb Sharp speaks with Neal Bear, the program’s executive producer of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, about why he chose to tackle the subject.

The Sudanese army on Monday denied reports that the feared leader of Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army rebel group has found refuge in the western region of Darfur.

In the heart of central Africa, an exhausted young man toils at a dangerous job: digging up bits of minerals from the earth. While he earns little for his efforts, soldiers that illegally control the mine reap the profits. The fruits of his labor are smuggled to neighboring countries, sold to multinational companies, and processed into metals that end up in cellphones, computers, and digital cameras.