Human Rights Watch urged Bush to raise concerns about the recent massacre by soldiers in Benue State, Central Nigeria at his meeting with President Obasanjo on 2 November to discuss anti-terrorism measures.

October 29 2001 marks the third anniversary since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) handed its final report to then State President, Nelson Mandela. In Volume Five of this report, the TRC identified persons who were victims of apartheid's gross violations of human rights and proposed a reparations and rehabilitation policy that encompassed both individual and community forms. The TRC specifically recommended that urgent interim reparations grants, as well as final individual reparations be given to the victims. Since 1999 however, victims have been waiting for government to decide on and implement its policy for reparations.

In what appeared as his first public reaction to last week's reprisal killings by soldiers in Benue State, President Olusegun Obasanjo yesterday stated that anybody who kills a Nigerian soldier should be ready for the consequences because such people would be inviting disaster on themselves.

Nelson Mandela, former South African president and mediator of the Burundi peace process, together with several African leaders, are scheduled to attend the installation of a transitional government in the Burundian capital Bujumbura on Thursday, 1 November.

Zimbabwe's ruling party is standing firm against sanctions threats by the European Union.

The defence ministers of Uganda and Rwanda have ended a meeting in the Ugandan border town of Kabale, agreeing to try to reach an amicable solution to rising tensions between their two states.

Dennis Dube lost everything when his neighbours torched his home and threatened to kill him if he was seen in the area again. "I'm just so sad that they (South Africans) can treat me like this, I've never known anything like this," he told IRIN on Wednesday.

Increasing instability in Angola's interior had led to a steady influx of internally displaced people into "most provincial capitals" from 8-12 October, according to the UN's World Food Programme (WFP).

A dusk-to-dawn curfew along a 450 km stretch of the Kavango river could prevent Angolans fleeing intense fighting between government and rebel forces in Angola's southeastern Cuando Cubango province from seeking asylum in Namibia, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has warned.

Islamic Sharia law will come into effect on Friday in northern Kaduna State despite opposition by Christians there, news organisations reported on Monday. State Governor Ahmed Makarfi, who made the announcement in a state-wide broadcast on Friday, said that the Islamic legal code would only be applicable in areas where there was a Muslim majority, BBC reported.

Hundreds of thousands of Somali's in the southwestern region of Gedo are at risk of starvation following drought and poor harvests, a spokesman for the French NGO Action contre la faim (ACF) told IRIN on Thursday.

Two armed opposition movements in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have agreed to form "a joint military force to track down, arrest and disarm negative forces" including the Interahamwe (Rwandan Hutu militias), the ex-FAR (former Rwandan Armed Forces), and the Mayi-Mayi (Congolese militias), rebel-controlled RTNC radio reported in Goma on Monday.

At his initial appearance at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the former prefect of Kigali-rural prefecture, Francois Karera, pleaded not guilty on Friday to charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.

Millions of people in Sudan are in a precarious humanitarian position, and the situation requires "unrestricted access by aid workers in order to save lives", UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan stated in a report released on Tuesday.

A Sudanese government delegate to the United Nations General Assembly, Ilham Ibrahim Muhammad Ahmad, on Tuesday urged the international community to condemn the actions of rebel groups, mainly in the south of the country, where, she said, "children are kidnapped and forced to fight or, if they refuse, used as [human] shields".

The UN refugee agency said on Wednesday that most of the Zanzibari refugees remaining in Dadaab, northeastern Kenya, could be voluntarily repatriated within not much more than a week.

Humanitarian organisations are increasingly concerned by declining standards in refugee protection in East Africa, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies reported this week.

An advance party of 230 South African troops arrived in Bujumbura, Burundi, on Sunday as part of a 700-member special protection unit for returning Burundi exiles expected to take part in the transitional government and institutions due to begin functioning on 1 Nov., Burundi army spokesman Col. Augustin Nzabampema told IRIN.

Up to 300,000 people are currently displaced in Nigeria's central region as a result of communal clashes and recent attacks launched against several communities by the army, local officials said.

Judith Todd, who combated white rule, now faces harrassment from Mugabe's forces as she fights for the freedom of Zimbabwe's press.