Salva kiir
Tight security, shops shut as South Sudan warns against protests
The world's newest nation has suffered from chronic instability since independence in 2011, with deepening discontent prompting a coalition of civil society...
The government has taken a hard line against the People's Coalition for Civil Action (PCCA) and its calls for a peaceful public uprising, arresting at least eight activists and detaining three journalists this month in connection with the demonstrations, according to rights groups.
The clashes erupted after Machar's rivals declared this week they had deposed him as the head of the party and its military forces.
Riek Machar, a pivotal figure in South Sudan's bloody road to independence and subsequent civil war, was deposed following a three-day gathering of senior SPLM/A-IO leaders in the country's far north, the party's military wing said.
Born in 1953 in the oil-producing state of Unity, Machar was the son of a chief and comes from the Nuer, a cattle-keeping people who are the second-biggest ethnic group in South Sudan after the Dinka.
President Salva Kiir's political rivalry with vice president Riek Machar triggered a civil war in late 2013 that was characterised by ethnic atrocities, rape, torture and the deaths of almost 400,000 people.
The optimism that ushered in its hard-fought independence from Sudan evaporated as the country's new leaders went to war in 2013.
A decree by President Salva Kiir was then read out on the South Sudan Broadcasting Corporation (SSBC) on Monday, including the names of the national assembly legislators.
The peace process has drifted as South Sudan reels from economic crisis, brutal ethnic violence, an armed insurgency, and its worst hunger crisis since declaring independence from Sudan in 2011.
The country, emerging from a devastating six-year civil war, has recorded 231 cases since its first case on April 5. The number was just 35 two weeks ago.
A presidential decree naming the 34 ministers and 10 deputies was read out on state television.
Salva Kiir confirmed that they had agreed to join together for the third time in government -- an experiment which has twice previously ended in disaster.
The regional group IGAD had given the government until Saturday to find a solution over the number of states the country should have.
Kiir and rebel chief Riek Machar are under increasing pressure to resolve their differences by 22 February and form a unity government as part of a peace agreement.
The disarray comes as President Salva Kiir and the rebel leader, Riek Machar, face intense pressure to form a coalition government by 22 February, a major step in the transition to peace.
President Salva Kiir and rebel leader Riek Machar, whose fall out in 2013 sparked a conflict that has left hundreds of thousands dead, face a 22 February deadline to form a government.
President Salva Kiir and rebel leader Riek Machar have failed to break a deadlock over key terms of a power-sharing agreement with just two weeks until they are to form a unity government.
Kiir and Riek Machar, who is now opposition leader, met over the past three days in the capital Juba to resolve outstanding disputes that prevented the formation of a coalition government in time for a 12 November deadline.
US State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said the US would also seek 'to establish a new paradigm to achieve peace and a successful political transition in South Sudan' with others in the region.