The Associated Press

CAIRO (AP) -- President Barack Obama's envoy to Sudan launched a new mission Wednesday to overcome obstacles in the country's fragile north-south peace deal, as activists sharply criticized U.S. policies as too lenient on the Khartoum government.

The 2005 peace deal put an end to the 21-year-old civil war between the mostly Arab and Muslim north and rebels in the Christian-animist south that left 2 million people dead and 4 million displaced. But the deal is plagued by distrust between the two sides and has repeatedly threatened to unravel, bringing to the two sides to the brink of war.

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CAIRO — The outgoing U.N. peacekeeping chief in Sudan's Darfur region said the world should no longer consider the long-running conflict a war after a sharp decline in violence and deaths over the past year.

Activists and Darfur residents disagree, and the comments by Rodolphe Adada heightened anxiety that there will be less international focus on resolving the root problems in the troubled region.

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WASHINGTON - Darfur activists are concerned that the latest comments by the Obama administration's special envoy for Sudan are a sign the United States is easing pressure on Khartoum.

They are also expressing impatience over the administration's delay of a policy review on Sudan after President Barack Obama's promise as a candidate of immediate action on Darfur.

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THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- An international arbitration tribunal is ruling Wednesday on the boundaries of a disputed oil rich region on the border between northern and southern Sudan.

The Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration's decision on the Abyei region's borders is seen as a major test of the fragile 2005 peace deal that ended more than 20 years of civil war that killed more than 2 million people in Sudan. 

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