Botswana has defended the International Criminal Court, even as some of its African Union peers including Uganda and Kenya threaten to revoke their membership of the tribunal they accuse of being biased against Africans.

“The best defense is not to abuse, stick to the law,” Botswana’s Vice President Mokgweetsi Masisi said in a July 17 interview at an African Union summit in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali. “We would never allow our president to get away with murder. We are not being prescriptive; we are just asking that we up the game.”

All 23 cases brought before the Hague-based court have been against Africans — a record that has angered a number of the continent’s leaders who are reconsidering their membership. Although the 60 nations that have ratified the Rome Statute which established the ICC are obligated to honor its warrants, at least six African members have declined to arrest visiting Sudanese President Umar al-Bashir, who’s been indicted by the court on genocide and other charges.

Botswana, which has been led by President Ian Khama’s Botswana Democratic Party since independence from the UK in 1966, was ranked the third-best governed country in Africa by a foundation started by Sudanese billionaire Mo Ibrahim. Unlike several of its African peers that have squandered their mineral wealth, the diamond-rich nation has poured money into education, AIDS drugs and infrastructure.

“Our entrenched democratic dispensation instructs us that there are limits to power and we respect that,” said Masisi, who is expected to succeed Khama when his term ends in April 2018. “The test to limits to power is through open, free and fair elections. When there is strife or discomfort it affects your neighbors and the region, it affects trade, it affects prosperity and the potential for it.”

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South Sudanese journalist Alfred Taban has been arrested after he published a column calling on President Salva Kiir and Vice-President Riek Machar to step down from power for failing to improve the security situation in the capital Juba.

Taban, editor-in-chief of the independent English-language daily Juba Monitor, has been held without charge since July 16, according to colleagues and media reports.

Anna Nimiriano, the paper’s editorial director who was summoned to security headquarters on July 16 alongside Taban, told reporters that members of the National Security Service said that the column Taban published the previous day was incitement.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Taban’s column came in the wake of unrest, where dozens of people were killed and thousands have been uprooted from their homes in a renewed round of fighting between supporters of Kiir and Machar on July 11. The power struggle between the president and vice-president set off a civil war in 2013. After a peace deal was signed in December 2015, Machar recently returned to his role.
“We urge South Sudanese authorities to release Alfred Taban immediately and allow the Juba Monitor to publish freely,” said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Angela Quintal, adding: “It is unacceptable that Taban is in jail for publishing his view of current events, which is the media’s role.”
Earlier, Nimiriano said that officials from the National Security Service called her early on July 16 to say they were looking for both her and Taban. When the two editors arrived at the security service headquarters in Juba, Taban was immediately detained, Nimiriano told the Sudan Tribune. Nimiriano said she was neither questioned nor held, but was asked to leave without her colleague.
Authorities also ordered editors at the paper to stop publishing, according to media reports. CPJ was unable to determine the details of the order forcing Juba Monitor to cease publishing. The newspaper announced on its website that it would resume publication tomorrow, but provided no further details.
The CPJ has previously reported on efforts by the government in South Sudan to muzzle the press this year, including the beating and arrest of journalists and the closure of several newspapers.

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Former Olympic champion Haile Gebrselassie has said millions of Ethiopians in the grip of a severe hunger crisis are at risk of being forgotten by the international community and urgently need more aid to help them recover.

Despite recent rains, Ethiopia is still reeling from its worst drought in 50 years, and 10.2 million people – one-tenth of the population – need food aid, according to the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP).

“There’s a huge emergency here in Ethiopia and the world is at risk of forgetting what’s happening,” the long-distance runner said in a statement.

The Ethiopian world champion and two-time Olympic gold medalist joined international aid agency ActionAid in calling for more funds to tackle the food crisis.

The country’s economy has grown rapidly for more than a decade, helping the government put in place agriculture, health and social programs to build resilience against lean periods.

But the scale of this drought, caused by the El Nino weather phenomenon, is even overwhelming those measures.

“The world needs to take action now and provide funds to avert widespread suffering, death and disease,” said Gebrselassie.

The rains, which began in March, have brought some respite to the Horn of Africa nation.

Families ate more vegetables and milk and skipped fewer meals in May and June compared with previous months, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.

Across Africa, Asia and the Americas, some 60 million people in 22 countries have been affected by El Nino, according to OCHA.

The agency said in June it needed another $2.5 billion in funding to help them.

El Nino was declared over in May but its damaging effects will be felt for months, experts say.

Thomson Reuters Foundation

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Sudanese parliament on Monday has approved an agricultural bill allowing Saudi Arabia to reform and cultivate one million feddans of land in eastern Sudan for 99 years.

Last month, Sudan’s National Assembly unanimously approved a legal framework agreement that gives Saudi Arabia the right to cultivate lands in Upper Atbara and Setait Dam project for 99 years.

Upper Atbara and Setait Dam, which is funded by Gulf financial institutions, aims to generate 320 Megawatts of power and provides irrigation water sufficient to cultivate one million feddans. The dam project would be inaugurated by early next year.

The feddan is a unit of area equivalent to 1.038 acres (0.42 ha).

According to the bill approved on Monday, Saudi Arabia would invest $10 billion in the first 10-year phase to build the infrastructure before moving to the next phase which would involve land reformation.

The bill provides that the Sudanese side must offer one million feddans of arable land in Upper Atbara and Setait and should give the Saudi side the right to use the dam’s water to irrigate the land according to the cropping pattern stated in the project study besides implementing laws and regulations to ensure the success of the project.

On the other hand, the bill requires the Saudi side to reform, develop, and grow the project’s land according to the appropriate mechanism.

It further provides that the two sides should agree on a timeframe to carry out the various phases of the project besides the funding and development processes.

While deliberating on the agreement last month, some MPs objected to the length of time for the project. They called to reduce it to 20-25 years and suggested to renegotiate the contract at the end of its term.

Also, the lawmakers criticized a clause providing to keep confidential the agreement and its terms, saying this confidentiality could jeopardize the rights of the landlords.

In November 2015, Sudan and Saudi Arabia signed in Riyadh four agreements that include a framework agreement to fund Kajabr, al- Sharik and Dal dams in northern Sudan and an agreement to cultivate one million feddans in Upper Atbara and Setait.

Sudan had previously expected that Saudi investments in the country will rise to $15 billion in 2016 compared to $11 billion in 2015.

Last April, the oil-dependent Kingdom revealed a long-term plan to transform itself into a diversified economy, with non-oil government revenues projected to increase six-fold by 2030.

Sudan’s foreign relations have witnessed a remarkable shift since last fall particularly in its rapprochement with the Arab Gulf states following years of chilly ties.

The east African nation participates with over 850 troops in the Saudi-led ‘Decisive Storm’ against the Iranian-allied Houthi militants in Yemen.

The Sudanese military participation in the military campaign in Yemen and the Islamic alliance reconciled Bashir’s regime with the Saudi government, and marked the divorce with Iran.

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South Sudan government under the leadership of President Salva Kiir has described as “unfortunate” the position taken by the neighbouring Kenyan President, Uhuru Kenyatta, and his government, in supporting proposed deployment of additional regional troops to join the current United Nations peacekeeping forces to help provide security for the capital, Juba, and restore peace in the country.

On the other hand, the opposition faction of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM-IO) under the leadership of the First Vice President, Riek Machar, has welcomed the Kenyan President’s stance, saying it is for the good of the people of South Sudan and for regional peace and security.

President Kenyatta in his recent meeting with the United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, said the region, including his own country, should urgently provide more troops to the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) to provide protection of leaderships and vulnerable citizens in South Sudan in the wake of violence last week in Juba in which hundreds of people were killed.

President Kenyatta said his country and those in the region have a collective responsibility to restore peace and security in South Sudan, saying the country has fallen down again.

“We have all watched events in South Sudan with sorrow. Our youngest brother has fallen, yet again, into division and violence. It is our responsibility – all of us, but especially those in the region – to restore peace, and to restore it durably,” said President Kenyatta according to the statement from his office.

“Let me be clear: those of us in the region have primary responsibility for peace and security here. But that responsibility is also collective – all of us must think carefully, and work hard, in the cause of peace,” he added.

The Kenyan leader also urged the UN Security Council to modify the mandate of UNMISS “so that it can separate those who have turned to violence, so that it can protect the infrastructure South Sudan has built, and so that it can enforce the peace. That is what collective responsibility means.”

The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the African Union (AU) and the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) have all agree to send additional troops to Juba to restore peace.

The IGAD Executive Secretary, Mahboub Maalim, proposed a three-fold approach to addressing the South Sudan crisis.

“First, impose an immediate arms embargo on South Sudan. Second, enact additional targeted sanctions on leaders and commanders working to unravel the peace process. Third, fortify the UN Mission in South Sudan, UNMISS,” the IGAD Executive Secretary said.

The top regional official said that the chiefs of staff from five countries comprising Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan and Uganda have proposed reinforcement of UNMISS troops from the region under the same UNMISS mandate.

But South Sudan’s minister of cabinet affairs, Martin Elia Lomuro, said that it was unfortunate that President Uhuru Kenyatta and his government decided to support deployment of additional foreign troops to South Sudan.

“That proposal will not work, because a problem is not solved by another problem and this thinking is unfortunate. Kenyan government should have done better than this,” said Martin Elia Lomuro.

Minister Lomuro, an ally to President Salva Kiir, echoed his president’s earlier comments that he would not allow even a ‘single soldier’ to deploy in South Sudan.

The opposition faction of the SPLM-IO says President Kiir has failed to control his forces or protect the people of South Sudan, coupled with his reluctance to fully implement the peace agreement which he signed in August last year.

The regional troops from Kenya, Ethiopia and Rwanda are expected to be deployed to Juba soon to take control of essential infrastructures including Juba International Airport.

The troops are expected to be given a stronger mandate including to use force against any party that will be initiating violence, threatening civilians or obstructing the implementation of the peace agreement.

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