KHARTOUM: Sudan insisted on Monday it had “sovereign rights” over two border territories whose ownership has been the subject of a long-standing dispute between Cairo and Khartoum.
Sudan has regularly protested at Egypt’s administration of Halayeb and Shalatin near the Red Sea, saying they are part of its sovereign territory since shortly after independence in 1956.
Since April, Khartoum has stepped up its claim to the territories lately.
“We will not let go of our sovereign rights on the Halayeb triangle,” Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour told Parliament on Monday.
“We have adopted legal and political measures to assert our rights in the Halayeb triangle.”
Ghandour said Khartoum was also trying to get a copy of the agreement between Cairo and Riyadh on the transfer of the two islands in the Straits of Tiran.
“We need to gauge the impact of this agreement on our maritime borders,” he told lawmakers.
Meanwhile, Sudan’s highest court has allowed a leading newspaper to resume publishing, nearly five months after the authorities banned it from printing, the newspaper’s editor said on Monday.
Sudan’s National Intelligence and Security Service had suspended the independent Al-Tayar newspaper in December after it published a series of editorials criticizing the government.
Sudan-Egypt land dispute resurfaces
Sudan-Egypt land dispute resurfaces
Tunisian police arrest member of parliament who mocked president
- Ahmed Saidani mocked the president in a Facebook post, describing him as the “supreme commander of sewage and rainwater drainage”
TUNIS: Tunisian police arrested lawmaker Ahmed Saidani on Wednesday, two of his colleagues said, in what appeared to be part of an escalating crackdown on critics of President Kais Saied.
Saidani has recently become known for his fierce criticism of Saied. On Tuesday, he mocked the president in a Facebook post, describing him as the “supreme commander of sewage and rainwater drainage,” blasting what he said was the absence of any achievements by Saied.
Saidani was elected as a lawmaker at the end of 2022 in a parliamentary election with very low voter turnout, following Saied’s dissolution of the previous parliament and dismissal of the government in 2021.
Saied has since ruled by decree, moves the opposition has described as a coup.
Most opposition leaders, some journalists and critics of Saied, have been imprisoned since he seized control of most powers in 2021.
Activists and human rights groups say Saied has cemented his one-man rule and turned Tunisia into an “open-air prison” in an effort to suppress his opponents. Saied denies being a dictator, saying he is enforcing the law and seeking to “cleanse” the country.
Once a supporter of Saied’s policies against political opponents, Saidani has become a vocal critic in recent months, accusing the president of seeking to monopolize all decision-making while avoiding responsibility, leaving others to bear the blame for problems.
Last week, Saidani also mocked the president for “taking up the hobby of taking photos with the poor and destitute,” sarcastically adding that Saied not only has solutions for Tunisia but claims to have global approaches capable of saving humanity.
Under Tunisian law, lawmakers enjoy parliamentary immunity and cannot be arrested for carrying out their duties, although detention is allowed if they are caught committing a crime.
