In a weekly cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Mohammad Naji Ottri, the ministers vowed to bolster their country’s support campaigns and aid convoys to Gaza, which already amounted to 280 tons of aid in various kind.

They also underlined the efforts led by President Bashar al-Assad to end the Israeli aggression on Gaza, break the siege, and open crossing points to deliver food, medicine, medical supplies and other basic requirements into the Gaza Strip.

The cabinet urged the UN Security Council and the international community to assume responsibility for the situation in Gaza, stop the aggression, condemn Israel’s brutal crimes, and bring those responsible to justice for committing crimes against humanity, SANA said.

Also on Monday, thousands of Syrian workers staged a sit-in outside the General Federation of Arab Trade Unions headquarters in Damascus, condemning the Israeli aggression on Gaza and supporting the Palestinian people, according to SANA.

The workers called on Arab countries, the UN and the Security Council to mobilize immediately to stop the Israeli aggression, lift the siege, and open crossing points to deliver medical and food supplies to the people of Gaza. They also denounced the U.S. administration’s support to Israel.

The participants burned American and Israeli flags and effigies of Israeli leaders and their supporters in Washington, chanting slogans condemning the silence of some countries over the massacres committed by Israel in Gaza.

Meanwhile, masses of Syrian and Arab women participated on Monday in a sit-in in Damascus in a show of support to the Palestinian people and protest of the Israeli aggression.

Israel launched airstrikes in the Gaza Strip on Dec. 27 and a ground operation on Jan. 3 in retaliation of Hamas militants’ rocket attacks into Israel, which has killed 537 Palestinians and wounded 2,600 others.

Syria to launch public donation campaign to support Gaza_English_Xinhua

Dr John Sentamu, writing in The Observer, said the world must recognise that the time for talks was over and Mugabe should be forced out. ‘The time has come for Robert Mugabe to answer for his crimes against humanity, against his countrymen and women and for justice to be done. The winds of change that once brought hope to Zimbabwe and its neighbours have become a hurricane of destruction, with the outbreak of cholera, destitution, starvation and systemic abuse of power by the state,’ he says.

‘As a country cries out for justice, we can no longer be inactive to their call. Robert Mugabe and his henchmen must now take their rightful place in The Hague and answer for their actions. The time to remove them from power has come.’

He said the power-sharing deal signed by Mugabe and the Zimbabwean opposition in September was ‘now dead’.

This time last year Sentamu, one of the Anglican church’s most senior clerics, ripped up his dog collar on television in protest at Mugabe’s regime and refused to wear one again until the tyrant had been toppled. He then asked Christmas shoppers to give £1 to Zimbabwe’s suffering people, but now he wants more far-reaching action.

The Archbishop’s attack came as Gordon Brown also stepped up the rhetoric yesterday, calling the Zimbabwean government a ‘blood-stained regime’ and urging the international community to tell Mugabe ‘enough is enough’. The Prime Minister said food shortages and the cholera epidemic had become an ‘international rather than a national emergency’ that demanded a co-ordinated response.

‘We must stand together to defend human rights and democracy, to say firmly to Mugabe that enough is enough,’ he said. ‘The whole world is angry because they see avoidable deaths – of children, mothers, and families affected by a disease that could have been avoided. This is a humanitarian catastrophe. This is a breakdown in civil society.’ Brown said he hoped the UN Security Council would meet ‘urgently’. But Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg went further, saying the UN should now declare the use of military force was justified: ‘The world has sat idly by while Mugabe has brutalised his own people for too long. Economic recession in the West has led the world to avert its gaze from the suffering in Zimbabwe. Further international inaction would be inexcusable.’

South African Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu said on Dutch TV that Mugabe must stand down or be removed ‘by force’. But while Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga has said it was time for African governments to ‘take decisive action to push him out of power’, there has been little sign that Zimbabwe’s neighbours were prepared to move against him. The growing international fury came as cholera ravaged the people – 575 have died and 13,000 are infected – and the economy is worse than anything the world has seen.

The Zimbabwe central bank sacked executives at four banks accused of illegal foreign currency trading. The managers were sacked for diverting Zimbabwean dollars to the black market before the notes were introduced, central bank Governor Gideon Gono told the state-run Herald newspaper. Referring to reports that the central bank itself bought black market currency, Gono said: ‘We are sick and tired of being labelled crooks.’

Inflation is at 231,000,000 per cent and the Reserve Bank has been unable to print money fast enough to keep up with prices, which double every 24 hours.

The Observer

The claim is categorically denied by the head of Saddam’s tribe. The Iraqi Government similarly denies any mutilation took place after the dictator was hanged on December 30, 2006, for crimes against humanity.

Talal Misrab, 45, is the chief guard at Saddam’s tomb, housed in a large hall in al-Awja, a small village north of Baghdad, where the fallen dictator spent much of his childhood.

In an interview with The Times, he claimed: “There were six stab wounds on his body.” Mr Misrab alleged that four of the wounds were on the former president’s front and two on his back. He also said there was an injury to his face.

The guard alleged that 300 other people witnessed the injuries when the body was buried in the early hours of the morning, the day after Saddam was killed.

Another tribesman said he had been told by Sheikh Ali al-Neda, the former head of Saddam’s tribe, who has since also died, that the body had stab wounds.

Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Iraq’s security advisor, denied the allegation.

“I oversaw the whole process from A-Z and Saddam Hussein’s body was not, not stabbed or mutilated and he was not humiliated before execution,” he said.

Sheikh Hasan al-Neda, who is now leader of Saddam’s tribe, also dismissed the suggestion that anyone had interfered with the corpse.

“I swear by God his body was totally intact except for a bruise on his cheek,” Mr al-Neda said. “When we received the body in Baghdad, we were told that they [the Iraqi authorities] washed and wrapped it according to Islamic traditions, but we still washed him again here in Tikrit.”

He continued: “My son Ahmed was there and he told a Saudi newspaper that the body was not mutilated in any way.”

The circumstances of Saddam’s death are not in dispute, however. His execution triggered international outrage after leaked video footage revealed that he was taunted by guards who chanted Shia Muslim slogans as the noose was placed around his neck on the gallows.

Nouri al-Maliki, the Prime Minister, told The Times last month that he regretted the way in which the sentence was carried out. He added: “Those who chanted were punished. There was no major violation apart from the chanting.”

Times Online

In October 2004, al-Bashir’s government negotiated an end to the Second Sudanese Civil War, one of the longest-running and deadliest wars of the 20th century, by granting limited autonomy to Southern Sudan. Since then, however, his government has been widely criticised for its role in the Darfur conflict. In July 2008, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court accused al-Bashir of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur, and requested that the court issue a warrant for his arrest.

Background

Al-Bashir was born on January 1, 1944 in the village of Hoshe Bannaga, Sudan, then part of the Kingdom of Egypt and Sudan. He received his primary education there, and his family later moved to Khartoum, where he completed his secondary education. Al-Bashir joined the Sudanese Army at a young age and studied at the Egyptian Military Academy in Cairo. He quickly rose through the ranks and became a paratrooper. Later, al-Bashir served with the Egyptian Army during the October War of 1973. He is a native speaker of the Arabic language

Al-Bashir is married to his cousin Fatma Khalid. He also has a second wife named Widad Babiker, who had a number of children with her first husband, Ibrahim Shamsaddin, member National Salvation Revolution Council, who died in a helicopter crash. Al-Bashir does not have any children of his own.

Military career

When he returned to the Sudan, Al-Bashir was put in charge of military operations against the Sudan People’s Liberation Army in the southern half of the country.[citation needed] Then a colonel, in 1989 Al-Bashir led a group of army officers in ousting the unstable coalition government of Prime Minister Sadeq al-Mahdi. Under Al-Bashir’s leadership, the new military government suspended political parties and introduced an Islamic legal code on the national level. He then became Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council for National Salvation (a newly established body with legislative and executive powers for what was described as a transitional period), and assumed the posts of chief of state, prime minister, chief of the armed forces, and minister of defense.

Governance

Subsequent to Al-Bashir’s promotion to the Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council for National Salvation, he allied himself with Hassan al-Turabi, leader of the National Islamic Front.

On October 16, 1993, Al-Bashir’s powers increased when he was appointed president of the country, after which time the Revolutionary Command Council for National Salvation was dissolve] The executive and legislative powers of the council were later given to Al-Bashir.[citation needed] He was later elected president (with a five year term) in the 1996 national election. In 1998, Al-Bashir and the Presidential Committee put into effect a new constitution. In 1999, Al-Bashir and the Parliament made a law which allowed limited political associations in opposition to Al-Bashir and his supporters to be formed, although these groups failed to gain any significant access to governmental power.[citation needed] On December 12, 1999, Al-Bashir sent troops and tanks against parliament and ousted Hassan al-Turabi, the speaker of parliament, in a palace coup.

Darfur conflict

As the conflict in the south of Sudan began to subside, a new conflict started in the western province of Darfur in early 2003. About 300,000 people have died and 5 million people have been forced from their homes, and are still under attack from government-backed Janjaweed militia, as reported by the international organizations, but Sudan Government denied, and said that the number of people who were killed in the conflict is not more than 10,000..

The United States Government claimed in September 2004 “that genocide has been committed in Darfur and that the Government of Sudan and the Janjaweed bear responsibility and that genocide may still be occurring.” Al-Bashir declared that the government had squashed the rebellion in February 2004, but rebels still operate within the region and the death toll continues to rise. On June 29, 2004, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell met with Al-Bashir in Sudan and urged him to make peace with the rebels, end the crisis, and lift restrictions on the delivery of humanitarian aid to Darfur. Kofi Annan met with Al-Bashir three days later and demanded that he disarm the Janjaweed.

In September 2006, Al-Bashir attended the UN General Assembly in New York and asserted that Sudan wants the African Union to stay in Darfur until peace is re-established.[citation needed] Shortly afterwards the AU peace and United Nations Security Council announced that its 7,000 troops would remain until December 31, 2006.[citation needed]

A high-level technical consultation was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on 11-12 June 2007, pursuant to the 4 June 2007 letters of the Secretary-General and the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, which were addressed to President Omar Al-Bashir. The technical consultations were attended by delegations from the Government of Sudan, the African Union and the United Nations.

International Criminal Court action

On 14 July 2008, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Luis Moreno-Ocampo, alleged that al-Bashir bore individual criminal responsibility for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed since 2003 in Darfur. The prosecutor accused al-Bashir of having “masterminded and implemented” a plan to destroy the three main ethnic groups, the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa, with a campaign of murder, rape and deportation. The evidence was submitted to three judges who will decide whether to issue an arrest warrant. If formally charged, al-Bashir would be the first sitting head of state charged by the ICC. Bashir has rejected the charges and said, “Whoever has visited Darfur, met officials and discovered their ethnicities and tribes … will know that all of these things are lies.”

Sudan’s government has stated that it won’t recognize the authority and decisions of the ICC. Bashir also said that he remained unflustered by the accusations.

In October 2008 ICC asked the prosecutor for more information to support the charges.

Currency crisis

In the early 1990s, al-Bashir administration gave the green signal to float a new currency called Sudanese Dinar to replace the battered old Sudanese Pound that had lost 90 per cent of its worth during the turbulent 1980s.

But the Sudanese Dinar continued to lose its value like its predecessor throughout his reign due to imprudent financial policies, civil war and economic sanctions. During 1995-2005, the Sudanese Dinar lost almost 80 per cent of its value effectively evaporating the foreign exchange reserves of the government.

In early 2007, al-Bashir administration again announced a new currency called New Sudanese Pound and artificially revalued it upwards exacerbating the crisis and boosting the black market.