The Security Council and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called today for more international air and naval forces off the pirate-ridden coast of Somalia to ensure that United Nations food aid gets through to more than 3 million people threatened with starvation.

Nimule, a Southern Sudanese town on the border with Uganda, has boomed since war ended three years ago, but tension is brewing over land between returnees who fled the area years ago and more recent settlers.

Amnesty International today said that those displaced by May’s xenophobic violence in South Africa face serious threats to their safety, as the last remaining camps for the displaced are closed and their asylum-claims are overwhelmingly rejected.

Lt. Col. John Lucas Abito, a former Commander of the 2nd Battalion of Infantry at Takoradi, in the Western Region and spokesperson for Peace Seekers International (PSI), an NGO, says former President Rawlings must be closely monitored because his recent meeting with the ex-security capos posed a threat to the security of the country.

The top United Nations human rights official today condemned the brutal killing of a Somali family in South Africa, and urged the authorities to take immediate action to protect foreigners from any further attacks.

Renewed calls for the arrest of Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony will create more animosity and hamper any efforts to conclude the ongoing peace process, a senior church leader said.

The deadly attacks by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels in Dungu in the DRC are calculated to displace the indigenous population to secure a safer base for the insurgents, a Catholic priest in the area claimed yesterday.

Thousands of people have been displaced from their homes in two districts of Dakar where houses should never have been built, according to Seydou Sysall, the former Senegalese minister of development and urban planning.

Insecurity, drought and record-high food prices have led to a rapid escalation of the humanitarian crisis in Somalia, with some 3.25 million people now needing emergency aid, NGOs said.

At least 17 people have been killed in a mortar attack on the main market in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu witnesses said later on Monday.

The successful conclusion of arms manufacturer Denel's turnaround strategy, and its future long-term sustainability as a going concern, require additional state funding of R1,7bn, former CEO Shaun Liebenberg said in his last report before his departure from the group.

A group of peacekeepers serving with the joint United Nations-African Union operation in Darfur were ambushed this afternoon while on patrol in the south of the war-torn Sudanese region.

Guinea-Bissau had come a long way since the civil war of the late 1990s, but all those gains would be at risk if stability were not cemented and the menace of the illicit drug trade was not confronted head-on through a regional approach, B. Lynn Pascoe, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, told the Security Council this morning.

Condemning and deploring all acts of piracy and armed robbery off the coast of Somalia, the Security Council today called upon States interested in the security of maritime activities to deploy naval vessels and military aircraft to actively fight piracy on the high seas off the coast of Somalia.

The National Security recently took Ghanaians by surprise when it announced the banning of a number of ex-Security capos from entering all police and military installations in the country. The decision follows Chronicle publication about a meeting held between the affected officers and former President Rawlings to discuss security and other matters affecting the country.

At least 5,000 refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have arrived in South Sudan in the past two weeks after fleeing "ferocious" attacks by the notorious Ugandan rebel group, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), the United Nations refugee agency reported today.

A top opposition leader in Somalia has declared that an expected ceasefire between the Somali interim government and the armed opposition has not gone into effect yet.

The United States condemns and rejects the statements made by General Nkunda, leader of the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP), claiming the CNDP intends to overthrow the elected and universally recognized Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (GDRC). The U.S. calls on the international community to support the GDRC as it works to consolidate its democracy and ...

The UN is planning to withdraw non-all staff from Baidoa town after insecurity acts increased in the town for the last weeks.

Four officers of the Nigerian Army including a Commanding Officer were yesterday arraigned at a military court sitting in Akure, Ondo State.

The security outfit, Joint Task Force (JTF), yesterday said those involved in illegal bunkering in the Niger Delta region have now turned to armed robbers, because JTF has paralysed the illicit oil business.

Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), yesterday said it is on the threshold of implementing the legally binding instrument aimed at checking the continued proliferation of small arms within the sub-region.

A roadside bomb blast hits a U.N. vehicle carrying UN officials in Merca town southern Somalia injuring foreign official later on Monday according to eyewitnesses.

A France-based website blew the whistle on South Sudan's importation of weapons through Kenya in contravention of a UN embargo in February.

Reporters Without Borders calls for the release of ex-journalist Andrew Mwangura, head of the Kenyan chapter of the Seafarers assistance programme, who was arrested by Kenyan police on 1 October for "making false statements".