U.S. forces have disrupted several planned terrorist attacks against Western and other targets in the Horn of Africa and local authorities have killed or captured more than two dozen militants, the U.S. general in command of an anti-terrorism task force told The Associated Press. The task force is responsible for fighting terrorism in seven Horn of Africa countries: Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Yemen, Sudan, Kenya and Somalia.

The ruler of this Islamic African republic is doing his utmost to be a loyal ally in the war on terrorism: He has jailed Muslim clerics for speaking against the war in Iraq, banned political sermons, and outlawed anti-US rallies, but there are fears that allying with the US could stir up Islamic anger.

Summary killings, rape, torture, and illegal detentions remain commonplace. Children are among those who have been subjected to physical and sexual abuse by soldiers. Villagers have been harassed by Angolan Armed Forces (FAA) soldiers while working in their fields, hunting in the forests or fishing in rivers. As a result, some Cabindans, especially those in rural areas, are afraid to pursue the livelihoods that ensure their existence. Growing numbers of villagers are suffering from hunger in a region that is rich in natural resources. This is according to a report on the human rights situation in Cabinda, which is an enclave that seeks independence from Angola.

The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) warned last Thursday that a million vulnerable Kenyan children risk dropping out of school next year, due to an unprecedented funding cut in the agency's programme of providing free meals in schools.

A recent humanitarian assessment mission to Walikale territory of eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has found populations in dire need of assistance, many thousands of whom remain unreachable due to the presence of numerous armed groups.

Angola is a country in transition. "Refugees are moving, the displaced are moving and so are ex-combatants," says Kallu Kalumiya of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. In June this year, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) began one of its biggest repatriation exercises, to bring home nearly half a million Angolans scattered throughout neighbouring countries.

After years of delays, the South African government gave its stamp of approval last week to a plan for providing free anti-AIDS drugs. Over the next five years, the state hopes to extend the programme to over a million people living with AIDS. The price of a year's supply of the life-prolonging drugs, also known as anti-retrovirals (ARV's), is about 100 dollars - fifty times less than it was in November 2002.

Logic would suggest, said former U.S. Ambassador Swanee Hunt, that a woman who lost a son or daughter to a war based on ethnic hatred would become bitter and broken. That mother might be expected to devote herself to vengeance, further fuelling the fires of hatred. "But what we find," Hunt said as she hosted a recent gathering, "is women who say 'this happened to me - and it must never happen to anyone else, because I know how terrible it feels.'”

Angola's 27-year civil war has left the country in "smouldering ruin," and the "advent of peace may fan the spread" of HIV in the country, Reuters/Boston Globe reports. Some health experts believe that the war may have kept HIV/AIDS contained to small regions of the country because civilian movement was prohibited in much of the nation. However, now that the fighting has subsided, people in the country are able to travel.

The Kenya Human Rights Network (K-HURINET) and other civil society organisations have declared their strong opposition to the Suppression of Terrorism Bill which was published earlier in 2003. They have written to Kenya's legislators appealing to "all Members of Parliament who respect justice, who feel that Kenyans are entitled to the equal protection of the law and who feel that the rights of Kenyans are worth defending to strongly oppose the bill."

The Economists Allied for Arms Reduction Review is a new anthology, to be published annually, on the economics of war, conflict, and peace. The 2003 edition, "Conflict or Development?" has a further regional focus on Africa.

"I cannot conclude he was not a spy," former intelligence operative Mo Shaik told the Hefer Commission on Thursday about national director of public prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka. An emotional Shaik admitted that mistakes had been made during the liberation struggle in the identification of suspected informers. This had had "terrible consequences", Shaik said, apparently struggling to hold back tears.

Initial reports indicate quite a low turnout in most places, but in many places a sharp difference was noted between people who had registered this year and those who had registered in 1999, according to the Mozambique Political Process Bulletin (MPPB).

The main premise of this paper is that freedom of expression (and other human rights) possesses a contingent universality. The element of contingency lies in the dependence of such human rights norms upon two different sets of facets and processes. These are, first, the dynamic of internal domestic affairs, and, second, the dynamic of external or international affairs. Moreover, these two dynamics carry on a perpetual interaction in which each influences and is influenced by the other. National standards and practice are the bases of international standards and the necessary context of their implementation. Yet national standards and practices are in turn affected by international responses to the poor articulation or persistent violation of human rights at the local level.

Guinea's umbrella opposition coalition, the Republican Front for Democratic Change (FRAD), has strongly attacked the country’s Security Minister, Aboubacar Sampil, accusing him of trying to crush the opposition and warning he should be prepared for the worst.

Sitting on a hard bench, wearing a smile on his face and soaking up the warmth of the early morning sun, Hassan Athuman Bamira appears to be at ease. For Bamira, 9 November was a big day. He is the chairman of the Somali Bantus in Tanzania, and UN High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers, along with other officials, were visiting this "special" group of 3,336 refugees who have been allowed to settle in Chogo, a remote village in the northeastern Tanga region.

The battered survivors of Uganda's latest bloodletting lay moaning or unconscious in a hospital overflowing with wounded on Wednesday. The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) killed 17 people in the attack by bludgeoning their heads with wooden sticks, government officials said. But witnesses said up to 53 villagers had been killed in the raid on several villages.
Related Link:
MP's quit house in protest at war
http://www.monitor.co.ug/news/news1.php

The Zimbabwe and Swaziland governments continue their brutal attacks, arbitrary arrests and general use of force to clamp down and silence the trade union movement in general and their leaders in particular, said the leaders of National Trade Union Centres/Federations from Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The leaders met from 6th to 7th November, 2003 at the 9th Labour Symposium in Zimbabwe.

“For those of you who think it cannot happen to you, I want to let you know that the dragnet of the traffickers is so wide that only God knows who is safe.” - Titi Atiku Abubakar, Wife of Nigeria’s Vice-President. The statement indicates that the problem under focus is enormous, more so for those who live in highly corrupt societies. Whilst corruption is a common phenomenon in human practice, human trafficking as presently practiced is a recent addition to the dictionary of global woes. Read this article in the latest edition of West Africa Review.

Côte d’Ivoire’s rebels rolled out a massive display of heavy weapons in Bouake, 379 km north of the commercial capital, Abidjan on Tuesday, hours after declaring a state of emergency in areas under their control. They said their actions were in response to government preparations to launch attacks on their positions.