NGOs in the country call for the support and pressure from you, to bear on our government to stop passing the bill into law this November. This should happen as we need more time as NGOs and Tanzanian citizens to fully participate in the making of the law, which is going to govern our sector. Any law that does not respect basic human rights, as enshrined in the country’s constitution is bound to be barbaric and a deterrent to development, rather than an enabling tool for social prosperity of the people of Tanzania.

The Tenants Association of Sydenham Heights has won a major victory, with the ANC Durban Unicity being forced to pay back in cash all unlawful levies they collected illegally from poor tenants for several months.

African leaders on Sunday took the first step towards setting up a mechanism to monitor each other's progress towards good government, a key plank in a widely-praised new development strategy.

A 29 year-old man became the first person in southern Nigeria to be punished under Islamic law when he was given 100 lashes on Thursday for indulging in pre-marital sex. Suleiman Shittu was flogged before a crowd of hundreds in front of the main mosque in the southwestern town of Ibadan, Oyo State, which has a large Muslim population.

At least 10,000 people in central and southwestern Burundi, who fled recent fighting between government and rebel forces, need urgent humanitarian aid, local officials said.

Tension is mounting in Nigeria’s oil region Delta state over recent deployment of troops amid allegations by residents that they were subjecting several ethnic Ijaw communities to harassment. Residents of villages including Diebiri, Batan, Ajuju, Ewerigbene and Kumusi said scores of heavily armed naval personnel have been deployed in their riverine communities since an oil spill last month, which affected their farmlands and fishing areas.

Closed-door talks between the government of Cote d'Ivoire and the rebels resumed in the Togolese capital, Lome, on Wednesday, a source in Lome told IRIN. The talks which were to begin on Monday were delayed when the rebel delegation failed to show up in Lome and threatened to pull out of the talks if their political demands such as the resignation of President Laurent Gbagbo and fresh elections were not included in this round of talks.

At least 336 people were displaced by last week's communal clashes between the Konkomba and Nawuri ethnic groups at Kitare in Nkwanta district in the eastern Volta region of Ghana, the district coordinator of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), Bernard Mensah said.

The UN refugee agency UNHCR has said it was not opposed to the plan by the Government to resettle in Yumbe thousands of Sudanese refugees displaced by the Kony rebels attack on their camp on August 5. The UNHCR spokeswoman, Bushra Malik, was reacting to a New Vision story, which said the agency was not convinced about the safety of Ikafe, in Yumbe district where the 15,000 Sudanese refugees, who survived the LRA attack on Acholi-Pii camp in Pader district are to be moved.

A move by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni to establish a six-member team for talks with the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has been hailed as a positive step towards resolving the 16-year insurgency in northern Uganda.

About 175 million people currently reside in a country other than where they were born; the equivalent of about 3 percent of the world's population. Since 1975, the number of migrants in the world has more than doubled, with 60 percent now living in the more developed regions. It is estimated that 56 million migrants live in Europe, 50 million in Asia and 41 million in Northern America. This is according to a new feature highlight in the Development Gateway Population and Reproductive Health (POP/RH) Portal which contains links to publications and web sites on migration issues.

This paper, produced by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) presents DFID's strategy for the achievement of human rights and fundamental freedoms of poor people. The central message is that the International Development Targets can only be achieved through the engagement of poor people in the development processes, which affect their lives. The human rights approach to development means empowering people to take their own decisions, rather than being the passive objects of choices made on their behalf.

Access to at least 900,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) remains "impossible", according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

A rift appears to be developing between the country's largest union federation and the government over the fate of Farm Kalkpan, which hit the headlines after the farm manager, sought the eviction of six families.

Residents of Sydenham Heights have been under attack from the City Council since Wednesday, with mass electricity disconnections taking place. The illegitimacy of these disconnections has been confirmed. In terms of the Rental and Housing Act, Section 13 (7) no action should have been taken by Council from the date a complaint was lodged with the Rental Tribunal, until resolution, or for a period of three months.

The Somali peace talks, underway in the Kenyan town of Eldoret, are deadlocked over representation in the various committees which are being set up to discuss the establishment of an all-inclusive government, sources close to the talks told IRIN on Tuesday. Members of the leaders' committee (comprising representatives of faction leaders, the Transitional National Government and five members from civil society), which met on Monday, failed to agree on the number of participants each group would be allocated in the various committees, the sources said.

Amnesty International is calling on the Liberian government to immediately release Aloysius Toe, a leading human rights activist who was arrested on 4 November 2002 and charged with treason. "Aloysius Toe has done nothing but work legitimately for the defence of fundamental human rights in Liberia," Amnesty International said. "There is no basis to the charge against him and he must be immediately and unconditionally released."

Forty-five countries engaged in the diamond trade finally signed a new scheme to stem the flow of "conflict" diamonds this week. The certification scheme, which will take effect on January 1, is the result of 30 months of negotiations. Alex Yearsley, a representative for Global Witness, which led the campaign against "conflict" diamonds, expressed reservations about the monitoring scheme. But overall, he said,"we are happy with the agreement. It is great that the governments signed up to it." He added: "Hopefully, it will stop a good 80-90% of conflict diamonds."

The Inter African Network for Human Rights and Development (AFRONET) in its observer status with the African Commission on Human and People's Rights and coordinator of the Southern African Human Rights NGO Network (SAHRINGON) has noted with "deep and great concern" the increase in human rights abuses in the Southern African region. In a submission to the 32nd Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, the network pointed to HIV/AIDS, land struggles, the situation in the DRC and Angola, famine and election irregularities as cause for concern in the region.

Safeguarding rights and responding robustly to the looming humanitarian disaster in southern Africa should top the agenda of a high level ministerial meeting between members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the European Union (EU), Human Rights Watch says. Human Rights Watch highlighted crises in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe, Angola and Swaziland that should be addressed at the meeting, which will take place in Maputo, Mozambique. "It is vital that the SADC take unambiguous and decisive actions on human rights issues," said Bronwen Manby, deputy director of the Africa Division. "Only then will the organization's stated commitments to human rights be taken seriously."