U.S. and European media

August 6, 2023

VOA: Secretary Clinton Urged to Address Darfur. Human rights activists are urging Secretary of State Clinton, during her African trip, to call for strong action to end the Darfur crisis. Jerry Fowler, head of the Save Darfur Coalition, says, "One of the issues that we encourage her (Clinton) to raise with African leaders as she tours the continent is the need for coordinated action to address the interlocking crises in Sudan." "The Obama administration," he says, "has a remarkable opportunity to lead strategically for peace in Sudan. And having the secretary of state underscore that to people that she meets with is very important."

Reuters: Clinton says she regrets US is not a member of ICC. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Thursday it was a "great regret" the United States was not yet a signatory to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. "This is a great regret that we are not a signatory," she said at a public meeting in Nairobi. "I think we could have worked out some of the challenges that are raised concerning our membership," Clinton said. "But that has not yet come to pass." Under the new administration of President Barack Obama, there have been hints of greater U.S. cooperation with the ICC, although no formal shift in policy.

The Washington Post: Too Soon To Return Home, Say Darfurians. The Obama administration's Sudan envoy is facing growing resistance to a suggestion he made recently to civilians displaced from Darfur that they should start planning to go back to their villages. Darfurian civilians and U.N. relief agencies say it is still too dangerous to return to the region where a six-year-long conflict has led to the deaths of more than 300,000 people. Gration denied this week that he is seeking to send Darfur's displaced into harm's way, saying he was simply urging Darfurians and the United Nations to begin preparations for return.

Reuters: U.S. says ready to pay off U.N. peacekeeping debt. The United States is ready to hand over more than $2 billion in new and old contributions it owes the U.N. peacekeeping department, Washington's U.N. ambassador, Susan Rice, said on Wednesday. "The United States is now in a position to clear all peacekeeping arrears accumulated from 2005 to 2008 and to meet our obligations in full for 2009 -- currently estimated at approximately $2.2 billion," Rice told a U.N. Security Council meeting on peacekeeping. The Better World Campaign, an advocacy group that focuses on U.S.-U.N. relations, said the failure to pay U.S. dues endangered missions in places like Sudan's western Darfur region, Haiti and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Reuters: Update Geneva Conventions, Red Cross says. The Geneva Conventions and related international law need to be updated to reflect the fact that most conflicts nowadays take place inside states not between them, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said. The conventions remain relevant, preventing humanitarian disasters from Darfur to Sri Lanka from turning out even worse than they have, ICRC President Jakob Kellenberger told Reuters.

Reuters: Two aid workers missing in Chad after robbery. Aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said two of its workers in Chad were missing on Thursday after a robbery at its compound by the border with Sudan's Darfur region. MSF's Dutch arm said it could not account for the whereabouts of one international and one local worker after the attack by unknown assailants on Wednesday, which follows a spate of kidnappings in the Darfur region this year.

The Darfur Daily News is a service of the Save Darfur Coalition. To subscribe to the Daily News, please email [email protected]. For media inquiries, please contact Ashley Roberts at (202) 478-6181, or [email protected].