At the hands of Jonas Savimbi, over a million Angolans have died and two generations lost. If they had known that the baby of the station master and evangelical church pastor, Loth Malheiro Savimbi, and his wife Helena Mbundu Sakato. would bring misery to Angola, the people of Munhango in Bie Province would not have celebrated the birth of Jonas Savimbi. He looked perfectly harmless, a bouncing baby boy who made everyone laugh. No one knew he would make Angola cry as he bathed his people in their own blood years later.

Barnabas Samatta, Tanzanian Chief Justice, has urged the three East African Community members Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania to harmonize their administration of justice because they share a common legal heritage. The EA countries were once British colonies.

A sentence of amputation of the right hand was executed on Anthony James Ladou Wani, a 46 year old Christian belonging to the KaKwa tribe from Southern Sudan. Anthony was sentenced to amputation of his right hand from the wrist on 4 May 2000 and has been detained in Kober prison in Khartoum since that date.

A report by the Centre for Public Integrity has linked UNITA's principal arms trafficker, Victor Bout, with smuggling millions of dollars worth of arms to the Taliban in Afghanistan. According to the report, Bout earned $50 million in profit from selling the weapons in the late 1990s. One intelligence source used by the Centre stated that the arms were sent "on behalf of the Pakistan government".

President Mwanawasa has challenged Parliament to become more open to members of the public. Speaking in his inaugural speech to Parliament in Lusaka, Mr Mwanawasa said that the National Assembly should open up to the people to facilitate the exchange of ideas with them.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has said the security situation in Mogadishu is still too uncertain for a long-term UN security presence in the Somali capital. In a report to the Security Council, Annan stated that Somalia remained one of the most dangerous environments in which the UN operates.

Zimbabwe's dreaded spy agency is directing President Robert Mugabe's election campaign and is the brains behind the so-called plot implicating opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai in Mugabe's alleged assassination, it was established this week.

The Bush administration on Thursday slammed the U.N. war crimes tribunals in The Hague for lapses in professionalism and management and said the tribunals should be wrapped up by 2008.

An unspecified number of Zimbabweans are reportedly fleeing to South Africa through illegal exit points as violence mounts in Matabeleland's rural areas ahead of the presidential election.

Certain conditions would have to be met before the rebel group UNITA agrees to a ceasefire called for by the Angolan president, a spokesman told IRIN on Friday.

A Dutch donation of US $500,000 to the UN World Food Programme has provided sufficient resources to feed 20,000 Angolan refugees in Namibia until May. The total budget of the one-year WFP Namibia operation is US $2.2-million. Namibia has a longstanding Angolan refugee population as a result of the Angola's 27-year-long civil war.

Genocide convict George Ruggiu, a former journalist at Radio Television Libres des Mille Collines (RTLM), today testified before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) that after 6 April 1994 journalists at the radio station relied on information from soldiers and militiamen for their broadcasts.

The inter-Congolese dialogue is stalled, with Jean-Pierre Bemba, leader of the rebel MLC, boycotting the talks. In an allAfrica.com interview, Congo's information minister, Kikaya bin Karubi, denied the claim that the Kinshasa government had replaced opposition groups with its own surrogates.

Violent clashes have broken out in Madagascar between supporters of the government and the opposition.

In a grainy videotape recorded from a security camera, Morgan Tsvangirai is allegedly shown plotting to have President Robert Mugabe assassinated.

US President George W Bush has called on Angola's leaders to seize the opportunity presented by the death of Unita rebel leader Jonas Savimbi and bring an end to the country's long-running civil war.

A second volcano is showing signs that it may erupt in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, say volcano experts in the region.

In a 21 February 2002 letter to Liberian President Charles G. Taylor, CPJ expressed deep concern over the recent arrest of three journalists and the suspension of their newspaper, which had recently criticized the current state of emergency in Liberia.

The death of veteran Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi has added new impetus to the search for a settlement to the country's long-running civil war, analysts told IRIN over the weekend.