A prolonged dry spell and high temperatures ravaged Swaziland’s maize crop in 2007, resulting in the lowest annual harvest on record and leaving more than a third of the population in need of food assistance, according to a report issued today by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and WFP.

There is an accountability gap in refugee protection in the developing world. Host states consider refugees to be the responsibility of the "international community," and are pleased to cede their sovereignty on this issue to UNHCR, an unaccountable international organization. Yet, legally, host states are responsible for the human rights of refugees within their borders. UNHCR plans, manages, and funds refugee camps in developing countries, yet denies responsibility for the human rights conditions in those camps, blaming host governments.

South Africa's largest trade union federation will launch a campaign against "the Israeli occupation of Arab lands" this week, demanding that Pretoria impose a boycott on all Israeli goods and break diplomatic relations. South African Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils, who is Jewish, told Haaretz that he actively supported the initiative - which contradicts the policy of his own cabinet.

A protest by villagers at a major oil export pipeline complex in Nigeria entered a third day on Thursday and no crude was flowing through the facility, a protest leader said. Villagers from K-Dere occupied the pipeline hub at Bomu, which feeds the Bonny shipping terminal, on Tuesday and forced Shell to shut 150 000 barrels per day of output.

About a quarter of nearly 400 000 refugees who deserted Mogadishu during fighting earlier this year have returned to the Somali capital, the United Nations refugee agency said on Friday. But life in the war-scarred city was tough, with shortages of electricity and water, uncollected garbage clogging the streets and many businesses and schools shut, the agency said.

Every evening, a line of young girls with yellow jerry cans on their heads and babies on their backs walks to the camp water point on the edge of the forest. They pump water under the protective eye of the young men with guns, and shy away from visitors and outsiders. These are the girls of the Lord’s Resistance Army, at the LRA headquarters on the Sudan-Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) border.

It was a case of jumping from the fire into the frying pan for Law Society of Zimbabwe president Beatrice Mtetwa and a number of her colleagues, who recently had to flee from charging, truncheon-wielding police officers. The lawyers ran for safety into the offices of the Justice ministry only to find more officers waiting there to bash them.

The UN refugee agency is planning the delivery of emergency aid to thousands of Sudanese refugees who have crossed into the Central African Republic (CAR) to escape ground and air attacks on their homes in the Darfur region. At least 1,500 Sudanese have arrived in the past two weeks in Sam Ouandja, but more are turning up every day and UNHCR is taking this into consideration. The remote town in north-east CAR's Haute-Kotto district lies about 80 kilometres from the border with Darfur.

Suspected Rwandan rebels kidnapped at least six people on Thursday in Congo's eastern South Kivu province where 18 villagers were killed in a raid a few days ago, United Nations and army officials said. The kidnappers, believed to be members of the Hutu-dominated Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), entered a village in Kabere district, 30 km (19 miles) northwest of the provincial capital, Bukavu, around 1 a.m. local time.

Former Liberian President Charles Taylor goes on trial next week charged with instigating murder, rape and terrorism during Sierra Leone's civil war in a case prosecutors say could end impunity for African strongmen. Taylor, once one of Africa's most feared warlords, faces 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity at the U.N.-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone, including recruiting child soldiers during the 1991-2002 conflict.

The return of democracy to Nigeria in 1999 after years of military dictatorship has not brought an end to extra-judicial killings; rather, the number may have doubled in what is now often a daily occurrence, says the Civil Liberties Organisation -- a human rights group based in the financial hub of Lagos.

According to a new report by Save the Children, half of the world’s out-of-school population – 39 million children – live in conflict-affected fragile states (CAFS), even though these countries make up just 13 per cent of the world’s population. The numbers of out-of-school children are disproportionately high for a number of reasons. Almost all CAFS are low-income countries, some lack the political will to provide education, and conflict almost inevitably leaves national institutions – including education authorities – in disarray.

Rebels in northeastern Central African Republic (CAR) have agreed to negotiate the release of hundreds of child soldiers in their ranks to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), a spokeswoman said. "We [the government, rebels and UNICEF] are in agreement on the necessity for these children to be released and reintegrated into their communities as soon as possible," Anne Boher, the communications officer for UNICEF in CAR, told IRIN on Monday.

The Somali conflict has severely disrupted economic activities, increased competition for already overburdened social services and limited food availability for both host and displaced communities, an early warning agency has said. Aid workers estimate that about 400,000 people have fled the capital, Mogadishu, since February to seek shelter in other regions of the country.

A Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) faction has blamed Sudanese government forces for fresh attacks on its positions in North Darfur, saying aerial bombardment had been employed against its fighters. Sudanese government forces clashed with rebels over the weekend in the Rockero area of North Darfur state, the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) reported, adding that it was unable to estimate the number of casualties following the violence.

At least 40 children are among thousands of newly displaced civilians in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) fleeing ongoing clashes between Congolese armed forces and Rwandan rebels, officials said. "These newly displaced people come from the Ufamando group and the Gungu area," Kemal Saiki, spokesman for the United Nations Mission in Congo (MONUC) said on 23 May.

Al Jazeera reports that former members of a pro-government militia in the west of the Ivory Coast have burnt piles of weaponry in a symbolic gesture to mark the completion of their disarmament. Attending the ceremonies on Saturday, the president of the Ivory Coast hailed the disarmament as an important step towards re-unifying the war-torn west African country.

International sanctions against Sudan over the conflict in Darfur would only raise the level of confrontation and prolong the suffering of refugees, China's newly-appointed envoy has said, according to an Al Jazeera report. Speaking on a visit to the region, Liu Guijin called for greater humanitarian aid into Darfur instead.

Uganda ratified the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment in 1986 and is party to a number of other regional and international treaties that outlaw torture and other forms of ill-treatment. Despite this, reports of torture in Uganda continue.

REDRESS, the international NGO working to obtain justice and reparation for torture survivors, today calls on the African Commission for Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) to firmly address Zimbabwe’s torture record, which is rapidly spiraling out of control. Recently, human rights lawyers in particular have been targeted, including Zimbabwe Law Society President Ms Beatrice Mtetwa who earlier this month was severely beaten by police when she and other human rights defenders were participating in a peaceful protest outside the Harare High Court.