KHARTOUM (Reuters) – Sudan’s northern army vowed to hold territory it seized in the disputed oil-producing region of Abyei, defying a U.N. demand it withdraw and pushing the north and south closer to conflict as the south prepares to secede.

Khartoum sent tanks into Abyei town, the area’s main settlement, on Saturday, the United Nations said after weeks of growing tension and accusations of skirmishes by both sides.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) – Sudan’s northern army has taken control of the disputed Abyei region and is clearing it of armed groups from the South, a minister from the northern government said on Sunday.

Control of oil-rich and fertile Abyei has been the main point of dispute between northern and southern Sudan ahead of plans for the South to become a separate state on July 9 following a January referendum on independence.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) – North Sudanese army forces took control of the main town of the disputed Abyei region on Saturday after fighting with southern forces, both sides said, in further violence ahead of southern secession.

Southerners voted in January to become independent on July 9 in a referendum agreed under a 2005 peace deal, but violence has escalated in recent days in Abyei, the main outstanding dispute between the two sides in the run-up to secession.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) – Sudan’s northern army accused the South’s forces on Friday of attacking a convoy in the contested Abyei region, and threatened to retaliate, escalating a dispute that looms over plans for the South’s independence.

The South’s SPLA army denied responsibility for the attack, which the United Nations said had taken place on a convoy of northern troops escorted by U.N. peacekeepers under a deal for both sides to withdraw forces from the disputed territory.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) – Sudan said on Sunday the northern ruling party won an election for governor in the north’s main oil state after a vote the south said was rigged, creating a fresh flashpoint before the south secedes in July.

The state of South Kordofan borders the south of Sudan and holds most of what will remain of the north’s oil output after the south splits away. The state is also home to many fighters who sided against the north in a civil war that ended in 2005.

KHARTOUM, May 12 (Reuters) – Sitting behind shelves full of
canned tuna, chocolate bars, coffee powder and cookies,
Abdul-Qader Nasser struggles to remember when business was as
bad as now.

His usually busy small shop in Khartoum’s central food
market is almost deserted as the devalued local currency is
driving up prices and deterring many of his customers.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) – North and south Sudan have agreed to withdraw all unauthorized forces from the contested Abyei border region, the United Nations said, in an attempt to defuse tensions in the oil-producing flashpoint.

The south, where most follow Christian and traditional beliefs, overwhelmingly voted to declare independence from the mostly Muslim north in a referendum in January.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) – Behind a high white wall next to an unpaved road in the Sudanese capital, the two-storey house where Osama bin Laden once lived has remained vacant since the leader of al Qaeda was expelled from Sudan in 1996.

No one wanted to live there after the Saudi-born militant moved out for fear it could become a target. On Monday, America’s enemy No. 1 was killed in a firefight with U.S. forces in another villa, that one near Islamabad in Pakistan.

NUWAIDRAT, Bahrain (Reuters) – Two bulldozers and two large trucks are busy removing a large pile of stones, wood and prayer carpets on a large square — all that remains of a small Shi’ite mosque in the Sunni-ruled kingdom of Bahrain.

“Do you see this ? This was a mosque until this week. They destroyed it,” said a Shi’ite man, stopping his car in this poor Shi’ite village outside the capital Manama to point to another heap of masonry, where residents say another mosque once stood.

MANAMA (Reuters) – A prominent Bahraini human rights activist went on military trial on Thursday, his daughters said, after the Gulf Arab kingdom launched a crackdown on protesters.

Sunni-led Bahrain saw the worst unrest since the 1990s in the past two months when protesters, mostly from the country’s Shi’ite majority, took to the streets as Arab uprisings spread across the region.