1.
Summit
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A summit is a point on a surface that is higher in elevation than all points immediately adjacent to it. Mathematically, a summit is a maximum in elevation. The topographic terms acme, apex, peak, and zenith are synonymous, the UIAA definition is that a summit is independent if it has a prominence of 30 metres or more, it is a mountain if it has a prominence of at least 300 metres. This can be summarised as follows, A pyramidal peak is an exaggerated form produced by ice erosion of a mountain top, Summit may also refer to the highest point along a line, trail, or route. In many parts of the western United States, the term refers to the highest point along a road, highway. For example, the highest point along Interstate 80 in California is referred to as Donner Summit while the highest point on Interstate 5 is Siskiyou Mountain Summit, geoid Hill List of highest mountains Maxima and minima Nadir Summit accordance Peak finder
2.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
3.
Sudan
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Sudan, also known as North Sudan since South Sudans independence and officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northern Africa. It is the third largest country in Africa, the River Nile divides the country into eastern and western halves. Before the Sudanese Civil War, South Sudan was part of Sudan, Sudan was home to numerous ancient civilizations, such as the Kingdom of Kush, Kerma, Nobatia, Alodia, Makuria, Meroë and others, most of which flourished along the Nile. During the pre-dynastic period Nubia and Nagadan Upper Egypt were identical, by virtue of its proximity to Egypt, the Sudan participated in the wider history of the Near East inasmuch as it was Christianized by the 6th century, and Islamized in the 15th. As a result of Christianization, the Old Nubian language stands as the oldest recorded Nilo-Saharan language, Sudan was the largest country in Africa and the Arab world until 2011, when South Sudan separated into an independent country, following an independence referendum. Sudan is now the third largest country in Africa and also the third largest country in the Arab world and its capital is Khartoum, the political, cultural and commercial centre of the nation. It is a representative democratic federal republic. The politics of Sudan are regulated by an organization called the National Assembly. The Sudanese legal system is based on Islamic law, the countrys place name Sudan is a name given to a geographical region to the south of the Sahara, stretching from Western Africa to eastern Central Africa. The name derives from the Arabic bilād as-sūdān, or the lands of the Blacks, during the fifth millennium BC migrations from the drying Sahara brought neolithic people into the Nile Valley along with agriculture. The population that resulted from this cultural and genetic mixing developed social hierarchy over the centuries become the Kingdom of Kush at 1700 BC. The Kingdom of Kush was an ancient Nubian state centered on the confluences of the Blue Nile and White Nile, and the Atbarah River and it was established after the Bronze Age collapse and the disintegration of the New Kingdom of Egypt, centered at Napata in its early phase. After King Kashta invaded Egypt in the eighth century BC, the Kushite kings ruled as pharaohs of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt for a century before being defeated and driven out by the Assyrians. At the height of their glory, the Kushites conquered an empire that stretched from what is now known as South Kordofan all the way to the Sinai, pharaoh Piye attempted to expand the empire into the Near East, but was thwarted by the Assyrian king Sargon II. Sennacheribs successor Esarhaddon went further, and invaded Egypt itself, deposing Taharqa, Taharqa fled back to his homeland where he died two years later. Egypt became an Assyrian colony, however, king Tantamani, after succeeding Taharqa, Esarhaddon died while preparing to leave the Assyrian capital of Nineveh in order to eject him. However, his successor Ashurbanipal sent an army into southern Egypt and routed Tantamani. During Classical Antiquity, the Nubian capital was at Meroë, in ancient Greek geography, the Meroitic kingdom was known as Ethiopia
4.
South Sudan
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South Sudan, officially the Republic of South Sudan, is a landlocked country in northeastern Africa that gained its independence from Sudan in 2011. Its current capital is Juba, which is also its largest city and it was planned that the capital city would be changed to the more centrally located Ramciel in the future before civil war broke out. It includes the vast swamp region of the Sudd, formed by the White Nile, following the First Sudanese Civil War, the Southern Sudan Autonomous Region was formed in 1972 and lasted until 1983. A second Sudanese civil war soon developed and ended with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005, later that year, southern autonomy was restored when an Autonomous Government of Southern Sudan was formed. South Sudan became an independent state on 9 July 2011, following a referendum passed with 98. 83% of the vote. It is a United Nations member state, a state of the African Union, of the East African Community. In July 2012, South Sudan signed the Geneva Conventions, South Sudan has suffered ethnic violence and has been in a civil war since 2013, as of 2016 it has the second highest score on the Fragile States Index. The Nilotic people of South Sudan—the Acholi, Anyuak, Bari, Dinka, Nuer, Shilluk, Kaligi, Zande, the Azande, Mundu, Avukaya and Baka, who entered South Sudan in the 16th century—established the regions largest state of Equatoria Region. The Dinka are the largest, Nuer the second largest and Azande are the third-largest ethnic group in South Sudan while the Bari are fourth-largest. They are found in the Maridi, Yambio, and Tombura districts in the tropical rainforest belt of Western Equatoria, in the 18th century, the Avungara sib rose to power over the rest of Azande society and this domination continued into the 20th century. The major reasons include the history of British policy preference toward developing the Arab north. After Sudans first independent elections in 1958, the ignoring of the south by Khartoum led to uprisings, revolt. As of 2012, peoples include Acholi, Anyuak, Azande, Baka, Balanda Bviri, Bari, Boya, Didinga, Dinka, Jiye, Kaligi, Kuku, Lotuka, Mundari, Murie, Nilotic, Nuer, Shilluk, Toposa and Zande. Slavery had been an institution of Sudanese life throughout history, the slave trade in the south intensified in the 19th century and continued after the British had suppressed slavery in much of sub-Saharan Africa. Annual Sudanese slave raids into non-Muslim territories resulted in the capture of thousands of southern Sudanese. In the 19th century, the Azande fought the French, the Belgians, Egypt, under the rule of Khedive Ismail Pasha, first attempted to control the region in the 1870s, establishing the province of Equatoria in the southern portion. Egypts first governor was Samuel Baker, commissioned in 1869, followed by Charles George Gordon in 1874, the Mahdist Revolt of the 1880s destabilized the nascent province, and Equatoria ceased to exist as an Egyptian outpost in 1889. Important settlements in Equatoria included Lado, Gondokoro, Dufile and Wadelai, european colonial maneuverings in the region came to a head in 1898, when the Fashoda Incident occurred at present-day Kodok, Britain and France almost went to war over the region
5.
South Kordofan
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South Kordofan is one of the 18 wilayat or provinces of Sudan. It has an area of 158,355 km² and a population of approximately 1,100,000 people. Kaduqli is the capital of the state and it is centered on the Nuba Hills. It was erroneously believed that South Kordofan is the state in Sudan that is producing oil. Oil has since been discovered in White Nile State in larger quantities, under the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, residents of South Kordofan were to hold popular consultations in 2011 to determine the constitutional future of the state. However, South Kordofan governor Ahmed Haroun suspended the process and violence followed, Haroun had previously been charged with war crimes against civilians and crime against humanity by the International Criminal Court. Although South Kordofan is part of Sudan, it is home to many pro South Sudan communities, especially in the Nuba Mountains, in 2009 and 2010 a series of conflicts between rival nomadic tribes in South Kordofan caused a large number of casualties and displaced thousands. On June 6,2011 armed conflict broke out between the forces of Northern and Southern Sudan, ahead of the independence of the South on July 9. This followed an agreement for both sides to withdraw from Abyei, on June 20, the parties agreed to demilitarize the contested area of Abyei where Ethiopian peacekeepers will be deployed
6.
Arabic
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Arabic is a Central Semitic language that was first spoken in Iron Age northwestern Arabia and is now the lingua franca of the Arab world. Arabic is also the language of 1.7 billion Muslims. It is one of six languages of the United Nations. The modern written language is derived from the language of the Quran and it is widely taught in schools and universities, and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, government, and the media. The two formal varieties are grouped together as Literary Arabic, which is the language of 26 states. Modern Standard Arabic largely follows the standards of Quranic Arabic. Much of the new vocabulary is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the post-Quranic era, Arabic has influenced many languages around the globe throughout its history. During the Middle Ages, Literary Arabic was a vehicle of culture in Europe, especially in science, mathematics. As a result, many European languages have borrowed many words from it. Many words of Arabic origin are found in ancient languages like Latin. Balkan languages, including Greek, have acquired a significant number of Arabic words through contact with Ottoman Turkish. Arabic has also borrowed words from languages including Greek and Persian in medieval times. Arabic is a Central Semitic language, closely related to the Northwest Semitic languages, the Ancient South Arabian languages, the Semitic languages changed a great deal between Proto-Semitic and the establishment of the Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include, The conversion of the suffix-conjugated stative formation into a past tense, the conversion of the prefix-conjugated preterite-tense formation into a present tense. The elimination of other prefix-conjugated mood/aspect forms in favor of new moods formed by endings attached to the prefix-conjugation forms, the development of an internal passive. These features are evidence of descent from a hypothetical ancestor. In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside of the Ancient South Arabian family were spoken and it is also believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages were also spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hijaz, Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages, in Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested
7.
Nuba peoples
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For the musical form, see Andalusi nubah or Nuubaat. Nuba is a term used here for the various indigenous peoples who inhabit the Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan state. Estimates of the Nuba population vary widely, the Sudanese government estimated that they numbered 1.07 million in 2003, the Nuba people reside in the foothills of the Nuba Mountains. Villages consist of family compounds, and the mens in which unmarried men sleep, a family compound consisting of a rectangular compound enclosing two round mud huts thatched with sorghum stalks facing each other called a shal. The shal was fenced with wooden posts interwoven with straw, two benches ran down the each side of the shal with a fire in the middle where families will tell stories and oral traditions. Around the shal was the larger yard, the tog placed in front. The fence of the tog was made of tree branches as high as the roof of the huts. Small livestock like goats and chickens and donkeys were kept in the tog, each compound had tall conical granaries called durs which stood on one side of the tog. At the back of the compound was a yard were maize and vegetables like pumpkin, beans. For families that were small a compound was not needed and a mud hut with a fence would be enough, the entrance was as large as a man so people could climb the ladder and dive in to get grain. Inside the hut there was little furniture, only a bamboo bed frame with a baobab rope mat on top. Possessions and tools were hung or leaned against the wall, a small garden behind the was used to grow vegetables like beans and pumpkin while sorghum and peanuts were grown away in the hills. Ones wealth is measured by cattle so they are kept in an enclosure called a coh for cows, the Nuba people eat sorghum as their staple. It is boiled with water or milk to make kal eaten with meat stew called waj, corn is also roasted and eaten with home made butter. Main, Index, Kordofanian languages Most of the Nuba peoples speak one of the languages in the geographic Kordofanian languages group of the Nuba Mountains. This language group is in the major Niger–Congo languages family, several Nuba languages are in the Nilo-Saharan languages family. Over one hundred languages are spoken in the area and are considered Nuba languages, although many of the Nuba also speak Sudanese Arabic, the Nuba people are primarily farmers, as well as herders who keep cattle, chickens, and other domestic animals. A distinctive characteristic of the Nubas is their passion for athletic competition, the strongest young men of a community compete with athletes from other villages for the chance to promote their personal and their village’s pride and strength
8.
Taqali
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Taqali was a state in the Nuba Hills, in modern-day central Sudan. Unlike the surrounding Kordofan, the uplands of the hills were quite moist and suitable to agriculture, the state was centred upon the Taqali Massif the highest part of the hills in the northeast of the region. Oral traditions state it was founded centuries ago at the same time as the Kingdom of Sennar came into being. Some scholars doubts these tales and believes that the state did not come into being until the eighteenth century. It has been argued that the first true ruler of Taqali was Muhammad wad Jayli, some believe it formed during the period of disorder in the Kordofan when the Kingdom of Sennar was declining and Darfur was growing in power. Muhammad began the process of uniting the region and he was succeeded as Makk by his brother Umar. Umar was overthrown, however, by Ajaid, the queen mother, Ismail took over and further expanded the state, taking control of the 99 hills of the region. His son Abakr peacefully succeeded him, but after this the state was beset by conflicts over the succession through much of the period from 1840 to 1880, despite its small size the Taqali state remained independent of its more powerful neighbours. While the Nuba Hills were well suited to agriculture they were surrounded by the arid Kordofan and this region was far too dry to support a large army and only small expeditions could be launched. The rocky terrain of the Taqali Massif served as natural fortifications, the Kingdom of Sennar exerted enough pressure that Taqali sent annual tribute, but never conquered the area. When Sennar was destroyed by the Egyptian invasion of 1821 the situation continued, the Egyptians launched three separate attacks against Taqali, but all of them failed. Eventually an agreement was reached whereby Taqali would remain de facto independent but would pay a nominal tribute, the state was finally conquered by the forces of the Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad. Makk Adam previcated between the British and the forces of the Mahdi, professing his support for both but aiding neither, in 1883 the Mahdi decided that Taqali had to be conquered. His armies did more than ones in July 1884 Makk Adam was captured. Insurrections continued in Taqali and Hamdan Abu Anja was dispatched to defeat the resistance and this was done though much pillaging and destruction of the region. With the defeat of the Mahdists the Mukuk of Taqali were restored to power, Taqali proved a useful ally and the British gradually gave it more territory to control and administer. This continued with the independence of Sudan in 1956, the administrative power of the state was finally done away with after the 1969 coup. The Makk of Taqali, though having no power, remains a ceremonial leader to the people of the region to this day
9.
Muhammad Ahmad
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Muhammad Ahmad bin Abd Allah was a religious leader of the Samaniyya order in Sudan who, on June 29,1881, proclaimed himself the Mahdi, the messianic redeemer of the Islamic faith. From his announcement of the Mahdiyya in June 1881 until the fall of Khartoum in January 1885, during this period, many of the theological and political doctrines of the Mahdiyya were established and promulgated among the growing ranks of the Mahdis supporters, the Ansars. When Muhammad Ahmad was still a child, the moved to the town of Karari, north of Omdurman. While his siblings joined his fathers trade, Muhammad Ahmad showed a proclivity for religious study and he studied first under Sheikh al-Amin al-Suwaylih in the Gezira region around Khartoum, and subsequently under Sheikh Muhammad al-Dikayr Abdallah Khujali near the town of Berber in North Sudan. Determined to live a life of asceticism, mysticism and worship, in 1861 he sought out Sheikh Muhammad Sharif Nur al-Daim, Muhammad Ahmad stayed with Sheikh Muhammad Sharif for seven years, during which time he was recognized for his piety and asceticism. Near the end of period, he was awarded the title of Sheikh himself. He was permitted to give tariqa and Uhūd to new followers, in 1870, his family moved again in search for timber, this time to Aba Island on the White Nile south of Khartoum. On Aba Island, Muhammad Ahmad built a mosque and started to teach the Quran and he soon gained a notable reputation among the local population as an excellent speaker and mystic. Any deviation from the Quran was therefore heresy, in 1872, Muhammad Ahmad invited Sheikh Sharif to move to al-Aradayb, an area on the White Nile neighboring Aba Island. Despite initially amicable relations, in 1878 the two leaders had a dispute motivated by Sheikh Sharifs resentment of his former students growing popularity. The dispute led to violence between their followers, and while they temporarily reconciled their differences, the experience revealed to Muhammad Ahmad his mentors ostensible faults. As a result of this dispute, Sheikh Sharif expelled his former student from the Samaniyya order. After recognizing that the split with Sheikh Sharif was irreconcilable, Muhammad Ahmad approached a rival leader of the Samaniyya order named Sheikh al-Qurashi wad al-Zayn. The elderly sheikh eagerly accepted him and his followers, and under his new master, Muhammad Ahmad resumed his life of piety, while in Kordofan, he also enhanced his reputation by granting baraka to the common people who attended his sermons en masse. On 25 July 1878, Sheikh al-Qurashi died and his followers recognized Muhammad Ahmad as their new leader, around this time, Muhammad Ahmad first met Abdallahi bin Muhammad al-Taaishi, who was to become his chief deputy and successor in the years to come. On 29 June 1881, Muhammad Ahmad publicly announced his claim to be the Mahdi so as to prepare the way for the coming of the Prophet Isa. In part, his claim was based on his status as a prominent Sufi sheikh with a following in the Samaniyya order. Yet the idea of the Mahdiyya had been central to the belief of the Samaniyya prior to Muhammad Ahmads manifestation, the previous Samaniyya leader, Sheikh al-Qurashi Wad al-Zayn, had asserted that the long-awaited-for redeemer would come from the Samaniyya line
10.
Messiria tribe
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The Messiria, known also under the name of Misseriya Arabs, are a branch of the Baggara Arabs tribes. Their language is the Chadic Arabic, numbering over one million, the Baggara are the second largest people group in Western Sudan, extending into Eastern Chad. They are primarily nomadic herders and their journeys are dependent upon the seasons of the year. The use of the term Baggara carries negative connotations as slave raiders, the term Dar means land or location. The word Al or al and sometimes El or el corresponds to the definite article The in English, the term Dar Al Messiria means the land or location of the Messiria. According to Ian Cunnison 1966, the Arab nomads of the Sudan, the Term Baggara means simply cowman but the Sudanese apply the word particularly to the nomadic cattlemen, who span the belt of savanna between Lake Chad and the White Nile. This belt is the homeland for the Baggara people for centuries, Ian Cunnison, referenced above said History and environment together throw light on their distribution. In general the Dar Al Messiria or their zones can be divided into three areas,1.1, Dar Al Messiria in Kordofan, Sudan. Dar Al Messiria in Darfur, Sudan, the Messiria in the three different zones are separated for long times to the point that they have developed localized cultural and social differences. The Messiria in Kordofan know little if any about the Messiria in Dar Fur and Chad, but they belong to the same tribe and they have similar subtribal divisions and diversities. In Kordofan, the Messiria occupies the area known as West Kordofan, among their well known locations are, Abyei, Babanousa, El Muglad, Lagawa, El Mairam. The main divisions of Messiria in Kordofan are Messiria Zurug, literally the name means The dark ones and Messiria Humr, means The red ones. These names, Zurug and Humr do not mean in any way that the Zurug are darker in color than Humr. According to MacMichael,1967, The two divisions have become so distinct that the Humr have ceased to rate themselves Messiria, however, in Sudan today, still they are called Messiria Humr and Messiria Zurug and still they acknowledge their common history and ancestry. The Misseriyya mostly live around Kordofan and migrate south into the Dinka territory and they are marginally represented in Darfur and there they live a semi-sedentary life. The Misseriyya were once a group, but overtime it fractured into smaller groups. The location of Messiria of Kordofan is at the zone between Sudan and Southern Sudan, specially the southern Fringes of their nomadic zone. The Abyei area is claimed by Messira as well as by Ngok Dinka, while the Messiria are Baggara Arabs, Sunni Muslims and identified as Northerners, on the other hand, Ngok Dinka are Southerners and identified as Africans either Christians or Animists
11.
Baggara
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The Baggāra are a grouping of Arab ethnic groups inhabiting the portion of Africas Sahel mainly between Lake Chad and southern Kordofan, numbering over one million. They are known as Baggara in Sudan, and as Shuwa/Diffa Arabs in Chad and their name derives from the Arabic word literally meaning cattle herder. They have a language, Shuwa Arabic, which is one of the regional varieties of Arabic. They also have a traditional mode of subsistence, nomadic cattle herding. Nevertheless, collectively they do not all necessarily consider themselves one people, the term baggara culture was introduced in 1994 by Braukämper. The political use of term baggara in Sudan denoting a particular set of tribes is limited to Sudan and it often means a coalition of majority Arabs and a few indigenous African tribes with other Arab tribes of western Sudan, as opposed to Bedouin Abbala Arab tribes. The bulk of baggara Arabs live in Chad, the rest live, or seasonally migrate to, southwest Sudan, and slivers of the Central African Republic, South Sudan, and Niger. Those who are still nomads migrate seasonally between grazing lands in the wet season and river areas in the dry season and their common language is known to academics by various names, such as Chadian Arabic, taken from the regions where the language is spoken. The origin of the Baggara is undetermined, according to a 1994 research paper, the group arose in Chad from 1635 onwards through the fusion of an Arabic speaking population. For complete and accurate account about Baggara tribes, see, Baggara of Sudan, Culture, the Misseiria of Jebel Mun speak a Nilo-Saharan language, Miisiirii, related to the Tama of their traditional neighbors. The small community of Baggara Arabs in the corner of Niger is known as Diffa Arabs for the Diffa Region. They occupy the shore of Lake Chad and migrated from Nigeria since World War II, most of the Diffa Arabs claim descent from the Mahamid clan of Sudan and Chad. The Baggara of Darfur and Kordofan were the backbone of the Mahdist revolt against Turko-Egyptian rule in Sudan in the 1880s, the Mahdis second-in-command, the Khalifa Abdallahi ibn Muhammad, was himself a Baggara of the Taaisha tribe. During the Mahdist period tens of thousands of Baggara migrated to Omdurman, after their defeat at the Battle of Karari in 1898, the remnants returned home to Darfur and Kordofan. Under the British system of rule, each of the major Baggara tribes was ruled by its own paramount chief. Most of them were members of the Umma Party, headed since the 1960s by Sadiq el Mahdi. The main Baggara tribes of Darfur were awarded hawakir by the Fur Sultans in the 1750s, as a result, the four largest Baggara tribes of Darfur—the Rizeigat, Habbaniya, Beni Halba and Ta’isha—have been only marginally involved in the Darfur conflict. However, the Baggara have been involved in other conflicts in both Sudan and Chad
12.
Arid
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A region is arid when it is characterized by a severe lack of available water, to the extent of hindering or preventing the growth and development of plant and animal life. Environments subject to arid climates tend to lack vegetation and are called xeric or desertic, most arid climates surround the equator, these places include most of Africa and parts of South America, Central America and Australia. The distribution of aridity observed at any one point in time is largely the result of the circulation of the atmosphere. The latter does change significantly over time through climate change, for example, temperature increase across the Nile Basin over the next 30–40 years could change the region from semi-arid to arid, resulting in a significant reduction in agricultural land. In addition, changes in use can result in greater demands on soil water. Durrenberger, R. W. Arid Climates, article in The Encyclopedia of Climatology, p. 92-101, Edited by J. E. Oliver and R. W. Fairbridge, Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, New York, ISBN 0-87933-009-0. J Aridity Indexes, article in The Encyclopedia of Climatology, p. 102-107, Edited by J. E. Oliver and R. W. Fairbridge, Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, New York, blue Peace for the Nile Report,2009, Strategic Foresight Group
13.
Comprehensive Peace Agreement
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The Comprehensive Peace Agreement, also known as the Naivasha Agreement, was an accord signed on January 9,2005, by the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement and the Government of Sudan. The CPA was meant to end the Second Sudanese Civil War, develop democratic governance countrywide and it also set a timetable for a Southern Sudanese independence referendum. The peace process was encouraged by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, as well as IGAD-Partners, the process resulted in the following agreements, The Machakos Protocol, signed in Machakos, Kenya on 20 July 2002. Agreement on broad principles of government and governance, on 11 October 2007, the SPLM withdrew from the government of national unity, accusing the central government of violating the terms of the CPA. The SPLM announced that it was rejoining the government on 13 December 2007, northern Sudanese troops finally left Southern Sudan on 8 January 2008. A referendum was held from 9 to 15 January 2011 to determine if South Sudan should declare its independence from Sudan and it became independent as the Republic of South Sudan on 9 July 2011
14.
War in Darfur
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The government responded to attacks by carrying out a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Darfurs non-Arabs. The other side is made up of groups, notably the SLM/A and the JEM, recruited primarily from the non-Arab Muslim Fur, Zaghawa. The African Union and the United Nations also have a joint peacekeeping mission in the region, estimates of the number of human casualties range up to several hundred thousand dead, from either combat or starvation and disease. Mass displacements and coercive migrations forced millions into refugee camps or across the border, former US Secretary of State Colin Powell described the situation as a genocide or acts of genocide. The Sudanese government and the JEM signed an agreement in February 2010. The JEM has the most to gain from the talks and could see semi-autonomy much like South Sudan, however, talks were disrupted by accusations that the Sudanese army launched raids and air strikes against a village, violating the Tolu agreement. The JEM, the largest rebel group in Darfur, vowed to boycott negotiations, Darfur, Arabic for the home of the Fur—was not a traditional part of the states organized along the upper Nile valley but instead organized as an independent sultanate in the 14th century. It was first annexed to the Egyptian Sudan in 1875 and then surrendered by its governor Slatin Pasha to the Mahdia in 1883, subsequently, Darfur remained a province of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and the independent Republic of the Sudan. There are several different explanations for the origins of the present conflict, one explanation involves the land disputes between semi-nomadic livestock herders and those who practice sedentary agriculture. Water access has also identified as a major source of the conflict. The Darfur crisis is also related to a second conflict, in southern Sudan, civil war has raged for decades between the northern, Arab-dominated government and Christian and animist black southerners. Yet another origin is conflict between the Islamist, Khartoum-based national government and two groups based in Darfur, the Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement. In early 1991, non-Arabs of the Zaghawa tribe of Sudan attested that they were victims of an intensifying Arab apartheid campaign, Sudanese Arabs, who controlled the government, were widely referred to as practicing apartheid against Sudans non-Arab citizens. The government was accused of deftly manipulat Arab solidarity to carry out policies of apartheid, american University economist George Ayittey accused the Arab government of Sudan of practicing acts of racism against black citizens. The Arabs monopolized power and excluded blacks – Arab apartheid, many African commentators joined Ayittey in accusing Sudan of practising Arab apartheid. Alan Dershowitz labeled Sudan an example of a government that actually deserve the appellation apartheid, former Canadian Minister of Justice Irwin Cotler echoed the accusation. The rebels first military action was an attack on an army garrison on 25 February 2002. The government had been aware of a rebel movement since an attack on the Golo police station in June 2002
15.
Sudanese Armed Forces
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The Sudanese Armed Forces are the armed forces of the Republic of Sudan. They number, according to 2011 IISS estimates,109,300 and they comprises Land Forces, a Navy, an Air Force, and the Popular Defence Forces. They also previously had Joint Integrated Units formed together with its rebel enemies the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army, the Armed Forces operate under the authority of the Peoples Armed Forces Act 1986. In 1991, the Library of Congress used the term Sudan Peoples Armed Forces to refer to the armed forces, but by the late 2000s. It has been deployed alongside regular army units against various rebel groups, Sudan now receives most of its military equipment from the Peoples Republic of China and Russia. Sudan has a production company called the Military Industry Corporation. The origins of the Sudanese Army date to Sudanese soldiers recruited by the British during the reconquest of Sudan in 1898, Sudan officially became the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan in 1899. The highest-ranking British officer in Egypt, known as the Sirdar, in 1922, after nationalist riots stimulated by Egyptian leader Saad Zaghloul, Egypt was granted independence by the United Kingdom. The Egyptians wanted more oversight in the Sudan and created specialized units of Sudanese auxiliaries within the Egyptian Army called Al-Awtirah and this became the nucleus of the modern Sudanese Army. The British Army formed the Sudan Defence Force as local auxiliaries in 1925, the SDF consisted of a number of separate regiments. Most were made up of Muslim soldiers and stationed in the north, during World War II, the SDF augmented allied forces engaging Italians in Ethiopia. They also served during the Western Desert Campaign, supporting Free French and Long Range Desert Group operations at Kufra, in 1947, the Sudanese military schools were closed, and the number of Sudanese troops was reduced to 7,570. In 1948, the first Arab-Israeli War broke out, Sudanese Colonel Harold Saleh Al-Malik selected 250 combat-seasoned soldiers who had seen action in World War II. They arrived in Cairo to participate in a parade and were dispatched to various units of the Egyptian army. This was a mistake, for the Sudanese had fought together in World War II. The decision was indicative of Egyptian military planners of the period, forty-three Sudanese were killed in action in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. In 1953, the British and the new Egyptian government reached an agreement that Sudan was to be put on the path of independence, General Ahmed Mohammed became Sudans first army chief in August 1954. This is significant for the Sudanese, for it was the first time it had an independent army that was not governed by Britain or Egypt, in March 1954 British Troops in the Sudan consisted of one battalion stationed in Khartoum, reporting ultimately to the Governor-General
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Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North
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Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement – North, or SPLM–N, is a banned political party and militant organisation in the Republic of Sudan. It is currently active primarily in the states of Blue Nile and South Kordofan, despite the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, a low-level conflict continued in Republic of Sudan. Conflict with the authorities has led al-Bashir to ban the party. South Sudan is also said to support SPLA-N operations in Sudan, in August, Radio Dabanga reported that the rebels were gaining ground against government forces. The conflict has led to the displacement of nearly 400,000 residents of the Nuba Mountains, disputes over the rightful government of Blue Nile State led to a resumption of violence in late August/early September 2011. In September and October the SPLA-N formed a government based in Kurmuk, the conflict in the Blue Nile has raised fears of a new refugee crisis and a return to civil war. In September 2012, Amnesty International reported that SPLM-N teacher and activist Jalila Khamis Koko was summoned by a prosecutor for six charges, primarily relating to state security. The organization stated that she appeared to be solely for her humanitarian work and for the peaceful expression of her views. She was released after a hearing on 20 January 2013. Since the resumption of conflict, the party has called for negotiations, the party is chaired by Malik Agar, and presidential candidate Yasir Arman is the secretary-general. Comprehensive Peace Agreement Eastern Front Alliance of Revolutionary Forces of West Sudan Official website at the Wayback Machine Save Jalila - Website raising awareness of Jalila Khamis Koko
17.
Sudanese conflict in South Kordofan and Blue Nile
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SPLM-N, splitting from newly-independent SPLM, took up arms against the inclusion of the two southern states in Sudan with no popular consultation and against the lack of democratic elections. The conflict is intertwined with the War in Darfur, since in November 2011 SPLM-N established an alliance with Darfuri rebels. As of October 2014, some two million people have been affected by the conflict, with more than 500,000 having been displaced and about 250,000 of them fleeing to South Sudan and Ethiopia. In January 2015, fighting intensified as Omar al-Bashir’s government tried to control of rebel-held territory ahead of April 2015 general elections. Although South Kordofan and Blue Nile are north of the border separating Sudan and South Sudan. Many residents fought on the side of rebels during the long civil war. South Kordofan and Blue Nile were not allowed to participate in the January 2011 referendum to create South Sudan, at least 15 Sudanese tanks entered Abyei town on 20 May, beginning large-scale fighting in Abyei. By 22 May, the Sudanese military had seized control of the town, both the Sudanese government and the government of Southern Sudan accused one another of violating the terms of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. In June 2011, an African Union panel headed by former South African president Thabo Mbeki tried to de-escalate the situation through North-South talks in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. On 20 June, the agreed to demilitarize the contested area of Abyei. The agreement details the mechanism by which the Abyei administration council to replace the one dissolved by president Omer Hassan al-Bashir in May 2011 and its chief shall be picked by the SPLM but must be approved by the Northern National Congress Party. The deputy however, would be nominated by the NCP and endorsed by SPLM, three of the five heads of the departments of the administrative council would be nominated by the SPLM and the remaining two by the NCP. A police service would be established for the region, with the size, the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon welcomed the accord but said the real test would be how both sides would implement the deal. However, the spokesman of SPLA, Philip Aguer, told the press that the statement from the NCP senior official was incorrect, the Northern army said that SPLA launched an attack on a police station and stole weapons prompting a response. The SPLA claimed that the Northern army attempted to disarm their units by force and that day JEM rebels claimed to have destroyed an army camp in the area of Jama, South Kordofan, killing 38 soldiers and wounding other 27. On 14 June, the UN accused the Sudanese government of carrying out a bombing campaign near the north-south border which has led to huge suffering for civilians in South Kordofan. Some 140,000 people have fled the fighting, aid agency offices have been looted, churches have been ransacked and buildings destroyed. Aid workers say that ethnic Nubans are being targeted by the northern military and this was denied by Rabbie Abdelattif Ebaid, an adviser to Sudans information minister, who said that only rebel fighters were being targeted
18.
Juba
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Juba /ˈdʒuːbə/ is the capital and largest city of the Republic of South Sudan. It also serves as the capital of Jubek State, one of the 28 states of South Sudan, the city is situated on the White Nile and functions as the seat and metropolis of Juba County. In the 19th century, a trading post and a mission and it was the southernmost outpost of the Egyptian garrison, supported by a handful of soldiers, mostly ill due to the malaria and blackwater fever that was dominant in the region. In the late 1920s, Anglo-Egyptian officials ordered Bari residents to relocate to make way for a new town, also called Juba, the site was chosen by Anglo-Egyptian officials, in part, because of the presence of the CMS Nugent Memorial Intermediate School there. Major construction on Juba was underway by 1927, traders from Rejaf relocated there in 1929, and the Governors office of Mongalla moved there in 1930. Greek merchants, who were supplying the British Army at the time, played an early. The building of Central Bank was also built at a stage in the mid 40s as well as the famous Juba Hotel in the mid 30s. Until 1956, Juba was in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, which was administered by the United Kingdom. British hopes to join the part of Sudan with Uganda were dashed in 1947 by an agreement in Juba, also known as the Juba Conference. In 1955, a mutiny of soldiers in Torit town sparked the First Sudanese Civil War. During the Second Sudanese Civil War, Juba was a location that was the focus of much fighting. With the advent of peace, the United Nations increased its presence in Juba, Juba became the worlds newest national capital on 9 July 2011, when South Sudan formally declared its independence from the Republic of the Sudan. As of 2016, the move has yet to occur, Juba is led by a city council headed by Mayor Mohammed El Haj Baballa. This council was formed in March 2011 and Baballa appointed to lead it by Governor Clement Wani Konga, former Yei County Commissioner David Lokonga Moses was appointed as deputy mayor. A ministerial committee to keep Juba clean and sanitary was also created by gubernatorial decree at the same time, prior to March 2011, the area now administered by Juba City Council was divided into Juba, Kator, and Muniki payams. It is now a subdivision of Juba County, of which it is the county seat. The city is a port and the southern terminus of traffic along the Nile. Before the civil war, Juba was also a hub, with highways connecting it to Kenya, Uganda
19.
Sharia
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Sharia, Sharia law, or Islamic law is the religious law forming part of the Islamic tradition. It is derived from the precepts of Islam, particularly the Quran. In Arabic, the term refers to Gods divine law and is contrasted with fiqh. The manner of its application in modern times has been a subject of dispute between Muslim traditionalists and reformists, traditional theory of Islamic jurisprudence recognizes four sources of sharia, the Quran, sunnah, qiyas, and ijma. Traditional jurisprudence distinguishes two branches of law, ʿibādāt and muʿāmalāt, which together comprise a wide range of topics. Its rulings assign actions to one of five categories, mandatory, recommended, permitted, abhorred, thus, some areas of sharia overlap with the Western notion of law while others correspond more broadly to living life in accordance with God’s will. Historically, sharia was interpreted by independent jurists, ottoman rulers achieved additional control over the legal system by promulgating their own legal code and turning muftis into state employees. Non-Muslim communities had legal autonomy, except in cases of interconfessional disputes, in the modern era, sharia-based criminal laws were widely replaced by statutes inspired by European models. Judicial procedures and legal education in the Muslim world were brought in line with European practice. While the constitutions of most Muslim-majority states contain references to sharia, legislative bodies which codified these laws sought to modernize them without abandoning their foundations in traditional jurisprudence. The Islamic revival of the late 20th century brought along calls by Islamist movements for full implementation of sharia, including reinstatement of hudud corporal punishments, in some cases, this resulted in traditionalist legal reform, while other countries witnessed juridical reinterpretation of sharia advocated by progressive reformers. The role of sharia has become a contested topic around the world, attempts to impose it on non-Muslims have caused intercommunal violence in Nigeria and may have contributed to the breakup of Sudan. Some Muslim-minority countries in Asia, Africa and Europe recognize the use of sharia-based family laws for their Muslim populations, there are ongoing debates as to whether sharia is compatible with secular forms of government, human rights, freedom of thought, and womens rights. The word sharīʿah is used by Arabic-speaking peoples of the Middle East to designate a prophetic religion in its totality, for example, sharīʿat Mūsā means law or religion of Moses and sharīʿatu-nā can mean our religion in reference to any monotheistic faith. Within Islamic discourse, šarīʿah refers to regulations governing the lives of Muslims. For many Muslims, the word means simply justice, and they will consider any law that promotes justice, Muslims of different perspectives agree in their respect for the abstract notion of sharia, but they differ in how they understand the practical implications of the term. Classical sharia, the body of rules and principles elaborated by Islamic jurists during the first centuries of Islam, historical sharia, the body of rules and interpretations developed throughout Islamic history, ranging from personal beliefs to state legislation and varying across an ideological spectrum. Classical sharia has often served as a point of reference for these variants, Contemporary sharia, the full spectrum of rules and interpretations that are developed and practiced at present
20.
Khartoum
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Khartoum is the capital and second largest city of Sudan and the state of Khartoum. It is located at the confluence of the White Nile, flowing north from Lake Victoria, the location where the two Niles meet is known as al-Mogran. The main Nile continues to north towards Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea. The origin of the word, Khartoum, is uncertain, one theory argues that khartoum is derived from Arabic khurṭūm, probably referring to the narrow strip of land extending between the Blue and White Niles. Some scholars speculate that the word derives from the Nubian word, Agartum, other Beja scholars suggest Khartoum is derived from the Beja word, Hartoom. Additionally, the dream interpreting magicians in Genesis 41,8 are referred to as חַרְטֻמֵּ֥י, suggesting that in ancient times the word already existed. In 1821, Khartoum was established 24 kilometres north of the ancient city of Soba, by Ibrahim Pasha, the son of Egypts ruler, Muhammad Ali Pasha, who had just incorporated Sudan into his realm. Originally, Khartoum served as an outpost for the Egyptian Army and it also became a focal point for the slave trade. Later, it became the center of Sudan and official capital. On 13 March 1884, troops loyal to the Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad started a siege of Khartoum, the siege ended in a massacre of the Anglo-Egyptian garrison. On 26 January 1885, the damaged city fell to the Mahdists. On 2 September 1898, Omdurman was the scene of the bloody Battle of Omdurman, in 1973, the city was the site of an anomalous hostage crisis in which members of Black September held 10 hostages at the Saudi Arabian embassy, five of them diplomats. The US ambassador, the US deputy ambassador, and the Belgian chargé daffaires were murdered, a 1973 United States Department of State document, declassified in 2006, concluded, The Khartoum operation was planned and carried out with the full knowledge and personal approval of Yasser Arafat. In 1977, the first oil pipeline between Khartoum and the Port of Sudan was completed, throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Khartoum was the destination for hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing conflicts in neighboring nations such as Chad, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Uganda. Many Eritrean and Ethiopian refugees assimilated into society, while others settled in large slums at the outskirts of the city, since the mid-1980s, large numbers of refugees from South Sudan and Darfur fleeing the violence of the Second Sudanese Civil War and Darfur conflict have settled around Khartoum. In 1991, Osama bin Laden purchased a house in the affluent al-Riyadh neighborhood of the city and he lived there until 1996, when he was banished from the country. The destruction of the factory produced diplomatic tension between the U. S. and Sudan, the factory ruins are now a tourist attraction. The sudden death of SPLA head and vice-president of Sudan, John Garang, the riots finally died down after Southern Sudanese politicians and tribal leaders sent strong messages to the rioters
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Port Sudan
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Port Sudan is a port city in eastern Sudan, and the capital of the state of Red Sea. As of 2007, it has 489,725 residents, located on the Red Sea, it is the Republic of Sudans main port city. The city is home to the Red Sea University, established in 1994, temperatures can easily exceed 30 °C in winter and 45C in summer. Average annual rainfall is 76 millimetres, and no rainfall occurred between January 1983 and June 1984, the average temperature is 28.4 °C. UNESCO General History of Africa, History of Darfur 1200-1700 A. D. SNR, encyclopædia Britannica, Port Sudan,2007, webpage, EB-PortSudan
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Red Sea
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The Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb strait, to the north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez. The Red Sea is a Global 200 ecoregion, the sea is underlain by the Red Sea Rift which is part of the Great Rift Valley. The Red Sea has an area of roughly 438,000 km2, is about 2250 km long and. It has a depth of 2211 m in the central median trench. However, there are also extensive shallow shelves, noted for their marine life, the sea is the habitat of over 1,000 invertebrate species, and 200 soft and hard corals. It is the worlds northernmost tropical sea, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Red Sea as follows, On the North. The Southern limits of the Gulfs of Suez and Aqaba, a line joining Husn Murad and Ras Siyyan. Red Sea is a translation of the Greek Erythra Thalassa, Latin Mare Rubrum, Arabic, البحر الأحمر. Al-Baḥr Al-Aḥmar, Somali Badda Cas and Tigrinya Qeyyiḥ bāḥrī, the name of the sea may signify the seasonal blooms of the red-coloured Trichodesmium erythraeum near the waters surface. A theory favored by modern scholars is that the name red is referring to the direction south. The basis of this theory is that some Asiatic languages used color words to refer to the cardinal directions, herodotus on one occasion uses Red Sea and Southern Sea interchangeably. Historically, it was known to western geographers as Mare Mecca. Some ancient geographers called the Red Sea the Arabian Gulf or Gulf of Arabia. C, in that version, the Yam Suph is translated as Erythra Thalassa. The Red Sea is one of four seas named in English after common color terms — the others being the Black Sea, the White Sea and the Yellow Sea. The direct rendition of the Greek Erythra thalassa in Latin as Mare Erythraeum refers to the part of the Indian Ocean. The earliest known exploration of the Red Sea was conducted by ancient Egyptians, one such expedition took place around 2500 BC, and another around 1500 BC. Both involved long voyages down the Red Sea, historically, scholars argued whether these trips were possible
23.
George Clooney
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George Timothy Clooney is an American actor, filmmaker, and activist. He has received three Golden Globe Awards for his work as an actor and two Academy Awards, one for acting in Syriana and the other for co-producing Argo, in 1999, he took the lead role in Three Kings, a well-received war satire set during the Gulf War. In 2001, Clooneys fame widened with the release of his biggest commercial success, the heist comedy remake Oceans Eleven, in 2013, he received the Academy Award for Best Picture for producing the political thriller Argo. He is the person who has been nominated for Academy Awards in six different categories. In 2009, Clooney was included in Times annual Time 100 as one of the Most Influential People in the World and he is also noted for his political activism, and has served as one of the United Nations Messengers of Peace since January 31,2008. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Clooney was born in Lexington, Kentucky. His mother, Nina Bruce, was a beauty queen and city councilwoman and his father, Nick Clooney, is a former anchorman and game show host who hosted AMC for five years in the late 1990s. Clooney has Irish, German, and English ancestry and his maternal great-great-great-great-grandmother, Mary Ann Sparrow, was the half-sister of Nancy Lincoln, mother of President Abraham Lincoln. Clooney has a sister named Adelia. His aunt was the cabaret singer and actress Rosemary Clooney. Through Rosemary, his cousins include actors Miguel Ferrer, Rafael Ferrer, and Gabriel Ferrer, Clooney was raised a strict Roman Catholic, but said in 2006 that he does not know if he believes in Heaven, or even God. He has said, Yes, we were Catholic, big time, whole family and he began his education at the Blessed Sacrament School in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky. He attended St. Michaels School in Columbus, Ohio, then Western Row Elementary School in Mason, Ohio, from 1968 to 1974, and St. Susanna School in Mason, the Clooneys moved back to Kentucky when George was midway through the seventh grade. In middle school, Clooney developed Bells palsy, a condition that partially paralyzes the face, the malady went away within a year. In an interview with Larry King, he stated that yes and it takes about nine months to go away. It was the first year of school, which was a bad time for having half your face paralyzed. After his parents moved to Augusta, Kentucky, Clooney attended Augusta High School and he has stated that he earned all As and a B in school, and was an enthusiastic baseball and basketball player. He tried out to professional baseball with the Cincinnati Reds in 1977
24.
Nicholas Kristof
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Nicholas Donabet Kristof is an American journalist, author, liberal / progressive op-ed columnist, and a winner of two Pulitzer Prizes. Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa has described Kristof as an honorary African for shining a spotlight on neglected conflicts, Kristof was born in Chicago, Illinois, and grew up on a sheep and cherry farm in Yamhill, Oregon. He is the son of Jane Kristof and Ladis Kris Kristof and his father was born of Polish and Armenian parents in the former Austria-Hungary, and immigrated to the United States after World War II. Nicholas Kristof graduated from Yamhill Carlton High School, where he was student body president and school newspaper editor, and later became a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Harvard College. At Harvard, he studied government and worked on The Harvard Crimson newspaper, Alums recall Kristof as one of the brightest undergraduates on campus, after Harvard, he studied law at Magdalen College, Oxford, as a Rhodes Scholar. He earned his law degree with honors and won an academic prize. Afterward, he studied Arabic in Egypt for the 1983–84 academic year and he has a number of honorary degrees. After joining The New York Times in 1984, initially covering economics, he served as a Times correspondent in Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Beijing and he rose to be the associate managing editor of The New York Times, responsible for Sunday editions. His columns have focused on global health, poverty. In particular, since 2004 he has dozens of columns about Darfur. Kristof resides outside New York City with his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, Kristofs bio says he has traveled to more than 150 countries. Jeffrey Toobin of CNN and The New Yorker, a Harvard classmate, has said, I am surprised to see him as the Indiana Jones of our generation of journalists. I am personally in his debt, as are we all. Joyce Barnathan, president of the International Center for Journalists, said in a 2013 statement, a framed copy of that article is in the gallery of the Gates Foundation. They were the first married couple to win a Pulitzer for journalism, Kristof has also received the George Polk Award and an award from the Overseas Press Club for his reporting which focuses on human rights and environmental issues. Kristof was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize again in 2012 and 2016, altogether, in 2009, Kristof and WuDunn received the Dayton Literary Peace Prizes 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award. Together, they received the 2009 World of Children Lifetime Achievement Award. He has also won the 2008 Anne Frank Award, the 2007 Fred Cuny Award for Prevention of Deadly Conflict, thats a total flight of fancy. In 2011, Kristof was named one of seven Top American Leaders by the Harvard Kennedy School and his writing has reshaped the field of opinion journalism, The Washington Post explained in granting the award
25.
War crime
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A war crime is an act that constitutes a serious violation of the law of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility. The concept of war crimes emerged at the turn of the century when the body of customary international law applicable to warfare between sovereign states was codified. Moreover, trials in national courts during this period further helped clarify the law, following the end of World War II, major developments in the law occurred. Numerous trials of Axis war criminals established the Nuremberg principles, such as notion that war crimes constituted crimes defined by international law, additionally, the Geneva Conventions in 1949 defined new war crimes and established that states could exercise universal jurisdiction over such crimes. The trial of Peter von Hagenbach by an ad hoc tribunal of the Holy Roman Empire in 1474 was the first international war crimes trial, and also of command responsibility. He was convicted and beheaded for crimes that he as a knight was deemed to have a duty to prevent, although he had argued that he was only following orders. In 1654 a Major Connaught was tried at Chester Assizes and hanged for his part in the massacre of villagers in the church at the village of Boughton, twelve villagers were smoked out, stripped naked and had their throats cut. He was hanged at the scene of the crime having been convicted of striking a blow to the head of John Fowler with an axe. The Geneva Conventions are four related treaties adopted and continuously expanded from 1864 to 1949 that represent a legal basis, accordingly, states retain different codes and values with regard to wartime conduct. Some signatories have routinely violated the Geneva Conventions in a way which either uses the ambiguities of law or political maneuvering to sidestep the laws formalities and principles. Three conventions were revised and expanded with the one added in 1949, First Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded. Second Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick, third Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, Protocol II relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts. Protocol III relating to the Adoption of an Additional Distinctive Emblem, a small number of German military personnel of the First World War were tried in 1921 by the German Supreme Court for alleged war crimes. The modern concept of war crime was further developed under the auspices of the Nuremberg Trials based on the definition in the London Charter that was published on August 8,1945. Along with war crimes the charter also defined crimes against peace and crimes against humanity, on July 1,2002, the International Criminal Court, a treaty-based court located in The Hague, came into being for the prosecution of war crimes committed on or after that date. Several nations, most notably the United States, China, Russia, the United States still participates as an observer. Article 12 of the Rome Statute provides jurisdiction over the citizens of non-contracting states in the event that they are accused of committing crimes in the territory of one of the state parties
26.
Darfur
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Darfur is a region in western Sudan. It was named Dardaju while ruled by the Daju, who migrated from Meroë circa 350 AD, Darfur was an independent sultanate for several hundred years, incorporated into Sudan by Anglo-Egyptian forces in 1916. The region is divided into five states, Central Darfur, East Darfur, North Darfur, South Darfur. Because of the war in Darfur between Sudanese government forces and the population, the region has been in a state of humanitarian emergency since 2003. Darfur covers an area of 493,180 square kilometers, approximately the size of Spain and it is largely an arid plateau with the Marrah Mountains, a range of volcanic peaks rising up to 3,042 meters of topographic prominence, in the center of the region. The regions main towns are Al Fashir and Nyala, there are four main features of its physical geography. The whole eastern half of Darfur is covered with plains and low hills of sandy soils, known as goz, in many places the goz is waterless and can only be inhabited where there are water reservoirs or deep boreholes. While dry, goz may also support rich pasture and arable land, to the north the goz is overtaken by the desert sands of the Sahara. Many wadis have pans of alluvium with rich soil that are also difficult to cultivate. Western Darfur is dominated by the feature, basement rock. Basement rock is too infertile to be farmed, but provides sporadic forest cover that can be grazed by animals, remote sensing has detected the imprint of a vast underground lake under Darfur. The potential water deposits are estimated at 49,500 km2, the lake, during epochs when the region was more humid, would have contained about 2500 km3 of water. It may have dried up thousands of years ago, some conjectures include the area of Darfur as part of the Proto-Afro-Asiatic Urheimat in distant prehistoric times, though numerous other theories exclude Darfur. Most of the consists of a semi-arid plain and thus appears unsuitable for developing a large. The Tunjur replaced the Daju in the century and the Daju established new headquarters in Abyei, Denga, Darsila. The Tunjur sultans intermarried with the Fur and sultan Musa Sulayman is considered the founder of the Keira dynasty, Darfur became a great power of the Sahel under the Keira dynasty, expanding its borders as far east as the Atbarah River and attracting immigrants from Bornu and Bagirmi. During the mid-18th century conflict between rival factions wracked the country, and external war pitted Darfur against Sennar and Wadai. When Ahmads successor, Abdallahi ibn Muhammad, himself an Arab of Southern Darfur from the Ta’isha tribe, demanded that the pastoralist tribes provide soldiers, several tribes rose up in revolt
27.
Human Rights Watch
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Human Rights Watch is an American-founded international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. C. and Zurich. The organizations annual expenses totaled $50.6 million in 2011, Human Rights Watch was founded by Robert L. Bernstein as a private American NGO in 1978, under the name Helsinki Watch, to monitor the former Soviet Unions compliance with the Helsinki Accords. Helsinki Watch adopted a practice of naming and shaming abusive governments through media coverage. Americas Watch was founded in 1981 while bloody civil wars engulfed Central America, asia Watch, Africa Watch, and Middle East Watch were added to what was known as The Watch Committees. In 1988, all of these committees were united under one umbrella to form Human Rights Watch, pursuant to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Human Rights Watch opposes violations of what it considers basic human rights. This includes capital punishment and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, HRW advocates freedoms in connection with fundamental human rights, such as freedom of religion and freedom of the press. These reports are used as the basis for drawing attention to abuses and pressuring governments. HRW has documented and reported violations of the laws of war. Human Rights Watch also supports writers worldwide, who are being persecuted for their work and are in need of financial assistance. The Hellman/Hammett grants are financed by the estate of the playwright Lillian Hellman in funds set up in her name and that of her long-time companion, the novelist Dashiell Hammett. In addition to providing assistance, the Hellman/Hammett grants help raise international awareness of activists who are being silenced for speaking out in defense of human rights. Each year, Human Rights Watch presents the Human Rights Defenders Award to activists around the world who demonstrate leadership, the award winners work closely with HRW in investigating and exposing human rights abuses. Human Rights Watch was one of six international NGOs that founded the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers in 1998, Human Rights Watch is a founding member of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange, a global network of non-governmental organizations that monitor censorship worldwide. It also co-founded the Cluster Munition Coalition, which brought about an international convention banning the weapons, HRW employs more than 275 staff—country experts, lawyers, journalists, and academics – and operates in more than 90 countries around the world. The current executive director of HRW is Kenneth Roth, who has held the position since 1993, Roth conducted investigations on abuses in Poland after martial law was declared 1981. He later focused on Haiti, which had just emerged from the Duvalier dictatorship, roth’s awareness of the importance of human rights began with stories his father had told about escaping Nazi Germany in 1938. Roth graduated from Yale Law School and Brown University, HRW has been criticized for perceived bias by the national governments it has investigated for human rights abuses, and by NGO Monitor, and HRWs founder, and former Chairman, Robert L. Bernstein. Bias allegations include undue influence by United States government policy, HRW has routinely publicly responded to, and often rejected, criticism of its reporting and findings
28.
Cluster munition
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A cluster munition is a form of air-dropped or ground-launched explosive weapon that releases or ejects smaller submunitions. Commonly, this is a bomb that ejects explosive bomblets that are designed to kill personnel. Other cluster munitions are designed to destroy runways or electric transmission lines, disperse chemical or biological weapons. Some submunition-based weapons can disperse non-munitions, such as leaflets, because cluster bombs release many small bomblets over a wide area, they pose risks to civilians both during attacks and afterwards. Unexploded bomblets can kill or maim civilians and/or unintended targets long after a conflict has ended, Cluster munitions are prohibited for those nations that ratify the Convention on Cluster Munitions, adopted in Dublin, Ireland in May 2008. The Convention entered into force and became binding international law upon ratifying states on 1 August 2010, as of 1 October 2015, a total of 118 states have joined the Convention, as 98 States parties and 20 Signatories. The first cluster bomb used operationally was the German SD-2 or Sprengbombe Dickwandig 2 kg and it was used in World War II to attack both civilian and military targets. The technology was developed independently by the United States, Russia, the US used the 20-lb M41 fragmentation bomb wired together in clusters of 6 or 25 with highly sensitive or proximity fuzes. From the 1970s to the 1990s cluster bombs became standard air-dropped munitions for many nations and they have been produced by 34 countries and used in at least 23. Artillery shells that employ similar principles have existed for decades and they are typically referred to as ICM shells. The US military slang terms for them are firecracker or popcorn shells, a basic cluster bomb consists of a hollow shell and then two to more than 2,000 submunitions or bomblets contained within it. Some types are dispensers that are designed to be retained by the aircraft after releasing their munitions, the submunitions themselves may be fitted with small parachute retarders or streamers to slow their descent. Modern cluster bombs and submunition dispensers are often multiple-purpose weapons, containing mixtures of anti-armor, anti-personnel, the submunitions themselves may also be multi-purpose, such as combining a shaped charge, to attack armour, with a fragmenting case, to attack infantry, material, and light vehicles. Modern multipurpose munitions may also have an incendiary effect, recently submunition-based weapons have been designed that deploy smart submunitions, using thermal and visual sensors to locate and attack particular targets, usually armored vehicles. Weapons of this include the US CBU-97 sensor-fuzed weapon, first used in combat during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Incendiary cluster bombs are intended to start fires, just as conventional incendiary bombs and they are specifically designed for this purpose, with submunitions of white phosphorus or napalm, and they often include anti-personnel and anti-tank submunitions to hamper firefighting efforts. When used in cities they have often preceded by the use of conventional explosive bombs to break open the roofs. One of the earliest examples is the so-called Molotov bread basket first used by the Soviet Union in the Winter War of 1939-40 and this type of munition was extensively used by both sides in the strategic bombings of World War II
29.
Tom Catena
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Tom Catena or Thomas Catena is an American physician who has been practicing in Gidel in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan since 2008. The region has been an area of conflict since early 2011. Patients frequently travel by foot or hitchhiking for up to a week to reach the Mother of Mercy Hospital, the hospitals catchment area covers roughly one third of South Kordofan, equivalent in size to the entire country of Austria. Humanitarian aid is restricted, a ban which Catena defies, very few NGOs still operate due to the Khartoum governments blockade. Since 2012 aid is not expressly forbidden, but it is in practice impossible as volunteers may not travel into the region, german Emergency Doctors and Samaritans Purse had a presence as of 2013, but employed no trained medical doctors in the region. Limited by his surroundings, Catena sometimes uses decades-old treatments, and he engages the local community in the work as nurses and other assistive personnel. His hospital has at any one time between 300–350 in-patients, and was subject to bombings in May 2014, although at the no one was injured. In preparation in case of bombings the compound now has a number of foxholes where patients, Catena credits his Catholic faith for his work, and says he is inspired by St. Francis of Assisi. He is known by locals as Dr. Tom and is respected by the population. A local Muslim chief said of Catena, Hes Jesus Christ, owing to Catena constantly healing the sick, helping the lame walk, Catena played college football and was an undergrad at Brown University. He received his degree from Duke University. Before moving to Sudan he was a doctor and also worked in Kenya. He has been likened to the 20th-century medical missionary Albert Schweitzer, the New York Times has published instructions on how to donate to Catena
30.
BBC News
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BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the worlds largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, the service maintains 50 foreign news bureaux with more than 250 correspondents around the world. James Harding has been Director of News and Current Affairs since April 2013, the departments annual budget is in excess of £350 million, it has 3,500 staff,2,000 of whom are journalists. BBC News domestic, global and online news divisions are housed within the largest live newsroom in Europe, parliamentary coverage is produced and broadcast from studios in Millbank in London. Through the BBC English Regions, the BBC also has regional centres across England, as well as national news centres in Northern Ireland, Scotland, all nations and English regions produce their own local news programmes and other current affairs and sport programmes. As with all media outlets, though, it has been accused of political bias from across the political spectrum. The British Broadcasting Company broadcast its first radio bulletin from radio station 2LO on 14 November 1922, on Easter weekend in 1930, this reliance on newspaper wire services left the radio news service with no information to report. The BBC gradually gained the right to edit the copy and, in 1934, however, it could not broadcast news before 6 PM until World War II. Gaumont British and Movietone cinema newsreels had been broadcast on the TV service since 1936, a weekly Childrens Newsreel was inaugurated on 23 April 1950, to around 350,000 receivers. The network began simulcasting its radio news on television in 1946, televised bulletins began on 5 July 1954, broadcast from leased studios within Alexandra Palace in London. The publics interest in television and live events was stimulated by Elizabeth IIs coronation in 1953 and it is estimated that up to 27 million people viewed the programme in the UK, overtaking radios audience of 12 million for the first time. Those live pictures were fed from 21 cameras in central London to Alexandra Palace for transmission and that year, there were around two million TV Licences held in the UK, rising to over three million the following year, and four and a half million by 1955. This was then followed by the customary Television Newsreel with a commentary by John Snagge. It was revealed that this had been due to producers fearing a newsreader with visible facial movements would distract the viewer from the story. On-screen newsreaders were finally introduced a year later in 1955 – Kenneth Kendall, Robert Dougall, mainstream television production had started to move out of Alexandra Palace in 1950 to larger premises – mainly at Lime Grove Studios in Shepherds Bush, west London – taking Current Affairs with it. It was from here that the first Panorama, a new programme, was transmitted on 11 November 1953. On 28 October 1957, the Today programme, a radio programme, was launched in central London on the Home Service. In 1958, Hugh Carleton Greene became head of News and Current Affairs and he set up a BBC study group whose findings, published in 1959, were critical of what the television news operation had become under his predecessor, Tahu Hole
31.
International Crisis Group
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It advocates policies directly with governments, multilateral organisations and other political actors as well as the media. The International Crisis Group was founded after a meeting in January 1993 between former US diplomat and then-President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Morton I. Abramowitz and then future World Bank Vice-President Mark Malloch Brown on a flight to Sarajevo, George Soros was involved in discussions early on and provided seed money. Disaster relief specialist Fred Cuny made significant contributions to relief in Bosnia. A January 1995 meeting in London brought many international figures together, in mid-1995 it was formally registered in the US as a tax-exempt non-profit organisation. From 1996 to 1999, Crisis Group had an budget of around $2m and around 20 full-time staff. Following the death of its first president, Nicholas Hinton, in January 1997 and his replacement by Alain Destexhe, Destexhe resigned in October 1999 and was replaced by Gareth Evans, with Martti Ahtisaari becoming Chairman both from the beginning of 2000. Louise Arbour became president in July 2009, succeeded in September 2014 by Jean-Marie Guéhenno, the International Crisis Group gives advice to governments and intergovernmental bodies like the United Nations, European Union and World Bank on the prevention and resolution of deadly conflict. Crisis Group raises funds from mainly western governments, charitable foundations, companies, in 2011/2012, 49% of its funding came from governments, 20% from philanthropic organisations, and 31% from individuals and private foundations. During 2012/2013 unrestricted income for operations was $18.3 million with total expenditure of $21. In the early stages of Crisis Groups history, funding was much less diverse, mainly from co-founder George Soros, Crisis Group has been criticised for serving the interests of its corporate and government funders. Crisis Groups international headquarters have been in Brussels, with offices in Washington DC. Crisis Group has had offices in 30 locations, with teams of analysts dispatched to areas at risk of outbreak, escalation. Based on the information these teams have been gathering, Crisis Group has created analytical reports with recommendations for world leaders, all reports and conflict alerts, are publicly available. The monthly CrisisWatch bulletin is online since 2003, Crisis Groups website also stated that of 116 Crisis Group positions on 1 February 2014,63 were based in the field in 26 locations. Crisis Group Board of Trustees has been co-chaired by Mark Malloch Brown and Ghassan Salamé, Dean of the Paris School of International Affairs, as of September 2014 Crisis Groups President and Chief Executive was Jean-Marie Guéhenno, former UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations. He was preceded by Louise Arbour, formerly the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and she was preceded from January 2000 to July 2009 by Gareth Evans, former Foreign Minister of Australia. The Vice Chair of the Board is Ayo Obe, lawyer, columnist, as of January 2014 the Board consisted of the following other trustees, Crisis Groups In Pursuit of Peace Award was established in 2005, and is associated with a gala event in New York City
32.
Wayback Machine
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The Internet Archive launched the Wayback Machine in October 2001. It was set up by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat, and is maintained with content from Alexa Internet, the service enables users to see archived versions of web pages across time, which the archive calls a three dimensional index. Since 1996, the Wayback Machine has been archiving cached pages of websites onto its large cluster of Linux nodes and it revisits sites every few weeks or months and archives a new version. Sites can also be captured on the fly by visitors who enter the sites URL into a search box, the intent is to capture and archive content that otherwise would be lost whenever a site is changed or closed down. The overall vision of the machines creators is to archive the entire Internet, the name Wayback Machine was chosen as a reference to the WABAC machine, a time-traveling device used by the characters Mr. Peabody and Sherman in The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, an animated cartoon. These crawlers also respect the robots exclusion standard for websites whose owners opt for them not to appear in search results or be cached, to overcome inconsistencies in partially cached websites, Archive-It. Information had been kept on digital tape for five years, with Kahle occasionally allowing researchers, when the archive reached its fifth anniversary, it was unveiled and opened to the public in a ceremony at the University of California, Berkeley. Snapshots usually become more than six months after they are archived or, in some cases, even later. The frequency of snapshots is variable, so not all tracked website updates are recorded, Sometimes there are intervals of several weeks or years between snapshots. After August 2008 sites had to be listed on the Open Directory in order to be included. As of 2009, the Wayback Machine contained approximately three petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of 100 terabytes each month, the growth rate reported in 2003 was 12 terabytes/month, the data is stored on PetaBox rack systems manufactured by Capricorn Technologies. In 2009, the Internet Archive migrated its customized storage architecture to Sun Open Storage, in 2011 a new, improved version of the Wayback Machine, with an updated interface and fresher index of archived content, was made available for public testing. The index driving the classic Wayback Machine only has a bit of material past 2008. In January 2013, the company announced a ground-breaking milestone of 240 billion URLs, in October 2013, the company announced the Save a Page feature which allows any Internet user to archive the contents of a URL. This became a threat of abuse by the service for hosting malicious binaries, as of December 2014, the Wayback Machine contained almost nine petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of about 20 terabytes each week. Between October 2013 and March 2015 the websites global Alexa rank changed from 162 to 208, in a 2009 case, Netbula, LLC v. Chordiant Software Inc. defendant Chordiant filed a motion to compel Netbula to disable the robots. Netbula objected to the motion on the ground that defendants were asking to alter Netbulas website, in an October 2004 case, Telewizja Polska USA, Inc. v. Echostar Satellite, No.02 C3293,65 Fed. 673, a litigant attempted to use the Wayback Machine archives as a source of admissible evidence, Telewizja Polska is the provider of TVP Polonia and EchoStar operates the Dish Network
33.
Avaaz
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Avaaz is a U. S. -based civic organization launched in January 2007 that promotes global activism on issues such as climate change, human rights, animal rights, corruption, poverty, and conflict. The Guardian considers it the globes largest and most powerful online activist network, the English word “voice” is also related. It was also supported by Service Employees International Union, a founding partner, the board consists of Ricken Patel, Tom Pravda, Eli Pariser, and Ben Brandzel. Avaazs founding president and executive director is the Canadian-British Ricken Patel and he studied PPE at Balliol College, Oxford University. He received a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard University and he returned to the US and volunteered for MoveOn. org, where he learned how to use online tools for activism. Since 2009, Avaaz has not taken donations from foundations or corporations, nor has it accepted payments of more than $5,000, instead, it relies simply on the generosity of individual members, who have now raised over $20m. Prior to 2009 various foundations had funded Avaazs staff and start-up costs, Avaaz global campaigns are managed by a team of campaigners working from over 30 countries, including the UK, India, Lebanon and Brazil. They communicate with members via email, and employ campaigning tactics including online petitions, videos. In some cases Avaaz also uses advertisements and commissions legal advice to clarify how best to take a campaign forward, suggestions for campaigns come from members, supplemented by guidance from teams of specialists. Once a suggestion has been taken up as having potential, tester email are polled to 10,000 Avaaz members, if the receive an sufficient response. In 2010 The Economist suggested that the way Avaaz bunches unlikely causes together may be an asset in a world where campaigns, like race and class, can still segregate people, Avaaz claims to unite practical idealists from around the world. Director Ricken Patel said in 2011 We have no ideology per se and our mission is to close the gap between the world we have and the world most people everywhere want. In practice, Avaaz often supports causes considered progressive, such as calling for action on climate change, challenging Monsanto. During the 2009 Iranian presidential election protests Avaaz setup internet proxy servers to allow protesters to upload videos onto public websites, Avaaz supported the establishment of a no-fly zone over Libya, which led to the military intervention in the country in 2011. It was criticized for its stance in the media and blogs. Avaaz supported the civil uprising preceding the Syrian Civil War and this included sending $1.5 million of internet communications equipment to protesters, and training activists. Later it used smuggling routes to send over $2 million of equipment into rebel held areas of Syria. It also smuggled 34 international journalists into Syria, Avaaz coordinated the evacuation of wounded British photographer Paul Conroy from Homs
34.
Plate tectonics
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The theoretical model builds on the concept of continental drift developed during the first few decades of the 20th century. The geoscientific community accepted plate-tectonic theory after seafloor spreading was validated in the late 1950s, the lithosphere, which is the rigid outermost shell of a planet, is broken up into tectonic plates. The Earths lithosphere is composed of seven or eight major plates, where the plates meet, their relative motion determines the type of boundary, convergent, divergent, or transform. Earthquakes, volcanic activity, mountain-building, and oceanic trench formation occur along plate boundaries. The relative movement of the plates typically ranges from zero to 100 mm annually, tectonic plates are composed of oceanic lithosphere and thicker continental lithosphere, each topped by its own kind of crust. Along convergent boundaries, subduction carries plates into the mantle, the material lost is balanced by the formation of new crust along divergent margins by seafloor spreading. In this way, the surface of the lithosphere remains the same. This prediction of plate tectonics is also referred to as the conveyor belt principle, earlier theories, since disproven, proposed gradual shrinking or gradual expansion of the globe. Tectonic plates are able to move because the Earths lithosphere has greater strength than the underlying asthenosphere. Lateral density variations in the result in convection. Plate movement is thought to be driven by a combination of the motion of the seafloor away from the ridge and drag, with downward suction. Another explanation lies in the different forces generated by forces of the Sun. The relative importance of each of these factors and their relationship to other is unclear. The outer layers of the Earth are divided into the lithosphere and asthenosphere and this is based on differences in mechanical properties and in the method for the transfer of heat. Mechanically, the lithosphere is cooler and more rigid, while the asthenosphere is hotter, in terms of heat transfer, the lithosphere loses heat by conduction, whereas the asthenosphere also transfers heat by convection and has a nearly adiabatic temperature gradient. The key principle of plate tectonics is that the lithosphere exists as separate and distinct tectonic plates, Plate motions range up to a typical 10–40 mm/year, to about 160 mm/year. The driving mechanism behind this movement is described below, tectonic lithosphere plates consist of lithospheric mantle overlain by either or both of two types of crustal material, oceanic crust and continental crust. Average oceanic lithosphere is typically 100 km thick, its thickness is a function of its age, as passes, it conductively cools
35.
African Plate
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The African Plate is a major tectonic plate straddling the equator as well as the prime meridian. It includes much of the continent of Africa, as well as oceanic crust which lies between the continent and various surrounding ocean ridges, between 60 million years ago and 10 million years ago, the Somali Plate began rifting from the African Plate along the East African Rift. All of these are divergent or spreading boundaries with the exception of the northern boundary, the cratons are, from south to north, the Kalahari craton, Congo craton, Tanzania craton and West African craton. The cratons were widely separated in the past, but came together during the Pan-African orogeny, the cratons are connected by orogenic belts, regions of highly deformed rock where the tectonic plates have engaged. The African Plate is rifting in the interior of the African continent along the East African Rift. This rift zone separates the African Plate to the west from the Somali Plate to the east, the African Plates speed is estimated at around 2.15 cm per year. It has been moving over the past 100 million years or so in a general northeast direction and this is drawing it closer to the Eurasian Plate, causing subduction where oceanic crust is converging with continental crust. Along its northeast margin, the African Plate is bounded by the Red Sea Rift where the Arabian Plate is moving away from the African Plate. The New England hotspot in the Atlantic Ocean has probably created a line of mid- to late-Tertiary age seamounts on the African Plate. USGS - Understanding plate motions Meijer, P. Th, wortel, M. J. R. Cenozoic dynamics of the African plate with emphasis on the Africa-Eurasia collision. Journal of Geophysical Research, Solid Earth
36.
Somali Plate
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The Somali Plate, or Somalian Plate, is a minor tectonic plate, which straddles the equator in the eastern hemisphere. The Somali Plate formed between 60 million years ago and 10 million years ago by the rifting of the African Plate along the East African Rift. Because the East Africa Rift separates the continent into two plates, the African Plate west of the rift is sometimes referred to as the Nubian Plate, the northern boundary is the Aden Ridge along the coast of Saudi Arabia. The eastern boundary is the Central Indian Ridge, the portion of which is also known as the Carlsberg Ridge. The southern boundary is the Southwest Indian Ridge, dating of volcanism in the Comoro Islands and northern Madagascar volcanoes indicates a rate of motion to the east over a hotspot of approximately 45 mm/yr. Emerick, C. M.1985, Age progressive volcanism in the Comores Archipelago and Northern Madagascar, corvallis, PhD Thesis, Abstract Chorowicz, Jean
37.
Madagascar Plate
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The Madagascar Plate or Madagascar block was once attached to the Gondwana supercontinent and later the Indo-Australian Plate. Rifting in the Somali Basin began at the end of the Carboniferous 300 million years ago, the initiation of Gondwana breakup, and transform faulting along the Davie Fracture Zone, occurred in the Toarcian following the eruption of the Bouvet mantle plume. At this time East Gondwana, comprising the Antarctic, Madagascar, Indian, East Gondwana then began to break apart about 115–120 million years ago when India began to move northward. Between 84–95 million years ago rifting separated Seychelles and India from Madagascar, since its formation the Madagascar block has moved roughly in conjunction with Africa, and thus there are questions as to whether the Madagascar Plate should be still considered a separate plate. Madagascar was formerly located in the part of the supercontinent Gondwana. It contains part of the East African Orogen, which formed in the Neoproterozoic to Cambrian assembly of the Gondwana and this heavily influenced the geology of central and northern Madagascar. The entire island can be divided into four tectonic and geologic units, the Antongil block, the Antananarivo block, the Bekily Belt in the south, the Antongil Block is characterized by a 3.2 Ga gneiss intruded by granite that has undergone greenschist facies metamorphism. The Antananarivo Block contains 2.5 Ga gneiss layered with younger granitoids and it has metamorphosed to granulite facies conditions. The Bemarivo Belt contains two regions, metasedimentary gneisses in the part and granitic domes in the north. The Bekily Belt is made up of mostly sedimentary protoliths and granulite, the blocks in the northern part of the island are made up of Archean cratonic material. The Antongil block has been linked with the Dharwar Formation of India, the central part of the island contains metasediments from African and Indian continental shelves. This is the Itremo Group, which also contains intrusions of material from the Antongil block, the Itremo sheet was folded in the amalgamation of Madagascar ~700 Mya, and now contains upright folds, divergent reverse faults, and strike-slip faults. The Madagascar plate experienced two major rifting events during the break-up of Gondwana, first, it separated from Africa about 160 Mya, then from the Seychelles and India 66–90 Mya. The first rifting event, separation from Somalia and the rest of Africa, caused displacement along the Davie Ridge, in the Mozambique Channel to the west of the islands, the rifting is also associated with extensive deformation as well as volcanism in the late Cretaceous and Cenozoic. The second separation caused volcanism in the part of the island as well as further south. The volcanism was so extensive that in the late Cretaceous Madagascar may have been covered in flood basalts from volcanism associated with this second rifting event. It was at point in the end of the Cretaceous that Madagascar became entirely isolated from any other continent. Madagascar remains seismically and volcanically active, the most seismically active area is beneath the Ankaratra Plateau in the centre of the island, which experienced magnitude 5.2 and 5.5 earthquakes in 1985 and 1991
38.
Seychelles Plate
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The Seychelles microcontinent is a microcontinent underlying the Seychelles in the western Indian Ocean made of Late Precambrian rock. The granite outcrops of the Seychelles Islands in the central Indian Ocean were amongst the earliest examples cited by Alfred Wegener as evidence for his continental drift theory, ridge–plume interactions have been responsible for separating a thinned continental sliver from a large continent. The granites of the Seychelles microcontinent were emplaced 750 Ma, during the late Precambrian, the Seychelles then underwent two more stages of rifting to isolate it from Madagascar and India. Between 84–95 million years ago rifting separated Seychelles/India from Madagascar, an initial period of transform rifting moved the Seychelles/India block northward. At 84 million years ago oceanic crust started to form in the Mascarene basin and this continued until 66 million years ago when new rifting severed the Seychelles from India forming the currently active Carlsberg Ridge. The rift jump coincided with the output of the Deccan traps. This has led to suggestions that the initiation of the Reunion plume caused rifting to jump to its current location, Mascarene Plateau Mauritia Geography of Seychelles Notes Sources
39.
Craton
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A craton is an old and stable part of the continental lithosphere, where the lithosphere consists of the Earths two topmost layers, the crust and the uppermost mantle. Having often survived cycles of merging and rifting of continents, cratons are found in the interiors of tectonic plates. They are characteristically composed of ancient crystalline basement rock, which may be covered by sedimentary rock. They have a thick crust and deep roots that extend as much as several hundred kilometres into the Earths mantle. The term craton is used to distinguish the stable portion of the continental crust from regions that are geologically active. Cratons can be described as shields, in which the basement rock crops out at the surface, the word craton was first proposed by the Austrian geologist Leopold Kober in 1921 as Kratogen, referring to stable continental platforms, and orogen as a term for mountain or orogenic belts. Later authors shortened the term to kraton and then to craton. Cratons are subdivided geographically into geologic provinces, a geologic province is a spatial entity with common geologic attributes. A province may include a single dominant structural element such as a basin or a fold belt. Adjoining provinces may appear similar in structure but be considered due to differing histories. At that depth, craton roots extend into the asthenosphere, craton lithosphere is distinctly different from oceanic lithosphere because cratons have a neutral or positive buoyancy, and a low intrinsic isopycnic density. This low density offsets density increases due to contraction and prevents the craton from sinking into the deep mantle. Cratonic lithosphere is much older than oceanic lithosphere—up to 4 billion years versus 180 million years, rock fragments carried up from the mantle by magmas containing peridotite have been delivered to the surface as inclusions in subvolcanic pipes called kimberlites. These inclusions have densities consistent with composition and are composed of mantle material residual from high degrees of partial melt. Peridotite is strongly influenced by the inclusion of moisture, craton peridotite moisture content is unusually low, which leads to much greater strength. It also contains high percentages of low-weight magnesium instead of higher-weight calcium, peridotites are important for understanding the deep composition and origin of cratons because peridotite nodules are pieces of mantle rock modified by partial melting. Harzburgite peridotites represent the crystalline residues after extraction of melts of compositions like basalt, an associated class of inclusions called eclogites, consists of rocks corresponding compositionally to oceanic crust that has metamorphosed under deep mantle conditions. Isotopic studies reveal that many eclogite inclusions are samples of ancient oceanic crust subducted billions of years ago to depths exceeding 150 km into the deep kimberlite diamond areas and they remained fixed there within the drifting tectonic plates until carried to the surface by deep-rooted magmatic eruptions
40.
Shield (geology)
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A shield is generally a large area of exposed Precambrian crystalline igneous and high-grade metamorphic rocks that form tectonically stable areas. In all cases, the age of rocks is greater than 570 million years. The term shield, used to describe this type of geographic region, sollas, and comes from the shape not unlike a flat shield of the Canadian Shield which has an outline that suggests the shape of the shields carried by soldiers in the days of hand-to-hand combat. A shield is part of the continental crust in which these usually Precambrian basement rocks crop out extensively at the surface. These rocks are frequently metamorphosed greenschist, amphibolite, and granulite facies, shields are normally the nucleus of continents and most are bordered by belts of folded Cambrian rocks. Because of their stability, erosion has flattened the topography of most of the shields, however. They are also surrounded by a sediment-covered platform, by contrast, in a platform, the shield is overlain by horizontal or subhorizontal sediment. Together, the shield, platform and basement are the parts that comprise the interior portion of the continental crust known as the craton. The margins surrounding a shield generally constitute relatively mobile zones of intense tectonic or plate-like dynamic mechanisms, in these areas, complex sequences of mountain building events have been documented over the past few hundred million years. For example, the Ural Mountains, to the west of the Angaran Shield, are atop the mobile zone that separates the shield from the Baltic Shield, similarly, the Himalayas are on the mobile boundary between the Angaran and Indian shields. Shield margins have been subject to forces that have both destroyed and rebuilt the margins and the cratons that they partially comprise. In fact, the growth of continents has occurred as a result of the accretion of younger rocks that underwent deformations during series of mountain building processes. In a sense, these belts of folded rocks have been welded onto the borders of the preexisting shields, the Amazonian Shield on the eastern bulge portion of South America. Bordering this is the Guiana Shield to the north, and the Platian Shield to the south, the Baltic Shield is located in eastern Norway, Finland and Sweden. The African Shield is located in Africa, the Australian Shield occupies most of the western half of Australia. The Arabian-Nubian Shield on the edge of Arabia. In Asia, an area in China and North Korea is sometimes referred to as the China-Korean Shield. The Angaran Shield, as it is called, is bounded by the Yenisey River on the west, the Lena River on the east, the Arctic Ocean on the north
41.
Arabian-Nubian Shield
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The Arabian-Nubian Shield is an exposure of Precambrian crystalline rocks on the flanks of the Red Sea. The crystalline rocks are mostly Neoproterozoic in age, geographically - and from north to south - the ANS includes the nations of Israel, Jordan. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Yemen, the ANS in the north is exposed as part of the Sahara Desert and Arabian Desert, and in the south in the Ethiopian Highlands, Asir province of Arabia and Yemen Highlands. The ANS was the site of some of mans earliest geologic efforts, principally by the Egyptians to extract gold from the rocks of Egypt and this was the most easily worked of all metals and does not tarnish. All of the deposits in Egypt and northern Sudan were found and exploited by Egyptians, but new gold discoveries have been found in Sudan, Eritrea. Pharonic Egyptians also quarried granite near Aswan and floated this down the Nile to be used as facing for the pyramids, the earliest preserved geologic map was made in 1150 BCE to show the location of gold deposits in Eastern Egypt, it is known as the Turin papyrus. The Greek name for Aswan, Syene, is the locality for the igneous rock syenite. The Romans followed this tradition and had many quarries especially in the part of the Eastern Desert of Egypt where porphyry. Precious and industrial metals, including gold, silver, copper, zinc, tin, today, mining at Mahd adh Dhahab is conducted by the Saudi Arabian Mining Company, Maaden. Deposits of iron, tungsten, mineral sands, copper and phosphates have been found in many locations, Mining in the Eastern Desert of Egypt and Sudan is limited due to shortage of water and infrastructure. One option would be to bring water from the Nile by pipeline, the exposed Arabian Shield in Saudi Arabia encompasses ≈445,000 km2. The total Arabian Shield, including exposed parts plus what is hidden by younger lava flows and sediments, Exposed Shield rocks in Jordan and Yemen cover another ≈100,000 km sq. This equals ≈825,000 km2 for the Arabian side of the ANS. For the Nubian Shield, which is exposed in Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, S. Sudan and this gives a total estimated area for the Nubian Shield ≈1,901,000 km2. The total area of exposed and inferred ANS ≈2,725,000 km2 and this is slightly less than 30% of the area of the USA and 2% of Earths continental area. The Arabian-Nubian Shield is representative of the continental crust that underlies NE Africa, SW Asia, geophysical studies inform us that ANS crust is about 40–45 km thick, typical for continental crust elsewhere. Geologists are interested to study this crust because it provides an opportunity to learn how continental crust forms. Elsewhere in Arabia and NE Africa the crust is buried beneath kilometers of younger, Phanerozoic sediments and this is exposed in spectacular cliffs like the site of Petra in Jordan
42.
Congo Craton
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The Congo Craton, covered by the Palaeozoic-to-recent Congo Basin, is an ancient Precambrian craton that with four others makes up the modern continent of Africa. These cratons were formed between about 3.6 and 2.0 billion years ago and have been stable since that time. All of these cratons are bounded by younger fold belts formed between 2.0 billion and 300 million years ago, the Congo Craton occupies a large part of central southern Africa, extending from the Kasai region of the DRC into Sudan and Angola. It forms parts of the countries of Gabon, Cameroon, a small portion extends into Zambia as well, where it is called the Bangweulu Block. Around 2.11 Ga, Congo was part of the minor supercontinent Atlantica, around 1.82 Ga, Congo was part of the major supercontinent Nuna. Around 1.31 Ga, Congo was an independent continent, around 1.071 Ga, Congo was part of the major supercontinent Rodinia. Around 990 Ma, Congo was an indepandent continent, around 600 Ma, Congo was part of the major supercontinent Pannotia. Around Cambrian, Congo was part of the minor supercontinent Gondwana, around Carboniferous, all major continents collide against each other for forming the major supercontinent Pangaea. Around Jurassic, Pangaea rifted into two supercontinents, Laurasia and Gondwana. Congo was part of the minor supercontinent Gondwana, around Cretaceous, Congo was an independent continent called Africa. Around Neogene, Congo, in the form of Africa, crashed into Eurasia, around 250 Ma from now, all continents may crash together, forming the major supercontinent Pangaea Ultima. Congo would be part of Pangaea Ultima, around 450-600 Ma from now, Pangaea Ultima will eventually rift apart. Congo will be an independent continent
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Kaapvaal Craton
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The Kaapvaal Craton, along with the Pilbara Craton of Western Australia, are the only remaining areas of pristine 3. 6–2.5 Ga crust on Earth. Similarities of rock records from both these cratons, especially of the overlying late Archean sequences, suggest that they were part of the Vaalbara supercontinent. The Kaapvaal Craton covers an area of approximately 1,200,000 km2 and is joined to the Zimbabwe Craton to the north by the Limpopo Belt. To the south and west, the Kaapvaal Craton is flanked by Proterozoic orogens, the craton is a mixture of early Archean granite greenstone terranes and older tonalitic gneisses, intruded by a variety of granitic plutons. This was then followed by extension and rifting when the Gaborone–Kanye. Early Archean crust is exposed only on the east side of the craton and comprises a collage of subdomains and crustal blocks characterised by distinctive igneous rocks. The belt is an east-northeast trending zone of granulite facies tectonites that separates the granitoid-greenstone terranes of the Kaapvaal and Zimbabwe cratons. The crustal evolution of the Limpopo Central Zone can be summarised into three periods,3. 2–2.9 Ga,2.6 Ga, and 2.0 Ga. The first two periods are characterised by magmatic activity leading to the formation of Archaean tonalite-trondhjemite-granodiorite such as the Sand River Gneisses, Early Proterozoic high-grade metamorphic conditions produced partial melting that formed large amounts of granitic melt. There is no indication that the Neoarchean to early Paleoproterozoic succession on the craton were sourced from the 2. 65–2.70 Ga orogenic event preserved in the Limpopo Metamorphic Complex. However, younger late-Paleoproterozoic red bed successions contain zircons of this interval as well as many ~2.0 Ga detrital zircons. Evidence of the layering and riverine erosion can be found throughout the Waterberg Massif within the Limpopo Central Zone. The Barberton greenstone belt, also known as the Makhonjwa Mountains, is situated on the edge of Kaapvaal Craton. It is well known for its gold mineralisation and for its komatiites, some of the oldest exposed rocks on Earth are located in the Barberton greenstone belt of the Swaziland–Barberton areas and these contain some of the oldest traces of life on earth. Only the rocks found in the Isua greenstone belt of Western Greenland are older, in April 2014, scientists reported finding evidence of the largest terrestrial meteor impact event to date near the Barberton Greenstone Belt. They estimated the impact occurred about 3.26 billion years ago, the crater from this event, if it still exists, has not yet been found. The Barberton greenstone belt consists of a sequence of mafic to ultramafic lavas, the GMS suite are found over large parts of the Kaapvaal Craton and their emplacement coincides with the first stabilisation of the central parts of the craton. The GMS suite in the Barberton granite-greenstone terrane shows very different internal and external characteristics from the earlier TTG suite, for the most part, the plutons appear undeformed
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Saharan Metacraton
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The Saharan Metacraton is a term used by some geologists to describe a large area of continental crust in the north-central part of Africa. The geology of the continent has only partially explored, and other names have been used to describe the general area that reflect different views of its nature. These include Nile Craton, Sahara Congo Craton, Eastern Saharan Craton and this last term is because the older rocks are almost completely covered by recent sediments and desert sands, making geological analysis difficult. The metacraton covers an area of about 5,000,000 km2 and it lies between the Tuareg shield to the west, the Congo craton to the south, the Arabian-Nubian Shield to the east, and the northern African continental margin. The southern boundary is not well-defined, but may be considered to run along the edge of the Oubangides orogenic belt in the southwest. It lies under southern Egypt and Libya and western Sudan, northern Kenya, Uganda and Congo, the craton may have formed during a period of accelerated crustal growth between 3000 Ma and 2000 Ma. The oldest rocks in Egypt date to about 2700 Ma, rocks in southern Libya and eastern Chad have been dated between 2900 Ma and 2600 Ma. Some geologists date a rifting episode to between 1200 Ma and 950 Ma, the Pan-African orogeny saw the cratons that had formed the Rodinia super-continent come together in a completely new arrangement into the Gondwana super-continent around 500 Ma. The Saharan craton may have been decratonized, perhaps oceanized, during the Pan-African event, at the end of this period the craton was extended and rifts appeared. By about 500 Ma the Saharan craton was sutured with the Congo craton during the assembly of Gondwana. Although Gondwana later split up, the core African Plate remained intact, perhaps the simplest view is that the craton is an assembly of microcontinental blocks with different origins that were swept together during the Pan African orogeny
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Tanzania Craton
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The Tanzania Craton is an old and stable part of the continental lithosphere in central Tanzania. Some of the rocks are over 3 billion years old, the Tanzania Craton forms the highest part of the East African Plateau. The craton is surrounded by Proterozoic mobile belts of various ages and grades of metamorphism and these include the Ubendian, Usagaran, Karagwe-Ankolean and Bukoban systems. The Mozambique Belt lies to the east, the craton divides the east and west branches of the East African Rift. The southern end of the Gregory Rift Valley terminates against the craton, the volcanic area of this rift covers the surface interface between the Mozambique orogenic fold belt and the Tanzania Craton. The craton is a composite of several different terranes of Archaean metasediments, the Dodoman is the oldest, and others include the Nyanzian and Kavirondian. Some of the belts are more than 3 billion years old. They were intruded by granites and migmatized in different events that date back to 2.9,2.7,2.4 and 1.85 billion years ago. The craton mainly consists of Archaean granitic complexes, but also includes rocks from the Dodoma System in the central area, gneisses, schists, quartzites, migmatites, amphibolites and granulite are also found. There was widespread intrusion of kimberlites in the Cretaceous Period, mostly in the part of the craton that lies south of Lake Victoria and this includes the Mwadui kimberlite pipe in the center of Tanzania
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