HOME |
RSS | 
Today is the official birth date of South Sudan, a new nation that is independent from Sudan as of today. Crowds in the capital of Juba celebrated by dancing in the streets and chanting “Freedom!”
South Sudan’s sovereignty officially breaks Africa’s largest nation into two.
It is the result of a January referendum overwhelmingly approved by South Sudan voters.
The referendum was part of a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war pitting a government dominated by Arab Muslims in the north against black Christians and animists in the south. The war killed about 2 million people.
Amid the independence celebrations, some residents paid tribute to relatives killed in the war.
“It is very emotional. I’m excited, but I’m also thinking of all the people who died for this to happen,” said Victoria Bol, who lost dozens of family members.
South Sudan starts out as one of the poorest nations in the world, with infrastructure problems, illiteracy, lingering conflicts, and a large refugee population. There is nowhere to go but up. Link
Learn about the new country’s flag, anthem, seal, and history at the blog South Sudan Info. Link
Photo via World Records Academy
55-year-old Indian citizen Kashi Samaddar has completed an almost-seven year trip around the world. He has visited all 194 countries in the world, thereby setting a world record.
He spent £350,000 to visit every country on earth in the shortest time possible and thereby earnt himself a mention in the Guinness Book of Records – just don’t expect to be thrilled by his pictures.
Samaddar’s mission was inspired by trouble he had in South Africa in 2002 over his Indian passport. Samaddar then vowed to visit every country in the world to show it could be done.
The globe trotting adventurer was determined to complete the whole trip using his Indian passport – despite opportunities to adopt Australian and Canadian citizenship – as he wanted to prove an Indian could travel the world.
He also wanted to highlight the difficulties some nationalities encounter obtaining visas to enter countries – a problem he is very familiar with.
‘The most difficult visa to get was Moldova, which took me almost three years with many rejections,’ he said.
‘The problem isn’t with big countries like America, England or places in Europe, a lot of the time it’s smaller countries who don’t know what they should be doing.’
To abide by Guinness Book rules, he traveled using only public transportation. The rules state you only have to set foot in a country to count it, which may explain Samaddar less-than-impressive tourist photographs.
The photo above is of Kashi’s last place visited: Serbia Kosova on May 27 of 2008.
Links: Article at Daily Mail | More at World Records Academy.
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by 
Based on the short story The Open Window by Saki (H. H. Munro). A twelve minute film that I think some of you will enjoy. A young nervous man from the city goes to the country to rest but finds things aren’t what they appear to be… 
