Latest Satelite Imagery

Satellite images show Sudan army take control of another town

Some 200 Sudanese demonstrators in the capital of southern Sudan, Juba, demonstrate against the northern military occupation of the contested Abyei region on May 23, 2011. The U.N. demanded that Khartoum withdraw its troops from Abyei after what the south branded an 'invasion' of the flashpoint border district prompted warnings Sudan is "close to the precipice" of renewed civil war. (Peter Martell /AFP/Getty Images)

BOSTON — New imagery from George Clooney's Satellite Sentinel Project confirms that the Sudan Armed Forces control the town of Kadugli in Sudan's tense border region of South Kordofan, and that thousands of civilians have been displaced.

The satellite project identified at least 89 apparent military vehicles in the town — all of which appear capable of imminent forward movement — including heavy ammunition transport trucks, light vehicles and possible towed artillery pieces. The satellite photographs corroborate reports that the Sudan army recently moved a large number of vehicles there.

The DigitalGlobe satellite images taken on June 17 show a camp of at least 300 temporary shelters clustered around the United Nations peacekeeping base north of Kadugli town. The images support reports from the ground that Sudan army soldiers from the North, representing President Omar al-Bashir's regime, remain locked in a tense conflict with the forces from the South, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, in South Kordofan.

The United Nations warns that the Sudan Armed Forces are positioned to to launch a major offensive into the South.

“These government of Sudan attacks in South Kordofan are not an isolated incident, and not an aberration," said Enough Project co-founder John Prendergast. "They represent a series of disturbing trends, including the use of force to negotiate, the commission of war crimes, and the cratering of peace agreements by the Sudanese regime in areas as wide-ranging as Darfur, the Nuba Mountains, and militia-controlled areas in the South. The Kadugli clashes are another example of the Northern ruling party’s utilization of ethnic cleansing and commission of other war crimes.”

The Enough Project, which initiated the Satellite Sentinel Project with actor and activist George Clooney, has called for the United State to provide the government of South Sudan with air defense capabilities to fend off attacks from the North once it becomes independent on July 9.

EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS: Latest Satellite Imagery From Fukushima Tells ...

Noting that the press has largely turned its resources off of the Fukushima complex, and needing up-to-date information on the status of the damage control efforts there, we secured the most up-to-date satellite photo from DigitalGlobe (dated March 31st), which we analyze below. This is the first photo of the damaged reactor site at Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear facility made available to the public in over a week. That means you, our readers, are the first public eyes anywhere to see this photo.

Drawing upon the expertise of our resident  nuclear engineer and  Ann Stringer , imaging expert, we conclude that the situation at Fukushima is not stabilized: Things are not yet at a place of steady progress in the containment and clean-up efforts. It's still a dance, forwards and backwards, with the workers making gains here and there but the situation forcing them to react defensively all too often.

What We Can See

Here's what we can directly observe in the larger satellite image:

Steam is still rising from Reactors #2, #3 (circled in green), and #4. Of the four reactor buildings, three are nearly or totally destroyed, while the outside (at least) of the fourth is in relatively better shape. We can count 7 fire trucks 'on site' with another 7 just to the north, all with water lines strung out across the ground. There is only one ship/vessel to be seen, located inside of the breakwater and nearly as far to the north as it can go inside that boundary. A significant number of the vehicles that can be seen at the core of the site have not moved since the first released photos on March 12.   There is a parking lot slightly to the north and west with approximately 250 passenger vehicles in it and a side lot with 30 large green tanks neatly arranged in rows. The rest of the area contains one-, two-, and four-lane roads (no traffic at all), worked farmland, residential and commercial areas, mostly empty parking lots, and two baseball diamonds.

Here's what we don't see... Nowhere in the 25 km area in the main photo can we find anything that looks like a staging area with a large collection of assets such as tanker trucks, pumpers, cement trucks, piles of pre-staged materials, ambulances, and fire trucks. The cement pumper truck seen a week ago has been apparently replaced by the boom at Reactor #4.