Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant documents that answer the question.
Query: When did Sudan become a republic?
The modern Republic of Sudan was formed in 1956 and inherited its boundaries from Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, established in 1899. For times predating 1899, usage of the term "Sudan" for the territory of the Republic of Sudan was somewhat anachronistic, and may have referred to the more diffuse concept of the Sudan.
Khartoum State () is one of the eighteen states of Sudan. Although it is the smallest state by area (22,142 km), it is the most populous (5,274,321 in 2008 census). It contains the country's second largest city by population, Omdurman, and the city of Khartoum, which is the capital of the state as well as the national capital of Sudan. The capital city contains offices of the state, governmental and non-governmental organizations, cultural institutions, and the main airport.
A referendum on becoming a republic was held in South Africa on 5 October 1960. The Afrikaner-dominated right-wing National Party, which had come to power in 1948, was avowedly republican, and regarded the position of Queen Elizabeth II as head of state as a relic of British imperialism. The National Party government subsequently organised the referendum on whether the then Union of South Africa should become a republic. The vote, which was restricted to whites, was narrowly approved by 52.29% of the voters. The Republic of South Africa was constituted on 31 May 1961.
After the revolution that led to the overthrow of the monarch, King Farouk, and the declaration of the republic, President Nasser adopted the nation’s first written constitution as a republic in 1956. During the short spell of the United Arab Republic, (Egypt & Syria), President Nasser adopted yet another constitution for the new merger, but this merger was dissolved in 1961. In 1964, President Nasser once again introduced a new written constitution for the republic. In 1971, when President Anwar Sadat took office, he moved to the adoption of a new democratic constitution that would allow more freedoms, a return of a more sound parliamentary life and correct democratic practice with the return of political parties and a bicameral parliamentary system.
In 1958, Egypt and Syria formed a sovereign union known as the United Arab Republic. The union was short-lived, ending in 1961 when Syria seceded, thus ending the union. During most of its existence, the United Arab Republic was also in a loose confederation with North Yemen (formerly the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen) known as the United Arab States.
In 1958 Egypt merged with Syria to form the United Arab Republic. Stamps were labeled "United Arab Republic" or more commonly . After Syria's withdrawal from the union in 1961, Egypt retained its "United Arab Republic" name until 1971.
Though Syria withdrew from the U.A.R. in 1961, Egypt continued to use the official name of the United Arab Republic until 1971, when the country was renamed officially as the Arab Republic of Egypt. In 1972, when Egypt formed the Federation of Arab Republics along with Syria, and Libya, the U.A.R. flag (whose design Syria would reuse for their own flag, eight years later) was replaced by a common flag for the Federation, once again based on the Arab Liberation flag. The two green stars in the white band were replaced by the Hawk of Qureish, which had been the coat of arms of Syria prior to the formation of the U.A.R. in 1958. The Hawk of Qureish was also adopted as the Federation's coat of arms. The shade of red used in the red band was lightened slightly.
The official language of the Republic is Arabic. The spoken languages are: Egyptian Arabic (68%), Sa'idi Arabic (29%), Eastern Egyptian Bedawi Arabic (1.6%), Sudanese Arabic (0.6%), Domari (0.3%), Nobiin (0.3%), Beja (0.1%), Siwi and others. Additionally, Greek, Armenian and Italian, and more recently, African languages like Amharic and Tigrigna are the main languages of immigrants.
In 1960 a whites-only referendum was held to decide whether South Africa should become a republic. No changes were made to the franchise with the Republic's emergence in 1961. However, with the policy of establishing Bantustans the remaining black representation in the Senate was completely removed.
As a consequence of this change of status, South Africa needed to reapply for continued membership of the Commonwealth, with which it had privileged trade links. India had become a republic within the Commonwealth in 1950, but it became clear that African and Asian member states would oppose South Africa due to its apartheid policies. As a result, South Africa withdrew from the Commonwealth on 31 May 1961, the day that the Republic came into existence.
It was not until the Nasser era – more than a decade later – that Arab nationalism, and by extension Arab socialism, became a state policy imposed on the Egyptians by the new dictatorship. Under Nasser, Egypt united with Syria to form the United Arab Republic in 1958, then became known as the "Arab" Republic of Egypt in 1961. The Egyptians' attachment to Arabism, however, was particularly questioned after the 1967 Six-Day War. Thousands of Egyptians had lost their lives and the country became disillusioned with Arab politics. Nasser's successor Sadat, both through public policy and his peace initiative with Israel, revived an uncontested Egyptian orientation, unequivocally asserting that only Egypt and Egyptians were his responsibility. The terms "Arab", "Arabism" and "Arab unity", save for the new official name, became conspicuously absent. (See also Egyptian Liberal age and Egyptian Republic.)
The Republic of Benin was formed in 1960 when the colony of French Dahomey gained independence from France. Prior to this, the area that is now the Republic of Benin was divided largely between two coastal kingdoms, Dahomey and Porto-Novo, and a large area of various tribes in the north. The French assembled these various groups together into the colony of French Dahomey, which was part of the various colonies of French West Africa from 1904 until 1960. In the independence era, the republic was extremely unstable for the first decade and a half of existence, with multiple governments and multiple military coups. In 1972, Mathieu Kérékou led a military coup deposing the Presidential Council and appointing himself as the head of state, a position he held until 1991 when the country returned to multiparty elections. Since that point, the state has held multiple presidential and legislative elections and a number of different parties have become important.
The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) was created in 1994, as an all-volunteer military composed of the former South African Defence Force, the forces of the African nationalist groups (Umkhonto we Sizwe and Azanian People's Liberation Army), and the former Bantustan defence forces. The SANDF is subdivided into four branches, the South African Army, the South African Air Force, the South African Navy, and the South African Military Health Service. In recent years, the SANDF has become a major peacekeeping force in Africa, and has been involved in operations in Lesotho, the DRC, and Burundi, amongst others. It has also served in multinational UN peacekeeping forces such as the UN Force Intervention Brigade for example.
As a developing constitutional monarchy, Jordan has survived the trials and tribulations of Middle Eastern politics. The Jordanian public has experienced limited democracy since gaining independence in 1946 however the population has not suffered as others have under dictatorships imposed by some Arab regimes. The 1952 Constitution provided for citizens of Jordan to form and join political parties. Such rights were suspended in 1967 when a state of emergency was declared and martial law and suspension of Parliament, continuing until it was repealed in 1989.
On 3 August 1960, the National Party government announced a referendum would be held in October of that year so that voters might weigh in on the question of whether the Union of South Africa should become a republic. The vote was restricted to white South Africans. More than 90% of eligible voters participated in the referendum, and 52.3% of those who did voted in favour of "a Republic for the Union."
In 1964, Egypt, Iraq and North Yemen formed a Unified Political Command in order to prepare the gradual merger in a new "United Arab Republic", however, both projects failed in 1966 and 1967. In 1971 and 1972 Muammar Gaddafi attempted to unite Libya, Egypt, Sudan and Syria to form the Federation of Arab Republics. This loose union lasted until 1977 when it split due to political and territorial disputes between the republics' leadership. In 1974, Muammar Gaddafi and Habib Bourguiba attempted their two nations of Libya and Tunisia to form the Arab Islamic Republic. The plan was rejected by Bourgiba due to his realization of unity of the Maghreb states. This would later become the Arab Maghreb Union.
Trinidad and Tobago became an independent monarchy on 31 August 1962. In 1974, a constitutional reform commission led by Chief Justice of Trinidad and Tobago Hugh Wooding recommended that the country become a republic, in line with almost universal national opinion. A new constitution was adopted on 1 August 1976, when Trinidad and Tobago became a republic within the Commonwealth with the President of Trinidad and Tobago as head of state.
Legal employment in Egypt is "virtually" impossible for Sudanese refugees. Refugees’ right to work is determined by Egypt's domestic legislation dealing with the employment of foreigners, law no. 137 of 1981, which decrees that refugees must apply for a work permit on par with any other foreigner. Article 53 in the Egyptian Constitution gives the right of asylum to political refugees, however, only the few most prominent have been able to take advantage of this right like the Shah of Iran, Jaafar Nimeiri of Sudan, and the wife of the last king of Libya.
The capital of the state, Mading Bor, became an administrative centre under the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (1899 -1956) for the Dinka people. It was in Malek, a small settlement, about , south of Msding Bor that the first modern Christian mission in present-day South Sudan was established by Archibald Shaw in December 1905. Bor became the first area to host a Church Missionary Society station in 1905. Shaw opened the first primary school in Malek. This school produced the first indigenous Anglican bishop to be consecrated in Dinkaland, Daniel Deng Atong. John Aruor became the first legend to be baptized in 1916 in Mading Bor. In 1912, the British established Pibor Post, a colonial era outpost which was originally called Fort Bruce in the eastern part of Jonglei. From 1919 to 1976, the territory of today's state of Jonglei belonged to the state of the Upper Nile in what was initially Anglo-Egyptian Sudan.
The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (Ukrainian SSR or UkrSSR or UkSSR; , УРСР ; , УССР ; see "Name" section below), also known as the Soviet Ukraine, was one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union from the Union's inception in 1922 to its breakup in 1991. The republic was governed by the Communist Party of Ukraine as a unitary one-party socialist soviet republic.
After the Young Turk Revolution in 1908 and during the Second Constitutional Era Sandanski (in association with Hristo Chernopeev, Chudomir Kantardziev, Aleksandar Buynov and others) contacted the Young Turks and started legal operation. After the disintegration of IMARO, they tried to set up the Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization (MORO). Later, the congress for MORO's official inauguration failed and Sandanski and Chernopeev started to work towards a creation of one of the left political parties in the Ottoman Empire – People's Federative Party (Bulgarian Section), whose headquarters was in Solun. This federalist project was supposed to include different ethnic sections in itself, but this idea failed and the only section that was created was the faction of Sandanski, called "Bulgarian section". In this way its activists only "revived" their Bulgarian national identification, as Sandanski's faction advocated the particular interests of the "Bulgarian nationality" in the Empire. In 1909 the group around Sandanski and Chernopeev participated in the rally of the Young Turks to Istanbul that led to the deposition of sultan Abdul Hamid II from the throne. Sandanski dreamed about the creation of a Balkan Federative Republic according to the plans of the Balkan Socialist Federation and Macedonia as a part of that Federation. He demanded that the IMARO should embrace all nationalities in the region, not only Bulgarians.
A referendum on independence for Southern Sudan was held from January 9–15, 2011. Preliminary results released by the Southern Sudan Referendum Commission on January 30, 2011 indicate that 98% of voters selected the "separation" option, with 1% selecting "unity". Southern Sudan became an independent country on July 9, 2011, a date set by the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. On 31 January 2011, Sudanese Vice-President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha stated the Sudanese Government's "acceptance" of the referendum results. On January 23, 2011, members of a steering committee on post-independence governing told reporters that upon independence the land would be named the Republic of South Sudan "out of familiarity and convenience." Other names that had been considered were Azania, Nile Republic, Kush Republic and even Juwama, a portmanteau for Juba, Wau and Malakal, three major cities.
South Sudan is bordered by Sudan to the north, Ethiopia to the east, Kenya to the southeast, Uganda to the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the southwest and the Central African Republic to the west. It includes the vast swamp region of the Sudd, formed by the White Nile and known locally as the "Bahr al Jabal", meaning "Mountain Sea". Sudan was occupied by Egypt under the Muhammad Ali dynasty and was governed as an Anglo-Egyptian condominium until Sudanese independence in 1956. Following the First Sudanese Civil War, the Southern Sudan Autonomous Region was formed in 1972 and lasted until 1983. A second Sudanese civil war soon broke out, ending in 2005 with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Later that year, southern autonomy was restored when an Autonomous Government of Southern Sudan was formed. South Sudan became an independent state on 9 July 2011, following 98.83% support for independence in a January 2011 referendum.
The Republic of South Sudan became independent on 9 July 2011 from Sudan and issued its first stamps on 13 July 2011. Only almost three months later, on 4 October 2011, did South Sudan become a member of the Universal Postal Union (UPU). Before independence, South Sudan used stamps issued by Sudan. The "Directorate of Postal Services of the Ministry of Telecommunication and Postal Services" is responsible for postal affairs in South Sudan.
South Sudan seceded from the Republic of Sudan in 2011.
Geographically, South Sudan is not part of the Sudan region at all (the Sahel), forming as it does part of Sub-Saharan Africa. In modern terminology, it does, however, include parts of the East Sudanian Savanna. 
Its inclusion in "Sudan" is due to the southward expansion of the Ottoman Khedivate of Egypt in the 19th century, and its consequent inclusion in Mahdist Sudan, Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and the Republic of Sudan during 1885 to 2011.