Fierce clashes erupted in Mogadishu between Ethiopian-backed Somali forces and Islamist fighters, with both sides claiming to have inflicted heavy casualties, officials and witnesses said on Wednesday. The overnight fighting was focused around the former Defence Ministry building in southern Mogadishu and resulted in a fire in Bakara market, where the Islamist insurgents often ambush police patrols.

Ivorian children in a Liberia refugee camp have been deprived of an education based on their home country curriculum in a school that opened there over three years ago. “This is really paining our hearts,” said Aisha Berete, mother of five of the 387 children attending the Saclepea Refugee Primary School in eastern Nimba County. “[The children] are losing their Ivorian identity and how will they fit in to the Ivorian school system once we return home?”

Eastern Africa could face dry conditions early next year, with the possibility of seasonal rains being delayed by the effects of a climate phenomenon called La Niña, climatologists say. "The second rainy season starts now for the Horn of Africa and Eastern Africa - we expect the rains to be near normal over much of the Greater Horn of Africa," said Bwango Apuuli, deputy director of the Nairobi-based Climate Prediction and Application Centre (ICPAC) of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the regional grouping.

Universities in developing countries should ditch the 'ivory tower' legacy of colonialism and enhance their links with the world outside, according to David Dickson, Director, SciDev.Net. Too many universities in developing countries sustain an image of themselves as elitist institutions, cut off from the needs and interests of the society that surrounds them.

Ethiopia on Thursday pledged 5,000 troops to a U.N.-African Union peacekeeping mission in Sudan's war-ravaged Darfur region. The 26,000-strong joint mission is to replace a hard-pressed AU force that lacks experience, equipment and cash and has been unable to stop the conflict that has caused a humanitarian crisis in which some 200,000 people are estimated to have died.

Four Chadian rebel groups initialled a peace agreement with the government on Wednesday at talks in Libya, a Chadian official said, but the leader of the main faction said there were many points left to resolve. "The contents are secret. An agreement should be officially signed very soon in a ceremony that will bring together heads of state in Tripoli," a senior Chadian government official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters in Chad's capital N'Djamena.

This International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) report provides insight into the local management of conflict over natural resources between herders and farmers in north-western Mali. The study finds that social, economic and environmental change within the region has led to growing pressure on natural resources and a marked deterioration in relations between farmers and herders. The paper warns that because this conflict is based on ethnicity, there is potential for serious escalation.

The 15-member U.N. Security Council, which remains paralysed over the killings and military repression in Burma (Myanmar), joined hands Tuesday to condemn the "murderous attack" last weekend that killed 10 African Union (AU) peacekeepers in South Darfur, Sudan. A presidential statement, reflecting the views of the entire membership, condemned the attack and demanded "that no effort be spared" to identify and bring the perpetrators "to justice".

The UN refugee agency has reported it was facing a critical shortfall of US$11.1 million for its refugee return and reintegration operations budget in South Sudan for this year. "We are in a very dire situation because if we don't get this additional support we will have to scale down or even halt our operations with serious consequences for all our activities," said Chris Ache, the UNHCR representative in Sudan. "I implore donors to give us the money we need to continue our work," he added.

Egyptian security forces have detained a Shi'ite Muslim activist who campaigned for more rights for Egypt's tiny minority Shi'ite population, security sources and the man's lawyer said on Wednesday. Mohamed el-Derini, who runs a Shi'ite group called the Supreme Council for the Care of the Prophet's Family, was taken from his home on Monday, and is the second Shi'ite activist arrested in two months in Egypt, lawyer Hossam Bahgat said.

A Nigerian court allowed the federal government on Wednesday to serve a summons on U.S.-based drug maker Pfizer Inc to defend itself against a $6.5 billion lawsuit over a drug trial. The federal government and the northern Nigerian state of Kano are suing Pfizer for a combined $8.5 billion in damages over the 1996 trial of Trovan, a new drug tested on children during a meningitis epidemic.

Military dissidents loyal to renegade army general Laurent Nkunda have resumed fighting in the eastern province of North Kivu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, two weeks after a ceasefire was negotiated by the UN Mission in the Congo (MONUC). 'The insurgents launched attacks against three of our positions in the morning, in Ngungu where the clashes had ceased, in Karuba and in Kichanga' [in Masisi territory, northeast of Goma, the provincial capital], Colonel Delphin Kahindi, the deputy commander of the Congolese army in the province, said on 24 September 2007.

Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua recently declared the energy crisis a national emergency, but aid groups say he should also declare a state of emergency in the health service. 'So far there is no evidence the government will act quickly to bring succour to the poor', said Osita Ezechukwu, a volunteer at the anti-poverty group Social Rights Initiative.

The UN Security Council has authorised the deployment of EU peacekeeping forces and UN police to protect civilians in Chad and the Central African Republic from violence spilling over from neighbouring Darfur. The resolution, drafted by France, was approved by 15 votes to zero on Tuesday.

Darfur's rebel groups could face sanctions if they do not attend peace talks with Khartoum in Libya next month, delegates to a UN-sponsored meeting in New York have warned. US and Sudanese officials both called for sanctions against rebels who stayed away from negotiations, in a rare moment of unity following Friday's meeting.

High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres has welcomed the adoption of a UN Security Council resolution establishing a multi-dimensional United Nations mission in Chad and Central African Republic (CAR) that will help strengthen security in the region. Guterres said he looked forward to an early decision of the European Union (EU) to send military troops so that the UN force – to be known by its acronym MINURCAT – can deploy in the coming weeks and months.

As the latest summit to discuss a post-Kyoto treaty continues in New York this week, the single most revealing statement has already been spoken: 'We need to climate-proof economic growth.' These few words, told to reporters by the UN’s top climate official, Yvo de Boer, during the recent Vienna round of talks, define the blinded establishment approach to tackling climate change.

Zambia's elderly population are faced with a double jeopardy: they are either shunned by communities as witchcraft practitioners; or, with little or no understanding of the disease, are burdened with caring for HIV/Aids orphans, according to a non-governmental organisation concerned with their well-being.

Angolan authorities hold that a recent oil discovery in the enclave of Cabinda is up to five times greater than announced by the Australian oil company Roc Oil in August. The gigantic oil reserve could lead to onshore production on the disputed territory. In late August, Roc Oil issued an optimistic press release, saying the Australian company had made an oil discovery enabling it to extract 33,000,000 barrels of oil from the onshore Massambala oil field in Cabinda. Roc Oil's shares immediately rose by 16 per cent.

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has urged world leaders to 'break their silence' and press the Sudanese government to arrest one of its ministers for alleged war crimes. The comments by Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the ICC prosecutor, came ahead of a high-level UN meeting on Darfur on Friday.