With MARY BETH SHERIDAN – The map of Africa will be redrawn Saturday, as South Sudan becomes an independent nation through a peace process championed by successive U.S. presidents but still beset by lingering tensions from years of war.

Audio-visual for the Washington Post; a 101 backgrounder on the crisis in Southern Kordofan.

The news coming out of Sudan grows bleaker by the hour. Prospects for peace look less likely now than at any point since the north-south civil war, Africa’s longest-running conflict, ended in 2005.

[Published June 6, 2011] JUBA, South Sudan – Sudan has rejected a call by the U.N. Security Council to withdraw its forces from the contested town of Abyei, as internal pressure mounts on South Sudan to respond to the invasion last month.

[Published in print on May 28, 2011]