Nigeria on Wednesday warned potential investors about fake documents offering crude oil for sale on behalf of the state-run oil group Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). The NNPC said fraudulent persons and groups are offering non-existent crude oil for sale, using forged documents.

Zimbabweans returned to work after a week of strikes and violently repressed attempts at protests. But the country's daily suffering - including shortages of food, fuel, electricity, cash and even blood - is expected to bring a rapid return of tension. A five-day strike called last week by the Movement for Democratic Change was successful, but its attempt to bring people out on the streets "in your millions" was violently repressed by the security forces and their notorious militia allies, known as the "Green Bombers".

MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai has pledged that the challenge to the Mugabe regime will continue with greater intensity. "From now onwards we will embark on rolling mass action at strategic times of our choice and without any warning to the dictatorship," he said in a statement. Tsvangirai said Mugabe had been exposed as a "violent and illegitimate dictator with absolutely no pretence to any semblance of civil mass support. He continues to shamelessly hang on to power through brutal force."

Shackled in leg irons and handcuffs, Morgan Tsvangirai was brought into court visibly shivering from cold. Despite the winter weather, he was wearing only scant prison-issue khaki shorts, a short-sleeved shirt and loose sandals. But after complaints on Wednesday by defence counsel George Bizos, Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change leader was allowed to change into a suit.
Related Link:
* Mugabe keeps Tsvangirai behind bars
http://zwnews.com/issuefull.cfm?ArticleID=6959
* Hunger strikers urge Mbeki to use his clout to free Tsvangirai
http://zwnews.com/issuefull.cfm?ArticleID=6960

The mass action in Zimbabwe last week organised by the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) should be seen in the context of a protracted struggle that is part of a process of building a successful movement, says this commentary published on the site. The harsh reaction of the state to the protests had been a "rude awakening" for the MDC and the party would now have to go back to the drawing room to reorganise. There was a need for civil society to be involved in this process and the ball was in the MDC’s court to immediately call in civil society and work together in strategizing for the future.

Human rights violations continue unabated in Burundi, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), according to a new report issued by a regional human rights NGO, Ligue des Droits de la Personne de la Region des Grands Lacs (League for Promotion of Human Rights in the Great Lakes). In its 92-page annual report, the organisation said as a result of years of civil strife in the three countries, poverty levels and insecurity had increased, forcing people to abandon their daily activities and to be constantly on the move, retarding development.

Fighting broke out again on Tuesday in the Medina district of Mogadishu, according to local sources in the Somali capital.

A day after calling on the United Nations to deploy a peacekeeping force in Liberia, President Charles Taylor on Wednesday agreed to cease hostilities against rebels who control the western suburbs of the capital, Monrovia, paving way for ceasefire discussions.

Global warming has precipitated the frequency and severity of droughts and floods, the Executive Director of Network Africa, Ms Grace Akumu says. Akumu said climate change was causing weather variability and that displaced weather patterns would be further witnessed in the future.

A seminar on Human Rights and Peace will take place in Casamance in Senegal from the 14 to 16 June. During this meeting, a round table on the International Criminal Court will be organized on Monday June 16. Another workshop will allow participants to discuss the concept of amnesty vis-à-vis the requirements of international criminal justice. Many other topics on human rights issues will be discussed.

The purpose of the position is to implement a work plan agreed by the regional director to prepare the contingency plans at national and community level for Senegal, The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau in accordance with Oxfam International standards.

The ruling RPT party, the former state sponsored party of Togo, was formed in the historical town of Kpalime in 1969. But significantly, the people of Kpalime in the Kloto district voted massively against President Eyadema in Sunday's polls by giving the opposition candidate Bob Akitani a whoppish 89.573 votes while reserving for the incumbent only 28.082 votes. According to observers here, this development amounted to a total rejection of the former ruling Togo Peoples Rally in the Kioto district of Southern Togo. The trend also represented a kind of voting along ethnic loyalties. This has deeply polarised Togo into two distinct political divisions, the north and the south.
Related Links:
* Fall-Out From Presidential Election: Togo to have 3 heads of state?
http://allafrica.com/stories/200306110880.html

A new round of clashes has broken out in the Democratic Republic of Congo, as United Nations troops deploy to stop bitter ethnic fighting in the town of Bunia. The latest fighting is in North Kivu province between the rebel RCD-Goma and the RCD-ML groups, a separate conflict to that between ethnic Hema and Lendu militias around Bunia.

As virtually all international embassy, business, and non-governmental agency staff evacuate Monrovia, Liberians find themselves in an increasingly desperate situation in the capital, Monrovia, according to the independent medical aid organisation Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). Fighting continues for the fourth consecutive day, and there is no functioning water supply, hospitals have no electricity or other source of energy, and Monrovians are now fleeing their homes to find safety elsewhere.

With fighting intensifying in Liberia, the peace conference that opened here last week has taken a pause while West African leaders seek to broker a truce between the warring parties. On Monday, Ghana's Minister of Foreign Affairs Nana Akufo-Addo and Dr. Mohamed Ibn Chambas, executive secretary of the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) left Accra in search of a ceasefire. Chambas said they would stop in the Sierra Leonean capital Freetown and spend the night in Conakry, Guinea, before heading to Monrovia Tuesday.
Related Link:
* BBC Country Profile
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/country_profiles/1043500.stm
* Botched Taylor arrest embarrassing
http://www.ghanaian-chronicle.com/230606/page1.htm

In one of several conflicts reaching a boiling point across Africa, gunfire and explosions rattled the Liberian capital this week. In civil-war ravaged Congo, meanwhile, French peacekeepers arrived, and the United States welcomed the failure of a coup in Mauritania. And in Zimbabwe, an opposition leader was ordered held in custody on charges of inciting protests aimed at toppling President Robert Mugabe.

Mauritanian President Maaouiya Sid Ahmed Ould Taya took to the airwaves on Monday to praise loyal army units for seeing off a coup attempt which led to two days of heavy fighting in the capital. Less than 24 hours earlier, Ould Taya appeared to have been ousted as rebel forces took over the presidential palace after launching a coup early on Sunday morning.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) began on Monday to repatriate 2,562 Central African Republic refugees, who have been living in neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo since June 2001.

Drawing on case studies from Ethiopia, Sudan, Chad, Mali and Kenya (focusing on Turkana district) during the drought years of 1990-91, this book investigates why early warning signals were not translated into timely intervention. It examines, for the first time, the role of early warning information in decision-making processes, particularly within key donor agencies.

This issue includes:
* The Politics of Refugee Hosting in Tanzania: From Open Door to Unsustainability, Insecurity and Receding Receptivity
Sreeram Sundar Chaulia, pp. 147-166
http://www3.oup.co.uk/refuge/hdb/Volume_16/Issue_02/160147.sgm.abs.html
* Preventive, Palliative, or Punitive? Safe Spaces in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Somalia, and Sri Lanka
Jennifer Hyndman, pp. 167-185
http://www3.oup.co.uk/refuge/hdb/Volume_16/Issue_02/160167.sgm.abs.html