Congo arrested a group of foreign security guards, including three Americans, on suspicion of plotting a coup ahead of national elections, a government official said Wednesday. But a United Nations official cast doubt on the claim and said the UN was confident the country would remain calm for the country's long-delayed vote, now set for July 30.
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Interview with special UN representative

This report highlights the struggles that informal economy organisations are facing in Africa was launched by War on Want and its partners during a seminar on 3-4 May 2006 in Lilongwe, Malawi. The report, entitiled Forces for Change: informal economy organisations in Africa, focuses on the experiences of informal economy organisations in Ghana, Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia, and is a joint research report between War on Want and the Workers' Education Association Zambia (WEAZ) and the Alliance for Zambia Informal Economy Associations (AZIEA). It shows the contribution of informal economy workers to the overall economy and the need for wider recognition of the informal economy within the International Labour Organisation (ILO), trade union federations, local and central governments.

It was just the sort of message Gordon Brown wanted to see. As he arrived at the Hilton in the Nigerian capital of Abuja to warn Africa that stamping out corruption was the flipside of greater financial generosity from the west, the TV monitor behind the reception desk said: "Important notice. Anti-money-laundering measures are observed in this hotel."

The Jury of the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders (MEA) announced today (May 23) in Atlanta that the 2006 laureates are Akbar Ganji, Iran, and Arnold Tsunga, Zimbabwe. Arnold Tsunga is an outstanding lawyer, Chairman of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, who continues to provide a voice to Zimbabweans silenced by repression. For representing victims of human rights violations he is constantly harassed and threatened. He was arrested several times and recently released on bail.

A refugee camp guard in northern Uganda has shot dead at least 10 displaced people with 13 others in hospital, some with their legs shattered. An army spokesman said the attack at Ogwete in Lira district, was carried out by a local defence militiaman. He is reported to be on the run. The man apparently shot his victims after an argument over a woman.

Martin Lado, who was a captain in the former rebel movement in southern Sudan, looks at the pockmarked ruins of a prison he now runs and remarks, "It's as if we are still in the bush living under the mango trees." Only two buildings at Yei River prison survived two decades of civil war between the southern Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army and the government in Khartoum, which ended with the signing of a peace agreement in January 2005. At night, male inmates are crammed inside one of the buildings to sleep; women prisoners are locked into the other. The war may have won the southerners some autonomy from the northern-based government, but it also destroyed what little infrastructure existed.

A preparatory meeting for the Euro-African Conference on immigration, slated for 10-11 July in Morocco, is due to be held on 6-7 June in Dakar. It will convene high ranking officials of European and African countries, reliable sources told APA Tuesday. A second meeting of the conference steering committee will be held the eve of this meeting, according to a dispatch by the Moroccan Press Agency copied to APA here on Tuesday.

2005 was a year of contradictions in which signs of hope for human rights were undermined through the deception and failed promises of powerful governments, said Amnesty International as it published its annual report. Speaking at the launch of Amnesty International Report 2006, the organization's Secretary General Irene Khan said that the security agenda of the powerful and privileged had hijacked the energy and attention of the world from serious human rights crises elsewhere.

The Federal High Court in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, has ordered Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC, to pay $1.5 billion about N210 billion into the coffers of Central Bank of Nigeria, in favour of the Ijaw Aborigenes of Bayelsa State.

An information campaign is underway in Cameroon concerning a new Code of Penal Procedure that authorities say will strengthen the rule of law -- making the Central African country a standard for human rights. At present, Cameroon is regularly criticised by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) for failing to respect human rights.

Despite promises of liberalization, repression is continuing against human rights reformers in Egypt, and U.S. annual aid to Egypt of some $1.7 billion is expected to continue at the same level in the next fiscal year. In addition to critiques from international human rights organizations, Egyptian bloggers are increasingly prominent in disseminating critique of the regime in both English and Arabic.

This report, South Africa: Justice Sector and the Rule of Law, comes at an important time for South Africa and the African continent. It is one of a set of reports initiated by AfriMAP that intend to go beyond describing the institutional arrangements in a constitutional democracy and reflect on the health and quality of democracy and governance in South Africa. In particular, these reports will measure South Africa’s compliance with the commitments undertaken since 2000 by the African Union and NEPAD’s African Peer Review Mechanism.

Government troops have killed 32 rebels in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in an ongoing ‘Operation Ituri Explorer’ mission ahead of general elections on 30 July, the army spokesman has said. Five government soldiers were killed and 11 wounded, he added. The army is trying to re-establish state authority in the area near the lake so that residents can vote in the upcoming presidential and legislative elections.

The world seems to be “sleepwalking” down a path in which more and more States feel obliged to obtain nuclear weapons even as militant groups seek the means to carry out nuclear terrorism, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned today (May 17).

The next few weeks are absolutely critical if lasting peace and reconciliation are to be achieved in the war-ravaged Darfur region of western Sudan, warned the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland. In his presentation to the UN Security Council following a recent visit to Sudan and Chad, Egeland outlined five goals that needed to be achieved immediately: implementing the Darfur peace agreement; bringing on board those who have not signed it; substantially strengthening the African Union Mission in Sudan; accelerating the transition of AMIS to a UN operation; and securing and funding the humanitarian lifeline to more than three million people.

Warlords involved in Somalia's worst fighting in a decade should be sacked as government ministers and charged with war crimes, members of the country's fledgling parliament said on Friday (19 May). Around 150 people, many of them civilians, died last week in Mogadishu during pitched battles between Islamic fighters and warlord militias, which many analysts and Somalis believe are funded by the United States. The fighting has recently died down but the lawless capital remains tense.

The number of people applying for asylum in South Africa rose sharply in the first three months of this year, according to government figures released last week. In addition to the usual countries of origin such as Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Zimbabwe, new trends emerged with requests from people from Malawi, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, China, United Republic of Tanzania and Ethiopia. Zimbabweans were by far the largest number of applicants in every reception office.

In a departure from its traditional role of protecting and aiding refugees (people who have crossed international borders in their flight from persecution), the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, is now helping internally displaced people in Uganda. One of its efforts in Uganda is to work with the government to allow for greater freedom of movement and to help displaced people return to their original homes.

This report presents the challenges to refugee protection and assesses the response of the international community. It provides an overview of key developments related to forced displacement from 2001 to September 2005. It also looks at efforts to strengthen international protection through enhanced inter-state cooperation. The State of the World’s Refugees also addresses recent developments related to refugee security.

James Manuen Deng is holding his sobbing two-year-old son Garang, who is wrapped in bandages and blankets. The sick child - named after the late southern rebel leader John Garang - nearly died before being admitted to the therapeutic feeding centre in Nyamlell in Aweil North, a county in Northern Bahr el Ghazal. Deng is a member of the Dinka ethnic community in the southern Sudanese state of Northern Bahr el Ghazal, which comprises the counties of Aweil North, East, South and West. Deng fled his village during the war-induced famine that ravaged the region in 1988 and claimed approximately 70,000 lives. He returned home in March, on the run again, this time fleeing the escalating violence in the neighbouring state of South Darfur.