Hi Kids-
Things are "shaking" politically in Sudan. Hopefully, our way:
Bashir orders Sudan assembly vote, emergency rule
LONDON, Dec 12 (Reuters) - Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir dissolved parliament and declared a state of emergency on Sunday in preparation for a national legislative election.
Voting day for a new National Assembly will be set by the general election authority, according to a presidential decree broadcast by state television after an announcement by the president.
A second decree said the state of emergency will last three months. An emergency order suspended some articles of the 1998 constitution but told provincial councils and governors to carry on working.
Bashir, whose government has been accused by the West of supporting terrorism, banned all political parties and declared an Islamic system of government when he seized power in a 1989 army coup.
The constitution introduced last year is ostensibly designed to reinstate a multi-party system.
But parliamentary leaders were reported last month to be at odds with Bashir over the pace of reforms that would reduce his presidential powers.
Bashir and the man whose government he toppled in 1989, Sadeq al-Mahdi of the northern-based Umma Party, met in Djibouti on November 26 and agreed to hold talks on how to promote democracy and end 16 years of civil war in the mainly Christian and animist south.
Two peace initiatives, one involving Libya and Egypt, and the other a U.S.-backed forum of East African states, are under way to try to end the conflict in the south, one of Africa's longest running civil wars.
19:43 12-12-99
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