Humanitarians do not yet make the most of new technology and virtual teams to expedite emergency response, and deal with 'exponential' information flow, says a new report. 'The humanitarian community, though relying on scarce resources in response, is still performing [basic] tasks that computers can handle,' John Crowley, from the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, and the lead author of 'Disaster Relief 2.0: The Future of Information Sharing in Humanitarian Emergencies', told IRIN.

Ivoirians who have fled across the border to Liberia have reported incidents of rape, sexual abuse and murder to NGOs and human rights groups working in Grand Geddeh and Nimba counties. Children in villages in Liberia’s Nimba County have told field workers at NGO Equip that they were forced to watch as their mothers were raped and then killed. In several cases, the children themselves were then sexually assaulted.

The current food shortage in Kenya might soon be declared a national disaster, but one refugee does not take hunger lying down. With eight children and a ninth one soon, Ms Husna Mohammed, 30, is taking charge of her plates of food at Dagahaley in Dadaab Refugee Camp in North Eastern Province. She keeps a vegetable garden outside her tent to supplement her food ration. Refugees at this camp receive food rations every two weeks. The amount given depends on the family size.

Tunisian private clinics relied heavily on patients from Libya in recent years, but the ongoing Libya turmoil makes doctors and nurses wonder whether they will have a job. Libyans made up nearly 80 per cent of patients at Tunisian clinics before the recent tumult. Other foreign patients represented fewer than 1 per cent of admittances. Three clinics in the south were already forced to close.

The Zambian government has dropped charges against two Chinese managers accused of attempted murder after firing on miners during a pay dispute. Xiao Li Shan and Wu Jiu Hua said the workers' behaviour, at the Collum coal mine in October, had been threatening. The shooting left at least 11 injured. China has invested more than $400m in the copper-rich country.

Sudan has accused Israel of carrying out an air strike that killed two people in a car near the city of Port Sudan on Tuesday. Foreign Minister Ali Ahmad Karti said one man was Sudanese, but the identity of the other passenger was unknown. There has been no comment from Israel. But correspondents say Israel believes weapons are being smuggled through the region to Gaza.

With about 30 million Africans living outside their home countries, migration is a vital lifeline for the continent. Yet African governments need to do more to realise the full economic benefits of the phenomenon, says a new report by the African Development Bank and the World Bank. The report, 'Leveraging Migration for Africa: Remittances, Skills, and Investments', presents data from new surveys. The report finds evidence that suggest migration and remittances reduce poverty in the origin communities.

The office of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) said it may open investigations into the 'widespread and systematic' killings in Côte d’Ivoire, including the reported mass murder of civilians, saying it is gathering information on alleged crimes by all parties to the conflict. 'The OTP [office of the prosecutor] has been conducting a preliminary examination in Ivory Coast and the next step will be for the Prosecutor to use his independent...power to request authorization from the pre-trial chamber in order to initiate an investigation,' the ICC said in a statement.

After a month and a half of conflict in Libya, the situation of political prisoners and prisoners of war on both sides is uncertain, and their fundamental rights are at risk. More than 400 people in eastern Libya have gone missing since the revolt against Muammar Gaddafi began on 15 February, according to Human Rights Watch and the Libyan Red Crescent in Benghazi.

The British Government’s efforts to cover up one of the darkest episodes in colonial history have been revealed by the discovery of a vast cache of documents relating to the bloody Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya. The papers, documenting efforts to put down insurgency, were spirited out of Kenya on the eve of independence and have been held in secret British government archives for half a century.

About 34,000 southern Sudanese have fled their homes after tribal clashes over land, water and cattle in recent weeks, a humanitarian official said, adding to southern troubles before independence in July. The oil-rich south voted overwhelmingly to separate from the north in a January referendum, promised as part of a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war in Sudan. At least two million died in the war, which destabilised much of the region.

Seventy six countries around the world criminalize homosexuality, maintaining severe punishments for consensual sexual activity between adults of the same sex, says this abstract from the Journal for International Law. While political asylum may offer hope of refuge and protection, the asylum process has many problems, especially for those individuals applying for refugee status on the basis of sexual orientation.

Proposing ‘grandiose solutions without first diagnosing the causes of what ails Africa and her people has never stopped the World Bank, corporations and the odd billionaire from prescribing the wrong medicine for the continent,’ writes Joan Baxter, as the Bank makes plans to ‘unlock’ the future of African agriculture.

A majority of Kenyans want the six suspected sponsors of 2007/2008 post election violence to stand trial at the International Criminal Court, a new opinion poll shows. Of those polled, 61 per cent said they prefer the Ocampo Six (as the suspects are popularly known) to answer charges at The Hague-based court, the survey by research firm Synovate showed.

More than 24,000 refugees have recently entered Grand Gedeh County, south of Nimba, in Liberia and the scramble is on to put needed infrastructure in place there despite vast funding gaps. The UNHCR requested 55 million dollars for an anticipated 50,000 refugees in January. Now, with more than twice that number estimated in Liberia alone, the agency says it needs more than 132 million dollars. To date, it has received only about 17.5 million dollars.

More than 1,000 people in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have been ordered to move to a suspected minefield because the authorities want to build shops and restaurants on the site of their old homes. However, Kisangani mayor Augustin Osumaka Lofanga told IRIN: 'The landmine argument doesn’t stand up. If there is a risk, it is only 10 per cent. Nobody has died yet,' he said, adding that demining of the area had already been conducted by Handicap International Belgium and 'if not properly done, it is their responsibility...'

Arms manufacturer Denel emphatically denies it, or its subsidiaries, sold armaments to Libya, following a sales trip to that country a year ago. Earlier on Friday, the Mail & Guardian published details from a leaked Denel internal memo outlining a visit to Libya in April last year, which involved the 'planned sale of G6-52 artillery systems, missiles, grenade launchers and anti-materiel rifles'.

Authorities in Greece say Libyan ruler Muammar Qaddafi is seeking to negotiate an end to the fighting that has pitted his forces against antigovernment rebels since February. Meanwhile, The New York Times reported on 3 April that at least two of Qaddafi's sons backed a plan to remove their father from power and usher in a transition to a constitutional democracy.

Pro-government forces in Somalia Sunday attacked bases of the Al Qaeda-linked Shebab militants in a southern town sparking fighting in which seven people died, officials and witnesses said. The clashes erupted at noon on the fringes of Dhobley and continued for about five hours. Witnesses said both sides used heavy machine guns, mortars and anti-aircraft guns.

Bodies are lying in the streets of the besieged Libyan city of Misrata and its hospital is overflowing with the injured, an evacuee has said after arriving in Tunisia. Misrata is the only big rebel stronghold left in western Libya and has been under attack for weeks by forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi. Accounts from Misrata cannot be independently verified because Libyan authorities are not allowing journalists to report freely from the city.