The ECOWAS Peace Fund got a boost Monday with a donation of US$100, 000 from China. At a brief ceremony in Abuja, the Chinese Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. Xu Jianguo, who presented the cheque of the said amount to the President of the ECOWAS Commission, Dr. Mohamed Ibn Chambas, said the contribution was in recognition of ECOWAS' efforts in regional integration. While describing ECOWAS as a "very important regional organization in Africa," Mr. Xu said that China and ECOWAS faced similar challenges and that China would not hesitate to assist the regional institution.

Marrying off Mauritanian girls as young as six years old to men in Gulf states is turning into a profitable trafficking enterprise as a typically rural marriage practice migrates to the city, according to urban families. “It used to be widespread in the rural milieu, but now child marriages are more developed in urban areas as a new business,” said Sidi Mohamed Ould Jyyide, a sociologist in the capital Nouakchott.

Until last year, the only trigger Amoumoun Halil had pulled was the one on his livestock vaccination gun. This spring, a battered Kalashnikov rifle rested uneasily on his shoulder. When he donned his stiff fatigues, his lopsided gait and smiling eyes stood out among his hard-faced guerrilla brethren. Halil, a 40-year-old veterinary engineer, was a reluctant soldier in a rebellion that has broken out over an improbable - and as yet unrealized - bonanza of riches in one of the world's poorest countries.

Barack Obama’s incoming administration could be stuck on the horn of a security dilemma in the strategic but unstable horn of Africa. A widening Somali crisis which has variously challenged both George Bush I and the Clinton Administrations, with disastrous consequences, now confronts Obama with the specter of “Blackhawk down” in Mogadishu.

Exploring Somalia’s fate under the Bush administration’s war on terror, Matthew Blood argues that the US has simply taken an already brutalised people and brutalised them even more. With warlordism, criminality, and piracy ever increasing, the author ponders whether the marked anti-Western sentiment and greater radicalisation of Islamic authority in the country will lead to violent future backlash within locations in the West from disaffected Somalis.

Following the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in 2005, ending more than 20 years of conflict in South Sudan, the peace building processes in Sudan remain challenging. In addition, this is in contrast to the expectations and hopes invested in the 2005 Sudan National Interim Constitution. Individuals and organizations working and advocating for human rights across the country continue to face multiple risks to their activities and lives.

Sadiq Sahour Abkar paid human traffickers $750 to smuggle himself, his 28-year-old wife, Hajja Abbas Haroun, and their infant daughter Samar over a remote border crossing in the Sinai Desert into Israel last year. The smugglers, however, dropped them along with four pregnant women, eight men and numerous children - all Sudanese refugees - several miles from the border. As the African migrants neared the frontier, they heard a patrol of Egyptian border guards and lay down quietly on the ground, waiting for them to pass. Suddenly a baby in the group began crying.

The Togolese cabinet has presented a bill that will abolish capital penalty in a nation plagued with human rights violations. Human rights groups are delighted by the news.On 10 December, the symbolic day of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Togolese government presented a bill that will abolish the death penalty in the country, if approved of by the Lomé parliament.

There is a ‘secret-cult’ silence on the issue of abuse of the elderly in Nigeria, argues the author of this paper. The victims of abuse and others are reluctant to talk about it, and there is constant denial by victims and abusers. Acts of abuse are usually regarded as normal behaviour within society. What can ordinary Nigerians, the government, families and communities do to assist the abused and abusers in prevention and intervention strategies that will benefit the elderly in Nigeria?

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres on Wednesday opened a two-day international dialogue aimed at seeking solutions for millions of people caught up in the limbo of so-called "protracted refugee situations" in which they spend years in exile with no end in sight. Guterres told some 300 representatives of more than 50 governments and governmental and non-governmental organizations in Geneva's Palais des Nations that the world must do more to resolve the seemingly endless plight of nearly 6 million refugees who have spent years, and sometimes decades, in exile.

Although Burundi has made commendable advances in key areas for peace consolidation, an impasse between the Government and the last major rebel holdout is deepening and the risks of renewed confrontation are intensifying, according to a United Nations report being discussed by the Security Council.

Forty year-old Angelique reveals a gunshot wound in her back to women in the Keyshero Medical centre, while her six-year-old daughter reaches up to touch it. Angelique (her name has been changed) and her family were attacked in their village in November 2007 when men dressed in police uniforms broke into their house at night, looted it, and forced her family into the forest.

The South African government is considering "managing" the influx of Zimbabweans, said a government spokesman after its border area with Zimbabwe was declared a cholera disaster area. "We are looking into the issue," Themba Maseko responded to a question on whether the country would control the number of possibly infected Zimbabweans entering South Africa.

We remain extremely concerned for the safety of the displaced Congolese population in Kibati as the civilian character of these two UNHCR-run camps north of Goma is continually violated. In another incident early this morning, two young girls were shot. A 5-year-old died and a 7-year-old girl is fighting for her life in a local hospital. Our staff also reported this morning that another woman was raped by armed men in the vicinity of Kibati camp yesterday evening.

With a complex range of ethnic, religious and linguistic groups competing for access to resources, outbreaks of violence leading to significant situations of short-term internal displacement are frequent in Nigeria. Many internally displaced people (IDPs) seek refuge with family and friends while waiting for the violence to subside so they can return to their homes.

Talks aimed at ending the conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo are encountering serious difficulties, the UN mediator says. Olusegun Obasanjo said this was because Gen Laurent Nkunda's rebel negotiators lacked the authority to make decisions.

Kenya must step up its efforts to track down a Rwandan genocide suspect, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) says. The ICTR chief prosecutor is expected to tell the UN Security Council he is not satisfied with the level of cooperation and assistance from Kenya.

A web-based reporting tool is allowing Africans caught up in political unrest to report incidents of killing, violence and displacement. The website is called Ushahidi, which means ''testimony'' in Swahili and was first developed to map reports of violence in Kenya after the post-election fallout. Ushahidi is now being used in the Democratic Republic of Congo, to report on the war that has torn the country apart for the last 15 years.

Marie trembles as she tells me about the day when Jean-Pierre Bemba's Congolese troops came to her town. "We heard gun-shots as they went from house to house," she says in Bossangoa in the Central African Republic. She struggles to contain her emotions as she recounts how she and her husband cowered next to their children as the awful sounds outside their home drew closer.

A Paris appeals court has rejected an extradition request for a man accused of a role in Rwanda's 1994 genocide. A Rwandan court sentenced Isaac Kamali in his absence in 2003 to death for his alleged participation in the massacre. Mr Kamali, a mathematics professor, who also holds French nationality, was detained at a Paris airport in 2007.