- KHARTOUM: Sudan's President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir on Monday named his new coalition cabinet, appointing Lual Deng, a southerner, in the key post of oil minister, according to a presidential order seen by Reuters.
It is likely to be Sudan's last government ahead of a secession referendum due in January 2011 that could see the country's oil-producing south split away to form Africa's newest independent state.
The order from the president split Sudan's former Ministry of Energy and Mining into three — with separate ministries for oil, mining and electricity combined with dams.
The appointments come seven weeks after Bashir, the only sitting head of state wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC), held on to power in national elections.
Bashir, who rejects charges of ordering mass murder and other atrocities in war-torn western Darfur, secured a 68 percent majority in a poll marred by opposition accusations of fraud and intimidation of voters in both the country's north and south.