STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep. The world's youngest country is South Sudan, which won independence in 2011. Soon, a new nation could be born. The Pacific island group called Bougainville voted for independence. It was a nonbinding referendum, but after an overwhelming vote, its 300,000 people can try to work out independence from Papua New Guinea. Who knows? Give it a couple hundred years, and maybe that new nation will be as harmonious and stable as ours. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.