The Hague-based International Criminal Court began on Thursday (9 November 2006) its first pre-trial hearings of a case against a former militia leader from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Referred to as "Confirmation of Charges Hearing", the court's sessions are presided over by a bench of three judges, led by Claude Jorda of France.

Chad's government has claimed that ethnic violence in Sudan's Darfur region is spilling across the border, sparking an upsurge of deadly Arab-African fighting among Chadians. Government spokesman Hourmadji Moussa Doumgor said in a statement late Tuesday that the latest fighting broke out Saturday in the eastern region of Sila and left "numerous victims'' on both sides.

On Monday, a group of some 200 militiamen in the western government-run town of Duekoue abducted the UN employee, demanding money from the government disarmament programme in return for his release, the UN Operation in Cote d'Ivoire (ONUCI) said in a statement on Tuesday. The abduction followed clashes on Friday that pitted pro-government militia holed up in improvised barracks against angry residents and security forces in the Yopougon suburb of Cote d’Ivoire’s main city, Abidjan.

The Reinforcement of African Peace keeping capacities (RECAMP) is once more in the limelight. Already in its fifth edition as from next Monday, the training programme prepares African countries for peace-keeping operations at the behest of the United Nations. Dubbed "SAWA 2006", this year's event involves eleven countries drawn principally from the Central African Economic Community. The genesis of RECAMP stretches to 1994 when it took the colourings of the French defence and security policy in Africa. Today, it has evolved to a partnership and cooperation between the African Union and the European Union.

Fighting that lasted four hours has erupted in Bandiradley, 90 km north east Gakayo where the semiautonomous regional government of Puntland administers. The fighting has taken place between the Union of Islamic Courts fighters and Abdi Qeybdid's that are stationed in somewhere less than five km from then Islamists' stronghold.

More than 400 000 Congolese are still living in nearby countries as refugees. Northern Uganda has been ravaged by a nearly 20-year insurgency and conflict has rent Burundi and Rwanda. According to recent UN statistics, 90 percent of about 13 million people displaced within their own country by warfare, violence or natural catastrophes reside in eastern and central Africa - six million in Sudan, three million in DRC, two million in northern Uganda and 117 000 in Burundi.

Gains made to contain HIV/Aids and malaria in sub-Saharan Africa could be reversed if the "business as usual" approach to climate change continues, a new report warns. And with limited capacity to beat back effects of global warming, these and other vector-borne diseases are likely to get out of control. The report, 'Mapping Climate Vulnerability and Poverty in Africa', says climate change is likely to increase the population of those at the risk of malaria infection by 260 to 320 million in the 2080s.

Yayi Bayam Diouf says that for the past two months, she has managed to prevent any boats leaving her home area in Senegal, loaded with migrants trying to reach Spain's Canary Islands - making her campaign more effective than all the warships and planes sent to the Atlantic Ocean by the European Union. "Every morning I go to the seaside, I call many young fishermen and I start speaking to them," she says. She started her campaign after her only son drowned trying to reach the Canary Islands.

Rwanda is seeking the extradition from Britain of four alleged masterminds of the 1994 genocide in which more than half a million people were killed, an official said on Tuesday. Tharcisse Karugarama, Rwanda's Justice Minister, said his country has formally requested that the British government hand over the suspects.

Ana Ndayizeye embodies the havoc that the unrest in Africa's war-torn Great Lakes region has played on people's lives. The 25-year-old was born in a refugee camp and knows no other world. Born, raised and married in camps, the second-generation refugee has flitted from the Congo to Tanzania to Mozambique, where she now lives in the Maratane refugee camp, along with about 5 000 other people. Maratane, linked by a dusty alluvial road, and about 2 000km north of the capital Maputo has a forlorn, lost air.

Dennis Brutus is a veteran of the South African liberation struggle, a leading figure in the global justice movement and a world-renowned poet. Brutus spoke with the Socialist Worker Online about the political situation in Africa today - focusing especially on the crisis in Darfur.

With a lack of faith in the police seeming to have escalated in certain suburbs of the Mozambican capital, Maputo, citizens have lately resorted to taking the law into their own hands, and meting out rough justice to alleged criminals. This has resulted in a body count of over 20 since August. The ways in which lynchings are carried out range from beatings to burnings, with images of gruesomely burnt bodies becoming a regular feature in newspapers and on television channels.

Five people were killed in a Kenyan slum after fighting broke out between two outlawed groups over extortion, police said on Tuesday, adding that two of them were killed by police who tried to quell the violence. "Officially, we know that three people were killed last night," police spokesman Gideon Kibunjah told Reuters. Kibunjah said the violence in Nairobi's sprawling Mathare slum was by the rival Mungiki and Taliban groups over protection money levied by one of them on brewers of an illegal drink.

The prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (ICC) must pursue more charges against Congolese rebel leader Thomas Lubanga and prosecute others responsible for heinous crimes in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) if the court is going to bring justice to the Congolese people, Human Rights Watch said today. The hearing to confirm these important charges marks a milestone for the victims in Ituri. But these charges only begin to address the horrific acts committed by the UPC. If the ICC is going to have an impact on ending impunity in Ituri, the prosecutor must pursue more charges against Lubanga and target more perpetrators responsible for atrocities.

How can education systems promote trade, growth and poverty reduction? Should governments assist the education sector to generate income? Should they protect education from domestic or foreign private involvement? Is migration a desirable development option or a drain on a country’s human resources? These are among the questions addressed in a paper from the Overseas Development Institute.

This article evaluates the extent to which a few selected African countries have incorporated socio-economic rights in their constitutions, the mechanisms through which such rights are realised, the challenges such realisation entails and the approach taken by the courts and other human rights institutions in those countries towards the realisation and enforcement of those rights. The survey examines South Africa, Uganda, Namibia and Ghana.

Ethiopia's most senior judge, Teshale Aberra, has left the country following threats and "continued harassment" from the government, he has told the BBC. The Supreme Court president accused the government of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of killing its critics but managing to avoid international blame. Another judge, Wolde-Michael Meshesha, recently fled the country after carrying out an investigation into the suppression of protests against alleged fraud in last year's elections.

A new academic journal will be launched during 2007, dealing with conflict and peace issues from a multi-disciplinary, and distinctly African perspective. The African Conflict and Peace Review will provide a vehicle for African scholars, and those focussing on Africa, to publish their views on issues of conflict and peace affecting the continent.

Central African non-governmental organisations are urging states within their region to ratify the protocol on the African Court of Human and Peoples' Rights to bolster the fight against impunity and corruption. "It is time civil-society organisations in central Africa mobilised together to get our states really engaged in the establishment of the African Court," Loamba Moké, the central Africa coordinator and focal point for the coalition advocating the establishment of the court, said.

Orphaned at the age of nine, Miselo fell into prostitution at 14, plying her trade in bars and clubs in the Zambian capital, Lusaka, sometimes waking up beaten, lost and dumped on the street. Now 18, she has an 18-month old daughter to care for. Hardly a charmed life – but it could have been much worse. Last year, Miselo met a truck driver at a bar where she was working and they struck up a friendship that seemed truer than the usual quick-money relationships she was used to.