On Sunday, Sudan's Council of Ministers declared a state of alert and emergency regarding the floods that affected six of its states — River Nile, Gezira, White Nile, West Kordofan, South Darfur and Kassala.

According to the Sudan News Agency (SUNA), the Council stressed the importance of mobilising popular efforts to attract internal and external humanitarian support from official and popular bodies, in order to provide assistance to those affected by the situation in these states.

Acting Minister of Cabinet Affairs Osman Hussein Osman confirmed the opening of an account in local and foreign currencies to attract support, and to stand beside those affected by torrential rains and floods.  Source Khaleej Times

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Human rights activists have asked the Israeli Defence ministry to stop permitting its company from selling phone hacking software to Ugandan authorities, claiming it is being used for human rights abuses. 

The company, Cellebrite, which specializes in developing tools for digital forensic investigations, is reported to have sold its phone-hacking software known as Universal Forensic Extraction Device (UFED), to Uganda police and other security services. The software enables enforcement authorities to hack into password-protected cell phones and retrieve all the information they contain.  

Uganda police reportedly uses the same technology, the UFED cloud analyzer to extract data from online storage services like Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive and Apple’s iCloud. Although Cellebrite publications explain that remote access is only possible if the account holder provides the password, an IT specialist who preferred anonymity said that the user of the system is actually able to extract data from the cloud services installed on the hacked phone.

Israeli human rights lawyer Eitay Mack is leading a campaign demanding the withdrawal of UFED from Uganda police. Mack, one of Israelis’ leading voices against arms sales to human rights violators is leading several human rights organizations which signed a letter to the Defense Ministry stating that Uganda is using the software to oppress critics. The Defense ministry’s Defense Export Control Agency monitors and approves sales of security technologies abroad.

The letter, which is also copied to Cellebrite, detailed murders, kidnappings, and torture of human rights activists, dissidents, and members of the opposition. They also made reference to a 2021 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, published by the US Department of State which highlighted a series of state-instigated violations against Ugandans.

The report faulted the government and its security forces for participating in arbitrary killings, forced disappearances, cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment of suspects and torture. The same report also points to restrictions on free expression including violence and unjustified arrests or prosecution of journalists, and overly restrictive laws on the funding or operation of nongovernmental organizations and civil society organizations.  

But Cellebrite said its products were sold to Uganda’s police and security services to fight serious crime and terror, according to a report by The Times of Israeli and haartez.com. The two publications quote Cellebrite saying that it always ensures that its tools are only used for legal and ethical purposes.

The same report quotes the company, saying that it is committed to its mission of creating a safer world through providing solutions to law enforcement organizations while ensuring legal and ethical use of its products.

“We have developed strict means of oversight that will ensure proper use of our technology in the context of investigations carried out under the law."

The company has also insisted that it requires potential clients to demonstrate they have the authority to access an iPhone or Android devices before making their product available. It has also been saying the technology’s dependence on physically interfacing with the phones means it is unlikely to be misused. But critics have noted that Cellebrite has had difficulty ensuring kits it has sent to clients remain with the clients.

In February 2019, Cellebrite phone hacking kits were found on sale on eBay, while some clients have not returned the kits to Cellebrite after use, as the company requests. There are also fears a Cellebrite kit could be reverse-engineered to uncover vulnerabilities that the company continues to keep hidden from the cellphone makers.  Cellebrite has sold the same software to Belarus, China, Hong Kong, Venezuela, Indonesia, Russia, the Philippines, and Bangladesh.

The Israeli Defense ministry claims that there is tight and effective oversight of Israeli cyber products sold abroad and that it puts human rights at the forefront when permitting the sale of cyber tools. Yusuf Sewanyana, the director of the Police's ICT Directorate told URN that although the technology was procured, it is not in use at the moment.

Last year, an advanced spyware Pegasus, created by another Israeli firm, NSO Group was reportedly detected on at least 11 iPhones used by US officials in Uganda, as well as locals working for the embassy. According to a report which was published by the Washington Post, the targeted individuals were notified by Apple that their devices had been hacked. 

While NSO has previously said Pegasus can’t be used against US-based devices, Americans working overseas can and often do acquire local phone numbers, which may be vulnerable to Pegasus attacks. A report by the New York Times indicated that the targets were easily identifiable as state department employees because they had used their professional email addresses to create Apple IDs.

NSO Group maintains that governments that purchase Pegasus are carefully vetted and are not to use the product except for specific purposes; however, the company has repeatedly sold Pegasus to countries known to use surveillance technology to track dissidents, lawyers, journalists, and other members of civil society. By URN, The Observer

NAIROBI, Kenya Aug 22 – Raila Odinga’s Azimio La Umoja One Kenya coalition has filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking to overturn President-Elect William Ruto’s victory.

Lawyer Dan Maanzo said the petition was filed online Monday morning.

“Yes we have filed the petition online and as lawyers of Azimio we are ready for the petition and we are very confident that we will succeed because the law is on our side,” he told reporters outside the Supreme Court registry at the Milimani Law Courts.

He said they were now working on delivering the physical documents to the court to be stamped.

“The hard copies will now be brought so that they can be stamped but the online one is already with the court,” he said but declined to provide a copy or reveal the main grounds in the petition.

“No I can’t go into those details because the Chief Justice will say I have started to prosecute the case outside court,” he said.

Anyone wishing to file a petition in the Supreme Court agaist Ruto’s victory has until 2pm Monday which is the deadline for the 7-day window since the declaration of the results by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) Chairman Wafula Chebukati.

Ruto was declared president-elect on Monday, scraping past Odinga with a margin of less than two percentage points, after an anxious days-long wait for results of the August 9 vote.

The outcome has been challenged not only by Odinga’s camp but also, in a bizarre twist, by four out of seven commissioners at the election body that oversaw the vote. 

“We want to see justice done so that peace can be found,” 77-year-old Odinga said at his Nairobi home after a meeting with religious leaders. 

“We have decided to use the law to go before the Supreme Court and table our evidence to show that it was not an election but a joke.”

The veteran opposition leader has now been defeated in all five presidential votes he has contested, even though this year he ran with the backing of outgoing President Uhuru Kenyatta and the weight of the ruling party behind him.

No presidential poll outcome has gone uncontested in Kenya since 2002, and the disputes have led to bloodshed in the past.

In August 2017, the Supreme Court annulled the election after Odinga rejected Kenyatta’s victory. Dozens of people were killed by police in post-poll protests.

The aftermath of this year’s court decision is being keenly watched as a test of democratic maturity in East Africa’s richest economy.

Kenya‘s worst electoral violence occurred after the 2007 vote, when more than 1,100 people died in bloodletting between rival tribes. By Jemimah Mueni, Capital News