At least 30 civilians and military personnel suspected of plotting the secession of Katanga Province from the Democratic Republic of Congo have been arrested, Deputy Provincial Governor Chikez Diemu said on Monday. He said judicial and security agents had made the arrests on Friday in the southeastern Katanga town of Lubumbashi. The detainees, he added, were being questioned over their participation in a network "whose aim was to destabilise the Congolese institutions".

Dr Mudawi Ibrahim Adam is due to receive the inaugural Front Line Award from President McAleese at a ceremony in Dublin's City Hall on Friday morning (May 13th). He was selected for the award because of his courageous and inspiring work for human rights in Sudan, including in Darfur, which led to him being twice imprisoned in the last year. At 11.00 am on Sunday 8th of May he was arrested in the street in Khartoum North, hours before he was due to board a flight en route to Ireland. "The actions of the Sudanese authorities betray their contempt for the protection of human rights," said Front Line Director Mary Lawlor, "this new arrest of Dr Mudawi is a further attempt to silence those who work for the rights of others in Sudan. They will not succeed." Dr Mudawi Ibrahim Adam is the Chairperson of the Sudan Social Development Organization (SUDO). SUDO, is a voluntary organization created to promote sustainable development and Human Rights. It is engaged in humanitarian activities including providing emergency services in North, South and West Darfur as well as in human rights education and development projects throughout the country.

Aid agencies have withdrawn their staff from four refugee camps in eastern Chad following disturbances. UNHCR said the trouble began at Iridimi and Touloum on Monday, when the camp residents refused to take part in a refugee registration exercise being conducted there by UNHCR officials. In nearby Mile and Kounoungou, protests erupted when the camp residents refused to take part in a food distribution exercise which involved verifying the number of people actually present.

Each time it gets the opportunity, Sudan restates its opposition to the referral of the Darfur situation to the International Criminal Court (ICC). On 22 April, in Jakarta, the Sudanese minister for foreign affairs told the news agency AP: "The Sudanese judiciary is, and has always been, willing and capable of assuming its responsibilities. The government has brought before the courts persons involved in violations of human rights. Scores of such persons have already been arrested and tried."

The United Nations top emergency official has told the BBC that there is an historic opportunity to end the 19-year war in northern Uganda. Emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland says northern Uganda is being forgotten by the rest of the world. But speaking ahead of a UN Security Council briefing, he said recent peace contacts must not be squandered.

Crisis Group's Early Warning Resources web page is a one-stop-shop compiling various sources of public information and aiming to provide journalists, analysts and policy makers with forewarning of possible conflicts around the world and information on conflict trends. Early warning includes conflict-related early warning web pages; humanitarian and natural disaster early warning websites; risk analysis websites; Global conflict trend analyses; and Daily news services that provide the most up-to-date information on conflict-related issues.

A peacekeeping force scheduled for deployment to Somalia will be delayed as the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) attempts to iron out legal limitations and reconcile the divided transitional federal government (TFG), sources said. "IGAD's charter does not cater for troop deployment, and therefore efforts are underway to have it amended," a senior Uganda government official who preferred anonymity told IRIN on Monday.

The exodus from Togo has slowed to a trickle while hundreds of Togolese refugees have returned home from Ghana, citing improved security in their homeland. Those in Benin, however, say they are not ready to go back to Togo. More than 3,500 refugees are now living in two camps in Benin – Come, which is now full, and Lokossa, where the population is growing steadily.

The European Union says it is concerned about the slow pace with which the Government is tackling corruption allegations against its officials. It said it was also troubled by the growing insecurity and the wrangles surrounding the constitution review process. Acting head of delegation Derek Fee singled out recent revelations of corruption in the National Aids Control Council (Nacc), saying: "It makes me wonder if there is any depth to which corrupt individuals will not descend."

Africa faces a US $400 million shortfall in the fight to curb the growing tuberculosis (TB) epidemic that kills more than half a million people each year, the global NGO, Stop TB Partnership, warned on Wednesday. It said $1.1 billion was needed over the next two years to reverse the death toll, which was currently increasing by five percent a year. The disease is the second biggest killer of adults in Africa.

The remaining Angolan refugees at Osire refugee camp do not seem very keen to return to their home country after the war ended in 2002. Although many refugees have volunteered to be repatriated to Angola since the advent of peace, which came about with the death of UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi, others are still too afraid to go back. Some refugees who had gone back on repatriation have since returned, claiming that their lives are in danger.

After more than two years of intermittent conflict that effectively split Côte d’Ivoire in half and sparked fears of ethnic cleansing, the country’s 500,000 IDPs may finally have a glimmer of hope for a more peaceful future. However, serious causes for concern remain. Ethnic tensions in the polarised country are acute. Gross human rights violations against civilians, including IDPs, continue to be reported in both government and rebel-controlled areas.

The African Commission on Human and People?s Rights (ACHPR) which is currently meeting in Banjul (The Gambia) will review Egypt?s third State report. On that occasion, the FIDH publishes a report on the death penalty in Egypt in order to draw the attention of the African Commission on the violations of international and regional standards taking place in that framework. The report is the result of an international fact-finding mission which was conducted in November 2004 in Egypt.

Raabi Yusuf Abdillahi was arrested in January and spent 16 days in Hargeisa central prison for no other reason than the peaceful expression of his political views. Sultan Raabi had advocated a clan gathering to discuss the country’s political future, first at a public gathering and subsequently in a press conference. He was detained although he was never tried or sentenced by a court of law. Government officials told the UN independent human rights expert for Somalia, Ghanim Alnajjar, who met with Raabi Yusuf in prison in February, that he “had been charged with inciting a rebellion”, but no charges were in fact ever brought, nor any explanations given. Asked to report to the central police station in Hargeisa the day after the press conference, he was told on arrival that he was under arrest. His mobile and the keys to his safe were confiscated. He spent four nights in the station, and was interviewed once by officers from the CID who informed him that he was accused of “incitement”, though they gave no details or evidence.

Almost three years after the International Criminal Court opened over United States opposition, the United Nations Security Council asked it to investigate atrocities in Sudan and, in the process, placed the court squarely in the international spotlight. By any measure, the request was an important vote of confidence in the new tribunal. But at the court's glass-and-steel headquarters in The Hague, the reaction has been less than euphoric. Still wrestling with the mechanics of how to carry out its mandate to deal with large-scale human rights abuses, the new institution faces high expectations but lacks practical experience, reports the New York Times.

A blast that killed at least 15 people in a Mogadishu stadium during a speech by Somalia's transitional premier has raised concern even higher over the viability of ambitious peace and reconciliation plans for the war-shattered nation, analysts said Wednesday.

With the number of former combatants taking part in disarmament programmes almost doubling in the past few weeks, nearly 12,000 ex-fighters have disarmed and the Democratic Republic of the Congo's (DRC) first national brigade incorporating former militiamen has been deployed, an official from the United Nations peacekeeping department said. The more than 11,500 combatants who entered the disarmament and re-integration programme included 3,600 children, François Dureau, chief of the Situation Centre in the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations said.

Sexual and gender-based violence, including rape, is a problem throughout the world, occurring in every society, country and region. Refugees and internally displaced people are particularly at risk of this violation of their human rights during every phase of an emergency situation. Over the past five years, humanitarian agencies have been working to put in place systems to respond to sexual and gender-based violence, as well as to support community-based efforts to prevent such violence.

New refugees have been fleeing the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to Rwanda since April causing crowding in Rwandan border centres, according the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) which has begun transferring the existing refugees to a camp farther inland. Since last Friday UNHCR has moved 567 of the exiting 7,500 refugees at the border centres in the Rwandan provinces of Gisenyi and Cyangugu. The refugees have been there since fleeing eastern DRC in 2004.

Thousands of Somali refugees have been left homeless after heavy rains destroyed shelters in Dadaab camp, north-eastern Kenya. Food and relief items have been distributed amid fears of water-borne diseases and fuel shortage. The torrential rains that hit last Thursday caused the majority of shelters in Ifo camp – one of three camps in the sprawling Dadaab complex – to collapse or wash away.