A cease-fire agreement in the Nuba Mountains region of Southern Kordofan State, south-central Sudan, is holding, and could lead to a more comprehensive peace in the country, according to a Sudanese diplomat.

Some 3,000 US marines and navy personnel have arrived on the coast of Kenya for a series of joint military exercises to be carried out in collaboration with Kenyan servicemen in the coastal region.

The planned resettlement of a group of Ugandan returnees from Tanzania, currently camped in Kikagati, Mbarara District, in the southwest, has been delayed following resistance from local residents in the proposed resettlement area.

The United Nations Security Council outlined measures on Thursday aimed at preventing conflict; and creating political, social and economic conditions essential for peace and sustainable development in Africa, UN News reported.

A recent survey by the aid agency International Rescue Committee has shown widespread reluctance among residents of Goma, in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, to relocate outside the volcano stricken town, despite the danger of further eruptions in the region.

Two Congolese anti-government groups have agreed that their combined force set up to "aggressively track down" other marauding dissidents in southeastern Democratic Republic of Congo will be based at Kalemie, Katanga Province, rebel-controlled radio reported on Friday.

The Transitional National Government (TNG) of Somalia has freed 11 foreign nationals who were arrested in December for suspected links with terrorist groups.

The Tanzanian government plans to launch a campaign to convince the international community that trade in tanzanite, a rare gem mined in the country, has no links to Osama bin Laden's network, Energy minister Maokola Majogo has said.

Britain and the U.S. have issued a joint list of Zimbabwean leaders they intend to slap with targeted personal sanctions in protest against what London and Washington allege were widespread violations of human rights in the southern African country, a local newspaper reported.

Members of the militant Ooodua People's Congress [OPC] of mostly Christian Yorubas and the mostly Muslim Hausas clashed in Lagos over the weekend, leaving an untold number of people dead.

The United Nations has warned of a humanitarian crisis in central Angola, where every month thousands more people are being driven from their homes and fields, and seeking emergency assistance in the towns.

The dispute between the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and the management of KwaMuhle Museum in Durban over an exhibition, open another important debate in South Africa that of whether to sacrifice freedom of expression for reconciliation and peace. According to the Mail and Guardian the IFP argues that the exhibition titled Amasinyora and Comrades, maliciously and libellously links the IFP to political violence in KwaZulu Natal. The IFP added that the exhibition was not in the interest of peace and reconciliation. The IFP is therefore calling for the withdrawal of the exhibition on those grounds. While the distortion of historical facts for political gains is totally an unacceptable practice, the IFP should however note that it is only the truth that promotes peace and reconciliation. Refusing to represent historical facts either artistically or otherwise or refusal to debate history is in itself a perpetuation of violence and hatred.

Genocide Watch believes that the early warning signs for politicide (political mass killings) and possibly even genocide in Zimbabwe have now reached Stage Six: Preparation. Genocide Watch has found that genocides and politicides develop in Eight Stages, with the actual genocide at Stage Seven. (Denial is stage eight.)

About 300 lawyers from 60 countries met in Paris December 16 and 17 to take the first steps toward forming an International Criminal Bar. The need for such a Bar became apparent from the experience of the ad hoc tribunals dealing with Rwanda and Yugoslavia, and the conference was the product of the joint effort of the Paris Bar and the International Criminal Defence Attorneys Association.

More senior UNITA soldiers have been captured, lending support to claims by the Angolan army that Jonas Savimbi is surrounded with the net tightening. The Angolan army is reported to have recovered personal property belonging to Jonas Savimbi, indicating that it is getting closer to capturing the leader of the rebel-movement UNITA. Amongst the items recently seized near Cassamba in Moxico province was a hunting rifle given to Savimbi by former South African President PW Botha.

Robert Mugabe is an oddity. The octogenarian politician thinks no one else is fit to rule Zimbabwe. He is also a racist. He wants to win the next election by stirring up racial hatred by claiming that blacks are superior to whites. Mugabe's antiquated political stand is a challenging philosophy on race relations in Africa. It is coming at a time when Africans seem disinclined to delve deeply into the divisive issues, particularly ones that might lower the generosity of donor countries.

This weekend saw Morgan Tsvangirai's first big rally of his campaign for the presidential elections on March 9-10 and, outside this eastern city, vehicles queued for half a mile at a roadblock, where police searched them painstakingly and demanded identity cards from every traveller.

Morgan Tsvangirai, Zimbabwe's opposition leader, has tried to reassure the army and police that there would be no "witch hunt" against them if he wins the presidency. Facing the possibility of a coup launched by a cabal of generals, who have already publicly declared that they will never accept him as president, Mr Tsvangirai made a determined effort to head off this threat.

Rwandan authorities should make public any charges against two Catholic lay figures arrested over the weekend and release them promptly if there is no adequate legal reason for their detention, say Human Rights Watch.

IRIN interviewed Hussein Aideed, leader of the Somali National Alliance, at the Ghion Hotel in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Aideed, a member of the Hawiye clan, is co-chairman of the Somali Reconciliation and Restoration Council (SRRC), a grouping opposed to Somalia's Transitional National Government (TNG). He speaks of his opposition to the TNG, reasons for establishing the SRRC, and his relationship with Ethiopia.