South Sudan’s poll approved

INTERNATIONAL observers gave south Sudan’s independence referendum their seal of approval yesterday and said a vote for secession was now “virtually certain” in their first official judgment on the poll.

Early results from last week’s plebiscite suggest people from Sudan’s oil-producing south overwhelmingly voted to split away from the north after decades of civil war.

Observers from the Carter Center and the European Union both said the vote had been credible, an endorsement that moved the region a step closer to independence.