The return to Cape Town of the remains of Saartje Baartman, the Khoisan lady dubbed the "Hottentot Venus" in Europe, could provide the spark for the revival of Khoisan - or "Bushman" culture. The Khoisan people are widely believed to be the original inhabitants of the southern tip of Africa. Baartman's remains, which were placed in a coffin draped in the South African flag, were returned 186 years after her death in Paris where she died a pauper. French scientists made a mould of her body and preserved her skeleton, genitalia and brain which remained on display at the Museum of Mankind in Paris until 1974.

The international medical relief organisation
Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has started an emergency feeding and medical
programme in Chipindo, in Angola's southern province of Huila, to aid 18,000 isolated people in severe need. During an exploratory medical mission the MSF team discovered mortality
figures as high as 6.1 per 10,000 people a day for children under 5 and 4.5
deaths per 10,000 a day for the population in general. These figures are well above the emergency threshold of 1 death for 10,000 a day.

Governments and civil society organs need to work harder together to ensure the translation of the rights in the African Charter on Human Rights into a reality for the millions of people on the continent.
Speaking at the official opening of the 31st African Commission on Human and People's Rights (ACHPR) session currently underway in Pretoria, Deputy President Jacob Zuma said the legal fraternity in particular, had a critical role to play in entrenching a human rights culture on the continent, in partnership with government and other civil society institutions.

A Muslim group in Nigeria's southern state of Oyo has said it was adopting the Islamic legal code of Sharia after the state government ignored their demands to implement the legal system.

The number of Liberian refugees presenting themselves for relocation within Sierra Leone has increased recently following a mass information campaign by UNHCR, the UN refugee agency has reported.

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has announced grants totaling more than $1.8 million to advance work it supports in three aspects of international peace and security: the development of cooperative security methods; efforts to limit the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; and assisting in the development of science, technology, and security specialists.

Professor Georges Nzongola Ntalaja is an academic from war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo. Until recently he was the UNDP Senior Special Adviser for Governance in Abuja. The articulate professor, in this interview with Musa Aliyu and Jibril Abubakar, spoke his mind on the peace initiatives in Congo, the roles played by former President Laurent Kabila in concert with Rwanda and Uganda in creating the crisis, Nigeria's leadership role, the UN's show of less attention and more.

Hundreds of Zimbabweans, including a 45-year-old blind man, have sought refuge in neighbouring countries after torture and death threats by war veterans and Zanu PF youths. The victims have fled to refugee camps in Botswana, South Africa, Zambia, Malawi and Namibia.

NICRO, a leading social service organization working in the field of crime prevention and restorative justice through development, is looking for a Programme MAnager and a Victim Support Worker.

is a clearinghouse of information, events, peer reviews, online resources and discussion concerning the topic of African conflict. The African Conflict Journal (ACJ) is an independent project that utilizes the latest online technology for community building, resource sharing and online information services.

The New York Times has published a wrap-up of the meeting in Sun City, South Africa, that was held to create a peace accord that would create peace in the largely chaotic atmosphere that is the DR Congo. While the conference in Sun City ended, there seems to be a tad bit of nervousness about the failure of any of the sides to come to agreement, and about what a potentially new government will now look like in Kinshasa.

The far right's strong showing in the first round of France's presidential elections is the latest example of the general turn to the right across Europe in the last few years. Center-left governments and coalitions have lost office in Italy, Norway, Denmark and Portugal, and strong challenges have been mounted by conservative candidates in the campaigns for coming elections in Germany and the Netherlands. But this mirrors the traditional pendulum swings of European politics. More alarming, in the view of many analysts, is the recent shift of far rightist parties from the periphery to the center of political debate. While specific circumstances vary from country to country, extreme rightists appear to have benefited from voters' anger that mainstream parties have ignored the perceived link between rising crime and immigration. Some far-right parties, like Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front, have campaigned aggressively against political elites and exploited disillusion with the European Union.

Doungou Alima Achille Arsene arrived in Cameroon in July 2001, after fleeing upheavals in his country, Central African Republic. However, life in the Cameroonian capital, Yaounde, is anything but easy for the 26-year-old tiler.

President Robert Mugabe has declared a state of disaster throughout Zimbabwe in the face of a government report that estimates that about 7.8 million people - over five million of them children - will need humanitarian help for the next 18 months.

The Central African Republic is launching sweeping reforms to promote good governance, an important step towards reducing poverty and promoting sustainable development. The reforms include improving public services; promoting decentralization and local governance; enhancing economic policies; and setting up an effective, transparent judicial system that respects human rights. The other areas are: creating an enabling environment for private sector development, promoting civil society participation in public affairs, and strengthening operations of the National Assembly.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on the United Nations Security Council to extend its arms embargo against Liberia, saying the army has committed war crimes. These atrocities, HRW said, included the execution of scores of civilians, widespread rape of women and girls, some as young as 12, and systematic burning of villages.

The shock success of far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen in the first round of French presidential elections this week confirms the findings of a new report that reaction to the post-September 11 attacks on New York and Washington have created a climate of "explosive racism" across Europe, the report's author said Wednesday.

MSF has finally gained access to the "grey areas" in Angola where, for years, people have been living without any international aid. Malnutrition is far above emergency thresholds with 30% of the children examined in a state of severe malnutrition.

A high-profile debt relief programme for the world's poorest countries is mired in implementation problems and faces tougher times ahead as it moves to deal with conflict-riddled countries, say World Bank officials.
"We have difficult cases ahead of us," Jacob Kolster, Programme Manager for the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative, said Thursday. "Progress is going to be very slow and very difficult as we move forward to bring more countries on board." The next stage of the initiative will cover Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Sudan, Somalia, and other countries still subject to intense political and communal tension and, on occasion, violence.

Millions of southern Africans will starve unless emergency relief efforts are stepped up, according to the United Nations World Food Programme. The WFP, which is already feeding 2.6 million people in the area, says a combination of natural and economic disasters is threatening millions more, and has asked for 69 million dollars to avert tragedy.