General Gamal al-Din Omar died of a heart attack in neighbouring South Sudan where he was negotiating with rebel groups.

The head of Sudan’s transitional government General Abdel Fatah al Burhan says the nation mourns a man seeking to bring stability to a country that has been shaky since last year’s fall of 30-year military dictator Omar al Bashir.

General Gamal al-Din Omar was a member of the power sharing transitional government comprising the military and civilian groups that last year brought down Bashir.

He died in Juba where he was involved in talks with Sudanese rebel groups he was trying to bring into the political process.

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African religious leader meeting in Nairobi have urged regional government to ensure the South Sudanese implement the peace deal signed a year ago.

Riek Machar has gone home for the first time since last October and reached an agreement with President Salva Kiir on ending  the bitter civil war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced a third of the population in Africa’s newest country. 

As the two leaders were shaking hands in Juba, religious groups urged neighboring government to maintain pressure on the South Sudan parties to make good on the latest of their undertakings.

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The  agreement signed between the oil ministers of the two countries today includes construction of a refinery.

South Africa’s Energy Minister Jeff Radebe and his South Sudanese counterpart Ezekiel Gatkouth said when inking the memorandum of understanding in Juba today that the deal offers avenues for cooperation in the construction of a pipeline to serve fields in the south of the world’s newest country.

Radebe says when the refinery is completed it will have the capacity to produce 60 000 barrels of oil daily.

South Sudan’s oil industry is dominated by Asian firms including China National Petroleum Corporation, Malaysia’s Petronas and India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corporation.

Today’s agreement involves South African  participation  in the exploration of several oil blocks.

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It follows two days of talks in the Sudanese capital between Juba’s President Salva Kiir and leader leader Riek Machar.

After three failed peace bids, caution is the watchword in reporting on  efforts to end South Sudan’s five year civil war.

Journalists in Khartoum say they’ve actually seen a framework agreement to be inked today.

It commits both sides to a permanent ceasefire and allows the regional grouping IGAD and the African Union to deploy troops to monitor this.

It allows the host country, Sudan to secure the oilfields in its southern  neighbour and reinstate the oil wells.

It establishes Wau and Malakal as capitals of South Sudan along with Juba. 

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They met face to face in Addis Ababa for a working visit last night ahead of talks today.

Enabling the  first face-to-face encounter in two years for President Salva Kiir and Riek Machar involved sending the South Sudanese rebel leader from South Africa where he has been sheltering since being driven out of Juba.

Delegates from both sees warn that the group hug and smiles notwithstanding, a peace deal is a long way off.

The regional grouping IGAD is proposing a power sharing agreement that would leave Kiir in the top job and reinstate Machar as his deputy.

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Their arrival in the next few weeks  in the next weeks will be one Britain’s largest operational deployments worldwide.

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The Whitehall statement says the first of the British troops, proudly wearing their distinctive blue UN berets, arrives in Juba today to join the United Nations Mission in South Sudan.

The British contingent is the first to join the 13 000-member UNMISS force since it was set up in 2011.

It is made up of medics and military engineers. The engineers will be deployed at UN camps housing displaced civilians in Bentiu and Malakal in the north, where they will help improve routes, security and drainage

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The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights says hateful ethnic rhetoric in South Sudan can have devastating consequences for entire communities, quickly spiralling into a cycle of revenge attacks,

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UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein sounds the caution after threats of violence against people from the Equatoria region and an Equatorian staff member of a humanitarian organisation was attacked in Aweil Town.
He urges President Salva Kiir and all political and community leaders to urgently and unambiguously condemn the incitement to violence and to take urgent measures to defuse the tensions.
The threats emerged in reaction to three attacks on buses this month killing an unconfirmed number of Dinka civilians travelling to Juba.

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A US-based watchdog group says the blue helmets cowered under fire and teargassed civilians seeking shelter at their base.

The Centre for Civilians in Conflict known as CIVIC says the United Nations needs to ensure transparency and accountability for the inadequate response of its peacekeepers during the July crisis in Juba.

CIVIC says the UN Security Council should immediately impose an arms embargo, both to help protect civilians from further harm and in response to the national government’s obstruction of the UN Mission in South Sudan.

The US-based group says in its 84-page report that parties to the four days of intense fighting Juba killed and injured civilians in displaced persons camps.

Government forces also broke into a hotel and apartment complex to brutally attack international and national aid workers.

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