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.

The Abuja Agreement reached between the government of the Sudan and the Sudan National Liberation Movement, Arkowi, was disappointing for the Sudanese people and for the people of Darfur, who made great sacrifices in order to attain a comprehensive agreement that meets their demands for a just division of wealth and power.

On 9 January 2006, a whole year passed since the signing of the comprehensive peace agreement in Nivasha between the Peoples Movement for the Liberation of the Sudan (SPLM) and the Islamic government.

There is a minor, well-intentioned movement afoot by some left-oriented writers to stop US military or other intervention in the Sudan under the pretext of averting the atrocities in Darfur and other parts of the Sudan.

The Sudanese people and their democratic forces are all concerned with the means to avert and resist a coming, looming catastrophe, in the form of increased foreign domination that would take the shape of an imminent foreign intervention.

Gereida, where 120,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) are gathered, was described as the "epicentre of the severe humanitarian situation"...Leaders in displaced communities said more than 300 villages around Gereida had been abandoned because of the threat of attack since November 2005.

Monday, 8 May, will be one of our red letter days this year. On this day we will celebrate the 10th anniversary of the adoption of our Constitution on 8 May 1996.

It was wonderful to behold tens of thousands gathered on the National Mall in Washington, DC, to demand an end to the genocide in Darfur, in the western Sudan.

Currently extant data, in aggregate, strongly suggest that total excess mortality in Darfur, over the course of more than three years of deadly conflict, now significantly exceeds 450,000.

Besides losing out on schooling, children working in the quarry sites are exposed to hazards such as "injuries from heavy tools, inhaling of dust ... and damage to eyes and skin from flying chips of stones".

The [Swaziland] reality has been sustained through...an ideological appeal to Swazi culture (including women’s oppression), ban on political parties, torture and violence against democratic and worker movements, political persecution and imprisonment of democracy activists, and total control by the monarchy

Police officers on the new force will be paid US $10 to US $20 a month, equivalent to typical wages in the Liberian civil service. A sack of rice, one of the staples in the Liberian diet, costs around US $22.

With the security situation in Darfur, Sudan, continuing to deteriorate, Africa Action today emphasized the need for urgent international action on this crisis in the coming weeks, as several key deadlines approach.