Joyous people poured onto the streets, danced and kissed the earth to mark the oil-rich South Sudan becoming the world's newest country on Saturday, with international leaders, including Vice President Hamid Ansari, witnessing history unfolding in the country's capital in Juba.
India has become one of the first nations to accord diplomatic recognition to South Sudan, the world's youngest country, which split away from the Khartoum-ruled north after decades of a brutal war that claimed nearly 20 lakh lives. The recognition was accorded through a letter by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to South Sudan's new President General Salva Kiir Mayardit, shortly after he assumed power at the Independence Day function in Juba on Saturday.
Operation Sankat Mochan, aimed at evacuating over 500 Indians stuck in the war-torn South Sudan, got underway on Thursday.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council have strongly condemned the attack on a UN base in South Sudan that killed 22 people, including two Indian peacekeepers, and asked the government there to swiftly investigate the "criminal act".
Thousands of people have lost their lives and thousands more displaced in the violence in South Sudan. The United Nations mission and humanitarian agencies are under strain to protect camps and to provide internally displaced persons with water, food and other emergency relief. What flared up as a political conflict in South Sudan is now assuming an ethnic character.
South Sudanese Olympic athlete Guor Marial may not be a hot medal tip for Sunday's marathon, but the former slave's road to Rio is one of the most astonishing stories of the games.
Arun Kumar is at home after his dramatic escape from violence-hit South Sudan. But he is preparing to return to his business, his life, his 'everything'.
The ninth edition of the Global Peace Index, which ranks the nations of the world according to their level of peacefulness, has ranked Syria as the most dangerous country in the world.
Global working conditions have worsened in 2014.
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