Mali became the first country to sign a legally binding international pact to control the proliferation of small arms, the UN reported in New York on Wednesday.

The United Nations Security Council has called on Somali factions to lay down their weapons and engage in peaceful dialogue with the Transitional National Government (TNG), the current Council President, Ambassador Wang Yingfan of China, said on 11 July.

Ethiopian students who fled their country seeking asylum are being moved to Kakuma refugee camp, Kenyan KTN television reported on Wednesday. Students staged a hunger strike this month in protest over the decision to move them to Kakuma, where they say they fear their lives will be at risk from Ethiopian "hit squads". The Ethiopian embassy in Nairobi has denied the existence of "hit squads" and have encouraged the students to return home.

The presence of land mines and absence of basic services continue to prevent the successful return of internally displaced people (IDPs) to their homes in war-affected areas of Eritrea. The Information Coordination Centre (ICC - a joint UN/Eritrean Refugee and Rehabilitation Commission - ERREC - body) said in its July update that ERREC had repatriated 106,446 IDPs from 10 IDP camps in the Debub Region to their home villages, but that some 13,000 IDPs who had been unable to return had been moved to six newly established temporary IDP camps around Tsorona and Senafe, southern Eritrea.

The heads of main UN aid agencies on Thursday said that poor funding and a lack of safe access for aid workers threatened the core of humanitarian work worldwide, the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) reported.

Rwanda has hailed the arrest of more genocide suspects in three European countries. On Thursday, three suspects - including a former minister - were arrested in Belgium, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Rwandan Justice Minister Jean de Dieu Mucyo called on the entire world to cooperate with the Arusha-based International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), the Rwanda News Agency (RNA) reported.

President Pierre Buyoya, who returned to Burundi on Thursday, said the decision to appoint him as first leader of the transition was an "important step towards implementation of the peace agreement". Speaking on arrival from the OAU summit in Lusaka, he said the decision had been made by the peace mediator Nelson Mandela after extensive consultations with regional heads of state and the signatories of the Arusha peace accord.

Although southern African countries have agreed on a comprehensive protocol on controlling the flow of small arms in the region, its implementation could be far more problematic, security analysts told IRIN.

A personal account of the armed siege at the home of Sekai Holland, MDC Secretary for International Affairs.

Amidst the breathtaking scenery of mountains and forests surrounding the town of Robit, 200 km north-east of Addis Ababa, there is something much more sinister. Hidden from the main road, behind the dense bush and scrub land, lies Shoa Robit Detention Camp, where for more than three months, thousands have been imprisoned without charges.

Race and Class is the journal for black and third world liberation published by the Institute of Race Relations. The July 2001 issue is now available and includes "Simunye, we are not one: ethnicity, difference and the hip-hoppers of Cape Town" By Lee Watkins, University of Witwatersrand and "All of Africa's gods are weeping" By E. G. Vallianatos, former UNDP adviser.

The number of countries facing "exceptional food emergencies" in East Africa has shrunk due to heavier rainfall, said the Rome-based United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation last week.

Want to buy an AK-47 assault rifle? In Sudan you could get it for the price of a chicken. It is against this alarming background - painted by The East African newspaper - that United Nations officials are meeting this week for talks on how to tighten controls on the flow of small arms. Charles Cobb Jr. considers Africa's role in the "global crisis".

UN talks aimed at reining in and regulating the global flow of small arms are fuelling tension between states wanting to take a comprehensive view and a powerful few seeking to limit negotiations to the illegal flow of arms to conflict areas. Whoever wins, the outcome of the UN Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All its Aspects, which ends Jul 20, will be a legally non-binding promise by signatories to do something.

Disarmament of ex-fighters from Sierra Leone's Revolutionary United Front is raising hopes that children forced into service with the anti-government group will finally win their freedom.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the 37th summit of the Organization of African Unity, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan "urged" African leaders to halt Africa's "persistent" conflicts and build a "common future," the Xinhua News Agency reports. Annan said that the conflicts, which many on the continent "deemed as unavoidable," were "caused by human action" and can be "ended by human action too"

It was about time South Africa and the rest of the world moved beyond understanding the problems affecting refugees and started helping to solve them, Home Affairs Minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi said on Thursday. He was speaking at a conference in Pretoria to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Geneva Convention governing the status of refugees.

Amnesty International is gravely concerned over the threat posed for human rights in Swaziland by the recently issued law, Decree No.2. The Decree, issued by the Head of State, King Mswati III, on 22 June 2001 further restricts the exercise of fundamental rights that had already been hampered by the longstanding suspension of the country's constitution and bill of rights.

Morgan Tsvangirai, the Zimbabwean opposition leader, appears in the Supreme Court today to defend himself against prosecution for terrorism. The Zimbabwean government is seeking foreign aid because of a shortage of food, following violent disruption of the country's farming. The Organisation of African Unity, which yesterday concluded its summit in the Zambian capital, Lusaka, backed off at the last moment from wholehearted support for the Zimbabwean leader, Robert Mugabe – but the statement that Zimbabwe and Britain should "get together" on land ownership also managed to avoid full-scale condemnation of the violence that Mr Mugabe has unleashed.

An annual summit of African leaders expunged criticism of Britain's policy over Zimbabwe from its final declaration yesterday in a face-saving move that also served to humiliate President Robert Mugabe.