Your weekly roundup of key political stories from Sudan and South Sudan:

Machar says Kiir should bring 28 states order to JMEC (Radio Tamazuj, 26 December 2015) - South Sudanese rebel leader Riek Machar said President Salva Kiir should rescind his decree establishing 28 states and said Kiir should have brought it to JMEC for consideration.

Christmas surprise: Kiir declares state governments 'defunct' (Radio Tamazuj, 25 December 2015) - South Sudan's President Salva Kiir on Christmas Eve declared the country's ten existing states 'defunct' and divided them into 28 new states whose governors he appointed from the ranks of his loyalists.

Ministries for South Sudan transitional govt to be divvied up 6 January (Radio Tamazuj, 24 December 2015) - Ministerial portfolios for South Sudan's proposed transitional government of national unity will be chosen by the signatories of the August peace agreement at a meeting of the Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (JMEC) on 6 January 2016, JMEC announced.

Growing expectations of Sudan - SPLM-N peace deal (Radio Tamazuj, 22 December 2015) - Government and media sources in Sudan are pointing to growing expectations of a peace deal between the Sudanese government and rebel group SPLM-N, which controls parts of South Kordofan and Blue Nile States.

Taban Deng leads IO delegation to Juba (Radio Tamazuj, 21 December 2015) - Former Unity State governor Taban Deng, a leading figure in the SPLM-IO, has returned to Juba after two years of civil war.