JUBA (Reuters) – Radio journalist Mading Ngor was firing off sentences like machine gun rounds.

South Sudanese troops had occupied a disputed region across the country’s border with arch foe Sudan. President Salva Kiir declared the army would not withdraw. The ruling party staged marches to prepare the people for war.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) – Veteran Sudanese journalist Mahjoub Mohamed Saleh says he cannot remember a time when there were so many “red lines” – invisible boundaries that the media crosses at its peril.

“You don’t know what the red lines are,” said Saleh, who started his career in 1949 when Britain still ruled Sudan and is now editor of Sudan’s oldest newspaper, Al-Ayam. “Sometimes you are told ‘don’t publish this’ but they (the red lines) keep moving.”

KHARTOUM, June 13 (Reuters) – Veteran Sudanese journalist
Mahjoub Mohamed Saleh says he cannot remember a time when there
were so many “red lines” – invisible boundaries that the media
crosses at its peril.

“You don’t know what the red lines are,” said Saleh, who
started his career in 1949 when Britain still ruled Sudan and is
now editor of Sudan’s oldest newspaper, Al-Ayam. “Sometimes you
are told ‘don’t publish this’ but they (the red lines) keep
moving.”

KHARTOUM (Reuters) – Sudan, after avoiding the “Arab Spring” protests which swept through the Middle East, is about to face its first real test of popular discontent as it prepares to remove fuel subsidies.

With Sudan already suffering from a severe economic crisis since losing much of its oil production – the lifeline of the economy – when South Sudan became independent in July, ordinary people say that they can’t cope with further price rises.

KHARTOUM/JUBA (Reuters) – Fighting between Sudan and South Sudan broke out in April, the worst violence since South Sudan became independent in July after a 2005 peace deal, undermining stability in both countries and threatening to start a broader conflict.

Much of their border is disputed and the two countries have failed to resolve a long list of disputes, including how much the landlocked South should pay to export oil through Sudan and who will control the contested Abyei region.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) – Sudan has released four foreigners who were detained three weeks ago near the border with South Sudan following weeks of heavy clashes between the two African neighbors, officials said on Sunday.

Sudan accused the four – a Briton, a Norwegian, a South African and a South Sudanese – of entering an oil-producing border area illegally to spy for South Sudan.

KHARTOUM, May 18 (Reuters) – Sudan will allow foreign
exchange bureaux and banks to trade dollars at a level close to
the black market rate, effectively devaluing the pound, a senior
banking official said on Friday.

Sudan’s economy has been battered since the country lost
three-quarters of its oil production to South Sudan when the
latter became independent in July. Even though the pipelines are
in Sudan, the two have been unable to agree on how much the
South should pay to transport its oil.

KHARTOUM/JUBA (Reuters) – Sultan Kwaje’s problems started when his country disappeared from under him.

He was born in the southern part of Sudan but has lived in the north for more than three decades. When South Sudan broke away as an independent country from Sudan in July, Kwaje was left on the northern side of the border, a foreigner.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) – Sudan said it had arrested a Briton, a Norwegian and a South African on Saturday, accusing them of illegally entering a disputed oil-producing border area to help its enemy South Sudan.

South Sudan’s army denied the foreigners were helping its forces and said the men had been on a U.N. vehicle that had got lost in the area.

JUBA/KHARTOUM (Reuters) – When petrol started running low in South Sudan’s capital this month, Peter Bashir Gbandi sensed a sinister force at work.

Rather than blaming a severe shortage of dollars, which the newly-independent country needs to buy imported fuel, the lawmaker pointed to arch rival Sudan – likely in league with Horn of Africa immigrants running filling stations, he said.