Snapped this exactly fifty years ago in Oxford, after hearing the Magdalen College Choir welcome May Morning; check out the fashion of the guy walking away, on the left.

On the 'road', El Fasher to El Geneina, #Darfur , #Sudan , 2001.

🇨🇦's Barrick Gold in Mali (2024) ....Deja vu, 🇨🇦Talisman in #Sudan (1998-2002)?

Very flat delivery, but the five points are good. #Sudan

What a surprise; not. (Well actually it's a surprise that he would state this so openly..).

A new dynamic wrt 🇸🇩: some RSF gold is apparently marketed with Wagner facilitation but the SAF is now looking at a Moscow connection too. Meanwhile and fwiw, if the SAF wishes to 'legitimise' itself in the west, dealing with the most sanctioned country in the world will not help

#Sudan : 'Not a civil war... a war on civilians'

El Fasher – a city in North Darfur – is on the precipice of a large-scale massacre.

The RSF must end its siege and swear off any attack on the city. All parties must pull back military forces.

The entire international community must bring pressure to bear at this moment of…

#SouthSudan continues to extort the UN and donors (who will btw be expected to stump up most of the $$ to pay for the country's long-delayed elections, due in December).

First high-level 🇨🇦 statement on #Sudan in nearly a year.

A stop for tea - on the road in #Darfur , #Sudan .

Add this #SouthSudan deal to the USD $36bn UAE investment recently made in #Egypt , to Emirati support for Khalifa Haftar's #Libya National Army, to support of the Deby govy in #Chad ...and to sponsorship of the RSF in #Sudan .... well, just look at a map & add it all up.

In the 1930's, #Darfur (an independent sultanate until 1916) was one of the remotest places in the British Empire. The Assistant District Commissioner in Kutum was the later-legendary Wilfred Thesiger. Here, Zaghawa tribesmen display to him a marauding lion they had just shot.

All the warning lights now flashing - if the RSF move into El Fasher it will spell both a massacre and the near-irreversible fragmentation of #Sudan into 2 large pieces. Meanwhile, hope is pinned on a mtg called by ceasefire mediators (Jeddah) - but no date or confirmed attendees

One of the world's poorest and most donor-dependent countries, #SouthSudan , increases military expenditure by 108% in 2022, a further 78% in 2023 - all the while claiming it has insufficient $ to run its first-ever elections later this year. news24.com/news24/africa/…

There once was a time when #Darfur was known not for genocide, but as the start of the millennia-old 40-day camel drive to Egypt, by which the camels reputed as the best in the world were driven to market. The ceremonial start of the Drive, El Geneina, 2002.

Today is World Penguin Day! Emperors inspect our ship's mooring lines - McMurdo Sound, Antarctica.

Spring on the island, and there are Monkey Flowers on every grassy bank that's exposed to the sun (so named because they resemble a monkey's face (?).