More than 2500 Burundian refugees who have been living in Tanzania have been repatriated since the installation of a transitional government in Burundi last November. According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), the refugees started leaving last month. According to a daily Tanzanian newspaper, 1083 refugees left Kigoma, Tanzania, last week for the Burundian capital Bujumbura.

As Rwanda marks its seventh year since the tragedy of the 1994 genocide, and mourns the victims, the international community must once again confront the enormity of its failure to intervene in 1994. Recently, investigations and apologies have acknowledged that much more could have been done to halt the slaughter, and there does seem to be increased determination to learn lessons from Rwanda. This is to be welcomed, but it provides little comfort to the survivors. African Rights’ latest report, Left to Die at ETO and Nyanza, is about people whose lives did not matter enough in international terms, and whose deaths have become the statistics to prove this fact.

The Second e-Symposium on Conflict Prevention co sponsored by the Japan Center for Conflict Prevention (JCCP) and the Japan Times with support from the Sasakawa Peace Foundation was successfully held from February 6-14, 2002 on the theme "The Future of Conflict Prevention in the Post September 11 World" on the internet with an expanded global reach over the First e Symposium held in July 2001 that can be seen in the increase in the number of registered participants.

The Nigerian Government has warned that it will prosecute any foreign journalist who publishes malicious falsehoods about the country.

PRESIDENT Yoweri Museveni has directed the Kibaale-based Kagadi Community Radio to stop airing controversial political views on the ethnic clashes in the district.

The Angolan government and relief agencies will soon know more about the
humanitarian needs in vast areas that have not been accessible for years. It is estimated that 500,000 people are in need of assistance in the regions previously cut off from aid because of the war.

Senior UN officials outlined the need for increased international assistance for Angola during a meeting with the Security Council on the country's humanitarian crisis. The Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Kenzo Oshima, told the Security Council that the civil war in Angola has uprooted 4 million people, or one-third of the country's population.

A Congolese rebel commander says the country's largest rebel movement is divided over whether to join a new power-sharing government with President Joseph Kabila.

Gani Fawehinmi, fiery government critic and advocate of human rights has declared that he will run for presidential office next year, and promises to investigate all past Nigerian leaders if he's elected.

Clare Short was caught up in a diplomatic row last night after she accused the French of being directly implicated in the massacre of millions of Tutsis in Rwanda in the Nineties. The outspoken International Development Secretary said France had 'created genocides in Africa' after allegations that the French government backed Hutu interests in the country.

One year since a "Slave Ship" off the coast of West Africa brought child trafficking into the glare of the international spotlight, not enough is being done to combat the continued abuse, a leading anti-slavery campaigner charged Wednesday.

Across Africa, the Middle East crisis is provoking passionate debate bordering sometimes on angry condemnation. Both Muslim and "anti-colonial" sentiment, already stirred by the attacks of September 11, 2001 and the war in Afghanistan, have been inflamed by what is perceived to be the heavy-handed treatment of the Palestinians by Israel and uncritical support from the world's superpower, the United States. Charles Cobb Jr asks whether Africa's relationship with Washington could eventually suffer?

The two rival presidents of Madagascar have signed a landmark power-sharing peace deal, late Thursday morning, in Senegal. The agreement, signed after more than 24 hours of feverish but determined African mediation, envisages a government of national reconciliation in Madagascar during a six-month democratic transition.

This weekend, after a week of arm-twisting and secret meetings, the US government forced the departure of Jose Bustani, director-general of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the UK Guardian reports.

Regional and international pressure to end Zimbabwe's bitter political conflict may result in a hasty deal that could undermine democratic principles, the International Crisis Group (ICG) has warned.

Comoros Electoral Commission has declared last week's presidential poll invalid and ordered a revote.

The ruling on Eritrea's border with Ethiopia, announced earlier this month, is likely to have an impact on crucial humanitarian issues in Eritrea such as reintegration and refugee repatriation.

A recent Oxfam report says that some five million people have died from violent conflict in the Great Lakes region of Africa in the last decade, including about 800,000 people in the Rwandan genocide of 1994, and 2.5 million in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) since 1998.

Thousands of people displaced by insecurity prompted by a joint Ugandan-Sudanese military operation against the (Ugandan) rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in Eastern Equatoria, southern Sudan, have arrived in the government stronghold of Juba, according to aid officials.

The UN refugee agency has condemned the killing on Thursday of two Rwandan children at a refugee centre in Nairobi, saying it would provide "all necessary" support for investigations being carried out by the Kenyan authorities to bring the perpetrators to justice.