Kenyan police have arrested nine people and used tear gas and water cannons in running battles with protesters before the opening of parliament. Some 200 people were waving placards demanding a referendum on a new draft constitution which would limit the president's powers. President Mwai Kibaki has formally opened what is expected to be a stormy parliamentary session.

Amnesty International fears that a military operation by the Joint Task Force Operation Restore Hope in the town of Odioma, Bayelsa State in the Niger Delta has resulted in the death of at least 15 civilians, the rape of at least two women, injuries to many people and the razing of the majority of houses in the town, the organization warned. Amnesty International has been informed that soldiers of the Joint Task Force, comprised of army and navy units, were called in to Odioma by the State authorities on 19 February to reduce tension between communities and to seek out and arrest youths who allegedly killed 12 community members, including four councillors, earlier in February.

This weekend sees a new military operation underway in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Reports from the central African country say about 800 United Nations troops have been deployed in the north-eastern Ituri region to disarm local militias held responsible for the death of nine peacekeepers last month. Recent events have underscored the difficulty of bringing lasting peace to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where conflict in eastern regions has continued despite a 2002 accord aimed at ending five years of civil war.

Following on from previous Refugee Law Project (RLP) updates on the repatriation process for Rwandese refugees in Nakivale refugee settlement in September 2004 the RLP returned to Nakivale to investigate the ongoing repatriation process for Rwandese refugees. As of February 2005, approximately 2300 Rwandese refugees have been repatriated, and 300 Rwandese refugees are registered for repatriation.

Fighting has broken out over scarce water supplies in Kalma, the largest camp for internally displaced people in Darfur, western Sudan. Organizations working in the area say there are many fights in several camps, sparked by water shortages during one of Darfur's severest droughts in 50 years. Officials previously described the situation as an "emergency," although round-the-clock efforts have delivered some relief.

On February 21 last year, rebels descended on Barlonyo displaced people's camp in northern Uganda's Lira district, burning all the huts and killing over 300 villagers in the internally displaced people's camp. A year later, as they marked the first anniversary of the massacre, villagers give their personal accounts of that bloody evening.

The Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children visited ten of the eleven refugee camps along the Chad-Sudan border from January 12-25, 2005, to collect data on the protection of refugee girls and on their access to education in the camps. While the violence continues in Darfur, the more than 200,000 Sudanese refugees who managed to escape into eastern Chad continue to face their own challenges. Women and girls still must endure life-threatening dangers, and numerous barriers exist to education.

COPA Training Course on Peace Building and Conflict Transformation Coalition For Peace in Africa (COPA), a membership organization composed of individuals and organizations within the African continent, is holding an intensive five-week capacity building training on Peace Building and Conflict Transformation for practitioners serving in the fields of human rights, relief and development, religious organizations, and personnel from other fields operating in or around conflict areas. The first training this year is scheduled to take place from May 30 to July 1, 2005 in Kampala, Uganda. Day to day proceedings of the training can be obtained from COPA offices upon request. The deadline for applications is April 28, 2005.

The United Nations Human Rights Commission is beginning its annual six-week session in Geneva amid widespread calls for reform. The commission's role is to uphold human rights, but its image has been tarnished by charges it has become a haven for countries that abuse rights.

The International Justice Tribune reports that nearly three years after the official launch of the gacaca, the community courts which were created to prosecute the majority of Rwanda's genocide suspects, the first trials opened on 10 March. Out of the approximately 10,000 local courts, less than 800 have reached the trial stage so far. In January, Domitila Mukantangazwa, executive secretary of the national gacaca service, said that "over a million persons are expected to be tried by the gacaca courts".

The most frequently violated rights in both 2003 and 2004 were those associated with freedoms of expression, assembly and association, rights and freedoms protected under Section 21 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe. according to a report by the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum.

The Forum's report said statistics for both years indicate marked increases in violence and other human rights violations associated with elections, by-elections, stayaways and demonstrations by members of civil society.

"The Public Order and Security Act (POSA) was widely used in this respect against citizens demonstrating in support of a new constitution or for food security and affordable food. POSA has been used to arrest and detain hundreds of people in the period under discussion, with the Miscellaneous Offences Act (MOA) serving as a back-up for law-enforcement agents in the on-going harassment of certain members of the public and various political parties."

* To read the report's overview, click on the link below. For a full copy of the report, email [email protected]

Refugee leaders who fled Angola's oil-rich enclave of Cabinda during the long-running separatist conflict recently went home for a "go and see" visit, organised by the UN refugee agency (UNHCR). The aim of their trip was to assess whether conditions were suitable for returning. "But, after a three-day trip, visiting three municipalities, leaders said they would be reluctant to come home unless conditions improved.

Some 600 pygmies, or Batwa, have fled Burundi for neighbouring Rwanda to escape persecution and hunger, officials say. Batwa MP Liberata Nichayenzi said the majority had fled because of intimidation by ethnic Hutus. Correspondents say the pygmies are often accused by Hutus of being allied to ethnic Tutsis. They have mostly fled the drought-hit north-eastern Kirundo province.

In this small Liberian village just over the border from Cote d'Ivoire, one out of every 10 people is a French-speaking Ivorian refugee fleeing the country's volatile "Wild West." While tens of thousands of Liberian refugees are still living in Cote d'Ivoire despite a year and a half of peace in Liberia, a mass of frightened people fled in the other direction late last year. A total 3,406 Ivorians turned up here in tiny Loguatuo, seeking assistance.

More people than ever before are migrating, or seeking to migrate, from regions afflicted by poverty and insecurity to more prosperous and stable parts of the world. Around 175 million people - 2% of the world’s population - now live in a country other than the one in which they were born. Tougher immigration policies, however, have led to an expansion of illegal international migration and undermined the system of international refugee protection.

In March 2004, a UNHCR-sponsored conference in Geneva, known as the Africa Dialogue, brought together senior government officials from Africa, donor states and representatives of international organisations. All shared the same goal: to find durable solutions for Africa's four million refugees and bring to a close some of the most protracted refugee crises in the world. A year on, more than 350,000 refugees have returned home, but there is a mixed picture ahead for 2005 with the potential success of some repatriation movements overshadowed by instability in some key regions.

The Coalition on Violence against Women (COVAW) engages chiefs and other local leaders to become women’s rights advocates and resources for victims. The program was formed because of the lack of women’s rights advocates for women who have been subjected to violence. Women who have been abused usually turn either to local hospitals/clinics or to their chiefs. However, none of these groups were able to adequately meet the women’s needs and the Coalition on Violence Against Women wanted to change this. Visit the New Tactics in Human Rights website to view the full story.

Amnesty International welcomes the referendum on the Burundian Constitution, likely to be overwhelmingly approved, and urges the Government of Burundi to take all possible measures to ensure that the human rights provisions enshrined in the Constitution quickly become a reality for Burundians. The organisation also strongly encourages politicians vying for the presidency and other public office to adopt and publicly commit to following an explicit human rights agenda in their campaign platforms.

The Ghanaian Action Network on Small Arms (GHANSA) launched a Week of Action against the illicit proliferation of small arms and light weapons on 14 of February 2005. The launch ceremony in the Northern Regional capital, Tamale, attracted some Northern Region Members of Parliament, security persons, traditional rulers, religious leaders, students, youth groups, youth chiefs and opinion leaders among others. Click on the link below to read the GHANSA newsletter.

A top militia leader says the Sudan government backed and directed Janjaweed activities in northern Darfur, according to a videotape released by Human Rights Watch. Widely regarded as the top Janjaweed leader in Darfur, Musa Hilal was interviewed over the course of several hours by Human Rights Watch researchers in Khartoum. The Sudan government has said that any atrocities in Darfur are the fault of Janjaweed "bandits" and are the result of recurring ethnic clashes in Darfur in which the government is "neutral." "We now see that the two parties responsible for crimes against humanity in Darfur are pointing the finger at each other," said Peter Takirambudde, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch's Africa division. "Musa Hilal is a dangerous man for the Sudanese government. His testimony could be very interesting to the International Criminal Court."