Violence on new South Sudan-Sudan border catches UN in the middle

MiamiHerald.com

By Alan Boswell NAIROBI, Kenya — The new nation of South Sudan faced another armed challenge on Friday as a rebel group aligned with rival Sudan to the north threatened United Nations peacekeepers, accusing them of assisting the South Sudanese army in ..

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/11/04/2487506/violence-on-new-south-sudan-sudan.html

Security Council deplores failure by Sudan and South Sudan to withdraw forces from Abyei

Amb. José Filipe Moraes Cabral

4 November 2011 –

The Security Council today deplored the failure by the governments of Sudan and South Sudan to redeploy their troops from the disputed Abyei area and urged the two countries to do so immediately and without preconditions.“The Members of the Security Council underscore that there were no preconditions for the implementations of the agreements signed by the parties including the withdrawal of forces,” the Council said in a press statement read out by Ambassador José Filipe Moraes Cabral of Portugal, which holds the presidency of the Security Council this month.http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=40317&Cr=abyei&Cr1=

Why Science Majors Change Their Minds (It’s Just So Damn Hard)

LAST FALL, President Obama threw what was billed as the first White House Science Fair, a photo op in the gilt-mirrored State Dining Room. He tested a steering wheel designed by middle schoolers to detect distracted driving and peeked inside a robot that plays soccer. It was meant as an inspirational moment: children, science is fun; work harder.

By CHRISTOPHER DREW

APPLIED KNOWLEDGE Projects keep students engaged. For one at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, to create a data library on human motion, Antonio Vincentelli-Solanilla is fitted for a motion capture suit, then jumps over a cane extended by Elliot Borenstein.

Multimedia

Graphic

SUPPORT SCIENCE President Obama toured a White House science fair last year. Younger students have been put under a microscope but college is where excitement fades.

Politicians and educators have been wringing their hands for years over test scores showing American students falling behind their counterparts in Slovenia and Singapore. How will the United States stack up against global rivals in innovation? The president and industry groups have called on colleges to graduate 10,000 more engineers a year and 100,000 new teachers with majors in STEM — science, technology, engineering and math. All the Sputnik-like urgency has put classrooms from kindergarten through 12th grade — the pipeline, as they call it — under a microscope. And there are encouraging signs, with surveys showing the number of college freshmen interested in majoring in a STEM field on the rise.

But, it turns out, middle and high school students are having most of the fun, building their erector sets and dropping eggs into water to test the first law of motion. The excitement quickly fades as students brush up against the reality of what David E. Goldberg, an emeritus engineering professor, calls “the math-science death march.” Freshmen in college wade through a blizzard of calculus, physics and chemistry in lecture halls with hundreds of other students. And then many wash out.

Studies have found that roughly 40 percent of students planning engineering and science majors end up switching to other subjects or failing to get any degree. That increases to as much as 60 percent when pre-medical students, who typically have the strongest SAT scores and high school science preparation, are included, according to new data from the University of California at Los Angeles. That is twice the combined attrition rate of all other majors.

For educators, the big question is how to keep the momentum being built in the lower grades from dissipating once the students get to college.

“We’re losing an alarming proportion of our nation’s science talent once the students get to college,” says Mitchell J. Chang, an education professor at U.C.L.A. who has studied the matter. “It’s not just a K-12 preparation issue.”

Professor Chang says that rather than losing mainly students from disadvantaged backgrounds or with lackluster records, the attrition rate can be higher at the most selective schools, where he believes the competition overwhelms even well-qualified students.

“You’d like to think that since these institutions are getting the best students, the students who go there would have the best chances to succeed,” he says. “But if you take two students who have the same high school grade-point average and SAT scores, and you put one in a highly selective school like Berkeley and the other in a school with lower average scores like Cal State, that Berkeley student is at least 13 percent less likely than the one at Cal State to finish a STEM degree.”

The bulk of attrition comes in engineering and among pre-med majors, who typically leave STEM fields if their hopes for medical school fade. There is no doubt that the main majors are difficult and growing more complex. Some students still lack math preparation or aren’t willing to work hard enough.

Other deterrents are the tough freshman classes, typically followed by two years of fairly abstract courses leading to a senior research or design project. “It’s dry and hard to get through, so if you can create an oasis in there, it would be a good thing,” says Dr. Goldberg, who retired last year as an engineering professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and is now an education consultant. He thinks the president’s chances of getting his 10,000 engineers is “essentially nil.”

In September, the Association of American Universities, which represents 61 of the largest research institutions, announced a five-year initiative to encourage faculty members in the STEM fields to use more interactive teaching techniques.

“There is a long way to go,” says Hunter R. Rawlings, the association’s president, “and there is an urgent need to accelerate the process of reform.”

The latest research also suggests that there could be more subtle problems at work, like the proliferation of grade inflation in the humanities and social sciences, which provides another incentive for students to leave STEM majors. It is no surprise that grades are lower in math and science, where the answers are clear-cut and there are no bonus points for flair. Professors also say they are strict because science and engineering courses build on one another, and a student who fails to absorb the key lessons in one class will flounder in the next.

After studying nearly a decade of transcripts at one college, Kevin Rask, a professor at Wake Forest University, concluded last year that the grades in the introductory math and science classes were among the lowest on campus. The chemistry department gave the lowest grades over all, averaging 2.78 out of 4, followed by mathematics at 2.90. Education, language and English courses had the highest averages, ranging from 3.33 to 3.36.

Ben Ost, a doctoral student at Cornell, found in a similar study that STEM students are both “pulled away” by high grades in their courses in other fields and “pushed out” by lower grades in their majors.

MATTHEW MONIZ bailed out of engineering at Notre Dame in the fall of his sophomore year. He had been the kind of recruit most engineering departments dream about. He had scored an 800 in math on the SAT and in the 700s in both reading and writing. He also had taken Calculus BC and five other Advanced Placement courses at a prep school in Washington, D.C., and had long planned to major in engineering.

But as Mr. Moniz sat in his mechanics class in 2009, he realized he had already had enough. “I was trying to memorize equations, and engineering’s all about the application, which they really didn’t teach too well,” he says. “It was just like, ‘Do these practice problems, then you’re on your own.’ ” And as he looked ahead at the curriculum, he did not see much relief on the horizon.

So Mr. Moniz, a 21-year-old who likes poetry and had enjoyed introductory psychology, switched to a double major in psychology and English, where the classes are “a lot more discussion based.” He will graduate in May and plans to be a clinical psychologist. Of his four freshman buddies at Notre Dame, one switched to business, another to music. One of the two who is still in engineering plans to work in finance after graduation.

Mr. Moniz’s experience illustrates how some of the best-prepared students find engineering education too narrow and lacking the passion of other fields. They also see easier ways to make money.

Notre Dame’s engineering dean, Peter Kilpatrick, will be the first to concede that sophomore and junior years, which focus mainly on theory, remain a “weak link” in technical education. He says his engineering school has gradually improved its retention rate over the past decade by creating design projects for freshmen and breaking “a deadly lecture” for 400 students into groups of 80. Only 50 to 55 percent of the school’s students stayed through graduation 10 years ago. But that figure now tops 75 percent, he says, and efforts to create more labs in the middle years could help raise it further.

“We’re two years into that experiment and, quite honestly, it’s probably going to take 5 to 10 years before we’re really able to inflesh the whole curriculum with this project-based learning,” Dean Kilpatrick says.

No one doubts that students need a strong theoretical foundation. But what frustrates education experts is how long it has taken for most schools to make changes.

The National Science Board, a public advisory body, warned in the mid-1980s that students were losing sight of why they wanted to be scientists and engineers in the first place. Research confirmed in the 1990s that students learn more by grappling with open-ended problems, like creating a computer game or designing an alternative energy system, than listening to lectures. While the National Science Foundation went on to finance pilot courses that employed interactive projects, when the money dried up, so did most of the courses. Lecture classes are far cheaper to produce, and top professors are focused on bringing in research grants, not teaching undergraduates.

In 2005, the National Academy of Engineering concluded that “scattered interventions” had not resulted in widespread change. “Treating the freshman year as a ‘sink or swim’ experience and accepting attrition as inevitable,” it said, “is both unfair to students and wasteful of resources and faculty time.”

Since becoming Notre Dame’s dean in 2008, Dr. Kilpatrick has revamped and expanded a freshman design course that had gotten “a little bit stale.” The students now do four projects. They build Lego robots and design bridges capable of carrying heavy loads at minimal cost. They also create electronic circuit boards and dream up a project of their own.

“They learn how to work with their hands, how to program the robot and how to work with design constraints,” he says. But he also says it’s inevitable that students will be lost. Some new students do not have a good feel for how deeply technical engineering is. Other bright students may have breezed through high school without developing disciplined habits. By contrast, students in China and India focus relentlessly on math and science from an early age.

“We’re in a worldwide competition, and we’ve got to retain as many of our students as we can,” Dean Kirkpatrick says. “But we’re not doing kids a favor if we’re not teaching them good life and study skills.”

WORCESTER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE, in Massachusetts, one of the nation’s oldest technological schools, has taken the idea of projects to heart. While it still expects students to push their way through standard engineering and science classes, it ripped up its traditional curriculum in the 1970s to make room for extensive research, design and social-service projects by juniors and seniors, including many conducted on trips with professors overseas. In 2007, it added optional first-year projects — which a quarter of its freshmen do — focused on world problems like hunger or disease.

“That kind of early engagement, and letting them see they can work on something that is interesting and important, is a big deal,” says Arthur C. Heinricher, the dean of undergraduate studies. “That hooks students.”

And so late this past summer, about 90 freshmen received e-mails asking if they typically received flu vaccines. The e-mails were not from the health services office, but from students measuring how widely flu spreads at different rates of vaccination. Two of the students had spent part of their freshmen year researching diseases and devising a survey. Now, as juniors, they were recruiting the newcomers to take part in simulations, using neon wristbands and stickers, to track how many of them became “infected” as they mingled during orientation.

Brenna Pugliese, one of the juniors and a biology major, says the two-day exercise raised awareness on campus of the need for more students to get the vaccine. “I can honestly say that I learned more about various biology topics than I ever learned in any other class,” she says.

Teachers say they have been surprised by the sophistication of some of the freshmen projects, like a device to harvest kinetic energy that is now being patented. But the main goals are to enable students to work closely with faculty members, build confidence and promote teamwork. Studies have shown that women, in particular, want to see their schoolwork is connected to helping people, and the projects help them feel more comfortable in STEM fields, where men far outnumber women everywhere except in biology.

Seventy-four percent of W.P.I. undergraduates earn bachelor’s degrees within four years and 80 percent by six years.

Most of the top state research universities have added at least a splash of design work in the freshman year. The University of Illinois began this fall to require freshmen engineering students to take a course on aspirations for the profession and encourages them to do a design project or take a leadership seminar. Most technical schools push students to seek summer internships and take semesters off to gain practical work experiences. The hope is that the lure of high-paying jobs during an economic downturn will convince more students to stick with it.

Some private schools have also adjusted their grading policies to ease some of the pressure on STEM students. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has long given freshmen only “pass” or “no record” grades in the first half of the year while they get used to the workload. W.P.I. lets undergraduates take up to three classes for which no grade is recorded if they would have received less than a C. Any required courses would have to be repeated.

Ilea Graedel, a 20-year-old junior in aerospace engineering, says that policy provides “a nice buffer if you want to try something new, like a class outside your comfort zone.”

But what really helps Ms. Graedel get through the rigors of STEM, she says, is hanging onto her aspirations. She grew up in a farming area in Washington State, the only student from her high school class of 26 pursuing a technology degree. She has wanted to be an astronaut since she was 3, when her mother took her to Boeing’s Museum of Flight in Seattle and bought her a book called “I Want to Be an Astronaut.”

The space program has been sharply cut back. Still, she says, “I’m going to hold onto that dream very dearly.”

Christopher Drew covers military technology for The Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/education/edlife/why-science-majors-change-their-mind-its-just-so-darn-hard.html?pagewanted=all&src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB

South Sudan’s opposition leader, Peter Sule, arrested over rebel links

November 4, 2011 (JUBA) — The Sudan people’s Liberation Army (SPLA) has arrested a key opposition leader over allegations linking him to the formation of a new rebel group fighting against the South Sudan government.

SPLA spokesperson, Phillip Aguer, confirmed today the arrest of Peter Abdul Rahaman Sule, the leader of the opposition United Democratic Forum (UDF) on Thursday evening from an undisclosed location in South Sudan’s Western Equatoria state.

Sule is reportedly have started recruiting people, mainly youth, to join his rebel movement in Western equatorial.

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Breaking News: S. Sudan’s opposition leader arrested over rebel links

Sudan Tribune – ‎11 hours ago‎

November 4, 2011 (JUBA) — The Sudan people’s Liberation Army (SPLA) has arrested a key opposition leader over allegations linking him to the formation of a new rebel group fighting against the South Sudan government. SPLA spokesperson, Phillip Aguer, …

South Sudan arrests opposition leader turned rebel
Al-Arabiya
Southern Sudanese people carry their luggage to a train before travelling to South Sudan, in Khartoum. (Reuters) By AFP South Sudan has arrested a prominent opposition leader it claims was launching a guerrilla movement to topple the government, …

Sudan Tribune calls for South Sudan to release journalist
Sudan Tribune
Since Wednesday 2 November Ngor Aguot Garang, a journalist at Sudan Tribune, has been held illegally by South Sudan’s security services following the publication of an opinion piece criticising South Sudan’s president Salva Kiir in The Destiny, …

Britain urges Sudan and South Sudan to co-operate over resettlement
The Guardian
Families take refuge in a school compound in Bentiu, South Sudan, after returning from Khartoum, the Sudanese capital. Photograph: Roberto Schmidt/AFP Britain has urged Sudan and South Sudan to work together to clarify the status of hundreds of …

Sudan churches remain united despite country division
Ecumenical News International
Despite this year’s vote by South Sudan for independence, churches in Sudan and South Sudan have decided to remain united, mainly to help denominations in Muslim-majority Sudan. Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church on 28 October approved maintaining …

South Sudan: President Kiir Meets UN Peacekeeping Undersecretary
AllAfrica.com
The meeting exchanged views on the general political and security situation in the new state of South Sudan. Shortly after the meeting the Mr. Ladsous told the press that he came to South Sudan to confirm that the United Natiosn is always ready to help …

South Sudan audit finds $1.5m hole in public accounts
Africa Review
PHOTO | FILE | By MACHEL AMOS in JubaPosted Friday, November 4 2011 at 09:29 Over $1.5 billion public money generated from oil revenues remitted by Khartoum has been spent in South Sudan without proper records between 2005 and 2006, a report by the …

UN peacekeeping chief discusses human rights, democracy with South Sudanese leader

UN News Centre – ‎24 minutes ago‎

Protecting human rights, enshrining democracy and improving inter-Sudanese relations topped the agenda today during talks today between the new chief of United Nations peacekeeping chief and South Sudan’s President. Hervé Ladsous, who took up the post …

UN wants SDF role in S. Sudan expanded

The Daily Yomiuri – ‎3 hours ago‎

NEW YORK–The head of the UN mission in South Sudan has asked the Japanese government to expand the region where a Ground Self-Defense Force engineering battalion will work to beyond the capital and its vicinity. “We have communicated already to the …

Was President Kiir’s Daughter Impregnated before the Wedding?

By PaanLuel Wel.

Dear Esteemed Readers

With an Editor arrested, and a newspaper shut down; was President Kiir’s daughter eloped and impregnated by the Ethiopian dude before the Wedding?

Of late, we have been inundated with myriads of bad, sometimes tragic, news from the young republic of South Sudan! Just this week alone, we have read about the tragic killing of over 80 people in an attack on Mayom town by the SSLA rebels; the supposedly capturing of Nhialdiew town by the same rebel of SSLA, which again inevitably involved loss of lives; and from Juba, reports were coming in that UDF chairman, Peter Sule, was in the last stage of launching an armed rebellion in Western Equatoria, after he was dropped from the government by President Kiir. Peter Sule is now confirmed to have been captured, allegedly in the forest of Western Equatoria, by the South Sudanese army.

But, the latest news from The New Sudan Vision about the detention of the editor of Destiny Newspaper, Mr. Ngor Garang, “by South Sudan’s national security following publication of controversial opinion objecting to marriage of first daughter to an Ethiopian immigrant” has taken me by surprise, especially by the way it mimic the oppressive traits of the old Sudanese notorious national security . The South Sudan’s national security not only detained the editor-in-chief, it also closed down the English branch of the Destiny newspaper.

As reported by The New Sudan Vision, the alleged “controversial opinion objecting to marriage of first daughter to an Ethiopian immigrant” was a columnist opinion written byDengdit Ayok.

Mr. Dengdit Ayok, in that opinion, wrote this about the First Daughter wedding to an Ethiopian man:

“This wedding is a demonstration that foreigners have not only monopolized our market, economy and robbed our integrity after penetrating it, but it is also a demonstration that they have taken over our national pride. What else is left if an alien could penetrate all the hedges and invade the house of our President, eloped and impregnated his daughter? Where were the security presidential personnel when that strange guy entered the house of the President?”

Whether the president family and the national security were angered by the alleged elopement and the impregnation of the first daughter by the Ethiopian guy or just by the general condemnation of marrying off the first daughter to a foreigner when there were many suitors within the country, or both, is not clear.

what is clear though is that the national security is (1) behaving like the former oppressive national security of the old Sudan, and (2) by detaining the editor and shut down the Destiny newspaper, the national security is confusing libel case, which should have been filed in a civil court of law by the President’s family, for a national security threat, which fall under their jurisdiction.

Whether or not the opinion article by Dengdit Ayok has any substance has nothing to do with South Sudan national security. In fact, if indeed the president daughter was eloped and impregnated by the “Ethiopian immigrant” and the wedding was hurriedly done to ward off “shame” and embarrassment” from Adut’s action on the First Family as the author asserts, then the National Security should be sued in a court of law for illegally arresting the editor and for shutting down the newspaper.

South Sudanese need to know the truth and no one should be harassed for airing a verifiable fact, should that be the case later. The Editor must be released immediately, the newspaper should be permitted to re-open and be compensated for both the damaged wrongly done to its reputation as well as for as the loss of revenues owing to its closure.

Lastly, the so called National Security must learn national security 101 to appropriately distinguish between what is a national security threat and a civil case, unless they are a privately contracted security firm of and for the president family.

By PaanLuel Wel.

Here is the Opinion Article by DengDit Ayok as posted on The New Sudan Vision

Nyan Bany

By Dengdit Ayok

Juba, the temporal capital city of our new born nation on Saturday, October 22, 2011 witnessed a disappointing social episode that was found disgusting and denounced by many patriotic South Sudanese across the country.

Our revered and acclaimed President, Sir Salva Kiir Mayardit, who is one of the symbols of our long historic struggle and who is also a symbol of our sovereignty, dignity, integrity and source of our national pride, handed over his beloved-beautiful elder daughter (Adut) to a foreigner in a wedding ceremony held in the Catholic Cathedral at Rajaf.

The wedding raised our eyebrows because we didn’t expect Nyan Beny (daughter of the President) to be married by a foreigner when many national suit her profile for marriage; this without saying that it matters not how long she may stay in her father’s house. A wedding as we all know is a social function that people go to cheerfully with women ululating. However, the wedding of Nyan Beny that took place last Saturday was attended by a small crowd of people with clouds of sadness gathered in their hearts as it was clear from their faces; because they were upset by the decision taken by the President to give his daughter in wedding to a stranger.

The wedding that could have been attended by thousands of South Sudanese with elation and delight, to display their traditional dances and turn it into a national wedding like the British royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, was reduced to a very low morale standard function with the attendance of just a few government officials and a minute crowd.

This wedding has not only shocked and angered members of Kiir’s family, but divided it and turned its peace into quarrels and squabbles, it has also shocked the whole nation; because Kiir is a patriotic leader that fought two wars for the wellbeing of his people, a thing which made him valued and highly respected by South Sudanese. But now that he has given his daughter in wedding to an alien, he has to some extent reduced himself in the eyes of his people.

I am writing about about Adut`s wedding because my heart is in pain like the hearts of many zealous South Sudanese who have opposed it, and I am happy that I have a public platform to air out my wrath and the wrath of many fellow countrymen and women. By giving his daughter to a foreigner, our President has stained his patriotism and turned his leadership questionable in our eyes.

This wedding is a demonstration that foreigners have not only monopolized our market, economy and robbed our integrity after penetrating it, but it is also a demonstration that they have taken over our national pride. What else is left if an alien could penetrate all the hedges and invade the house of our President, eloped and impregnated his daughter? Where were the security presidential personnel when that strange guy entered the house of the President?

This wedding of the First Girl which is supposed to be blessed by all South Sudanese including this author is rejected and the religious leaders who blessed the couple in the house of God regardless of their knowledge that she had conceived, have committed a great sin against God for making unholy matrimony holy!

All South Sudanese dishonored: Should the President apologize?

BY: Chier Akueny, Bishop Stuart University, UGANDA

NOV. 7/2011, SSN; First of all, I am here to register my innermost sympathy to the disappointed population of South Sudan back home and in all other corners whereby everybody feels animated with patriotism.I saw lots of writings which condemn the decision of Mr. President and his entire family for having given the first daughter, Adut Kiir, to a foreigner. Yes, Mr. President might be right at his own conscientious capacity as well as at the level of his family but not to the emblematic echelon of the nation as he is the truly symbolic leader of the nation. His action, needless to say, should lead as exemplary. The population of the new nation has fallen into serious gripe; this incident has become the leading topic since such subjects are never totally forgotten by the people and this subjective deflation was actually originated by the emblematic leader of the nation, Mr. Salva Kiir Mayardit, the President of the republic of South Sudan.  Surely, how can the President mistrust the whole nation to the extent that he gave the First Daughter to a foreigner? Also I fail to understand what our dear President meant at this stage because, for him having not honored and respected the whole population of South Sudan, including all those important and courageous tribes of South Sudan who have been groaning with him since the time of Dr. John Garang and as well as the pains they felt in his rule since 2005 up to date?Mr. President, I think we have very important sons of South Sudan who can take and marry Adut Kiir without dithering.

Apparently, it is very imperative to highlight that the world has seen the problem facing this young nation, South Sudan because our respectful President, the symbol of the country failed to respect and honor even a single person in whole population of South Sudan. It is really so surprising to find that the First Daughter of South Sudan had become a foreigner today, but what caused this disposition is the lack of respect for his own people and the office he is holding because Mr. President didn’t plan and think of what would be next if he acquiesced to give our respectful First Girl to a stranger, an Ethiopian man. At this instant, however, it would be important for the population of South Sudan to request our President to apologize to the Nation at large, leave alone greater Gogrialists, the inhabitants of the native land who lost their closest daughter to a stranger.I can’t imagine their mood now, as we felt humiliated. I don’t know for all his intents and purposes, but does our President want to register a history of being the first President to give his daughter to a foreigner in South Sudan? Where has he ever heard of such a case for him to compare with? It is really so ridiculous and downfallen case.

It is such a bombshell issue to put in memory. This has shown and it has become evident to the citizens that our affairs have been hijacked by the foreigners. Mr. Salva Kiir failed to uphold our affairs. Mr. President, are we really safeguarding our affairs, resources and the respect of a whole nation? We are bogged down culturally. We are really shocked and lack some words to say since we became the nation of no directives and exactly our nation is tainted.  Please we beg you to plan for an apology to the indigenous people of South Sudan. Dear readers, there are many wrong things to consider in President Kiir Mayardit’s action:—

1.       Did Adut Kiir fail to get a husband in South Sudan beautiful tribes enriched with wonderful cultures?

 

2.       Is it very reasonable for our President to use national resources to make a beautiful wedding to a stranger, who is just an asylum seeker?

 

3.       As concerned citizens, what can we do and say, for our President to understand these issues, because if it is for me, I can simply say that Salva Kiir should avoid arresting journalists who publish the burning issues of the citizens, otherwise it would be wise for Kiir to abolish what’s so-called Media Laws, so that South Sudan also becomes the first nation without media in the world and this will be a very beautiful history that follows what he did.

 

4.       Fourthly, we are even worried of your life since foreigners made full involvement in your family affairs to the extent that the First Daughter was impregnated. Does your security organ only know how to arrest citizens who talk and write in the media?Why don’t you train them to be protecting your home too like they are guarding your office, Sir?

Finally, I would beg to broadly state the culpability of those Hon. Ministers who misused and spent their time to attend the wedding ceremony of Adut Kiir and Nardes. This is really a questionable action against his leadership. If President Kiir fails to respect the whole nation, therefore it was in actual fact unwise to mess-up with him. This wedding would have been beautiful if President Mayardit, First lady Ayen and daughter, Adut and her husband, Nardes were allowed to do their own wedding party without any significant involvement from fellow South Sudanese citizens. 

At this stage, we would simply say, Good bye Adut Kiir Mayardit, you are now an Ethiopian lady and your father is a President of South Sudan, what a disastrous and sorrowful state of South Sudanese!

Regards.

BY CHIER AKUENY, BISHOP STUART UNIVERSITY, UGANDA.
And a concerned citizen of South Sudan.
chieryako@yahoo.com

http://www.southsudannation.com/allssdishonored%20chierakueny78.htm

President should release journalists

By:Anok Maketh, CANADA

With all respect to our president and his family, it is legal that every body express their opinion regarding that embarrassing marriage, as long as one is a citizen of this great country. Otherwise, there is no need for this family to be the representatives of our nation.
Before I hit the bottom-line of this article, I would like to convey my sincere sympathy to our brothers (Dengdit Ayok and Ngor Garang) for their courageous efforts to express shame and guilt most Southerners have been enduring since October 22nd. It has been almost 3 weeks since, but I felt like it happened yesterday, still can’t get rid of the pain of embarrassment. Adding the salt in the wound, the systematic arrest and intimidation of innocent young journalists outraged many. My advice to them as a daughter of their country is “No matter what you guys may be going through right now in the hands of what so-called presidential security guards, our thoughts are with you, you guys and other brave journalists plus those websites.

I didn’t learn this ordeal from these websites of course, but from friends living in Juba via phone. We should throw our support behind our journalists in solidarity because they are true sons of South Sudan, you shouldn’t regret any bit of that article “Nyan Bany” because it is the truth, we fought for the truth, and the truth should be told. This generation lost everything, all we have left with is the freedom of expression in our independent country. And if any one choice to punish us for the only thing we have left with, by putting those who voice the concern of the people in harm’s way, then make sure all the Southerners are watching around the world and inside the country as well. Soon or latter we the people will make sure someone pays for their unjustified actions against poor young men who are trying to do their job.
To get into the point, parents should not be blamed for actions of their adult children, Adut has to carry her own cross of putting whole country in shame. I think you are just Adut not ‘Nyan-e-Bany’, there is no Nyan Bany who can make two mistake at once (get pregnant out of wedlock and by a foreigner at the same time), that’s why I say this girl shouldn’t be call a first daughter any more.
To conclude my point, THERE IS A ENGLISH SAYiING WHICH SAYS ‘ONE BAD ONION MAKES THE WHOLE SACK GO ROTTEN;’ every family has it one bad onion, same go to President’s family. However, what dismayed the whole South Sudan the most was Kiir’s role in the wedding. It was really disgraceful for Mr. President to walk Adut down the aisle when he clearly knew that it was a wrong marriage at the wrong time. I don’t know what Kiir was thinking, there was no Dinka principle attached to that marriage nor Western world traditional match it, since Dinka father does not hand over her own daughter in marriage, but the bride’s uncle (elder brother of dad or his cousin) does it, not the dad himself. And the Western presidents make sure any decision taken by their kids will not harm the country’s interest in any way, whether physically or morally.
All in all, citizens are concerned about the country’s future and the coming generation who may use Adut’s actions as an example, why they would pursue alienation rather than their own. It seem like we totally forgot that we just came out of war yesterday and still in danger of being engulfed back to war any time.
Kiir should release and stop arresting journalists and address this situation. Otherwise, we the shaab are losing trust in moral and leadership status of the President. Shaab have a lot of questions and these questions will not go away without answers.

Anok Maketh, CANADA

http://www.southsudannation.com/index.html

Marriage or intelligence failure?: A case for our president’s daughter.

By John Bith Aliap.

Before I can go any further in analysing the marriage of our president’s daughter to an Ethiopian man, I would like to make myself clear to those who may view this opinion piece as an attack on the personal life of our president as has been the case, resulting in the arrest of journalists most recently.

The republic of South Sudan is a signatory to the United Nations and has every right to uphold its pledge to the international community in which it is a member state.

Freedom of speech is one of the basic fundamental human rights in a democratic system, and I believe that the republic of South Sudan is a democratic country whose citizens should be permitted to express their opinions in public matters without fear of retribution.

The republic of South Sudan in this respect is no exception in upholding international fundamental human rights. Freedom of expression and freedom of speech are basic human rights principles that country’s such as the republic of South Sudan is obliged under international law. 

These principles should inform the basis of our national law to protect all South Sudanese citizens and allow them to express themselves freely.

Article 9 (2) of the republic of South Sudan constitution allows me as a citizen of the republic of South Sudan to express my opinion without being hindered. This article states that ‘the rights and freedoms of individuals and groups enshrined in this bill shall be respected, upheld and promoted by all organs and agencies of government and by all persons’.

Returning to the point of discussion, many South Sudanese citizens including those that remain in South Sudan prison facilities have written considerably about our president’s daughter marriage to an Ethiopian man using different perspectives.

However, I would like to examine this issue from an intelligence perspective where the current and future security of South Sudan’s borders is compromised.

Historically, our fifty-year-war with the Arab nation of Northern Sudan has left us to question any body whose background can be seen or understood as similar to our former foes the northern Arabs.

The purpose of intelligence is to assist those in decision making through an intelligence projection that might suggest change to bring about a better future and avoid potential dangers (quoted from William, 1981).

This definition of intelligence informs us as South Sudanese that our intelligence community needs to be diligent in its role as the eyes and ears of the nation.

Our esteemed president himself comes from an intelligence field background; this is a field where a great deal of emphasis is placed on reducing uncertainty.

It is somewhat disheartening to accept as people of South Sudan that intelligence failure may be inevitable. In most cases as many of us have seen in the past and in our present time, intelligence failures can result in unimaginable, untold human suffering.  

The South Sudanese president’s daughter marriage to an Ethiopian man has recently become a major topic of debate in South Sudan that in turn resulted in quite a number of people being arrested by the security agents.

Although discussion of our president’s daughter marriage has risked the liberty of individuals’ personal lives, concerned South Sudanese Citizens such as myself can prepare to face the consequences associated with the debate on this topic.

As a patriotic South Sudanese citizen, I am most concerned for the safety and protection of the president. According to intelligence theory, the notion of lying outside and telling the truth inside may apply in this situation.

It is plausible to propose that we do not know the strategies or tactics of the enemies of the republic of South Sudan. These enemies can make last hour strategies disguised in our sacred traditional marriage in order to dismantle the government of South Sudan and its people into disarray.

Foreigners have now made their way up to the presidential palace.  According to my view, this provides the imminent possibility of South Sudan’s intelligence secrets being leaked either now or in the future.

An intelligence failure in the country can result from cases similar to our president’s daughter being married to a foreigner whose background remains a mystery.

The republic of South Sudan national security is an issue that can not be compromised over anything, and South Sudanese citizens have a significant role to ensure that South Sudan intelligence secrets are maintained without being leaked.

In the case of the current premise of the president’s daughter wedding to an alien man, South Sudanese citizens are urged to voice their concerns respectfully to their chosen leader and question the rationale of this significant marriage.

Surely, this marriage might have been imposed on our president by his daughter.  But according to Dinka marriage arrangements and responsibilities, as a Dinka myself, the president may have escaped criticism if he had delegated his brother to govern the marriage procedures. 

The question now remains as to whether this marriage will continue to be a thorn in the side of the president, a source of pain and mistrust.

In conclusion, I must reiterate that my opinion is informed upon two key concerns. 

Primarily, the president’s safety is our national concern that cannot be compromised by any citizen of South Sudan inclusive of his own family members. 

Individuals such as the author of this work have a significant role to play whether in our homeland or abroad when it comes to the security of our president. 

Secondly, the national security of South Sudan especially the retention of intelligence information is of critical value given the challenges our newly born nation has faced throughout its history, and perhaps continue to face currently and in the future. 

Our security agents must double their efforts to ensure that citizens of South Sudan, including the president and his extended family are adequately protected.

The author of this work is a concerned South Sudanese citizen and can be corresponded at johnaliap2011@hotmail.com

http://www.southsudannation.com/marriageorinntellignce%20johnbaliap78.htm

James Hoth Mai and Majak Agot Atem: army ready to defend Unity state

South Sudan rebels claim clash victory and allege UN involvement
Sudan Tribune
By Toby Collins November 3, 2011 (LONDON) – South Sudanese rebels claim to have captured Nhialdiew, 35km from the Unity state capital, Benitu, and to have inflicted significant troop loss upon the South Sudanese army, despite its alleged collusion with …

South Sudan minister: army ready to defend Unity state
Sudan Tribune
By Bonifacio Taban Kuich November 3, 2011 (BENTIU) – The South Sudan chief of the army’s general staff, James Hoth Mai and the deputy ministry of defence, Majak Agot Atem, have visited areas of Unity state affected by militia attacks on 29 October. …

South Sudan: Polio Vaccination Kicks Off Next Tuesday

South Sudan: SOS to Manage Children’s Village in Malakal AllAfrica.com The delegation also discussed how to facilitate the rehabilitation and accommodation of the South Sudanese street children who are expected to be repatriated from the North back to their motherland next month. They also underscored the value of …

South Sudan: Polio Vaccination Kicks Off Next Tuesday AllAfrica.com Juba — A vigorous polio vaccination campaign in South Sudan will kick off next Tuesday 8 November 2011, the minister for Health Hon Dr Michael Milli Hussein has announced. Addressing the press at the Kimu Hospital in Gudele in Juba, the minister said …

‘Love South Sudan‘ project raises money, awareness, Gospel opportunities Mission Network NEws (press release) This was the idea behind the “Love South Sudan” campaign led by Campus Crusade for Christ (Cru) at George Mason University recently. The campus ministry decided to partner with Global Aid Network (GAiN) and their Seed Program to feed thousands in Sudan …