Chicago Bulls player hopes Sudan vote brings peace

Luol Deng, Bulls Forward, Hopes Sudan Vote Brings Peace
Chicago — Chicago Bulls forward Luol Deng (LOO'-ul dehng) arrived to a hero's welcome at a polling place in Chicago where southern Sudanese are voting on their country's future. Deng drew cheers from fellow Sudanese on Sunday when he briefly draped himself with the Southern Sudan flag. The Basketball player has been encouraging people to vote for the Referendum on Southern Sudan independence and says a lot of people have fought for this day when Southern Sudanese would have a say in thei...

Sudanese expatriates vote in Chicago with assist by Bulls star
Sudanese expatriates came by the bus load to the North Side today, jamming the lobby of a condo building for a vote that will shape the destiny of a land many were forced to leave. They were taking part in a Referendum to determine whether southern Sudan should secede from the north and form a new nation. Some said it was the first time they and their families had been able to cast a ballot regarding the affairs of their homeland. "My father voted in his village," said David Deng, 30, of Chica...

Avlon: Southern Sudan Celebrates Referendum Vote
John Avlon writes at The Daily Beast: After walking across Sudan during two decades of Civil War, 17 “Lost Boys” took a final step toward liberty on Sunday morning, joining their fellow Southern Sudanese in a long-awaited vote for independence. “After all of the struggle, loss of life, separation, and killing, we can see that we are now allowed to vote freely for our destiny,” Valentino Achak Deng told me in the southern capital city of Juba, along the banks of the Nile. Deng, the

Vote turnout slows in southern Sudan
JUBA, Sudan, Jan. 10 (UPI) -- Voting slowed Monday on the second day of southern Sudan's independence Referendum, an official said. "As many people could not vote ... there is a proposal to extend the polling by an hour till 6 p.m.," Abuk Nikanora Manyok of the South Sudan Referendum Bureau told al-Jazeera. "Women are now going from house to house to mobilize those who have not voted to go out and vote," Manyok said. She said voting is slowly picking up in remote areas where people must walk f...

Huge turnout on second day of south Sudan vote
Thousands of south Sudanese poured out to vote for a second straight day in a landmark independence Referendum on Monday, bringing the region a step closer to becoming the world's newest state. Repeating the jubilant scenes witnessed on Sunday, huge queues formed outside Polling Stations in the regional capital Juba from long before dawn as voters seized their chance to have their say on whether to split Africa's largest nation and put the seal on five decades of north-south conflict. The scale ...

Huge turnout on second day of south Sudan vote
Stumble This! Thousands of south Sudanese poured out to vote for a second straight day in a landmark independence Referendum on Monday, bringing the region a step closer to becoming the world's newest state. Repeating the jubilant scenes witnessed on Sunday, huge queues formed outside Polling Stations in the regional capital Juba from long before dawn as voters seized the chance to have their say on whether to split Africa's largest nation and put the seal on five decades of north-south conflic...

23 die in Sudan border clashes amid vote
KHARTOUM -- At least 23 people have died in clashes between tribespeople and Arab nomads near Sudan's north-south border, leaders in the contested Abyei region said on Monday, on the second day of a week-long Referendum on southern independence. Analysts cite the central region of Abyei as the most likely place for north-south tensions to erupt into violence during and after the vote, the climax of a troubled peace deal that ended decades of Civil War. Southerners are expected to vote to split f...

What to watch for as South Sudan turns out for referendum vote
The week-long Referendum vote in South Sudan began Sunday. While it appears that relations between the north and south are calm, tensions within the south could prove to be a hurdle....

Sudan's second day of unity vote
Sudan: Set for Divorce? One country or two? Voters in Southern Sudan have returned to Polling Stations for a second day in an independence Referendum which is widely expected to result in the birth of the world's newest state. The BBC's Will Ross says early turnout has not been not as heavy as on the first day of the week-long vote, but voters seem just as determined. The poll was agreed as part of the 2005 deal that ended a two-decade Civil War. Some in the queues said they voting f...

Thousands vote in Southern Sudan as violence flares in disputed region
Thousands more people streamed to polling places in a historic Referendum on independence for Southern Sudan on Monday even as violence flared in a disputed region between north and south. Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, meanwhile, said Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir told him that Southern Sudan should not have to shoulder Sudan's Debt should it secede from the county. The question of how to split Sudan's Debt is one of several issues that would have to be resolved if the south ...

Long lines on Day 2 in South Sudan freedom vote
JUBA, Sudan (AP) — Voters in Southern Sudan’s capital are waiting for hours to cast ballots on the second day of a weeklong independence Referendum. Voting began Sunday with jubilant celebrations in the capital. The south, which is mainly black and Christian or animist, is set to split apart from the north, which is Arab and Muslim. The two sides ended a 23-year Civil War in 2005 with a peace deal that called for this week’s vote. Mahmud Abubakar waited in line twice. On Sunday...

South Sudan eyes basketball as new national pride
Southern Sudanese Basketball players train in Bentiu. If there is one thing... Southern Sudanese Basketball players train in Bentiu. If there is one thing... If there is one thing south Sudan is famous for in the outside world, it is the super lofty stars with which it has studded the NBA. Now, as nationhood beckons, it is Basketball that it is looking to to make a name in international sports. No sporting official in south Sudan is in any doubt that the week-long independence Referendum which ...

Born in a Day: South Sudans Referendum
The polling place opened at 9:00 AM, but hundreds of South Sudanese were already lined up outside the doors, on both sides of the building, long before then. As one of only five cities in the United States where the huge South Sudanese American diaspora could come to vote, the little office on S. Peyton Street, just blocks from trendy Old Town Alexandria, is a very popular place.  Later today, tourists will roam the streets of Old Town, and even later party-ers will hit the bars and clubs, ...

Hope in Sudan
On Sunday, polls opened for a week-long Referendum in which the people of South Sudan will decide on whether or not to secede from Sudan. In recent months, every objective international observer – and, in the last few weeks, even Sudan’s president, General Bashir, himself — has predicted that the vote will overwhelmingly favor separation. This likely outcome can be explained by the fact that the South Sudanese have not forgotten that, for two decades beginning in the 1980s, Kha...

Infidel Bloggers Alliance
Jubilant south Sudanese vote en masse in Referendum From Eye on the World: "We were the slaves of the Arabs... Today we are voting for our freedom." "This is the end of Arabisation, the end of Islamisation. (AFP) Villagers in southern Sudan voted on Sunday for what many saw as their freedom from "Slavery" in a referendum forecast to bring independence to their neglected region of central Africa. "We were the slaves of the Arabs... Today we are voting for our freedom," said Duku John, a square...

The South Sudanese Referendum Won't Depened on the Diaspora
The South Sudanese diaspora have played an important, and perhaps indispensable, role in bringing about the Referendum on independence from Sudan that is taking place this week. Having successfully obtained Refugee or asylum status in the United States, Canada, Britain and some other countries, the exiled political elite from the region have pressed those governments to support the Referendum process, and to recognize an independent southern Sudanese state if the Referendum succeeds. Accordingly...

The West: "Things are surprisingly going well in Sudan ..."
"..."Things are going, surprisingly, in a positive direction. There is an expectation that the transition to a new state won't be as difficult as was imagined," a Western official based in Southern Sudan said in a phone interview on the condition of anonymity. Sudanese President Omar Bashir, who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court on charges of War Crimes for atrocities in the western province of Darfur, is facing growing criticism from northerners who blame him for the likely...

Annan: Sudanese "excited about peace"
Voters in Southern Sudan have returned to Polling Stations for a second day in an independence Referendum which is widely expected to result in the birth of the world's newest state. Early turnout has not been as heavy as the first day of the week-long vote, but voters seem just as determined. The poll was agreed as part of the 2005 deal that ended a two-decade Civil War. The BBC's Andrew Harding spoke to former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan about the the Sudan referendum. Play Wh...

The Referendum Hangover - By Maggie Fick
JUBA, Sudan—Euphoria permeated the atmosphere in the Southern Sudanese capital on Sunday, and for good reason. For a people who have fought and endured decades of conflict, all for the remote prospect of finding independence at the end, this week is for celebrating. A new state in the south seemed finally within reach when voting began in a weeklong Referendum on whether to secede from greater Sudan. Nearly 4 million Southern Sudanese are expected to cast ballots in what the region's leaders...

20 Police Die In Attack As Sudanese Go To Polls
Arab tribesmen accompanied by a northern Sudanese government-backed Militia killed 20 policemen in the disputed region of Abyei, a southern Military spokesman said Monday, raising concerns of violence as the south holds its independence Referendum. The attack came Sunday, the first day of voting in Southern Sudan's weeklong referendum, which is widely predicted to break Africa's largest country in two. Abyei, which straddles the north-south divide and holds oil deposits, had been promised its ow...

64 killed in ethnic clashes in Sudan
JUBA, Sudan, Jan. 10 (UPI) -- At least 64 people have died in clashes in a disputed border area during southern Sudan's Secession vote, an offical said Monday. Deng Mading, acting head of the Abyei Referendum Forum, told Xinhua three days of fighting pitted police from the Dinka people against a Militia from the nomadic Misseriya tribe. About 40 Misseriya and 24 Dinka civilians were killed, he said, and more reports are coming in. The Dinka captured two U.N. peacekeepers' tanks from the Militia ...

AP womens basketball poll: Baylor stays No. 1
Baylor has strengthened its hold on No. 1. The Lady Bears received 25 first-place votes Monday in the women’s college Basketball poll by The Associated Press. That’s two more than last week when they became No. 1 for the first time. Baylor beat Iowa State on Saturday. The Lady Bears play at Texas on Wednesday and host Oklahoma State on Saturday. UConn remained second, losing two of its first-place votes to Baylor. The Huskies drew 12 top votes after beating Villanova and rallying pas...

White House Africa moves
With the Obama Administration expressing tentative relief that voting in South Sudan’s Referendum on Secession has proceeded relatively smoothly so far, it is giving kudos to the top White House Africa advisor who has helped manage and keep the administration on top of the potentially hugely volatile issue to date. But now, officials say, National Security Council senior director for Africa Michelle Gavin is planning to leave the White House later this month, despite heartfelt regrets e...

Neighbours fear division of Sudan may have domino effect
Southern Sudanese queue to vote at Wunrok town in Warrap State. Voting will last for one week. Photo: Kate Geraghty Johannesburg: If Southern Sudan, why not Southern Nigeria, or Northern Ivory Coast, or multiple Congos? The Sudanese vote has implications for all of Africa, signalling that the borders drawn by colonial cartographers are no longer sacrosanct. Some fear it may spur the Balkanisation of the continent. ''The Referendum in Sudan could have a Domino Effect,'' said Shehu Sani, president...

trouble in Sudan ...
"At least 23 people have died in clashes between tribespeople and Arab nomads near Sudan's north-south border, leaders in a contested region said on Monday, on the second day of a week-long Referendum on southern independence. Analysts cite the central region of Abyei as the most likely place for north-south tensions to erupt into violence during and after the vote, the climax of a troubled peace deal that ended decades of Civil War. U.S. President Barack Obama Saturday warned both northern and...