Radio for Peacebuilding, Africa Search for Common Ground (SFCG) invites you to produce audio elements for a series of programmes on different peace-building techniques. These elements (+/- 3 min.) will be combined to create exemplary programmes in English, French, Swahili and Hausa. All formats are welcome: news, talk-shows, soap operas, music programmes, etc. Your contribution automatically gives you the chance to participate the Radio for Peacebuilding, Africa Awards, which will give prizes for the best audio elements. In addition you will be able to win 50 Euro if you are among the first 40 who submit high quality radio elements. But you must contact us first for more information. To participate in the project and/or get more information, please contact us at [email protected] with "audio element" as the subject title. Please be sure to include your name, phone number and radio station so that we can get back to you.

The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) launched a project intended to curb the incidence of sexual and gender-based violence in refugee camps in Kenya. n"Serious violations of the safety, security and dignity of refugees have occurred in many refugee programmes in the past," George Okoth-Obbo, UNHCR's country representative in Kenya said during the launch of the 'Preventing Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in the Kenya Refugee Programme' project. Obbo said: "It is an irony that refugees have fled their homes because they could not find safety, yet they arrive in asylum to find equally acute forms of danger, fear and anxiety."

Every year, thousands of Africans fleeing war and economic hardship make a perilous journey towards the tip of the continent - their sights set on a better life in the regional powerhouse, South Africa. But while South Africa is grappling with the challenge of providing anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) to those of its citizens who are HIV-positive, less is said about how best to treat AIDS in the country's substantial population of refugees and illegal immigrants. As a result, the few who do qualify for ARVs often miss out on the opportunity of taking these life-prolonging drugs - while those who don't find the hardships of migrant life compounded by HIV.

The Oxford University Refugee Studies Centre has developed a CD-ROM to improve the global availability of the Centre's research and information resources, particularly to those on the wrong side of the 'digital divide'. It includes the complete RSC Working Papers Series; Research Reports; Annual Reports; Forced Migration Online Research Guides; and, the full back catalogue of Forced Migration Review, including Spanish and Arabic Editions. The first edition of the CD-ROM is currently being distributed free with Forced Migration Review Issue 22. To request a copy of the CD-ROM please contact: Paul Ryder, Research Information Officer Refugee Studies Centre Queen Elizabeth House 21 St. Giles Oxford OX1 3LA Email: [email protected] Tel: +44 (0)1865 270722 Fax: +44 (0)1865 270721

The African Commission on Human and People's Rights has adopted a report critical of President Robert Mugabe's human-rights record. The report is the result of investigations done three-years ago by the African Union-sponsored Commission. Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights has circulated the report, adopted last month by the executive council of the African Commission on Human and People's Rights, during the African Union meeting in Abuja, Nigeria.

Threats of arrest made by the UN's International Criminal Court (ICC) to the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) may jeopardise an already shaky peace process, the Catholic Church said. "Their officials seem to lack some serious grasp of the situation, particularly the fact that to start war crimes investigations for the sake of justice at a time when the war is not yet over risks having, in the end, neither justice nor peace delivered," the Gulu Catholic Archdiocese's Justice and Peace Commission said in a statement on Tuesday.

Six Moroccan soldiers serving as U.N. peacekeepers in Congo have been arrested for sexually abusing young girls, the government said on Sunday. It also said the head of the Moroccan military contingent in Congo and his deputy have been relieved of their duties. Over the past year the United Nations has probed 150 allegations against some 50 soldiers of various nationalities of sexual exploitation of women and girls, including of being involved in gang rapes.
* Read Kofi Annan's letter to the Security Council detailing new measures for peacekeepers in the DRC
http://www.peacewomen.org/un/pkwatch/discipline/SGletterMONUC05.pdf

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan's special envoy for children and armed conflict (CAAC) has launched an action plan for systematically monitoring and reporting of child abuse in situations of armed conflict, or in "situations of concern," with a view to triggering a strong international response. In the past several years, CAAC issues had benefited from increased visibility and advocacy, while key regional and multilateral organizations had adopted many CAAC norms as their own, Special Representative Olara Otunnu told a news conference at which he discussed Mr. Annan's report to the Security Council.

Renewed fighting among various groups in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), in areas close to the border with Uganda, has triggered new arrivals of refugees in western Uganda, an official of the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said on Thursday. "There has been an upsurge in arrivals in the past four days. We have recorded at least 200 every day who, reportedly, are fleeing fighting in DRC, close to Kyoma and Kasenyi villages," Roberta Russo, the UNHCR spokeswoman in Kampala, said.

African Rights has welcomed the release from prison of Zamzam Ahmed Dualeh, the 17-year old girl who was arrested in Hargeisa on August 15. She was sentenced to five years in prison after a grossly unfair trial in which she was forced to defend herself because her lawyers had been detained. The move comes some weeks after President Dahir Rayale stated, on the Somali Service of the BBC, that he was ready to pardon her if Zamzam and her mother submitted a petition for a presidential pardon. As previously detailed by African Rights, Zamzam was detained on charges that she was part of a conspiracy to murder Somaliland's Vice-President, Ahmed Yusuf Yassin, and that she had acted at the behest of men based in neighbouring Puntland.

Signatory civil society groups to this statement express their anger at the lifting of Ayman Nour's parliamentary immunity. The speed with which Nour, a member of the People's Assembly and leader of the Ghad political party, was arrested, the timing of the arrest and its illegality under the People's Assembly internal regulations all raise strong suspicion, says this statement from the Arab Center for the Independence of Judiciary and Legal Profession (ACIJLP). Increasing this suspicion is the fact that he was arrested, his home and office searched and Nour himself insulted in circumstances which clearly indicate that the charges laid against him - of falsifying the signatures of founder members of the party - are unfounded.

Ivory Coast's rebels announced Wednesday they were restructuring their military to boost their presence on the front lines of the conflict that has divided the west African state for more than two years. "We will reinforce our presence on the front lines, and restructure our military to confront the real dangers (we face)," rebel spokesman Sidiki Konate told AFP by telephone from the rebel stronghold of Bouake in the center of the world's top cocoa producer.

UN peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo have been banned from having sex with locals after claims of widespread abuse of women and girls. The new rules were disclosed in a letter from UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to the Security Council. Mr Annan also called for 100 extra military police and French-speaking investigators to "root out" the abuse.

This essay from African Studies Quarterly identifies a number of problematic issues concerning transitional justice and restorative justice in particular and suggests that they can be fruitfully explored through thoughtful examination of the truth-seeking projects of this issue's case countries: South Africa, Rwanda and Sierra Leone. One debate is whether political transitions genuinely require a unique type of justice or whether transitional justice results from a mere political choice which compromises justice. There is also a set of very practical concerns that need attention: what are the ideal balances between trials and truth commissions, domestic and international initiatives, efficiency and effectiveness?

The decision by African regional organisations to send troops to Somalia risks destabilising Somalia's fragile transitional institutions and jeopardising the peace process. At an emergency session of the African Union Peace and Security Council in Addis Ababa last week, the Horn of Africa inter-governmental organisation IGAD received the green light to send 7,500 troops in response to a request from Somalia's interim President to help him return to the country and disarm its warring factions. The Somali transitional government is deeply internally divided over the issue, and the parliament has not yet approved any foreign military deployment. Various Somali leaders and groups have threatened to oppose such an intervention by force.

A new website devoted to promoting discussion of the way UNHCR conducts refugee status determination has been established at www.unhcr-rsd.org. The site is sponsored by AMERA-UK and Frontiers Center (Lebanon). The site is now 'live' and comments are welcome before publicity efforts are made to launch the site. It is hoped that the site will serve several purposes. First of all, it will be a central location in which to collect information about UNHCR-RSD, and make it available to the public. Second, it is hoped that it will increase the visibility of this issue on the refugee protection agenda. Third, we want to develop a forum for discussing issues connected with UNHCR-RSD. We hope local NGOs will contribute descriptions of local UNHCR procedures. Right now, the site focuses on countries where UNHCR is solely responsible for RSD; if there is interest, we could add discussion of countries such as Uganda and Israel where UNHCR is highly involved in government RSD procedures. Please send in other ideas, or important documents that should be on the site. Once the site is launched, we will solicit initial postings, and invite UNHCR to participate. Comments to [email protected]

Relatives of victims in Rwanda's genocide say they plan to file a lawsuit accusing French soldiers of complicity in the 1994 massacre. Meantime, a board of inquiry composed of French rights groups and lawyers has issued a 600-page report on the genocide, saying that French troops were complicit in the slaughter.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, under fire at home and abroad for his intimidation of domestic opponents, was feted as a "warrior of freedom" last Thursday by Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez. The 80-year-old African leader, who is barred from traveling to the European Union by EU sanctions, was warmly received by left-winger Chavez after he arrived in Caracas to attend a two-day summit of developing nations.

Numbers coming out of Congo these days are staggering, reports this article from Germany's Der Spiegel newspaper. There are currently 2.5 million refugees in the entire country, including 500,000 in the North Kivu province alone. According to conservative estimates, more than three million people have died in the region in the past few years. The US-based International Rescue Committee (IRC) recently reported that thousands of people die in the country each day from malnutrition or any one of a myriad of diseases.

A new relief operation has begun in the district of Ituri, northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), to help tens of thousands of people displaced by fighting in January. UNICEF said it had reached at least 42,000 displaced people at four sites for internally displaced persons (IDPs), three of which are protected by troops of the UN Mission in the DRC, known as MONUC. The agency said it had not yet been able to reach many other displaced people.