In an attempt to activate the role of intellectuals in the conflict-ridden Horn of African region, Djibouti will offer a forum to the region's intellectuals to debate and start a dialogue on the region's economic, political and social problems in a conference due to be held in the second half of November 2007.

Al-Jazeera reports that a Djibouti criminal court has convicted a human rights activist of defamation, sentencing him to six months in prison and fining him 480 euros. Jean-Paul Noel Abdi, chairman of the Djibouti League of Human Rights, was found guilty on Sunday of falsely accusing a presidential guard soldier of rape, according to an unnamed judicial source.

After being sought by police for five days, Houssein Ahmed Farah was arrested on 7 February 2007 and taken to the criminal investigation department, Reporters Without Borders has learned from his brother, Daher Ahmed Farah, managing editor of the privately-owned weekly "Le Renouveau" and head of the Movement for Democratic Renewal (MRD), an opposition party.