Tanzania's general elections were on the whole peaceful, however, with the ruling Chama cha Mapinduzi garnering a huge majority in Parliament, the legislature has no chance of holding the Executive to account. In Kenya months of high voltage acrimony in the Cabinet culminated in voters rejecting a government-supported constitutional draft. In Uganda,the incarceration of opposition leader, Dr Kizza Besigye, does not augur well for the country's democracy.

Reports indicate that Uganda has begun negotiating payment terms with the Democratic Republic of Congo after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Kampala should compensate the neighbouring country for invading and plundering her neighbour's resources. Congo sued Uganda in the UN's highest court in 1999.The two countries have an option of negotiating between themselves to reach a compromise amount and terms of payment.

A report by the UN Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) quotes UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan issuing a warning that the security situation in Darfur continued to deteriorate, leading to nearly a doubling of confirmed civilian deaths. In his latest monthly report on the conflict in the western Sudanese region, he called it a "deeply disturbing trend" with "devastating effects on the civilian population".