President Thabo Mbeki made an eloquent call last Friday for the Iraq question to be resolved peacefully through the United Nations, and not through war. Mbeki said South Africans had an interest in the peaceful resolution of the Iraq question, and "an obligation to stand up and join the struggle for peace.

Zimbabwe's main civic groups have backed the blistering attack on President Thabo Mbeki by Morgan Tsvangirai, the main opposition leader, saying they were all frustrated by Mbeki's timidity in dealing with President Robert Mugabe. They spoke after Tsvangirai expressed his frustration with Mbeki to diplomats on Thursday, telling them that Mbeki was denying the existence of tragic circumstances in Zimbabwe and cheered Mugabe in the name of "a dubious African brotherhood".
Related Links:
* France defies UK over Mugabe
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2688005.stm
* Mugabe’s grip tightens
http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?a=37&o=14877

The Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees Mary Ann Wyrsch concluded on Thursday a two-day assessment visit on the general refugee situation in Liberia and expressed concern over the increasing number of refugees in the country as a result of the conflict in neighbouring Cote d'Ivoire.

Competing food crises on the African continent, leading to over-stretched donor funding, have led to food rations being cut in Kenya's two main refugee camps. Over 220,000 people in Kenya's northern camps of Kakuma (in Turkana) and Dadaab (in Garissa) had their food rations cut from 2,120 kilocalories per day to about 1,600, Lara Melo, spokeswoman for the World Food Programme told IRIN on Thursday.

Dozens of people have been killed amid spiralling ethic clashes between rival groups in Ethiopia's western Gambella Region, on the border with Sudan. Although the area has traditionally been witness to tribal violence, the ferocity and scale of attacks are now causing serious concern.

An inter-agency mission will begin a two-week tour on Monday to assess the situation of internally-displaced persons (IDPs) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) with a view to devising strategic plans to overcome the country-wide problem, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Amnesty International last Friday said the level of fear among human rights activists in Zimbabwe has never been greater. The rights group called on the authorities to immediately cease the crackdown on activists perceived to be opponents of President Robert Mugabe's government.

Somali leaders attending the peace talks in the Kenyan town of Eldoret have proposed that extra delegates be allocated to represent the self-declared republic of Somaliland in northwestern Somalia, according to one of the leaders.

As representatives of the world's civil society gathered in Porto Alegre and political and business leaders met in Davos, Amnesty International delivered its own alternative globalisation message: Globalise respect for human rights, globalise justice and globalise accountability for those who abuse rights.

Five leading humanitarian organisations working in both southern and northern Sudan called on all actors in the peace process to make substantial progress towards peace in the coming weeks, including maintaining and extending the current cessation of hostilities.

The crucial case for the 'Bushmen' of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) has been referred to Botswana's High Court to be heard as 'a matter of urgency'. The court will consider the case brought by over 200 Bushmen and determine if they were deprived of their land by the Botswana government forcibly, wrongly or without their consent. At least 1500 Bushmen have been evicted from the CKGR in the last six years.

The UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Liberia, Marc Destanne de Bernis, on Tuesday appealed for additional support to meet the needs of refugees and returnees from Cote d'Ivoire in Liberia, the UN in Liberia reported.

The Ethiopian government is muzzling educators and students with a policy of harsh repression that includes extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, and widespread denials of freedom of opinion and association, Human Rights Watch said in a new report.

Jeanne Nolte was sleeping fitfully in her hospital bed while waiting to undergo major head surgery, when a blood-soaked woman was brought into the ward. She told Nolte that three Afrikaans men had beaten her until she lost an eye. Three days later Nolte decided not to undergo the operation at Garankuwa Hospital to remove an aneurism on her brain, because it would cause her to lose her memory. Instead, she wanted all her faculties so that she could establish and run the Anti Racist Movement (ARM) in the city of her birth, Polokwane, in Limpopo. Today, if you drive through Polokwane, you'll find business and government offices displaying bold stickers declaring: "Right of Admission Reserved, No Racists Allowed."

Four suspects in the murder of Bulawayo war veterans' chief, Cain Nkala, were tortured during interrogation by the police in Bulawayo and forced to sign confessions which were dictated to them by their torturers, the High Court has heard.

When reports of killings and mass human rights violations reach the international community, the first response is always cautious. The first demand is for verification, whilst the second is usually conservative under-reaction. The machinery for dealing with mass human rights violations is inherently conservative, and this inevitably produces a significant time lag in responding to such situations, says a report prepared for ZWNEWS.

New violence has flared in Ivory Coast as the army fights rebels near the Liberian border, while rival factions in peace talks near Paris discuss a power-sharing pact aimed at ending civil war. The fighting in the west of the world's top cocoa producer was by far the heaviest since former colonial power France launched talks last week to try to end a four-month conflict it fears could spread through West Africa.

The recent deaths of two undocumented foreign nationals must be fully and impartially investigated, says Amnesty International. Before receiving news of the death of Somalian national Mariame Getu Hagos on 16 January, Amnesty International had written to the French Minister of the Interior about the death, on 30 December 2002, of Ricardo Barrientos, an Argentinian national, on an aircraft bound for Buenos Aires.

The Amani Trust has strongly denied involvement in a petrol bomb attack in Zimbabwe on Monday night after the state news media had claimed that an Amani vehicle had been identified as one of the vehicles ferrying the alleged attackers. "These allegations are wholly unfounded, but consistent with the continuous attacks that have been mounted against the Trust over the past year...There must therefore be concern for the safety of the staff and Trustees of the Amani Trust, and we hope that calls will be made upon the government of Zimbabwe to protect its citizens against unlawful attack."

The Norwegian Refugee Council is starting up aid projects for the internally displaced in Liberia. Increased actions of war in Liberia and its neighbouring country the Ivory Coast, has worsened the situation for civilians. There are presently approximately 200 000 internally displaced refugees in Liberia.