Dr Abiola Ogunsola, a senior lecturer in sociology at the University of East London (UEL), has urged Africans to tap into their bottomless reservoir of perseverance and optimism and then fashion a distinctive and dynamic way of life that will give them a pride of place in the world. "Racism is a denial of the attraction for what you discriminate against," she said, as reported by The Observer.

Ivory Coast's governing party says it will rejoin the government of national unity which it left last week. The Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) pulled out of the government on Tuesday (January 17) in protest at what it saw as international interference in the country's affairs. The party's leader told the BBC the decision would be reviewed if rebels who control the north of the country failed to disarm within three months. The pull-out came during anti-United Nations protests by FPI supporters. The FPI had been angered by a recommendation by a team of international mediators that parliament be dissolved.

Some 2085 Internally Displaced People living in Congo Town in Monrovia told The Analyst that they have been abandoned by the government of Liberia and the international community. “There is no health facility; children are not going to school and nobody seems to care for us. We are suffering,” said the chairman of the IDPs occupying the new health ministry in Congo Town, Mr. Augustus Tarpar.

Eldis has just launched a new Conflict and Security email bulletin as part of their revised Conflict and Security Resource Guide.

Britain is to offer African asylum seekers £3,000 ($5,400) to go home or leave the UK. In a pilot scheme which will apply to all asylum seekers to the UK this year, the British government has introduced the payment in an effort to weed out those who have applied for refugee status merely in search of a better life.

As Kenya's worst drought since 2000 intensifies, the international development agency ActionAid is warning that disputes are on the increase, with nomadic peoples starting to fight over scarce fertile land in the north east region. In a press release from London, the agency also reports that people in other regions are now beginning to succumb to the effects of drought and hunger.

UNHCR has reported that Sudanese refugees are again fleeing Darfur for camps in neighbouring eastern Chad, while High Commissioner António Guterres warned the UN Security Council in New York of a "much greater calamity" in the region unless bold measures are taken soon. The UN refugee agency chief noted that the insecurity in Darfur has now spread across the border to Chad, where last Friday armed rebels took several government officials hostage and attacked the village of Guéréda, where the UN refugee agency is caring for more than 25,000 Sudanese refugees in two camps.

A total of 233 people, including 176 Sudanese women and children and 57 Darfurians have been released from three prisons in Cairo. The Sudanese were part of a group of more than 2,000 people who were removed from a Cairo square near UNHCR's office on 30 December following a three-month demonstration.

Côte d’Ivoire’s ruling party is resuming its participation in the west African country’s United Nations (UN)-backed peace process, reversing an earlier decision to pull out, its president said yesterday. The Ivorian Popular Front party (FPI) had said last week it was abandoning a UN peace plan in protest against a recommendation by foreign mediators that the country’s national assembly be dissolved.

Nigeria's government is planning a specific ban on same-sex marriages, with five years in jail for anyone who has a gay wedding or officiates at one. Information Minister Frank Nweke told the BBC the government was taking the "pre-emptive step" because of developments elsewhere in the world. "In most cultures in Nigeria, same-sex relationships, sodomy and the likes of that, is regarded as abominable." Homosexual sex is already illegal and in the north offenders can be stoned. Justice Minister Bayo Ojo said the law would also ban "any form of protest to press for rights or recognition" by homosexuals, the AFP news agency reports.

Extreme drought has hit Somalia hard, leaving 1.75 million people in need of help, an agency monitoring food availability in the Horn of Africa country warned. The crisis is especially severe in southern Somalia, where up to 30% of the cattle have died from lack of food and water, according to the Food Security Analysis Unit Somalia, which works with the United Nations and various aid groups, reports Boston.com News.

The Coalition for an Effective African Court on Human and People's Rights, an NGO based in South Africa, criticized the process of nominating judges to the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights during the ongoing African Union summit in Khartoum, Sudan. The coalition said that the nomination process lacked transparency and that several of the judicial candidates did not have adequate experience in human rights. The coalition argues that the AU commission should be responsible for nominating judges to the court, rather than the member states. The protocol for establishing the court came into effect last January and African leaders are expected to appoint judges to the court immediately, according to Paper Chase, a legal news service.

US based international human rights organization, Human Rights Watch, last week issued a statement entitled "Ethiopia: Hidden Crackdown in Rural Areas". The statement said that the Ethiopian government has been using intimidation, arbitrary detention and excessive force in rural Ethiopia to suppress post-election protests and all potential dissent. The organization spoke of the condition in Ethiopia after a field trip to some parts of the country.

This is terrible. Why would the world turn its back on such atrocities. Surely God will not let the culprits get away with it. Shame on the Egyptian government and the UNHCR for failing to take action when it was necessary.

The densely forested region around Guiglo is home to a refugee camp for 8,000 Liberians and a camp sheltering some 6,000 Burkinabe farmers, driven off their plantations in Cote d’Ivoire during three years of conflict. Nearly all aid workers were forced out of the region last week when mobs began to burn and loot UN facilities following the death of five youths when peacekeepers opened fire following an attack on a UN military compound.

Hunger appears to be a permanent condition in Kenya. Despite the conspicuous consumption among foreigners and Kenyans in Nairobi, millions of poor Kenyans live on less than Sh80 (1 US dollar) a day. Every year millions go hungry. Why then, when hunger constantly stalks the country, does each emergency come as a surprise that necessitates an urgent appeal to donors for food aid? This analysis by the Director of the United Nations Drylands Development Centre, and the principal author of the UN Millennium Project contends that there are many misconceptions about the causes of hunger, and politicians, donors and NGOs are often woefully ignorant about its underlying root.

In a rapidly developing series of events, Congolese refugees have already begun going back home from Uganda, just days after they fled fighting in the Kivu region of eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Over the weekend, UNHCR staff reported that some 15,000 refugees were staying in the open at an airfield in Kisoro, 450 km (280 miles) south-west of Kampala. That group has now shrunk to about 13,000; some 5,000 say they may be willing to move to a site further inland.

A wave of bitter revolts over land and housing is sweeping many parts of
South Africa. Ten years after the end of apartheid, the ANC government's
commitment to neo-liberalism means millions are still waiting for proper
houses, clean water and toilets. What began as spontaneous rage is growing into a movement. Every week sees large groups of landless and homeless people settling land, building shacks and demanding the authorities provide services.

Ethiopian government is using intimidation, arbitrary detentions and excessive force in rural areas of Ethiopia to suppress post-election protests and all potential dissent, Human Rights Watch said today (January 13) after a research trip to Addis Ababa and the Oromia and Amhara regions. “The Ethiopian government is violently suppressing any form of protest and punishing suspected opposition supporters,” said Peter Takirambudde, director of Human Rights Watch's Africa Division. “Donor governments should insist on an independent, credible investigation into abuses by federal police and local officials in rural as well as urban areas.” 

A Chadian rebel leader on Wednesday said insurgents seeking to oust President Idriss Deby have ‘friendly’ relations with Sudan and have met on Sudanese soil, but are receiving no arms or other assistance from Khartoum, as charged by N’Djamena. Abdelwahid Aboud Makaye, a leader of the newly formed United Front for Change and Democracy (FUC), said in an interview with Radio France Internationale that some meetings sealing the group’s formation in late December were held in El Geneina in Darfur, western Sudan.