Zambia's parliament has unanimously passed a motion urging the Government to extend the policy of free education in Zambia to grade 12. This is in view of the high poverty levels in the country and the resultant high rate of school dropouts at grades seven and nine.

Leakages of highly toxic sewerage water from the Rundu Sewerage Ponds may in the near future cause the contamination of the Kavango River. Black sewerage water gushing out from these ponds and flowing downstream into the river may pose a serious health hazard for the people in the Kavango as well as the neighbouring countries of Angola and Botswana.

A group of Liberian refugees given sanctuary in Israel five years ago now face deportation and fear their lives will be in danger if they are repatriated. Liberia's on-off civil war from 1989 to 2003 devastated the once prosperous West African state and killed more than 200,000 people.

Lack of progress in peace talks between Uganda's government and northern rebels has dismayed women uprooted by 20 years of war and they want to play a bigger role in the dialogue, aid workers said on Thursday.

The United Nations has condemned the killing of a prominent Somali human rights activist, Isse Abdi Isse, chairman of the Kasima Peace and Development Organisation (KISIMA), calling his death a loss for all Somalis and warning aid workers they were increasingly the target of violence in the chaotic country.