A spokesman for the group of parties who supported the candidacy of Colonel Epitace Bayaganakandi for the presidency of the transitional period, Alphonse Rugambarara, reiterated that his group would not enter the transitional government led by President Buyoya and his deputy, Hutu leader, Domitien Ndayizeye.

The atmosphere at the Thursday meeting between President Buyoya and Zuma, was described as "good" by Buyoya's spokesman, Appolinaire Gahungu.

Army mutineers staged a coup attempt in Bujumbura on Sunday night, ahead of a regional summit on the future of Burundi which began in the Tanzanian town of Arusha on Monday.

The Burundi peace accord has been signed, but there's absolutely no peace, observes Monique Harbers.

A mission to assess the training needs and the effects of Burundi's civil war on the lives of Burundi refugee women living in camps in western Tanzania observed that war has had a significant and destabilising effect on gender roles and relations between the country's men and women. The refugees were found to be virtually under the "complete control" of various development and humanitarian relief agencies, the team said in its preliminary report.

The Burundi human rights organisation, Ligue Iteka, has called on the government to ratify the statute of a proposed International Criminal Court (ICC). "This would prove that the government really wants to put an end to impunity," the organisation said, according to the Net Press news agency.

President Pierre Buyoya, who returned to Burundi on Thursday, said the decision to appoint him as first leader of the transition was an "important step towards implementation of the peace agreement". Speaking on arrival from the OAU summit in Lusaka, he said the decision had been made by the peace mediator Nelson Mandela after extensive consultations with regional heads of state and the signatories of the Arusha peace accord.

A week before a meeting of signatories of the Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Agreement, the Burundian Net Press news agency reported that the group of eight pro-Tutsi parties (G8) supporting the candidacy of Col. Epitace Bayaganakandi as president of the first phase of the transitional period has written to the mediator in the Burundi conflict, Nelson Mandela, drawing his attention to what they believe to be impeding progress in negotiations: stubbornness on the part of President Pierre Buyoya and the Forces pour la defense de la democratie (FDD) and Forces nationales pour la liberation (FNL) rebel groups.

Concentration of internally-displaced people (IDPs) in camps and promiscuity are to blame for the increasing rate of HIV infection in Burundi's population, and the camps have become new centres of high infection rates in the countryside, the director of Burundi's national AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases control programme, Dr. Joseph Wakana, told the Pan-African news agency (PANA) on Monday.

Burundi has called on the UN Security Council to act with delay to stop the spread of war in the country and beyond its borders. In a statement issued this week, the country's permanent representative to the UN, Marc Nteturuye, welcomed the Security Council mission to the Great Lakes region last month, noting that it was able to obtain first-hand information regarding the "transfer of the war in Congo to Burundi".

The 12-member UN Security Council mission which visited the Great Lakes region earlier this month said it was struck by the "complexity and intractability" of the situation in Burundi and its serious potential for large-scale violence. In a report on its mission from 15-26 May, the Security Council team detailed the discussions it had with the various sides in the Burundi conflict, stressing that it delivered a very strong message to all the players - namely that there could be no military solution to the conflict and peace should be found within the framework of the Arusha peace agreement, signed last August.

The group of eight pro-Tutsi parties supporting Colonel Epitace Bayaganakandi as transitional president have issued a statement condemning the "unacceptable manipulation by the government and its associates aimed at avoiding the implementation of the Arusha agreement", the private Burundi news agency NetPress reported. It said the parties believed that a recent meeting brokered by the Italian San Egidio religious community which brought together the CNDD faction of Leonard Nyangoma, the hardline Tutsi PARENA party, the government, and ruling party UPRONA, as well as the recent visit to South Africa by President Pierre Buyoya were attempts to "exclude Bayaganakandi".

Burundi army officers failed to turn up in Arusha today for a scheduled meeting with eight pro-Tutsi political parties. The meeting was to have addressed Burundi's transitional leadership. The eight parties are opposed to the current Burundi leader Pierre Buyoya leading the first phase of a three-year transitional plan proposed by Nelson Mandela, the facilitator of the Burundi peace talks.

The director and co-director of the humanitarian relief agency Memisa-Coped held a press conference in Bujumbura on Thursday during which they denied having paid a ransom for the release of their six workers who were abducted in Makamba province last Friday by the rebel Forces pour la defense de la democratie (FDD). Bob Smit and Father Jean-Berchmans Nzisabira wanted to counter claims that a sum of US $12,000 was paid.

Police on Tuesday broke up a meeting of parties supporting the presidential candidacy of Colonel Epitace Bayaganakandi, the Tutsi rival of President Pierre Buyoya, the private Netpress news agency reported. Participants were told to leave the meeting hall in Bujumbura's Kinindo district, but party leaders were ordered to remain behind.

Burundi's President Pierre Buyoya on Sunday said the country could solve the transition problem in two phases if the signatories of the of the peace agreement so desired, Burundi radio quoted him as telling journalists in Bujumbura. President Buyoya had just returned from Pretoria, South Africa where he held talks with the mediator of the Burundi peace process, Nelson Mandela and the country's President Thabo Mbeki.

A wave of fighting between the Burundian army and rebel forces has caused "massive temporary displacement" although most of the victims tend to move back to their homes "when calm returns", humanitarian sources told IRIN on Thursday. The recent wave of fighting started on 24 February in Bujumbura-Mairie and resulted in the temporary displacement of 54,000 people, the sources said.

Twenty members of the Tutsi Parena party in Burundi have been arrested after they visited their colleagues in prison. The group were detained when they went to give food and other supplies to two senior Parena party officials who had been arrested in connection with an attempted coup in Burundi earlier this month.

The coup attempt in Burundi by a group of junior army officers is over and the perpetrators have surrendered, Defence Minister Cyrille Ndayirukiye announced on Thursday. A group of about 30 soldiers, led by Lieutenant Gaston Ntakarutimana, briefly took over the state radio and television station on Wednesday and announced that the hitherto unknown Front de la Jeunesse Patriotique (FJP) had taken control of the country. President Pierre Buyoya was away in Gabon at the time, but has since returned to to Burundi.

Welcoming the end to yesterday's aborted coup attempt in Burundi, Secretary-General Kofi Annan today said the incident served to highlight the need for efforts to bring calm to the country.