The news from Sudan sounds almost too good to be true. The referendum is taking place on time and without violence. The Sudanese government appears ready to accept the partition of the country when – as everybody expects – the South votes to secede. There seems to be a real possibility that this will be a peaceful separation. This sort of thing is hard enough to pull off in Europe. (Think of the Balkan wars.) But, in Africa, it was meant to be impossible.

In California they are debating whether gays should be allowed to marry; in Uganda they are debating whether gays should be allowed to live. Meanwhile, in China they have just banned the country’s first ever gay pageant - which had been hoping to select a Chinese contestant for the Mr Gay competition in Norway next month.

The campaign for gay rights is now a global movement – but it is making progress at very different rates in different parts of the world. Homosexuality was illegal in China until 1997 and was defined as a mental illness until 2001. Meanwhile, there seems to be a pretty vicious backlash against gays in parts of Africa. Uganda is one example; Mugabe’s Zimbabwe is another.

The very different nature of national debates about homosexuality is now threatening to impinge on foreign policy. President Museveni of Uganda has acknowledged that he has come under huge international pressure to block the bill that would allow the execution of people charged with “aggravated” homosexuality. The issue of gay rights is already threatening to split the Church of England – as it pits conservative Africans against liberal Americans. I suspect there will be many more such disputes in future.

Reports that the Americans have agreed to send emergency military aid to the Somali government are confirmation that the military situation there is deteriorating fast. In fact, without the world paying much attention, Somalia is in danger of being effectively taken over by Islamists supported by foreign jihadists. It would then look rather like Afghanistan in the years before 9/11.

The FT reported a few days ago that “several hundred foreign jihadists linked to al-Qaeda are reported to have joined al-Shabaab’s efforts to topple the government”. According to our report, the national government now controls just a few blocks of the capital, Mogadishu.

The only real foreign military assistance the Somali government is getting comes from just 4,300 African Union troops. The Ethiopians have made it clear that they are not going back in. The Americans have their own bad memories of Somalia. Perhaps the new US military aid will do the trick – or perhaps it won’t.