Ethiopia’s prime minister said Tuesday his country, Egypt and Sudan have reached a “major common understanding which paves the way for a breakthrough agreement” on a massive dam project that has led to sharp regional tensions and led some to fear military conflict.
New images captured in the last week by the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-1 satellite suggest that Ethiopia may have started filling its massive Nile River dam, as tensions over the project continue.
Christian converts in Sudan are rejoicing after the transitional government scrapped legislation that made leaving Islam punishable by death, Worthy News learned.
Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan want a deal next month on filling Ethiopia’s giant new hydroelectric dam to end a decade-long dispute over water supplies. Their accord on the Blue Nile river dam announced over the weekend followed mediation by the African Union (AU), the cooperative body of 55 member states on the African continent.
Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia on June 14 said talks would continue later this week to resolve their dispute over a Nile River dam that Ethiopia is constructing, even as Cairo accused Addis Ababa of rejecting “fundamental issues” at the heart of the negotiations.
Wycliffe Associates, an international organization that empowers mother-tongue Bible translators and partners with local churches in the advancement of Bible translation, reports that Bible translators and their families in remote and poverty-stricken areas are facing starvation due to food shortages resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sudan’s transitional government agreed last week to establish an independent national commission for religious freedom, The Christian Post reported. Together with the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) group which fought against ousted dictator Omar al-Bashir, the Transitional Sovereign Council is forming the commission in order to “address all issues relating to religious freedom in order to affirm the principle of peaceful coexistence in the country.”
UN experts are concerned South Sudan’s peace deal is at risk because unity government partners are arguing about security and resources instead of implementing the terms of the 2018 agreement, VOA News reports. A panel of experts on South Sudan reported to the UN Security Council last week that “selective and incomplete implementation” of agreed security arrangements threatened peace and stability in the country.
A U.S. government advisory panel wants India on a religious freedom blacklist over a “drastic” downturn under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, triggering an angry reaction from New Delhi. In addition to India, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) also recommends the inclusion of four more – Nigeria, Russia, Syria, and Vietnam.
Two churches in Sudan have been burned down by arsonists in the last month, Sudanese Radio Dabanga reported. This is despite Christian hopes for religious freedom following the ousting of dictator Omar al-Bashir in April 2019. Radio Dabanga was notified of the attacks by Dimas Marajan, a local lawyer and human rights activist.
An ‘unprecedented’ locust swarm is forming in the Horn of Africa, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, and is expected to cause major food shortages across Africa and the Middle East later this summer.
Egypt on Saturday said it would use ‘all available means’ to defend ‘the interests’ of its people after Ethiopia skipped the latest round of U.S.-brokered talks on a disputed Nile dam project with Egypt and Sudan.
The U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization says a small group of desert locusts has entered Congo, marking the first time the voracious insects have been seen in the Central African country since 1944.
Locusts swarming across eastern Africa have now made their way out of the continent, into the Middle East, and as far as India, Pakistan, and China, though authorities in east Asia say they are not yet worried about the locusts coming further inland.
Delegations from Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan continue to negotiate water usage issues relating to the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam being built on the Nile River.
Christian aid groups, along with pesticide-wielding UN troops, are deploying to eastern Africa to fight a locust swarm that experts say is the worst to hit the region in 70 years and could grow by 500 times between now and June.
A locust swarm of biblical proportions has swept into Kenya and other parts of Africa, as the UN says that $76 million will be needed to combat the plague, which experts say could grow by five hundred times by June if not contained.
President Trump on Friday signed the authorization for an expanded travel ban against six countries who have failed to comply with a minimum standard of travel security protocols since 2017.
The latest talks hosted by the U.S. Treasury produced some progress but failed to achieve a comprehensive agreement on the filling and operation of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD).
In a gesture of reconciliation following years of persecution, the new religious affairs minister of Sudan, Nasr al-Din Mufreh, attended Christmas celebrations in Khartoum to personally apologize for former dictator Omar al-Bashir’s harassment of Christians.