Free Republic

Nana Ekua-Hammond breaks down our relationship to the religion before American slavery and White Jesus piecesThis Easter, over two billion Christians around the world will celebrate "the Resurrection of Christ," and a large percentage of them will be Black. According to a 2007 Pew Report, 78% of Blacks in America identify as Protestant while a 2011 report by Pew notes that nearly 24% of Christians live in Sub-Saharan Africa. Christianity’s explosion across Africa led many to call for the Vatican to select a successor to Pope Benedict from the Continent with Ghanaian Cardinal Peter Turkson among the suggested shortlist. This...

President Obama decided this week that the Muslim Brotherhood-linked regime ruling parts of Somalia out of the capital city Mogadishu is eligible to receive U.S. military aid and weapons. Obama Paves Way to Arm Muslim Brotherhood-linked Regime in Somalia The New American 12 April 2013 President Obama decided this week that the Muslim Brotherhood-linked regime ruling parts of Somalia out of the capital city Mogadishu is eligible to receive U.S. military aid and weapons, sending a memo to Secretary of State John Kerry announcing the new finding and laying the ground work for even more foreign entanglements in Africa....

Egyptian authorities fearful of a monopoly on Nile waters received agreement from Khartoum to build an airbase in Sudan, to launch attacks on Ethiopian damming facilities, claims the anonymous media outlet; Wikileaks. Wikileaks has leaked files allegedly from the Texas-based global intelligence company, Stratfor, which quote an anonymous "high-level Egyptian source," claiming the Egyptian ambassador to Lebanon said in 2010 his nation would do anything to prevent the secession of South Sudan because of the political implications it will have for Egypt's access to the Nile. The Nile is vital in providing fresh water to the people and agricultural projects...

The first clues appeared in Kenya, Uganda and what is now South Sudan. A British arms researcher surveying ammunition used by government forces and civilian militias in 2006 found Kalashnikov rifle cartridges he had not seen before. The ammunition bore no factory code, suggesting that its manufacturer hoped to avoid detection. Within two years other researchers were finding identical cartridges circulating through the ethnic violence in Darfur. Similar ammunition then turned up in 2009 in a stadium in Conakry, Guinea, where soldiers had fired on antigovernment protesters, killing more than 150. For six years, a group of independent arms-trafficking researchers...

October 5, 2012 — It has become clear that the people of the Darfur Region have been subject to collective punishment under the reign of the Arabism-Islamism entity of the racist supremacist National Congress Party (NCP)... Political observers indicate that the NCP regime which has adopted racial discrimination against fellow citizens and claiming its ethnic superiority and calling for an Arab - Islamic state and religious bigotry and apartheid approach in governance is no stranger to treat Darfur female students with Barbaric-style cruelty. Apparently, some of those NCP sellouts lack the Sudanese magnanimity because they did not grow up in...

The support of the rebels in Syria, and the condemnation of Assad, by the Obama administration can only make one question as to why he is against this particular regimen, but not that of Omar al-Bashir, the tyrant who has been responsible for the deaths of millions through the Jihad that he has commenced against Christians and the non-Arab Muslims of Darfur. In fact, Obama had at one point in time prevented Salva Kiir, president of South Sudan, from aiding rebels who wanted to topple al-Bashir’s regimen, and replace it with a secular government. According to former U.S. envoy to...

Thursday, July 8, 2010 A former congressman pleaded guilty Wednesday to serving as an unregistered agent in Washington for a Missouri-based Islamic charity that the federal government said had ties to international terrorism. It was an odd outcome for Mark D. Siljander, who said he wanted to help bridge the gulf between Muslims and Christians. A Republican who attained one of Michigan's congressional seats from 1981 to 1987 with assistance from the Moral Majority, Siljander was outspoken about conservative social issues. Siljander confirmed in a Kansas City, Mo., court that he contacted members of Congress in an effort to lift...

North Carolina is a verdant state with long, sandy beaches. Its humid summers make air conditioning desirable: in fact, its 10 million people use more electricity than Indonesia's 237 million. Related A soldier maintains vigil near an oil reservoir in South Sudan in 2010. Sudan lost three-quarters of its oil production after its separation.Roberto Schmidt / AF Comment Messy Sudan divorce is not pouring oil on troubled waters Comment King Coal's return bad news for Big Oil and greener energy â–  Spotlight on Iraq as Opec meets "North Carolina is unique of all the states," says Daniel Fine of the...

THE DEAD BABY MEDIA If the text on that one is too small for you, it's a CNN piece headlined, "Why the Syrian regime is killing babies." There's not much to add to that. The Syrian regime may be killing babies, but CNN killed journalism. With some help from the New York Times, the Washington Post and the BBC. Anyone who has spent time in the Middle East knows quite well that parading around dead bodies is part of the Muslim ceremony of rallying for the next attack. These aren't funerals, these are corpse parades and the corpses are often...

Jimmy Carter - Mass Murderer Pravda 16.05.2012 Boni pastoris est tondere pecus, non deglubere. - Tiberius By John Fleming   ... Jimmy Carter affects a superficial appearance of amiability and since leaving the White House, besides his well-known work for Habitat for Humanity, he has espoused time and again humanitarian causes. He has been appointed a diplomatic plenipotentiary time and again, especially under Clinton, and he made a well-publicized trip to Cuba and met Fidel Castro recently, where he, without mentioning the repression under corporate monopoly capitalism, in Georgia and everywhere else in the U.S., chided Castro in a would-be...

Sudan war mirrors region's oil conflicts Khartoum, Sudan Apr 18, 2012 The brewing war between Sudan and the fledgling state of South Sudan is a battle for oil and there are other potential conflicts in the Middle East and Africa that could signal supply disruption whatever happens in the U.S.-Iran face-off in the Persian Gulf. Libya, one of North Africa's main producers, seems to heading for a new civil war only six months after Moammar Gadhafi's regime was overthrown with rival militias struggling for control of the country's oil riches. But, more importantly, there's a growing power struggle in Iraq,...

After ethnically cleansing its over 500,000 Christians, the rogue Arab Islamist regime of the Sudan has declared war on the Christian and black South Sudan, which broke away last year after peace talks under UN auspices supposedly ended the civil war, in which an estimated 2 million, mostly civilians in the south and in Darfur were killed.

Islamic genocide: 1912 - 2012 = at leat 12 Million victims 1.) Targeting Christians (750000 Assyrians, 500000 Greeks and 1.5 million Armenians.* = 2.7 million) by Islamic Turkey (as an ethnic cleansing* as well as a jihad*), was genocide! 2.) Annihilating 3 million * Bangalis in 1971 by Pakistanis who thought they are ethnically and religiously inferior or not "pure"*, was genocide. 3.) Massacring three million of Igbo/Biafrans between May 30th 1967 and January 1970 by the Islamic government of Nigeria * was genocide. 4.) Targeting by apartheid* Syria, Arab-Islamic Alawites supremacists upon Sunnis to kill as many as possible...

A prominent member of Sudan’s ruling National Congress Party (NCP) says the country is officially in a state of war with South Sudan. Rabie Abdelati Obeid condemned as unacceptable the “illegal invasion” of its territory after forces from South Sudan seized the key disputed oil town of Heglig. Obeid’s comments came after Sudan’s parliament unanimously voted to declare South Sudan an “enemy.” He said the people of the Republic of Sudan assign the same status to South Sudan’s ruling party, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM). “They are now angry,” he said, “since the invasion of Heglig…,” where “the Sudanese...

Movie star George Clooney was led away in handcuffs after storming the Sudanese Embassy protesting the actions of the country's president Omar Al-Bashir, an alleged war criminal. Clooney made the rounds in Washington this week, hoping his superstar wattage will help shine a light on the situation in Sudan. The actor testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and held private meetings with the Secretary of State and President Obama about the African nation's dire humanitarian situation and the Obama administration's policy. He led a protest today outside of Sudan's embassy calling on Omar Al-Bashir, an alleged war-criminal, to stop...

Several Democratic senators are calling on the Obama administration to allow Syrians who are already in the United States to stay, at least temporarily, out of concern it would be "too dangerous" for them to return home. The senators want President Obama to invoke what's known as "temporary protected status" for thousands of Syrians in the U.S. The designation typically is given to foreign nationals whose home countries are beset by war or natural disaster and who could face harm should they return. The senators argued that Syrians in the U.S. are in just that kind of predicament, as Syrian...

Mohammad Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi The World's Worst Human Rights Observer As Arab League monitors work to expose President Bashar al-Assad's crackdown, the head of the mission is a Sudanese general accused of creating the fearsome "janjaweed," which was responsible for the worst atrocities during the Darfur genocide.BY DAVID KENNERDECEMBER 27, 2011For the first time in Syria's nine-month-old uprising, there are witnesses to President Bashar al-Assad's crackdown, which according to the United Nations has claimed more than 5,000 lives...

Ali al'Amin Mazrui Another Islamic fanatic, Afro-ARAB racist Infamous for wish washing[1] the Goliath Arab-Muslim Slave Trade while 'criticizing' the West. His allegiance are with his Arab ancestors. He writes approvingly on the Arab-Islamic genocide in the Sudan (2.5 million deaths[2]), as well as sympathizing with the Hausa-Fulani Islamic ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Igbo ethnic non-Muslims in Nigeria (100,000 Igbo/Biafraians died[3][4]). Served as chief adviser for the infamous butcher, Islamic leader Idi Amin.(the 'Butcher of Uganda,'[5] responsible for the genocide of between 300,000 [6] and a half a Million Ugandans,[7]. He went on a 'crusade against Whites,'[8] has...

South Sudan on Tuesday accused its northern neighbor Sudan of stealing more than 2.1 million barrels of oil, and warned buyers and shippers that they might face prosecution. The accusation has cast a pall over a new round of talks on sharing oil revenues. South Sudan's chief negotiator at the African Union-mediated talks accused the Khartoum government of confiscating and selling southern oil, saying it is creating an economic and political crisis. The oil is shipped from landlocked Southern Sudan by pipeline to Port Sudan, where it is loaded onto ships for export. The two countries produce about 500,000 barrels...

It's not every day that the leader of a brand-new country makes his maiden foreign voyage to Jerusalem, capital of the most besieged country in the world, but Salva Kiir, president of South Sudan, accompanied by his foreign and defense ministers, did just that in late December. Israel's President Shimon Peres hailed his visit as a "moving and historic moment." The visit spurred talk of South Sudan locating its embassy in Jerusalem, making it the only government anywhere in the world to do so. This unusual development results from an unusual story. Today's Sudan took shape in the nineteenth century...

In a statement carried on the official Sudan News Agency, the army said Khalil Ibrahim, leader of the rebel Justice and Equality Movement, was killed in fighting in Wad Banda in the North Kordofan region, which borders Darfur. A spokesman for JEM confirmed the death to the French news agency Agence France-Presse, but said Ibrahim was killed in an air strike rather than during clashes. Ibrahim, a charismatic leader from one of Darfur's largest tribes, was considered one of the most powerful rebel commanders from the remote western region of Sudan, where the United Nations says as many as 300,000...

Khalil Ibrahim, the leader of the main group of rebels in the Darfur area, was killed Saturday by the Sudanese army, reports said. An army statement quoted in the reports said that Ibrahim was killed in a battle about 700 miles west of the capital Khartoum. Ibrahim's group, the Justice and Equality Movement, could not be reached for comment. Ibrahim was said to have been in Libya until recently. His movement was supported by former Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi.

East Africa: Kenya and Sudan Headed for Showdown As Deadline Looms Breaking News [..] Adulis says: December 13, 2011 at 7:09 am Omar al Bashir has killed more than half a million moslems in Darfur and he should be brought to court. It is shame that the Arab world were all going after Gadafi of Libya and now after the Syrian leaders for killing few hundreds of Arabs but the coward and racist Arab world was arming Omar al Beshir while the Sudanese Arabs were burning, raping and pillaging Darfur. The Arabs only care about "real" Arabs that look like...

.....The ICC documents obtained by TIME show a significant portion of this new investigation is based on data from the Satellite Sentinel Project, a network of private spy satellites and analysts organized by George Clooney in partnership with John Prendergast's Enough Project. The satellites have been snapping pictures of northern Sudan since December of last year. "We are the antigenocide paparazzi," Clooney told TIME then.

Ex-Sudanese slave defends Israel‎ Jewish Tribune - Nov. 22, 2011 I have been to Israel five times visiting the Sudanese refugees who fled Arab racism. They needed shelter and they found it in Israel.

South Sudan is to phase out Arabic as the language of instruction in schools within the next three years, an official said today. The minister for General Education, Joseph Ukel, said Arabic will be gradually replaced with English as the official medium of communication in schools and public offices as enshrined in the new country’s constitution. Arabic language has been used in North Sudan in close association with the Islamic religion and got fully entrenched in the South during the imposition of Sharia law in the early 1990s. “Within the next three years, we will have replaced Arabic with English...

A top Darfuri rebel leader, back from Libya, told AFP he is working with other armed groups to topple the Sudanese regime and that UN reports of violence subsiding in Darfur are inaccurate... Ibrahim heads the Justice and Equality Movement, Darfur's most heavily-armed group, and was a key player in the early days of the conflict, which first broke out in 2003 when he and other non-Arab rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum. But he later sought refuge in Chad, which expelled him in May 2010 after a surprise rapprochement with Sudan, and he moved to...

Iran's Revolutionary Guards have stolen dozens of sophisticated Russian-made surface-to-air missiles from Libya and smuggled them across the border to neighbouring Sudan, according to Western intelligence reports. The weapons were seized by units attached to the Guards' elite Quds Force, which travelled to Libya from their base in southern Sudan. Acting on orders received from Revolutionary Guards commanders in Iran, they took advantage of the chaos that engulfed Libya following the collapse of the regime of former dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi to seize "significant quantities" of advanced weaponry, according to military intelligence officers in Libya. They say the weapons stolen...

The leader of Darfur's main Justice and Equality Movement (Jem) rebel group, Khalil Ibrahim, has returned from exile in Libya. Mr Ibrahim fled Libya after Col Muammar Gaddafi's government - which gave him refuge last year - was ousted. Sudan had accused Mr Ibrahim's forces of fighting for Col Gaddafi in his attempt to hold on to power. Mr Ibrahim said he had evaded attempts by Sudanese intelligence to capture him in Libya, reports say. He told the Paris-based Sudan Tribune newspaper that he had arrived safely in Darfur after his troops secured the route across the desert. "We were...

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has expressed his personal support for the president of Sudan, Omar Hassan Al-Bashir, who has been charged in the International Criminal Court with being responsible for the genocide in Darfur, Palestinian Media Watch reported. In a letter to the Sudanese president, Abbas wrote that he and PA Arabs "have complete faith in the wisdom of President Omar Al-Bashir." PMW's Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik note that in 2008, evidence was presented in the International Criminal Court of Justice that showed that "Al-Bashir committed the crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in...

China formally recognized the new state of South Sudan on Saturday, 10 days after Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir left the Chinese capital after signing agreements on 'economic and technical cooperation.' Coming on the heels of a senior Chinese diplomat's visit to the Libyan rebel capital of Benghazi on Thursday, it highlights China's peculiar relationship with unpopular and embattled leaders. China has been at the receiving end of international criticism for its relationship with Bashir, wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes in Darfur. It has also clashed with the United States and European powers over Libya, where...

Just days after South Sudan declared independence, Israeli companies are already storming the world's newest nation – and receiving a warm welcome. An Israeli businessman has even managed to schedule a meeting with the new trade minister. "I haven't seen such openness anywhere else in the world," he says. According to Attorney Adi Braunstein, the legal advisor of the Israeli-Arab Friendship Association, Israel's military and moral support to the South Sudan rebels throughout the years is now expressed in economic cooperation. This cooperation, he says, will lead to deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars, the payment of which will...

Although Sudanese president Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir meets more than all of the requirements that qualified Libya's Muammar Gaddafi for regime change -- the U.S. has shown an alarming amount of empathy for the oppressor and his cabal in Khartoum. In fact, Gaddafi's sins pale in comparison to those of Bashir, whose transgressions were concisely enumerated by Doyle McManus in the L.A. Times on Tuesday. Because of his role as the architect of the Darfur genocide -- a campaign which claimed over 300,000 lives -- Bashir became the first sitting head of state indicted for war crimes by the International...

The news surrounding the independence of a new state in Africa, South Sudan, has been undeservingly drowned out in the cascading news from other fronts of political upheavals and terrorism. This newest member of the African Union and the UN, with a population under 10 million and an immense burden of violence borne by its people for the past half-century, deserves more attention and support from the West. The struggle for South Sudan’s independence from the north ruled by military dictators in Khartoum has been costly and long. It is doubtful independence will bring a cessation of strife and animus...

South Sudan President Salva Kiir Mayardit on Friday signed a law to formally establish the Central Bank of South Sudan in the newly-formed African country, the government said. The bank has also received its first delivery of the South Sudan Pound. South Sudan became the world's newest country when it broke away from Sudan on Saturday morning, following decades of civil war that left millions dead. The new nation was formally accepted as a Member State of the United Nations on Thursday. After the signing ceremony on Friday in the capital of Juba, caretaker Minister for Justice John Luk told...

Satellite Sentinel Project (SSP) has found evidence consistent with allegations that the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and Government of Sudan-aligned (GoS) militias have apparently engaged in a campaign of systematic mass killing of civilians in Kadugli, South Kordofan. Under the Rome Statute and other international humanitarian law, the systematic killing of civilians in peace or war by their own government can constitute crimes against humanity. Based on an analysis of DigitalGlobe satellite imagery and eyewitness reports obtained by the Satellite Sentinel Project, SSP has identified a site consistent with mass graves in Kadugli. SSP has found evidence corroborating at least...

Spokesperson Ambassador Dina Mufti told WIC today that the deployment was launched following an agreement reached between the North and South Sudan leaders to demilitarize the disputed region of Abyei and allow Ethiopian peacekeeping forces monitor the peace. The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) late last month unanimously approved the deployment of 4,200 Ethiopian peacekeeping forces. The new UN peacekeeping force called the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA) is mandated to monitor peace for the coming six months. Ambassador Dina said the country began the deployment of peacekeeping force last week. "I am confident that the...

An Al-Qaeda leader of Algerian nationality was among 20 militants killed in southern Mauritania during a clash with military forces.Mauritanian forces on Tuesday reportedly responded to an attack on a military base in Bassiknou on the border with Mali by launching a counter-offensive against forces from The Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, AQIM the terror network's North African branch. The firefight lasted around 45 minutes and afterward Mauritanian forces chased the militants into Mali. Ten insurgents were captured during the standoff.

Officials overseeing the no-fly zone enforced by Nato over Libya said the Sudanese move north of border had not encountered resistance from troops loyal to Col Muammar Gaddafi. Since the February uprising against his regime, the Libyan leader's forces have been concentrated around Tripoli, the capital; Sirte, the eastern town that is Col Gaddafi's birthplace and Sebha, the desert outpost where the dictator grew up. Officials said control of the town of Kufra and nearby military base granted the Sudanese a key strategic foothold between the regime and the opposition Transitional National Council (TNC) which holds the eastern seaboard and...

Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir is committing new crimes in Darfur and challenging the authority of the UN Security Council, the chief international warcrimes prosecutor said Wednesday. "Crimes against humanity and genocide continue unabated in Darfur," International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo told the Security Council. He said new air attacks on civilians and killings of ethnic minorities had been carried out in the conflict-stricken western region, where the United Nations says at least 300,000 people have died since an uprising started in 2003. "These millions of victims displaced are still subjected today to rapes, terror and conditions of life...

Sudan Foreign Minister Ali Karti has reiterated accusations that armed groups from his country’s western region of Darfur are fighting alongside the beleaguered regime of Libyan leader Muammar Al-Gaddafi. As the uprising in Libya against Gaddafi's 41-year rule started to gain traction in mid-February, Libyan revolutionaries-turned-armed-rebels claimed that Gaddafi was using "African mercenaries" to fight them. Sudan foreign ministry spokesman Khalid Musa on 20 February suggested that some elements from Darfur could be involved in the fighting, but he fell short of confirming it, saying that the competent authorities were still in the process of ascertaining these reports. ...Karti strongly...

Compare and contrast: Biden in Israel and Susan Rice in Sudan Joe Biden was in Israel and a few housing permits were issued for East Jerusalem, resulting in an uproar at the White House. Condemnations and recriminations followed. There was a tongue-lashing over a minor issue. Susan Rice was in Sudan to celebrate the coming independence of Southern Sudan. Sudan, headed by a genocidal dictator (Omar al-Bashir) whose case has been referred to the International Criminal Court, invades a disputed town between the borders of the nation-to-be and Sudan while Susan Rice and other representatives of the UN Security Council...

The armed conflict in Darfur, Sudan, intensified throughout the year, resulting in tens of thousands of newly displaced people, some of whom crossed into neighbouring Chad. Civilians were directly targeted in some attacks by armed groups and by government forces. Parts of Darfur remained inaccessible to humanitarian organizations and the joint UN-African Union (AU) mission in Darfur (UNAMID). Humanitarian workers and UNAMID staff were frequently abducted in Darfur, following a pattern similar to that seen in eastern Chad in recent years. Various mediation efforts during the year produced no tangible results. Repression by the Sudanese authorities continued in Darfur, with...

After northern Sudanese troops took over the contested region of Abyei, claiming southern troops attacked them, the United Nations has called for an end to fighting and for Khartoum to withdraw from Abyei. Earlier, the UN had condemned a southern attack on peacekeepers escorting northern troops.

The quick and easy answer to why Libya and not Darfur -- the western province of Sudan where people continue to suffer after years of atrocities that have left an estimated 300,000 dead -- boils down to two factors. First, oil. Libya has it, Darfur does not -- Sudan's oil lies in the south of the country. Second, proximity to continental Europe. Libya is close enough to make the Europeans jittery about the consequences of instability. But neither of these factors would have been enough to get France stepping up to lead the enforcement of a no-fly zone without prior...

Sudan: Hypocrisy of NCP And Double Standards of the Arab Media‎ AllAfrica.com - Mahmoud A. Suleiman - Mar 4, 2011 The League's member state allowed al-Bashir to travel around their countries without being apprehended! Hypocrisy and racist double standards are the force ... It seems that the opportunist authoritarian racist National Congress Party (NCP) regime in Khartoum found joy and delight in the events in Libya favourable to grab political revenge against its archenemy the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) through statements issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that it does not exclude the participation of the Darfur rebels...

Egypt Said to Arm Libya Rebels By CHARLES LEVINSON And MATTHEW ROSENBERG CAIRO—Egypt's military has begun shipping arms over the border to Libyan rebels with Washington's knowledge, U.S. and Libyan rebel officials said. The shipments—mostly small arms such as assault rifles and ammunition—appear to be the first confirmed case of an outside government arming the rebel fighters. Those fighters have been losing ground for days in the face of a steady westward advance by forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. The Egyptian shipments are the strongest indication to date that some Arab countries are heeding Western calls to take...

A handful of unconfirmed reports from Libya have cited the presence of Darfur rebels in the ranks of the African mercenaries defending the regime of President Mu’ammar Qaddafi (al-Intibaha [Khartoum], February 21; Reuters, February 22). A spokesman for the Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs told a press gathering that authorities were investigating the claims (Sudan Tribune, February 22). Darfur has strong historical ties to Libya, its northern neighbor, and Qaddafi has played a large role in hosting peace talks and encouraging the unification of Darfur’s many rebel groups. Perhaps mindful of his own future, Qaddafi has also been one of...

WASHINGTON -President Barack Obama says the United States intends to formally recognize Southern Sudan as a sovereign, independent state in July. Obama made the announcement Monday in a statement congratulating the people of Southern Sudan for "a successful and inspiring" referendum. Election officials said Monday that more than 98 percent of ballots in the Jan. 9 vote were for independence. That means South Sudan will become the world's newest country in July. Obama said that after decades of conflict the image of millions of southern Sudanese voters deciding their own future was an inspiration to the world. He also said...

JUBA, Sudan -Women broke out in song and men wrapped themselves in flags as voters in Southern Sudan began casting ballots Sunday in a weeklong independence referendum likely to create the world's newest nation about five years after the end of a brutal civil war. The mainly Christian south is widely expected to secede from the mainly Muslim north, splitting Africa's largest country in two. The president of Sudan, who has been indicted for alleged genocide and war crimes in Darfur, has promised to let go of the oil-rich south after his government tried for years to derail the vote...