More than 4,000 prisoners facing execution in Kenya had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment on Monday in the largest commutation in history, news sources reported. There have been no executions carried out in Kenya for 22 years. In a statement broadcast on the state-owned radio Kenya Broadcasting Corporation, President Mwai Kibaki said that an “extended stay on death row causes undue mental anguish and suffering, psychological trauma, anxiety, while it may as well constitute inhuman treatment.”

An offer of an amnesty for militants in Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta region has come into effect. In the next two months the government hopes about 10,000 rebels will exchange weapons for a pardon and retraining. But reports suggest few rebels have surrendered on the amnesty's opening day, and it is unclear how many armed groups will take part in the amnesty.

Since the global financial crisis hit the mining industry, a dramatic decline in the demand for commodities and the closure of certain operations have seen an increase in the illegal mining trade in Africa. Angola’s law enforcement authorities have reported that more than 6 000 foreign nationals, who were caught illegally digging for diamonds in the country’s north-eastern region of Lunda Norte, have been deported since the beginning of 2009.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/445/58272_Kakuma_camp.tmb.jpgAs part of a global campaign to end the ‘warehousing’ of refugees, Merrill Smith, director of government relations and international advocacy for the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, speaks to KANERE (Kakuma News Reflector) about the UNHCR’s position on the practice, the campaign’s most significant successes so far, and the role of a free refugee press in ending warehousing.

Amid growing unease among many African states about the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) ‘discretionary’ and ‘selective’ application of international criminal law, Ohio University’s

In April 2008, a Chinese ship carrying arms destined for Zimbabwe’s Defence Force attempted to offload those weapons in Durban’s harbour, so that they might be transported across South African territory to land-locked Zimbabwe. South African civil society, alerted to the existence of the arms and anxious that they might be used to suppress democratic forces in the aftermath of Zimbabwe’s controversial elections, undertook a number of actions to stop delivery.

More than 600 children in prisons throughout Rwanda will have access to legal assistance under a new programme launched by the Ministry of Justice and supported by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Legal Aid Week brings together the courts, the national police and lawyers with prison officers to clear the backlog of children’s cases around the nation, as well as conduct a survey of minors and conditions in prisons, according to a news release issued by UNICEF.

Aid workers and officials are calling for a scaling-up in peacekeeping efforts in Sudan's western Darfur region. "Darfur may appear calmer, but one has to remember that there are fewer reports coming out because they are deeply nervous of how the Sudanese government will react to criticism," said one international aid worker, who has spent more than two years in Darfur.

The number of people fleeing fighting and reprisal attacks by Rwandan Hutu Forces démocratiques pour la libération du Rwanda (FDLR) militia in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) South Kivu Province has increased by up to 600 percent in a few weeks, say humanitarian officials.

More than 130 civil society and human rights groups from across Africa have issued a statement calling upon African states that are parties to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to reaffirm their commitment and their obligation to cooperate with the court. The statement follows a decision by the African Union (AU) at its summit meeting on July 1-3, 2009 that its member states "shall not cooperate" with the ICC in the arrest of President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should emphasize human rights on her seven-nation trip to Africa, Human Rights Watch has said in a letter to Clinton. The eight-day trip, to begin on August 5, will take Clinton to Kenya, South Africa, Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Liberia, and Cape Verde. While in Kenya, Clinton will also meet with the president of Somalia's Transitional Federal Government.

Two months after a new round of devastating violence broke out in the Niger Delta, the Nigerian government has offered amnesty if all militants turn over all their weapons and renounce violence by October, and the militants have offered a 60-day cease fire after a key militant leader - Henry Okah - was released from prison earlier this month. These actions should be good signs that the region is taking its first tenuous step toward peace, however most experts believe that the region is not close to any such reality.

UN Special Representative for Somalia Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah has told the UN Security Council that the Somali transitional government is on its heels trying to thwart repeated attempts by extremist groups to overthrow it. "Despite multiple constraints, the government is resisting and repelling multip le attempts to overthrow it and seize power illegally by force," the UN envoy said, adding: "Repeated attacks by Al-Shabaa b and Hizbul-Islam militants have sent the Horn of Africa nation into chaos, with refugees fleeing by the thousands."

The leader of an Islamist sect at the centre of five days of fighting in northern Nigeria that has claimed hundreds of lives died in police custody last night. Mohammed Yusuf was killed hours after he was captured, according to police officials quoted by news agencies. Mr Yusuf’s death followed an assault on a mosque housing followers of the radical preacher, who demanded stricter imposition of sharia, or Islamic law, across northern Nigeria and the abandonment of secular education.

The tragedy of Congo's women and girls has slowly emerged in recent years. Tens of thousands have been raped or otherwise assaulted by army soldiers, rebels, or other men. Sexual violence has been used to terrorise civilians by all warring parties. The European Union and other donors have started programs of assistance for the victims that have made a real difference to the lives of some - unfortunately not all - Congolese women and girls. Beyond immediate medical and social assistance, the European Union in Congo also runs programs for military and judicial reform called EUSEC and REJUSCO.

Transforming Civil Conflict (TCC) is offered by The Network University, an initiative of the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands and the Centre for Conflict Resolution, Department of Peace Studies, Bradford University, UK. The Transforming Civil Conflict course is a four-week online course in international conflict resolution, taugh entirely through the Internet!

This latest policy briefing from the International Crisis Group examines the peace process and what could still threaten it. There have been encouraging developments. Since last December, the former rebels of the National Forces of Liberation (FNL) have met legal requirements by dropping the ethnic reference “Hutu” from their name. They have integrated some of their combatants into the security forces, demobilised others and registered as a political party.

The June issue of Refugee rights carries the following articles: Repatriation or Else: Closing the Mtabila Refugee Camp in Tanzania; World Refugee Day Celebrations in Africa—Civil Society Initiatives; World Refugee Survey 2009: Limited Progress on Refugee Rights in Africa; Justice and Reconciliation after Genocide: The Search for Co-existence in Rwanda on Film; International Community Moves to Address Worrisome Dynamics in Sudan; The Principle of Complementarity under Scrutiny: The ICC Rules DRC Unwilling to Prosecute Katanga in Attack of Bogoro Village.

To highlight the global campaign to end warehousing, KANERE interviewed Merrill Smith, the Director of Government Relations and International Advocacy for the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants and the Editor of the World Refugee Survey. KANERE posed three questions relating to the UNHCR, greatest successes, and a refugee free press.

Kenya's cabinet is expected to meet Monday to review a bill establishing how the masterminds of the country's post-election violence will be punished. Presidential immunity against prosecution, should Mwai Kibaki be implicated in the violence, is one of the most controversial highlights of a bill that has seen previous cabinet discussions on the matter end in a stalemate. Under the Kenyan constitution the president is immune from prosecution while in office: the bill seeks to strip away this immunity.