President Yoweri Museveni has written to Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) leader Joseph Kony setting out terms for peace talks.

Kenya's President Daniel arap Moi has sacked his Environment Minister, Joseph Kamotho. He is one of a number of leading Kanu officials who had criticised Mr Moi's attempts to hand-pick his successor as Kanu's candidate in presidential elections due in December.

Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo signed an agreement on July 30, promising to put an end to the war that has raged in Congo since 1998. However, it is too soon to rejoice. The signatories are deeply suspicious of one another, and implementation of the agreement could break down.

As drought conditions spread north and famine threatens yet more African countries, Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade is coming under sharp criticism for ignoring early warnings from farmers.

The Bush Administration should move urgently to disburse special funds to address the refugee emergency in West Africa, where some 70,000 new refugees from Liberia have flooded into neighboring countries this year fleeing intensified civil war, says the US Committee for Refugees.

Government officials, political and community leaders met in Nigeria on Sunday to discuss ways to end a year of ethnic and religious turbulence in Plateau State and denounced the emergence of militia groups.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) last week completed the repatriation of Sierra Leonean refugees who had returned from Guinea to their original homes in Sierra Leone, the agency's spokesman Kris Janowski said in Geneva last Friday.

Refugees and internally displaced persons in most post-emergency phase camps had better reproductive health outcomes than their respective host country and country-of-origin populations, says a new study.

The UNDP Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery (BCPR) has designed an initiative to bolster protection of vulnerable groups. The project will improve camp management; strengthen systems for reporting, monitoring and following up on rights abuses; and promote awareness of human rights among displaced people and host communities where camps are located.

A number of priority issues must urgently be addressed - by governments, aid agencies, donors, media, and local communities directly affected - in order to avert famine in the Horn of Africa, according to a discussion paper from the USAID-funded Famine Early Warning System (FEWS Net) and the international aid agency, CARE.

Gen Ernest Betibangui, the chief of staff of the Central African Republic's (CAR) armed forces, on Sunday denied that there had been any attack on the northern town of Kabo, 65 km to the south of the CAR's border with Chad. "Nothing happened in that region," he told IRIN.

President Yoweri Museveni has ordered for the immediate and total withdrawal of the remaining UPDF soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo, sources say.

In complex humanitarian emergencies, such as the present situation in Burundi, acute malnutrition becomes an inevitable consequence of armed conflict.

Ever since the 2 April eruption of hostilities in the Pool region of the Republic of Congo (ROC) between government forces and rebel "Ninja" militias, repeated calls from national NGOs for dialogue to bring about a peaceful resolution to the conflict have gone unheeded.

At least 1,000 Liberian refugees living near Guinea's southern border have been moved to camps in Albadaria, in the centre of the country, the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Wednesday.

Aid agencies are moving 24,000 Sudanese refugees in northern Uganda away from the volatile border area after rebels issued a one-week ultimatum for them to leave.

Human rights groups in Niger have appealed to the government not to try the soldiers who recently went on mutiny by court martial, as demanded by the country's ruling coalition.

Earth Emergency invites people everywhere to sign a statement of support for a nine-point plan of action to deal with the Earth's state of emergency. It aims to create a popular, global alliance to lobby world leaders at the Summit. You are invited to sign up, discuss the nine points in the plan of action, and suggest existing projects and partnerships to take the work forward.

A US federal court began preliminary hearings last Friday into a multibillion-dollar lawsuit brought by South African apartheid victims against a host of multinational corporations and banks.

Troubling memories of Belgium's cruel colonial past have been reawakened by an exhibition in which eight pygmies from Cameroon perform for tourists in a manner which campaigners have claimed is racist and neo-colonial.