Did the Clinton Administration miss the chance to stop Osama Bin Laden in Sudan? That question, which has bubbled under the surface of the debate over U.S. foreign policy since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon eight weeks ago, erupted publicly this week with the publication by Vanity Fair of charges that "September 11 might have been prevented."

The outcome of the bitter U.N. racism conference in South Africa remains a virtual secret two months after the conclusion of the meeting. The reason: Some African governments still are trying to link development assistance to slavery.

The anti-racism conference has cost South Afrika about 90 million rand. The International community has paid only 11,4 million rand, according to the South African newspaper The Citizen. Only Australia, New Zealand and European countries have contributed. Up till now not a single Arab or African government has shared in the costs of the UN-racismconference, held in Durban in September.

Traditional elders of the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland, northeastern Somalia, have so far been unable to resolve the political impasse in Garowe, the regional capital, local sources told IRIN on Wednesday.

Political analysts and commentators have hailed President Sam Nujoma's decision not to stand for re-election in 2004 as positive for his ruling party, SWAPO, for Namibia and for the southern African region.

Somalia is on the verge of an economic collapse unparalleled in modern history, the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia said on Monday.

A German military delegation arrived in Djibouti on Sunday for talks with top Djibouti officials, a senior government official told IRIN on Tuesday. He said the 17 member military delegation was in the country to "set up a base camp for German naval forces participating in the fight against global terrorism". The Germans are part of a group of nine nations patrolling the Indian Ocean from Oman to Somalia, looking for suspected terrorists.

The Deputy High Commissioner of the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) has said that in the event that the United States launches any attacks on Somalia as part of its war on terrorism, the agency has developed contingency plans for coping with any resultant refugee exodus.

Rogue soldiers from the Ugandan army and the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) are behind the sale of much of the arms and ammunition that contribute to the instability in Uganda, particularly in the eastern subregion of Karamoja, according to a report from the indigenous nongovernmental organisation Action for the Development of Local Communities (ADOL).

Francis Deng is the Representative of the UN Secretary-General on Displaced Persons. In an interview with IRIN after a recent visit to Sudan, Deng said that the government had agreed to hold a workshop which he hoped would result in a clear strategy on internal displacement.

Although the army said it could not yet give an accurate casualty figure in its drive to flush out rebels from a forest near the capital, Bujumbura, news organisations have reported at least 100 rebels and 30 government troops killed since the operation began nine days ago.

The US Committee for Refugees has recommended measures designed to boost aid for refugees worldwide, especially in Africa.

The number of vulnerable Rwandans without proper shelter has dropped by almost 50 percent since 1999, a survey by the Ministry of Human Settlement has shown.

Malian police arrested genocide suspect Paul Bisengimana on Tuesday at the request of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), the organisation's spokesman Kingsley Moghalu told Internews in Arusha, Tanzania.

Olive Uwera did not survive Rwanda's 1994 genocide. The young Tutsi woman is still alive, almost eight years on, but her daughter is a constant reminder of the interahamwe Hutu militiamen who gang-raped her, butchered her father and destroyed her mother's mind. One of the rapists fathered the child; another condemned Olive to a lingering death from Aids.

The United States House of Representatives has passed legislation which urges President George W Bush to impose targeted sanctions on Zimbabwe's leadership.

The ex-wife of former South African President FW de Klerk has been brutally murdered in her luxury Cape Town flat.

Opposition parties in the Central African Republic (CAR) have rejected a plan to send a regional peacekeeping force to the country.

An estimated 3,000 people have fled fighting in the Nairobi slum of Kibera after two days of clashes over rent leave at least seven dead.

In the northern Nigerian state of Sokoto, a woman is awaiting the outcome of an appeal against a conviction for adultery by an Islamic, or Sharia, court. If the appeal fails, Safiyatu Huseini will be stoned to death.