U.S. Sees Challenges After Sudan Vote

(Wall Street Journal) — This week’s independence referendum in southern Sudan marks an apparent victory for U.S. foreign policy in east Africa—one that has secured for Washington a deeper advisory role in what is expected to be the birth of a new, impoverished nation.  As southern Sudanese cast votes through Saturday on whether to separate from Sudan’s north, they are expected to choose independence overwhelmingly. Southern officials said Wednesday that turnout for the referendum—the culmination of decades of civil wars between the mostly Christian south and predominantly Muslim north that has left millions dead and millions more displaced—had reached the 60% threshold required to validate the results.

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