South of Sudan to become independent soon

Amateur Radio

ST - SOUTH SUDAN
The south of Sudan is going to become independent soon. As it looks right now the south of Sudan may declare its independence on July 9. It is very likely that the new country will get a new name without "Sudan" in its name. There are already two DXpedition teams ready to
be there in time. One group includes Alex,5Z4DZ/PA3DZN, Robert,S53R, and Martti,OH2BH. The "Intrepid-DX Group" led by Paul,N6PSE, plans an activity as soon the country declares its independence. They already applied for the callsign ST0DX though it is not clear yet if the south of Sudan gets its old prefix ST0 back again.
Keep informed about the DXpeditions on the websites:
http://www.intrepid-dx.com/ and http://www.dxfriends.com/
(Pete's DX Newsletter)

SPLM slams halting of BBC radio relays in Sudan

Yasir Arman, Deputy Secretary-General of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) has criticized the Sudanese government for suspending BBC Arabic radio relays in north Sudan, accusing the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) there of seeking to “control all media sources.”

Yasir Arman, sees ulterior motives behind the move.”What’s happening is not a technical or procedural matter as it appears on the surface,” Arman told Sudan Tribune yesterday. Mr Arman said that the BBC brought in the satellite equipment more than two years ago but the BBC was not suspended then. He dismissed the official reason as “a pretext”, adding that the move was “part of the NCP’s attempts to control all media sources that provide Sudanese citizens with information.”
(R Netherlands Media Network Weblog)

Southern Sudan: new radio station to launch in early 2009

A group of private investors with close links to the Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS) have invested in a new radio station that will have wider reach than the existing broadcasters. Based in Juba, the new Voice of the People (VoP) will, according to its proprietors, deal mainly with developmental issues. “It will be the voice of the people of Southern Sudan and will mainly focus on the developmental challenges facing the Southern Sudanese people and ways of overcoming this. As a result, we shall be hiring professionals from all walks of life from Africa, but mainly from Southern Sudan,” says 31 year old, Benjamin Bol Yei, a shareholder of the soon to be launched station.
Cyprien Hiniolwa, an engineer who works for the United Nations and who is in charge of setting up VoP, says that the new radio station will be able to relay its content to a radius of 360 kilometres in Southern Sudan. “There is no other indigenous radio station that currently has this reach. All the radio stations currently on air serve small radiuses of about five kilometers and that is mainly in the towns of Rumbek and Juba,” he says, adding that having its content available online will enable VoP to reach an even larger audience.
VoP also plans to set up a TV station. Currently, the only Southern Sudanese TV Station, Southern Sudan TV (SSTV), is wholly owned by the government and is yet to become fully operational. Although already on air, it is currently just replaying advertisements telling what it will offer.

Full report from Ratio Magazine Kenya
http://www.ratio-magazine.com/20081223355/EAC-Regional/Southern-Sudan-New-Radio-Station-to-be-Launched-in-Early-2009.html
(R Netherlands Media Network Weblog)