Somalia’s latest transitional government is collapsing, but there is a chance to rescue a dire humanitarian and security situation if Western and other powers fundamentally revise their approach to a political solution.

The region’s troubles have been caused by factors from outside the country but also from within. The solution must take both of these things into account.

Sudan has up to 6,000 child soldiers in its war-torn Darfur region, according to the head of the UN children’s agency UNICEF. Ted Chaiban said some children worked with rebel movements, others with government-backed militia while some were fighting alongside the Sudanese army. Under Sudanese and international law it is illegal to recruit soldiers under [...]

A Sudanese refugee offers a message of hope as he tells Americans about his turbulent childhood in his war-torn homeland. The 27-year-old was one of thousands of so-called “lost boys” of Sudan who have settled in the United States.
Sudan in the 1980s was embroiled in a civil war fueled by religious and racial divisions, and [...]

You have to be a parent to appreciate the picture below; as a recent father, I can relate, to some extent.

The picture, taken of a father, in the rain, pushing his two children and few belongings a bicycle. The man is one of several thousands displaced by the war in Kivu in the eastern [...]

There was no ceasefire agreement reached last Wednesday between the Congolese representatives and Nkunda’s National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP), after three days of meetings in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.
According to Obasanjo, the UN special envoy and former Nigerian president chairing the meeting, the “participating rebels asked to discuss the situation [...]

With the incoming Administration, there is more justification for hope than ever before that the U.S. will focus more clearly on human rights concerns. However, given the degree to which many of the practices of the U.S. military are institutionalized, it will takes a great deal of optimism to hope that the U.S. will dismantle AFRICOM, or that if AFRICOM engages in military action in an African nation that it will not use cluster bombs.

Last September, Nigerian Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan, inaugurated a 40-man panel of former ministers, activists and academics to consider ways to end the unrest in the oil-rich Niger Delta. The committee has released its report, highlights:

Allocate 25% of oil revenue to build Niger Delta infrastructure
open trial and release of Henry Okah, leader of the Movement [...]

The riot was triggered by a rumor on November 28, 2008 that the majority-Muslim All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP) had lost in a local election to the mainly Christian Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), according to media reports.
Some 360 bodies have been given a mass burial, the same day the Federal Government deployed more troops to [...]

Yes! No one should be above the law, particularly in Sudan, where the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor had requested arrest warrants for three rebel commanders accused of war crimes in a deadly attack that killed 12 African Union peacekeepers in Darfur, according to Washington Post.
Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said the commanders were responsible for the [...]