A coalition of Sudanese women’s rights groups are demanding that women be appointed to posts at all levels of government, including governorships, as stipulated in the transitional constitution.The more than 10 political and civil society women’s groups say women played a major role in the Sudanese revolution that ousted longtime ruler Omar al-Bashir last year and should be recognized.Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok should uphold his promise to appoint a significant number of women to posts in all political and executive structures of government, said coalition member Semya Ali Is’haaq at a news conference Wednesday in Khartoum.“We have observed a significant decline in these gains beginning with the constitutional document itself, which enshrines the participation of women by 40 percent in the national legislative council. We regard this as a clear injustice and a violation to our rights,” Is’haaq told VOA’s South Sudan in Focus.Chapter 7, Article 23, Subarticle 2 of the constitution states that 40 percent of all of Sudan’s council seats be given to women.Sudan Pledges to Form Government Based on Human Rights Principles Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to establish bureau to help Sudan move through a democratic transition Last week, Sudan Information Minister Faisal Mohammed Saleh said the nomination of 13 state governors had been completed but talks continued about how many governors should be women. Certain political forces have reservations about appointing female governors, according to Saleh.Many Sudanese women are qualified to be governors, said women’s coalition member Nazik Mahmood Abbas.“If governors are appointed based on competencies … we are sure that our women are able to compete in these various positions. To our dismay, what we are hearing is not in accordance with the agreement,” Abbas told South Sudan in Focus.Women are completely capable of holding any executive posts in the country, including governor, said Nahid Jabrallah, head of the Sudanese NGO Sima, which advocates for women’s rights.Jabrallah said Sudanese women rose up during the revolution to oust Bashir after suffering for decades under his rule, during which strict conservative Islamic rules were enforced.“We are capable of defending our rights as we have been capable of facing torture, rape, arbitrary detention and starvation,” Jabrallah told South Sudan in Focus. “Our women, who sell tea on the streets and who are suffering under the sun to earn a living, are capable of defending these rights. Our women have proved that they can work hand in hand with men” in all fields.Sudanese Women Welcome Freedom to Travel Abroad with Children Divorced mother Manaya Hamid celebrates change in lawPolitical and religious leaders who have been making observations about women assuming powerful positions “are the same people who have been praising and supporting women during the revolution period,” said Jabrallha, adding, “We will not allow anyone to use the politics of the previous regime to misuse us as decoration to paint their images.”In October last year, the head of Sudan’s Sovereign Council, General Abdulfatah Al Burhan, appointed Neimat Abdallah Mohammed Khair as the country’s first female chief justice, a move celebrated by many Sudanese, particularly women.
 
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The World Health Organization is calling for an end to conflict in Africa so governments and health officials can focus on combating the spread of coronavirus.The continent has recorded more than 600,000 cases of the virus, with 14,000 deaths. “For at least three months, vulnerable communities have been experiencing social-economic difficulties exacerbated by COVID-19,” WHO’s Africa head, Matshindiso Moeti, said Thursday in a media briefing held over Zoom. “It is in the interest of peace, international security, and equity that all countries and partners do more for the civilians affected by the violent conflict. I’ll call for all parties to the conflict to implement the U.N. Security Council resolution on COVID-19, focusing on our common enemy, the virus, and ceasing hostilities.” Several African countries such as Burkina Faso, Nigeria and Mali are coping with Islamist insurgencies, while others like South Sudan are dealing with inter-communal fighting.   FILE – A member of a medical team wearing a protective suit sanitizes cargo inside a plane at the airfield, to prevent the spread of the coronavirus disease, at the Juba International Airport in Juba, South Sudan, April 5, 2020.According the UNHCR, more than 1.5 million people have been displaced in the Sahel region this year, raising the total number of displaced across sub-Saharan Africa to 27 million.  The Central Africa Republic has hosted more than 600,000 refugees. The country’s health minister, Pierre Somse, said Thursday the government is overwhelmed by the health and humanitarian situation, but is still reaching out to the most vulnerable to help them during the pandemic.    “Half of the people are in a humanitarian situation, one-third in displaced camps,” he said. “What we have done is to focus [on] looking for those who are at high risk and making sure they are detected early enough and brought to the hospital in order to avoid them having complications.” Adhieu Achuil Dhieu, a South Sudanese refugee living in the Dadaab camp in northeastern Kenya, said the coronavirus has made life more difficult.  “The businesses have declined because of inflation. For example, we used to buy 1 kilogram of beans for 100 shillings. Today, it’s 200 shillings,” Dhieu said. “The other thing, social, physical contact, is not being observed because of limited space, housing space in the camps. For example, we have a shortage of shelters. Most of the youth are sharing rooms, which make it hard to obtain physical distance.” This week the United Nations will ask for more money to support developing countries suffering from COVID-19, in order to scale up access to essential services like health care, water and food for the poor. 
 
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Britain, Canada and the United States have accused Russia of trying to steal COVID-19 information from academic and pharmaceutical institutions.Britain’s National Cyber Security Center announced Thursday in coordination with the U.S. and Canada the attempts to steal vaccine and treatment research is being conducted by the hacking group APT29, which is said to be part of the Russian intelligence community.The NCSC said the hacking group, also known as Cozy Bear, is continuing its attacks with spear-phishing, custom malware and a variety of other tools and techniques.The U.S. and Britain said two months ago that networks of hackers were targeting organizations worldwide that were responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, but did not explicitly link the efforts to Russia.U.S. intelligence agencies widely suspect that Cozy Bear hacked Democratic Party computers before the 2016 election, with the intent of helping President Donald Trump win the election. 
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Officials in the southern Italian regional capital of Palermo said a record-setting rainstorm Wednesday caused flash flooding that turned streets into rivers and trapped motorists in their cars.Palermo’s mayor, Leoluca Orlando, told reporters the rainstorm – which the Italian news agency ANSA referred to as a “water bomb” – dropped as much rain in two hours as the Sicilian capital gets in a full year. Media reports say as much as one meter of rain hit the city. Residents posted video and pictures to social media showing submerged cars and streets that looked like raging rivers.Italian news agency ANSA reports firefighters worked all night searching for missing people in a flooded highway underpass. The intense rainfall sent streams of mud and water sweeping away cars and leaving them blocked in the underpass. Some drivers and passengers left their vehicles and swam to safety, but a witness reported seeing two people disappear in the roiling water. At dawn on Thursday, firefighter teams brought in pumps to drain the flooded area below the underpass.Initial reports said the two people had died in the floods, but Palermo police and firefighters said Thursday they could not confirm the deaths.
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For the second time this week, the U.S. Supreme Court has tossed out a lower court injunction and cleared the way for the federal government to execute an inmate.In a series of orders early Thursday, the court vacated the injunction that stopped Wednesday’s planned execution of Wesley Ira Purkey.The lower court judge said Purkey should get a hearing examining his lawyer’s arguments that he is currently incompetent to be executed because he does not understand it is punishment for his capital crime, that he has a history of mental illness, and that dementia has caused his mental health to decline.The Supreme Court’s conservative majority did not issue a written opinion along with the order setting aside the injunction, nor with another order denying Purkey’s request for the court to consider a separate claim that his defense at the trial where he was initially sentenced to death was ineffective.In a dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan, said the government in its filings had not shown justification for vacating the injunction.“Although the Government and the family members of the victim have a legitimate interest in punishing the guilty, that interest must be measured against Purkey’s and the public’s interest in ensuring that such punishment comports with the Constitution,” Sotomayor wrote. “At the same time, proceeding with Purkey’s execution now, despite the grave questions and factual findings regarding his mental competency, casts a shroud of constitutional doubt over the most irrevocable of injuries.”Purkey was sentenced to death for killing and dismembering a teenager in the state of Missouri in 1998.  He also pleaded guilty to the later killing of an 80-year-old woman.On Tuesday, a Supreme Court ruling dismissed concerns about the use of the drug pentobarbital in the scheduled executions of four people, including Purkey, with their lawyers arguing it could cause a type of respiratory distress with the sensation of drowning or suffocating. The result, the lawyers said, would be subjecting the men to unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment.Hours after the ruling, Daniel Lewis Lee became the first person the federal government executed since 2003.The third person involved in the legal challenges is Dustin Lee Honken, who is set to be put to death Friday.The Supreme Court issued an order early Thursday dismissing a request from a Roman Catholic priest to delay Honken’s execution due to concerns about the potential for the priest to contract the coronavirus. Lawyers said the priest should not have to choose between fulfilling his religious duties and subjecting himself to grave health risks.The fourth scheduled federal execution is set for August 28, when Keith Dwayne Nelson is scheduled to be put to death.Before Tuesday, the federal government had executed three people since reinstating the death penalty in 1988.
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