The long-running debate over capital punishment in Senegal was revived this week when a local court sentenced to death an armed robber who slit the throat of a young soldier 10 years ago. Senegal has enjoyed uninterrupted civilian rule and a strong tradition of tolerance and democracy since independence from France in 1960. No-one has been executed in the West African state since 1967.

The four-year civil war between the Liberian government and the main rebel group, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) is finally over, the rebel group announced on Wednesday. "The LURD has decided to end all hostilities. We are not prepared to fight anymore," LURD chairman Sekou Conneh told reporters shortly after returning from exile in Guinea on Tuesday night.

Dissidents in a rebel group in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are trying to undermine the peace process in the strife-torn Central African state, an international rights watchdog charged on Tuesday. "According to our information some officers of the Congolese Rally for Democracy [RCD] who have split from their movement are trying to undermine the peace process in the DRC from a base in Kisangani," the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) warned in a statement from the capital Kinshasa.

Nigeria's new finance minister has pledged to try to rebuild the country's reputation with international lenders and increase transparency in areas such as public procurement. In an interview with the Financial Times, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, recently appointed to the job from her previous post as a vice-president of the World Bank, accepted that Nigeria had to show progress on reform before it could obtain relief on its $31bn (£19bn) foreign debt.

A key suspect in a French corruption case has been confirmed as Luanda's ambassador to Unesco, securing him an Angolan diplomatic passport and immunity from prosecution. The appointment allows the suspect, Pierre Falcone, who is at the centre of an arms trafficking scandal, to travel freely despite a judicial ban on leaving France. The foreign ministry said it was powerless to stop the "regrettable" appointment.

Zimbabwean civic groups said Monday they plan to meet this week to find alternative means of publishing information following the closure of the country's sole independent daily paper, threatening a boycott of one of the state-run newspapers. President Robert Mugabe's government shut down the Daily News last week on grounds that it was operating without a license, provoking major international condemnation. The paper's subsequent application to register was rejected.

Up to 800,000 people in the tiny mountain kingdom of Lesotho could face food shortages as the country's Disaster Management Authority (DMA) reports an almost complete failure of this year's winter crop.

The Regional Emergency Management Unit at Katima Mulilo has started delivering food aid to the drought-affected Khwe community in the Omega area in West Caprivi. The situation in the area is said to be severe and, according to some reports, as many as 4 000 people are depending on wild fruit to sustain themselves.

An arms deal worth about 3.9 billion U.S. dollars concluded between South Africa and several European multinationals has plunged South Africa into its worst post-apartheid political crisis. Last Thursday President Thabo Mbeki announced a judicial commission of inquiry into allegations that the chief investigator of alleged corruption in the course of the deal, Bulelani Ngcuka, was an apartheid spy.

International pressure is mounting on Ethiopia and Eritrea to normalise ties, three years after the end of a bloody war, following the UN Security Council's renewal of the six-month mandate of its peacekeeping mission in both countries. The Security Council resolution, passed late last week, that renewed the mandate of UNMEE - the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea - called on the two warring Horn of Africa nations to settle their differences through dialogue.

"If ever the skyrocketing orphan population- already pushing 13 million is to be brought under control, then treatment is absolutely imperative to success. When WHO says three million people will be treated with anti-retrovirals by 2005, the world must make it happen. Anything less is an ethical abomination," said Stephen Lewis, the UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, at the Official Opening of the XIIIth International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa.

A regional conference on refugees ended on Wednesday, with governments recommitting themselves to refugee protection, but failing to adopt the principle of "safe havens" and agree on a solution to burden sharing in protracted refugee situations.

History tells us that genuine solutions to political crises require dialogue and negotiation - so those African leaders working to bring the parties together in Zimbabwe would appear to be on the right track. But after three years of state sponsored political violence, the prospects of finding common ground between Zanu PF and its opponents diminish daily. Yes, they must pursue workable solutions, but they must also identify the source of the problems and speak frankly against the politics of repression.

Zambia's ruling party, the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) has secured a majority in parliament, following its victory in three of the four by-elections held last Thursday. The crucial by-elections were preceded by sporadic clashes between supporters of the ruling party and the opposition parties.

The United Nations Security Council unanimously approved the creation of a 15,000-strong peacekeeping force for Liberia to take over from a much smaller West African force which is currently struggling to impose peace and security after 14 years of civil war.

The spectre of an independent workers' party that arose from the hopes and aspirations of the embryonic Cosatu and deeply concerned the then-exiled ANC was nowhere in evidence at the eighth Cosatu congress. In its place was the firm commitment to move into the ANC in massive numbers and change the orientation of the governing party. It could hardly have been otherwise, given the organisational weakness of the country's largest labour federation and the ideological orientation of the bulk of its leadership.

Thousands of experts gathered in Nairobi on Sunday for a council of war on Africa's battle against Aids, a combat characterised by a relentlessly spreading pandemic but also by some good news at last about funds and access to drugs. Some 8 000 doctors, researchers, policymakers and grassroots campaigners were registered for the 13th International Conference on Aids and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa (Icasa), a major forum held every two years.

At least 10 people have been killed in southern Nigeria in clashes between security forces and armed youths that broke out three days ago after a pastor shot dead a gang member. Last month, dozens were killed in Warri, when clashes broke out between the Ijaw and Itsekiri ethnic groups, who are locked in a bitter dispute over political power and the spoils of Nigeria's oil wealth.

Dozens of refugees and illegal immigrants from east Africa were feared drowned in the Gulf of Aden this week after smugglers forced them off a boat at gunpoint, six miles from the coast of Yemen, according to a UN official. At least 21 people died and fears were mounting for a further 80 thought to have been aboard the vessel, with most of the victims said to be women and children too weak to swim ashore. The boat left a small Somali fishing village on September 9 packed with Ethiopians and Somalis fleeing war and poverty.

September 12 marked the 26th anniversary of the death of Black Consciousness Movement founder Steve Bantu Biko. In this post-Biko era, there has been much euphoria about the South African success story. Yet this rhetoric conceals a gruesome and insidious phenomenon: an anti-African racism that permeates all spheres of life in the country.