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Sudan: South Sudan
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Situated in northeast Africa, the Sudan is the largest country on the continent. It is bordered with Egypt to the north, Ethiopia and Eritrea to the southeast, Kenya, Uganda and Zaire to the south, the Central Africa Republic and Chad to the west and Libya to the northwest.
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Language: The official language of Sudan is Arabic. English and many local dialects are widely spoken, and African languages are used in the south. A program of Arabization is in place to encourage greater use of Arabic in the south.
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Sudan has a tropical climate. Seasonal variations are most sharply defined in the desert zones, where winter temperatures as low as 4°C (40°F) are common, particularly after sunset. Summer temperatures often exceed 40°C (110°F) in the desert zones, and rainfall is negligible. Dust storms, called haboobs, frequently occur. High temperatures ... prevail to the south throughout the central plains region, but the humidity is generally low. In the vicinity of Khartoum the average annual temperature is about 27°C (about 80°F); and annual rainfall, most of which occurs between mid-June and September, is about 250 mm (about 10 in).
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Climate Sudan has tropical weather conditions ([W]arm and humid) in the south, while in the deserts of the north, conditions are hot and dry for most of the year. The rainy season is (April - November)
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Sudan has turned around a struggling economy with sound economic policies and infrastructure investments, but it still faces formidable economic problems starting from its low level of per capita output. From 1997 to date, Sudan has been implementing IMF macroeconomic reforms. In 1999, Sudan began exporting crude oil and in the last quarter of 1999 recorded its first trade surplus, which, along with monetary policy, has stabilized the exchange rate. Increased oil production, high oil prices, revived light industry, and expanded export processing zones helped sustain GDP growth at about 10% in 2006. Agricultural production remains Sudan's most important sector, employing 80% of the work force and contributing 35% of GDP, but most farms remain rain-fed and susceptible to drought. Chronic instability - resulting from the long-standing North/South civil war as well as the Darfur conflict, adverse weather, and weak world agricultural prices - ensure that much of the population will remain at or below the poverty line for years.
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Just as Sudan's civil war seemed to be coming to an end, another war intensified in the northwestern Darfur region. After the government quelled a rebellion in Darfur in Jan. 2004, it allowed pro-government militias called the Janjaweed to carry out massacres against black villagers and rebel groups in the region. These Arab militias, believed to have been armed by the government, have killed between 200,000 and 300,000 civilians and displaced more than 1 million. While the war in the south was fought against black Christians and animists, the Darfur conflict is being fought against black Muslims. Although the international community has reacted with alarm to the humanitarian disaster—unmistakably the world's worst—it has been ineffective in persuading the Sudanese government to rein in the Janjaweed. Despite the EU and the U.S. describing the killing as genocide, and despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding that Sudan stop the Arab militias, the killing continued throughout 2005.
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South Sudan