* The Sudanese People's Liberation Movement Secretary General Pagan Amum said "what is happening today in Darfur is ethnic cleansing and genocide."
* The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said there has been a 150 percent increase in attacks against humanitarian workers in the last year.
* Envoys from the United Nations, the United States and the African Union are meeting with key players in Darfur in efforts to speed up the political process to bring peace to Darfur.
Situation on the Ground
The Sudanese People's Liberation Movement Secretary General Pagan Amum said "what is happening today in Darfur is ethnic cleansing and genocide," criticizing President Omar al-Bashir's remark that only 9,000 have been killed.
President Omar al-Bashir 'relieved' the governor of South Darfur from his position and replaced him with the former state minister of finance who was a member of the Sudanese government during the Darfur peace talks of 2006. At a meeting with new AU peacekeeping commander Gen. Martin Agwai, Bashir reaffirmed his support of AU forces in Darfur.
After investigating the fate of funding for Darfur, the European Union discovered AU forces have not been paying their soldiers for stretches of several months; the AU blamed the delays on administrative problems.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said there has been a 150 percent increase of attacks in the last year against a now 13,000-strong force of relief workers.
The UN Environment Programme verified that environmental degradation and climate change are important factors in the Darfur conflict. As the humanitarian community responds to the flash floods expected in three days, the International Committee of the Red Cross is drawing attention to two areas that may not be able to withstand the weather changes, Tawila and Gereida.
Malnutrition persists in refugee camps in Eastern Chad, according to UNICEF, as refugees remain displaced by cross-border raids of the Janjaweed and the emerging violence of Chadian rebels. In the Central African Republic, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees set up a school for 600 children, building waterproof sheds, and sending another 51-ton food convoy to the impoverished Sam Ouandja refugee camp.
Chadian Arabs are beginning to face physical and social discrimination as some groups have now come to associate "Arab" with "Janjaweed."
"Living in Israel has become a dream for so many Sudanese families who have fled Darfur for Egypt," said one refugee; many refugees from Darfur continuing to seek refuge in Israel via "desert runs" across Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. This exodus has triggered strict Egyptian border patrols.
Humanitarian aid groups like DanChurchAid reach out to tens of thousands of refugees by providing access to clean water and teaching sanitation and hygiene practices. Other groups are bringing midwives and other medical services to Darfur in attempt to lower mortality rates; about 1 in 58 women die in childbirth in Sudan, the fifth highest maternal mortality rate in the world, and a staggering 15 percent infant mortality rate also plagues the country. New kitchen stoves, invented by a Berkeley, Calif., physicist, are expected to alleviate some of the burdens of cooking for Darfurians.
The Peace Process
US Special Envoy Andrew Natsios began his seven-day visit to Sudan during which he plans to hold meetings with local Darfur government officials and leaders of rebel movements; also in Sudan are two other special envoys, Jan Eliasson, representing the UN, and Salim Ahmed Salim, representing the African Union. While the Eliasson thinks that the "moment of truth" is nearing for negotiations in Darfur, the slow progress and fighting between rebel organizations suggests envoys may fail to launch these peace talks.
Leaders from the Democratic Unionist Party from Egypt and the SPLM met in Cairo to discuss implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and the resolution of the Darfur conflict.
Religious leaders at an international Christian-Muslim conference addressing the "Sustainability of Peace and Consolidation of National Unity" called for anti-genocide dialogue in Sudanese education in order to achieve permanent peace in the future.
International Action
The Scottish government is contributing £250,000 to help victims of the violence in Darfur; the government previously supported educational initiatives in South Sudan with a £190,000 donation.
Columnist Julie Flint cautioned Democratic presidential candidates, particularly Sen. Hillary Clinton, about advocating for no-fly zones, given the potential consequences to humanitarian forces in Darfur. Nat Hentoff commended French President Nicolas Sarkozy for taking action. Eric Reeves criticized UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for "taking comfort" in "slow but credible and considerable progress" in Darfur saying that Ban's actions are not nearly enough.
Mehari Taddele Maru, former legal expert of the African Union Commission, argued that the framework for dealing with Darfur needs to shift to a more inclusive view of the whole conflict in Sudan, to adopt a "root-cause approach" rather than a "symptom-focused approach."
With hordes of calls for change pre-2008 Olympics in Chinese internal and external policy, the only issue China has responded to is Darfur. Bill Sanders, marketing adviser to high profile clients including NBA star Greg Oden, encouraged players to "go with your heart" when it comes to initiatives like Darfur petitions — but said that in the case of the Olympics, "embarrassment I don't think works in China."
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