ARMED men burned and looted the flashpoint town of Abyei yesterday, as Southern Sudan’s military said the northern army is moving to carry out a “full-scale war” in the region.

GOAL is pulling its staff out of Abyei in Sudan.

Northern Sudanese troops appeared to have seized the contested town of Abyei, a UN spokeswoman said, increasing fears of conflict as the country’s south prepares to become the world’s newest country.

More than 80 people were killed when rebels attacked cattle herders in Southern Sudan, while hundreds marched in the southern capital to protest at the unresolved status of a volatile border hotspot.

Final results from last month's vote in Southern Sudan today showed that more than 98% of the ballots cast were for independence.

Another bout of violence during this week’s independence referendum has killed 10 people, a security official in Southern Sudan said today.

THE dateline here says “Sudan”, but in a few weeks it will likely read “South Sudan” or “Cushitia” or “Azania”.

Women broke out in song and men wrapped themselves in flags as voters in Southern Sudan began casting ballots today in a week-long independence referendum likely to create the world’s newest nation about five years after the end of a brutal civil war.

Two rebel groups clashed with Southern Sudan’s military ahead of the region’s independence referendum, resulting in at least nine deaths, and a top security chief said today that he suspected the groups were trying to depress voter turnout.

Four people were killed in an attack by a rebel group on forces in southern Sudan, a military spokesman said today.

The United Nations is preparing for the possibility of 2.8 million people being displaced if fighting breaks out over southern Sudan’s independence referendum, according to an internal report.

AN outbreak of a parasitic tropical disease has killed more than 300 people in Southern Sudan and the worst of the health crisis is yet to come, officials said yesterday.

An outbreak of a parasitic tropical disease has killed more than 300 people in Southern Sudan and the worst of the health crisis is yet to come, officials said today.

A British bomb disposal expert working on land mine clearance has died in an explosion, it was announced today.

THE November 2009 floods which devastated Cork and left hundreds of people in serious financial debt has been detailed in the International Committee of the Red Cross’s (ICRC’s) annual world disasters report.

Clashes in Darfur between Arab nomads and south Sudan’s army along the country’s volatile north-south border left dozens dead and more wounded, Sudanese officials said.

ARMED Nuer tribesmen have killed at least 139 members of a rival tribe in an attack in a remote area of southern Sudan, an official said yesterday.

The Government is to make an additional €600,000 in funding available for emergency flood relief in Sudan.

The UN Security Council condemned the upsurge in attacks by the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army in Congo, Central African Republic and Sudan and urged these countries to share information with the United Nations to try to protect civilians, especially women and children.

An appeal court in New York backed a judge who threw out a lawsuit accusing a Canadian energy company of aiding genocide in its pursuit of oil in Sudan.

GUNMEN attacked a village in southern Sudan killing 80 and wounded 46, a southern government official said yesterday, adding he believed the militia was organised by the central government.

ARMED tribesmen attacked a fishing village in south-east Sudan where hundreds of displaced people were camped near a river, leaving at least 185 people, most of them women and children, dead in the worst violence in three months, a southern Sudan official said yesterday.

Civil war broke out today amid a gang of Somali pirates holding a ship full of tanks and other weapons leaving three of them dead.

Pirates holding a Ukrainian ship laden with tanks and weapons today claimed they were celebrating the Muslim feast of Eid al-Fitr despite being surrounded by American warships and helicopters.

More US Navy forces were sent to surround a hijacked ship loaded with Russian-made tanks today.

A Sudanese jet veered off a runway tonight and exploded into flames, killing about 100 people, Sudan’s state television reported.

Ben Affleck was so worried his views on the crisis in the Sudan would not be enough to spark change in the region he jetted off to Africa to get a closer look.

Southern Sudan’s defence minister and a presidential adviser were killed along with 19 others when their plane crashed today.

As many as 8,040 young Kenyans have been executed or tortured to death since 2002 during a five-year police crackdown on an outlawed sect, according to a report by a group of Kenyan lawyers.

Sudan’s president accused Britain, the US and Europe of interfering over crisis-torn Darfur, saying they were interested only in his country’s “riches and resources”.

HUNDREDS of thousands of people were desperate for food and shelter across Africa yesterday, as record floods and fresh downpours hampered relief efforts.

Britain today welcomed the appointment of a new top United Nations envoy to Iraq.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon promised to step up efforts to end the four-year-old conflict on his first visit to Darfur today and urged the world to be more sympathetic to the millions of people whose lives have been uprooted.

UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon voiced optimism today for a peaceful resolution of Sudan’s conflicts as he headed to the south of the country to inspect progress in the peace deal between former southern rebels and the government.

Children in Darfur are enduring “unspeakable acts of violence and abuse” from killing and rape to abduction, torture and recruitment, as fighters in the escalating four-year conflict, a world group of relief and human rights organisations said today.

A former British diplomat who is now the United Nations’ new humanitarian chief has told Sudan to stop hindering the work of aid groups in the country.

The US envoy for the Sudan, Andrew Natsios, arrived in the war-torn African country last night for talks on the Darfur crisis.

The chief mediator of talks aimed at ending northern Uganda’s civil war has called both sides back to talks next week, but acknowledges the rebels might not come.

The United Nations investigated more than 300 members of UN peacekeeping missions for alleged sexual exploitation and abuse during the past three years and more than half were fired or sent home, a senior UN official said.

FOUR UN peacekeepers in southern Sudan have been sent home in the past year following investigations of alleged sexual abuse and the organisation is looking into reports that more than 20 children were raped and abused, a UN spokeswoman has said.

Four peacekeepers from Bangladesh have been sent home and 13 other UN personnel serving in southern Sudan are under investigation for alleged serious misconduct, including sexual exploitation and abuse, the United Nations said tonight.

United Nations peacekeepers in southern Sudan reportedly face several allegations of raping and sexually abusing children, some as young as 12.

A battle for livestock among nomadic tribes in north-western Kenya killed 19 people and wounded six, authorities said today.

The UN’s humanitarian chief, Jan Egeland, met a Ugandan rebel leader wanted for war crimes today.