Zimbabwe's beleaguered opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has been forced to take much of its political activity "underground" to avoid the violence of a government widening its net of repression and terror to attack diplomats and aid workers.

The context in which refugee policy is framed within the European Union has changed dramatically since the 1980s. From being an issue of human rights and cold-war politics it had, by the early 1990s as the number of asylum claims rose, become an issue of immigration control. By the end of the decade the paradigm had shifted again to criminology, moving from border control to the fight against transnational organised crime.

The French government should launch an official investigation into allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity by French forces in Algeria, Human Rights Watch said today.

A new baseline study to determine reproductive
knowledge among young refugees in South Africa's most populous province shows that although there is a general awareness about HIV/AIDS, specific
knowledge about how the disease is transmitted and prevention strategies is "alarmingly low".

The Human Rights Watch Refugee Policy Program is urgently seeking a law or graduate student to intern in New York City for 2-3 months this summer (starting as soon as possible, but no later than June 1.) The internship is unpaid. Unfortunately, HRW cannot offer assistance arranging housing or visas.

The United Nations Human Rights System is an annual summary and classification of United Nations' human rights documentation by theme and by country. All major human rights material generated by the UN from 1 January to 31 December - whether on paper, in electronic format or via the optical disk system - is assembled, catalogued and summarised.

Report prepared by the Swiss Institute of Comparative Law, Strasbourg, August 2000.

Drought and war have contributed to the many needs of internally displaced people (IDPs) in Eritrea, with people losing their homes, livestock and belongings as they fled in panic during the conflict with Ethiopia. Up to one million people in Eritrea suffered "massive displacement" last year, the international Action by Churches Together (ACT) network said.

Illegal Mozambican migrant workers have accused South African police of killing 14 people by throwing them from a moving train while they were being returned home, Radio Mozambique reported Friday. The 14 had been among a group of 1,600 Mozambicans who arrived Friday at the border town of Ressano Garcia, after South African authorities sent them home by train, the report on state radio said.

Refugees, asylum seekers and others under concern of the U.N. refugee agency stood at approximately 21.1 million in the year 2000, according to U.N. statistics. Globally, Afghans constitute UNHCR's largest caseload, with an estimated 3.6 million people, or 30 percent of the world's refugee population. The second largest group, according to the statistics, is comprised of civilians from Burundi, 567,000 of whom are living in Tanzania. Iraqis make up the third largest refugee population, with 497,400 living in Iran.

The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Friday it has helped more than 40,000 refugees, mostly Sierra Leoneans, move from an unstable part of southeast Guinea to a safer region further north inside the country. The UNHCR hopes to complete the relocation operation, which began in early February, by the end of this month, spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Delphine Marie said.

Severe drought across many parts of Sudan continued to affect several million people, many of whom are at acute risk of severe food insecurity over the coming months, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) reported on Thursday. The WFP has warned that as many as three million people face disaster (600,000 as a result of drought and 2.4 million because of the civil war) unless food assistance reaches them.

The Tanzanian government on Wednesday denied and termed as "unfounded" allegations by the Burundian government that it had been offering military training to Burundian rebels. Tanzanian radio quoted the permanent secretary in the ministry of foreign affairs and international cooperation, Hasan Kibelloh, as saying that Tanzania was not supporting any rebel group fighting the Burundian government.

The UNHCR has registered 680 refugees who say they want to return home to the Zanzibari islands of Unguja and Pemba in Tanzania after fleeing to Kenya from political violence on the islands in late January, according to a press release from the refugee agency. Those registered to return represented all but a few dozen of the refugees remaining at a makeshift camp at the port of Shimoni, south of Mombasa on the Kenyan coast, and included community and political leaders, an agency official told IRIN on Tuesday.

Police on Tuesday broke up a meeting of parties supporting the presidential candidacy of Colonel Epitace Bayaganakandi, the Tutsi rival of President Pierre Buyoya, the private Netpress news agency reported. Participants were told to leave the meeting hall in Bujumbura's Kinindo district, but party leaders were ordered to remain behind.

More than 1,000 trucks are stuck on the main route leading from the seaport of Matadi to Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), after heavy rains washed away large sections of the road, the BBC reported on Friday. Some of the trucks have been there for as long as 20 days, and the produce they are carrying - mostly much-needed fresh food for the capital - is rotting under the heat and rain of Congo's wet season.

OAU Secretary-General Salim Ahmed Salim has commented that peacekeeping missions often fail because they are ill-equipped and under-funded, AFP reported. Speaking in the Tanzanian city of Dar es Salaam on Thursday, he said the UN peacekeeping mission in the DRC was inadequate.

President Paul Kagame has reiterated that Rwandan troops are in the DRC for security reasons. Addressing a joint press conference with visiting Malawian President Bakili Muluzi, Kagame again denied his country had been plundering Congo's natural resources, as stated in a report by a UN panel of experts. "There have been accusations about human rights violations in eastern Congo. There have been accusations about plundering Congo's wealth," he said, according to Rwandan radio.

Encouraging signs are beginning to emerge that the Angolan government and UNITA rebels are inching towards dialogue to end nearly three decades of civil war, analysts and politicians told IRIN. "One or two years back the reaction from the government to the idea of peace through dialogue was very aggressive," said John Rocha of the reconciliation lobby group Angola-2000. "Today it has changed dramatically. The government has realised that a military victory is impossible, especially as UNITA has reverted to guerrilla warfare."

A prominent human rights organisation in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has expressed concern at the detention or disappearance of at least 200 political prisoners and others in government-controlled territory. In a report on the human rights situation in government-controlled DRC in the first 100 days of the new president Joseph Kabila's rule, the African Association for the Defence of Human Rights (ASADHO) said there had been little improvement so far. Noting the president's promises of change, ASADHO nevertheless condemned the "inquisitorial and secret character of the inquiry [into the late president's Laurent-Desire Kabila's assassination] conducted entirely by the army and security services without any intervention by the judiciary".