Registration of future voters in Sudan’s January referendum has ended and more than three million people have registered to vote on what may be Africa’s newest country. Voters in Southern Sudan, an autonomous region of the continent’s largest country, will vote 9 January on whether or not to break from the mainly Muslim North.
The Obama administration has been offering the government in Khartoum incentives to allow the vote to go ahead, in an attempt to forestall violence or even a return to war. Many issues have not been resolved, including how to partition oil-rich areas that straddle the border and the fate of millions of internally displaced people in the North.
Links to other sites: All-Africa, Christian Science Monitor, Washington Post
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt has benefited from an outpouring of nationalist fervour following the Egyptian soccer team’s loss to Algeria after two qualifying matches 14 and 18 November. The fallout from the football matches has included Egyptians being attacked in Algiers, Algeria, and a rupture in diplomatic ties between the two countries. Mubarak addressed the country’s parliament Saturday 21 November and vowed to protect the dignity of Egyptian citizens living abroad, to loud applause.
The incidents surrounding the arrival of the Algerian football team in Cairo, Egypt 14 November for a World Cup qualifying match with arch-rivals Egypt are to be investigated by the disciplinary committee of the world football regulatory body, Fifa announced 19 November. The bus carrying the Algerian team was beset by rioters and stoned as it moved from the airport to the hotel.
