Sudan has signed a ceasefire with a major Darfur rebel group, the second deal in recent weeks, leaving just one band of rebels in open conflict. The Liberation and Justice Movement (LJM) - a newly formed umbrella group of 10 movements - signed the framework deal paving the way for further talks.

Nigeria has recalled its ambassador to Libya after leader Muammar Gaddafi suggested Nigeria be divided into two states - one Christian and one Muslim. The foreign ministry said the Libyan leader's statement was "irresponsible". Earlier in the week a senator had called Col Gaddafi a "mad man".

In 2008 refugee journalists in Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya, set up KANERE, a news reporting project 'to counter the monopoly on information enjoyed by humanitarian organisations that largely control access to and information about refugee camps.' They believed that a refugee free press could ‘open up new spaces for public debate and action on refugee encampment.’ But KANERE’s unwillingness to allow aid agencies to play a role in the publication appears to be putting both the future of the project and the safety of its team in jeopardy, as this background note outlines.

South Africa is to fast-track a comprehensive new law against human trafficking before the start of the soccer World Cup, Justice Minister Jeff Radebe has said. South Africa hosts the month-long event from June 11 and some child rights groups have warned that trafficking, mainly for sexual exploitation, could rise during the tournament.

An Eritrean refugee in Halifax killed himself in late February after losing an asylum appeal to Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board. Habtom Kibraeb, 40, was found dead, hanging from a tree in the Clayton Park area. Kibraeb had spent several years on the run from Eritrea’s military, says Beku Feshaye, who owns Kilimanjaro Café, a store on Titus Street in Halifax.

Burundian refugees in Mtabila refugee camp in Tanzania are being deprived of their basic human rights by the Tanzanian government. Some 37,000 men, women, and children are being denied access to needed medical care, primary education, and attending worship services in the camp. Please to help these refugees and remind Tanzanian officials that caring people like you around the world are watching.

A farming ban imposed on Rwandan refugees in southwestern Uganda is raising concerns for their food security, while proposed cash transfers could boost both food prices and theft, warn aid workers and local officials, who are urging the government to rescind the directive.

A London barrister has criticized the UK’s Foreign Office for failing to acknowledge on its website that the Botswana government illegally and forcibly removed Gana and Gwi Bushmen from their ancestral lands.

Police in Nigeria have arrested around 200 people following weekend attacks on three Christian villages in which hundreds of people were thought to have been killed. The central city of Jos, at the crossroads of Nigeria's Muslim north and Christian south, has been tense since Sunday's attacks, blamed on northern settlers, on the villages of Dogo Nahawa, Zot and Ratsat just south of the Plateau state capital.

The medical humanitarian organization Mèdecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is deeply concerned by the rapidly worsening situation in the isolated area of Hauts Plateaux in the region of Uvira, South Kivu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Nigeria's acting president should make sure that the massacre of at least 200 Christian villagers in central Nigeria on March 7, 2010, is thoroughly and promptly investigated and that those responsible are prosecuted, Human Rights Watch has said.

The death toll from two days of fighting in Somalia’s capital between government forces and al Shabaab rebels has risen to 54, ambulance services said as clashes subsided with both sides claiming successes.

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) is building on initial success to reduce child labor in northern Uganda by launching a new program to further tackle the underlying poverty that forces many families to send their children out to work.

IGAD Heads of State and Government have urged parties to the Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) to remain committed to the implementation of outstanding issues in the agreement. The IGAD leaders, meeting in Nairobi Tuesday, asked the parties to the CPA to particularly move towards completing the North-South Abyei border demarcation and redeployment of forces.

The Johannesburg-based World Alliance for Citizen Participation (CIVICUS) has condemned the continued detention of three members of the Malawian civil soc iety organisation. CIVICUS said it found no evidence to suggest any incitement of violence against members of the ruling party as alleged by the authorities in Malawi.

About 155,000 Burundian refugees, seeking Tanzanian citizenship, have had their requests granted, according to a communiqué from the United Nations High Commissioner for refugees (UNHCR), published on Thursday in Bujumbura, the Burundi capital.

Inadequate healthcare is just one of many challenges facing the 16,200 refugees in this sprawling camp in western Uganda, which is served by a single doctor. Among those waiting in one of the camp’s two health centres when IRIN visited was Mirian, 30, whose child was shivering with fever, most likely caused by malaria.

With at least 67,000 refugees in southwest Uganda, the government and aid workers are still battling inadequate resources in what a UN official described as a "silent emergency". "We can hardly meet international standards of indicators such as water, health and food," Nemia Temporal, deputy representative of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Uganda, told IRIN on 8 March. "For instance, we are delivering 15 litres [of water] per person per day instead of the standard 20l."

Around the world on 8 March, thousands of women (and men!) worldwide celebrated International Women's Day by gathering on bridges from San Francisco to Congo to call for an end to war and demonstrate that women can build the bridges of peace and hope, writes Loveness Jambaya. This action, organised by Women to Women International, is just one of the actions by communities and organisations in the global campaign ‘Say NO UNiTE to End Violence Against Women’, initiated by the United Nations secretary general.

Mary Ndlovu's article is well-written, says Lloyd Whitefield Butler, but it doesn't address the root causes of the present Zimbabwe crisis.