Cooperation by large and small development groups to overcome River Blindness disease has improved health and expanded agricultural land throughout Africa, and constitutes one of many development success stories.

Early results of a study on conservation and community conflict by the Jane Goodall Institute indicate that conflicts between local communities and conservation authorities ensue over land rights and ownership, competition between livestock and wildlife for water, access to forest resources, the struggle over crop raiding by ecotourism species, misunderstandings about conservation project purpose and methods, and other mistaken assumptions. Preliminary findings present a strong case for increasing attention to deep-rooted conflicts through use of reconciliation techniques and standardizing meaningful integration of communities' and conservation's agendas.

Recent developments in the long process towards peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) should provide an opportunity for a determined effort by the international community to involve itself to bring to an end one of the most murderous wars on the African continent, says a civil society statement on the DRC distributed by lobby group Africa Action.

The world's insatiable demand for cellular phones and other consumer luxuries is fueling violent conflict and killing millions in developing countries, reports a new study from the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based research organization. Brutal wars over natural resources have killed or displaced more than 20 million people and are raising at least $12 billion a year for rebels, warlords, repressive governments, and other predatory groups around the world.

French troops last Sunday created a buffer zone stretching through the centre of Ivory Coast to secure a fragile ceasefire in a month-long uprising that has left rebels in control of half the west African nation.

South African President Thabo Mbeki warned last Thursday that a peace deal signed in July for the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) could crumble, even as DRC army officers and rebel delegates arrived in South Africa for fresh talks aimed at salvaging the fragile peace.

Deep divisions in the international community about the response to Zimbabwe's crisis are playing into President Robert Mugabe's hands, says the International Crisis Group (ICG) in a new report. “Foreign media emphasis on the plight of white farmers reinforces the erroneous but widespread belief in Africa that the West is concerned about Zimbabwe only because white property interests have been harmed,” says the report.

Ivory Coast's rebels signed a West African-brokered cease-fire that the government had already agreed in principle on Thursday to halt a four-week-old war that threatened regional catastrophe.

Jose Augusto Lindgren Alves is well acquainted with the dynamics of multilateral politics and the workings of the United Nations. Moreover, he is a man who understands when history presents opportunities to further the cause of human rights and to move against scourges such as racism. His career as a diplomat has ensured his presence at such moments, and bestowed on him the chance to help put the struggle against racism on the world agenda.

Three weeks after the 19 September failed coup d'etat, the number of civilians fleeing Cote d'Ivoire's "war zones" was increasing rapidly and the administrative capital, Yamoussoukro, was by Friday turning into a transit town for the displaced.

Despite international outcry, The Gambia has become the first country in Africa to sign an agreement with the United States, which ensures that Americans are exempted from International Criminal Court prosecution over genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Amid the chaos of conflict, an agency worker was recently overheard remarking: "We are too busy with the war to worry about HIV/AIDS." His position is understandable. Indeed, it is shared by many other agency workers. But they are not looking at the big picture. By the end of this decade, ten times more sub-Saharan Africans will die of AIDS than will be killed by fighting. For this reason, we need very much to worry about HIV/AIDS, even amid the confusion of a war zone.

At least 16 people were killed in renewed violence that erupted on Monday in Plateau State, central Nigeria, according to officials and residents.

The Rwandan-backed Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD-Goma) has suspended relations with the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo following the capture of the eastern city of Uvira on Sunday by Mayi-Mayi militias who, the RCD alleges, were backed by Kinshasa forces.

More participants on Wednesday joined Somali peace talks in the western Kenyan town of Eldoret, raising hopes that the conference could achieve real progress. "For the first time since these meetings have been taking place, we have virtually everyone together, and this augurs well," Kenya's Foreign Minister Marsden Madoka told delegates.

The impeachment notice served on President Olusegun Obasanjo by the House of Representatives in Nigeria on August 13, 2002 is yet the greatest indication of the frustration which the democratic government inaugurated on May 29, 1999 has created among many Nigerians. In fact it can be said that there is even a crisis of confidence in the country and its system of government.

Some 7,000 Congolese refugees have arrived in Burundi in recent days, with more expected to follow if fighting escalates between rebels in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

After 30 years of exile in neighbouring Sudan, Eritrean refugees are finally returning back home, but the shock of being uprooted from the relative comfort of the well supplied refugee camps is often very evident. In Gash Barka, a harsh desert region in Western Eritrea, water is worth its weight in gold. The local residents have already raised concerns that the influx of returnees risked overextending the existing water supply.

Almost 500 Namibian refugees, who fled to Botswana during unrest four years ago, are to be repatriated early next week, a spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said last Friday.

The situation of displaced people in northern Uganda has worsened considerably in recent months despite the launch of a Government military operation against rebels whose repeated attacks on civilians is the main cause of displacement. In northern Uganda alone, new attacks by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) have displaced tens of thousands and created a humanitarian crisis with risk of starvation for over half-a-million people, many of them displaced since the mid-1990s.