Conflict-affected fragile states (CAFS) are home to half of the world’s out-of-school population – 39,000,000 children – yet receive only one fifth of total education aid. This paper published by the International Save the Children Alliance argues that, although international donors have declared the right of these children to an education, and recognise the social benefits and protective effects of education, provision for these children remains a low priority for donors.

This paper published by the Inter Parliamentary Union finds that the proliferation of small arms is a major contributer to human insecurity and social unrest. Responsible for the deaths of up to 270,000 people a year in countries officially 'at peace', they also result in five times this number of deaths in situations of war. The role of parliamentarians is critical in turning the tide of global gun proliferation and violence.

African Rights and REDRESS, two human rights organisations committed to ending impunity for serious international crimes, including genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and torture, commend German authorities for their decision to arrest Augustin Ngirabatware in Frankfurt, Germany. Ngirabatware was arrested at the request of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), which issued a warrant for his arrest in 2001 on charges related to the 1994 genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda.

A Darfur rebel group has said it was planning an assembly of fighters, supporters and displaced families to work out demands ahead of peace talks with Khartoum set for October. Khalil Ibrahim, head of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), said he expected more than 2,000 people to attend the meeting in an undisclosed rebel-held area of Darfur on October, 25, two days before the peace talks start in Libya.

The United Nations Peacebuilding Commission has called on the last major rebel hold-out group in Burundi to 'resume promptly without condition' its participation in efforts to finally close the chapter on years of ethnic violence in the small Central African country. In July the Palipehutu-FNL, which has not signed peace accords reached with other rebel groups, withdrew from the Joint Verification and Monitoring Mechanism (JVMM) set up to monitor a ceasefire it signed with the Government last year, and UN officials have since called on both sides to refrain from any actions that might lead to a resumption of hostilities.

The United Nations war crimes tribunal for the 1994 Rwandan genocide says it will not succeed in meeting the Security Council-imposed timetable for completing its work unless UN Member States help to arrest suspects still at large, accept the transfer of cases and provide enough funds for it to conduct the remaining trials. In its annual report, covering July 2006 to June this year, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) says it is committed to doing all it can to meet the 'completion strategy', the Council plan under which all trials, excluding appeals, are supposed to be finished by the end of next year.

Gangs of armed bandits are terrorising the population of the Central African Republic (CAR) as the region is torn apart by violence and lawlessness. The masked outlaws, known locally as 'Zaraguinas', have become stronger and better organised than government forces, leaving local people increasingly vulnerable to grave human rights abuses.

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), in cooperation with the UN Department of Political Affairs Mediation Support Unit (DPA/MSU) is seeking Senior Mediation Experts to assist and support the UN’s and its international partners’ mediation efforts. The Standby Team will consist of five full-time senior mediation experts and one full-time team leader. The purpose of the standby team is to assist and support the UN and its international partners with their mediation efforts in the field.The closing date is 30 September 2007.

Thousands of Congolese civilians who were displaced in August by fighting in Sake town, North Kivu Province, are still living in camps out of fear that fighting could resume, a UN official said.

'In a landmark case, we, Ugandan lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people assembled at the High Court of Uganda two months ago to reinforce our right to privacy, dignity, and property. There were no charges against us. We had done nothing wrong.'

Sierra Leone's opposition leader Ernest Bai Koroma, who looks set to win the West African country's presidential election, says he will wage an implacable war on corruption and work to revive the war-scarred economy. With just over three-quarters of the votes counted from last week's run-off poll, Koroma of the All People's Congress (APC) has a commanding lead with 60 percent. His rival, Vice-President Solomon Berewa of the ruling Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP), trails by some 20 points.

Sudanese government aircraft bombed a rebel-held town in Darfur on Monday, insurgent groups said, hours after the government said it was investigating a bloody rebel raid on one of its bases last month. Reports of the attack came seven weeks before rebel groups and the Khartoum government are set to meet for peace talks, and coincided with renewed calls from the United Nations for the two sides to cease hostilities and prepare for the arrival of a 26 000-strong force of UN and African Union peacekeepers.

At least fifty-six people have died while trying to make the perilous Gulf of Aden crossing from Somalia to Yemen, the United Nations refugee agency said on Friday. UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesperson Ron Redmond told journalists that a dozen boats carrying 925 Somalis, Ethiopians and others fleeing growing violence and insecurity in the region had arrived in Yemen since September 3.

Trying to measure the impact of the Zimbabwean exodus on HIV/AIDS rates in the region is so fraught with ifs, buts and maybes that the only reasonable assumption is that, like other migrants, economic migrants may run a higher risk of infection than they would have if they had not left their homes.

Thousands of illegal Liberians in the United States will be forced to leave on 1 October after the Department of Home Security has ended their Temporary Protected Status (TPS). But a joint research report published by the law firm of Dorsey & Whitney and Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights said time is not ripe for US authorities to end TPS for Liberians.

Floods from torrential rains have killed at least 41 people, displaced thousands more, and drowned livestock across east Africa, officials have said. Often prone to drought, the region also frequently suffers floods in August and September, the end of the rainy season. In the worst-hit nations, at least 17 people died in Ethiopia in recent days, 15 in Rwanda and nine in Uganda, governments and aid agencies said.

As postwar Burundi prepares for a reconciliation process based on South Africa's, women's rights advocates say the first step must be bringing the perpetrators of sexual violence to justice. Second in a series on African women and the rule of law.

Driven by poverty and conflict in their home countries, women from Africa travel to Lebanon only to find themselves hungry, abused, raped and subjected to conditions akin to slavery.

The first two of 40 camps for internally displace persons in Uganda's Lango region closed on Tuesday, a milestone in the return to peace after a war that at one point had driven more than 1.8 million Ugandans from their homes. Musa Ecweru, Uganda's Minister for Relief, Disaster Preparedness and Refugees; and Stefano Severe, the UN refugee agency representative in Kampala, joined former IDPs in symbolically closing the deserted Otwal Railway and Agweng camps – where most IDPs had already returned home – by demolishing huts and planting trees.

Central and local government officials of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have called directly on Congolese refugees in Zambia to return and help rebuild their homeland. David Byaza Sanda, secretary general in the DRC ministry of home affairs, made the appeal during a visit to the Meheba settlement in north-west Zambia's Solwezi district on Tuesday by a tripartite commission on the voluntary repatriation of Congolese refugees living in this country.