Just 2 days after the MDC MP for Mutasa Central in Manicaland was arrested while reporting the abduction of a youth member, another elected opposition official has been taken into police custody.

The United Nations has asked the government to help it conduct an assessment to evaluate the extent of politically motivated violence, which "could reach crisis levels", warned Agostinho Zacarias, the UN Resident Representative and Humanitarian Coordinator in Zimbabwe.

Ongoing military activities by Darfur's rebel groups as well as reprisal actions by the Sudanese Government and its allied militia are costing lives and limiting humanitarian operations in the strife-torn region, the United Nations Secretary-General says today.

Congo's reconstruction hinges on the Ituri district, where a new integrated peace-building strategy is required to prevent another round of violence.

A group of Muslim clerics in central Somalia were briefly arrested and later released by Ethiopian soldiers deployed to help restore order in the chaotic Horn of Africa country, our central regions correspondent reported.

The risk of renewed violence in Ituri is limited today by the presence of the UN Mission in the Congo (MONUC), the dismantling of the majority of armed groups and the local population's war weariness after years of suffering and

South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki last week appointed a delegation of six retired generals to investigate the violence in Zimbabwe. No details have been supplied as to who is in the group but it has been reported that Mbeki began

Police in Harare have barred the MDC from holding public rallies in the capital, ahead of the presidential run-off whose date has not yet been announced.

Whatana Investments, a company chaired by Mozambique's former first lady, Graca Machel, has taken a five per cent stake in Vodacom Mozambique (VM), one of the two mobile phone operators in the country.

The mobile phone records presented by the prosecution in the trial of six men accused of the 1999 attempted murder of lawyer Albano Silva appear to be genuine, according to an expert witness from the mobile phone company, M-Cel.

Africa's agriculture sector is attracting new interest from donors and the international community as a global rise in food prices threatens to wipe out recent economic gains in developing countries.

The Mauritanian government says it is trying to increase prosecutions of rape cases but poorly trained judges working with murky, outdated legal texts make for slow progress.

Many people under the age of 18 were arrested and imprisoned during riots over high food prices in February and more than two months later some are still behind bars.

Carlos Feudjio Diffo, now 22, spent a year of his life in Douala's notorious central prison when he was 15. He recounted his experience to IRIN.

The Kenya Anti Corruption Commission (KACC) should come out quick and fast and explain to the country what it is doing with embattled businessman Deepak Kamani, who was a wanted man due to his dealings in the Anglo Leasing transactions.

Developing rural financial services in Africa depends on infrastructures to link rural residents to financial institutions and to markets, stressed an African Development Bank (ADB) Consultant, Zeinab El Bakri, speaking in Maputo on Monday.

A battery manufacturing factory in Nairobi's industrial area, Associated Battery Manufacturers, regularly sends blood samples of its workers to Britain for analysis, just in case they have lead poisoning in their blood.