The genocide in the central African state of Rwanda where an estimated one million lives were wiped out in a bloodbath that lasted just three months is still fresh in many minds. Two million refugees fled to neighbouring states. Journalists often find that they have to pay a high price for covering these events: they become vulnerable to attacks, imprisonment, torture, censorship by political and military leadership, and sometimes even execution.

In a recently released preliminary report, Rwanda's Ministry of Local Government and Social Affairs says that 1,074,017 people were killed in massacres and genocide between 1 October 1991 and 31 December 1994, Radio Rwanda reported on Monday.

If the ICTR archives are ever revisited, the hearing of witness TA will stand out as a disgraceful moment in the court's history. For two weeks, from October 24 to November 8, 2001, the woman recounted the multiple rapes of which she was a victim during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Her testimony directly implicates Arsène Shalom Ntahobali and also includes accusations against his mother, Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, and "the prefect." After one-and-a half days of questioning by the prosecutor, which amounted to almost 100 pages of transcripts, she was forced to undergo seven days of cross-examination by the various defence lawyers in the Butare trial, in which six people stand accused.

In the wake of genocide, it is probably impossible to achieve anything that approaches justice--and Boston Globe journalist Elizabeth Neuffer knows it. Yet this heartfelt book describes how some of the people in war-torn Rwanda and Bosnia have sought after it anyway, and why the search is so important. The Key to My Neighbor's House is ultimately an anecdotal and impressionistic document, but therein lies its power. It's difficult to forget scenes that begin this way: "Photographs of mass graves can prepare you for what you might see--a jumble of skeletalized limbs, heads, bodies--but nothing prepares you for how it smells." The reportage is marvelous. For instance, Neuffer recounts how prosecutors at a Rwandan tribunal were forced to argue "over whose motion was the most important to be printed out from the scarce paper supply." She also describes the harrowing experience of a Bosnian soldier beginning to grope her--only to discover "the steel plate inside my bulletproof vest." Picador USA; ISBN: 0312261268, 2001.

Carla Del Ponte, the woman who took on the Mafia and Switzerland's financial institutions, is now applying herself to the Herculean task of making the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda less inefficient.

Former Rwandan prime minister Jean Kambanda was among five other genocide convicts transferred to Mali on Sunday to begin serving sentences of between 15 years to life imprisonment, imposed by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, news organisations reported.

The Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Amos Namanga Ngongi, has confirmed that the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) was reinforcing its troops in Isiro (Orientale province), Fizi (South Kivu province) and Kalemie (Katanga province) and to that end was recruiting young people, including adolescents.

The Rwandan government has promised to offer further evidence concerning exploitation of Congo's resources.

The number of vulnerable Rwandans without proper shelter has dropped by almost 50 percent since 1999, a survey by the Ministry of Human Settlement has shown.

Malian police arrested genocide suspect Paul Bisengimana on Tuesday at the request of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), the organisation's spokesman Kingsley Moghalu told Internews in Arusha, Tanzania.

Olive Uwera did not survive Rwanda's 1994 genocide. The young Tutsi woman is still alive, almost eight years on, but her daughter is a constant reminder of the interahamwe Hutu militiamen who gang-raped her, butchered her father and destroyed her mother's mind. One of the rapists fathered the child; another condemned Olive to a lingering death from Aids.

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)and its partners plan to spend some US $10.9 million for humanitarian action in Rwanda during 2002, according to a UN Children's Fund report made available to IRIN on Thursday. This effort is part of a broader UNICEF goal to ensure that the rights of all children are realised, and in this way "support Rwanda's transition from emergency to long-term human development".

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan pledged on Sunday that the world body would continue to be a "close partner" to the survivors of genocide and holocaust aiming to transform their trauma into action to prevent a recurrence of war crimes.

Every Rwandan needs to be given a stake in a peaceful future. There are numerous obstacles to peace and development, which require imaginative responses from government and civil-society groups, in conjunction with donors, regional organisations, and NGOs. Large-scale financial and technical assistance will be needed. Rapid population growth is placing pressures on an under-resourced social sector, and is increasing competition over land and water in densely populated rural areas. The social sector, cruelly targeted during the genocide, urgently needs new investment. Training of teachers, health workers, and administrators is critical. Violent conflict continues.

Rwanda's government needs US $250 million "at the very least" in the first two years if its poverty reduction strategy is to be implemented properly, Finance and Economic Planning Minister Donat Kaberuka said. on Saturday.

Britain's Department for International Development (DFID) has allocated ActionAid, a British development charity, 2.95 million pounds sterling (US $4.29 million) for HIV/AIDS work in Rwanda, DFID reported on Tuesday.

The Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda has upheld the conviction of Alfred Musema, 52, for genocide and for extermination as a crime against humanity.

The church in Rwanda was only next to the government in the preparation and execution of the 1994 genocide, an expert witness has told the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).

UNICEF and the Rwandan ministries of Social Welfare and Public Works have undertaken a nationwide drive to sensitise decision makers and the public to the plight of the 7,000 children who are enduring a precarious existence on the nation's street, the UN Children's Fund in Kigali told IRIN on Monday.