WHAT A SOLUTION?

Sudanese police disperse protests as more activists arrested

September 29, 2013 (KHARTOUM) - Sudanese police dispersed Sunday protests in Khartoum and Port Sudan while the security service arrested a number of activists in different regions in a bid to quell protests that sparked across the country over subsidies cuts.

Activists told Sudan Tribune that National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) carried out a new wave of arrest since Sunday morning affecting activists in Wad Madani, Khartoum and Port Sudan.

They said seven were arrested in Al- Safia, Khartoum North and taken to unknown destination. According to the activists, Badreldin Abdel Bagui in Khartoum and Musab Kamal Abdellah in Port Sudan were arrested from their homes.

However protests were organised in the Red See capital where hundreds of people took to the street shouting anti-government slogans like the people want "the fall of the regime", "Freedom Freedom".

The protesters marched in the main streets of Port Sudan before to be dispersed by the anti-riot policemen who fired tear gas and rubber bullets.

Also in Khartoum the police used tear gas to disperse a protest organised by students of Sudan University near the Popular Market (Al-Souq Al-Shabbi). While thousands demonstrated in Khartoum Suburb of Burri following the end of a memorial ceremony for Salah Sanhoori, a pharmacist two days ago by the security agents.

In Omdurman, small protests were also organised in the evening in Al-Mouradai and Banat areas.

But the interior ministry said the situation was calm and announced that minister Ibrahim Mahmoud and Khartoum governor Abdel Rahman Al-Khidir would hold a press conference on Monday afternoon.

Opposition leaders remain silent as their houses are under surveillance by the security service. Also journalists prevented from reaching them.

Khartoum transportation company announced the resumption of its activities in the capital since Sunday, indicating that 11 buses were burnt and 118 others were damaged during the anti-austerity protests.

The director of the company Osman El-Hassan stated that the price of transportation tickets will remain the same unaffected by the rise of fuel prices.

(ST)

The coin of money have got two faces HE KEPT SILANCE WHEN DARFURIANS HAD BEEN KILLED.

Dismissal of key NCP figure from party "imminent" over memo to Sudanese president: report

September 29, 2013 (KHARTOUM) - The ruling National Congress Party (NCP) is poised to fire former head of its parliamentary caucus Ghazi Salah al-Deen al-Attabani over a memo he sponsored along with 30 others that was sent to president Omer Hassan al-Bashir yesterday, according to a newspaper report.

The signatories included party officials, lawmakers, retired military officers and Islamists who decried the government’s violent crackdown on protestors which led to 33 deaths according to official figures contrary to activists and opposition who put the death toll in the 100’s.

They also urged the government to reverse its decision to lift fuel subsidies which led to the week-long riots and to prosecute those behind the killings and asserted that the demonstrators were not allowed to "peacefully express their views in line with the constitution".

The petition emphasized that NCP sections did not agree with the move which government asserted was necessary to prevent an economic collapse.

The decision to lift subsidies led to almost doubling the prices of gasoline and diesel which is widely expected to immediately cause a domino effect of raising prices of other goods and services.

Al-Attabani, who was Bashir’s adviser, said that the 1989 coup led by the president came with the pledge of implementing the Islamic Shar’ia laws which prohibits shedding blood and calls for achieving justice among the subjects of the state and securing basic rights including the freedom of belief and expression.

"But the package of measures introduced by the government and the subsequent suppression of opponents is far from compassion, justice and the realization of the right to believe and peaceful expression," the letter reads.

"The legitimacy of your rule has never been at stake like it is today" they said in their letter to Bashir.

But on Sunday, Qays Ahmed al-Mustafa, spokesperson for the NCP said that Bashir has received no such petition and called for ignoring rumors.

A copy of the memo was published on al-Attabani’s Facebook page and no denial was made on his part of co-sponsoring it.

Another NCP leading figure Hassabo Abdulrahman warned that the 31 signatories will be held accountable but added some of those whose names appeared on the memo denied endorsing it.

On Monday, the al-Khartoum daily newspaper quoted informed source as saying that al-Attabani will soon be dismissed from the party.

Al-Attabani is widely known to be a leading figure in the reformist faction within the NCP and people close to him say that he is privately fiercely critical of the ruling party and its policies.

He has fought silent battles to initiate structural changes in the NCP and the underlying Islamist Movement (IM) but the party’s old guard has effectively shot down all his initiatives.

Last July he publicly released his vision of reform he is seeking in the government and state.

Al-Attabani was removed from his post as NCP majority leader in the national assembly which many said was in response to his assertions that Bashir is constitutionally barred from running again for presidency.

But many reformists in the NCP and IM are critical of Al-Attabani saying that he is unwilling to take a firm and unequivocal stance against the government in his push for change and is only talking of change in very general terms.

(ST)

Sufferings of the Sudanese.

Sudanese capital witnesses protests for the fifth day amid reports of more deaths

September 27, 2013 (KHARTOUM) - The Sudanese capital today saw continued demonstrations by anti-government protestors following Friday prayers as public anger grew over the growing death toll in the unrest that came in the wake of Khartoum’s decision to cut fuel subsidies.

Sudan Tribune reporters said that the twin capital city of Omdurman witnessed the fiercest clashes between thousands of demonstrators chanting "Freedom! Freedom!" and security forces which used live ammunition and tear gas to disperse protestors.

Other areas of Khartoum also saw protests but at a lesser scale than Omdurman.

In Kalakla area, south of Khartoum, eyewitnesses said that some police units joined protestors. East of Kalakla the police had deployed in large numbers near mosques in anticipation of protests following Friday prayers. However, they did not intervene when people took the streets and just monitored them.

Sudan Tribune reporters could only ascertain 6 deaths in today’s protests but the Turkish Anadolu news agency put the death toll at 9.

Authorities downplayed today’s protests saying that calm has mostly returned to the streets despite some demonstrations that was swiftly broken up.

The police in a statement accused an "unknown party" of firing bullets at protestors leading to the death of 4.

It urged citizens to ignore rumors and incitement and avoid taking part in these protests.

According to official figures, 31 people were killed so far in this week’s riots including policemen with hundreds of injuries.

In Burri area of Khartoum, a funeral is planned on Saturday morning for one of the dead protestors named Salah al-Sanhoori was reportedly shot with a bullet to his chest.

Speaking earlier today in a radio talk show, interior minister Ibrahim Mahmoud disclosed that the police arrested more than 600 people during protests, adding that 100 individuals are investigated and they will appear before the courts next week.

He confirmed the burning some public establishments, private vehicles and cars in the capital adding they deployed policemen to protect the 220 fuel stations in Khartoum.

He went further to say he does not rule out possible involvement of rebel groups in the "acts of sabotage".

US & UN CONDEMNS VIOLENCE

The US on Friday issued a condemnation of the "brutal crackdown" on protestors and " excessive use of force against civilians".

"Such a heavy-handed approach by Sudanese security forces is disproportionate, deeply concerning, and risks escalation of the unrest" the US State department said.

"The United States condemns violence by government forces and protesters, and urges restraint on both sides. We also call on the Government of Sudan to respect the universal rights of its citizens, including the freedoms of speech, assembly, and peaceful protest" the statement reads.

The statement also expressed alarm over crackdown on civil society activists, media outlets and restricted access to the internet and cell phone networks.

"We urge the Government of Sudan to provide the political space necessary for a meaningful dialogue with the Sudanese people about the political and economic challenges facing their country".

In Geneva the spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Cécile Pouilly, on Friday issued a statement expressing concern following reports about excessive use of force against peaceful protesters .

"We are deeply concerned about reports that a significant number of people have been killed during the demonstrations taking place across Sudan since Monday", Pouilly said.

The spokesperson called on the Sudanese authorities to "show utmost restraint" and to refrain from resorting to violence, stressing that "under international law, intentional lethal use of firearms can only be justified when strictly unavoidable and only in order to protect life".

She called on protesters to maintain the peaceful nature of their demonstrations.

"We also urge the authorities to respect the civil liberties of those protesting and, in particular, their right to assemble peacefully and express their views,” she further said.

MEDIA CRACKDOWN

Today, the security service closed the bureaus of UAE-based Al-Arabiya and Sky New Arabic Service television stations, accusing them of false reporting on this week’s events.

Al-Sudani and Al-Meghar Al-Siyasi newspapers were banned from publication for Saturday edition.

Diaa Al-Deen Bilal, editor in chief of Al-Sudani said he was notified of the temporary suspension but no reason was provided. He noted that the newspaper has not been able to publish since Thursday.

Bilal stressed that the decision prevents them from reaching their readership on top of the financial losses.

He slammed the Sudanese Journalists syndicate for playing a "zero role" in the protection of newspapers against the crackdown now or in the past.

Journalists of the independent newspaper Al-Sahafa also decided today to resign collectively from the daily to protest against the censorship imposed by the security service which prevents them from freely covering the recent protests across the country.

Since the beginning of the protests the security services prevented the local press from publishing reports about the demonstrations except from official sources.

The riots have also inflicted heavy damages to gas stations, public transportation buses and some police stations. This has created long queues at the few opening and operational gas stations.

The government has cut off the internet on Wednesday and part of Thursday. Yesterday Sudan TV carried a message that a cyber blackout will be imposed from 12 am for the next 48 hours without explanation. However, internet access was severed for only part of the day.

(ST)

Bashir and the women!!???

Gordon Time of government was the best!!!!

Sudan’s Women: You can beat us but you cannot break us

By Hala Alkarib

September 25, 2013 - For 25 years now, women in Sudan have been flogged publically. The current Sudanese regime’s ideology was clear from day one; terrorizing women which amounts to paralyzing a whole nation. Like all dogma in political Islam, the regime sat and agreed that the road to secure their position was through controlling women’s bodies, minds, existence and interaction in public. Their misogynistic ideology is based on women being evil, problematic and in need of being disciplined and controlled, and that women are both dangerous and the main instigator of immorality, equally responsible for all evil in society, hence the need to be told how to behave in public.

“It’s not enough to talk to them; we have to punish them and install fear in their minds because they are not intelligent and are spiritually unfit. Their fathers and husbands are unable to control them”. This, is the story of article 152 of the Sudan criminal code- ‘Indecent and Immoral acts’ upon which Amira Osman, a Sudan activist, is currently undergoing trial, and under which thousands of invisible poor women have already been tried, sentenced and publically lashed.

Their laughter is seen as a crime, their presence provoking sin. This is how the regime vaguely drafted article 154 of the criminal code - ‘practicing prostitution.” The article defines a ‘place of prostitution’ as ‘any place designated for the meeting of men and women between whom there is no marital relationship, or kinship, in circumstances in which the exercise of sexual acts is probable to occur.’ Thousands of women are being charged under this article every day, inside their homes and work places. The breadth of interpretation allowing for effectively any public place in which a woman can be in the same room as an unrelated man can be tried under this article. The offence of possession of materials and displays contrary to public morality of article 153 has exposes thousands of young women to the madness of the public order police and deprived them of simply living normally and with dignity. The Sudan public order laws vagueness and elusiveness are deliberately allowing judges and the law enforcers to employ their own self - making interpretations of the law, hence the legal system turned into self serving machinery manipulated and twisted against women presence and participation in public .

Sara is a 25 year old artist and school teacher at a private school. Early this year, while on her way back home, she was stopped and picked on by the public order police. She was wearing trousers and a long sleeved T- shirt. She was sexually assaulted, verbally humiliated and then charged under article 152 for wearing trousers. According to her story, by the time they picked her up, there were 12 other women inside the vehicle all picked randomly by the public order police while walking on public roads, none of them had committed any crime, all were just walking and minding their own business. They detained them for 24 hours, confiscated their phones and in the morning, the judge called them by name and when her name was called out Sara says the Judge asked her “ what do you want 40 lashes or paying 1000 SDP” She said she only had 10 pounds, then he yelled “40 lashes “ and the soldier grabbed her.

They took her to the yard inside the detention, made her sit on the sand floor and they started whipping her. “After 10 extremely painful lashes she said, I was numbed and I could only hear the mocking and the laughter of the soldiers standing around and asking the flogger to beat harder.

44 year old Halima brews alcohol locally and sells it to men from all over. She is the breadwinner of her family of 6 children and 2 elderly parents all waiting for her to take care of them. She said she has been flogged and jailed many times. “Every time they come they take away the alcohol, re-sell it to consumers or they drink it and beat me for making it.

Amena, 56 years old, sells tea next to a private hospital. She says “they kept taking my kettle and cups all the time, sometimes they flog me, or if I have some money I give them. These days I found a place next to the graveyard to sell my tea. I still get customers but the police hardly come close to me I think the dead in our country are more powerful than the living.”

The tale of these women reflects more or less how millions of Sudan women living .

Hundreds of women flocked to court to attend Amira Osman’s trial a Sudan activist who was charged under Article 152 for not covering her hair with a scarf, however it was postponed until 4th November 2013. These women will not give up their humanity and dignity despite the wipe on their heads.

The battle against Sudan’s Public Oder Regime, infused within the criminal code of the country, has been going on for years across. The POR has been utilized to repress women compromising their livelihoods and impoverishing them, and limiting their participation in public life, sport, cultural activities and mobility as well as it being deployed to limits women’s political participation. The Sudanese Discriminatory laws and the POR are affecting communities for generations to come by imposing the subordination of women in the mindset of the younger generation and hence taking away any potential for progress and peace.

The writer is the Director of the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA) a Horn of Africa based women coalition. For more information on Sudan POR please go to: http://www.sihanet.org/content/beyond-trousers

Sudanese women revolt.

Sudan’s Women: You can beat us but you cannot break us

By Hala Alkarib

September 25, 2013 - For 25 years now, women in Sudan have been flogged publically. The current Sudanese regime’s ideology was clear from day one; terrorizing women which amounts to paralyzing a whole nation. Like all dogma in political Islam, the regime sat and agreed that the road to secure their position was through controlling women’s bodies, minds, existence and interaction in public. Their misogynistic ideology is based on women being evil, problematic and in need of being disciplined and controlled, and that women are both dangerous and the main instigator of immorality, equally responsible for all evil in society, hence the need to be told how to behave in public.

“It’s not enough to talk to them; we have to punish them and install fear in their minds because they are not intelligent and are spiritually unfit. Their fathers and husbands are unable to control them”. This, is the story of article 152 of the Sudan criminal code- ‘Indecent and Immoral acts’ upon which Amira Osman, a Sudan activist, is currently undergoing trial, and under which thousands of invisible poor women have already been tried, sentenced and publically lashed.

Their laughter is seen as a crime, their presence provoking sin. This is how the regime vaguely drafted article 154 of the criminal code - ‘practicing prostitution.” The article defines a ‘place of prostitution’ as ‘any place designated for the meeting of men and women between whom there is no marital relationship, or kinship, in circumstances in which the exercise of sexual acts is probable to occur.’ Thousands of women are being charged under this article every day, inside their homes and work places. The breadth of interpretation allowing for effectively any public place in which a woman can be in the same room as an unrelated man can be tried under this article. The offence of possession of materials and displays contrary to public morality of article 153 has exposes thousands of young women to the madness of the public order police and deprived them of simply living normally and with dignity. The Sudan public order laws vagueness and elusiveness are deliberately allowing judges and the law enforcers to employ their own self - making interpretations of the law, hence the legal system turned into self serving machinery manipulated and twisted against women presence and participation in public .

Sara is a 25 year old artist and school teacher at a private school. Early this year, while on her way back home, she was stopped and picked on by the public order police. She was wearing trousers and a long sleeved T- shirt. She was sexually assaulted, verbally humiliated and then charged under article 152 for wearing trousers. According to her story, by the time they picked her up, there were 12 other women inside the vehicle all picked randomly by the public order police while walking on public roads, none of them had committed any crime, all were just walking and minding their own business. They detained them for 24 hours, confiscated their phones and in the morning, the judge called them by name and when her name was called out Sara says the Judge asked her “ what do you want 40 lashes or paying 1000 SDP” She said she only had 10 pounds, then he yelled “40 lashes “ and the soldier grabbed her.

They took her to the yard inside the detention, made her sit on the sand floor and they started whipping her. “After 10 extremely painful lashes she said, I was numbed and I could only hear the mocking and the laughter of the soldiers standing around and asking the flogger to beat harder.

44 year old Halima brews alcohol locally and sells it to men from all over. She is the breadwinner of her family of 6 children and 2 elderly parents all waiting for her to take care of them. She said she has been flogged and jailed many times. “Every time they come they take away the alcohol, re-sell it to consumers or they drink it and beat me for making it.

Amena, 56 years old, sells tea next to a private hospital. She says “they kept taking my kettle and cups all the time, sometimes they flog me, or if I have some money I give them. These days I found a place next to the graveyard to sell my tea. I still get customers but the police hardly come close to me I think the dead in our country are more powerful than the living.”

The tale of these women reflects more or less how millions of Sudan women living .

Hundreds of women flocked to court to attend Amira Osman’s trial a Sudan activist who was charged under Article 152 for not covering her hair with a scarf, however it was postponed until 4th November 2013. These women will not give up their humanity and dignity despite the wipe on their heads.

The battle against Sudan’s Public Oder Regime, infused within the criminal code of the country, has been going on for years across. The POR has been utilized to repress women compromising their livelihoods and impoverishing them, and limiting their participation in public life, sport, cultural activities and mobility as well as it being deployed to limits women’s political participation. The Sudanese Discriminatory laws and the POR are affecting communities for generations to come by imposing the subordination of women in the mindset of the younger generation and hence taking away any potential for progress and peace.

The writer is the Director of the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA) a Horn of Africa based women coalition. For more information on Sudan POR please go to: http://www.sihanet.org/content/beyond-trousers

Bashir wanted to govern a cemetery!!

Print

Sudan’s Women: You can beat us but you cannot break us

By Hala Alkarib

September 25, 2013 - For 25 years now, women in Sudan have been flogged publically. The current Sudanese regime’s ideology was clear from day one; terrorizing women which amounts to paralyzing a whole nation. Like all dogma in political Islam, the regime sat and agreed that the road to secure their position was through controlling women’s bodies, minds, existence and interaction in public. Their misogynistic ideology is based on women being evil, problematic and in need of being disciplined and controlled, and that women are both dangerous and the main instigator of immorality, equally responsible for all evil in society, hence the need to be told how to behave in public.

“It’s not enough to talk to them; we have to punish them and install fear in their minds because they are not intelligent and are spiritually unfit. Their fathers and husbands are unable to control them”. This, is the story of article 152 of the Sudan criminal code- ‘Indecent and Immoral acts’ upon which Amira Osman, a Sudan activist, is currently undergoing trial, and under which thousands of invisible poor women have already been tried, sentenced and publically lashed.

Their laughter is seen as a crime, their presence provoking sin. This is how the regime vaguely drafted article 154 of the criminal code - ‘practicing prostitution.” The article defines a ‘place of prostitution’ as ‘any place designated for the meeting of men and women between whom there is no marital relationship, or kinship, in circumstances in which the exercise of sexual acts is probable to occur.’ Thousands of women are being charged under this article every day, inside their homes and work places. The breadth of interpretation allowing for effectively any public place in which a woman can be in the same room as an unrelated man can be tried under this article. The offence of possession of materials and displays contrary to public morality of article 153 has exposes thousands of young women to the madness of the public order police and deprived them of simply living normally and with dignity. The Sudan public order laws vagueness and elusiveness are deliberately allowing judges and the law enforcers to employ their own self - making interpretations of the law, hence the legal system turned into self serving machinery manipulated and twisted against women presence and participation in public .

Sara is a 25 year old artist and school teacher at a private school. Early this year, while on her way back home, she was stopped and picked on by the public order police. She was wearing trousers and a long sleeved T- shirt. She was sexually assaulted, verbally humiliated and then charged under article 152 for wearing trousers. According to her story, by the time they picked her up, there were 12 other women inside the vehicle all picked randomly by the public order police while walking on public roads, none of them had committed any crime, all were just walking and minding their own business. They detained them for 24 hours, confiscated their phones and in the morning, the judge called them by name and when her name was called out Sara says the Judge asked her “ what do you want 40 lashes or paying 1000 SDP” She said she only had 10 pounds, then he yelled “40 lashes “ and the soldier grabbed her.

They took her to the yard inside the detention, made her sit on the sand floor and they started whipping her. “After 10 extremely painful lashes she said, I was numbed and I could only hear the mocking and the laughter of the soldiers standing around and asking the flogger to beat harder.

44 year old Halima brews alcohol locally and sells it to men from all over. She is the breadwinner of her family of 6 children and 2 elderly parents all waiting for her to take care of them. She said she has been flogged and jailed many times. “Every time they come they take away the alcohol, re-sell it to consumers or they drink it and beat me for making it.

Amena, 56 years old, sells tea next to a private hospital. She says “they kept taking my kettle and cups all the time, sometimes they flog me, or if I have some money I give them. These days I found a place next to the graveyard to sell my tea. I still get customers but the police hardly come close to me I think the dead in our country are more powerful than the living.”

The tale of these women reflects more or less how millions of Sudan women living .

Hundreds of women flocked to court to attend Amira Osman’s trial a Sudan activist who was charged under Article 152 for not covering her hair with a scarf, however it was postponed until 4th November 2013. These women will not give up their humanity and dignity despite the wipe on their heads.

The battle against Sudan’s Public Oder Regime, infused within the criminal code of the country, has been going on for years across. The POR has been utilized to repress women compromising their livelihoods and impoverishing them, and limiting their participation in public life, sport, cultural activities and mobility as well as it being deployed to limits women’s political participation. The Sudanese Discriminatory laws and the POR are affecting communities for generations to come by imposing the subordination of women in the mindset of the younger generation and hence taking away any potential for progress and peace.

The writer is the Director of the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA) a Horn of Africa based women coalition. For more information on Sudan POR please go to: http://www.sihanet.org/content/beyond-trousers

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About Sudan women facing flogging on a day to day bases

Yes it is good investment.

Investment in Telecommunications Amount to over $8 Billion

Khartoum - The National Telecommunications Corporation (NTC) said that the amount of investments in the telecommunications sector has reached over $8.5 billion up until 2010 while the revenues of the sector in 2012 amounted to $4.8 billion.
Dr. Abdallah Sabir, Chadian minister of Post and Modern Technology, reviewed the level of telecommunications in Sudan through focusing on the major projects NTC is implementing and the infrastructure of telecommunications in Sudan as well as NTC's role in organizing the sector and its efforts to keep it up-to-date.
Following a meeting with the Chadian minister yesterday, the Sudanese minister of Science and Telecommunications Dr. Eisa Bushara gave a brief presentation on the development of the telecommunications and information sector in Sudan and the achievements that have been made.
The ministry of science and telecommunications is one of the main communications means between the two countries through fiber-optic cables, said the minister and called on the specialized companies in the two countries to expedite the implementation of the projects agreed upon.
He added that the visit represents an opportunity for the Chadian delegation to review the advanced telecommunications infrastructure in Sudan as well as that of the electronic government.
The minister went on to affirm that the next year will witness the implementation of real projects and programs in these fields between the two countries in a way that helps to dispose of the international complications and overlaps in the telecommunications field and also reinforce economic cooperation and social communication between the two brotherly countries and peoples.
The Chadian minister said the visit is to reinforce relations with Sudan in this field after having reinforced relations in other fields.
He said they are working to implement an executive program for the projects agreed upon, the most important of which is linking the two countries through a fiber-optic network before 2015.
Executives of the Chadian Company Sotel and Sudanese company Sudatel will discuss the ways in which to reinforce relations and implement mutual projects in the telecommunications field, said the Chadian minister.
He added: "We seek to render telecommunications between the citizens of both countries to be direct without any foreign parties."
It is worth noting that the Chadian delegation held a joint discussion session with NTC.

By Mohamed Omer El-Haj, 1 hour 44 minutes ago 

Revolution in khartoum.

Sudanese president will not fly to US for UN General assembly meetings

September 25, 2013 (KHARTOUM) - The Sudanese president Omer Hassan al-Bashir has cancelled his planned trip to the United States thus averting an awkward an embarrassing situation to the United Nations and the Obama administration alike.

For the first time since the International Criminal Court (ICC) charged him with war crimes and genocide four years ago in connection with Darfur conflict, Bashir announced that he is seeking to attend this year’s session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) meetings.

The US swiftly decried Bashir’s visa application but declined to say whether it will reject it. Under the 1947 UN headquarters request, the US is obligated to promptly issue visas for officials seeking to participate in UN events except under very limited circumstances related to national security.

But the US State department disclosed that the ICC arrest warrant will be considered when assessing Bashir’s visa request.

The US is not a member of the ICC and as such has no legal obligation to execute the warrants.

The ICC Pre-Trial chamber, in a decision issued last week, said it had ‘‘… invited the competent US authorities to arrest Omar Al Bashir and surrender him to the Court, in the event he enters their territory.’’

But Bashir at a press conference on Sunday night challenged the US to deny him entry or arrest him adding that his flight and lodging plans for New York have already been made.

"Those people [US government] we put them in a corner….We [can] go to the US and no one can do anything to us because there is no law in America that affords US authorities the right to take any action against me because it is not a member of the Rome Statute. "Attending the [UN] General Assembly [meeting] is our right" the Sudanese president told reporters.

However, a source told Sudan Tribune on Wednesday that as of today Bashir has yet to receive his US visa.

The Sudanese leader was placed on the speakers list for the UNGA session on Thursday but today the UN confirmed that Bashir will not be coming.

"Protocol has now confirmed that Sudan has cancelled President Bashir’s appearance at the General Assembly," a UN spokesman, Jerome Bernard, told Agence France Presse (AFP).

The spokesman said that Sudan’s Foreign Minister Ali Karti would now address the assembly on Friday.

“We understand he is not coming and we’re glad he’s not coming,” Christian Wenaweser, the U.N. ambassador of Liechtenstein and former president of the Assembly of ICC States Parties told the Washington Post.

“We think it would have been bad for the United Nations to host someone who has been issued and international arrest warrant" Wenaweser added.

The Washington Post said the cancellation followed several days of diplomatic efforts by the US to convince Bashir not to come to the United States, warning that it could not guarantee he would not be subject to arrest, according to U.N. based diplomats.

This week UN officials speaking to Foreign Policy Magazine expressed serious doubts about whether Bashir would actually venture in a high-risk trip across the Atlantic.

Since the arrest warrants. Bashir was forced to cancel appearances in several regional and international events. In some cases his plane was denied passage through airspace of Turkmenistan, Saudi Arabia and Tajikistan.

Last July, Bashir’s reportedly “fled” Nigeria where he was scheduled to take part in a regional summit over a case filed in a local court by the Nigeria Coalition on the International Criminal Court (NCICC) to compel the government to arrest him.

(ST)