Provincial police superintendent Miranda Mills said racism in the approximately 11 000-member provincial police force was hampering service delivery.

The United States wants further talks with Ethiopia "on concrete actions and cooperation" in the war against terrorism, AFP quoted a White House spokesman, Ari Fleisher, saying on 5 October.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has granted the Tigray Regional State (northern Ethiopia) 18.7 million birr (about US $2.3 million) to help people displaced by the war with Eritrea, the Ethiopian News Agency (ENA) reported on 4 October.

Zambia faces a refugee crisis as tens of thousands of people who escaped war
in neighbouring countries continue to stay there without proper identification.

As of September, international donor countries responded with only meager funding to a request by the government of the Central African Republic for US $95 million in emergency relief and rehabilitation aid for displaced people, the US Committee for Refugees (USCR) reported on Tuesday.

A group of seven pro-Hutu parties have laid down a 10-point plan they say must be adopted before a transitional government can be set up in Burundi as scheduled on 1 November, Radio Burundi reported.

A referendum on a new constitution will be held before the end of the year and political leaders feel it will lay the foundation for a more stable democracy, AFP reported on Friday.

A sustained campaign of terrorism over the past 15 years had had a very negative effect on Uganda, preventing it from surpassing an average gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate of 6.5 per cent, Ugandan envoy Fred Byendeza told a UN General Assembly debate on international terrorism on Thursday, 4 October.

The Sudanese government has warned that it could pull out of the peace negotiations sponsored by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) if progress is not made at the next round of talks, news agencies reported on Saturday.

A leading exiled Hutu politician, Jean Minani, has said over Gabon's Africa No 1 radio that he is ready to return home before the full establishment of a special protection unit for him and his colleagues.

Floods caused by heavy rains have affected over 350,000 people in two West African nations, prompting their governments to call for international help.

The 60 million people of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are desperately hoping that the upcoming inter-Congolese peace talks will mark the beginning of the end of their country's ruinous three-year civil war.

Amnesty International has intensified calls for the Zambian government to abolish the death penalty in conformity with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and join the 105 countries that have done away with inhuman punishment.

The South African Communist Party has condemned the arrest of five executive members of the Swaziland Youth Congress, who could be charged with sedition.

Several African publications reported on the US strikes against Taliban targets. "Bush urged patience with what he has warned will be a lengthy campaign," said Uganda's New Vision. Nigeria's Guardian reported that President Bush called President Obasanjo to brief him on why the United States resorted to military action.

The United States and Britain have not merely begun a war with Afghanistan's regime. Despite their predictions of a lengthy struggle, they have also begun a deadly race against time. The race for "victory" is lent added impetus by fears that the supporting coalition may fall apart. Yesterday's riots in Pakistan, and unrest in other Muslim and Arab countries, may be only a foretaste of a more fundamental turbulence if the conflict proves protracted and intractable. But of all the time pressures facing Washington and its allies, the daily, upward advancement of Bin Laden towards folk-hero status in the Muslim world is perhaps the most alarming.

The Zimbabwean government has ruled out establishing an Independent Electoral Commission to conduct next year’s presidential election and instead is formulating a code of conduct to clamp down on activities of Zimbabwean and foreign election observers.

Observers are growing increasingly anxious about food shortages in Zimbabwe, and some now say that preventing starvation next year in the country will require external help.

The wife of detained opposition leader Hasan al-Turabi has complained to visiting UN human rights envoy Gerhard Baum that Turabi and other detainees were being mistreated in prison.

President Daniel arap Moi has blamed Kenya's provincial administrators' poor performance of their duties for ethnic clashes in parts of the country.