Southern Sudan independence day

South Sudan is now a new nation.
I once worked with a doctor who was from there. He and his brother as teenagers were refugees in a camp in a nearby country, and some Seventh Day Adventists picked out some of the smarter boys, including him, to send to get an education...he became a doctor...his wish was to go home and care for his people, but he knew that he would be killed if he did that, so he was working in Liberia instead. When I left that country, he had changed jobs to work in a rural Lutheran hospital in that country....that was before the Liberian civil war, so I don't know if he is still alive and able to go home.

But since I met him in 1980, it gives you an idea of how long these people have been suffering....

the bad news? The North is attacking along the border to get the oil fields given to the south, and will continue to try to destablize the government.

BBC report HERE.

And heh: the (right wing) Gateway pundit points out that the cowboy hat worn by their president in this photo was given to him by GWBush, who was pivitol in pushing for their independence.

The daughter of a British professor/blogger just moved there to work in anthropology, and has a blog HERE.