With the return of peace and stability in Burundi, the Tanzanian President, Jakaya Kikwete, sees no reason why thousands of Burundian refugees should remain in his country. President Kikwete, who flew to the Burundian capital Bujumbura, disclosed that all Burundian refugee camps will be closed by December 2007.

A UN report says Sudan is unlikely to achieve lasting peace unless it addresses the problem of growing damage to its environment. The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report said on Friday that Sudan's main cause of unrest has been the scarcity of resources and other phenomena such as desertification and deforestation that are likely to worsen.

Chad's government and rebel leaders gathered in Tripoli on Friday for Libyan-brokered peace talks aimed at ending an insurgency against President Idriss Deby's rule, rebel chiefs and Libyan officials said. A coalition of Chadian rebels have been fighting a hit-and-run guerrilla war for well over a year against Deby's forces in eastern Chad, which is also hit by a spillover of refugees and Arab Janjaweed raiders from Sudan's Darfur region.

Malawi's death row prisoners are breathing more easily after three High Court judges unanimously agreed in a test case that the courts are not bound to sentence anyone to death for murder, as this would be a violation of that person's human rights. "The mandatory death penalty violates an individual's right that protects one from inhuman treatment or punishment and denies them the right to fair trial and have the sentence reviewed by a higher tribunal," said Justice Elton Singini, reading out the joint judgment on Apr. 27.

Civil society organisations in Togo have welcomed the sentences handed down to five child traffickers last week. The trials marked the first application of a law adopted in August 2005 against the trafficking of children.

June 20 is World Refugee Day, a day when the UN refugee agency tries to focus worldwide attention on the plight of millions of refugees and displaced people around the world. To mark the day, High Commissioner António Guterres is visiting South Sudan to witness the rapid changes in the nature of the refugee challenge in Africa.

The French Defence Ministry is helping UNHCR and a new museum of primitive art in Paris to deliver hundreds of toys to young Sudanese and Central African Republic refugees in Chad. A small party of officers and men from the army and air force arrived at Quai Branly Museum near the Eiffel Tower on Thursday and helped staff of the UN refugee agency and the museum to load 35 boxloads of toys onto two trucks for transportation to a military airport in Orleans.

The UN refugee agency on Friday welcomed the Mauritanian government's decision to allow some 20,000 refugees to return home from neighbouring Mali and Senegal, where some of them have spent almost two decades in exile. The Mauritanian decision coincided with this year's World Refugee Day, which fell on Wednesday this week.

China will send more than 200 troops to Sudan's Darfur region to help a joint African Union-United Nations peacekeeping force, its special envoy said in Khartoum on Friday. "The government is planning to send 275 multipurpose, multifunction engineering troops to support the second phase of the Annan plan, the heavy support package," Liu Guijin told reporters in Khartoum, where he will meet President Omar Hassan al-Bashir and Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Karti on Saturday.

Spain and Senegal said on Friday they were winning the fight against illegal migration as the European nation promised to invest in the West African state and create more legal job opportunities for Senegalese workers. The Spanish interior and labour ministers, Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba and Jesus Caldera, announced during a visit to Dakar that several hundred legal jobs in Spain would be opened up this year for workers from Senegal, to encourage lawful migration.

China's special envoy on Darfur said Thursday his country will seriously consider sending troops for a peacekeeping mission in the war-torn Sudanese region and insisted Beijing is doing its best to help solve the conflict. Liu Guijin lashed out at critics who accuse China of backing Sudan's government because of Chinese oil interests there.

Efforts to end the near-forgotten conflict in Western Sahara seem to have picked up momentum, after 16 years of bloody war and another 16 of failed peacemaking. The conflict began when 350,000 Moroccans marched into the formerly Spanish-controlled region in 1975, generating armed resistance by the Polisario Front movement of the local Sahrawi people, who wanted independence, not a new overlord. After apparent concessions from both Morocco and the Polisario, U.N.-sponsored talks involving the local and regional parties began this week.

The Project Manager will have responsibility for overall management and development of ARC’s GBV programs in Byumba (Gihembe Camp) and Gituza (Nyabiheke Camp). He/she will collaborate with the Health Program Coordinator, GBV Community Coordinators and the Community Health Education Coordinators in the Gihembe and Nyabiheke Camps in the planning, implementation, budgeting, monitoring, evaluation, reporting and review of ARC’s GBV prevention and response program in Rwanda.

Ensures that staff are well versed in vision and mission of JRS; Provides leadership in applying this vision and mission to all aspects of planning and project implementation; Manifests concern for refugee welfare and issues in the country; Supports JRS staff in all aspects of their service. Deadline: 14 July 2007

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has toughened his talk on corruption saying that every public servant keen on pilfering public resources must now expect severe repercussions. The American government has boosted Mr Museveni’s anti-corruption efforts with a $10.2 million grant (Shs16 billion), Finance Minister Ezra Suruma has announced.

Intermittent clashes and frequent attacks on civilians by armed groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have created a state of permanent displacement in the volatile central African country, an official of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said. "There are a million internally displaced persons [IDPs], but each time there is a successful return of IDPs, there are new displacements because of conflicts elsewhere," said Judy Cheng-Hopkins, UNHCR's assistant high commissioner for operations.

This report by the International Crisis Group addresses the human, political and economic price of the impasse. For the peoples concerned the costs have been varying degrees of displacement, exile, isolation, poverty and denial of political freedom; for the countries, there have been, variously, financial and diplomatic costs, slower national development, and border security tensions.

Rights group Amnesty International condemned Kenyan police on Tuesday for the execution-style killing of more than 30 people in last week's crackdown on the deadly Mungiki gang in a Nairobi slum. Hundreds of police officers went into the Mathare shanty-town on two raids, shooting dead at least 33 people they said were suspected members of the Mungiki criminal ring that runs extortion rackets and beheads its enemies.

Delegates from 20 African countries began talks in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Tuesday on the process of disarming and reintegrating former combatants to boost peace and development on the violence-wracked continent.

Nine years ago, Santonino Otok fled his home in the green fields of northern Uganda for a refugee camp, fearing attack by marauding rebels. Now he is back under his old mango tree. "My parents are buried here and my parents' parents, so it's a blessing to return," said a beaming Otok (66), surveying the birthplace he thought he might never see again.