The trial of 49 people before an emergency court for alleged involvement in the violent protests of 6 April 2008 in the city of Mahalla is due to resume on 6 September. Amnesty International has repeatedly called on the Egyptian authorities to stop trying individuals before special emergency courts that flout basic guarantees for fair trial.

Congo's eastern borderlands risk plunging back into all-out war between the army and Tutsi rebels after the heaviest clashes in months, the U.N. peacekeeping mission chief said. The enemies fought heavy battles last week in North Kivu province, where violence fuelled by simmering ethnic tensions has raged despite the official end of Congo's broader 1998-2003 war, a regional free-for-all over the country's mineral wealth.

In post conflict settings, where new constitutions are agreed upon, national development plans and budgets drawn up, new laws adopted and institutions rebuilt, there is often a unique window of opportunity to advance women’s rights and gender-equality, says Joan Sandler.

The Security Council working group on children and armed conflict should urge Chad to take measurable, concrete steps to demobilize children from its armed forces and stop continued recruitment, Human Rights Watch has said in a letter. On September 5, 2008, the working group will discuss violations of children’s rights in Chad. The working group asked Chad to take steps to bring an end to the recruitment and use of child soldiers a year earlier, in September 2007, but government efforts to comply have been largely ineffective.

The May 2008 attacks and the responses they have triggered from both Government and South African civil society could well transform the migration debate much more profoundly than first meets the eye, writes Aurelia Wa Kabwe Segatti.

The Southern Cameroons National Council has met with European Commission representatives and raised afresh their concerns over human rights in Cameroon. As the institutions of the European Union begin to prepare themselves for a return to business as usual after the summer months, UNPO was able to bring together members of the Southern Cameroons Nations Council (SCNC) and representatives of the Union’s Development and External Relations sections in a meeting to discuss the current situation in the troubled country of Cameroon.

This latest briefing from the International Crisis Group, points out that disarmament has barely started, and no consensus has been reached on integrating former rebels into state and security institutions. Burundi cannot afford to have wasted three years in legislative gridlock and then move directly towards the preparation of the 2010 elections without delivering peace dividends.

The Advanced Conflict Transformation (ACT) is a four week course that is organized by COPA. This course offers diverse aspects of conflict transformation and peace building. It is aimed at participants working in related fields on the African continent. Although reference is made to the impact of international political and economic events & trends on the continent, emphasis is placed on culturally sensitive and sustainable responses to regional and community conflicts in Africa.

Shelters for the victims of a spate of xenophobic violence will have to stay open until the Constitutional Court hears a matter relating to their closure on Monday. Constitutional Court judges were locked in deliberations on the matter for most of Friday, before issuing a direction at 3.30pm.

Sudan's government has launched a major offensive against rebel bases in the far north of Darfur, two rebel factions have said. A commander from a faction of the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA) said about 270 vehicles and 500 Janjaweed fighters were involved in the attack.

A militant group in Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta region has handed over two German hostages kidnapped last month. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) said they rescued the two men from another militant group who had kidnapped them.

A new series of clashes in Somalia have claimed lives of at least 18 people as daily fighting continues on the Horn of African country. At least seven Somali soldiers were killed in the fighting with Lower Shabelle region forces in Merka town, Press TV correspondent said on Thursday.

Drought and recent fighting around the town of Beletweyne, in central Somalia's Hiiraan region, have aggravated the plight of at least 1,000 Ethiopian refugee families, who were already facing acute food shortages, local sources told IRIN. Most of these refugees, living in camps for the displaced in Bilis-did and Bulo-korah (on the outskirts of Beletweyne), are Somalis from Ogaden in Ethiopia's Somali region. They fled in 1977 during the war between Ethiopia and Somalia.

In a bid to cope with tragic situation in north and south Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo, International Confederation of Red Cross (ICRC) has nearly doubled aid to people affected by internal armed conflict in the region. Head of ICRC's economic security unit in DRC, Ian Byram, says two types of economic assistance programmes are being implemented to address people's needs.

The United Nations refugee agency is assisting foreigners – mostly Zimbabweans – forced to flee their homes in South Africa by xenophobic violence, as the deadline looms for tomorrow’s closure by the Gauteng provincial government of all six temporary shelters, housing 6,000 people. Gloria, a Zimbabwean asylum-seeker who spoke on the condition that her real name not be used, has made her home for the past two months in a Johannesburg facility that will be shut down tomorrow.

Legislation is being formulated that will allow for the prosecution of all forms of human trafficking."The draft Bill (the Trafficking in Persons Bill) allows for all forms of human trafficking to be prosecuted including labour exploitation and not only sexual exploitation," said South Africa National Prosecuting Authority's (NPA's) Sexual Offences and Community Affairs (SOCA) Unit, National Co-ordinator, Malebo Kotu-Rammopo.

Sudan’s Anti-Terrorism Special Courts in late July sentenced 30 alleged rebels to death in trials that fell far short of international fair trial standards, Human Rights Watch have said. Human Rights Watch urged the government to abolish the hastily created special courts and instead prosecute all cases in the regular courts according to the 2005 National Interim Constitution.

Guinea’s new leader should put the country’s chronic human rights problems at the top of his agenda, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to Prime Minister Ahmed Tidiane Souaré. Human Rights Watch identified impunity for unlawful killings, torture, prison conditions, child labor, and child trafficking as among the key issues requiring the Guinean government’s immediate attention.

August 12 2008 is the one year anniversary of the disappearance of Haitian human rights activist, Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine. His wife, Michelle has sent an open letter to the Haitian authorities expressing her and her family's resolve and calling for the truth to be revealed and her shock at calling his mobile and someone answering the phone.

Rising food and fuel costs could trigger social conflict in Guinea-Bissau according to the latest report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), published last week. The warnings come just as Guinea-Bissau has been plunged into a political crisis with President Joao Vieira dissolving parliament and appointing a new prime minister on 5 August. A new government is expected to be formed in a matter of days.