AfricaResource The Place for Africa on the Net

The Darryl Hunt case and the candid views expressed in Justice Brady’s concurrent opinion illustrate why such a diverse group of North Carolinians, including many who support capital punishment, is now calling on our lawmakers to enact a moratorium to examine our death penalty system,” said Duke Law Professor Jim Coleman. “The errors in the Hunt case and in the case in which Justice Brady concurred were not inadvertent. That is the tragedy; they could have been prevented.

Sudan's main oilfields are in the south and disputes over oil prolonged negotiations to end 20 years of civil war there. In contrast, the presence of oil in Darfur comes as a surprise to many in the humanitarian community. The big question now is whether oil will give a motive for warring parties to speed up moves towards peace or make the conflict even harder to solve. "The issue of oil in Darfur isn't very different from the issue of oil anywhere else," said Mike Aaronson, director general of British NGO Save the Children. "It's potentially a tremendous blessing, and potentially a tremendous handicap.

The discovery of oil in Darfur would explain why "a seemingly barren wasteland" of Sudan has ignited such a fierce war, the paper suggests. It quotes a Khartoum analyst who says oil is what's really motivating interventions from the United States, the United Nations and Libya. And it quotes rights activists who say the hunger for oil is what's made the Khartoum government so keen to crack down on rebel demands in the region.

"The 2003 elections, though massively rigged, had at least the semblance of an election. In contrast, the 2007 elections did not have such a semblance; they were not an election at all in any acceptably meaningful sense of the word; they were simply a complete desecration, a palpable travesty of the concept of a democratic election. The desecration was so monumental in its completeness that words, even the word 'rigging', are inadequate to describe it. It would simply be an abuse of language to use any of the epithets 'free', 'fair' or 'credible' in connection with the charade that took place in Nigeria on 14 and 21 April, 2007."

"The G-8 finance ministers have shown collective amnesia, choosing to forget their promises to Africa," said Max Lawson of Oxfam International. "(German) Chancellor (Angela) Merkel has got just 18 days to show true leadership, berate her fellow leaders into action and avoid embarrassment in the eyes of the world and the denial of hope for millions. The German G-8 must not be remembered as the summit of shame."