Calm has returned to the northern Nigerian city of Bauchi following two days of sectarian clashes that killed 14 people, displaced 4,500 and left 100 hospitalised, according to police and the International Committee of the Red Cross. The violence erupted on 20 February, with youths burning mosques and churches, according to residents of Bauchi, the capital of Bauchi state, about 300km northeast of the capital Abuja.

The UN refugee agency expressed concern Tuesday about mounting violence against Congolese civilians in North Kivu province after some 3,000 people were displaced during an attack on their village. "Since February 14, the so-called Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda [FDLR] have carried out numerous attacks in Masisi, Lubero and Walikale areas in North Kivu, sparking a new wave of displacement," a UNHCR spokesman said, referring to a rebel militia composed of ethnic Hutu fighters.

A Congolese family uprooted by war went to court on Friday seeking to be reunited with a Kenyan baby they say they found abandoned on the roadside in a case testing the right of refugees to adopt. The case could be a first in global legal history, the family's lawyer and the U.N. refugee agency say. "I believe it would set a precedent. The law is silent on whether refugees can adopt," lawyer Rose Mbanya told Reuters as the case began at Nairobi's High Court.

Without an immediate infusion of funding, the already grave malnutrition and disease levels in Somalia will worsen, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has cautioned. In an alert to donors, the Office highlighted the need for assistance for emergency nutrition as well as Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) programmes in two regions in north and central Somalia.

Over 15,000 people have sought safety in the Zam Zam camp in North Darfur after fleeing the latest outburst of violence in the South Darfur region of Sudan, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has reported. OCHA is concerned that with more people arriving each day, the large influx of internally displaced persons (IDPs) is putting a strain on the provision of water to camp residents.

An Egyptian woman, who went to file a complaint at a police station on 19 January, has since been subjected to torture, ill-treatment and death threats against her and her family by members of the local police force. Mona Said Thabet went to a police station north of Cairo after she was assaulted by two men at her sister's home. The men were reported to have been police informers.

Over 40,000 internally displaced persons have returned to Mogadishu in the last six weeks. The majority of the returnees are from Hiraan, Mudug, Galgaduud, Lower and Middle Shabelle in the southern and central regions, which are experiencing a combination of renewed conflict and severe drought.

Authorities in Cameroon have arrested 25 separatist activists from a movement that has called for independence for the former French colony’s English-speaking minority, the group and police said on Tuesday. The Southern Cameroon National Council (SCNC) said the activists were arrested in Tiko, 50 km (30 miles) west of the southern city of Douala, where they went to support a colleague standing trial for holding an illegal meeting last October.

Thousands of Rwandan troops have started to leave Democratic Republic of Congo five weeks after they crossed the border to attack Hutu rebels. A ceremony has been held in the main eastern Congolese city of Goma, to mark their withdrawal. Rwanda's foreign minister says the joint operation "seriously weakened" the FDLR rebels but a BBC correspondent says civilians paid a heavy price.

A UN investigator has called for the removal of Kenya's police commissioner and attorney general over a wave of alleged extrajudicial killings. Philip Alston said: "Kenyan police are a law unto themselves. They kill often, with impunity." His remarks came as video emerged of an officer saying the police commissioner had ordered the killing of suspects.

An international tribunal has found three Sierra Leone rebels guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. RUF leaders Issa Sesay, 38, and Morris Kallon, 45, were convicted of 16 of the 18 charges, while Augustine Gbao, 60, was found guilty on 14 of the counts. The Freetown trial of the RUF rebel leaders, related to Sierra Leone's 10-year civil war, began in mid-2004.

On March 6, San Francisco district court Judge Susan Illston will hear a motion for a retrial for the Bowoto v Chevron case. Last fall, a jury found Chevron not liable for paying the Nigerian military in 1998 to shoot and kill unarmed protesters who were protesting the lack of jobs and environmental damage caused by Chevron in their community.

Twin explosions Sunday killed 11 Burundian troops at a compound used by African Union peacekeepers in Mogadishu, Somalia, authorities said. Shabelle Media Network reported al-Shabaab, an Islamic extremist group with ties to al-Qaida, claimed responsibility for the attack. Al-Shabaab spokesman, Sheik Mukhtar Robow Abu Mansoor, said one of their fighters detonated a jacket laden with explosives inside the Burundian base and another suicide bomber exploded his car.

We have three arms of government in Kenya:

1) The Executive
2) The Legislature
3) The Judiciary

These three arms of government are supposed to be independent, complementing each other in the functions of state.

The Executive is normally an elevation of members of the Legislature to new roles. You are voted in as a member of the house, get appointed to the cabinet, then join the president in the executive wing of government.

Those in the Executive are meant to execute the wishes of the Legislature. In Kenya, the Executive in most cases overrides the Legislature and oftentimes operates as if it is above the law.

In a positive step towards establishing peace in northern Mali, more than 500 Tuareg rebels laid down their arms in their fight against the Malian government. The brokers of the tentative quieting of violence are encouraged about the prospect of putting an end to the conflict in the Kidal region.

More than 15,000 Congolese have fled to South Sudan since the Ugandan rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) began launching attacks in north-east Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the United Nations refugee agency reported today. “It is critical to move all of these refuges away from border areas both for security reasons and to facilitate distribution of aid,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesman Ron Redmond told a news briefing in Geneva. “Access to the refugees will soon become impossible when the seasonal rains begin in April and roads become impassable.”

Despite the Algiers Peace Agreement and the decision of the Ethiopia-Eritrea Border Commission, there is a continuing impasse over the demarcation of the border between the two countries and the status of the town of Badme. This presents an ongoing serious risk of escalating tension and of renewed conflict that may have serious political and humanitarian consequences.

The rebel Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) brutally slaughtered at least 100 Congolese civilians in the Kivu provinces of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo between January 20 and February 8, 2009, Human Rights Watch has said. Human Rights Watch researchers interviewed dozens of victims and witnesses who recently arrived from neighboring areas of Ufamandu and Walowaluanda (North Kivu province) and from Ziralo (South Kivu province) at displaced persons camps near Goma, the capital of North Kivu.

Belgium has lodged a case at the International Court of Justice seeking to compel Senegal to prosecute former Chadian President Hissene Habre. Mr Habre, who is accused of crimes against humanity, has lived in Senegal since being removed from power in 1990.

An unidentified armed group has launched an attack on the presidential palace in Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea. The West African country's ambassador to London accused Nigerian militants and said they had been repulsed.