An increase in cases of measles has prompted Kenya's health ministry to embark on an emergency vaccination campaign to protect children against the disease, which has claimed the lives of 41 patients around the country over the past six months. About 1,600 cases of the disease have been reported during the same period, according to the director of medical services in the health ministry. The first phase of the vaccination campaign - scheduled to start on Saturday and last until 5 May - will target 560,000 children in 16 high-risk areas, including eight divisions in the capital, Nairobi, where 16 of the deaths have been reported.

"Cote d'Ivoire has been in conflict for over three years, and this is the main cause of displacement for the population," said Dr. Kälin, the Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons, adding that conflicts over land in rural areas, particularly in the west and the south of the country, have also caused major displacement. The conflicts seem to trap the population into displacement cycles, where each community is forced to flee one after another.

Caroline Akoko has lived for almost two years at a camp for people fleeing their homes in northern Uganda, where 18 years of war between government forces and a rebel group has caused widespread terror and destruction. "It was on a daily basis that they attacked the village," said Akoko, referring to the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a shadowy, guerrilla force composed largely of children kidnapped from the surrounding area and forced to fight.

There has been a 480 % increase in clothing imports from China. The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has warned government that thousands of textile workers, especially women, will soon join the unemployment queue. The labour federation says it is worried about South Africa’s trade deal with China that’s already left thousands jobless.

The Ugandan Parliament has passed the Amnesty Amendment Act which excludes Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) leader Joseph Kony from being eligible for amnesty. Many Members of Parliament (MPs) were opposed to the act, fearing that excluding Kony from amnesty would damage attempts at peace and begin another war in northern Uganda. MPs in favor of the act reassure that the opportunity for peace talks remains open.

This report by Civil Society Organizations for Peace in Northern Uganda (CSOPNU) describes the brutal impact the conflict between government forces and the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has had on the civilian population in northern Uganda. The average death rate in the region amounts to 146 per week - three times higher than in Iraq - and the average annual cost of the war, $85 million.

The Security Council adopted resolution 1670 extending the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) until May 15, 2006. The resolution reiterates demands outlined in resolution 1640 - mainly that Eritrea lift the restrictions imposed on UNMEE operations and that Ethiopia accept the final and binding decision of the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission

African human rights advocates, lawyers and anti-corruption czars meeting recently in Nairobi resolved to work towards the recognition of corruption as "an international crime". Corruption, which drains Africa of about 25 per cent of the continent's official GDP, is viewed as a major cause of poverty in Africa. Advocates against corruption are trying to raise it to a criminal level alongside genocide.

More than a decade after the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, the need for compensation to victims of this tragedy continues to present difficulties for government and genocide survivors alike. Since then, a court - the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) - has been set up in the northern Tanzanian town of Arusha to bring the alleged masterminds of the genocide to book, while Rwandan courts have struggled to try the huge number of persons accused of carrying out the killings. Those who survived the genocide are still awaiting reparations, however, says François Ngarambe, president of Ibuka ("Remember", in Kinyarwanda) - one of the main non-governmental organisations for genocide survivors.

The Nigerian government must take the lead in ending discrimination against millions of "non-indigenes" - citizens who cannot show that their family roots are native to the community in which they live - in part to better secure the country's increasingly fragile unity, according to a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) released recently. The 64-page report, "'They Do Not Own This Place': Government Discrimination Against 'Non-Indigenes' in Nigeria", charges that the legal division between "host" and "settler" communities - originally designed to preserve the traditions and cultural identity of most of Nigeria's more than 250 ethnic groups - has fed a growing sense of tension and conflict in many parts of the country.

Hunger and militia attacks in the remote border areas of eastern Chad have driven more than 11,000 Chadians to seek international assistance and stretched resources meant for Sudanese refugees, according to aid agencies. According to the UN an estimated 50,000 Chadians are displaced in eastern Chad, but until a recent wave of attacks on the government of President Idriss Deby by rebel forces nearly all the internally displaced people (IDP) had managed on assistance from friends and family.

Okello Abbino, who has lived in Padibe camp for displaced people in Kitgum district for nine years, has never heard of the Ugandan government’s new strategy to redevelop the war-affected region. "Let them first end the rebellion, then we can talk about development," he said. "How do we start redeveloping the region when it is not yet safe?" Coordinated under the joint country coordination and monitoring committee on northern Uganda, the new strategy was unveiled on 20 March.

At least seven people were killed and scores wounded as rival armed groups fought on Sunday in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, displacing dozens of families. The violence erupted in Hamarweyne district in south Mogadishu when local residents opposed the setting up of a checkpoint by armed militias reportedly loyal to Mogadishu faction leader Abdi Nure Siyad, also known as "Abdi Wal". Siyad is a member of a newly created group - the Alliance for Peace and Fight Against International Terrorism - which comprises several Mogadishu-based faction leaders.

Cote d'Ivoire's President Laurent Gbagbo and Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny appear to be locked in disagreement over the thorny issue of disarmament. Last week key players meeting under African Union mediation agreed that a programme for disarmament of rebels and pro-government militia could run alongside an identification programme for up to 3 million disenfranchised Ivorians. But Gbagbo, who gave the thumbs up to simultaneous identification and disarmament back in February, appears to have changed his mind.

An international fact-finding mission arrives in Malawi next week to address the ongoing hunger emergency in the southern African country. The mission, comprised of human rights experts from Ghana, Kenya and Malawi, Canada and Germany, is co-organized by Rights & Democracy (Canada) and FIAN International (Germany). The week-long inquiry, which takes place from April 17 to 23, supports an ongoing initiative by a broad coalition of Malawian civil society organizations working to ensure that both donor countries and the Government of Malawi respect commitments outlined in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, including those related to the human right to food.

Nigerian militants in the southern Delta region have rejected plans announced by President Olusegun Obasanjo to develop their region. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta also renewed its threat to continue oil installation attacks. It said the offer of thousands more jobs and a new motorway did not address their demands for more local control of oil wealth and demilitarisation.

Ahmat should be studying for his high school exams but the fear of more fighting is uppermost in his mind nearly a week after pro-government forces repelled a rebel assault on the Chadian capital. "That day for me was 'black Thursday'," he said, referring to the fighting that rocked N'Djamena last week as rebels trying to overthrow Chad's President Idriss Deby Itno battled with pro-government forces in and around the city. Residents fear a fresh outbreak of fighting is inevitable, despite the return of calm to N'Djamena amid patrols by the state army.
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* Rebels 'will not delay' Chad poll

"The Botswana Centre for Human Rights strongly condemns the execution of Mr Modisane Ping on Saturday 1 April 2006 . There was no notification of the impending execution. The actual execution was conducted in secrecy. Mr. Ping's family did not have any access to him immediately prior to the execution. Mr. Ping's family did not have access to his body and the family members were not afforded an opportunity to ensure that Mr. Ping received a decent burial. Further, the family does not have the opportunity to visit Mr. Ping's grave. The result of executing people in secret in Botswana is to punish their relatives, who were not responsible for the crime. We believe that a lack of transparency of procedures is a serious threat to democracy and good governance."

In Algeria, the good news is that citizens no longer live in fear of being butchered by Islamist militants at makeshift roadblocks, or of being "disappeared" by hooded policemen who break down their front doors. But after turning the corner on a conflict between government forces and Islamist rebels that claimed more than 100,000 lives, mostly civilian, since 1992, Algeria is moving toward less, not more, freedom. The extraordinarily broad new "law implementing the charter on peace and national reconciliation" makes this clear. Never before has a government, in the guise of healing a nation after a fratricidal war, threatened to impose such heavy punishments on those who dare to pose critical questions about the past.

The United Nations World Food Programme has welcomed its first ever contribution from the Government of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. The donation of 6.1 million Libyan dinars (US$4.5 million) will help feed 2.7 million people in the Darfur region of western Sudan and 200,000 Sudanese refugees in eastern Chad.