South Sudan president fires ministers allied to rival Machar

By Denis Dumo JUBA (Reuters) - South Sudan's President Salva Kiir fired six ministers allied to his long-time rival Riek Machar late on Tuesday, widening a political rift in the world's newest nation and drawing threats of more fighting. Kiir filled the vacant posts, including petroleum minister, with people linked to a breakaway faction of Machar's SPLM-IO party, further aggravating divisions between senior politicians in the oil producing nation. About 60,000 people have fled an outbreak of fighting between supporters of the two men in the past three weeks, the United Nations said, on top of the hundreds of thousands already forced to flee in two years of ethnically charged violence.