The first democratic poll in more than 20 years is to be held after a 2005 peace deal that ended a north-south civil war.
A U.N. panel of experts has suggested that Sudan delay elections due for July 2009 by at least four months because of expected heavy rains and logistical problems, a senior U.N. official said on Friday.
The first democratic poll in more than 20 years is to be held after a 2005 peace deal that ended a north-south civil war in Africa’s biggest country.

The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said Friday that he would seek arrest warrants for war crimes in Darfur including, for the first time, actions by Sudanese rebels.
The prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, said the warrants would involve attacks on African Union peacekeepers in September 2007, in which 12 were killed. Speaking in The Hague, the prosecutor did not disclose the names and number of suspects, but earlier he had said that two rebel factions carried out the attacks.

KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) — President Omar al-Bashir offered a ceasefire in Darfur on Wednesday and promised to disarm militias, a top rebel demand, in a new push by his government to show it is serious about ending the nearly 6-year-old conflict.
Darfur rebels dismissed the moves, saying they don’t trust al-Bashir and want to see disarmament of the feared janjaweed militias before agreeing to a ceasefire.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) – Kidnappers killed five Chinese oil workers on Monday out of nine they had been holding hostage in central Sudan for more than a week, the Sudanese Foreign Ministry said.
The ministry blamed the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), a Darfur rebel group, for seizing and killing the Chinese. A London-based JEM official denied the group was involved.

KHARTOUM – Sudanese government forces and a rebel faction have clashed in north Darfur, two rebel groups said on Friday.
Mohamed Abdullah, a commander with a faction of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) headed by Abdel-Wahed Mohamed el-Nur, said his group lost two fighters but captured a number of government vehicles and weapons in the clash on Thursday.