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Snapshot on: Displacement
From Darfuri native Niemat Ahmadi’s June 17 statement to the UN Security Council (read the full statement here):
“As you know, the war has displaced well over 100,000 civilians just since the beginning of this year — that’s nearly a thousand a day — many for a second or third time, as the Secretary-General told the Council on April 4th of this year.”
“…As described in the just released report by SDC and the Enough Project, the failures [of the UN] so far emphasize the need for this Council to ensure that all the necessary resources required for UNAMID deployment be immediately provided and that sanctions be placed on those Sudanese government officials responsible for obstructing deployment. There is no good reason that UNAMID still does not have the helicopters, trucks, or personnel that it requires to have an even minimal impact on the ground.”
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Continue Reading: Snapshot on: Displacement
The Darfur Stoves Project
Every day, women living in the refugee camps of Darfur, Sudan must walk for up to seven hours outside the safety of the camps to collect firewood for cooking, putting them at risk for violent attacks. Now, researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have engineered a more efficient wood-burning stove, which is greatly reducing both the women’s need for firewood and the threats against them.
Watch the video below (from KQED QUEST). You can also read more about the Darfur Stoves Project here.
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Continue Reading: The Darfur Stoves Project
Remember the victories
The International Herald Tribune published a feature article last month about the growing impact of the Sudan divestment movement. Check out the article below:
Sudan divestment campaigns gain momentum
By Holly Hubbard Preston
Friday, May 23, 2008
A study to be released Tuesday provides statistical evidence of what many advocates of socially responsible investing have long asserted: Companies with links to regimes with questionable human rights practices make poor investments, financially as well as ethically.
Conducted with Bloomberg by the Genocide Intervention Network, a private group based in the United States, and its Sudan Divestment Task Force project, the study will most likely bolster the growing clamor among investors for socially responsible policies and investment vehicles.
The study examined actual and forecast returns on investment of 37 multinational companies affiliated with Sudan, the resource-rich country that has been accused of bankrolling a genocide campaign against its citizenry in its Darfur region that has resulted in an estimated 450,000 deaths and some 2.5 million displaced persons.
The Sudan-affiliated multinationals analyzed in the report range from large-capitalization companies like PetroChina and Indian Oil to mid-caps like Lundin Petroleum, based in Sweden, and micro-caps like Dietswell Engineering, based in France. Trade sanctions enacted in 1997 have prohibited all but a few U.S. companies from doing business in Sudan.
Adam Sterling, director of the Sudan project, said the companies were singled out because they participate in industries known to provide “substantial amounts of financial and logistical support to the Sudanese government at the expense of marginalized populations such as the Darfurians” through areas like oil, mining, power generation and military equipment. The project estimates that up to 70 percent of oil-related revenue generated in Sudan goes toward military expenditures.
The study used two key benchmarks to evaluate the peer groups: annualized historical return on investment for the past one, three and five years and forecast return for 2008 and 2009.
Continue Reading: Remember the victories
Tell the U.S. to make it a month for Darfur
[From American Jewish World Service:]
It’s been four years since the United Nations Security Council first addressed the violence in Darfur. But the devastation continues.
It’s time for the world to act.
Right now, the United States has the opportunity to demonstrate its leadership. During the month of June, the U.S. holds the presidency of the United Nations Security Council. This is a key opportunity for the U.S. to push for concrete international actions that will make a difference for the people of Darfur.
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Continue Reading: Tell the U.S. to make it a month for Darfur