The Rwandan government should honor its international obligations by enacting legislation to abolish life imprisonment in solitary confinement, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to the presidents of the Senate and Chamber of Deputies. In December 2008, the Rwanda Parliament prohibited life in solitary confinement for genocide suspects transferred from the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) or extradited from other countries and found guilty by Rwandan courts.

Increasing quantities of China-made military equipment have been finding their way to Africa, traded for oil, mineral resources and even fishing rights. Zambia has used its copper resources to pay China in a number of military deals, for instance, and Kenya has been negotiating with China to trade fishing rights for arms. Among the most popular Chinese military exports to Africa are the J-7, K-8 and Y-12 aircraft, which are relatively inexpensive and easy to operate.

The human rights group, Amnesty International, says security forces in Cameroon routinely use force to put down anti-government protests. Political opposition was not tolerated in Cameroon, Amnesty's deputy Africa director, Tawanda Hondora, said. Dissent was suppressed by violence or abuse of the legal system, he said.

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has increased its participation in a broadening array of multilateral security arrangements in recent years. One of the most high-profile aspects of this trend is the dramatic expansion in Chinese peacekeeping deployments (of civilian police, military observers, engineering battalions and medical units) to UN operations: since 2000, when China deployed fewer than 100 peacekeepers, there has been a dramatic 20-fold increase in its contributions.

South Africa's constitution is often celebrated for its protection of social and economic rights; but how readily can this protection be invoked by the most vulnerable? This question is one that may be considered at the first ever World Conference on Constitutional Justice, taking place in Cape Town on Feb. 23-24. Senior legal personnel from 93 countries will discuss the influence of constitutional courts on societies around the world and the development of global human rights jurisprudence.

The Supreme Court of Uganda upheld the judgment of the Ugandan Constitutional Court on Wednesday, that the mandatory application of the death penalty is unconstitutional. However, the court ruled that the death penalty per se remains constitutional, rejecting both Government and death row prisoners’ appeals.

Uganda's Supreme Court has ruled in a case involving more than 400 death row inmates that the death penalty is constitutional. However, it said that hanging was cruel and recommended that parliament consider another means of execution. The judges also said it was unreasonable to keep convicts on death row for more than three years.

Congolese Tutsi rebel leader Laurent Nkunda has been arrested in Rwandan territory after he tried to resist a joint Rwandan-Congolese military operation in eastern Congo, the operation's joint command said on Friday. The arrest of Nkunda, who has led a Tutsi rebellion in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo since 2004, occurred during a joint Congolese-Rwandan military operation launched this week to hunt Rwandan Hutu rebels operating in Congo.

As Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki announces a national emergency and declares that 10 million people don’t have enough food to eat, results of an International Rescue Committee survey show that an alarming 22% of children under five are malnourished in one part of the country worst affected by the food crisis. The IRC’s survey in Kakuma division, Turkana north, found that almost 40% of local people were surviving on just one meal a day. Malnutrition rates among children under the age of five were 22% — that’s much higher than the 15% rate which the World Health Organization uses to determine an emergency situation.

African states will contribute additional troops to the United Nations, African Union Hybrid force in Darfur (UNAMID) in the coming months, with an advance party expected from Tanzania, the force said Wednesday. Some African states, among them Egypt, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Nigeria are expected to deploy hundreds more troops within the next two months as part of the Mission's efforts to speed up deployment in Darfur to ensure better safety and protection of local civilians, UNAMID said.

Two smugglers' boats carrying Somalis and Ethiopians have capsized in the high seas separating the Horn of Africa and Yemen, leaving at least 15 people dead and a dozen missing, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said. The boats were transporting 270 people when they foundered in separate incidents over the weekend in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea.

In this course, participants will increase their understanding of the psychosocial and mental health issues of refugees and learn how to implement effective interventions. Topics will include: Review of international research about the psychosocial and mental health consequences of war and violence; Implications for working with various cultures and contexts; Skills for assessment of need; Culturally sensitive interviewing skills; Methods for working with translators; Introduction to individual, family, group and community interventions; Overview of methods for monitoring and evaluating the impact of intervention; and Specific mechanisms workers and organizations can use to minimize staff burnout and maximize organizational effectiveness.

The course will cover various advanced topics in international refugee law. Topics to be covered include ethical and professional obligations while representing clients undergoing refugee status determination; the "nexus" requirement of the refugee definition; the expanded grounds for protection under the OAU Convention and UNHCR's mandate; the possibility of socio-economic "persecution"; the distinction between prosecution and "persecution"; the non-refoulement and expulsion provisions of the Convention; refugee rights guaranteed by the Convention; and, the interaction between the Convention and domestic and international human rights protections.

The 2005 World Disasters Report stated that “information is a vital form of ait in itself [since] disaster affected people need information as much as water, food, medicine or shelter. Information can save lives, livelihoods and resources. ”As we know only too well, information is often one of the first casualties in crises: crippled communications and shattered transportation links present significant obstacles. Communication with beneficiaries is rarely high on the priority lists of many relief responders.

cc. Do refugees have a rights, or are they eternally bound to the status of victimhood and homelessness, asks Rob Cook. The severe crackdown and mass deportation by the Ghanaian authorities over a protest by Liberian refugees who demanded a larger say has highlighted the ineffective solutions provided by UNHCR, whose reaction is evidence of an outdated mode of thinking towards the problems affecting refugees around the world, the author argues.

In response to : It is great to see them making strides towards peace.

cc. Kakuma News Reflector (KANERE) is an independent news magazine produced by Ethiopian, Congolese, Ugandan, Rwandan, Somali, Sudanese and Kenyan journalists operating in Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya. KANERE urgently seeks the support of international organisations and advocacy groups everywhere, as the group is facing pressure from local organisations that do not fully support an independent refugee press.

Two years after more than 100 former slave families left their village in southern Mauritania to create their own community away from slave-owners, members of the group told IRIN they are still struggling to adapt to an independent life. Ramadan Ould Semette, one of those breaking away from the village of Lefrewa - where the families were slaves for generations - got his long-awaited new beginning but little else. “We have nothing but our muscles to survive by and we keep struggling in the desert.

Rwandan government has dismissed senior officials working for the Fund for Support of Genocide Survivors (FARG) for alleged misappropriation of millions of government funds targeted for survivors of the infamous 1994 genocide, local media has reported. Since 1998, the government has reserved 5 percent of its annual budget to create a fund to aid the survivors with education, housing, social rehabilitation and general support.

Thousands of Kenyans who fled their homes following a wave of violence triggered by the disputed general election last year are still languishing in temporary camps. More than 1,500 were killed and another 300,000 displaced in post-election clashes fought predominantly between members of Kenya's two main tribes - the Luo and the Kikuyu.