Obama names retired envoy as new Sudan envoy

President Barack Obama chose on Thursday a retired ambassador to two African countries to be his new special envoy to Sudan, at a time of continued instability in Darfur and as the African nation's southern regions prepare to become an independent country.
Since last August, Princeton Lyman has been a senior adviser to the State Department working on the negotiations between north and south Sudan. He has served as US ambassador to both Nigeria and South Africa. Obama said in a statement that Lyman will oversee US support for implementing the 2005 peace agreement that stopped a two-decade civil war in Sudan, ending the separate conflict in the country's western Darfur region and overseeing the creation of an independent Southern Sudan.