Up to a million migrants have gathered in Libya, from where they will attempt to sail across the Mediterranean for Europe and, ultimately, the United Kingdom. New estimates reveal that there are two million migrants massed in the North African country and that half of them plan to sail to the European mainland and travel on to Britain in the hope of building a new life.

About 1,400 families (8,400 people) displaced in Musigati commune in the northwestern province of Bubanza, following fighting between government forces and the Forces Nationales de Libération (FNL), desperately need help, according to local officials. Laurent Kagamba, adviser to the Musigati administrator, said that since the simultaneous attacks on three military positions on 28 December and another on 9 January in the same commune, residents had fled their homes.

The British government's loud condemnation of human rights abuses in Zimbabwe led many Zimbabweans to assume they could find easy refuge in the United Kingdom: the reality for asylum seekers has been far less straightforward. According to Home Office figures, around 20,000 Zimbabweans sought asylum in Britain between 2000 and 2007; of those, 4,807 applications were successful - 944 of that total making it on appeal.

Asking the local Himba people where on the Cunene River in northern Namibia they would choose to site a hydroelectric dam "is like asking me which of my three children do you want me to kill", a Himba elder told IRIN. In the event, the announcement by President Hifikepunye Pohamba late last year that construction on "the Baynes hydropower project [on the Cunene River] as soon as possible", was made without consulting the Himba.

The insurgency led by dissident general Laurent Nkunda in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has spelt out its demands at a peace conference to end the conflict in the troubled North and South Kivu provinces in the east, where, according to the UN, insecurity and human rights abuses have displaced at least half a million people in the past 12 months.

Human rights activists in Kenya have dismissed as meaningless police plans to launch an inquiry into the use of live rounds during protests against December’s controversial presidential elections. On 16 January alone, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW), five people were shot dead in the western city of Kisumu during attempts by supporters of the opposition Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) to stage a rally.

To what extent is international society responsible for the protection of civilians during humanitarian crises? This paper reports on a policy advisory group convened to discuss Africa’s responsibility to protect. The aim was to interrogate issues around humanitarian intervention in Africa and the responsibility of regional governments and the international community in the face of humanitarian crises.

Angry about a European Parliament resolution on human rights in Egypt, the Egyptian government countered with an accusation that religious and ethnic minorities face increasing discrimination in Europe. "Egypt is deeply concerned at the deteriorating state of the rights of religious and ethnic minorities and immigrants on the European continent," a Foreign Ministry statement said.

In view of the meeting of the Subcommittee on political matters: human rights and democracy, international and regional issues between the EU and Egypt to be held on 2324th January 2008, the Euro Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN), the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) are deeply concerned about the deterioration of the human rights situation since the adoption of the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) action plan in March 2007.

Over the last 20 years Kenya has had serious episodic occurrences of direct violence but none as serious as what we have witnessed over the last one week where the violence is widespread and systematic. Indeed the present violations amount to crimes against humanity. These crimes will continue to occur unless we are prepared to deal with the root causes of the discontent. And I don’t mean the disputed presidential election. Our problems run deeper.

Root causes are those issues about which the conflict is really about. They are the contradictions that need to be addressed to enable a constructive transformation of any conflict. If not dealt with, the potential for violence will remain even if we put out the fire that is presented by the election standoff.

Kenya’s fault lines for conflict have now burst open as a result of what a large section of the population is claiming to have been a stolen election: Key among these fault lines are corruption and ineffective governance, unemployment, gender discrimination, generational exclusion, identity, insecurity, economic and social disparities. All these problems have been simmering and now the lid is off.

Our government very quickly needs to accept that our country is in conflict and deep crisis. Calls for peace without addressing the injustices that are highlighted by the fault lines amount to mere rhetoric. All citizens have the responsibility to save Kenya. There are many ways to do this; demanding action on corruption, governance and a new constitution are a few options open to us.

Already we are witnessing massive rapes, maiming , mutilations, pillage, looting and burning of properties, displacements of populations, starvation, solidarity and polarization on ethnic identify, loss of trust among groups that have hitherto coexisted peacefully, shootings and mass social trauma. These are events that happen in war and conflict situations and they are happening here.

This is not a problem that we can sort out on our own. Let’s no delude ourselves. Let’s accept the AU and local offers of mediation. I implore our leaders to take pause, and think through what messages they are sending out. I urge them to critically examine the root causes of our current explosion and deal with the issues in an inclusive manner.

Referring to one side as ‘losers’ will not help us transform this conflict peacefully. We shall all become losers in that scenario.

Police on Wednesday shot dead four people and violently dispersed opposition leaders at the start of the three-day opposition mass protests which saw businesses paralysed in Nairobi and all the major towns and cities, including Kisumu, Mombasa and Eldoret. The opposition Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) has vowed to pursue protests and engage in international mediation efforts while constantly raising the issue of the flawed presidential elections in parliament where it has a controlling majority.

Dear all Kenyans and friends of Kenya,
My name is John Barbieri. I am desperately trying to reach out to other people in the US who are concerned and outraged about the current situation in Kenya, and to see ways that I and others may help take unified action in any possible way. In that vein, I am reaching out to all Kenyans living in the US and friends of Kenya, and am proposing the idea of trying to form and expand a network of people in the US in order to establish a kind of united front to vigorously advocate for the US to play a more neutral, multilateral and transparent role in the negotiation process for peace with truth and justice in Kenya.

Plans to begin teaching peace and reconciliation studies in universities are in the pipeline, an official at the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission (NURC) has said. According to Frank Kobukyeye who is in charge of conflict management at the commission, NURC is working with Permanent Education for Peace and Reconciliation (EPPR) to implement the programme.

A former officer of the Rwandan Armed Forces (FAR), Lieutenant-Colonel Marcel Bivugabagabo, 53, was arrested Tuesday in Toulouse, southern France, at the request of the Rwandan authorities. Bivugabagabo, who was commander of the operational sector of Ruhengeri, northern Rwanda, during the genocide from April to July 1994, is sought for his participation in the killings.

Chadian President Idriss Déby Itno on Saturday threatened to pursue and strike Chadian rebels inside neighbouring Sudan and repeated charges that Khartoum was trying to destabilise his country. Déby claimed his forces had already driven out the rebels from Chad and said: "We're going to destroy them in their nest inside Sudan. "We're going to make them eat dust inside Sudan," he added at a support rally in Ndjamena.

Sudan admitted on Thursday that its troops had opened fire on a joint United Nations/African Union peacekeeping convoy in Darfur, contradicting an earlier denial by its ambassador to the UN. A spokesperson for the Sudanese armed forces said the attack was the result of a "shared mistake". He said the UN/AU Mission in Darfur (Unamid) had failed to warn his soldiers they would be passing through the area, Sudan state news agency Suna reporte

Many Liberians observing the opening of the country’s first public truth and reconciliation commission hearings on 8 January were confused about what the hearings would mean if the accused would not be prosecuted afterwards.

A terminally-ill Ghanaian woman who was forced to return home after her UK visa expired is struggling to receive the medical treatment she needs. Ama Sumani, 39, who has cancer and requires kidney dialysis, was removed from a Cardiff hospital and flown back to her home country on Wednesday.

A United Nations-supported conference aimed at bringing peace, security and development to the strife-torn eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is underway in North Kivu province, where fighting has uprooted hundreds of thousands of people in the past year. Over 1,000 delegates are taking part in the nine-day summit which began yesterday in Goma, the capital of North Kivu, where fighting has escalated in recent months between Government troops and rebels allied with the dissident army general, Laurent Nkunda, forcing hundreds of thousands of civilians to flee their homes.

After a delay of more than four months, the war crimes trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor resumed today at the United Nations-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL). Mr. Taylor is facing 11 counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity and other serious violations of international humanitarian law – including mass murder, mutilations, rape, sexual slavery and the use of child soldiers – for his role in the decade-long civil war that engulfed Sierra Leone, which borders Liberia. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him.