One year after independence, many in South Sudan still do not have access to adequate healthcare. Among those desperate for treatment are victims of serious accidents or diseases. In South Sudan many are kept waiting for complicated and expensive procedures. There are few skilled surgeons in South Sudan and people with little money have scant hope of treatment.

Sudan and South Sudan have reached a deal on border security and oil production that will allow oil exports from South Sudan through Sudan to resume, say spokesmen for both sides. The leaders of the two neighbouring countries made the partial breakthrough after four days of talks in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. But a number of key issues remain unresolved, including disputed regions.

The UN refugee agency said Tuesday 25 September that fresh air and ground attacks in Sudan's South Kordofan state are causing a renewed population influx to South Sudan. 'About 100 refugees a day are arriving in the border town of Yida, in Unity state,' a spokesperson said, adding that the 'refugees are in poor health and without any belongings.' Some refugees told UNHCR they had also fled because of acute food shortages in South Kordofan. Many said they planned to build a shelter in Yida refuge camp before returning across the border to fetch family members.

An analysis of gendered fighter constructions in the liberation movements in Eritrea and southern Sudan (EPLF and SPLA/M), examining the question of female access to the sphere of masculine fighter constructs and the relevance of this for influence in peacetime affairs. Empirical research in both countries, in particular interviews with participants, reveals that what keeps women out of the sphere of legitimized violence is not some 'inherent peacefulness', but the exclusivist construct of the masculine fighter, which is supported by society.

South Sudan accused Sudan on Sunday of air-dropping weapons to rebels, just as the presidents of the African neighbours were about to meet to finalise a border security deal to restart oil exports. Sudan dismissed the charges and any links to rebels in the South, which seceded from Khartoum in July last year under a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war. Sudan, in turn, often accuses Juba of supporting rebels in its borderlands.

An organisation known as the South Sudan Land Alliance has been formed to realise the land rights for all the people of South Sudan.

South Sudan has the worst reported maternal mortality rate in the world. A 2012 report entitled Women’s Security in South Sudan: Threats in the Home by Geneva-based think-tank Small Arms Survey (SAS) says a national survey carried out in 2006 indicating 2,054 deaths per 100,000 live births may have been an underestimation.

The South Sudanese government must take immediate action to identify and prosecute those responsible for the recent attack on anti-corruption activist, Deng Athuai, said Global Witness. On 4 July, the Chairperson of the South Sudan Civil Society Alliance, Mr. Deng Athuai Mawiir, was kidnapped in front of his hotel in the South Sudanese capital, Juba. He was reportedly held and beaten for three days by unknown assailants and interrogated about his work on corruption issues in the country. 'When civil society’s freedom to operate is threatened, all efforts to fight corruption and impunity are threatened,' said Global Witness campaigner Dana Wilkins. 'The South Sudanese government has promised its citizens an open and democratic society. It must now make good on that promise by bringing Deng Athuai’s attackers to justice.'

One year after the formation of South Sudan, the country’s women say that independence has not resulted in the positive political, economic and social changes that they had hoped for. Women activists worry that even after separation from Sudan, when South Sudan became the world’s newest country and Africa’s 54th nation, the government has not done enough to improve the lives of its women. But as people across the country celebrate the first anniversary of independence from Sudan, after a 21-year civil war, the year has been fraught with crises.

A 105-page Human Rights Watch report documents violations of due process rights, patterns of wrongful deprivation of liberty, and the harsh, unacceptable prison conditions in which detainees live. The research was done during a 10-month period before and after South Sudan’s independence, on 9 July 2011.

Sudan and South Sudan have pledged to cease hostilities along their disputed oil-rich border, but stopped short of actually signing an agreement, officials have said. The verbal agreement on Saturday came as the latest round of talks closed in the Ethiopian capital ahead of celebrations on Monday to mark one year of independence for South Sudan.

One year after South Sudan declared independence, many humanitarian needs remain unmet. Communities lack access to basic health-care services. The situation is particularly difficult in northern regions close to the border with Sudan. Recent fighting in this area has had a direct impact on the availability and price of food, contributing to an increase in child deaths from malnutrition. 'In Malakal Teaching Hospital, there has been a dramatic rise in child malnutrition admissions over the past three months, since fighting escalated,' said Melker Mabeck, the head of the delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in South Sudan.

Reporters Without Borders has releasing a report – in English, French and Arabic – on the state of freedom of information in South Sudan, which will celebrate the first anniversary of its independence on 9 July. The product of a visit to the South Sudanese capital of Juba from 9 to 15 May, it says that the divorce with Khartoum is not entirely consummated and that independence has brought no significant improvement in media freedom. It looks at the media war being waged by the two Sudans and highlights the impact of the ubiquitous, heavy-handed security forces.

Israel deported 190 South Sudanese illegal migrants on Tuesday 3 July, raising the number of deportees from the Jewish state to the Africa’s newest nation to 317 since mid-June. The migrants landed at Juba international airport, where they were received by relatives and South Sudan government officials.

The problems facing the new nation are the product of non-existent or underdeveloped state institutions, themselves the product of the current system’s failure to redefine itself from a liberation movement to a ruling party with a mandate to deliver services to the population.

Aid agencies working in northern South Sudan are worried about refugees from Sudan's war-torn Blue Nile State who are reaching under-resourced camps in increasingly poor health. In recent weeks over 35,000 people have flocked to a site 50km from the border known as Kilometre 18 (KM18) by aid agencies - the distance to the nearest refugee camp (Jamam) holding over 30,000 people.

The first batch of 700 South Sudanese have returned to Juba from Israel, as part of a policy to deport Africans and protect the state's Jewish identity. Israel and its military ally South Sudan, which gained independence in July 2011 after decades of civil war, both claim that the process has been one of 'voluntary repatriation'. While some among the first planeload of 124 people were very guarded about their feelings of returning to their new but still extremely impoverished nation, several people said the South Sudanese are being forced out.

An 'exceptional' airlift of almost 12,000 South Sudanese ended with a final flight from Khartoum on Wednesday but thousands more continue to live in makeshift conditions while they, too, await transport to the South, officials said. One hundred Southerners took the last chartered plane from Khartoum to South Sudan's capital Juba, Jill Helke, chief of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in Sudan, said.

South Sudan has shut down more than 20 private universities, placing the future of higher education on the spot in a country where public universities are partially operational. The move that has left thousands of students confused is part of streamlining the higher education system. Country's minister for Higher Education, Science and Technology, Peter Adwok Nyaba, said the institutions have been operating on letters of no objection that were only meant to enable them to acquire and develop land.

Top negotiators for Sudan and South Sudan met Tuesday 29 May for their first talks since deadly border fighting last month took them to the brink of war, even as Juba accused Khartoum of fresh air strikes. Teams from both sides are in the Ethiopian capital to restart the African Union-led talks which were stalled by heavy clashes last month, the worst fighting since the South won independence last July.