SUAKIN, Sudan (Reuters) – Sitting in his empty seafood restaurant in Sudan’s historic port of Suakin, Hashem Abdullah is dreaming of better times — particularly the hope that foreign tourists will one day visit his run-down hometown.

Further down the seafront from his “Mistero Seafood Restaurant,” Turkish workers are restoring the ruins of a customs house and other buildings from the Ottoman era.

BIR AJAM, Sudan (Reuters) – For Sudanese worker Mohamed Taher, hunting for gold with a metal detector in the Nubian desert is a way to end years of unemployment.

“Sometimes I find one to four ounces, sometimes nothing. But if I find something it will cover all my expenses,” says Mohamed, who regularly camps out with friends to search for gold.

KOSTI, Sudan, Oct 5 (Reuters) – Standing by his truckful of
onions at the bustling Nile port of Kosti, Sudanese trader Omar
Sheikh hopes shipping his goods to newly independent South Sudan
will justify the bureaucratic hassle.

Nearly three months after the south split from the north
after decades of civil war, no comprehensive trade agreement
exists between them, hampering the flow of goods to the poor,
isolated and underdeveloped south, which has only a little more
than 50 kilometres (31 miles) of paved roads.

KOSTI, Sudan (Reuters) – Four months after Paula Lodo left her Khartoum slum to head back to South Sudan, she finds herself in yet another makeshift home south of the Sudanese capital.

“I am stuck on the way home for four months, can you believe this?” Lodo said, sitting with her six daughters in a dusty tent camp near this northern White Nile city.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) – Sudan and South Sudan signed a border security agreement on Sunday, making a step toward improving ties after tensions built up for weeks over violence in border areas and sharing of oil revenues.

The South became Africa’s newest nation on July 9 under a 2005 peace deal with its former civil war foe Khartoum but both sides have yet to resolve a large range of disputes. Ending border tensions is one of the priorities.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) – The United States on Wednesday urged Sudan and armed opposition groups to end fighting in the Blue Nile border state and warned Khartoum the violence was hurting its chances of repairing relations with Washington.

But shortly after U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan, Princeton Lyman, spoke to reporters in Khartoum, Sudanese state media reported new fighting in Blue Nile where 50,000 have fled clashes, according to the United Nations.

DAMAZIN, Sudan (Reuters) – When Sudanese tribal leader Youssef al-Mak Hassan al-Dan proposed a ceasefire to end fighting with southern-allied fighters he was immediately interrupted by community leaders in the border town of Damazin.

Fighting erupted last week in Blue Nile state in Sudan between the Sudanese army and fighters allied to Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), the dominant force in newly independent South Sudan.

DAMAZIN, Sudan (Reuters) – Sudanese government troops and groups allied to South Sudan have continued to skirmish along their joint border, but life has returned to normal in some border areas, a northern government official said.

Last week, fighting broke out in Blue Nile state between Sudan’s army and groups allied to the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), the dominant force in newly independent South Sudan.

TRIPOLI, Aug 26 (Reuters) – Abdul Qader packed a suitcase on
Friday to move out of his Abu Salim district in Tripoli, even
though he believed Libyan rebels had finally cleared it of
Muammar Gaddafi’s gunmen.

“The revolutionaries control the area, but there are no
services, water or electricity,” he said, fleeing an area where
bodies still lay in the streets from recent battles.

TRIPOLI (Reuters) – Libyan rebels announced a move to govern the country from Tripoli as they battled pockets of loyalists in their hunt for fugitive strongman Muammar Gaddafi, who taunted them from his hiding place.

Rumors of Gaddafi or his sons being cornered or sighted, swirled among excitable rebel fighters engaged in heavy machinegun and rocket exchanges. But even after his compound was overrun on Tuesday, hopes of a swift end to six months of war were still being frustrated by fierce rearguard actions.