UNITED NATIONS Stephen Gostkowski Youth Jersey , Feb. 19 (Xinhua) -- The situation at a UN civilian protection site in South Sudan has returned to calm after violence in the past two days there left at least 18 dead, a UN spokesman said Friday.


The UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) has intensified patrols around the site and is discussing with community leaders how to maintain calm and promote dialogue, Stephane Dujarric told a daily news briefing.


Clashes broke out between youths from the Shilluk and Dinka ethic groups at the UN site in the northeastern city of Malakal on Wednesday evening and continued Thursday. The fighting was compounded by shooting from outside the base, reportedly from armed men wearing uniforms of the Sudan People's Liberation Army Dont'a Hightower Youth Jersey , according to UNMISS.


UNMISS has expressed concerned over the clashes within the UN property, said Dujarric.


The mission protects almost 200,000 civilians at six bases throughout South Sudan. More than 47,000 civilians have taken shelter at the Malakal site.


The UN mission was established on July 9 James White Youth Jersey , 2011, the day when South Sudan became an independent country after decades of civil war between the north and south, which ended in 2005 with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.


Fighting broke out in South Sudan in December 2013 when President Salva Kiir accused his sacked deputy Riek Machar of attempting a coup.


The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people, driving 1.5 million South Sudanese from their homes and leaving almost 5 million in dire need of humanitarian assistance.


BERLIN Tom Brady Youth Jersey , Sept. 4 (Xinhua) -- Eastern and Western Germany remain economically divided 27 years after their re-unification, an official report approved on Wednesday by the German Federal Government finds.


Although the differences between the two halves of the country have continued to decline since 1990, the average gap in output in 2016 was still 27 percent. Excluding the relatively-prosperous Berlin, the disparity would have been even higher at 32 percent.


"Germany's strong position in Europe and the wider world regularly overshadows its domestic tensions back home Rob Gronkowski Youth Jersey ," Michael Broening, policy expert at the think-tank "Friedrich Ebert Stiftung" (FES), told Xinhua on the subject.


"From an economic perspective, there is not one Germany but two Danny Etling Youth Jersey ," he added.


The unemployment rate in Eastern Germany more than halved from an annual average of 18.7 percent to 8.5 percent between 2005 and 2016, but the figure was still significantly higher than the 5.6 percent recorded in Western Germany last year. In 2016, communal tax revenue in Eastern Germany merely amounted to 60 percent on average of government income recorded in Western Germany.


Wednesday's report, formally titled the "Annual Report on the State of German Union" Duke Dawson Youth Jersey , was compiled by the official government appointee for Germany's new states Iris Gleicke (SPD). She noted that the pace of convergence between West and East had "slowed significantly" in the past decades.


While Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita rose from 34,000 to 39,000 euros per year in Western Germany, the comparable figure for Eastern Germany was still below 29 Sony Michel Youth Jersey ,000 euros.


FES expert Broening warned that progress on economic convergence was now occurring at a "glacial" pace. As a consequence, German lawmakers were confronted with a problem which was not just socio-economic and demographic in nature, but also had a political dimension ahead of federal elections on Sept. 24.