The two Sudans: still stuck in oil dispute
Posted: 29/01/2013 Filed under: African Security, Islam Al Tayeb | Tags: Abyei, Addis Ababa accord, dispute, oil exports, Omar al-Bashir, Salva Kiir, South Sudan, stalemate, Sudan, territorial disputes Leave a comment »
By Islam Al Tayeb, Research Analyst, IISS-Middle East
More than 18 months after South Sudan seceded from Sudan, oil remains a sticking point between the two countries. Last week, the stalemate appeared as intractable as ever, with South Sudan announcing plans to sell petroleum to Israel, and politicians in Khartoum vowing that no South Sudanese exports would reach Israel via Sudanese territory. A meeting between Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and his southern counterpart Salva Kiir before an African Union conference in Ethiopia this weekend (above) failed to break months of deadlock. There has now been no oil production in, or exports, from South Sudan for a year, depriving the government in Juba of around 98% of its budgeted revenues.
Tracking weapons flows in Africa
Posted: 11/06/2012 Filed under: Armed conflict database, Defence, Transnational threats and political risk | Tags: Africa, Arms control, arms trade treaty, arms trafficking, China, Iran, Libya, Sudan Leave a comment »By Jessica Delaney, Assistant editor, Strategic Comments
Weapons are flowing across the Sahel from Libya, and from Iran and China to countries such as Sudan, as a new form of arms trade takes shape in Africa. Speaking at the IISS recently, expert James Bevan explained that a predominantly ‘home-grown’ illicit trade had arisen, in which weapons were passed from governments to rebel groups, stolen from armed forces or trafficked by individuals as states collapsed.
This was a very different picture from that during the 1990s and early twenty-first century, when failing Eastern European states supplied cash-rich warlords involved in conflicts in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Libya joined the emerging hubs of weapons sales after the collapse of Muammar Gadhafi’s regime in 2011. Other hubs included the Eritrean capital, Asmara, and the Sudanese capital, Khartoum.
