The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) has sent out an urgent appeal for funding to help assist victims of heavy rains which hit parts of northern Sudan between 3 and 8 August, causing severe flooding and rendering thousands homeless.

Following four years of war, the governments of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and neighbouring Uganda reached an accord in the Angolan capital, Luanda, last Thursday, whereby Uganda will withdraw its remaining troops from the DRC, and the two countries will normalise relations.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is planning to convene a peace meeting on Liberia that would include President Charles Taylor and the rebels of Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), news agencies reported last Friday.

Human rights should be a central principle for all new policies on world sustainable development, says the organization Rights & Democracy, which notes that the draft political declaration contains no reference to human rights.

Angola’s enormous diamond and oil wealth has proved to be more of a curse than a promise, with conflict over resources causing immense human suffering. But increasingly the links between resources and conflict are being made and it is in this context that sustainable development becomes crucially important, argues this article published in State of the World 2002, excerpts of which are printed in Pambazuka News with permission from the author.

The US envoy for Sudan, John Danforth, said on Wednesday that rights for southerners were the key to national unity.

The Food Programme (WFP) has distributed relief food to a group of Ugandan refugees who returned from Sudan recently.
The returnees, mostly women, children and the elderly numbering over 100 have camped at Potika Internally Displaced Persons camp in Agoro, Lamwo county in Kitgum district.

Sudanese President Umar Hasan al-Bashir has lifted a ban on political parties, as a step towards his goal of establishing democratic institutions in the country, a Sudanese diplomat in Nairobi has told IRIN.

'Some call me the devil," says Ed Fagan, delightedly. We are in a smart Cape Town waterfront hotel and Fagan, a consummate showman, is thoroughly enjoying himself as he details the multibillion-dollar class-action lawsuit he has launched against multinational corporations and banks, including Barclays Bank, accused of propping up apartheid. "I'm not the devil - but I can be," he says. "The devil's a guy who does a job and gets a bad rap."

This Sub-Regional Training and Programming Coordinator (SRTPC) is located in the Coastal West/Central region and is based out of Dakar, Senegal. The SRTPC provides the sub-regional posts with assistance in developing the professional and management skills of the training and programming staffs, including the Associate Peace Corps Directors.

The candidate must be a team player, with a strong background in conflict resolution theory and practice. The candidate will have worked in conflict and/or post violent conflict societies, particularly on issues related to conflict management programming and training methodologies.

Opposition parties waded into the government on Tuesday on the controversial R53-billion arms deal, describing the report on the investigation into the deal and the government's role in it as a "disgrace" and a national "shame".

The office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has begun repatriating Namibian refugees from Botswana.

Spontaneous returns of Angolan refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) had slowed down, amid reports of the lack of food, schools and medical facilities in Angola, UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesperson Kris Janowski said in a statement.

The Ghanaian parliament on Monday approved a fourth extension - for four weeks - of a state of emergency and curfew in northern Ghana's Dagbon traditional area, whose king and 29 other people were killed in March, state radio reported on Monday.

While the controversial acquisition of white owned farms grabs headlines, political violence against mostly black opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) supporters continues unabated and largely unreported, claim human rights NGO's.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has completed a preliminary distribution of plastic sheeting and blankets to 600 displaced families in the town of Minembwe, most of whom had fled nearby villages almost completely destroyed during recent clashes in the Haut Plateaux region of South Kivu Province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The city of Bunia in northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) was reported to be calm but tense on Monday following several days of intense fighting among ethnic groups, rebel militias and the Ugandan People's Defence Forces (UPDF).

Aid officials in northern Angola have warned of a new humanitarian crisis in that part of the country, once the coming rainy season blocks access to an already vulnerable population.

Burundi government officials and representatives of the biggest rebel group in the country have begun peace negotiations in Tanzania's commercial city Dar es Salaam.