Heavy fighting broke out in the Somali capital Mogadishu, on Friday, around 16:00 local time, after faction leader Husayn Muhammad Aydid entered the former port. A battle between the opposition leader and militia guarding the port for the Transitional National Government (TNG) escalated into the bloodiest fighting experienced in Mogadishu over the last few years, and constitutes the biggest challenge yet to the interim government.

A judge who struck down three ruling party election victories on the grounds they were tainted by violence resigned from the nation's High Court, the Associated Press reported on Tuesday, quoting judicial officials. Judge James Devittie's decision came days after ruling party militants accused him of bias in favour of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

The United States should not hold back payment of its United Nations dues because of the loss of its seat on the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, major human rights groups said in letters to Senators Jesse Helms and Joseph Biden and Representatives Tom Lantos and Henry Hyde.

The U.S. government should call on President Olusegun Obasanjo to ensure thorough and credible investigations and prosecutions for human rights abuses by the Nigerian armed forces, Human Rights Watch said today.

SVTG has received confirmed information that the Security Forces have re-arrested 5 members of the NDA political leadership secretariat. The arrests took place between late Thursday evening 10 May and between 1 and 2 am, on Friday 11 May, 2001. The men were arrested from their homes in Khartoum, before being taken to local police stations.

The Reebok Human Rights Award Program seeks nominations of young human rights activists. Members of the international community of human rights and non-governmental organizations are urged to nominate young men and women to honor for their courage and contributions to further human rights. Deadline June 15 2001.

This statement will be the basis of a great deal of human rights activism against psychiatric torture. Please take some time to read it and consider endorsing it: "We address all members of the human family to recognise our basic right for self-determination as people who suffer from psychiatric persecution, psychiatric incarceration and psychiatric torture."

The International Secretariat of OMCT has been informed by ACAT Cameroun and Agir Ensemble pour les Droits de l'Homme, both members of the OMCT network, of the arbitrary arrest and detention of around ten demonstrators in Cameroon.

A minister in the Central African Republic has accused the security forces of killing Chadian farmers in the north of the country. The minister of rural development Salomon Namkosserena told the French News Agency that almost 60 farmers were killed in various incidents over the past month.

The BBC has obtained the first independently verified information about the widespread nature of the rebel war in northern Liberia. Independent medical sources say that in the last few months of fighting hundreds of Liberian Government soldiers have been wounded. It is likely that a similiar number of combatants were wounded or killed on the rebel side as fighting has raged between rebel forces reportedly backed by neighbouring Guinea and Liberian Government troops.

The Namibian Government has distanced itself from the actions of members of the paramilitary unit, the Special Field Force (SFF), who last week rounded up men wearing earrings, because they were supposedly gay.

In Angola, survivors of Saturday's raid on a school by Unita rebels have been speaking to journalists for the first time. Sixty children, most of them war refugees from all over the country, are still missing after being abducted by the rebels.

The increasing dissemination of information through new technologies and the media which made possible the growth of global brands, has also brought issues of workers' rights and conditions in the south into consumer political consciousness in the north. Demands that transnational producers take greater responsibility for the rewards and conditions of those who contribute their labour to the global production chain have intensified over the past decade, just as national governments have become less able or willing to regulate the activities of companies engaged in international business.

When democracy came to South Africa, those who fought in the guerrilla war against apartheid may have expected to return home as conquering heroes. But almost a decade after returning from exile, many are still struggling to find a constructive role for themselves, or even jobs. Neighbouring Zimbabwe, where war veterans have turned their anger on white farmers and opposition parties, has shown how frustrated ex-combatants can become a major source of instability.

A new study has found that some 2.5 million people have been killed in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, since the outbreak of fighting in August 1998. The International Rescue Committee says the situation this year is worse than last year with a high mortality rate especially amongst children. The death-toll is set to rise if victims in the country's western parts are included.

The role of free press in combating racism by dispelling stereotypes and casting a harsh light on the evils of discrimination emerged as a major theme yesterday at a panel discussion in New York that brought together United Nations officials and media practitioners to mark World Press Freedom Day.

More than 150 indigenous leaders from throughout the world meet this Monday through Friday in Panama to hash out strategies in defence of their rights and discuss integration processes like the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). The international conference will draw up a declaration to present to the UN World Conference Against Racism and Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, slated for September in South Africa.

The Rwandan government should step up efforts to resolve recent cases of disappearances and an assassination, Human Rights Watch said today. Such cases, relatively common between 1995 and 1997, seem to be becoming more frequent in a context of growing tension between Rwanda and its neighbors.

Amnesty International today expressed concern about reports that civilians in Sierra Leone are being killed and injured in unlawful attacks as fighting continues along the border with Guinea.

Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, accused by the government of acts of terrorism, on Monday had his case transferred from the High Court to the Supreme Court in a decision that was expected to delay the case for at least a month. Tsvangirai was charged under Zimbabwe's draconian colonial-era Law and Order Maintenance Act (LOMA) for allegedly inciting terrorism.