Pro-government militias in Côte d'Ivoire are committing serious abuses against civilians, including killings and torture, Human Rights Watch says. The Ivorian government and international peacekeeping forces must take steps to control the rise of these militias, which operate with impunity.

The "marginalised majority" in Sudan, including rebel groups fighting against the government in the country's only remaining battlefield, Darfur, will not accept a bilateral peace agreement between the government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), according to a Darfur rebel group.

A two month long general strike continues to paralyze schools, colleges and universities in Niger, where the government has made serious reforms to the education system in response to demands from the World Bank and international capital. Teachers and students continue to protest against the cuts that have come along with restructuring, which has led to numerous violent confrontations and arrests.

On the one side is Bulelani Ngcuka and his Scorpions investigative unit, whose powers Ngcuka is alleged to have abused in an attempt to settle old scores with certain prominent ANC members. On the other side is struggle icon and former transport minister Mac Maharaj and the former head of the ANC's internal counter-intelligence unit, Mo Shaik. This week the two accusers, Maharaj and Shaik, who have accused Ngcuka of being an apartheid-era spy, were humiliated in public at a commission to investigate the claims.

"Charges against leaders and activists of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition and other civic societies, arrested on Tuesday November 18, 2003 were dropped this week. The activists were arrested for demonstrating against government’s mismanagement of the economy, high inflation and taxation. We applaud the individual officers within the Attorney General’s department whose decision it was to decline to prosecute some of Zimbabwe’s illustrious human rights defenders." Clicking on the link below will take you to the full press statement, a further statement by the Zimbabwean Lawyers for Human Rights on the arrests, and a report on the humanitarian crisis facing Zimbabwe.

At least eight people were killed and over 10 wounded in heavy fighting which broke out in the southern coastal town of Marka, 100 km south of the capital Mogadishu, last week, according to local sources.

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe will not attend the upcoming Commonwealth summit in Nigeria next month, ending weeks of speculation that the government's last-minute attempts might secure him an invitation.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has warned that Cote d'Ivoire could "slip back into conflict" as five West African governments began lobbying for a fully fledged UN peacekeeping force to be sent to the country. Annan told the UN Security Council in New York on Monday that he was "deeply concerned" by a two-month-old impasse between President Laurent Gbagbo and rebels occupying the north of Cote d'Ivoire.

The practice of abducting children for exploitation as child soldiers or sexual slaves continues unabated in Northern Uganda’s three districts of Kitgum, Gulu and Pader. Despite tragic losses and cruel compromises of human rights of the kidnapped children, the government forces insist that they will not lay down their guns until they have disarmed and paralysed the rebel forces, while civil society, local communities, and religious actors are together crying for peace. This article in the Peace and Conflict Monitor assesses the chances for non-violent change in Northern Uganda.

Defying the odds, people survive while conflict rages round them. How do they do it? In situations of chronic conflict and political instability (SCCPIs) can livelihoods analysis complement a political economy approach? What kind of aid channels are best suited to efforts to support livelihoods? A paper from the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) traces the development of livelihoods approaches taken by relief agencies and how they define and react to ‘crises’ and ‘emergencies’.

The eldest son of Mobutu Sese Seko, former leader of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, has ended his six-year exile. Manda Mobutu, 43, who has started a new political party, was welcomed at the airport by 200 cheering supporters, reports Reuters news agency.

Deported Senegalese Imam Mamour Fall has accused the Italian government of racism. The controversial cleric, who lived in Italy for 11 years, told the BBC he felt victimised for being an African. The Italian Interior Ministry deported Imam Fall for supporting Osama Bin Laden after he predicted more attacks on Italians in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Some 700 people associated with Mayi-Mayi militias were demobilised in Kindu, eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), on Saturday by the UN peacekeeping mission in the country, MONUC, in cooperation with forces of the seventh military region of the unified national army. A statement issued by MONUC on Monday reported that the 700 individuals - including women, children and the elderly - who opted to return to civilian life, were part of a larger group of about 2,000 fighters, the remainder of whom asked to be integrated into the national army.

The Kenyan government has initiated debate on a Bill which seeks, among other things, to give refugees citizenship status in Kenya. The bill was moved by Minister in the Office of the Vice President and Home Affairs Linah Chebii Kilimo and was seconded by Foreign Affairs Assistant Minister Moses Wetangula. Wetangula said the Refugees Bill was long overdue as the most dehumanising thing in a person's life was to be violently uprooted.

Hundreds of families who were driven out of their homes by recent fighting in the Galgudud Region, central Somalia, are said to be living in "destitute" conditions. Local elders told IRIN the exodus was due to heavy fighting two weeks ago between the Darod subclan of the Marehan and the Dir subclan of Fiqi Mahmud. The clashes were concentrated in and around the village of Herale, some 80 km northwest of Dhusa-Marreb, the regional capital.

Despite the peace agreement of 18 August 2003 and the establishment of a United Nations (UN) peace-keeping operation, civilians continue to be killed, raped, used as forced labour and driven from their homes, an Amnesty International delegation recently returned from Liberia concluded. Speedy deployment of additional UN peace-keeping forces is necessary to provide protection. In addition, the perpetrators of these abuses must be made to understand that they will be held accountable.

The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) and the Eritrean government are carrying out their first-ever joint registration of around 4,000 refugees, some of whom have been in the country for up to 10 years.

A shortage of food and medical aid is threatening the lives of several thousands of displaced people living in Côte d’Ivoire’s administrative capital, Yamoussoukro, a Catholic nun told IRIN on Thursday. Yamoussoukro, 266 km north of Abidjan and an hour away from the rebel-held town of Bouake, has some 27,500 internally displaced people (IDPs) living in 4 major camps and with host families.

Tens of thousands of refugees in Ethiopia face severe food shortages early next year, the UN's World Food Programme warned on Tuesday. It has appealed for US $5.3 million to help feed 123,000 refugees – mainly from war-ravaged Sudan and Somalia.

Members of Burundi's main Hutu rebel group, a faction of the Forces for the Defence of Democracy, are now represented in the country's government. They hold four of the 27 ministerial posts. Rebel leader Pierre Nkurunziza is Burundi's new minister for good governance.