On 27 July 2004, Justice Edmond Cowan, speaker of the Sierra Leonean Parliament, banned the privately-owned "Standard Times" newspaper from covering parliamentary sessions for one month. The speaker's action came after the publication in early July of an article in the newspaper, under the caption, "MP Thrown Out of Parliament", which the legislative body considered disparaging.

The Rwandan government granted asylum on Friday to 283 people of Rwandan descent whom officials in Kigali have classified as refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo. The group - 172 children, 62 women and 49 men - were expelled from the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo earlier in the week. Local military and civilian officials in the Congo had accused them of being Rwandans.

Located in the Research Triangle Park of North Carolina, the National Humanities Center is a private nonprofit institution that provides an environment for individual research and the exchange of ideas among scholars. During the 2005-06 academic year, the center will offer forty residential fellowships for advanced study in the humanities.

12-year-old Assigno lives in the village of Vo Asso Kedji. She has never seen her parents. Some have told her that they are dead; according to others, they are living in Côte D'Ivoire, over 700 kilometres away. Because of her family's poverty, and the fact that she has to help take care of her three sisters, Assigno could not afford the formal government schools.