Thousands of Somali refugees were repatriated from camps in neighbouring Ethiopia last month, bringing the total of returnees for this year to more than 43,000.

Topmost on the list of priorities for Burundi's transitional government inaugurated on Thursday will be to secure a permanent cease-fire and protect the lives and properties of its citizens, President Pierre Buyoya said.

Ruling United Democratic Front's (UDF) party activists, the so-called "young democrats", have become embroiled once again in allegations of intimidation and violence.

Fighting erupted in the Central African Republic (CAR) capital, Bangui, early Saturday morning when government soldiers tried to arrest former army chief General Francois Bozize for alleged involvement in the failed coup of 28 May, news agencies reported.

Four days of peace talks between the Somali Transitional National Government (TNG) and factions opposed to it came to a close in Nairobi on Sunday, with both sides claming the talks had been a success and announcing that they had agreed to meet again for further reconciliation talks.

Nigeria’s Vice-President Atiku Abubakar has described as reprehensible the massacre of scores of civilians and the sacking of their villages by soldiers in central region Benue State.

The United Nations Security Council must enforce the international arms embargo on Liberia, Human Rights Watch said today.

The excesses resulting from South Africa's 1998 military intervention in Lesotho have been largely forgiven by the Basotho.

This report presents an analysis of an opinion poll conducted to establish the views of Kenyans living in the UK, regarding whether or not they would like the Kenyan Constitution currently under review to provide for dual citizenship.

Chronic hunger, widespread malnutrition, and pervasive poverty—especially in rural areas—will not be solved, and will most likely intensify, unless scientific efforts are directed toward problems faced by the world's poorest farmers, says a new report from the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).

The current xenophobic attacks on the Zimbabwean citizens in one of the informal settlements, to be exact, in Zandspruit, in Honeydew, north of Randburg were allegedly sparked by the murder of a young woman on the 8th of September. The culprit was identified as a Zimbabwean. The South African residents in the camp then retaliated by burning some of the shacks belonging to Zimbabweans. The Zimbabweans retaliated and burned about six shacks. The situation became serious early this week and a total of 130 shacks belonging to the Zimbabweans were gutted by fire and they were driven out of the settlement.

The 66 remaining detainees of the Release Political Prisoners party were released on 26 October, 2001 from the Kamiti and Lang'ata prisons on the orders of the High Court on the bail of 30,000 Kenyan shillings. The 71 people arrested have been charged of "unlawful assembly", and the next court hearing is set between November 5-7, 2001.

People's insatiable appetite for mobility is heading the world's transportation systems toward unsustainable gridlock and environmental degradation unless several grand challenges are tackled, conclude Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers and colleagues in report on worldwide mobility at the end of the 20th century.

Fighting in Liberia continues to have severe consequences for the civilian population. In late August, 2500 people arrived in Jenne Manna camp, having fled fighting in Lofa county. MSF continues to treat cases of severe malnutrition and diarrhea.

The government has warned the international community to avoid confronting or criticising Zimbabwe too harshly lest it create a "siege mentality" in President Robert Mugabe's government that will hamper efforts to solve the crisis there.

The looming risk of mass starvation in Zimbabwe has worsened as militants moved on to more white-owned farms, beating one worker for refusing to shout ruling party slogans and forcing hundreds of others to stop work.

A United States district court in New York this week held the ruling Zanu PF party liable for the murder and torture of opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) supporters in the run-up to last year's June parliamentary election.

Three lawyers have been arrested in Sudan. The lawyers are members of the Democratic Front for Lawyers. Their arrests are unlawful, under Article 38 of the Advocacy Act, which states that a lawyer is not to be arrested without the Bar Association having been informed.

The Special Rapporteur on the use of mercenaries of the Commission on Human Rights, Enrique Bernales Ballesteros, has welcomed the entry into force on 20 October 2001 of the International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries.

Burundi took a faltering but ambitious step towards ending eight years of ethnic conflict on Thursday, as the country's dominant Tutsi elite formally embraced the Hutu majority with the installation of a transitional government of national unity.