KHARTOUM/JUBA: Final results of Sudan's landmark referendum on southern independence, which is set to deliver a landslide for secession, will be announced Monday, the commission that organized the vote said. “The results are going to be announced Monday at 11 o'clock (0800 GMT) at the Friendship Hall” in Khartoum, said referendum commission spokeswoman Suad Ibrahim. The announcement will be something of a formality after final preliminary results released on Jan. 30 showed almost 99 percent of south Sudanese chose to secede from the north. The commission's chairman, Mohamed Khalil Ibrahim, will declare the final results, which will then be received by President Omar Al-Bashir and southern President Salva Kiir at the presidential palace, the spokeswoman said. “There were no appeals,” she added, which might have delayed the announcement by a week.S. Sudan mulls new capital South Sudan is considering moving its capital to a new site, as the region gears up for expected full independence in July, the information minister said Sunday. “A ministerial committee will look into the possibilities, to see the best option,” said Barnaba Marial Benjamin. “It is wanted to have a capital that befits the new nation to be.”50 dead in troops mutiny A mutiny by Sudanese troops refusing to leave the south ahead of its expected independence has spread through towns in an oil-producing state, with at least 50 people killed in the past four days, officials said. The southern and northern armies are carrying out a difficult process of splitting up and dividing their weapons, with Southern Sudan expected to emerge as Africa's newest state on July 9 following a referendum last month. Battles with tanks and machine guns broke out in the politically sensitive southern town of Makalal Thursday when southern members of a northern army unit refused to redeploy to the north and turned on other members of their unit. “The fighting in Malut yesterday (Saturday) killed 19 and wounded 18 ... In Paloich 11 were killed and eight wounded,” said Akuoc Teng Diing, county commissioner of Melut county. All the dead in the two locations were soldiers, he said. Officials earlier had said 20 people died in Malakal.
