No one is even trying to maintain the pretense of peace in Sudan and South Sudan these days. Sporadic skirmishes and border shootouts are on the verge of becoming all-out war and the threat is resurrecting fears of a Darfur-like disaster for 10s of thousands of refugees.
A day after South Sudan, Africa’s youngest state, became the 188th member of the International Monetary Fund on Wednesday, the Arab League was scrambling to call an emergency meeting into the growing violence between Sudan and South Sudan.
South Sudanese troops continue to occupy the oil town of Heglig, on the disputed border of South Kordofan state, fighting off air raids by Sudanese jets and counter-attacks by the Sudanese army.
Le Stache' Grande' was pyschic
''...Ticking time bomb" is the entirely accurate way Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton recently described Sudan. There is every indication the country is nearing a breakup, almost certainly into its northern and southern halves, and perhaps additional fragments.
"...The central question is not if dissolution will occur, but whether it will proceed relatively peacefully or whether renewed military conflict inside Sudan is inevitable, possibly spilling into neighboring countries.
Oh snap!
The end result is that, following renewed clashes, the SPLA has taken control of the disputed Heglig oil fields and stopped about half of Sudan’s 115,000 barrels-per-day oil output. This has dealt a further blow to Khartoum’s economy, already reeling from separation and the additional fall in revenue that resulted from Juba's decision in January to stop exporting oil through Sudan’s pipelines. The beleaguered Khartoum regime, which is under pressure on political, economic, and multiple military fronts and increasingly concerned about the prospects of an Arab Spring uprising, cannot afford to sustain such losses.
Bordering 9 (!) different nation states in Africa - if Sudan gets totally off the hook - again - a fully crunk intervention would most likely not stop 'til the world's very first sitting head of state indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity either goes Milosevic' or Ceausescu
Either way is fine
Pic - "It's a problem sir, and it can't be bent
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.
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