Sudanese demonstrators protest atop the US embassy in Khartoum. Photograph: Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah/Reuters

Sudan: A trio of major leaders from South Kordofan and Blue Nile were in Washington DC last week, urging the US government to support the immediate distribution of aid to the hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped there by Khartoum’s ongoing campaign of government-orchestrated starvation.  Intensified bombing in the two areas has led to thousands of newly displaced people fleeing into already overwhelmed camps in Southern Sudan. Negotiators, meanwhile, are looking towards Sunday, when a summit between Sudanese President Omar al Bashir and his counterpart in Southern Sudan, Salva Kiir, is meant to iron out final status agreements on border security and other outstanding issues between the two countries. And as the US elections heat up, we’ll be putting pressure on our candidates to answer questions about Sudan during the debates – please keep your eye out for an action alert on this in the next few days!

• Sudan’s Hashtag-Free Protests Over Innocence of Muslims (The Guardian)
• Sudan’s President Meets Egypt Counterpart in Cairo (Boston.com)

 
 

A patient with Ebola hemorrhagic fever is comforted by Doctors Without Borders workers in the Congo. Canadian researchers are optimistic that they have found a tool to combat the Ebola virus.
Photograph by: Christopher Black, Ap, Cp Files , Canadian Press

Congo: Lawmakers met this morning in a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee hearing to discuss Rwanda’s role in Congo’s M23 rebellion. The hearing comes on the heels of a briefing on Congo in the UN Security Council, where member states learned that the M23 rebels have set up defacto parallel administration structures in the areas they control. Rwanda still vehemently denies their support of the M23 rebels; the topic is likely to be explored even further at a high level meeting during the UN General Assembly later this month.

• New Regulations Seek to Expose Congo’s Conflict Minerals (LA Times)
• Ebola Claims Up to 32 Lives in DR Congo (AFP)