With the world's attention focused elsewhere, aid officials in Eritrea say this tiny nation in Africa's Horn is quietly approaching a humanitarian disaster. More than two thirds of Eritrea's 3.3 million people are facing the spectre of famine as the country confronts its worst drought since it officially gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993. Appeals for international assistance began last summer, but the response so far has not been as swift as aid officials and government representatives had hoped.

After a two-day anti-government strike, Zimbabwe's Movement for Democratic Change yesterday vowed to escalate "mass action" to force President Mugabe's government to reform or leave office. The national strike was the biggest protest for more than two years against Robert Mugabe's 23-year rule, shuttng factories, shops, banks and other businesses in protest at alleged human rights abuses and the economic decline.
Related Links:
* Police fire tear gas to disperse crowd
http://www.africapulse.org/index.php?action=viewarticle&articleid=1084
* Protest fuelled by hunger
http://www.africapulse.org/index.php?action=viewarticle&articleid=1100&…
* Support for mass action
http://www.zvakwana.org/

South Africa's multi-billion rand arms deal was challenged in the Cape High Court on Wednesday by a group which believes it can still be stopped. The Economists Allied for Arms Reduction (Ecaar), represented by anti-arms activist Terry Crawford-Browne, applied to the court to have the deal scrapped, e-tv reported.

Allegations that right-wingers plotted to assassinate former president Nelson Mandela, blowing up his vehicle on a trip to Limpopo, were made in an indictment, SABC radio news reported on Wednesday. It was not clear from the report whether the indictment had been officially served on 23 alleged members of the Boeremag by court officials. The document apparently alleged that a group of Boeremag members built a bomb last October, hoping to blow up Mandela's vehicle on a road in Limpopo, where he went to open a school.

“People crowd even closer to animals as a magnificent park turns 50,” said photographer Virginal Morell, about the Nairobi National Park while visiting Kenya on assignment in 1996. Today, the park appears even more crowded as the growth in human population surrounding the park’s southern frontier increases.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) began the integration of more than 3, 300 Somali Bantu refugees into the local community in Tanzania, the UN agency reported. UN High Commissioner for Refugees reported that the Somali Bantus fled to Tanzania in 1991 and 1992 following civil war and the collapse of the Siyad Barre government in Somalia. This group was among "tens of thousands" of Somalis who "travelled on overcrowded and rickety dhows to Kenya's coastal town of Mombasa", it said.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ)has renewed calls on the regional Inter-Governmental Authority for Development (IGAD) in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, responsible for organising the current Somalia peace talks, to guarantee formal participation by the Eastern Africa Media Institute (EAMI) Somalia Chapter as the formal civil society representative of the Somali media community.

The Nigerian Red Cross has launched an appeal for relief assistance for more than 57,000 people displaced in recent communal conflicts across the country, officials said last Thursday.

An exodus of civilians from the central Liberian town of Gbarnga, 150 km north of the capital, Monrovia, began on Sunday as clashes intensified in nearby Gbalatua between government forces and Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) rebels.

An army officer, his bodyguard and 13 rebels died last Thursday during heavy fighting between government forces and rebels of the Conseil national pour la defense de la democratie-Forces pour la defense de la democratie (CNDD-FDD)faction led by Pierre Nkurunziza, a Burundi Defence Ministry official told IRIN.

Clashes between navy troops and ethnic Ijaw militants near Nigeria's southern oil town of Warri resulted in the death of five civilians, heightening tension in the town and other parts of the Niger Delta, community activists said on Sunday.

Zimbabwe will remain suspended from the councils of the Commonwealth until December when the Commonwealth Heads of Government meet in Nigeria to decide on a way forward, Commonwealth Secretary-General, Don McKinnon, said on Sunday.

The office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on Monday said details for the voluntary repatriation of up to 200,000 Angolans living in Zambia had been finalised following a meeting involving UNHCR and the two governments last week.

The Kenyan chairman of the Somali peace talks, Bethwel Kiplagat, said on Tuesday the conference would soon start work on setting up a provisional, broad-based federal government for Somalia, but appealed for guidance on how this should be done.

Youssou N'Dour, the acclaimed Senegalese singer and bandleader and UNICEF Ambassador, has announced the cancellation of his seven-week tour of North America, originally scheduled for March 26-May 15.   The 38-city tour was to be the most extensive series of performances in North America in his career. Youssou N'Dour says, "It is my strong conviction that the responsibility for disarming Iraq should rest with the United Nations.  As a matter of conscience I question the United States government's apparent intention to commence war in Iraq.  I believe that coming to America at this time would be perceived in many parts of the world - rightly or wrongly - as support for this policy, and that, as a consequence, it is inappropriate to perform in the US at this juncture."

This issue includes:
* Beyond the Losers: Transforming Governmental Practice in Refugee-Affected Tanzania. Loren B. Landau, pp. 19-43
* Working with Refugees and Survivors of Trauma in a Day Hospital Setting. Jane Derges and Fiona Henderson, pp. 82-98
http://www3.oup.co.uk/refuge/hdb/Volume_16/Issue_01/160082.sgm.abs.html

Despite public outcry at home and international opposition abroad, the Bush Administration is deploying troops and investing millions in preparation for a massive military assault on Iraq. In this Open Media Series special edition, three legal scholars from the Center for Constitutional Rights argue persuasively that the looming war against Iraq is both unnecessary for national security, and illegal.

The Southern African People’s Solidarity Network (SAPSN) has made an urgent call to the Angolan representative on the UN Security Council and other African member states of the UN to remember the devastating effects of a US state-sponsored war in Angola over many decades and to reject the proposed resolution in the UN Security Council designed to legitimate the war on Iraq.

In early 2002 southern Africa was gripped by food shortages. These were just one aspect of a complex humanitarian crisis, with impacts ranging across all sectors, from agriculture, to education and health. This report, from the International Development Committee of the UK House of Commons, says that if the countries of southern Africa are to escape the vicious circle of vulnerability, crisis, poverty and HIV/ AIDS, governments, donors, NGOs, the private sector and international organisations will have to work together more effectively, and work together regionally.

A behind-the-scenes succession battle appears to have begun following indications that senior ZANU-PF officials are exploring retirement scenarios for President Mugabe. Since the rigged March 2002 presidential election, the country has been heading towards state collapse. The economy is imploding, a government-created food crisis is turning Zimbabwe into a beggar nation and deepening state sponsored violence could degenerate into widespread unstructured conflict. At the same time, the international community has become even more divided. A new mediation effort is urgently needed that involves all relevant Zimbabwean stakeholders and aims to restore legitimacy to the government by creating a transitional administration, restoring the rule of law, finding an electoral compromise, reforming economic policies, ensuring genuine land reform, and creating an exit strategy for the president, argues the International Crisis Group.