After eight weeks of debates and 12 hours of deliberation, the jury of the Brussels 'Cour d'Assises' [Crown Court] in Belgium declared four Rwandans guilty or partially guilty of war crimes committed during the 1994 genocide. The announcement came at 0230 (local time) on Friday morning. The sentences will be pronounced on Friday afternoon. The four - Vincent Ntezimana, 39, a former professor at Butare university; Alphonse Higaniro, 52, the former director of a match factory; and two nuns Consolata Mukangango, 42, and Julienne Mukabutera, 36, known as sisters Gertrude and Maria Kisito - face a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

Zimbabwe opposition boss Morgan Tsvangirai was in South Africa this week to attend the regional conference of the World Economic Forum in Durban. The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader spoke to IRIN about Zimbabwe's economic and political crisis, and next year's make-or-break presidential election.

On May 3, 2001, the United States failed to win re-election to its seat on the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. What does it mean for the U.S., the U.N., and the world? Joanna Weschler, U.N. representative for Human Rights Watch, responds to questions from our Web site users.

In February 2000, a Senegalese court indicted Chad's exiled former dictator, Hissène Habré, on torture charges and placed him under house arrest. It was the first time that an African had been charged with atrocities by the court of another African country. In March 2001, however, Senegal's Court of Final Appeals ruled that he could not be tried in Senegal for crimes allegedly committed in Chad. The victims are now seeking Habré's extradition to stand trial in Belgium and have also filed a complaint against Senegal with the United Nations Committee against Torture. In the meantime, the case has opened new possibilities for justice in Chad itself.

Most cities in developing countries face the prospect of increased malnutrition and health risks if they do not improve people's access to adequate and safe food, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said in a statement published today. "Feeding cities means that more food needs to be produced, moved to cities and distributed within the expanding urban areas. This in turn means more lorries, greater market congestion, higher piles of garbage, greater risks of food contamination and greater soil, water and air pollution. Many cities are rapidly losing urban and periurban land suitable for food production, have insufficient and inefficient transport, markets and slaughterhouses", said Olivio Argenti from FAO.

Twenty people were killed and 17 wounded when their vehicle hit an anti-tank mine in northern Angola, news reports said Friday. Two others died later in the hospital at Malange, about 190 miles east of the capital, Luanda, the Portuguese news agency Lusa said. The blast took place Thursday on a rural road about 25 miles north of Malange, according to Lusa.

SVTG has received confirmation that Mustafa Abdel Gadir was arrested today, Tuesday 5 June at 2:30pm. Mr Gadir, 61, is the principal defence lawyer for the NDA members currently awaiting trial.The NDA men were first arrested on 6 December 2000, following a meeting with an American Diplomat in Khartoum. Security forces alleged that the NDA members were part of a conspiracy planning to incite a popular uprising, disrupt national security and support the rebel movement with American logistical support. An appeal was lodged which was rejected and the men were rearrested on Thursday 10 May and Friday 11 May, 2001.

COSATU condemns the attempt by the so-called war veterans to render unions ineffective. This is basically an attack on the trade union movement and human rights. The ZANU PF and the war veterans approach which shows the extent of their desperations to make themselves relevant after dismally failing the poor and the working class, now has taken an extremely shorted sighted and self destructive approach in trying to win back the working class back to the ZANU PF. Factory invasion and extortion can only lead to more and more potential investors staying away and those with factories packing their bags and heed to somewhere else where there is stability.

The National Union Of Metalworkers and the International Metalworkers Federation will reward R20 000.00 for any person with information leading to the discovery of Mr Rui Benjamin Cossa. He disappeared somewherebetween the Garden City Clinic and Braamfontein on Thursday 24 May. Mr. Cossa is currently the coordinator of the Metalworkers unions in Africa. He was also a General Secretary of the Mozambican Federations of Trade Unions and former Governor of Maputo Province.

This Oxfam study discusses the implications of the European Commission'sproposal to improve acccess to the EU market for all products, except armaments, exported from the world's 48 poorest countries. It provides rigorous analysis that counters the arguments of the anti-'Everything but Arms' (EBA) lobby and suggests that, if adopted, the proposal will make an important contribution to development.

Concerned that emergency relief can create dependency, fuel conflict and fail to address root causes of complex political emergencies (CPEs),international aid agencies have responded with simultaneous pursuit of relief and development. So why has widening relief goals recently been criticised as a departure from core humanitarian principles?

GPU The Gambia Press Union (GPU) has petitioned the inspector-general of police over the recent brutalisation of an Observer reporter, Allieu Badara Mansaray, by the Bundung police.

The death of Zimbabwean war veterans' leader Chenjerai "Hitler" Hunzvi on Monday has left a vacuum within the movement he had come to symbolise, analysts told IRIN. Hunzvi, who led the majority faction of the veterans' association that served as the political "shock troops" of the ruling party, died in hospital on Monday, state radio reported. His group spearheaded the violent invasions of white-owned commercial farms last year, before turning to an urban campaign that purportedly championed workers' rights but degenerated into intimidation and extortion.

Zimbabwe's top military commander has dismissed British press reports that senior officers planned to overthrow President Robert Mugabe in the event of widespread civil unrest, the official 'Herald' newspaper reported on Thursday. "It's not true because that type of thing is not being expected in this country. I as the commander would have known about the coup," General Vitalis Zvinavashe told the newspaper.

President Charles Taylor said on Tuesday that if West African leaders became complacent about the war in Lofa County, northern Liberia, the entire region could be endangered, the Liberian Ministry of Information reported. "We cannot be trying to solve the crisis in Sierra Leone while others are trying to support a new war in Liberia," he said, referring to reports that Liberian troops had seized British-made ammunition from anti-government forces in Lofa.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has called on Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone to hold a summit as a confidence-building measure toward achieving peace in and between their nations. His appeal was contained in a 23 May report on refugees and internally displaced people in the three countries which, he said, have one million war victims, including refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs).

Tension in Casamance, southern Senegal, continues to drive people into neighbouring Gambia, UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond reported on Friday in Geneva. He said more than 200 refugees arrived this week in villages along Gambia's southern border. This brought to more than 2,500 the number of people who have fled to The Gambia since fighting flared up in mid-May between Senegalese government forces and the Mouvement des forces democratiques de Casamance (MFDC).

Long queues of voters could be seen around polling stations in the Hargeysa, capital of the self-declared state of Somaliland, as they waited in line to vote in the referendum on independence. Pro-referendum demonstrations with women singing and waving branches took place on Wednesday evening and Thursday, and some celebrated by slaughtering a goat. Voters at the polling stations told IRIN that they had turned out to vote "yes" for the "motherland".

Two prominent human rights activists have been charged with attempting to change the "constitutional order" of Ethiopia by force, the pro-government Walta Information Centre has reported. Professor Mesfin Woldemariam, former head of the Ethiopian Human Rights Council (EHRCO), and Dr Berhanu Nega, head of the non-governmental Ethiopian Economic Association, were also charged with being members of an unlawful clandestine organisation, Walta said.

A recent UN-NGO assessment mission to areas of northwestern Equateur province found a dramatic lack of resources for displaced people, OCHA said. The visit took in the towns of Mbandaka, Boende and Ikela all of which are located near the frontline and which had poor access to humanitarian assistance. Most of the displaced people were living with host families.