KHARTOUM/JUBA (Reuters) – North Sudan has halted an oil shipment from landlocked South Sudan in a dispute over customs fees, it said on Friday, signalling a rise in tensions that could disrupt supplies from one of Africa’s largest producers.

For use of its oil facilities, North Sudan has demanded fees worth a third of the export value of South Sudan, which became independent last month, after a referendum in January agreed under a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) – North Sudan has halted an oil shipment from landlocked South Sudan in a dispute over customs fees, it said on Friday, signaling a rise in tensions that could disrupt supplies from one of Africa’s largest producers.

South Sudan became independent last month after a referendum in January agreed under a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war with the North.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) – Staring at the small handful of change she got back from a merchant after buying spices and beans in a market in central Khartoum, Nadia Ahmed realizes just how badly inflation is hurting her family.

“The market is generally expensive,” she said. “Food commodities are very, very expensive.”

KHARTOUM (Reuters) – Sudan began circulating a new currency on Sunday, days after the newly independent south issued its own new money, in a move likely to heighten differences over handling the economic fallout from the split.

South Sudan, which became Africa’s newest nation on July 9, began circulating its new pound on Monday, pegging it one-to-one with Sudan’s existing pound.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) – - While southern Sudanese are enjoying their first heady days of independence, people in the north, like Khartoum food vendor Mutasem Suleiman, see hard times ahead.

When South Sudan split away last Saturday, the north lost most of its oil reserves and inflation is rising fast.

KHARTOUM/JUBA (Reuters) – Sudan’s president on Tuesday said the country would launch a new currency, a day after newly independent South Sudan confirmed it would do the same, as both states worked to disentangle their economies after the split.

South Sudan declared independence from the rest of the country on Saturday at the climax of a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war with the Khartoum government.

KHARTOUM/JUBA (Reuters) – For thousands of southern Sudanese it was a night to stay out dancing to welcome the birth of their new nation. For people in the northern capital Khartoum it was a time of sadness mixed with defiance.

South Sudan, where most follow Christian and traditional beliefs, became independent on Saturday after a January referendum agreed under a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war with the Arab Muslim north.

MANDELA CAMP, Sudan (Reuters) – Watching men loading a truck with bed frames, wardrobes and chairs in this slum near Khartoum, Nal Wak cannot wait to head home to South Sudan as it breaks away to form a new nation.

“This is not our country here. Our country is there (in the south). We’re very poor here and have nothing so we’re going home,” the young woman said, surrounded by children in dirty clothes on the outskirts of Sudan’s northern capital.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) – South Sudan’s ruling party on Sunday said a full-blown civil war could erupt if talks failed to defuse tensions along the border that will divide the two halves of Sudan when it separates this week.

South Sudan is due to declare independence on July 9 after southerners voted to secede in a referendum promised in a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war with the north.

KUWAIT (Reuters) – Kuwait, a major OPEC producer, is heading for a deep political crisis as a rebellious parliament steps up its pressure on the government and divisions appear in the ruling family.

The Gulf Arab state has avoided an ‘Arab spring’ uprising but is locked in a long-running battle between a government dominated by the ruling al-Sabah family, and a parliament which likes to challenge it — unusual in a region largely controlled by powerful families.