The Sudanese currency slid to 60 pounds to the dollar on the black market Monday, traders said, increasing the gap with the official rate of 47.5 pounds to its widest since a sharp devaluation two months ago.

The growing gap indicates the pound’s official value may have to weaken further, adding to the woes of citizens already suffering shortages of bread and fuel.

The government has been expanding the money supply to finance its budget deficit, spurring inflation and weakening the currency’s value.

“The deterioration of the Sudanese pound’s real value has made everyone rush to convert their savings into dollars,” economics professor and analyst Abdullah al-Ramadi told Reuters. “Bloated government spending has increased inflation.”

Annual inflation edged up to 68.93 percent in November from 68.44 percent in October, the state statistics agency said Sunday.

The pound was trading at 57 to the dollar on the black market as recently as Saturday. On Oct. 7 the government weakened the official rate to 47.5 pounds to the dollar from 29 pounds.

The severe shortages of fuel and bread, both subsidized by the government, have forced people in the capital to queue in front of bakeries and cars to line up in front of petrol stations.

“I have been waiting for bread for more than an hour, and I have had difficulty withdrawing my monthly salary from the bank since December,” said Yassin Abdullah, 43, an employee standing outside a bakery on one of Khartoum’s main streets. “With prices rising we are living in a real nightmare.”
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Amnesty International on Monday said the International Criminal Court should start a full-blown investigation into atrocities committed in the Boko Haram insurgency, accusing Nigeria of failing to bring those responsible to justice.

ICC chief prosecutor Fatma Bensouda opened a preliminary examination in 2010 into eight potential cases of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the violence.

Six cases relate to the jihadists and include the killing of civilians, mass kidnapping, attacks on schools and places of worship, sexual violence, plus the use of children in conflict.

The other two — involving attacks on civilians, mass arrests and detention of suspects, abuse, torture and summary executions — concern the military.

Boko Haram’s Islamist insurgency has killed more than 27,000 people and left 1.8 million homeless in northeast Nigeria since 2009, triggering a humanitarian crisis in the wider region.

President Muhammadu Buhari, a former military ruler, in June 2015 promised to “leave no stone unturned to promote the rule of law and deal with all cases of human rights abuses”.

Bensouda acknowledged in her latest annual report published on December 5 that Nigeria appeared to have taken “concrete steps” towards investigating the allegations.

She wrote there appeared to be a “tangible prospect” of proceedings against Boko Haram members but not against troops “since the Nigerian authorities tend to deny any allegation.”

But Amnesty International suggested Abuja was keeping her “in limbo” by giving the impression of domestic action but in reality doing very little.

“Eight years since the opening of the preliminary examination and faced with the continuing commission of crimes under international law and the possibility of a never-ending preliminary analysis, it is time for the OTP (Office of the Prosecutor) to open a formal investigation in Nigeria,” it said.

There was no immediate response from the government or military. But both have previously dismissed accusations from Amnesty as being without foundation.

‘Legal cover’ 

Central to the human rights group’s argument is Nigeria’s investigations into alleged military atrocities and its prosecution of thousands of Boko Haram suspects.

None of the more than 20 government inquiries launched into claims of abuse by troops and civilian militia members in the last nine years has led to formal investigations and prosecutions, it pointed out.

Instead, the proceedings appeared designed to provide a “veneer of accountability” and exonerate senior officers and “shield persons concerned from criminal responsibility”, it alleged.

At the same time there had been a “minimal” number of prosecutions against mid- to high-ranking Boko Haram members for serious crimes such as terrorism, murder or hostage-taking.

The report said mass trials of more than 1,000 suspects that began in October 2017 were a “sham” designed to provide “legal cover” for those held in prolonged, arbitrary and unlawful detention.

Prosecutions were based on unreliable and untested confessions or guilty pleas, while defendants had a lack of access to lawyers and trials were rushed through.

Most of those on trial were acquitted due to lack of evidence or walked free because of time already served in custody. The majority appeared to be civilians caught up in the conflict.

Amnesty said Nigeria had failed to meet its obligations under international law to investigate and prosecute crimes as part of the ICC’s preliminary examination.

Further delays to a formal investigation “will allow further destruction and decay of evidence”, it added in the 74-page report. 

“It is in the interests of both the OTP and Nigeria to demonstrate that serious steps are being taken to cure Nigeria’s inability or unwillingness to bring perpetrators to justice,” it said. “Above all it is in the interest of victims.”
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The U.S. military says it has killed four members of the al-Shabab extremist group with a “self-defense airstrike” outside Somalia’s capital after partner forces were attacked.

The U.S. Africa Command statement says the airstrike occurred on Saturday near Basra, a community outside the capital, Mogadishu. The statement says no civilians were involved.

 

The U.S. military has carried out 39 airstrikes this year against the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab, Africa’s most active Islamic extremist group, which controls parts of rural southern and central Somalia and continues to stage deadly attacks in Mogadishu and other cities.

 

The U.S. airstrikes have picked up dramatically since President Donald Trump took office and approved expanded military operations in the Horn of Africa nation. Airstrikes also target a small presence of fighters linked to the Islamic State group.

 

 
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The International Telecommunication Union reports that for the first time in history, half of the global population is using the internet. A new report finds by the end of the year, 3.9 billion people worldwide will be online.

The report finds access to and use of information and communication technologies around the world is trending upwards. It notes most internet users are in developed countries, with more than 80 percent of their populations online. But it says internet use is steadily growing in developing countries, increasing from 7.7 percent in 2005 to 45.3 percent this year.

The International Telecommunication Union says Africa is the region with the strongest growth, where the percentage of people using the internet has increased from just over two percent in 2005 to nearly 25 percent in 2018.

The lowest growth rates, it says, are in Europe and the Americas, with the lowest usage found in the Asia-Pacific region.

In addition to data on internet usage, newly released statistics show mobile access to basic telecommunication services is becoming more predominant. ITU Senior Statistician, Esperanza Magpantay says access to higher speed mobile and fixed broadband also is growing.

“So, there is almost 96 percent of the population who are now covered by mobile population signal of which 90 percent are covered by 3G access. So, this is a high figure, and this helps explain why we have this 51 percent of the population now using the internet,” she said.

With the growth in mobile broadband, Magpantay says there has been an upsurge in the number of people using the internet through their mobile devices.

The ITU says countries that are hooked into the digital economy do better in their overall economic well-being and competitiveness. Unfortunately, it says the cost of accessing telecommunication networks remains too high and unaffordable for many.

It says prices must be brought down to make the digital economy a reality for the half the world’s people who do not, as yet, use the internet.

 

 

 
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Wrapping an arm around her stomach, the young woman hung her head and recounted the day in early November when she and a friend were bound, dragged into the bush and raped by four men with guns.

 

“My body hasn’t been the same since,” the 18-year-old said. The men attacked during an hours-long walk home to the South Sudan village of Nhialdiu. “I was crying and screaming but I was so far from the village that no one could hear me,” she told The Associated Press, which doesn’t identify survivors of sexual assault.

 

Shock and outrage followed when the medical charity Doctors Without Borders announced that 125 women and girls had been raped, whipped and clubbed over 10 days last month in a dramatic spike in sexual violence. “Horrific,” the United Nations secretary-general said. They were attacked as they made the long walk to a food distribution site in Bentiu, in Unity state.

 

In an exclusive look at the aftermath, the AP joined a U.N. peacekeeping patrol where the attacks occurred as humanitarians, rights groups and South Sudan’s government scrambled to find out more.

 

Rape has been used widely as a weapon in South Sudan. Even after a peace deal was signed in September to end a five-year civil war that killed nearly 400,000 people, humanitarians have warned of higher rates of sexual assault as growing numbers of desperate people try to reach aid. While some aid groups have quietly questioned whether all 125 people in the Doctors With Borders report were raped, they do not dispute that the problem has become grave.

 

The 18-year-old was not included in that report, and the real toll of sexual assault is not known.

 

Joining the U.N. patrol on Friday, the AP traveled the potholed road where the recent assaults took place. Shrouded by trees and elephant grass, some stretches provide cover for perpetrators to lurk.

 

Several local women said the violence is escalating.

 

Nyalgwon Mol Moon said she was held at gunpoint last month while two men in civilian clothes, their faces covered, stole her clothes, her shoes and the milk she meant to sell at market. Standing beside the road, pointing to her borrowed, oversized sneakers, she said she now tries to take alternative routes on her weekly walks to Bentiu.

 

She has no other choice. Food in Nhialdiu and nearby villages is scarce. Most people were unable to cultivate last season because of fighting and too much rain. Many rely on monthly aid from the U.N.’s World Food Program.

 

That means a walk of almost 40 kilometers (24 miles) to Bentiu town. Unable to carry the heavy rations back in one trip, most women leave some behind with relatives and make several journeys throughout the month.

 

Some said they make the 11-hour trek at least six times.

 

Alarmed by the sexual assaults, the World Food Program said it is prepared to bring distribution points closer to communities. The U.N. is now clearing the road from Bentiu to Nhialdiu of debris to make access easier.

 

No one has taken responsibility for the wave of assaults that the U.N. and African Union have condemned as “abhorrent” and “predatory.”

 

South Sudan’s government has acknowledged the assaults occurred in areas it controls, on the road between Nhialdiu and Bentiu and in surrounding villages. But it blames them on “unregulated youth” who fought alongside warring factions before the peace deal, Laraka Machar Turoal, deputy governor of Northern Liech state that was once part of Unity, told the AP.

 

Youth who were never officially integrated with armed groups have been left idle, guns in hand, to take what they want by force, Turoal said.

 

South Sudan’s government has called on all sides to demobilize the youth. It said it has deployed troops to areas in Unity state suspected of harboring criminals.

 

And yet the army in Nhialdiu has not detained anyone in the assaults and denies responsibility for finding the perpetrators, said John Dor, army commander for the area. He said they took place far from town, outside his jurisdiction.

 

But several local people said they knew of attacks in villages less than 15 kilometers from the army base. Some who were attacked at gunpoint said they believe the armed youth are affiliated with government troops. The government has done nothing so far to stop the violence, one woman explained.

 

The U.N., which has increased patrols, is pushing South Sudan’s government to take more responsibility. The U.N. Security Council in a statement on Saturday noted its willingness to impose sanctions on those who threaten the peace, including by sexual violence.

 

“They’re obliged to make sure everyone’s protected … it’s not enough just to sit in one place and not be involved,” said Paul Adejoh Ebikwo, the U.N. mission’s senior civil affairs officer in Bentiu.

 

Unity state was one of the hardest-hit areas in the civil war, and Bentiu has changed hands several times. Government and opposition forces remain at odds, even as factions across the country try to reconcile. A meeting on Thursday to build trust was canceled because the parties couldn’t agree on a place to meet, said the independent monitoring group charged with overseeing the peace deal’s implementation.

 

Meanwhile, many women and girls are terrified.

 

Cautiously peering through the trees, several hesitantly emerged from the bush, inching toward the side of the road.

 

“We’re walking here because we’re scared of coming on the main path,” said Nyachieng Gatman. Three days ago, she said, she met a breast-feeding mother and young girl who had been raped in a nearby town.

 

Standing beside her, 11-year Anchankual Dood lowered her heavy bag of grain and gulped from a bottle of water.

 

“It’s a long distance to go and come from Bentiu,” the girl said. “But we do it because we need food and because we’re suffering.”
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The International Monetary Fund says it has approved a three-year loan of about $3.7 billion for Angola, which seeks to diversify its economy and curb corruption after a new president took office last year.

The IMF said Friday that the loan aims to help the southern African country restructure state-owned enterprises and take other measures to improve economic governance.

 

Angola had experienced a surge in growth because of oil exports under former president Jose Eduardo dos Santos, but poverty and cronyism persisted. A fall in commodity prices years ago tipped the Angolan economy into crisis and showed that it was too reliant on oil.  

 

President Joao Lourenco, who succeeded dos Santos, has distanced his administration from his former boss, pledging to fight corruption and meeting with government critics.
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