Preliminary official results from South Sudan’s independence referendum show that more than 99 percent of voters in the plebiscite want secession.

“Exclusive reliance on quiet dialogue and cooperation [with abusive states] becomes a charade designed more to appease critics of complacency than to secure change. … A key offender has been the European Union.

“Over the years you see an increase in ‘important’ defendants, indicted for more serious crimes: the higher you climb up the power hierarchy, the more serious the crimes in the indictments are.”

“Southern Sudan is just the beginning. The world may soon have 300 independent, sovereign nations ... and that's just fine.”

“In every state, without exception, there are people in state power who … assert that all the citizens of that state constitute a nation, one that has already determined its destiny. In the twenty-first century, [this] is in retreat in most countries.”

Four top Khmer Rouge leaders have had their appeals against the cases against them thrown out, paving the way for another major genocide trial later this year.
 

“The historic vote is an exercise in self-determination long in the making.

“The international community was united in its belief that this referendum had to take place and that the will of the people of southern Sudan had to be respected, regardless of the outcome.

“Such is India's footprint on so many transnational challenges - from climate change to pandemics to the international trade regime - that no table deciding on them would be complete without its presence. [This] may even explain India's rise far better than geopolitics ever will.

According to the referendum commission, anyone who has a parent or ancestor from a southern tribe indigenous to the south can vote on January 9. Also anyone who has been permanently resident, or whose parents or grandparents have been in the south since the January 1, 1956 independence can vote.