Feeding the hungry in Angola's central highlands continues to be impeded by the poor state of the runway in the provincial capital Kuito and escalating fighting, aid workers told IRIN.

The decision by the Central African Republic (CAR) earlier this week to close its Ubangui River border with the DRC came as no surprise to Jean-Pierre Bemba's rebel Mouvement pour la liberation du Congo (MLC), which controls the neighbouring Equateur province, MLC secretary general Olivier Kamitatu told Radio France Internationale (RFI) on Thursday.

International environment ministers have agreed a compromised, last-minute global warming deal this morning. Japan's request to be exempt has been accepted following it's concerns about the legally binding requirement of the accord.

The fires that burned across Lancashire and Yorkshire through the summer of 2001 signalled the rage of young Pakistanis and Bangladeshis of the second and third generations, deprived of futures, hemmed in on all sides by racism, failed by their own leaders and representatives and unwilling to stand by as, first fascists, and then police officers, invaded their streets.

Ahead of the UN World Conference against Racism (WCAR)*, Amnesty International will launch a new report, Racism and the Administration of Justice, at a press conference on Wednesday 25th July 2001.

The United States is to give US$5 million to a special United Nations fund to help kick start a proposed Sierra Leone war crimes tribunal during its first year.

A string of military offensives is causing large-scale turmoil in Sudan's southern province of Bahr El Ghazal, according to United Nations sources who fear the civilian population will bear the brunt of the disruption.

Somalia's capital Mogadishu has seen an upsurge in fighting this week as militia loyal to rebel factions clashed with government loyalists, according to local sources.

Spurred by Jake Lynch, a TV journalist with Rupert Murdoch's Sky News, a new initiative, Reporting the World, is challenging one-dimensional war and conflict reporting, offering concrete alternatives rather than mere (if solid) criticism. Jake is the driving force behind the initiative, a MediaChannel-affiliate, which has been holding a series of seminars in association with the Freedom Forum in London and the Conflict and Peace Forums at Taplow Court in London. The seminars have attracted prominent U.K. and international editors and reporters willing to debate objectivity and balance in reporting.

Protestant churches yesterday called for special courts to handle economic crimes. They also said the appointment of the anti-corruption director and his assistants must have the approval of two-thirds of MPs and not just a simple majority.

A United Nations conference on small arms is failing to produce a serious plan of action and may even prompt a walkout by some key member states, Human Rights Watch said today. The conference, which concludes in New York on July 20, has not addressed state responsibility for
weapons proliferation and has focused too much on the illegal trafficking of small arms, Human Rights Watch said.

Zimbabwean Labour Minister July Moyo on Thursday said he hoped that the next round of negotiations between the government, labour and business would avert another national strike in the country.

Amnesty International today called on the government of the Central African Republic to end further human rights violations after eight weeks of killings and detentions. Bangui, the capital, remains in a climate of fear since a failed coup on 28 May 2001 against President Ange-Félix Patassé.

The Burundi human rights organisation, Ligue Iteka, has called on the government to ratify the statute of a proposed International Criminal Court (ICC). "This would prove that the government really wants to put an end to impunity," the organisation said, according to the Net Press news agency.

Sudan had the second-largest number of refugees in Africa, after Burundi, at the start of 2001, and attempts to find solutions to this and other problems had borne limited fruit, UNHCR reported on Tuesday. The civil war in Sudan had shown few signs of abating and continued to drive thousands of Sudanese refugees into neighbouring countries, it said.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison, Department of Engineering Professional Development will offer a disaster management workshop, "Managing Mass Population Displacement Emergencies," September 17-­21, 2001 in Madison, Wisconsin.

A Rwandan priest wanted by a UN war crimes tribunal to face charges of genocide is in hiding in Italy.

A former Rwandan mayor, who was last month acquitted of involvement in the 1994 genocide, is still being held in prison by the United Nations war crimes tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania.

In an embarrassing blow to the UN's International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, four of its defence investigators have been found to be suspects in the 1994 genocide.

The Angolan government on Thursday reaffirmed its commitment to the 1994 Lusaka peace accord concluded with UNITA rebels and declined any new mediation in the stalled peace process, AFP reported.