Members of the small Liberian community in Tel Aviv have appealed to the Israeli government to allow them to extend their stay in Israel. The appeal comes seven months after the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) representative in Israel wrote to all Liberian refugees directing them to return to Liberia by 31 March 2007.

Fifty-seven people, including four soldiers, have died since Monday in clashes pitting the army against warriors belonging to the Karamojong community in Uganda's northeastern district of Kotido, the military said.

A smugglers boat capsized off the coast of Yemen earlier this week leaving at least 30 people dead amid a recent spike in people smuggling across the Gulf of Aden from Somalia. Chief UNHCR spokesperson, Ron Redmond, told journalists in Geneva on Tuesday that at least 30 Somalis and Ethiopians died when the boat – carrying 120 people – foundered as it approached the Yemeni coast on Monday.

Police in Harare continued Wednesday to hold some 14 students arrested Tuesday for trying to organize a demonstration in the Zimbabwean capital, sources said. Sources in the Zimbabwe National Students Union said the 14 were denied food and legal counsel until late Wednesday.

UK aid agency Oxfam has warned a new humanitarian catastrophe, like that in Darfur, could happen in Chad if ethnic conflict is not brought under control. Inter-ethnic fighting along the border with Darfur has displaced tens of thousands of Chadians in the past year.

Six Bushmen have been arrested, starved and held for six days after police and wildlife guards accused them of hunting in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in Botswana. They were then released without charge. The arrests come only two months after the Bushmen’s landmark court victory.

At least US$62 million is required to repatriate 98,500 Congolese refugees and to provide aid for 1.1 million internally displaced persons in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), according to the United Nations.

IRIN news reports that the United States has promised to write off US $391 million of debt to help Liberia recover from its 14-year civil war, although this is a fraction of the $3.7 billion that the nation owes international lenders.

A report released by the International Crisis Group examines the political crisis faced by Guinea following the appointment of close Conté associate Eugene Camara, as prime minister, and the ensuing opposition strikes that have plunged the country into chaos.

The Islamic Courts Union (I.C.U.) regime, which had progressively taken control of much of Somalia, was overthrown in December by an Ethiopian invasion force backed—financially and militarily—by the United States. In theory, the Transitional Federal Government—a United Nations-supported body that for most of its existence has led only a nominal existence—is now in control of the country.

Sudan will not allow a U.N. human rights team to visit unless they replace a member of the delegation who Khartoum says is biased, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Monday. A six-member U.N. rights team was due to arrive this week in Sudan to investigate rights abuses in Darfur. But the government has said they will not get visas.

They have suffered marginalisation as well as discrimination because of their short stature and preference for a hunter-gathering way of life. Known as pygmies, they are among the 300 million or so indigenous peoples on Earth, according to Cheick Sangare of the Human Rights Section of the United Nations office in the Central African Republic (CAR).

Ethiopia is lodging an appeal to demand the death sentence for the country's former ruler Mengistu Haile Mariam and his closest aides. Mengistu and his associates were found guilty of killing thousands of people by the country's high court during the regime's 17-year rule.

Floods in Mozambique have killed 29 people and wrecked thousands of homes after torrential rain and hurricanes swept through the country in the past two weeks, the government said on Wednesday. It said it had warned thousands of people living by the country's main rivers, including the lower banks of the Zambezi which runs from southern Angola across southern Africa to the Indian Ocean, to evacuate.

The World Food Program (WFP) and non-governmental organisations have warned that two million people hit by recent floods in Burundi need urgent assistance until June to avert a food crisis. This follows last week’s joint appeal for US$132 million by UN agencies and NGOs for their work in Burundi during 2007.

Fifty-eight countries represented at a high-level conference in Paris committed themselves to stopping the unlawful recruitment and use of children in armed conflicts. French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy and UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Rima Salah congratulated delegates on taking this historic step to protect boys and girls from getting caught up in adult wars.

The Rotary Foundation is now accepting applications for the Rotary World Peace Fellowship. Successful candidates would pursue a master’s degree in international studies, sustainable development, peace, and conflict resolution at one of the six Rotary Center university partners. Applicants must be committed to peace and have proven experience in their field.

Leading anti-apartheid campaigner Adelaide Tambo's struggle for equality in South Africa has paid off in areas of political participation, but the economy still remains in the hands of the country's white minority, say researchers and campaigners.

Environmentalists meeting in Nairobi say the trade in biofuels should be governed by environmental standards, and warn that planting crops solely for biofuels may cause catastrophic damage to the planet. Speaking at the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Governing Council meeting held in Nairobi yesterday (5 February), Danish environment minister Connie Hedegaard said that environmental standards were vital if the international trade in biofuels was to be allowed to begin on a massive scale.

Egyptian prosecutors on Wednesday (February 7) transferred the files of more than 40 opposition Islamists to a military court on terrorism and money-laundering charges, in a widening crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, the group said. The move came a day after Egypt ordered high-ranking Brotherhood leader Khairat el-Shatir, widely believed as a key financier, and an unspecified number of others, to military justice whose rulings cannot be appealed.