The Ugandan government has rejected a demand by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) for a reduction in the size of the army and the induction of rebel fighters into the military when a final peace deal is struck. During talks in Juba, the capital of southern Sudan, the LRA had said reconstituting the Ugandan People's Defense Forces (UPDF) was the only way to achieve lasting stability in the country. "Uganda shall constitute and build a new national army that guarantees security, peace and sustainable prosperity of the people of Uganda," according to a LRA position paper presented to southern Sudanese mediators.

Young men eyed the 1,300 guns laid out in a field in the southern Sudanese town of Akobo. The rifles would once have been worth a fortune to these members of the Lou Nuer, who typically used weapons to defend themselves or to raid neighbouring villages. Arms were once considered integral to life in this region. But in July, more than 1,000 men and boys in Akobo County relinquished their weapons to local authorities, asking nothing in return.

Children are still being recruited by the Sudanese army and various armed groups, despite the signing of formal peace and ceasefire agreements, a United Nations report has found. "It is clear that thousands of children are still associated with armed forces in southern Sudan, awaiting demobilisation," UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, said in a report. "Recruitment continues to be widespread because the war in southern Sudan has created a plethora of government-aligned militias or other armed groups," the report added.

Incidences of politically motivated violence have continued unabated in all provinces. The arms of the state such as the police have reportedly continued to harass opposition MDC members and sympathizers. The month was characterized by cases of assault, intimidation and harassment, arson, malicious injury to property. In one extreme case a murder was recorded in Mashonaland East Province.

Working with Conflict course. April 23rd - June 29th 2007. An intensive, practical and participatory course for practitioners working for peace and justice in situations of instability and conflict. The overall aim of this course is to provide participants with a broad understanding on a variety of issues and topics relevant to their work and situation, thereby contributing to the capacity of organisations and communities to work for positive change. Held in Birmingham, UK.

Certificate in Conflict Resolution, September 2006. Run by RTC and the Centre for Forgiveness and Reconciliation at Coventry University. A two week course which aims to provide a greater conceptual understanding of conflict, violence and peace and the forces of conflict dynamics, and a range of practical conflict handling skills.

Imagine, if you will, a modern apartheid state with first, second and eleventh class citizens, all required to carry identification specifying their ethnic origin. First class citizens are obliged to serve in the armed forces, kept on ready reserve status until in their forties, and accorded an impressive array of housing, medical, social security, educational and related benefits denied all others.

At least 100 Somalis are arriving daily in northeastern Kenya, fleeing mounting insecurity in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu. "One week alone we had about 1,800 people arriving in Dadaab refugee camp," Emmanuel Nyabera, the spokesman for the Kenyan office of the UNHCR, said. Those arriving in Dadaab are generally in good health, but many are visibly exhausted from the long journey, he said.

More than one year after the signing of a Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) which ended 21 years of civil war between the central government and the southern-based Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army, there are still an estimated five million internally displaced people in Sudan, including 1.8 million from the separate conflict in the western Darfur region.

In humanitarian emergencies, provision of things such as shelter, food, water and sanitation to refugees and the displaced are given greater priority than medical risks such as HIV/AIDS. As a result, preventative and curative treatment for sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV/AIDS is limited. The relationship between humanitarian crises and HIV/AIDS is complex and each situation must be examined individually.

At least 10 people are dying every day in displacement camps in Gety, in the northeastern district of Ituri, Democratic Republic of Congo, according to Modibo Traore, the head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Bunia, capital of Ituri. According to OCHA-Bunia's recent statistics, two-thirds of the deaths are children younger than five years, whose immune systems have been weakened by malnutrition.

Rwanda's government has proposed eliminating the death penalty for genocide to encourage European countries and Canada to extradite suspected masterminds of the nation's 1994 mass killings, the attorney general said Friday . Rwanda has repeatedly demanded that Western nations extradite any genocide suspects they know are living in their countries, but some nations have expressed reservations because of the death penalty.

This book focuses on the militarisation of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs), especially in Africa. The planned and spontaneous arming of refugees and IDPs threatens access to asylum as well as protection. This book attempts to explain why displaced people arm themselves or how militarisation affects the local and host populations.

This document considers whether the privatisation of security greatly undermines the very foundation upon which state authority rests, and if so, how. It further deliberates upon as to whether private military companies (PMCs) represent security actors of and for the state, or whether they represent autonomous agents who work above and beyond the state, and again how this reinforces or challenges the notion of the state monopoly over all forms of organised violence.

Seven countries yesterday (August 18) resolved to deploy soldiers to keep peace in Somalia in a few weeks. They have started revising an Operational Deployment Mission Plan for presentation to the UN Security Council to allow for the lifting of an arms embargo in the region. They are Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, Djibouti, Eritrea and Uganda.

The number of children in northern Uganda who take refuge in towns every night from their rural homes for fear of being abducted by rebels has dropped but thousands of children are still vulnerable, aid workers said. In Gulu district, where abduction of children by the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) was rampant, the number of ‘night commuters’ has fallen from 25,000 in February 2004 to less than 4,000 at present, according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

SACCAWU (South African Commercial Catering and Allied Workers Union) members employed by Shoprite have been engaged in lunch hour pickets effective from 18 July 2006. The pickets, which are but just a component of a protected industrial action, were in response to Shoprite's unreasonable refusal to grant workers an increase of a mere R300.00 or 10%, whichever is greater and also improve their other conditions of work.

Some 242 children who have been in the fighting units of the southern Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) were on Tuesday disarmed and demobilised at a ceremony in the southern town of Tonj in Warab State. According to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), in the past five years more than 15,000 children have been disarmed, demobilised and returned to their families and communities from SPLA ranks.

Domestic workers face a wide range of grave abuses and labor exploitation, including physical and sexual abuse, forced confinement, non-payment of wages, denial of food and health care and excessive working hours with no rest days, Human Rights Watch has said in a new report.

A delegation of about 150 people from northern Uganda has arrived in Maridi, Western Equatoria State of southern Sudan, on their way to meet the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), Joseph Kony. Sources said the meeting was likely to take place on Thursday in Nabanga, near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. The LRA, the sources added, had been holed up in this area and in Garamba national park for some time now.