At least 50 people have been killed and several thousands forced from their homes in three days of clashes between Hausa-Fulani Muslims and indigenous Christians in Jos, central Nigeria, residents said on Monday.

A leading human rights activist in Liberia surrendered to police on Thursday, days after they had launched a search for him for criticising the country's Anti-Terrorist Unit (ATU), media organisations reported.

The Southern African Development Community says it will monitor the progress of national dialogue between Zimbabwe's government and opposition leaders aimed at ending 18-months of unrest. However incidents of violence are still being reported.

More than 3,000 Angolan refugees who have fled to the Democratic Republic of
Congo in the wake of a UNITA offensive, have made a two-day journey on foot to villages 50km from the Angolan/DRC border.

More than 3,000 Angolan refugees who have fled to the Democratic Republic of Congo in the wake of a UNITA offensive, have made a two-day journey on foot to villages 50km from the Angolan/DRC border.

While America has been preparing to fight the last war, a war between nations, the next war has been violently thrust upon us. It's a war of symbols, impressions and ideas in which acts of mass murder jocky for mind share in the global media, and everyone with a television set, the world over, reacts viscerally.

A global coalition of human rights groups on Wednesday described the terrorist attacks in the United States as "crimes against humanity," saying they proved the need for a strong international justice system.

The question dominating the news reporting of Tuesday’s attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon is "who". Who did it? Who is responsible? Some strategists and security experts are trying to answer "how"? But the central question is not being asked anywhere. This question is: WHY?

In a slowing global economy, one sector is bucking the trend. Each year, millions of individuals, the majority women and children, are tricked, sold, coerced or otherwise forced into situations of exploitation from which they cannot escape. They are the commodities in a multi-billion dollar global industry dominated by highly organized criminal groups operating with impunity.

The removal of Mr Swaleh Slim as the Kenya Anti-Corruption Authority's head of investigations drives the final nail into the squad's coffin.

International non-governmental organisations (INGOs) have called on the international community "to recognise that there is an ongoing crisis in Liberia and the need for continued support to INGOs in emergency, reconstruction, and development activities".

Reacting to widespread criticism of a military tribunal in Likasi in the southern DRC province of Katanga, some 2,000 km away from the capital, where some 100 people have been charged of conspiracy against and an assassination attempt on former DRC President Laurent-Desire Kabila and current DRC President, Joseph Kabila, his son, authorities in Kinshasa have given assurances that the trial is fair and in conformity with the laws of the land, Radio France Internationale (RFI) reported on Thursday.

During a recent visit to Mozambique's southern Gaza province, an area hit by devastating floods two-years in a row, UNDP Administrator Mark Malloch Brown said that the "overwhelming impression" was that "normal life had been restored and sensible improvements made".

More than 280,000 Nigerians have at one time or another been displaced by conflicts or natural disasters over the past two years, according to figures from humanitarian organisations and the media.

'Look at us from the view of those descended from slaves, who then faced racism from descendants of those who had actually shipped them'.

Amnsety International has condemned Tunisia - currently hosting the
Mediterranean Games - for its treatment of around 1,000 political prisoners
languishing in jails where they are subjected to a wide range of abuses.

Fifteen months after British troops intervened in the Sierra Leone crisis, much has changed for the better. To achieve this, the British, who ruled Sierra Leone as a colony until its independence in 1961, have established what amounts to a de facto trusteeship.

What happens when the perpetuation of war becomes an end in itself? In today’s war economies the objectives of the belligerents might not be to win the war at all costs but to profit from the war at the lowest cost. Has this been grasped by the humanitarian community? How can agencies learn how resources flow in a war economy?

President Robert Mugabe gave his seal of approval yesterday to an agreement to stop illegal seizure of Zimbabwe's white-owned farms and rein in squatters. Returning to Harare after a week-long "working holiday" in Libya, he told journalists that he accepted the deal, which was hailed as a breakthrough by Commonwealth foreign ministers when it was signed in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, on Friday. But intimidation of opposition politicians and farm invasions continued.

Below is a report from Denise Moorehead, Director of Communications and Public Policy at the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC), Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, on the first days of the main conference and a parallel session on community-based education for children regardless of race, ethnic group or class distinctions.