The failure of the government in Khartoum to end the military campaign mounted since 1997 by northern Moslems in alliance with southern factions has split the alliance of military officers and Islamists which came to power following a military coup in 1989.

Popular pressure in northern Sudan for reconciliation between the government led by Hassan el-Tourabi's National Congress (NC) party, and armed groups led by the exiled Umma and Democratic Unionist Parties, is dominating the political agenda.

A variety of strategies for luring the two parties out of their alliance with the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Army in the south are now reshaping the country's political map.

Mr Tourabi, the architect of Sudan's Islamist political programme, is believed to be seeking a political alliance with Sadiq el-Mahdi, the Umma leader.

Mr Tourabi's military allies, led by President Omar Hassan el-Bashir, overthrew Mr Mahdi's government in 1989.

Ever since, the Umma has been condemned by Mr Tourabi's progressive Islamist movement as sectarian and elitist. Mr Mahdi had been under effective house arrest for five years until he fled Sudan in 1997.

Debate now centres on whether an opportunistic alliance between the two opposing Islamist trends is workable.

"Tourabi can survive if he gets into an alliance with Sadiq, because it will be in tune with national support for reconciliation," said Hassan Makki, head of research at Khartoum's International University of Africa and a member of the National Congress.

"Sadiq would be prepared to ally with Tourabi. The entire history of the Umma is based on suspicion of the military, including Bashir. The army is secular and the Umma is sectarian. But the army is tired of the war. It wants to get it over with."

In the past week, Mr Tourabi has overhauled the power structure of the ruling party, giving rural delegates more voting power than the urban elite from which he has become estranged. He has also overseen the departure of military officers from the leadership.

Now, only Mr Bashir remains within the hierarchy, where he occupies the symbolic position of 'leader', though Mr Tourabi has manoeuvred himself into a position of superiority to the head of state in the party decision-making system process.

"Tourabi has come to realise that his problem is not only with academics and elite groups, but also with the military," said Ghazi Salah Eddin Atabani, formerly one of Mr Tourabi's closest advisers.

But if people wake to find Tourabi offering the same as Sadiq, then Tourabi's support will diminish very quickly. He is playing the popular card of reconciliation and freedoms. But he is walking a tightrope. I think he has reached a certain point in his ambitions which, until now, he has pursued with the military."

A wide variety of opinion is agreed that Mr Tourabi is determined to become Sudan's next head of state, when elections are held next year. To achieve this he must sidestep the military, which remains behind Mr Bashir.

Mr Tourabi's opponents say this would be opposed by the army, perhaps by force. "I would expect some sort of resistance from the army to Tourabi becoming head of state," said a leading political figure. However, reconciliation among the rival northern Sudanese political groups is regarded as essential if the devastating war in the south, which remains the main cause of Sudan's political instability, is to be resolved.

In April 1997, the government signed the Khartoum Declaration with six southern factions. This met the main southern demand for self-determination in the south.

The agreement offered unity within a federal state or secession. Doubts remain as to whether the government will see its commitment through. "I don't think this government would go all the way towards the self-determination of the south if it doesn't have the northern opposition involved in the decision. The government needs the other forces. It wouldn't want to be alone in allowing the south to secede," said Riek Machar, leader of the main southern faction to have signed the accord.

Commitment to southern self-determination is now part of the Sudanese constitution, despite all northern parties being opposed to the division of the country.

Tsegaye Berhane, general manager of the state-run Ethiopian Tea and Coffee Authority, told Reuters the country had earned $51.4 million from 24,268 tonnes from coffee exports in the first four months of the season, which runs from July to June.

In the same period last year, Ethiopia exported 19,332 tonnes of coffee worth $66.1 million. Berhane said Ethiopia planned to export a record 135,000 tonnes of coffee this year compared to 103,423 tonnes last year.

Coffee is Ethiopia's main cash crop, generating about 60 percent of the country's foreign currency earnings.

``Although all preparations had been put in place for the voluntary repatriation of approximately 1,500 of the Eritreans on Saturday, the Eritrean government refused to accept its citizens, citing security concerns,'' the statement said.

Ethiopia said the arrangements to return the Eritreans had been made at their request in conjunction with the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The Ethiopian statement also said an unspecified number of Ethiopians have not been allowed to cross from Eritrea into Ethiopia. Many of them were living on the streets of the Eritrean capital Asmara, it said.

Eritrea has not responded to the Ethiopian allegations.

The two Horn of Africa neighbours have been locked in a 16-month-old border war that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.

The border fighting has died down, but efforts by the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) to resolve the dispute have so far failed.

Eritrea has accepted a peace plan drawn up by the OAU but Ethiopia says it is not satisfied with certain technical details and says it doubts Eritrea's commitment to peace.

Eritrea, an Italian colony until World War II, was administered as part of Ethiopia until 1993, when it became independent with Ethiopian agreement.