Produced by UNICEF and the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, this publication is an essential guide to the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child related to children in armed conflict. It describes the context surrounding its adoption, efforts supporting its objectives, key provisions and the legislative processes involved for signature and ratification or accession. The Guide aims to support child rights advocates - including government officials, child protection agencies, humanitarian workers and those involved in national coalitions - in their work to generate momentum and support for ratification and implementation of the Optional Protocol.

Armed militias continue to violate human rights and international humanitarian law, despite the progress being made to end Liberia's 14-year conflict, a human rights lawyer says. "The rebels are engaged in a new wave of violence, extorting, abducting and harassing the civilians," said Dempster Browne, chairperson of the Monrovia-based National Commission on Human Rights.

Human rights groups in Kenya have called on the government to set up an independent truth and reconciliation commission that will, amongst other things, try judges who were suspended last year on charges of corruption. At present, a special tribunal is dealing with these allegations. Certain activists have little faith in the body, however.

A human rights NGO in the Republic of Congo has denounced what it says is the widespread violation of the rights of indigenous populations, commonly referred to as "pygmies". In a report, issued last Thursday, the Observatoire congolais des droits de l'homme (Ocdh) said that aside from factors related to the general weaknesses in the government apparatus, the failure to issue identity cards to and register the births of indigenous populations demonstrated both "negligence and a manifest lack of consideration" on the part of Congolese authorities.

The government of Slovakia must do more to bring its arms trade under control, Human Rights Watch says in a new report. Slovakia adopted some legal reforms in 2001 and 2002, but serious problems remain that allow arms to be exported or illegally trafficked to human rights-abusing countries in Africa and elsewhere. Human Rights Watch said that the country has served as both an exporter and transit hub for arms deals from other countries. Many of the weapons it supplies are surplus weapons the country is shedding as it finalized preparations to enter NATO.

The third phase of the long drawn out Somali peace talks is set to begin next week at the Kenya College of Communications Technology, Mbagathi, with some of the sticky issues carried forward from the second phase being among those expected to play themselves out prominently. With the tricky question of power sharing and the formation of an all - inclusive government as the main agenda, Article 30 of the Somali Charter - expected to be adopted by the next government as the Constitution for a federal Somali state - is bound to be the centre of focus as some participants are still dissatisfied with the formula for the formation of the 275 member parliament and the eventual appointment of a transitional president.

The education ministry and stakeholders are to establish a database on the protection of children during and after emergency in the war-affected districts of northern Uganda. This was disclosed by the state minister for education and sports, Henry Oryem, during a regional education workshop at St. Lira Hotel recently. Oryem called for a restoration of the school infrastructure destroyed by the war.

The appearance of Former President Jerry John Rawlings before the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) in response to two subpoenas from the Commission came to an anticlimactic end after 30 minutes hearing on Thursday. The Chairman of the Commission, Mr Justice Kweku Etru Amua-Sekyi discharged Rawlings after the Former President had said he did not have a video and audio recordings of two events. Former President Rawlings was to produce a video recording of the torture and killing of some soldiers, who allegedly attempted to overthrow his government.

Kenya's Sudanese refugees have mixed feelings about returning to their war-torn homeland. Many want to go home as soon as negotiators sign a peace accord, while others are worried about finding schools and other infrastructure. Many young Sudanese refugees in this camp have never seen their homeland. The only thing they know about their native southern Sudan comes from their families, in stories told many times over during 12 years of exile in the middle of a semi-arid desert.

As long as people's human rights are being violated, the world will have a "refugee problem". And whenever there is a refugee problem, the people who will suffer the most are the refugees themselves. Those who drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognized this in 1948, as did those who drafted the 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention. The right to seek asylum from persecution, as well as the right not to be sent back to your persecutors, were both given a central place in the human rights framework that evolved after the horrors of the Second World War. Yet, in the early 21st century, more than fifty years since the adoption of the 1951 Convention, do states care about refugee protection? Do people care?

The Refugee Law Project (RLP) is an autonomous project of the Faculty of Law at Makerere University located in Kampala, Uganda. Through its departments of Legal Aid and Counselling, Education and Training, and Research and Advocacy, the RLP raises awareness of the plight of the approximately 160,000 officially registered asylum seekers and refugees in Uganda and strives to ensure enjoyment of their human rights. The RLP is currently inviting applications for the post of Research Fellow for citizens of the East African region. The Fellow would operate within the Department of Research and Advocacy and be responsible for assisting in the continual refining of the project's research agenda. The position would involve carrying out field research at both fundamental/policy and investigative/individual levels throughout Uganda, analysing collected data, and contributing to various publications of the RLP including its Working Paper series and Policy Paper series.

The tiny African kingdom of Lesotho declared a state of emergency Wednesday and appealed for more food aid, saying thousands of people would otherwise face severe shortages because of prolonged drought. Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili said the mountainous territory's population of around 2 million required 57,000 tons of food products to feed some 600,000 people who would need aid until the 2005 harvest. "The severe drought during the 2002/2003 cropping season led to untimely planting of food crops, and the last winter saw neither rain nor snow throughout the season," Mosisili said.

The U.K Government has made a formal intervention in the US justice process in an attempt to stop British companies being sued in America for alleged human rights violations committed around the world. The move follows months of lobbying from British businesses, which are concerned that they might have to pay millions of pounds in compensation for the alleged exploitation of Third World countries and their people. The Foreign Office is understood to be concerned about a billion-dollar damages claim against British companies that conducted business in apartheid South Africa. Shell, Barclays, NatWest and the mining group Anglo American were named as co-defendants in a lawsuit brought by victims of the racist regime.

Security in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is improving so fast that United Nations troops can leave this year, President Joseph Kabila has said. Some 10,000 UN troops are in the DRC to monitor a peace deal which ended almost five years of war. Despite the peace deal, parts of eastern DRC in particular remain dangerous with many different armed groups killing, raping and looting.

Scores of people are reported to have been killed in renewed violence in Ethiopia's tense Gambella region. United Nations officials say that up to 40 people died in the clashes, reports the UN's Irin news agency. Last year, some 150 people died in violence between ethnic Nuers and Anyuaks.

High Commissioner Ruud Lubbers has dismissed claims that refugees spread AIDS as attempts to further stigmatize a population already traumatized by discrimination and negative stereotyping. Addressing the 20th meeting in Geneva on Monday of the Interagency Advisory Group on AIDS, Lubbers said this "double discrimination" was not only unjust but also unsubstantiated by data.

Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir has declared victory in the contested western region of Darfur, offered rebels a one-month amnesty and said he would not attend peace talks this weekend in Geneva. He has promised to provide access to Darfur for aid workers, however, a move the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs welcomed. "This represents a breakthrough, since for months we have been prevented from reaching large numbers of displaced civilians in what is one of the worst emergencies in Africa," said Jan Egeland, the U.N. emergency relief coordinator.

The Angolan Government and the UNHCR this month started discussions meant to outline the repatriation program of Angolan refugees in 2004, particularly those living in sheltering camps. The UNHCR official, Matthew Brook said there might soon occur a meeting gathering all interveners of the repatriation process, which will analyse the program in an open way.

An inquiry into racism in South African rugby will be set up by the end of February, sports minister Ngconde Balfour said. Late last year the South African Rugby Football Union (SARFU) cancelled a commission that was to have begun an inquiry into alleged racism in Springbok rugby. This was after reports that a white player had refused to share a room with a mixed race team-mate. Balfour said SARFU had asked the sports ministry to conduct the inquiry into the sport nationally.

The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels who killed scores of internally displaced persons in a camp near the northern town of Lira on 5 February gained access to the camp by pretending to be government soldiers and militias. Suspicions were aroused when the rebels started deploying throughout the camp and ordering people not to move. A full-scale attack on the largely defenceless population in the camp was then launched. Contrary to government reports, victims said the rebels had deliberately opened fire on civilians inside the camp, and then, brandishing machetes and clubs, chased those who tried to run away.