One of Rwanda's main dilemmas is the belief that the country is no longer in need of humanitarian aid when "many people" still suffer from food insecurity caused by drought or, paradoxically, heavy rains in March and April, OCHA reported on 30 September.

At his initial appearance at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the former prefect of Kigali-rural prefecture, Francois Karera, pleaded not guilty on Friday to charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.

The London-based NGO African Rights has accused the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) of harbouring Colonel Tharcisse Renzaho, accused of involvement in organising the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

A recent study by the Organisation for Social Science and Research in Eastern and Southern Africa (OSSREA) has determined that, in comparison to social indicators of other sub-Saharan nations, Rwanda has the highest level of poverty.

Imagine a tiny, beautiful, land-locked, densely populated and extremely poor African country that seven years ago was the site of a devastating civil war and genocide that left it in tatters. Now imagine a country that sets up an ICT Commission headed by its President; that adopts a national ICT Policy for the country and that sets up a top level national IT Agency to oversee a 400-page 5-year US$500 million plan and strategy for ICT. And finally imagine a country that commits to transforming itself from an essentially agrarian economy to a knowledge-based society within twenty years and that plans to become a services center in its region, despite being poorer than its neighbours and much less well-endowed with natural resources. Hard to reconcile these images, but they are indeed all of Rwanda. Jonathan Miller and Philip Esselaar look at the progress Rwanda is making and what it needs to tackle in the near future.

Protais Zigiranyirazo, a former member of the Akazu, the inner circle of the late President of Rwanda, Juvénal Habyarimana, has pleaded not guilty to two counts of extermination or alternatively murder as crimes against humanity.

Rwanda's population - set to double to 16 million by 2020 at its current growth rate of 3.2 percent per annum - will present a major challenge to the government, Finance and Economic Planning Minister Donald Kaberuka has said.

In this review, RW Johnson unravels the web of culpability behind the failure to prevent genocide in Rwanda and is as critical of the role of the UN as of western governments. Zed, 2000, 1 85649 831 x.

The election of more than 200,000 judges in Rwanda offers hope of speeding up trials resulting from the 1994 genocide, Human Rights Watch said. But the innovative judicial system, called “gacaca,” may be subject to political pressures and lacks some basic internationally recognized safeguards, such as the right to legal counsel.

Rwanda is to set up 11,000 traditional courts, known as Gacaca, to ease pressure on an overburdened prison system now holding 115,000 inmates awaiting trial for the 1994 genocide, the state-owned Rwandan News Agency reported on Monday, quoting the advisor to the Supreme Court, Augustin Nkusi.

A prosecution witness today claimed before judges of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) that Jean de Dieu Kamuhanda, former Rwandan minister for higher education and scientific research, ordered killings of ethnic Tutsi who sought refuge at Gikomero Parish during the 1994 genocide.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame appealed to the country's judges on Monday to remain disciplined and honest in their work and to cooperate closely with other law enforcement bodies, presidential spokesman Nicholas Shalita said on Monday.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) have agreed to undertake 13 issues jointly to speed up judicial processes in the UN courts.

The public affairs section of the US embassy in Kigali will officially launch 24-hour broadcasting in Kinyarwanda, Swahili, French, and English on station 104.3 FM in Kigali on Friday, Rwanda News Agency (RNA) reported on Tuesday. Kigali becomes the second capital city in Africa to receive continuous FM broadcasts.

The Rwandan Batwa pygmy people have demanded respect for their rights, saying that ignorance about their problems is the "biggest evil" to overcome. The president of the Batwa community Zephyrin Kalimba told a conference on the indigenous people of Africa, held in Kigali, that his people had been denied their land rights and evicted from their ancestral homes.

Recently released documents have shown the role of the United States in blocking international action against the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Africa Policy says that the documents reveal the "systematic indifference to African lives", as well as the fact that there has still been no official American investigation of responsibility for US actions and inactions at the time. These, it adds, "are a revealing commentary on the continuity of structural racism embedded in US foreign policy making".

A spokesman for the 3,000 Rwandan rebels being prepared by the Congolese Government for their eventual repatriation says a dialogue between the rebels and the Rwandan government needs to take place before they can return home.

The United States government is under fire following the release this week of declassified papers proving that Washington knew about Rwanda's impending 1994 genocide but did nothing to stop it.

A member of the Akazu, the inner circle of former president of Rwanda, Juvenal Habyrimana, and also the president's brother-in-law, was arrested on Thursday at the request of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), an ICTR statement said.