A human rights activist, along with his wife and young child, have been assassinated in their home close to Uvira in South Kivu, eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Sudan's warring parties have accused each other of arming and supporting the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), an insurgent group which is waging war against the Ugandan government from hideouts inside Sudan.

What West African leaders feared most is happening. The complex and chaotic conflict in Cote d'Ivoire has become more confused and spilled over its borders, potentially drawing in a number of its neighbours and threatening a nervous and volatile region, prone to crises and war.
Related Link: Army Attacks Toulepleu
http://irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=31257

South African electricity giant Eskom, which last week won generating and distributing rights from the Uganda Electricity Board, has been warned to keep clear of the controversial Bujagali Dam project by environmental and anti-corruption pressure groups.

Peace efforts in the war-torn Somalia received a major boost this week following a declaration to end hostilities in the country's capital of Mogadishu. The seven Somali faction leaders whose militia have been fighting in the capital signed a joint declaration in a landmark resolution.
Related Link: Talks move into phase two
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=31194

Shell Oil warned Tuesday of a "potential disaster" as hundreds of slum-dwellers scooped crude oil spilling from a ruptured pipeline that the company said could explode at any time.

At least 38-million people in Africa are threatened by hunger, caused mostly by a drought that is extending from the Horn of Africa to the southern part of the continent, the World Food Programme (WFP) said on Tuesday.

Lands and Agriculture Minister Joseph Made has finally admitted that the government has failed to ensure food security for the famine-stricken nation. This more than a year after repeatedly dismissing warnings of a serious grain shortage, says the Standard Newspaper.
Related Links: Food aid deal collapses
http://www.africapulse.org/index.php?action=viewarticle&articleid=660
Famine is very close, warns WFP
http://www.africapulse.org/index.php?action=viewarticle&articleid=662

The war in Nothern Uganda has created a generation of conflict-affected youngsters who will grow up emotionally, physically, and economically blighted in displacement camps, according to a report by the The Civil Society Organisation for Peace in Northern Uganda (CSOPNU).

In the run up to the Kenyan election, The Nation newspaper takes a look at and analyses what policies and actions are being promised by the main election contenders. Many Kenyans are deeply disappointed by the way some leaders have conducted themselves over the past couple of weeks.

There is no immediate solution in sight for on-going fuel problems as the government reduces imports in line with a new policy to only supply indigenous operators. The new policy comes as fuel queues of up to half-a-kilometre long resurface in Harare.

The ANC leadership will meet with the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) to get clarity on why two ANC MECs were sacked from the KwaZulu-Natal cabinet. Smuts Ngonyama, the ANC spokesperson, said the meeting would take place tomorrow but the venue had not been confirmed.

President Mugabe and Sydney Sekeramayi, the Minister of Defence, have remained mum about the casualties and financial costs of the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), despite Sekeramayi's promise in September that the figures would be revealed at Saturday's DRC withdrawal military parade in Harare.
Related Link: The new veterans march home
http://africa-confidential.com

The United States said last Saturday it had received information that terrorist attacks similar to the anti-Israeli strikes in Kenya could be repeated in Djibouti and Yemen and has urged US citizens there to boost their security precautions.

Burundi President Pierre Buyoya and the leader of the rebel Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD), Pierre Nkurunziza, signed a historic ceasefire agreement here early Tuesday aimed at ending a civil war which has killed around 300 000 people.
Related Link: Billeting of former rebels to begin this week
http://irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=31247

Zimbabwe on Monday said a decision to recall its high commissioner to Botswana was part of a broader government reshuffle and had nothing to do with President Festus Mogae's recent criticism of the country's political and economic policies.

Heavy rains backed by gusting winds have displaced some 5,000 people in the central, south central and northwestern parts of the Republic of Congo, according to local administrators.

The return of exiled Liberian opposition leader Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf to the capital, Monrovia, last week was a first step of a likely challenge to President Charles Taylor in the 2003 elections, diplomatic sources in Monrovia told IRIN.

The first wave of 170,000 Angolan refugees are set to return home next year following a deal between the governments of Angola, Namibia and Zambia.

South African police have arrested a number of people as part of an investigation into a right-wing plot to topple the government.