Angola took advantage of last Thursday's World Refugee Day to express its commitment to gradually solve the dramatic situation facing thousands of its citizens, particularly children and women living in refugee camps.

The Sudanese government has said it will send a letter to US President George W. Bush to clarify its position after his call last Thursday, 20 June, on Khartoum to demonstrate more serious commitment to ending the Sudanese civil war. Minister for External Relations Mustafa Uthman Isma'il said the government welcomed without reservations Bush's call for an end to the war, but was displeased that he had not touched on the need for the other warring party - the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) - to do the same.

Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa has slammed his predecessor Frederick Chiluba, accusing him of granting ''outrageous'' benefits to retiring military heads three days before December general elections.

The United States and Britain have urged Kenya to go to the polls this year on schedule and ignore a ruling party proposal for a delay, a plan widely seen as a ploy to prolong President Daniel arap Moi's rule.

A month after Zimbabwe's government declared a state of emergency over HIV/AIDS to allow the importation and manufacture of generic drugs, not much action has been taken and there are still a lot of unanswered questions, Zimbabwe's National Network for People living with HIV/AIDS (ZNNP+), told PlusNews.

Benin police last Wednesday stopped a protest march planned in Cotonou by the country's Human Rights League (LDH), against alleged human rights violations in the country, witnesses said. The estimated 40 security men armed with tear gas canisters and truncheons, stormed the Cotonou Labour Office Square where the demonstrators had assembled for the march.

Nigeria's election commission last Saturday registered three new parties out of a total of 24 that applied to compete in next year's national elections. The decision immediately reignited a furious row over the commission's strict rules, which many of the would-be parties regard as a cynical and unconstitutional ploy to exclude them.

Talks on the political crisis in Madagascar must address the deteriorating human rights situation, Amnesty International says. "The leaders of Madagascar and the international community must condemn the ongoing human rights abuses and take a firm stance on holding those responsible to account," the organization said.

The Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (Mosop) has welcomed the decision of the African Human Rights Commission which found Nigeria in violation of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights in relation to its treatment of the people of Ogoni.

Ebonyi State in south-eastern Nigeria should not endorse the activities of vigilante groups, Human Rights Watch and the Centre for Law Enforcement Education (CLEEN) has said. The human rights groups were responding to recent reports that the governor of Ebonyi, Sam Egwu, was planning to introduce the vigilante group, known as the Bakassi Boys, into his state and to sign a law establishing them there. The Bakassi Boys have been responsible for numerous human rights abuses in the neighboring states of southeastern Nigeria where they operate, including extrajudicial killings, public burnings, mutilations, torture, and unlawful detentions.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) last Friday urged the rebel Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) to release five abducted nurses and an ambulance belonging to their NGO, MERCI. LURD rebels attacked Sinje refugee camp, 80 km northwest of the Liberian capital, Monrovia, last Thursday, taking away the nurses and causing Sierra Leonean refugees and displaced Liberians to flee.

Parts of southeastern Kenya, which received exceptionally poor rainfall during May, are experiencing the stress of drought - even as flooding subsides in western and eastern parts of the country, according to a new vulnerability update for the country.

A senior UN official on Tuesday urged donors to give generously to a US $142 million "bridging" appeal for Angola over the next six months. Commenting after his recent visit to Angola, Ross Mountain, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Assistant Emergency Relief Coordinator, said: "Of particular concern were the 800,000 people only recently within reach of humanitarian aid, following the 4 April signing of a ceasefire between government forces and UNITA rebels."

Burundi authorities have suspended the dismantling of Ngagara refugee camp, north-west of Bujumbura after the 1,500 DR Congo settlers of the camp, refused to be transferred to eastern part of Burundi Tuesday.

Around 25,000 Liberians have crossed into neighboring Sierra Leone since Janaury, seeking to escape a civil war in their West African home, a U.N. official said Wednesday. Liberia's rebels have stepped up attacks recently against President Charles Taylor's government, and fighting has been reported in five of the country's 15 counties.

Forces on all sides in the Congo conflict have committed war crimes against women and girls, Human Rights Watch says in a new 114-page report. The report documents the frequent and sometimes systematic use of rape and other forms of sexual violence in the Rwandan-occupied areas of eastern Congo. "War continues to rage in eastern Congo. Within that larger war, combatants carry out another war -- sexual violence against women and girls," said Alison Des Forges, senior advisor to the Africa division of Human Rights Watch.

Eliezer Niyitegeka, a former information minister, "went about gunning down, raping and murdering" ethnic Tutsi during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, the prosecution claimed this week when the trial opened before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).

Ahead of the European Union heads of state and government meeting in Spain on 21-22 June, EU parliamentarians have called for "utmost firmness" against the government of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema in Equatorial Guinea for human rights violations.

Togo and the United States launched on Tuesday a FCFA 1.376 billion (US $2 million) initiative against child trafficking. Officials said the project would help attract and retain children in schools.

The number of refugees globally remained unchanged at 12 million in 2001, with half a million people fleeing their countries during the year and nearly as many returning home, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR, said on Tuesday.