The Ethiopian famine inspired the “We are the World” song that raised millions. It also eventually led to an effort to come up with a common definition of what constitutes a famine to help governments and humanitarian groups take the necessary actions.
That system of figuring out whether a famine is happening or not is called the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).
"In the 1980s, a series of devastating famines struck several countries in Africa — including the infamous famine in Ethiopia in the mid-1980s due to drought.
Estimates are that some 1 million people died in Ethiopia alone. "
"According to the IPC, the threshold requirements for famine are:
1 in 5 households face an extreme lack of food,
malnutrition rates among young children are at 30%
and in an affected area 2 out of 10,000 people are dying every day
of causes not related to trauma."
"In the case of Sudan in 2024, the ongoing civil war has decimated the country’s food supply. The Famine Review Committee looked at data collected from Zamzam camp in North Darfur in Western Sudan, where over half a million people are sheltering. "
"The World Health Organization says 8.5 million people in Sudan are at emergency levels of food insecurity — one category away from famine according to the U.N.-backed definitions."
“I've seen some estimates of up to 4 million people would die,”
said the U.N.’s Justin Brady, referring to calculations made by global groups who predict how many people will die of hunger"
https://www.npr.org/sections/goats-and-soda/2024/08/21/g-s1-18004/famine-hunger-sudan-united-nations-food-insecurity
"Sudan,
officially the Republic of the Sudan,
is a country in Northeast Africa.
It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Egypt to the north, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the southeast, Libya to the northwest, South Sudan to the south, and the Red Sea to the east.
Sudan has a population of nearly 50 million people as of 2024
and occupies 1,886,068 square kilometres (728,215 square miles), making it Africa's third-largest country by area and the third-largest by area in the Arab League. "
Legislature
Vacant
Formation
• Kingdom of Kerma
2500 BC
• Kingdom of Kush
1070 BC
• Makuria, Nobatia, and Alodia
c. 350
• Tunjur, Funj , and Darfur Sultanates
c. 1500
• Turco-Egyptian Sudan
1820
• Mahdist State
1885
• Anglo-Egyptian Condominium
1899
• Independence
1 January 1956
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudan
'The area that is now Sudan witnessed the Khormusan (c. 40000–16000 BC),
[23] Halfan culture (c. 20500–17000 BC),
Sebilian (c. 13000 BC–10000 BC),
Qadan culture (c. 15000–5000 BC),
the war of Jebel Sahaba, the earliest known war in the world, around 11500 BC,
A-Group culture(c. 3800 BC–3100 BC),
Kingdom of Kerma (c. 2500–1500 BC),
the Egyptian New Kingdom (c. 1500 BC–1070 BC),
and the Kingdom of Kush (c. 785 BC–350 AD).
After the fall of Kush, the Nubians formed the three Christian kingdoms of Nobatia, Makuria, and Alodia."
The Kingdom of Kush is mentioned in the Bible as having saved the Israelites from the wrath of the Assyrians, although disease among the besiegers might have been one of the reasons for the failure to take the city.[48][page needed] The war that took place between Pharaoh Taharqa and the Assyrian king Sennacherib was a decisive event in western history, with the Nubians being defeated in their attempts to gain a foothold in the Near East by Assyria. Sennacherib's successor Esarhaddon went further and invaded Egypt itself to secure his control of the Levant
*
"The culture of the medieval Nubians has been described as "Afro-Byzantine",but was also increasingly influenced by Arab culture.
The state organisation was extremely centralised, being based on the Byzantine bureaucracy of the sixth and seventh centuries.
Arts flourished in the form of pottery paintings and especially wall paintings. The Nubians developed an alphabet for their language, Old Nobiin, basing it on the Coptic alphabet, while also using Greek, Coptic and Arabic.
Women enjoyed high social status: they had access to education, could own, buy and sell land and often used their wealth to endow churches and church paintings. Even the royal succession was matrilineal, with the son of the king's sister being the rightful heir."
*
"In 1899, Britain and Egypt reached an agreement under which Sudan was run by a governor-general appointed by Egypt with British consent. In reality, Sudan was effectively administered as a Crown colony.
The British were keen to reverse the process, started under Muhammad Ali Pasha, of uniting the Nile Valley under Egyptian leadership and
sought to frustrate all efforts aimed at further uniting the two countries. "
"The main taxes were recognized. These taxes were on land, herds, and date-palms.
The continued British administration of Sudan fuelled an increasingly strident nationalist backlash, with Egyptian nationalist leaders determined to force Britain to recognise a single independent union of Egypt and Sudan.
With a formal end to Ottoman rule in 1914, Sir Reginald Wingate was sent that December to occupy Sudan as the new Military Governor. Hussein Kamel was declared Sultan of Egypt and Sudan, as was his brother and successor, Fuad I.
They continued upon their insistence of a single Egyptian-Sudanese state even when the Sultanate of Egypt was retitled as the Kingdom of Egypt and Sudan, but it was Saad Zaghloul who continued to be frustrated in the ambitions until his death in 1927. "
"The Sudanese Government's revenue had reached a peak in 1928 at £6.6 million, thereafter the Wafdist disruptions, and Italian borders incursions from Somaliland, London decided to reduce expenditure during the Great Depression.
Cotton and gum exports were dwarfed by the necessity to import almost everything from Britain leading to a balance of payments deficit at Khartoum."
' fascist leader Benito Mussolini made it clear that he could not invade Abyssinia without first conquering Egypt and Sudan; they intended unification of Italian Libya with Italian East Africa. The British Imperial General Staff prepared for military defence of the region, which was thin on the ground.
The British ambassador blocked Italian attempts to secure a Non-Aggression Treaty with Egypt-Sudan. But Mahmoud was a supporter of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem; the region was caught between the Empire's efforts to save the Jews, and moderate Arab calls to halt migration"
*
"Until the early 1970s, Sudan's agricultural output was mostly dedicated to internal consumption.
In 1972, the Sudanese government became more pro-Western and made plans to export food and cash crops."
*
On 30 June 1989, Colonel Omar al-Bashir led a bloodless military coup.
The new military government suspended political parties and introduced an Islamic legal code on the national level.
Later, al-Bashir carried out purges and executions in the upper ranks of the army, the banning of associations, political parties, and independent newspapers, and the imprisonment of leading political figures and journalists.
On 16 October 1993, al-Bashir appointed himself "President" and disbanded the Revolutionary Command Council"
*
"During the 1990s, Hassan al-Turabi, then Speaker of the National Assembly, reached out to Islamic fundamentalist groups and invited Osama bin Laden to the country.
The United States subsequently listed Sudan as a state sponsor of terrorism.
Following Al Qaeda's bombing of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the U.S. launched Operation Infinite Reach and
targeted the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory, which the U.S. government
falsely believed
was producing chemical weapons for the terrorist group."
"The country worked to appease its critics by expelling members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and encouraging bin Laden to leave."
*
The Sudanese conflict in South Kordofan and Blue Nile in the early 2010s between the Army of Sudan and the Sudan Revolutionary Front started as a dispute over the
oil-rich region
of Abyei in the months leading up to South Sudanese independence in 2011, though it is also related to civil war in Darfur that is nominally resolved. A year later in 2012 during the Heglig Crisis Sudan would achieve victory against South Sudan, a war over
oil-rich regions
between South Sudan's Unity and Sudan's South Kordofan states.
The events would later be known as the Sudanese Intifada, which would end only in 2013 after al-Bashir promised he would not seek re-election in 2015. He later broke his promise and sought re-election in 2015"
"On 13 January 2017, US president Barack Obama signed an Executive Order that lifted many sanctions placed against Sudan and assets of its government held abroad.
On 6 October 2017, the following US president Donald Trump lifted most of the remaining sanctions against the country and its
petroleum, export-import, and property industries"
"On 19 December 2018, massive protests began after a government decision to triple the price of goods at a time when the country was suffering an acute shortage of foreign currency and inflation of 70 percent."
Both the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces are accused of committing war crimes.[190][191] As of 29 December 2023, over 5.8 million were internally displaced and more than 1.5 million others had fled the country as refugees,[192] and many civilians in Darfur have been reported dead as part of the Masalit massacres.[193] Up to 15,000 people were killed in the city of Geneina.[194]
"As a result of the war the World Food Programme released a report on 22 February 2024 saying that more than
95% of Sudan's population could not afford a meal a day.
As of April 2024, the United Nations reported that more than 8.6 million people have been forced out of their homes, while 18 million are facing severe hunger"
___
"In 2010, Sudan was considered the 17th-fastest-growing economy
in the world and the rapid development of the country largely from oil profits
even when facing international sanctions was noted by The New York Times in a 2006 article"
"Sudan's GDP fell from US$123.053 billion in 2017
to US$40.852 billion in 2018."
"The independence of oil-rich South Sudan, however, placed most major oil fields out of the Sudanese government's direct control and oil production in Sudan fell from around 450,000 barrels per day (72,000 m3/d) to under 60,000 barrels per day (9,500 m3/d)."
"The People's Republic of China is one of Sudan's major trading partners, China owns a 40 percent share in the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company.
The country also sells Sudan small arms, which have been used in military operations such as the conflicts in Darfur and South Kordofan."
"According to the Corruptions Perception Index, Sudan is one of the most corrupt nations in the world.
Sudan ranked the 167th place in human development, indicating Sudan still has one of the lowest human development rates in the world. In 2014, 45% of the population lives on less than US$3.20 per day"
"Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir called for an African Space Agency in 2012, but plans were never made final."
*
"Sudanese culture melds the behaviours, practices, and beliefs of about 578 ethnic groups, communicating in numerous different dialects and languages, in a region microcosmic of Africa, with geographic extremes varying from sandy desert to tropical forest."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudan
"Sudan has a rich and unique musical culture that has been through chronic instability and repression during the modern history of Sudan. Beginning with the imposition of strict Salafi interpretation of sharia law in 1983,
many of the country's most prominent poets and artists, like Mahjoub Sharif, were imprisoned while others, like Mohammed el Amin (returned to Sudan in the mid-1990s) and Mohammed Wardi (returned to Sudan 2003), fled to Cairo.
Traditional music suffered too, with traditional Zār ceremonies being interrupted and drums confiscated "
"Due to a 1991 penal code (Public Order Law), women were not allowed to wear trousers in public, because it was interpreted as an "obscene outfit".
The punishment for wearing trousers could be up to 40 lashes, but after being found guilty in 2009, one woman was fined the equivalent of 200 U.S. dollars instead"
https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/sudan/#economy
"oil, cotton ginning,
textiles, cement,
edible oils, sugar, soap distilling,
shoes, petroleum refining, pharmaceuticals,
armaments,
automobile/light truck assembly,
milling"
"UAE 43%, China 16%, Italy 8%, Egypt 8%, Turkey 4% (2022)
note: top five export partners based on percentage share of exports
Exports - commodities
gold, crude petroleum, oil seeds, ground nuts, cotton (2022)"
*
"Imports - partners
China 22%, UAE 20%, India 18%, Egypt 9%, Turkey 5% (2022)
note: top five import partners based on percentage share of imports
Imports - commodities
raw sugar, wheat, refined petroleum, garments, jewelry (2022)"
*
"Coal imports: 300 metric tons (2022 est.)
2022 est.)
Coal exports: 35 metric tons (2022 est.)"
"Petroleum
total petroleum production: 68,000 bbl/day (2023 est.)
refined petroleum consumption: 127,000 bbl/day (2022 est.)
crude oil estimated reserves: 1.25 billion barrels (2021 est.)
*
(U.S. crude oil and lease condensate proved reserves increased 9% from 44.4 billion barrels to 48.3 billion barrels at year-end 2022 (Table 1). U.S. crude oil and lease condensate production increased 6% in 2022.)
Natural gasp sic gas proven reserves:
84.951 billion cubic meters (2021 est.)"
(Figure it out.)
"Energy consumption per capita
6.271 million Btu/person (2022 est.)
comparison ranking: 163"
"Sudan emerged as a poorer country when South Sudan separated from it in 2011; although Sudan has about four times the population of South Sudan, the latter benefits from its control of the majority of known oil reserves; the Sudanese economy has been affected by hyperinflation in recent years, partly the result of the loss of oil revenue but also due to domestic volatility and
social unrest...."
__
"Sudan has one of the largest defense industries in Africa, which includes state-owned companies with military involvement;
it mostly manufactures weapons systems under license from China, Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine (2023)"
___
"refugees (country of origin): 696,246 (South Sudan) (refugees and asylum seekers),
137,402 (Eritrea) (refugees and asylum seekers),
93,477 (Syria) (refugees and asylum seekers),
72,334 (Ethiopia) (refugees and asylum seekers), 18,279 (Central African Republic) (2023)
Internally Displaced People
IDPs: 6.5 million
(armed conflict between rival factions of the military government of Sudan since 15 April 2023) (2024); note - includes some non-Sudanese nationals"
https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/sudan/#economy
"Thanks to the shale oil boom, the US is now sitting on more oil reserves than Russia, which estimates as having 256 billion barrels of untapped oil. The next-richest countries in terms of oil after that are: Saud Arabia (212 billion), Canada (167 billion), Iran (143 billion) and Brazil (120 billion)."
"In June 2021, the Ministry of Petroleum launched the country's first oil licensing round to accelerate exploration and production. As of March 2024, South Sudan and Sudan had an estimated 5 billion barrels of crude oil reserves, with most of it produced in the Muglad and Melut Basins. The country produces three blends of crude oil: Dar, Nile, and Fula, with Dar and Nile being the main grades used for export and domestic consumption"
"South Sudan's oil sold up to 2027,” says finance minister The ministry of finance has been struggling to pay civil servants because
the country's oil proceeds have been sold in advance up to 2027,
the minister has disclosed.
It is not clear when the major source of the country's revenue was sold out."
"Top Companies in South Sudan Oil and Gas Market
Nile Petroleum Corporation.
Petroliam Nasional Berhad (Petronas)
Akon Refinery Company Ltd.
China National
Petroleum Corporation."
__
"The Financial Times has identified Petronas as one of the "new seven sisters",considered to be influential and mainly state-owned national oil and gas companies from countries outside the OECD"
"Several factors converged in the early 1970s to prompt the Malaysian government into setting up a state-owned oil and gas company.
In 1972, the oil price per barrel was US$1.50, which later rose to US$2.28 per barrel.
War in the middle east and oil embargo by Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) had caused the price per barrel to rise until US$12.00,
thus giving more incentives for Malaysia to set up her own oil company.
Several countries such as United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Indonesia have adopted the production sharing agreement instead of a concession system for oil revenue distribution.
The Malaysian government also believed that foreign oil companies did not properly inform the government regarding the oil exploration activities in their own concessions (such as the new discovery of oil fields), thus resulted in a loss of revenue to the government. "
"One week after the 1976 air crash which killed the chief minister Fuad Stephens and other five state ministers, Harris signed the oil agreement. With Sabah entering the oil agreement,
Petronas finally has total control of all oil and gas reserves in Malaysia."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petronas
"Between 1993 and 1996, it purchased the former sub-Saharan branch of Mobil Oil, rebranded as Engen Petroleum."
Petronas entered the new century determined to expand its international efforts. The company forged deals for two new exploration plots in Pakistan and began construction on the Chad-Cameroon Integrated Oil Development and Pipeline Project.
By 2002, Petronas had signed seven new PSCs and secured stakes in eight exploration blocks in eight countries, including
Gabon, Cameroon, Niger, Egypt, Yemen, Indonesia, and Vietnam.
The firm also made considerable progress in its petrochemicals strategy, opening new gas-based petrochemical facilities in Kerteh and Gebeng.
By 2003, Malaysia was set to usurp Algeria as the world's second-largest producer of LNG
"On 25 July 2017, Petronas cancelled a $36-billion liquefied natural gas (LNG) project
the Pacific Northwest LNG,
which was considered ambitious and a priority in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Both the company and the province blamed poor global LNG market conditions "
And dirty hippy activists in the Pacific Northwest ain't like Sudan etc etc.
___
In June 2010, the European Coalition on Oil in Sudan (ECOS)[29] published the report "Unpaid Debt", that called upon the governments of Sweden, Austria, and Malaysia to look into allegations that
PETRONAS, Fida Aziz, Lundin Petroleum, and OMV may have been
complicit in the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity
whilst operating in Block 5A, South Sudan (then Sudan), during the period 1997–2003.
The reported crimes include indiscriminate attacks and intentional targeting of civilians, burning of shelters, pillage, destruction of objects necessary for survival, unlawful killing of civilians, rape of women, abduction of children, torture, and forced displacement"
"In early October 2021, the Sudanese transitional government made moves to confiscate PETRONAS' assets,
alleging that they had been acquired through illegal means
under the rule of ousted Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.
On 11 October, the Sudanese transitional government issued an arrest warrant for PETRONAS's country manager"
"While the British and Malaysian Governments government claimed that the Sultan had permanently ceded North Borneo, the descendants of the Sultan and the Philippines Government have contended that the Sultan had merely leased the territory. "
"In January 2023, a Luxembourg court reportedly set aside the heirs’ request to enforce the $15 billion arbitration award "
On May 17, 2024 the Madrid Court of Appeal upheld the contempt of court conviction and sentence against Stampa, upholding his six-month prison sentence, and a one-year ban from practicing as an arbitrator.
On May 30, 2024, Petronas moved a Manhattan court..."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petronas
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