A group of forty Bushmen have managed to return to their homes in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve this weekend, despite a heavy police presence and attempts to persuade them to stay in the relocation camps. All the Bushmen in the convoy were allowed into the reserve by the wildlife guards at the gates, although some were only issued with temporary permits.

On 15 January 2007, IGLHRC and ILGA sent a letter to the president of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, asking him to reconsider plans to include a provision that would penalize homosexuality as part of an overall revision to the Rwandan penal code currently being debated. The provision appears as Article 160 in the French version and article 158 in the English version of the draft penal code currently on the website of the Ministry of Justice.

Voluntary Youth Philanthropists (VYP) is a Kenyan based organization, with active regional networks that has been lobbying for good governance and youth participation since its inception in 2000. The theme for the Peace Camel Caravan 2007 is “Youth leading change”. Its mission is creating awareness on leadership and peace in Kenya, targets 5 million people directly and indirectly in all eight provinces. It will start in April 2007 in Nairobi and with support vehicles will cover 1,500km in 15 days, according to AfricaFiles.

Small arms, particularly the ubiquitous AK-47, are the real weapons of mass destruction in the 21st century. They are responsible for more deaths than any other, especially in Africa. AK-47s are too cheap and too available in places like the Horn of Africa (Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea and Ethiopia), the pastoralist areas of East Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the oil-rich Delta Region of Nigeria. Something must be done to control the supply of small arms whose lucrative source is primarily the five permanent members of the Security Council, the networks of arms brokers who get them to the trouble spots of Africa, and the poverty and unemployment that provide willing hands to use them.

Non-white South Africans are at least 10 times more likely to be stopped for further questioning by immigration officers when entering Britain than their white countrymen, according to research published by the Home Office. The report also shows that non-white Canadians are nine times more likely to be stopped than their white countrymen, and that non-white Americans were more than twice as likely to be stopped as they came off flights.

Senegalese refugees in Guinea-Bissau who had recently returned to their homes in Senegal’s Casamance region on Monday were fleeing back across the border following four days of fighting. The Senegalese army said about 500 Moroccan troops are in Casamance to assist with a de-mining operation to help make the region safe for the return of refugees. Often in Casamance, where a rebellion has simmered since 1982, just the appearance of Senegalese troops can trigger flight because residents fear combat is imminent.

This Reliefweb paper explores how refugees are being constructed as depoliticised subjects within a health paradigm and how the medicalised representation of refugees’ interests is ultimately detrimental for defending refugee rights both within Britain and internationally.

The Guardian reports that BAE Systems, the UK's biggest arms supplier secretly paid a $12m commission into a Swiss account belonging to a well-connected local middleman, in a deal which led to Tanzania buying a controversial military radar system.

As a tense and at times violent nationwide strike continued in Guinea this week, Human Rights Watch called on Guinean security forces to exercise restraint in responding to demonstrators and to ensure that their fundamental right to life, and freedoms of expression and assembly are respected.

An increasingly grim security situation in northern Central African Republic threatened the progress made since elections in 2005, Toby Lanzer, United Nations Resident/Humanitarian Coordinator in that country, said at a Headquarters press conference this afternoon (16 January 2007).

Several people have been killed after gunmen fired on a convoy of Ethiopian troops in the Somali capital of Mogadishu in the latest of a string of attacks in the country. A source for the government, which has said it wants African peacekeepers to be deployed as soon as possible, said on Monday (15 January 2007) that the attack happened the night before.

Leaders of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) have said they want to leave southern Sudan - where they have assembled for peacetalks - and return to Uganda. Monday's (15 January 2007) statement comes after the LRA's ended peace talks with Uganda on Friday (12 January 2007).

Sudanese government aircraft have bombed Darfur rebel areas despite a declared truce, rebels say. Jar el-Neby, a Darfur rebel commander, told Reuters from North Darfur: "The Antonovs bombed our areas of Amrai and Anka."

A Dutch oil worker and a Nigerian serviceman have been killed in an attack on a ferry near the Bonny Island oil and gas export complex, industry sources said. Unidentified armed men attacked the boat in Nigeria's delta region on Tuesday (16 January 2007), killing at least two people, although reports differed as to the number dead.

Peace and stability are urgently needed in Somalia to end the suffering of thousands of Somali children affected by the recent conflict, UNICEF and Save the Children UK said today (12 January 2007). Children have been victims of conflict and, according to eye-witness accounts, have featured prominently in recent fighting as active combatants.

Clan elders and residents of southern Somalia have said that about 100 civilians were killed in US and Ethiopian air attacks this week. A senior US official said the US had only carried out one raid in Somalia and no civilians had died.

Somalia's parliament has declared a state of emergency for three months to restore security after several weeks of war. Members of parliament passed the vote in Baidoa on Saturday (14 January 2007), the town that acted as the interim seat of government until Somali and Ethiopian troops ousted the Council of Islamic Courts that controlled much of the south.

Heavy rains pounding Burundi's capital and outlying areas have killed at least four people and left about 23 000 homeless since the downpours began last month, officials have said. They said the situation was "catastrophic" after the floods destroyed farmlands, sparking fears of food shortages and disease outbreaks in the tiny Central African nation emerging from more than a decade of civil strife.

Madi Okollo Refugee Settlement was created in 2003 and at the time of research had an official population of 7,989 people, 63 percent of whom are below the age of 18. The majority of the refugees in the settlement are Sudanese Acholis, with smaller populations of other Sudanese groups including Latuku, Didinga, Baka, Dinka, and Lafon as well as a handful of Congolese.

Abdur Mohammed is part of a massive flood of humanity converging on Bossaso from Ethiopia, southern Somalia and Sudan. The authorities in the town estimate there are over 5,000 people sleeping rough or squatting. The magnet for these people is the chance that Bossaso offers to escape from the misery of their lives in the Horn of Africa.