African Govts have been warned on signing MOUs with Microsoft which would actually be illegal in US and Europe. The African governments were also asked not to rush in ratifying patent laws on software at the first day of a UNCTAD’s Intergovernmental meeting held in Geneva.

With the advent of the new school term in Zimbabwe, emergency school feeding is supporting the nutritional needs of thousands of vulnerable children from families struggling to cope with rising food insecurity. USAID funded C-SAFE will be stepping up the feeding program through partners Catholic Relief Services, World Vision and CARE, targeting 354,000 children in 722 schools.

Chad's refugee camps, already straining at the seams, should steel themselves for the arrival of at least another 100,000 people fleeing Darfur within the next seven months, UN officials said. Chad has already provided a safe haven for almost 200,000 civilians who have escaped the campaign of slaughter, pillaging and rape being waged by the pro-government Janjawid militia in Sudan's Darfur province. But the end is not yet in sight.

Although Uganda has been widely praised for its fight against AIDS in the past, the conflict in the north is threatening its success. HIV/AIDS is twice as common in the war-torn north of Uganda as it is in the rest of the country, says World Vision International.

The Nigerian security forces have killed 27 Islamic militants of the Al Sunna wal Jamma sect during a raid on their hideout in Borno State in the northeast of the country following attacks on two police stations on September 20th. It was the first attack by the Islamic fundamentalist group, which models itself on Afghanistan's Taliban movement, since it briefly occupied two towns in Yobe state in northeastern Nigeria in December last year.

From 2-4 December 2004, the Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) and its UN and NGO partners will host this consulation to advocate for the right to education in emergency situations, share good practices and programme strategies and review INEE's purpose and direction.

A Somali warlord, who has returned to the peace process in neighbouring Kenya, says he will not contest in the presidential elections next month. General Morgan's forces battled those of a rival faction around the southern port of Kismayo earlier this month. He was the only major faction leader not taking part in the parliament tasked with electing a president.

Donor governments gathering today in Oslo to discuss humanitarian needs in Darfur should also take steps to end the serious human rights abuses responsible for the crisis, Human Rights Watch said today. Donors should pledge support for civilian protection under an expanded African Union (AU) mission in Darfur.

The Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre has produced a paper which looks at the Darfur conflict as one which has been often over simplified by both international media and world leaders. The paper outlines the dilemmas emerging from a situation where there is a clear international responsibility to protect civilians and how the use of urgent and robust action is necessary to meet this responsibility.

Some 360 Congolese refugees have returned from neighbouring Burundi, despite violent protests from villagers who did not want them back. The refugees, who are ethnic Tutsis, spent two days stranded at the border with DR Congo after protesters blocked roads and threw stones at them. They eventually reached the eastern town of Uvira after troops were deployed to disperse the protests.

Armed militiamen have surged into a border area near a western village where some of the first Darfur refugees attempting to return to their raided homes headed, UN security officials said on Sunday, raising further concern about how quickly 1.4 million displaced Sudanese will be able to return home. UN authorities were sending a team to the area to try to assess any risk to the refugees, said West Darfur UN refugee security officer Sabir Mughal.

At an extraordinary meeting, the UN Security Council adopted resolution 1564 which threatens sanctions on the Sudan's vital oil industry. Four countries abstained. When it last met, the AU, led by Alpha Konare, reportedly agreed to "move from non-interference to non-indifference". Initially, we may recall, at its last meeting the AU’s reported first reaction to the crisis was to refrain from describing the massacres as "genocide" or as "racist".

In the tale of the boy who cried wolf, it was the boy himself who suffered the consequences of his actions. This time, it’s two million people in Darfur, writes Salih Booker, executive director of Africa Action. Writing in Foreign Policy in Focus, Booker says the role that the United States played in crying wolf about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has a direct impact on the current humanitarian crisis in Sudan. "It will be the cruellest irony and the greatest tragedy if the people of Darfur cannot count on the international community to save them from genocide because the country that's the most outspoken against Khartoum is a country that lost its credibility because it cried wolf."
Related Link:
* The "G" Word: Genocide
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0409gword.html

In its latest report, the International Crisis Group has warned that if SA and Zimbabwe do not take concrete steps to tackle land reform issues, racial tensions and poverty could rise in the region. The report said that while events in Zimbabwe were unlikely to be replicated in SA soon, it was clear that countries in the region were burdened with chronic land problems that were frustrating attempts to promote economic development and eradicate poverty.

Few horror stories rival the humanitarian crisis in northern Uganda, where a cult-like rebel group has been terrorising local people for a generation. It's a tale of astonishing suffering and massive displacement – and all taking place in a country hailed as one of Africa's development success stories. Yet northern Uganda's nightmare has been largely ignored by the international community, even as the humanitarian crisis in neighbouring Sudan generates hand-wringing worldwide and a steady flow of headlines.

The killing remains vivid in their minds. And the deep scars on their bodies will for a long time remind them of the slaughter of their compatriots at a refugee camp in the tiny central African nation of Burundi. These are the survivors of the Aug. 13 massacre at Gatumba refugee camp, about 20 kilometres from Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi.

Hundreds of Congolese refugees in Burundi refused to move to a U.N. camp deeper inside the country and said they wanted to return home after surviving a massacre last month. The U.N High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) planned to move the first group of refugees from temporary transit centres on the border with Congo to a safer site inside Burundi following an ethnic massacre.

Human Rights Watch has recently come out with a new publication, "The International Criminal Court: How Nongovernmental Organizations Can Contribute To The Prosecution Of War Criminals" (September 2004), written by Juliane Kippenberg, NGO Liaison in the Africa Division of Human Rights Watch, and Pascale Kambale, Counsel in Human Rights Watch's International Justice Program. In addition to answering frequently asked questions about the ICC, this guide also offers specifics on how NGOs can contribute to the ICC's work of prosecuting war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide at the international level, including sections on "The Interaction between NGOs and the Court" and "NGO Assistance to Victims and Witnesses".

South Africa on Saturday bid farewell to Beyers Naude, a rare white voice against the apartheid system of racial segregation. In a state funeral broadcast live on television and radio, speakers black and white praised Naude, an Afrikaner man of the cloth cut from a different material of many fellow churchmen who saw racial hierarchy in South Africa as ordained by God.

Fresh fighting in Somalia, the only country without a central government, cast a shadow over an anti-war rally by Somali politicians on the 21st of September for International Peace Day. Hundreds of Somalis have fled to Kenya this month to escape violence in the volatile south of the country stirred by warring militias battling for control of the port of Kismayo. "It is a pity to see there are some people who don't believe that the state of fighting is over," Joseph Nyaga, Kenya's assistant minister of East African and Regional Cooperation, told the rally.