The Transitional National Government (TNG) said it had nationalised the Mogadishu Islamic courts. The TNG director of information, Abdirahman Dinari, told IRIN told that President Abdiqassim Salad Hassan had announced on Tuesday that the courts would henceforth operate under the justice ministry, and would no longer be an independent entity.

The chief of staff of the armed forces of the Central African Republic (CAR), General Francois Bozize, has detailed a number of steps to be taken to reduce continuing violence and to ensure a return to peace in the capital, Bangui.

Burundi President Pierre Buyoya is in South Africa for talks with the mediator of the peace process, Nelson Mandela. Government sources confirmed to IRIN that Buyoya left Burundi on Thursday for talks which would include the transition issue.

Deputy Secretary-General Louise Frechette on Thursday emphasised the need to make conflict prevention a central pillar of the international security system, in a follow-up to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's 7 June report to the UN Security Council, the first ever on the issue.

Tortured, ill-treated, sexually assaulted, forcibly subjected to medical or psychiatric treatment, forced to flee their home countries in terror -- the world over, lesbians, gay men,
bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people are at particular risk of human rights violations because of their sexual identity, Amnesty International said today.

A misguided trap is being set by right wing conservatives. It threatens our national security interests and endangers our military personnel.A cleverly mislabeled "Servicemembers Protection Act," was recently passed by the House and is now pending in the Senate where it was appended as an amendment linked to the Foreign Relations Act authorizing payment of arrears to the United Nations. In the guise of protecting our military, the amendment is clearly designed to abort the creation of an International Criminal Court (ICC) now being formed at the United Nations.

Amnesty International today appealed to the different armed forces fighting in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC, formerly Zaire) to halt further killings and other mass human rights abuses against unarmed civilians.

A French anti-racism group filed suit June 15 against 13 Internet service providers that have refused to block access to a U.S.-based portal site which acts as an online host to more than 400 hate groups (Action Internationale pour la Justice v. Societe GENERAL COMMUNICATIONS INC (GCI) and 14 others,T.G.I. Paris, docket number unavailable, 6/14/01).

In a surprising turnaround, the Zimbabwean president, Robert Mugabe, has agreed to accept a visit by a group of Commonwealth mimisters - including the British foreign secretary, Jack Straw - to mediate between his country and Britain over Zimbabwe's land reform policy.

There has been extensive use of child soldiers, including some as young as 10 years of age, by both government and opposition armed forces in the Sudanese civil war, which has led to the direct or indirect loss of some two million lives, the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers reported on Tuesday.

Gabon police have arrested the man responsible for chartering the Etireno, which was carrying dozens of children into slavery. Stanislas Abatan, from Benin, and five men from Togo and Benin who were his accomplices, were arrested at the end of May.

Trafficking of children to be used as cheap labour is growing in nine countries in west and central Africa, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) reported Friday. The ILO report includes interviews with children and their parents in Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroun, Ivory Coast, Gabon, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria and Togo.

The number of people forced to flee their homes has risen by almost five million over the past two years, even as the budget of the main international agency dealing with the problem declines, according to a new report by a major US advocacy group.

Fifty-eight Chinese people who were found dead in the back of a UK-bound lorry a year ago this week are among thousands who have died in a bid to seek refuge in "Fortress Europe". On World Refugee Day a coalition of campaigners argues that policy-makers must start to see Europe as a continent of immigration.

This special BBC report tells the stories behind refugee movements, using first-person testimonies and in-depth interviews to trace the journey from home into exile. Questions raised are why refugees are still fleeing, where they go, and examines how we treat them. The texts are accompanied by audio and video fragments.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR) has a special web site dedicated to World Refugee Day - June 20, 2001. The site features, among other things, profiles of well-known refugees and information on activities around the world.

The Observatory has been informed by the Sudanese Victims of Torture Group (SVTG), of the arbitrary arrest and incommunicado detention of 41 year-old Faisal el Bagir Mohamed, a member of SVTG network inside Sudan and freelance journalist.

Local and national resistance to putting the management and supply of water in the hands of profit-making foreign multinationals is detailed in a new review by the Globalisation Challenge Initiative. This shows the Bank and IMF pressing ahead with water privatisation worldwide, sometimes at the expense of the poorest.

The dramatic increase in humanitarian assistance by the international community in recent years has largely been in response to an upsurge in internal, ethno-nationalist conflicts. One of the principle characteristics of the humanitarian response has been an enhanced role for NGOs. However this new role for NGOs has often led to their policies and organisational structures focusing on direct action and short-term planning. There is a growing realisation of the need to refocus NGO activities so that they enhance the capacity of agencies to prevent and mitigate the effects of violent conflict.

Salary : A competitive remuneration package will be offered
Location : Kampala, Uganda
Closing Date : 15 Jun 2001
Job posted on : 11 Jun 2001