Thousands of Eritrean refugees are being moved away from the contested border with Ethiopia, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Monday. Some 2,400 refugees who had been living in makeshift camps in Ethiopia close to the disputed 1,000-km border began moving last week "further into Ethiopian territory for their own safety", Mahary Maasho, the UNHCR spokesman in Addis Ababa told IRIN.

Education ministers, who met in Kenya have resolved to harness the continent`s education systems into the drive for peace in Africa, and to provide education to refugees within their boundaries. The Education ministers, who met in Mombasa under the auspices of the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) and the Commonwealth Secretariat discussed challenges troubled countries face in revamping their education system during or after conflicts.

Amnesty International has strongly condemned continuing serious human rights abuses in the city of Bukavu, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). "General Laurent Nkunda and Colonel Jules Mutebusi, whose forces seized the city, should ensure that combatants under their command uphold international humanitarian law and stop attacking civilians," the organisation urged. Amnesty International is also urging MONUC, the UN peacekeeping force in DRC, which is also present in Bukavu, to do its utmost to protect civilians in the city and its environs.

The International Crisis Group urged G-8 leaders meeting in Sea Island, Georgia, on 8-10 June 2004 to push for immediate and strong action to protect hundreds of thousands of lives now at risk in Darfur in western Sudan. In a letter to heads of government and foreign ministers of the G-8 and the permanent members of the UN Security Council, and in a similar letter to the UN ambassadors of all fifteen members of the Security Council, ICG called for determined international leadership to prevent the impending disaster in Darfur. The crisis in Darfur has been developing over the past fifteen months, during which time government-backed militias have conducted a scorched-earth campaign in the region, killing many thousands of civilians and forcing over one million from their homes.

Last December, Internet portal Yahoo! and banking giant HSBC launched a Web site that allows people working in the United States to send money to family and friends living abroad directly from their computer. Currently, only a small fraction of overseas money transfers are sent via the Internet. Nonetheless, Yahoo! believes it will soon become dominant in the $50 billion United States remittance market.

Nearly 60 people have been killed in clashes between rival clans in the southwestern town of Bulo Hawa, humanitarian sources said. About 2,500 families had been displaced in and around the town while another 2,000 people had fled to Mandera in neighbouring Kenya, they added. Relief workers in Bulo Hawa, Gedo Region, told IRIN by telephone that the latest round of fighting, which took place on Tuesday, was "a continuation of tension between rival clans that had built [up] since May" over control of the local administration.

Nigeria’s Federal High Court agreed Monday to review the asylum status of fugitive former Liberian President Charles Taylor. Indicted one year ago for war crimes by the United Nations Special Court for Sierra Leone, Taylor has avoided justice by receiving asylum from Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo in August 2003. The High Court decision allowing the challenge to Taylor's asylum status to go forward was brought on behalf of two Nigerian businessmen who were tortured in 1999 by rebel groups in Sierra Leone backed by Taylor.

SaferAfrica whose mission is to serve the long-term security and development needs of Africa and its peoples, in accordance with the vision of African Renewal and values of Pan-Africanism, has a programme on “AU-NEPAD”. This programme is fully engaged in the on-going transformation of Africa's peace, security and governance. It provides expertise and supports the development of capacity for the African Peer Review Mechanism process and facilitates consultative meetings for the AU Commission on the policy and operationalization of new AU and NEPAD structures.

The Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya (ICPAK) has accused the Narc Government of blackmailing citizens under the pretext of the war on corruption. Addressing the society's 20th annual seminar, Ms Rose Ogega, the ICPAK chairman, told Ethics and Governance Permanent Secretary John Githongo and Constitutional Affairs minister Kiraitu Murungi to stop cheating the Kenyans that they are combating corruption in Government.

The leaders of rival ethnic militias agreed to make peace in the Nigerian oil town of Warri on Tuesday, while government officials urged foreign oil companies to resume operations disrupted by fighting in the Niger Delta region during the last year. In another part of the town, troops of a joint military task force demolished houses in three slum districts in an operation aimed at ridding Warri of the guns and criminals that have fuelled violence in the town.

Nigeria’s National Assembly has approved eight new laws giving President Olusegun Obasanjo sweeping powers in strife-torn Plateau State where he imposed a state of emergency last month after a surge in inter-ethnic and religious violence. The laws approved by the two-chamber legislature on Tuesday gave the police and other security services the power to detain people indefinitely, conduct searches without warrants, impose curfews and ban public processions.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned of dire health consequences for millions of people in Darfur, Sudan. A significant increase in disease and death is inevitable without a rapid increase in external help. The catastrophe can only be prevented through an urgent scaling up of the current international response.

Since the Zimbabwe Government embarked on its fast track land resettlement programme, the food situation, particularly in respect of the staple maize, has been getting worse every year. Initially people were talking of food shortage, but "famine" would now seem a more appropriate term to apply to the situation the country now faces. "Famine" has been used to describe situations of extreme food scarcity and starvation in countries such as Ethiopia and Eritrea. Nobody ever contemplated that Zimbabwe, formerly the bread-basket of southern Africa, would come to be referred to in terms of famine.

In its advocacy for worker’s rights, the Kenya Human Rights Commission’s research into Women Working in Precarious Conditions in Export Processing Zones confirms the negative effects the conduct and actions of these key non-state actors have on human rights hence justifying the need for monitoring by civil society in this new world order, where private corporations exercise inordinate influence over local laws and policies. A new publication from the Kenyan Human Rights Commission, Manufacture of Poverty, focuses on this issue.

An appeals panel of the U.N.-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone has ruled that former Liberian President Charles Taylor is not immune from prosecution for war crimes. Attorneys for Taylor had argued that the court overstepped its bounds by indicting the head of state of another country. Four appellate judges, however, ruled that because the court is an international tribunal, it does have that authority. "We hold that the official position of the applicant as an incumbent head of state at the time when these criminal proceedings were initiated against him is not a bar to his prosecution by this court," said a statement read by the court president, Justice Emmanuel Ayoola.

Democratic Republic of the Congo army soldiers this week battled a renegade army faction near the eastern town of Bukavu, shattering a fragile truce struck early this morning after the commander of the renegade group received assurances that the government would protect a group of ethnic Tutsis in the region. Clashes in eastern D.R.C. have killed at least 45 people since Wednesday, including a U.N. peacekeeper. The fighting between the renegade and regular forces resumed near the Bukavu airport, 15 miles north of the South Kivu provincial city, when the commander of the regular forces launched a fresh attack, according to unidentified security officials.

"My marriage to a black African man, who is part Kenyan and part Malawian, stirred a variety of reactions, ranging from curiosity and admiration to disdain and downright hostility. I must admit that I am still surprised at the level of support I received from some members of my immediate family. There are no 'pluses' for marrying an African, at least in the eyes of the Asian community in Kenya."

The holiday of an Indian politician and his family has turned into a nightmare, after a South African Airways official allegedly accused them of buying their passports. They claimed the SAA official was racist after she accused them of buying their passports, and refused to listen to the advice of an immigration official at the airport who said the passports were in order. However, SAA's corporate communications manager, Rich Mkhondo, denied the allegations.

Aid agencies are calling on the international community to take urgent action to help the growing number of Sudanese refugees in eastern Chad. More than a million mainly black Africans in Sudan's western Darfur region have been driven from their homes by gangs of Arab militia. Around 180,000 have sought sanctuary in neighbouring Chad. A representative of the UN refugee agency says the response to recent aid appeals has been disappointing. The approaching rainy season will also soon make it hard to reach those in need.

The public quarrel between public protector Lawrence Mushwana, National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka and former justice minister Penuell Maduna will test the ability of the African National Congress (ANC) to handle disputes that threaten to split the party, experts say. A war of words broke out between the three men following the release of Mushwana's report last week, which was critical of the way Ngcuka handled the allegations of corruption against Deputy President Jacob Zuma.