Another leader of Lesotho's Factory Workers Union (Fawu) was arrested on Wednesday following a strike earlier this week that left two dead and scores of people injured. Police reportedly arrested Willie Matheo, Fawu's deputy secretary-general, at the union's headquarters in the capital Maseru early on Wednesday morning.

Some 12,000 civilians have fled their homes in Burundi's western province of Bujumbura Rural following the latest fighting between the army and fighters loyal to rebel leader Agathon Rwasa, Governor Ignace Ntawembarira told IRIN on Wednesday.

West African heads of state on Tuesday urged the United Nations to consider deploying peacekeepers in war-divided Ivory Coast to reinforce and eventually replace a stretched regional force. The leaders' appeal was issued after a one-day summit meant to ease regional tensions aggravated by the civil war that exploded in Ivory Coast after a failed rebel uprising last year.

African human rights NGOs and their international counterparts should strengthen their relations based on the principles of: Cooperation in the exchange of information and expertise; Joint ownership of projects and recognition of the same; Avoidance of duplication, including substitution of local capacity, in projects of local NGOs by International NGOs. This is according to the declaration of an Africa Human Rights NGO Summit held in September.

Are aid agencies mistaken in thinking that conflicts are not the norm? During complex political emergencies, aid agencies prioritise tackling food insecurity but do they also reflect on the developmental consequences of the way they provide food aid? Could the humanitarian community do more to involve aid recipients and to build local capacity in the midst of conflict?

Military intervention in other countries is sometimes based around the attempt to control that country's resources. For warring factions in control of forest land, logging is one of the quickest routes to obtain significant funding, says a report from the Institute for Applied Social Science (Fafo) in Norway. The report explores the relationship between the trade in timber and armed conflict. The project examines the link between certain private sector activity and armed conflict, focussing on the question: how does certain private sector activity help sustain armed conflict and what can be done?

FiFighting in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is forcing a "steady flow" of refugees into Zambia, a spokesman for the office of the UN High Commissioner for refugees (UNHCR) told IRIN on Friday. "The refugees have told us that the reason they are fleeing into Zambia is because there has been a number of militia actions and skirmishes, mostly in the eastern part of Congo near the border with Zambia, that they are running away from," Kelvin Shimo said in the Zambian capital, Lusaka.

At least 10,000 civilians fleeing skirmishes between former government fighters and MODEL rebels in Nimba County in north central Liberia, have sought shelter in the relatively unscathed town of Saclepea, relief workers said on Monday.

The Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) has launched the web special "Hear Our Voices", devoted exclusively to the many people caught up in crises who are often written about, filmed and discussed, but seldom have the opportunity to tell their stories to the world. The aim of this web special is to provide members of the global humanitarian community with a window onto their concerns, their fears, their needs and their efforts and to give the people affected by crises in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia an opportunity to tell the global humanitarian family how such crises affect their lives, their families and their communities.

Both the Sudanese government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) have said that once a peace agreement has been signed, the return of the country's refugees and internally displaced to their homes will be a key priority. Both sides are keen to see people move freely after 36 years of conflict out of 47 since independence. But for the local authorities, donors, UN and aid agencies grappling with the prospect of 570,000 Sudanese refugees, and between 3 million and 4 million displaced returning home en masse, the challenges ahead are staggering.

Thousands of terrified civilians were fleeing a number of villages in Lira district and seeking shelter in and around Lira town, following incursions by the Lord's Resistance Army. "They are cutting off people's heads. Every time we hear of an incident, it's a new level of brutality," said Father John Fraser, who helps run the Catholic Church-owned radio station in Lira, a town of about 100,000 inhabitants.

More than 60 people were killed in the north last week by suspected rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army, religious officials said at the weekend. "Thirty people were killed in the villages of Awayapiny and Alanyi, 20 in Omarari and nine more at Omoro North Primary School - all in Lira district on Thursday night," Fr. Sabbat Ayele, a Catholic missionary, told AFP.

Peace-building efforts in Africa face considerable constraints, including inadequate funding and poor management, a conference heard on Thursday. Patrick Mazimhaka, the vice-chairman of the African Union (AU), told a key meeting on peace building in Addis Ababa that such constraints had hampered efforts to effect conflict resolution.

This paper argues for a reappraisal of the position of education in emergency programming. It explores the links between education and the wider protection needs of the children it assists. It suggests that, as protection in conflict emerges more clearly as a legitimate humanitarian concern, so the role of education as a tool of protection must be more clearly understood.

Hopes that the bitter conflict which has left between 500,000 and 800,000 people internally displaced in Côte d'Ivoire had been resolved, faded in September 2003 when the rebel groups, known as Forces Nouvelles, pulled out of a new broad-based government of reconciliation. New displacements, fuelled by inter-community hostility, are continuing in western regions.

Efforts to implement a ruling on the border dispute between Nigeria and Cameroon have hit a snag, with the filing of a law suit by Cameroonian exiles who reject the decision. They have demanded that Nigeria maintain a military presence in the Bakassi Peninsula, one of the areas that should be ceded to Cameroon, and that the government recognise the existence of Ambazonia - an independent state that would include the peninsula.

A member of the far-right Freedom Party lashed out Monday at Vienna officials for letting a memorial to a Nigerian asylum seeker who died in police custody be displayed in the city centre. The 3-meter (10-foot) stone sculpture commemorating Marcus Omofuma – who died after police bound and gagged him as he was being deported in 1999 – was placed near the Vienna State Opera without the city's permission on Oct. 10 by activist-sculptor Ulrike Truger. Truger said she wanted to raise awareness of the plight of asylum seekers in Austria by placing her statue amid symbols of great wealth, including the opera and the renowned Sacher Hotel.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers has appealed to the Tanzanian government to continue its long-standing tradition of hospitality to refugees, the majority of whom are from Burundi. He urged the government not to stain its outstanding record of asylum by imposing more restrictive policies on the movement of refugees. Lubbers was speaking about new measures which have curbed the movement of more than 480,000 Burundian and Congolese refugees living in 12 camps along Tanzania's western border.

"The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and its member organisations call on the African Commission to assume its responsibilities. The FIDH and a dozen of its member organisations will be present at the 34th ordinary session of the African Commission of Human and People's Rights, which will take place in Banjul from 6th to 20th November 2003. The FIDH and its member organisations are expecting that this session will see some major progress such as: the adoption of a regional structure for the protection of human rights defenders; the mobilization of African states in favour of the fight against impunity, in particular with the launch of the African Court on Human Rights and the ratification process by States of the International Criminal Court; the inclusion of human rights at the very core of NEPAD mechanisms; respecting the process of democratic elections."

“You and the other companies are cited because you aided and abetted the Apartheid regime in its orgy of murder, torture, rape and kidnapping during the period indicated in our complaint, that is from the time of the Sharpeville shooting until the end of Apartheid rule. You are well aware that at that time you, jointly and severally with the others cited above, offered the Apartheid regime financial support, supplies of strategic goods, such as armaments, energy resources and motorised transport vehicles, and computer support.”