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Sudan: Sudan Government
built 275 days ago
Sudan is an overwhelmingly agricultural country. Much of the farming is of a subsistence kind; agriculture occupies some 80% of the workforce but contributes only 35% of the GDP. Agricultural production varies from year to year because of intermittent droughts that cause widespread famine. The government plays a major role in planning the economy. The leading export crops are cotton, sesame, peanuts, and sugar. Other agricultural products include sorghum, millet, wheat, cassava, tropical fruits, and sweet potatoes.
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In 1991 Sudan had a large modern irrigated agriculture sector totaling more than 2 million hectares out of about 84 million hectares that are potentially arable. About 93 percent of the irrigated area was in government projects; the remaining 7 percent belonged to private operations. The Nile and its tributaries were the source of water for 93 percent of irrigated agriculture, and of this the Blue Nile accounted for about 67 percent. Gravity flow was the main form of irrigation, but about one-third of the irrigated area was served by pumps.
Sudan has an authoritarian government in which all effective political power is in the hands of President Omar al-Bashir. Bashir and his party have controlled the government since he led the military coup on 30 June 1989.
The geostrategic location of Sudan contributes to its sociopolitical instability. Located astride the Nile River, which flows north from Ethiopia and Uganda into Sudan and through Egypt to the Mediterranean Sea, Sudan has been the object of contention by those neighbors as well as external powers. Egypt cannot tolerate the presence of a hostile government in Khartoum, because the Egyptian economy depends on the Nile waters. Sudan and Egypt worry that Ethiopia might dam the Blue Nile and deprive them both of water. Sudan ... borders the Red Sea, a major artery of international trade, and adjoins nine countries (Egypt, Libya, Chad, Central African Republic, Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Eritrea). Lacking the capacity to police its remote desert borders and its lengthy coast along the Red Sea, Sudan is vulnerable to incursion.
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[N]egotiations between the United Nations and Sudan appeared to be making some progress in late 2006 on establishing a mixed AU-UN peacekeeping force for Darfur, but there was no final agreement. In Jan., 2007, both sides in Darfur were reported to have agreed to a 60-day cease-fire and a peace summit, but it was breached, apparently by both sides, later the same month. In March, the International Criminal Court accused Ahmed Haroun, a member of the Sudanese government who was responsible for Darfur in 2003–4, of war crimes; the ICC said it had evidence that the Sudanese government had orchestrated militia attacks. The following month, after pressure from China, Sudan agreed to allow some 3,000 UN peacekeepers to join the AU force, and in June it agreed to a larger joint UN-AU peacekeeping force that would be put in place later.
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The government of Sudan has been widely accused of condoning slavery in that country. While there is convincing evidence that some slavery does occur there, the total picture is far more complex. There are at least 4 ways in which large numbers of Sudanese men, women and children lose their freedom:
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