Fertilizers, petroleum products, and other commodities are at the heart of a massive loan scheme that allegedly reaped fortunes for figures connected to deposed Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir, according to a new investigative report released today by The Sentry, an investigative and policy team co-founded by George Clooney and John Prendergast.
The Sentry’s report, “Loan Wolves: Debt Scams Threaten Sudan’s Democratic Transition and Fragile Economy,” reveals how Badr Overseas Group, an import-export company established by Bashir’s adopted son and his business partner, secured multiple contracts to trade in essential consumer commodities at inflated prices. The Badr deals were financed using lines of credit extended to the country by the Eastern and Southern African Trade and Development Bank (TDB), a multilateral, treaty-based development financial institution with assets of over $5.6 billion.
Suliman Baldo, Senior Advisor at The Sentry, said: “Under the regime of deposed President Bashir, multiple forms of institutional corruption were allowed to thrive, ultimately devastating Sudan’s economy. The regime granted monopolies to parasitic companies linked to powerful officials and security sector corporations, enabling them to import strategic commodities at inflated prices and with generous tax breaks and customs advantages. Unless there is major institutional reform, the capture of state business for private profit will likely continue, hampering economic reform efforts by the civilian-led government. Governments and banks around the world must press for transparency and accountability in the management of Sudan’s natural resources and revenues.”

State Minister of Trade and Industry, Teka Grebeyesus, accompanied by the Ambassador of Italy to Ethiopia, Arturo Luzzi, visited the Italian stand at ITME Africa, held in Addis Ababa from 14 to 16 of February 2020, and met the representatives of the Italian textile machinery companies. Thanks to its textile vocation and to government programs supporting the growth and strengthening of the textile sector, Ethiopia represents the most important market in Sub Saharian Africa for the Italian textile industry.
ITME featured a delegation of 22 Italian textile machinery manufacturers at the Italian pavilion, organized by ICE-Agency and ACIMIT (Association of Italian Manufacturers of Machinery for the Textile Industry).
ACIMIT represents an industrial sector comprising around 300 manufacturers (employing close to 12,000 people) and producing machinery for an overall value of about 2.6 billion euros, with exports amounting to 86% of total sales. Creativity, sustainable technology, reliability and quality are the characteristics that have made Italy a global leader in the manufacturing of textile machinery.
ACIMIT President Alex Zucchi, extremely confident in the Ethiopian market, stated that Italian export has grown significantly over the past five years (on average of 17% per year), although their overall value remains quite modest (2.8 million euros in 2018). Indeed, over the first seven months of 2019, the Italian exports of the textile machineries reached a value of 3.3 million euros. In terms of sales of textile machineries, spinning machines (90% of the total exports towards Ethiopia), followed by accessories (6%) and finishing machines (4%), are the most requested by the Ethiopian market.

A survey of people living with HIV has found that the current coronavirus disease outbreak, known as COVID-19, is having a major impact on the lives of people living with HIV in the country.
In the survey, nearly a third (32.6%) of people living with HIV reported that, because of the lockdowns and restrictions on movement in some places in China, they were at risk of running out of their HIV treatment in the coming days-of these, almost half (48.6%) said they didn’t know where to collect their next antiretroviral therapy refill from. However, a close partnership between the government and community partners is determined to ensure that access to life-saving HIV treatment is not interrupted as the country fights to get COVID-19 under control.
The Chinese National Center for AIDS/STD Control and Prevention has directed local authorities to ensure that non-resident people living with HIV can collect their medication wherever they are and has published and disseminated lists of antiretroviral therapy clinics. The UNAIDS China Country Office is working with the BaiHuaLin alliance of people living with HIV and other community partners to urgently reach those people living with HIV who are at risk of running out of their medicines in the next 10–14 days and will offer support as necessary. UNAIDS will also be donating personal protective equipment to civil society organizations serving people living with HIV, hospitals and others to help improve the quality of care for people in health facilities and to prevent coinfection of people living with HIV with COVID-19.
“People living with HIV must continue to get the HIV medicines they need to keep them alive,” said Winnie Byanyima, UNAIDS Executive Director. “I applaud the efforts of the Chinese National Center for AIDS/STD Control and Prevention to support people living with HIV affected by the lockdowns to get their medicines-we must ensure that everyone who needs HIV treatment gets it, no matter where they are.”

Science for Democracy, together with Associazione Luca Coscioni, is organizing the 6th meeting of the World Congress for Freedom of Scientific Research on “THE RIGHT TO ENJOY THE BENEFITS OF SCIENCE” in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from 25 to 26 February 2020. The event is co-sponsored by the Commission of the African Union in the person of Prof. Sarah Anyang Agbor, Commissioner for Science and Technology. Among speakers: Sir Richard John Roberts, Nobel Prize in Physiology, and Abdi Adam Hoosow, Minister of public works, Somalia.
The themes at the center of the debate will contribute to the global debate on the “Right to Science”, which constitutes the object of the latest “General Comment” of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, soon to be adopted at the United Nations in Geneva.
Once approved, the document will create an obligation for Member States to report on the respect of both the freedom indispensable for scientific research and the fundamental human right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications.
The World Congress in Addis Ababa will include panel discussions on the concrete enjoyment of the benefits of science in different fields, such as: the promotion of scientific culture; open access to science; genome editing on humans, vegetal biotechnologies; rare, infectious and non-transmissible diseases as well as aerospace, big data and artificial intelligence.
The interaction between science, the scientific method, evidence-based debates and the decision-making process in full respect of the international Rule of Law has always been at the center of the five meetings of the World Congress organized since 2004 at the Italian and European Parliament by the Associazione Luca Coscioni.