Germany has rejected calls to pay compensation for the killing of thousands of Namibia's ethnic Hereros during the colonial era. The German ambassador to Botswana told a gathering of Hereros in northern Botswana that Germany deeply regretted what he called "this unfortunate past". However, he said it was not prepared to offer reparations.

Hundreds of civilians are fleeing the town of Goma in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo amid fears of renewed fighting between government forces and a renegade commander who seized the town of Bukavu last month with what a new U.N. report says was the backing of the Rwandan government, Reuters reported. Forces loyal to Laurent Nkunda clashed with D.R.C. army troops near Goma last Thursday and are said to be planning an attack on the town despite the presence of 13,000 D.R.C. government soldiers there.

Civil rights groups in Zimbabwe on Monday slammed moves to introduce a new bill that will give the government greater control over the operations of NGOs and churches. The Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO) and Churches Bill is expected to be tabled in the coming parliamentary session.

Sudan's government is set to meet rebels from the Darfur region, in a bid to end the conflict described as the world's worst humanitarian crisis. Pro-government Arab militia have forced more than a million people from their homes and killed thousands. A ceasefire in Darfur was signed in April, but the fighting has continued. Khartoum, once accused of backing the Janjaweed militia, has vowed to disarm it. But the UN is concerned by reports of the forced relocation of refugees.

An appeals court at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) on Friday upheld a life sentence for Rwanda's former information minister for his role in the 1994 genocide. Eliezer Niyitegeka was jailed for life in May 2003 after the U.N. tribunal found him guilty of crimes including genocide, complicity in genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide, and crimes against humanity.

Some of the most difficult human rights violations to address are customary or traditional practices based on deep-seated beliefs of a community or people, particularly practices that have a spiritual dimension. In the Trokosi system in Ghana, women and virgin girls are taken without their consent to fetish shrines to atone for sins or alleged crimes committed by family members. The practice occurs mainly in remote areas of the Volta Region of Ghana, which is dominated by an ethnic group called the Ewes. A coalition effort involving the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ, a constitutional and statutory body), International Needs Ghana (ING, an NGO), the National Commission on Civic Education (another constitutional body), and the traditional leaders from the Ewe communities, have succeeded in liberating thousands of young women and girls held in this bondage.

The recommendation from the Parliament of Rwanda that the League for the Promotion and Defence of Human Rights (LIPRODHOR) and five other NGOs be dissolved is misconceived. African Rights urges the Government of Rwanda to reject the suggestion and undertake a fuller investigation. We call upon parliamentarians to move beyond the anger expressed in the heat of the debate and consider how the sensitive and difficult issues the discussion raised may best be addressed in the interests of all the citizens of Rwanda. We encourage them to review their recommendations and to explore, in an open and inclusive manner, constructive responses.

The Kenyan Community Abroad (KCA) says it is "deeply saddened" by the recent spate of excessive force by police on demonstrators in Kenya. KCA has always advocated a zero tolerance stance on police brutality, having previously insisted that no circumstance justifies the shooting of live ammunition. "We, therefore, strongly condemn the shooting to death of two citizens in Kisumu in the past week. We believe that the Kenyan Police authorities have enough resources, manpower and training to control riots without causing unnecessary death, and that the use of live ammunition in Kisumu or any other place in Kenya was totally uncalled for.”

Eight legislators from a former rebel group in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have withdrawn from parliament after demanding an investigation into alleged massacres of Congolese Tutsis, known as Banyamulenge, in the east of the country. The parliamentarians from the former rebel Rassemblement congolais pour la démocratie (RCD) have left the capital, Kinshasa, for the eastern town of Goma. They told IRIN on Wednesday that they would not return to parliament.

There are some 130,000 people internally displaced (IDPs) in Ethiopia due to conflicts. This figure includes 62,000 persons in Tigray who have been displaced by the military confrontation which arose from a border dispute in May 1998 between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Since 2003, about 51,000 people in Gambella have been displaced by ethnic clashes and power struggles. As of July 2004 all the displaced people were unable to return to their areas of origin due to insecurity, the presence of landmines, lack of resources and an inability to construct their livelihoods in areas of return.

Whilst the guns may have fallen silent in Sierra Leone, the problem of drug use is still a reality, opening a new battlefield for the authorities. Sierra Leone's only psychiatrist, Edward Nahim, told IPS that 'this problem is assuming frightening proportions. If not tackled urgently and decisively it may consume a whole generation of our youths.' To add weight to his concerns, a recent study has revealed that '78% of offenders in police custody tested positive for one or more illegal drugs'. Officials also report that Sierra Leone is becoming a major shipment point for drugs that are smuggled into Europe and America.

A three-day training seminar on the eradication of racism and xenophobia in Central Africa was held in Yaounde recently. Organized by the U.N Sub-Regional Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Central Africa, the seminar was co-chaired by the Director of the Centre, Ambassador Teferra Shiawl, and the Minister Delegate at the Ministry of External Relations in charge of the Commonwealth, Ndion Ngute. Particular emphases were laid on issues of racial discrimination.

After weeks in international limbo, an aid agency ship carrying 37 shipwrecked African men won permission to dock in Italy. A relief worker and two crew were later arrested, and officials claimed that some immigrants had lied about coming from Darfur in Sudan, which is in a humanitarian crisis. The German aid group Cap Anamur said its ship came across a dinghy carrying the 37 men in the Mediterranean on June 20. The agency said some identified themselves as refugees from Darfur.

Efforts to build women's capacity to work in peace-building must link women's practical needs such as access to clean water and microcredit, with strategic needs related to gendered divisions of labour and power, which require confidence building, training in awareness of human rights, and the creation of organisations and networks. This is according to a report from International Alert that documents a participatory needs assessment undertaken in mid-2002 with women involved in peace-building in the Niger Delta region.

The visits by US Secretary of State Colin Powell and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to Sudan last week gave hope that the genocide in Darfur can be arrested before an entire people is obliterated. But anyone interested in averting more tragedy there must understand that the Darfur pogrom is part of a historic continuum in which successive Arab governments have sought to entirely destroy black Africans in this biracial nation.

The Endorois Community have lived for centuries around the Lake Bogoria region in the South Baringo and Koibatek Administrative Districts of Kenya. In the 1970s, the Government of Kenya, without effectively consulting the Community, gazetted the Community's traditional lands for the purposes of creating a game reserve. The Community were told by the Government to vacate the land and were forced to move. In doing so, not only were the Community's property rights violated, but spiritual, cultural and economic ties to the land were severed.

Since the election of President Olusegun Obasanjo in 1999 ended 15 years of military rule in Nigeria, at least 10,000 people have been killed and some 800,000 displaced by outbreaks of communal violence across the country. According to government estimates, about 250,000 Nigerians remain displaced today – including up to 60,000 who fled their homes during the latest unrest in Plateau State in May 2004. A safe and conducive environment must be created for IDP return, with emphasis on reconciliation.

The "main message" from local authorities in Darfur is that the state’s hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) will have to go home "soon", according to relief workers. On 1 July, the Sudanese interior minister and government’s special representative for Darfur, Abd al-Rahim Muhammad Husayn, told reporters in Northern Darfur that it was "most important" to get people to return to their villages. Each state - Darfur region has three - had its own plan of return, he said. But humanitarian workers fear that a forcible mass return of some 1.2 million IDPs in Darfur could result in enormous fatalities.

The Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI) has signalled its outrage at police action in Diepsloot on 7 July 2004, when, for a period of three hours, media were barred from covering the ongoing conflict between the residents of the area and state authorities. Police threatened to arrest any journalist who entered the area. Diepsloot is an informal settlement, located a few kilometres outside of Johannesburg in Gauteng Province. Since 5 July 2004, Diepsloot has been rocked by violent confrontations between its residents and the police, amid allegations that the residents will be relocated to Brits, a rural area in the country's North West Province.

Congolese army troops have killed 23 Rwandan Hutu militia, known as Interahamwe, in the eastern province of North Kivu, an official told IRIN on Monday. Gen Obedi Rwabasira, the commander of the Eighth Military Region of the Democratic Republic of Congo Armed Forces, said government forces killed the militia on Friday in the villages of Rubare and Kingi, north of the provincial capital, Goma.