The Nigerian military launched a helicopter gunship attack on targets in the oil-producing Delta state on Wednesday, and militants threatened to shoot down aircraft unless military flights stopped. The attack was the first major military operation in the Niger Delta since a militant group staged a series of attacks against the oil industry, and hours after British Foreign Minister Jack Straw called on the Nigerian government to improve security in the delta.

As Washington's dependence on African oil intensifies, some analysts predict the region will increasingly play host to confrontations between US forces deployed there and various insurgent groups, predominantly Islamic extremists. Last year, the Trans-Sahara Counter-Terrorism Initiative (TSCTI) was allocated just 16 million dollars - pocket change compared to other U.S. military incursions across the globe. But funding for the exercises, described as enhancing regional security and stability, is expected to grow steadily in coming years.

No issue is more important than security sector reform in determining the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s prospects for peace and development, says a new report from the Crisis Group. "Two particular challenges loom large: the security services must be able to maintain order during the national elections scheduled for April 2006 and reduce the country’s staggering mortality rate from the conflict – still well over 30,000 every month. On the military side, far more must be done to create an effective, unified army with a single chain of command, rather than simply demobilising militias and giving ex-combatants payout packages."

This paper examines the question of why so many ordinary Hutu participated in genocidal killing of Tutsi in Rwanda in 1994. "I find that mass mobilisation was contingent on the fulfilment of two main conditions. Firstly it required a mindset - the internalisation of a set of historical and ideological beliefs - within the Hutu population. Secondly, it required the commitment of State institutions to the genocidal project. This commitment provided the initial trigger, legitimacy and impunity for civilian participation in an anti-Tutsi programme."

Ministers responsible for refugee affairs in Member States of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) are due to meet in Nairobi, Kenya, from 20-21 February 2006 to discuss problems of refugees, returnees and internally displaced persons in the region. The region has generated a total of 1.3 million refugees, a large portion of whom (695,000) are hosted in Uganda, Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya, Djibouti, Central African Republic and Egypt. The conference will also review the humanitarian crises confronted by the region, share experiences and come up with a regional plan of action to respond to challenges in protection and assistance for persons affected by displacement.

The government must harmonise its national laws with the various international treaties it has ratified to better protect its citizens' rights, human rights NGOs in the Republic of Congo have said. "It is important that the government makes an effort to guarantee and make directly applicable the various human rights laws and instruments," Roger Bouka-Owoko, the head of the committee that organised a conference on rights issues, said in a statement.

Bossaso is not only the chief commercial port of Puntland, a self-declared autonomous area in north-east Somalia, but also one of the world's busiest smuggling hubs. Guns, cigarettes and drugs come in; people go out. For at least three years, thousands of Somalis, and increasingly, Ethiopians, have set off from the coastline in tiny open fishing boats hoping to reach Yemen. From there many hope to move on to work illegally in Saudi Arabia, which looms large in the local imagination as a land of riches.

Amnesty International has learned that on Saturday, 11 February 2006, at approximately 12.00 pm, armed police and security forces arrived in 15 cars at Juba University in Bahri, Khartoum at the request of university officials. Without warning, they began beating, with batons, a group of students that were gathered peacefully in front of the Administration building. According to a credible source, the detainees have been taken to unofficial National Security detention sites known as "ghost houses", where they have been tortured. The detainees have reportedly also been deprived of food and denied access to legal counsel and their families.

African awardees include:

* Arnold Tsunga (Zimbabwe) represents victims of human rights abuses and campaigns for greater respect for human rights; he has repeatedly denounced the undemocratic system of justice in Zimbabwe. He has been threatened, detained, and is constantly harassed.
* Golden Misabiko (Democratic Republic of Congo) has denounced human rights violations in his country for the past 20 years. He was tortured in 2001 and had to flee the country in 2002 due to death threats. He returned to the DRC in 2005. Since then he has been detained several times and constantly harassed.
* Jennifer Williams (Zimbabwe), one of the leaders of WOZA (Women of Zimbabwe Arise), continues to organise and lead peaceful protests against the ongoing erosion of human rights in Zimbabwe, in spite of having been arrested and beaten by the police.

A new ICFTU report on core labour standards in Angola, which coincides with Angola's trade policy review at the WTO, identifies shortcomings in the application and enforcement of core labour standards, in particular with regard to trade union rights and child labour. Although workers have the right to organise and bargain collectively, these rights are denied both in law and practice. Government approval is needed to form trade unions and to carry out many union activities. Civil liberties remain scarce, even today, several years after the end of the civil war.

The ICFTU and the WCL welcomed the news on 7 February of the positive verdict in the dispute between Diamyo El Hadj Yacouba, General Secretary of the energy workers' union (Syndicat des Travailleurs de l'Energie du Niger) and representative of the CNT (Confédération nationale des travailleurs) on the National Commission on Human Rights and Labour Standards, and his employer, the company NIGELEC. If the company respects the decision of the Appeals Court, the union leader will be reinstated and will receive back pay, bonuses and benefits dating back to the time of his dismissal.

The last group of Sudanese remaining in detention after a protest in a Cairo park was broken up in late December, were released on Saturday by the Egyptian authorities with a promise not to deport them. After extensive interviews by UNHCR in the detention facilities, the 156 Sudanese just released were determined not to be refugees in need of international protection. However, UNHCR requested that their cases be treated on humanitarian grounds and asked that they be released and not deported.

Following Liberia’s credible elections in October 2005 there may at last be real cause for optimism for the hundreds of thousands of people displaced by fourteen years of civil war. While the new government of President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has been taking the first steps towards economic and security sector reform, IDPs and refugees have been continuing to return home in large numbers. In January 2006 the UN reported that less than 50,000 registered IDPs remained in camps – with some 270,000 already assisted to return to their home areas – and that facilitated IDP return was expected to be completed in April 2006.

Of the estimated 25 million people worldwide who are uprooted in their own countries by violence and persecution, over half are in Africa. Some 2.9 million of these internally displaced persons (IDPs) are found in countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The highest numbers are in the DRC and Zimbabwe, where IDPs are in critical need of humanitarian assistance and protection. In addition, a sizeable IDP population still persists in Angola years after the end of conflict. Moreover, displacement continues to occur in a number of other SADC countries as a result of natural disasters and other causes.

Rival Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) camps have started a cyber-war and ratcheted up their campaigns to demonise each other ahead of parallel congresses this month and in March. The camp led by MDC vice-president Gibson Sibanda has distributed a draft constitution reportedly crafted by Morgan Tsvangirai's group.

Special Court Prosecutor Desmond de Silva QC has welcomed a resolution adopted unanimously by Sierra Leone’s Parliament on Wednesday urging the trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor.

Civil society groups and members of the Sudanese community in Egypt held a ceremony on Tuesday commemorating refugees and asylum seekers killed in clashes with local police, following a sit-in protest in December 2005. In Muslim countries such as Egypt, wakes are traditionally held 40 days after a death has occurred. Late last year, Sudanese protesters staged a three-month-long sit-in demonstration in a public park in central Cairo. On the night of 29 December, however, Egyptian police staged a massive security operation to evacuate the site of the protest.

The Bush Administration will face a unique opportunity in February to end the genocide in Darfur when the United States takes over the presidency of the United Nations (UN) Security Council. With this responsibility comes a chance to take an action that can save hundreds of thousands of lives and restore security to western Sudan. As the situation in Darfur continues to deteriorate, the US leadership at the UN next month can achieve protection for the people of Darfur and affirm a commitment to stopping this first genocide of the 21st century.

Just days after Johannesburg mayor and ANC candidate - Amos Masondo - arrived in Pimville, Soweto, to ask residents for their votes, ESKOM, the state's corporatised electricity provider, returned to show the community exactly what they would be voting for. This time it was Trevor Ngwane's turn. Trevor, a well know campaigner against ANC neoliberal policies, lives in Pimville where, thanks to an illegal connection, he has enjoyed decommodified electricity for the last five years. In Trevor's words "when they cut us off we just reconnect ourselves". With less than a month to go before the election, ESKOM officials, accompanied by police visited Trevor. Prepped to cut his electricity, they began digging up the earth in front of his house, searching for the offending cable. The community would however have their say as well, and twice the ESKOM brigades were forced to flee and return with reinforcements.

This report, by the Forced Migration and Refugee Studies Centre at the American University in Cairo, seeks to shed light on the experiences of refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants temporarily residing in and passing through Libya en route to the EU. It also analyses the notion of protection for refugees and asylum-seekers in Libya both from a legal perspective and as understood by refugees and asylum-seekers themselves.