The first preliminary meeting for a new international effort to bring peace, stability and development to the Great Lakes region ended on Friday in Burundi's capital, Bujumbura. The key is tolerance, the UN Special Representative to the Great Lakes, Ibrahima Fall, said at a news conference on Friday at the end of the meeting. "By not creating frustrations and exclusion, we will pave the way to good governance and democracy," he said.

This article investigates the impact of the spread of HIV/AIDS on the African military and its ability to act as an effective instrument of conflict resolution in the continent. The capacity of African militaries is particularly important at a time when major powers are reluctant to engage in greater peacekeeping operations in the region. The widespread prevalence of HIV among military personnel threatens political and social stability more generally, and this study focuses on the link between peacekeeping and the disease.

The US and the South African government signed a bilateral co-operation agreement in order to improve social development and fight the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Through the US Agency of International Development (USAID), the money will be used to improve housing, education and skills, the judicial system, economic growth and fight the HIV/AIDS endemic.

Ministers and representatives from Governments participating in the Western Mediterranean Dialogue on Migration, also known as the "5+5 Dialogue" are meeting on 15 and 16 September in Algiers to work on regional cooperative approaches in the field of migration management. The event, organized by the Government of Algeria in close partnership with the International Organization for Migration, will allow participants from Algeria, France, Italy, Libya, Malta, Mauritania, Morocco, Portugal, Spain and Tunisia to follow up on the "Tunis Declaration", adopted in October 2002 by participating ministers.

A mortality survey has just been conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO) and Sudan's Ministry of Health in two of the States in Sudan's Darfur region. It concludes that death rates amongst internally displaced people still surpass the threshold for a humanitarian emergency, underscoring the need for urgent increases in, and focus on, assistance to displaced people in the region. Results show that displaced people, in North and West Darfur are dying at between three and six times the expected rate.

The Minister of State for Environmental, Lt. Gen. Jeje Odongo, has said despite the strong measures taken by the government, Uganda's biodiversity continues to be lost at an alarming rate. He said there are clear signs that desertification is looming in Uganda. "Our soils are becoming less productive, vegetation is rapidly disappearing and many places especially in the "Cattle Corridor," are now bare following excessive over grazing and deforestation for timber, charcoal and fuel leading to extinction of many plant and animal species," Odongo said.

The Kenya Human Rights Commission, which has been working with IDPs for several years now, argues that the total number in the country could well be beyond 600,000. This could be the case when you consider that in the run-up to the multiparty elections of 1992, up to 300,000 people were forced to flee their homes in the Rift Valley Province alone.

Refugees returning to Liberia later this year under the auspices of a UN repatriation programme will face starvation unless donors urgently provide more money to feed them, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) has warned. Justin Bagirishya, the head of WFP in Liberia, said chronic shortages in the food supply pipeline had forced him to make a further cut this month in the rations handed out to nearly 740,000 people who already receive food aid.

The Zambian government is hosting a delegation of former Rwandan refugees later this month to convince their compatriots to return home, a senior official told IRIN. "We have been battling to convince the Rwandans to go home," said Jacob Mphepo, Zambia's commissioner for refugees. There are currently 6,376 Rwandans in Zambia, of which 4,389 are in refugee camps. Frustrated by the reluctance of Rwandan refugees to repatriate, Mphepo said his office was considering ceasing to recognise Rwandan asylum seekers as refugees.

In recent months, tensions and tempers have flared at a handful of school grounds throughout West Darfur's state capital, Al Geneina town, where thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) gathered, escaping attacks by Janjaweed militias earlier this year. His rusty crutches resting in his lap, Sheik Al-Dain watched the others line up to receive crucial supplies that would help them survive in Krinding Two, a new IDP camp established on the outskirts of Geneina to accommodate relocated families.

Two years after Zimbabwean troops returned from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Zimbabwe’s public remains largely unaware of the activities of the mission. Government has kept a tight lid on information about the controversial deployment, which was allegedly carried out to prevent Congolese President Laurent Kabila from being ousted by rebels. The United Nations has implicated top generals, ruling party politicians and other members of Zimbabwe’s elite in illegal resource exploitation in the Congo.

At least 100 people have been killed and more than 6,000 displaced from their homes in Nigeria's oil city of Port Harcourt as a result of gang violence over the past month and attempts by the security forces to suppress it, a local human rights group said on Friday. The Lagos-based Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR) said thousands of residents in Port Harcourt and nearby villages had been forced to flee their homes as a result of these clashes.

Simon Mann, the leader of the failed coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea, has started a seven-year jail sentence in Zimbabwe for trying to buy weapons from Zimbabwe's state arms manufacturer. A court in Harare ruled that the Old Etonian and former SAS officer should stay behind bars until 2011, crushing his hopes that British establishment figures could use their money and influence to secure his freedom.

For foreign students at Newcastle University, especially Asians and Africans, abuse, vilification and even physical attacks are commonplace. "Students are worried - not scared, but worried - about the situation," said Chilean Veronica Meneses, the university's welfare officer for international students.

Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights and the Legal Resources Foundation are contemplating a class action to compel Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe to publish findings of investigations into military atrocities against civilians in Matabeleland in the 1980s. A spokesperson for the two human rights groups said they were still collecting signatures from victims of an alleged genocidal campaign in Zimbabwe’s Matabeleland and Midlands provinces that claimed the lives of an estimated 20 000 people in five years.

The United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) said on Thursday there was "no light at the end of the tunnel" in the stalled peace process between the two countries. It added that that there had been little movement over their contested 1,000-km border. "Nothing has changed," the UNMEE deputy spokesman, George Somerwill, told journalists ahead of a UN Security Council meeting to review and renew the mandate of the 4,000-strong force. The Council is expected to meet in mid-September.

Amnesty International is seriously concerned that Kenya's Suppression of Terrorism Bill 2003 contains measures that violate Kenyan law, human rights treaties to which Kenya is a party, and may result in human rights violations. The Kenyan government is presently gathering suggestions and comments on the Suppression of Terrorism Bill 2003 following widely expressed concerns and strong criticism that it contained measures that would impact negatively on human rights. The Bill, which was initially published last year, has now been shelved, pending presentation of a revised version to Parliament.

Separatists waging a low-intensity struggle against Angolan troops for control of oil-rich Cabinda have merged in a bid to engage the authorities in dialogue over the future status of the troubled province. The Front for the Liberation of the Cabinda Enclave (FLEC) and the Front for the Liberation of the Cabinda Enclave-Cabinda Armed Forces (FLEC-FAC) would now be known as FLEC.

Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni has said that attempts to hold third party talks with Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels are a waste of time. His remarks follow the latest mediation efforts by the African Union (AU) to end 18 years of fighting in northern Uganda. Talks set for Monday between Uganda's AU ambassador Joseph Ocwet and three LRA representatives were cancelled.

The U.N.-backed court for war crimes in Sierra Leone needs funding to ensure justice for victims of atrocities committed during the country's 11-year civil war, Human Rights Watch said in a new report. The Special Court for Sierra Leone is resuming the trial of leaders of the government-backed Civil Defense Forces. The United Nations and its member states - particularly the United States and Britain - should fund the Special Court's budget so that it can complete its operations. They should also increase funding to several key areas of the court to ensure that it can deliver justice fairly and effectively.