The previous thread - "Crisis in Sudan - September 2007" is here:

• Crisis in Sudan - September 2007

Samantha Power on the Charlie Rose Show - October 16th 2007

• Conversation with Samantha Power

"Pitt, 43, and Jolie, 32, are teaming up for their first producing project, a new series for HBO, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

And it's a subject close to their hearts: The untitled drama will go behind the scenes of an international aid organization and follow workers who put their lives in danger to help others. The series is being written by Scott Burns, who co-wrote The Bourne Ultimatum and produced Al Gore's Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth."

Germany arrests 'spy for Sudan'

German authorities have arrested a Sudanese man on suspicion of spying on dissidents living abroad. The 39-year-old is alleged to have given the Sudanese government information about opposition activists and dissidents living in Germany.

The man, whose name has not been given, was arrested on Saturday in Berlin, prosecutors told the AP news agency.

Under German law, anyone found guilty of espionage faces a jail term of up to five - and occasionally 10 - years.

German prosecutors say the suspect had been spying on the activities of Sudanese government opponents abroad since 2005.

The suspect's response to the allegations against him are not known.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europ e/7058623.stm

This evening I listened again to Mamer tell his story of being a child running away from his village in Southern Sudan because the Govt. of Sudan was bombing it. He told about being separated from his family, walking to Ethiopia (at age 7) and eventually walking back through Sudan to settle in a refugee camp in Kakuma...all while my life was going on as usual. It is hard for me to imagine how I could have gone on with my life while someone that I care about so much was suffering so terribly...of course, I didn't know Mamer then, but I should have been paying better attention and doing something to help.

So I was thinking about the upcoming Holidays...is there something that we should be doing during this time to keep people focused on Darfur and the implementation of the CPA...something that naturally ties in with the Holidays?

I think that two of the most valuable things that can be done, that will truly make a difference for Sudan, are easily dismissed as old-fashioned and low-profile. They are from the "Ten things you can do to stop genocide." link in the first post of this thread:

Write/Call/Visit Your Elected Officials Tell your elected officials that you are a concerned voter who believes that the U.S. should do all that it can to end the genocide in Darfur. Learn if your members of Congress have “made the grade”. GI-Net's Darfur Scorecard grades elected officials on their efforts to end the genocide. Ask your legislators to co-sponsor and vote in favor of pending Darfur legislation. Urge them to take a stronger stance in the fight against genocide. Use the information available on the Darfur Scorecard, and the legislative advocacy tool kit when you speak with your elected officials.

Write to Your Local Newspaper Help raise awareness in your community. Write a letter to the editor of your local paper about the genocide in Sudan, illustrate your concerns, and challenge others to take action. Learn more about how to write a letter.

For those of you who have done this, what has been the response? I got vague letters from my Senators and US Representative.

Yeah - I think they typically send out a form letter in response but it obviously does make a difference.

I guess I was thinking something along the lines of all the money that is spent during the Holidays -- if there was a way to direct some of that towards helping the people in Sudan.

Check out interview for Darfur Now

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u rKOYd3cfdU

Darfur's Divided Rebellion

Shane Bauer

http://www.thenation.com/doc/200 71112/bauer

http://www.thestar.com

Will Olympic torch light way to changes in China ? TheStar.com - comment - Will Olympic torch light way to changes in China?

October 21, 2007

Jeremy Kinsman

When Toronto was bidding to host the 2008 Olympic Games, the mayor of Rome gave the bid team some advice, having just lost Rome 's bid to host in 2004 to a sentimentally attractive campaign by Athens . According to Francesco Rutelli, the IOC veers between safe "technical" bids and "political" bids representing a more daring "idea."

Toronto's campaign turned out sadly underwhelming and embarrassed by the city's goofy mayor, but wariness persisted that the still semi-totalitarian Chinese regime might damage the Games.

Still, the bigger and more interesting question was its opposite: What could hosting the Games do to the Chinese regime? Nine months from the event, it is apparent that the optimists may have had it right. The responsibility of hosting the world is having a positive effect on Chinese policy. But will it last past next summer?

The question is really important because American influence in the world is in free-fall. The next administration will recover some of the respect and moral authority squandered over Iraq and associated activities, but other major countries must still pick up the slack that has fallen from American hands. However much critics may decry the effectiveness of the UN Security Council, its permanent members are the ones who count the most, and none more than new economic giant China .

With a vast population, long history and semi-throwback hybrid social model, China sees the world by its own lights. Attachment to the principle of non-interference in the sovereign affairs of states may seem retrograde to Canadian believers in the international community's "responsibility to protect." Yet, it is part of a strong belief system of a country sensitive to a history of outside meddling. But unfortunately, rogue regimes determined to get away with doing whatever they want inside their own borders – such as North Korea , Sudan , Zimbabwe and Burma – have counted on Chinese principles for support.

Until now.

It is too soon to say that the hermit state of North Korea is about to join the world community, but signs are apparent of progress in reaching agreement on ending their quest for nuclear weapons and possibly even to start opening up this locked-down society. An able American diplomat, Christopher Hill, has been beating his head against North Korea 's door for years, but only recently did China step in and take more responsibility, including hosting six-power talks that really meant something. The results are reassuring.

In Sudan , strongman Omar al-Bashir has been defying the world community over his wilful stomping on Darfuris, confident that the Chinese, who have been developing energy sources in Sudan , would veto any intervention from the UN. But in the past year, the Chinese have been quietly telling al-Bashir to get a more acceptable act together. Much publicity has been given to Darfur rights advocate Mia Farrow's public warning to Steven Spielberg that he had better rethink his contract to produce the Beijing Games Opening Ceremonies next summer unless his Chinese partners rethink and restate their humanitarian and political responsibilities in Sudan .

Chinese leaders don't normally respond well to public campaigns to vilify them. As one China expert told me when Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced his good intention to get a meeting with the Chinese president to give him what-for over the jailing of a dual Canadian-Chinese Uighur separatist, "He pretty well guaranteed he wouldn't get the meeting and the activist would get a very long sentence."

But the issue of the Games is a trump card they can't ignore.

The Chinese are also apparently repelled by the crudeness of the repugnant regime in Burma . Burma is more than a behavioural eyesore on China 's border. It is a potentially destabilizing situation and the more alert Chinese can see that fat dictator generals who order the shooting of monks are the problem, not the solution.

True, the Chinese have resource interests there, and true, less than 20 years ago they wantonly shot demonstrators at Tiananmen. But the Chinese regime today is not 1989's, and younger political cadres are reportedly arguing that tomorrow's leadership must be more open still to match China 's growing economic and intellectual integration with the rest of the world.

China still has miles to go before the constructiveness of their international role matches the global reach of their economy, and we'll only know when the Games are over if these signs of forward movement will last. But the news on China is looking better, and that's good for the world.

Jeremy Kinsman is currently a diplomat-in-residence at Princeton University .

The Wash Post is writng about the success of the new form of street advertising Sign Spinners.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp -dyn/content/article/2007/10/30/ AR2007103002229_2.html?hpid=sec- artsliving&sid=ST20071030023 41

Dozen of video''s on youtube demonstrate the skills:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EfjKDjdg4k

Even one Wasg DC myspace page had static images fSave Darfur sign spinners: Isee lower left) http://profile.myspace.com/index .cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile &friendID=210037104

This new form of promotin ideas and services began and is biggest in LA. Gabriel and other there: Can yue se incorporating a segment in to the next vigil or demo as as trial run for more widely expanded use,

What fo Gabo and other LA Darfur campaigners think of tryig this out?

Tomorrow Nov 20 on PBS FRONTLINE

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/fr ontline/darfur/

FRONTLINE INVESTIGATES WHY THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY FAILED TO STOP THE GENOCIDE IN DARFUR

FRONTLINE Presents ON OUR WATCH Tuesday, November 20, 2007, at 9 P.M. ET on PBS

www.pbs.org/frontline/darfur

The world invoked its vow "Never Again!" after the genocide in Rwanda and the atrocities in Srebrenica. Then came Darfur. Over the past four years, at least 200,000 people have been killed, 2.5 million driven from their homes, and mass rapes have once more been used as a weapon of war in a brutal campaign -- supported by the Sudanese government -- against civilians in Darfur. FRONTLINE asks why the international community and the United Nations once again failed to stop the slaughter, in On Our Watch, airing Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2007, at 9 P.M. ET on PBS (check local listings).

Word of the burgeoning crisis in Darfur first came to the newly appointed U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Sudan, Dr. Mukesh Kapila, in 2003, while he was stationed in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum. "I was sitting in my office in Khartoum. ... [A] young woman in her late 20s perhaps, who had trekked all the way from Darfur, sat in my office, and she told me her personal story of how not only had she herself been multiply raped, but also that her sisters and her family had also been maltreated in that way, and that this had actually been done by soldiers and people dressed in military and paramilitary uniforms."

Khartoum's newfound oil wealth and its new partnership with China set the stage for conflict with the long-neglected region of Darfur in western Sudan, where rebel groups emerged to claim a share of the country's burgeoning wealth. In response, the government armed a proxy militia called the Janjaweed, or "Devils on Horseback;" provided them air support; and unleashed them on the rebels and the civilian farmers in a stampede of brutality.

But when Kapila confronted the government in Khartoum, he was met only with denials. "Let us face it," Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem, Sudan's ambassador to the United Nations tells FRONTLINE. "Many organs in this United Nations and other NGOs would like only to sing a song that will be good in the ears of Washington and London."

Kapila was also having difficulty getting action from leaders at the United Nations. Sir Kieran Prendergast, the undersecretary general for political affairs, second in command to Kofi Annan, was hesitant about raising the profile of Darfur for fear of upsetting the peace process between the Sudanese government and rebels in the south who had endured a 21-year civil war. "The argument was always that if you could conclude the comprehensive peace agreement, then that would provide a model which would enable you to settle the political side of the Darfur problem," says Prendergast, "which of course was only part of the problem."

The peace negotiations would go on for another year. By then the worst of the killing would be over in Darfur. The timing was no accident, according to Kapila: "When I spoke to my contacts, friendly contacts in the Sudan government in Khartoum, they told me that yes, they were also delaying the north-south peace agreement because they wanted to -- and I quote -- 'have a lasting solution in Darfur' before they signed the north-south peace agreement and the international community forced them to stop."

When the issue came up at the Security Council, Sudan's powerful allies would support the Sudanese government in its refusal to disarm the Janjaweed. James Traub, author of The Best Intentions: Kofi Annan and the U.N. in the Era of American World Power, tells FRONTLINE: "What has enabled Sudan to be as truculent as it has been is knowing that they have either the support, or at least the willingness not to act against them, of neighboring African countries, of Islamic countries generally, and of Russia and China-and above all, of China. So that support is critical for them."

More than any other power, the United States pushed for meaningful action against Sudan, but its standing had been weakened in the eyes of many members by its show of force in Iraq. Prendergast tells FRONTLINE: "You know that most of the Third World regard non-interference and internal affairs as holy writ. And partly that's because they think, who next? And partly it's because the actions in Iraq have agitated them in that respect and made them feel that the question of who next is a live and vivid one where they either hang together or they'll be hanged separately."

As the United Nations was proving ineffective in stopping the killing, a grassroots movement to save Darfur was building. FRONTLINE travels with the actress and UNICEF goodwill ambassador Mia Farrow to the refugee camps in eastern Chad, her seventh trip to the region to document and raise awareness of the unfolding atrocities. "My first trip into Darfur was in 2004," she says. "This is it for me. ... [I]t has eclipsed everything else in my life."

China's economic interests remained a major obstacle to intervention in Darfur. But activists would finally find a way to get China's attention -- by targeting the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. The activist Eric Reeves launched a campaign to shame the Chinese government: He called it "The Genocide Olympics." "The message to China is clear," Reeves tells FRONTLINE. "We will ensure that your hosting of the Olympics will go down in history along with the 1936 Olympics in Berlin as an occasion of international infamy."

Within months, the Security Council, with China's support and Sudanese acquiescence, authorized a U.N. petition for 26,000 troops to be deployed to Darfur by the end of 2007.

On Our Watch is a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation production for WGBH/FRONTLINE. The producer is Neil Docherty. FRONTLINE is produced by WGBH Boston and is broadcast nationwide on PBS. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers. Major funding for FRONTLINE is provided by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Additional funding is provided by the Park Foundation. FRONTLINE is closed-captioned for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers and described for people who are blind or visually impaired by the Media Access Group at WGBH. FRONTLINE is a registered trademark of WGBH Educational Foundation. The FRONTLINE executive producer of special projects is Michael Sullivan. The executive producer of FRONTLINE is David Fanning.

Thnx Jim. DVR set here too.

BTW, the shared media experience of books, magazines, TV, documentaries are part of the online community connection I think that is also so very powerful.

Hello everyone,

A powerful new documentary on Darfur, SAND AND SORROW, premieres on HBO this coming Thursday 6 December at 8pm PST.

Pleaese check out HBO’s website and all the pro-active stuff happening especially after the East Coast premiere at 6:20pm PST.

HBO and Campus Progress are promoting “house parties” throughout the U.S., getting groups to watch the documentary together and call in to talk about it.

http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs /sandandsorrow/index.html

Register to be part of the live chat afterwards when Paul introduces Nicholas Kristof, John Prendergast, Samantha Power.

My good friend, Paul Freedman, traveled in to Darfur to produce this amazing work.

This was such a great film. I only saw the rough cut, when Natalie and Paul came to screen it for us @ ON (before Clooney did the voice over).

I'd love to see the final version - hoping to do a screening here at the Human Rights Centre in Ireland, since i (sadly) don't get HBO here!

Hope all is well with everyone!

Gabriel Stauring said:

Hello everyone,

A powerful new documentary on Darfur, SAND AND SORROW, premieres on HBO this coming Thursday 6 December at 8pm PST.

Pleaese check out HBO’s website and all the pro-active stuff happening especially after the East Coast premiere at 6:20pm PST.

HBO and Campus Progress are promoting “house parties” throughout the U.S., getting groups to watch the documentary together and call in to talk about it.

http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs /sandandsorrow/index.html

Register to be part of the live chat afterwards when Paul introduces Nicholas Kristof, John Prendergast, Samantha Power.

My good friend, Paul Freedman, traveled in to Darfur to produce this amazing work.

Cry for Peace and Freedom in Sudan - Des Moines Press Conference and United March January 1st

Thank you to everyone for your time and hard work for Sudanese and American friends to stand in solidarity in Des Moines on January 1st for true independence for all Sudanese. We want to share the details we have so far, and ask that you please forward this email and share this information to invite others from all over the area to join you in Des Moines on Sudan ’s Independence Day.

January 1, 2008

10:00 a.m. – Meet at The Episcopal Cathedral of St. Paul, 815 High Street in Des Moines to assemble and prepare signs for a United Peace March down Grand Avenue to the Capitol building. (Contact is Pastor Bob Kem 515-401-7039)

11:20 a.m. – Leave St. Paul’s and march about 2 miles to arrive at the Capitol by 12:00 Noon.

12:00 Noon – Arrive at Capitol. NOTE: There is parking available for those going to the Capitol by car at Pennsylvania Avenue and Grand (directly West of the Wallace Building ).

12:30 – Press Conference and Rally on the West Steps of the Iowa State Capitol.

For more information, a web site will be up soon. Please check www.crypeaceandfreedom.org for more details on this heroic and historic cry for peace and freedom for all Sudan. The web site should be available by Monday.

With best wishes to all,

Tom Prichard

On behalf of the many organizations supporting this effort

913-481-1459

• Crisis in Sudan - 2008