Despite difficult security conditions, ICRC staff are pressing ahead with their activities aiming at addressing the needs of the people worst affected by armed conflict and other situations of violence in eastern Chad. The lack of security remains the primary factor impeding displaced people from returning to their homes, and the main challenge for the delivery of humanitarian aid. ICRC activities from July to September 2008

Community-based policing (CBP) is an approach to policing that brings together the police, civil society and local communities to develop local solutions to safety and security concerns. This paper, published by Saferworld, assesses outcomes of and lessons learned from two CBP pilot-sites supported by Saferworld as part of its broader programme of police reform in Kenya.

For 40 years, the French government has been fighting a secret war in Africa, hidden not only from its people, but from the world. It has led the French to slaughter democrats, install dictator after dictator – and to fund and fuel the most vicious genocide since the Nazis. Today, this war is so violent that thousands are fleeing across the border from the Central African Republic into Darfur – seeking sanctuary in the world’s most notorious killing fields.

Crowds of Egyptians have attacked police with clubs and stones in a town south of Cairo after a pregnant woman died during a police raid on her home. The woman was pushed to the ground by officers when she would not let them enter her home to look for her brother, a suspected thief, police said.

The 2008 Professor Thorolf Rafto Memorial Prize is awarded to Pastor Bulambo Lembelembe Josué, right, for his dedication to end the plight of the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The board of the Rafto Foundation has decided to award the Rafto Prize to Pastor Bulambo Lembelembe Josué. The church leader brings hope to Eastern Congo, and his work brings hope for peace, reconciliation and human dignity to a people that have suffered from the deadliest conflict since World War II.

About 1,200 Congolese have sought shelter in southern Sudan in recent days to escape brutal attacks by members of the notorious Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) that have included the abduction of children and the torching of homes, the United Nations refugee agency has reported.

Armed groups are still recruiting child soldiers to fight in the ongoing conflict in the province of North Kivu, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Those child soldiers who attempt to escape have been killed or tortured, sometimes in front of other children, to discourage further escapes. Children who are taken captive by the DRC army on suspicion of being armed group fighters, have faced ill-treatment and torture in military detention

Some members of the rebel faction that recently fought government troops in North Darfur have signed a peace agreement with the state, but the accord is insignificant because none of the signatories has any clout, analysts said. Six relatively unknown members of the Unified Command faction of the Sudan Liberation Army, also known as SLA-Unity, signed the agreement on 27 September with the North Darfur governor's adviser for peace and security.

Fighting between Congolese armed forces and dissident troops and militias, as well as widespread human rights violations committed by all groups, has caused the displacement of at least 150,000 people in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) from January to July 2008, mostly in North Kivu province. As a result, at least 1.25 million people were displaced in DRC as of the end of June, two-thirds of them in North Kivu Province.

Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres has sharply criticised the forced closure of South African migrant camps over the last two days. "There is no solution for these people, they have nowhere to go," an MSF spokesman told the BBC. The camps, holding 1,200 foreigners driven from their homes by May's xenophobic violence, are being shut around the city of Johannesburg.

In response to growing pressures on landscapes and livelihoods, people are moving, communities are adapting. This issue of FMR debates the numbers, the definitions and the modalities – and the tension between the need for research and the need to act. Thirty-eight articles by UN, academic, international and local actors explore the extent of the potential displacement crisis, community adaptation and coping strategies, and the search for solutions.

All politics is local, to paraphrase the venerable Bostonian and Democratic, Tip O'Neill. To human rights workers, journalists, writers, and humanitarians who have intimate knowledge of the Great Lakes Region of Equatorial Africa, this short email conjures a place, people, and tragedy that has been met with a wall of silence on the campaign trail. Neither John McCain nor Barack Obama has addressed this great humanitarian breakdown, except in the context of political squabbling.

Mererani in northern Tanzania is the only place on earth where the precious stone tanzanite is mined. Every day thousands of children risk their lives in poorly constructed mine shafts for barely a meal a day. Despite efforts to curb this deadly practice, the global thirst for tanzanite continues to drive these children underground.

The foreign ministers of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP Group) renewed their support to the Sudanese President, Omer Hassan Al-Bashir, against his indictment by Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC). In a meeting held in the capital of Ghana, Accra, where the six summit of ACP Group will start morrow, the foreign ministers of the 79 state members reiterated their position against efforts to sue the Sudanese President over Darfur crimes.

Is Ethiopia under Prime Minister Meles Zenawi a worthy ally against extremism in the Horn? Roughly 800 U.S. troops are stationed in Djibouti and working closely with troops from the Ethiopian government. U.S. Special Forces have been providing training to the Ethiopian military. US troops have trained with Ethiopian troops that patrol the border with Somalia.

At least 21 Eritrean and Somali refugees are feared to have drowned when their overloaded boat capsized in a river in east Sudan, United Nation refugee agency (UNHCR) has said. The group was part of a larger group of four boats crossing Atbara river at night to evade police checkpoints in early hours of Tuesday morning as government regulations stipulate that refugees must remain in camps and receive assistance there.

A group of 16 refugee families have moved into rehabilitated houses in the Liberian town of Bensonville as part of a process to locally integrate some 3,500 Sierra Leoneans who cannot go home or are unwilling to repatriate.

Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes (EFCC) says it is developing computer softwares that would monitor internet services in the country as a way to combat cyber crimes. Spokesman of the Commission, Femi Babafemi, who disclosed this to IT World, said the Commission is partnering with Information and Communication experts to develop the software.

At least 12,000 civilian residents of Mogadishu have fled their homes in the Somali capital since last weekend because of a surge in fighting between Islamist insurgents and Government forces backed by the Ethiopian military, the United Nations refugee agency has reported. Half of the newly displaced have found shelter in different neighbourhoods within Mogadishu, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), while the remainder have escaped to the town of Afgooye, about 30 kilometres away.

On 26 September, a “pledging meeting” takes place at the World Bank in Washington to encourage donors to channel resources to the World Bank Climate Investment Funds (CIFs). The meeting has been promoted by the UK, and several European governments are planning to attend. The UK and Sweden have already made announcements to channel funds to the CIFs. France and the Netherlands are also likely to pledge money to these funds. And Germany is still considering.