In further defiance of the international community the Mugabe government yesterday ordered police to assault lawyers who attempted to march in the capital Harare against unlawful interference with their profession.

As the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) prepare for their annual spring meetings, to be held at their headquarters in Washington, DC this weekend, Africa Action today stresses that an immediate priority of the international financial institutions must be the total cancellation of Africa’s debt, without economic conditions.

The US plan to set up its African Command has been unpleasant and out of sorts from the very beginning. An editorial carried by the Gabonese newspaper "Reporter" has appealed to African countries to say "no" to the US African Command.

Africa Action marks International Women’s Day with a recognition that the global HIV/AIDS crisis continues to take a disproportionate toll on the world’s women, and with a call to U.S. and international policymakers to do more to address the vulnerability of women and girls to HIV/AIDS and other health challenges.

Days before an African peacekeeping force is deployed in Somalia, violence has spiralled in the capital, Mogadishu, forcing hundreds of families to flee the city and set up temporary camps on the outskirts.

Maryan Aliyow Isse had hoped the security situation in Mogadishu would stabilise after the Ethiopian-backed transitional government took control of the Somali capital in December.

A military solution is not an option in ending the crisis in Darfur, according to United Nations and African Union officials. Instead, the parties to the Darfur conflict must agree to a peace process.

An estimated 50,000 asylum-seekers from Somalia have entered neighbouring Ethiopia in the past eight months, according to preliminary findings of an assessment team from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Humanitarian operations in the western Sudanese region of Darfur have resumed in some areas but security concerns are still restricting activities in others, the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) said.

The truth about the December Ethiopian invasion of Somalia and the January 7-8 U.S. air strikes on the Somalian towns of Afmadow and Ras Kamboni is obscure to most Americans.

As violent attacks increase across Darfur, and as the humanitarian crisis that forms part of the genocide continues to escalate, Africa Action today condemned the lack of progress by the international community in realizing the necessary United Nations (UN) peacekeeping force to protect the people of Darfur.

The Bush administration, faced by a serious setback in Iraq, is seeking to bring together an international police force under its leadership. This is being done under the guise that they will be NATO or UN forces and not American-controlled.

The international humanitarian organisation Norwegian Refugee Council has closed down its relief operations in Darfur, western Sudanese, a move it said will affect 300,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the troubled region.

The report states that the Botswana government used physical force and 'coercion and intimidation' to evict Bushmen from the reserve, and recommends that the government allow people who wish to go home to do so.

A top United Nations envoy warned on Thursday that the Darfur peace agreement was on the verge of collapse and lambasted the Darfur Ceasefire Commission (CFC), which is responsible for monitoring and implementing the accord.

Political opponents of the Khartoum regime have come under increased surveillance, harassment and arbitrary arrest by NIF security forces, states a number of recent reports by the Sudan Organization Against Torture (SOAT).

This writer believes that an assessment of all data available, from all sources, yields a figure of approximately 500,000 deaths from disease, malnutrition, and violence over the past 43 months of conflict in Darfur.

Rampant insecurity in North Darfur State is preventing aid agencies from distributing food and stopping many farmers from planting crops. The result is very precarious food security, aid workers warn.

On 30th August 2006, hundreds of Sudanese police and security forces violently broke up a peaceful demonstration in “green tomb square” (previously “UN square”) in Khartoum organised by political opposition parties and civil society groups protesting at rising petroleum and sugar prices.

The weekend of 29-30 July 2006 marked the culmination of the SACP’s month-long 85th anniversary celebrations. The highlight of our anniversary activities were the Red Saturday demand for a once-off amnesty for all that are blacklisted by the faceless Credit Bureaux, the holding of our anniversary gala dinner, addressed by the Minister of Public Enterprises, Cde Alec Erwin, and the holding of the national rally in Pietermaritzburg.