Africa's big men like their comforts, no matter where they are. Two days ago the skies above Lusaka were thick with circling presidential jets, waiting for permission to land. The big men, their wives and their retinues of heavily armed guards (each delegation restricted to six pistols) are in Lusaka for the annual summit of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), Africa's answer to the United Nations. The leaders' club is supposedly the mark of unity among the African brotherhood, yet in its 38 years of existence the continent has been characterised by division and bloodshed.

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COSATU takes serious exception to the behaviour of the Zimbabwe police in arresting and questioning the Secretary General of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), Wellington Chibebe. We note with utter dismay this unbecoming conduct by the security forces and believe that the police are attempting to intimidate the Secretary General.

Divisions and infighting in the NGO sector have deepened with the recent break-up of the Non-Profit Partnership (NPP), which was established only three years ago to strengthen non-profit organisations. And the World Conference Against Racism, to be held in August in Durban, has been touched by the fallout.

Protesters from Survival for Tribal Peoples, a UK-based NGO Wednesday started an evening picket opposite the Botswana mission in London to protest the treatment of Basarwa. In an telephone interview with Mmegi from London, Fiona Watson of Survival said her organisation was mounting pressure on the government of Botswana to respond to their questions on the plight of Kwe Basarwa in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve.

Access to Justice is pleased to announce the publication of its biannual Cases on Human Rights (CHR). Cases on Human Rights brings together, in a single volume, groundbreaking, distinctive and empowering human rights cases from across the Commonwealth, and this current edition encompasses cases from Nigeria and South Africa. Cases on Human Rights will expand vistas of legal scholarship and professional expertise in the protection and defence of human rights and will appeal to a broad spectrum of human rights practitioners.

The world is awash with guns - at least 550 million of them. An endless cheap supply of small arms has spawned an epidemic of killing. In a three-part series, Guardian writers hunt down the dealers, talk to the victims and ask what can be done to stop the trade.

The US president, George Bush, is about to spark a transatlantic row over a UN conference which opens today aiming to reduce the 500m Kalashnikovs and other small arms contributing to worldwide carnage.

UNITA rebels on Wednesday announced the formation of five new teams designed to end their international isolation and to resolve the country's 26-year civil war, one of Africa's longest-running conflicts, Reuters reported on Wednesday. In a statement sent to Reuters in Johannesburg, UNITA said the co-ordinating commissions - covering political, administrative, judicial and military issues - were formed at the party's recent annual congress.

Most of the former passengers of a Swedish-registered ship which landed in Nigeria just over a week ago are seeking asylum there, UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond said in Geneva on Friday.

The Rival militia began disarming in the diamond-rich eastern town of Koidu on Monday in a 26-day effort which, observers said, will mark a decisive phase in ending Sierra Leone's 10-year civil war if it is sustained.

Refugees who fled to southern Gambia to escape fighting in the Casamance region of Senegal have been trying to visit their villages to see if it is safe to return home, UNHCR said on Tuesday. However, some have returned to The Gambia after finding their houses destroyed. Others, UNHCR reported, said Senegalese troops who had taken up positions in their villages warned them to stay out of the area.

Liberia's Defence Ministry reported renewed fighting in the northern county of Lofa even as relief organisations continued to appeal for assistance for people displaced by the insecurity there. Defence Minister Daniel Chea said on Tuesday that Lofa was under attack by Guinea-based rebels, AFP and humanitarian sources reported.

The Ethiopian government has released 22 opposition Democratic Party (DP) members arrested in April for allegedly instigating students riots, AFP reported on Thursday.

The Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) on Thursday denied that a high-ranking commander from the Nubah Mountains had defected to the government, as had been claimed.

The government of Sudan on Wednesday announced that it had fully accepted all the points of a joint Libyan-Egyptian memorandum, which has not been made public, on their peace initiative for Sudan. At a press conference in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, Foreign Minister Mustafa Uthman Isma'il urged the two countries to take all the necessary measures to implement the initiative, Sudanese television reported.

The first 34 of a total 159 demobilised child soldiers were flown home on Wednesday from Uganda to Bunia in the Ituri district of the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to be reunited with their families, UNICEF announced on Thursday. The children have been staying in a World Vision-Uganda transit centre in Kiryandongo, 220 km north of the capital Kampala, under the supervision of UNICEF-Uganda since February this year when the government of Uganda handed them over.

Seminars on community peace building in Bukavu have contributed to the restoration of a "relatively peaceful" situation in certain zones, Save the Children UK (SC UK) said in its July update. Bunyakiri, Walungu and Kaziba were some of the zones in which the positive results were realised. SC UK supported some partner organisations working in Bukavu, ran these seminars which focused on the reintegration and protection of the child soldiers and the prevention of child recruitment.

Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni on Wednesday reiterated that he was tired of the war in the DRC and was pulling out his troops from that country, a report posted on 'The Guardian' website said.

A week before a meeting of signatories of the Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Agreement, the Burundian Net Press news agency reported that the group of eight pro-Tutsi parties (G8) supporting the candidacy of Col. Epitace Bayaganakandi as president of the first phase of the transitional period has written to the mediator in the Burundi conflict, Nelson Mandela, drawing his attention to what they believe to be impeding progress in negotiations: stubbornness on the part of President Pierre Buyoya and the Forces pour la defense de la democratie (FDD) and Forces nationales pour la liberation (FNL) rebel groups.