Amid the latest wave of ethnic violence in Côte d'Ivoire's western cocoa belt, which has claimed 58 lives, the United Nations Security Council must urgently boost its peacekeeping force in the country by 2,000 troops, Human Rights Watch said. The Ivorian government must take concrete steps to stop the deadly cycle of communal violence around the western town of Duékoué, which is in the government-controlled part of the country, including by bringing the perpetrators to justice.

In this collection of creative writing, seven refugees and asylum-seekers tell of their homes, flights, and experiences of seeking refuge and adapting to life in Oxford. Their writings explore poetry, prose and short story genres, offering insights into the reasons for their journeys and array of emotions, and bringing experiences from such countries as diverse as Afghanistan, Eritrea, Chad, Iran, Congo and Uganda. The writers collectively challenge us to ‘believe the unbelievable’.

The peace agreement signed this year between the Sudanese government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) constitutes a road map for resolving other conflicts in the country, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said during a visit to Sudan. Annan called for a quick implementation of the agreement, which was signed in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on 9 January.

Human rights organisations in Egypt have reservations about the fairness of amendments to the country's constitution and consider they constitute a continuation of the violation of political and civil rights. Earlier this year, Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, asked parliament to review article 76 of the constitution to allow, for the first time in Egypt, direct competitive presidential elections. Mubarak has ruled the country for nearly 25 years and the next general election is due in September.

At least 41 people are dead and many other wounded after renewed fighting in western Ivory Coast, the army says. The fighting took place near Duekoue, in a cocoa-producing region near the Liberian border. Local officials and witnesses spoke of shootings and stabbings, and said homes had been set on fire.

The EU needs to confront the structural ways in which its trade policy can inadvertently promote instability. In particular, EU trade policy could do a great deal more to encourage growth and equality in the developing world, to help countries move away from reliance on volatile commodity revenues, to mitigate the adjustment costs of liberalisation, enable developing countries to support sensitive domestic industries, add value to their products, and to push the world trade agenda towards more conflict sensitive policies. This is according to a paper by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) that investigates the impacts of EU trade policy on violent conflict in the developing world.

This toolkit aims to inform the strategic engagement of women in national peacebuilding and security processes. Through bridging the gap between the reality of peace activists and policy makers, it provides critical information and approaches to women's contribution to peace and security processes. Within this context, it can be used as a reference guide, for advocacy, training and awareness raising purposes. It includes sections on: a conceptual framework addressing security, peace, accountability and rights;
conflict prevention, resolution and reconstruction; security issues; justice, governance and civil society; and, protecting vulnerable groups.

A last convoy of Angolan refugees has returned home from the southern Congolese region of Kisenge, ending a refugee programme that ran for more than 20 years. As the heavy trucks rumbled across sandy tracks in Katanga's savannah landscape, they left clouds of dust in their wake. They also left mixed feelings among the people who had hosted the refugees and aid agencies for so long. Mainly farmers by profession, the Angolan refugees have contributed many products to Kisenge's economy.

For too long, the international approach to the crisis in the western Sudanese region of Darfur has been defined by tough rhetoric followed by half-measures and inaction. This general lack of resolve has ensured that widespread attacks against civilians have been conducted with relative immunity in Darfur, and the grinding humanitarian situation has continued to take a heavy toll by any calculation. In that light, the International Crisis Group was particularly keen to more fully explore the attitudes of the American public about the situation in Darfur. Crisis Group commissioned the respected Zogby International polling firm to conduct a public opinion survey in the United States during May 2005. The breadth of American support - across party and religious lines - for a much tougher response to the current situation is striking.

"Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) notes with grave concern the ongoing unjustified and illegal action which has been taken against licensed flea market operators, tuck shop operators and street vendors by the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) and Harare Municipal Police in the previous days. In an operation codenamed “Operation Murambatsvina” police descended upon individuals operating within and without greater Harare and, without any lawful order or justification and without following the principles of natural justice summarily evicted the majority of these operators and destroyed or confiscated their goods. This was done even where the affected individuals were able to produce proof that they were legitimately carrying out their business therein."

The International Secretariat of OMCT has been informed by the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights (EOHR), a member of the OMCT network, of its suspicions over the circumstances of the death of Mr. Ashraf Youssef, in Menouf, Menoufiyya in Egypt. According to the information received, Mr. Ashraf Youssef was arrested on 29 April 2005 in Menouf. He was suspected of ordering the al Azhar and Abdel Moneim Riyadh bombings, which occurred in April and May respectively. Upon arrest, Mr. Youssef was prevented from meeting with his lawyer and his lawyer was barred from attending his interrogation. In violation of the Criminal Procedures Code and the Constitution, the place of his arrest was not clearly specified and he did not contact his family from the time of his arrest until his death on 11 May 2005. According to information received, officials attributed Mr. Youssef's death to him being disturbed.

Water is a greater pathway to peace than conflict in the world's international river basins. International cooperation around water has a long and successful history; some of the world's most vociferous enemies have negotiated water agreements, reports the Worldwatch Institute. Southern African countries signed a number of river basin agreements while the region was embroiled in a series of wars in the 1970s and 1980s, including the "people's war" in South Africa and civil wars in Mozambique and Angola. These complex negotiations produced rare moments of peaceful cooperation.

Thousands of Rwandans are converging on an ill-equipped transit centre in northern Burundi after the authorities dismantled several border sites and ordered the closure of another transit centre. Songore transit centre has a capacity for 800 refugees and was already overcrowded with 1,000 residents before the transfers started. An additional 1,500 asylum seekers have already arrived at the site since Saturday, and many more are coming.

Five people were killed and over a dozen injured on Monday in fighting between rival factions in the Somali town of Baidoa, 240 km northwest of the capital, Mogadishu, local sources told IRIN. The fighting between rival factions of the Rahanweyn Resistance Army (RRA), which controls much of Bay and Bakol regions in southwestern Somalia, erupted "at around 4:00 a.m. [local time] this morning [Monday]," a local journalist said.

Thousands of Rwandans seeking asylum in Burundi, most of them women and children, must not be coerced to return home without having their asylum claims fairly examined, Human Rights Watch has said. Rwandan asylum seekers in Burundi, who began fleeing Rwanda in late March, numbered some 7,000 by early May. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) moved about 2,000 of them to two official sites to afford them better security and access to assistance.

Most of the 200,000 people internally displaced by the fighting which culminated in the coup d’état of March 2003 have reportedly returned to their homes or integrated with the resident population in the capital Bangui. Following the coup, the self-appointed President François Bozizé abolished the constitution and formed a new transitional government which organised the first and second round of legislative and presidential elections in March and May 2005.

As Eritrea celebrates its 12th year of independence on 24 May, large numbers of prisoners of conscience and other political prisoners - possibly amounting to several thousands - languish in indefinite incommunicado detention – held without charge or trial and without access to friends, family or lawyers, says Amnesty International. "Amongst those prisoners of conscience are six women detained solely on account of their peaceful opinions. None of the women has been allowed to see her children since her arrest. Their whereabouts are unknown," says Amnesty.

A representative of Nigeria's government this week said that indicted war criminal and former Liberian president Charles Taylor cannot remain in Nigeria if he is shown to have interfered in Liberian and regional politics, in breach of the terms of his asylum. Okon Efiong Isong, Minister Counsellor in Nigeria's United Nations Mission, was speaking at an event organized by the Open Society Justice Initiative at UN headquarters to launch a report tracing Taylor's financing before and since his removal to Nigeria in August 2003.

Signs of despair and looming starvation are evident almost everywhere in Zimbabwe's countryside which is suffering from the government's destruction of commercial agriculture and a third successive year of drought. Normally at this time, as the short southern winter begins, people would be completing the harvest of maize, the staple food, and be preparing to deliver their produce to the sole legal grain buyer, the government's Grain Marketing Board.

Radio for Peacebuilding, Africa, has launched French and Swahili versions of their site (www.radiopeaceafrica.org). The Radio for Peacebuilding Africa project aims to develop, spread and encourage the use of radio broadcasting techniques and content for peacebuilding. Other changes have been made to offer a better site, and to improve the site's potential for exchanges between radio professionals in Africa. An edited version of the "Survey on Attitude of Radio Professionals in sub-Saharan Africa towards Peacebuilding" is now available on line in the survey section. Please note that you need to register to access some sections of the website. Doing so is free and easy. You will then be able to access all the materials made during the project (audio programmes, guidebooks…).