Sudan

Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir on Friday made a surprise appearance at the Uhuru Park celebrations, defying International Criminal Court arrest warrants against him.

The Sudanese leader is subject to two arrest warrants issued by the ICC over atrocities committed in Darfur in Sudan, but the Kenyan government said that it would not arrest him.

The Sudanese government Tuesday came to an agreement with an international watchdog over discrepancy in oil productivity figures.

A statement from the Sudanese embassy in Nairobi said Global Witness acknowledged that confusion over the actual figures was caused by the use aggregate figures without taking into account the export-oriented net figures.

South Sudan's referendum on independence, scheduled for January, should be delayed to allow more time to prepare for it, a member of the referendum commission warns.

"The time that is remaining is not enough to hold a referendum," Tarek Osman al-Taher says.

The United Nations today expressed its deep concern over a helicopter pilot who has been missing for two days in the south of Sudan's war-torn Darfur region.

On Monday, the joint African Union-United Nations peacekeeping mission, known as UNAMID, lost contact with one of its helicopters after it landed in Aborjo in South Darfur state.

Manute Bol, of Sudan, who became famous for playing basketball in the United States and contributed millions of dollars to help the Sudanese, died on Saturday. He was 47.

News reports said he died of kidney failure. The Washington Post reported that this was due to complications from a rare skin disease that Bol contracted from a medication he had received in Africa.

The government of President Omar al-Bashir in Khartoum has again arrested Bashir's former ally, the Islamist leader, Hassan al-Turabi.

The Sudan Tribune reports from Khartoum that the government accused Turabi of "stirring up hatred, disseminating malicious lies and abuse of Sudan’s foreign relations."

Vehicles in Juba, draped with the flag of semiautonomous South Sudan, evoked a stronger response as supporters of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) celebrated a sweep of the majority of the seats in the south.

President Omar al-Bashir was officially declared the winner of Sudan's national elections Monday, while President Salva Kiir was declared re-elected as the leader of the semi-autonomous South Sudan government.

The parties to Sudan's 2005 peace agreement have agreed to accept the results of last week's election and to form a new unity government, the Sudan Tribune reports from Juba.

The Chairperson of the African Union (AU) Commission wishes to commend the people of the Sudan and the Sudanese political parties for peacefully conducting

Voting in Sudan - the first democratic elections in 24 years - has been extended by three days by the National Election Commission in response to widespread problems with voters' lists and ballot papers.

Most of Sudan's political opposition parties threatened on Thursday to boycott upcoming elections, following months of concerns raised in the south over insecurity and poor preparation for the polls, according to news reports.

Thick dust clouds obscure the horizon as the convoy of UN military observers sets off to patrol the oil-rich, yet desperately underdeveloped Unity State in Southern Sudan.

In these borderlands, monitoring a 2005 deal that halted decades of war between north and south is a major undertaking.

A gathering of high-level international officials to Sudan, led by the head of the joint United Nations-African Union (AU) peacekeeping operation in the country's war-torn Darfur region, on Saturday urged all armed groups involved in the conflict to join the peace process initiated earlier this week by Khartoum and a major rebel militia.

The International Criminal Court has described evidence against a Darfur rebel leader accused of an attack on African Union peacekeepers variously as "weak", "scant" and "unreliable."