Hungry UNITA soldiers and their families who have crossed into Namibia are being transported back across the border to quartering areas in southern Angola by the Namibian Defence Force (NDF), which has only a limited amount of food to spare the former rebels.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) will provide aid to some 39,000 people displaced by war in northwestern Democratic Republic of the Congo. WFP Regional Director for Central Africa Holdbrook Arthur arrived in the Congolese capital, Kinshasa, last Wednesday to meet with government authorities on matters of food security and WFP aid.

Some 93,000 people displaced by fighting in Liberia now depend on supplies provided by the World Food Programme (WFP), according to the UN agency, which said some 43,000 of the beneficiaries were living in camps near the capital, Monrovia.

African National Congress (ANC) president Thabo Mbeki has come out against the concept of treating "avarice as legitimate sin".

As Walter Kansteiner, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, traveled to Angola and Nigeria this week, Human Rights Watch urged him not to overlook serious human rights concerns in both countries. Human Rights Watch said that this Africa visit was an opportunity for the Bush administration to integrate human rights into its meetings.

Liberia's Court Martial Board has ordered the Liberian government to produce by 7 August the “living bodies” of three men who were arrested a month ago. Several human rights groups, including Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders, had accused the government of violating the men's constitutional rights by refusing to bring them to court.

Zimbabwe has denounced the UK authorities after a senior figure in President Mugabe's party was stopped in London for defying an EU travel ban. Joseph Malinga, Deputy Secretary for the disabled in Zanu-PF, was held - along with his wife - on his arrival at London's Gatwick airport by British officials as he attempted to get on a plane to New York.

Volcanic eruptions and other activity continued last Saturday on mounts Nyamuragira and Nyiragongo, in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, but still posed no immediate danger to the nearby city of Goma, Kalendi Sadaka Kavotha, director of the Goma Volcano Observatory, told IRIN.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has set up an early-warning satellite-communication system and plans to establish two military bases to facilitate rapid deployment of peacekeeping troops in conflict situations.

Police in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)last Monday shot dead 14 demonstrators demanding autonomy for Bas-Congo Province, in southwestern DRC, media sources and a civil society group reported.

Rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) have killed 42 civilians in an attack in northern Uganda, says the Ugandan army. The army said the rebels attacked a village near the northern town of Kitgum last Wednesday and used machetes and clubs to cut and beat their victims to death.

A Sudanese "Special Court" has sentenced 87 people to death in Nyala, Southern Darfur province, for their involvement in clashes with another tribe, according to the Sudanese News Agency (SUNA).

With general elections due in the first quarter of next year, ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) factions are locked in power struggles ahead of the polls, and the political stability of Nigeria could be jeopardised if the party fails to hold the country together ahead of and during the crucial polls.

The Government yesterday received a major boost in the anti-malaria war when the British Government gave a Sh510 million grant, spread over the next five years.

The self-declared republic of Somaliland is to hold presidential elections in January, sources close to the Somaliland government told IRIN on Tuesday. An independent electoral commission will be established and about 10 candidates are expected to participate, the sources said.

After a two-week mission to the Comoros, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said it would be impossible to draw up an economic programme for the archipelago in the short term until the current political situation was clarified. Since the introduction of a new political system which granted the islands of Moheli, Anjouan and Grande Comore their own federal presidents, a political tussle has ensued over how the separation of powers between the federal presidents and the Union president would work.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) will provide aid to some 39,000 people displaced by war in northwestern Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Military helicopters hovered over the capital and police in riot gear patrolled the streets on Tuesday, as Zimbabwean authorities tried to stave off anti-government protests ahead of the opening of parliament.

At least 12 people have been killed, and more than 35 injured, in fighting between rival warlords in Medina, a residential area of the Somali capital, Mogadishu. Witnesses say there was indiscriminate shelling of houses and many of those who died were civilians.

Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are expected to meet their obligations under a new peace deal within 90 days after their presidents sign the accord, an official in Kigali said Tuesday, as Rwandan rebels gave a cautious welcome to the pact. The deal, which adds little to previous pledges, was announced in Pretoria, South Africa, on Monday, but no time frame was then released for the arduous task of flushing out and regrouping Rwandan rebels who are based in the eastern DRC or for Rwanda to then pull out its 20 000 troops from the country.