The Angolan government and relief agencies will soon know more about the
humanitarian needs in vast areas that have not been accessible for years. It is estimated that 500,000 people are in need of assistance in the regions previously cut off from aid because of the war.

Angola's peace plan could fail if the government does not have the capacity to meet the needs of UNITA soldiers and their families during the demobilisation process, a UNITA parliamentarian told IRIN on Wednesday.

Secret Cuban and U.S. documents recently released show that the administration of then-president Gerald Ford was planning covert actions in Angola well before Cuba's intervention in the former Portuguese colony's civil war in 1975.

A human rights organisation has called for the establishment of a South African-style Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to take forward Angola's peace process.

The cease-fire signed in Luanda presents a new opportunity to build respect for fundamental human rights, according to Amnesty International.

Should not humanitarian institutions be as involved in trying to deal with the conflicts and violence faced by IDPs as they are in delivering basic humanitarian assistance? If one does not address violence affecting IDPs, any solution reached at a higher political level will be unsustainable. Displaced people are an integral part of civil society and should be included in all peace and reconciliation processes. Hopefully, one day IDPs will be able to return home. When they do, land, property and ethnic-related conflicts will confront them. Engaging IDPs in conflict resolution activities stimulates reflection and provides skills to reduce tension, avoid violence and resolve conflicts. Today’s conflict resolution is tomorrow’s conflict prevention.

Senior leaders of Angola's Unita rebels have been arrested, say the group's representatives based in Europe.

Almost all women in Angola have someone close to them who has been killed during the war. Hunger, poverty, separation of families, death and career stagnation are only some of the problems facing the Angolan women.

Fresh fighting is reported from Angola despite efforts to bring about a ceasefire. The clashes come after representatives of the government troops and the UNITA rebel group committed themselves to a lasting ceasefire.

Angolans waited anxiously on Monday for a promised government statement on its plan to resume peace talks with rebel movement UNITA, as the humanitarian situation in the country continued to deteriorate.

Oxfam International has warned that the death of UNITA leader, Jonas Savimbi, does not necessarily bring the end of suffering and war in Angola. Angola is at a crossroads; peace is one option, but the country could just as easily descend into fresh bloodshed if the right moves are not made now.

The United Nations and the government of Angola are failing to protect the rights of millions of people displaced by the country’s civil war, Human Rights Watch have charged.

Angola's ethnic conflicts are products of a double colonization. By the 1950s, there were two deeply frustrated, opposed social groups: the weakened Creole elites and the black Africans of the interior, poor and uneducated. The Mbundu living east of Luanda were a partial exception in that they were accustomed to interaction with the Creoles. The Angolan nationalist movement was thus divided from the start. The FNLA of Holden Roberto and MPLA of Agostinho Neto represented two long-separate sets of interests: the Kongo elites of the North vs. the Luanda Creoles and their Mbundu allies. The FNLA considered the MPLA Creole leadership as "non-African" even if several MPLA leaders were black Africans.

An attempt by BP to implement a more ethical corporate policy by publishing details of payments made to the government in oil-rich Angola has backfired. Britain's biggest company has been severely criticised by local state-owned oil group Sonangol and is desperately trying to patch up relations with ministers in the war-torn and impoverished country.

At the hands of Jonas Savimbi, over a million Angolans have died and two generations lost. If they had known that the baby of the station master and evangelical church pastor, Loth Malheiro Savimbi, and his wife Helena Mbundu Sakato. would bring misery to Angola, the people of Munhango in Bie Province would not have celebrated the birth of Jonas Savimbi. He looked perfectly harmless, a bouncing baby boy who made everyone laugh. No one knew he would make Angola cry as he bathed his people in their own blood years later.

A report by the Centre for Public Integrity has linked UNITA's principal arms trafficker, Victor Bout, with smuggling millions of dollars worth of arms to the Taliban in Afghanistan. According to the report, Bout earned $50 million in profit from selling the weapons in the late 1990s. One intelligence source used by the Centre stated that the arms were sent "on behalf of the Pakistan government".

Certain conditions would have to be met before the rebel group UNITA agrees to a ceasefire called for by the Angolan president, a spokesman told IRIN on Friday.