The newly independent government of South Sudan accused Khartoum's Sudan Armed Forces of bombing targets in its territory over the past 48 hours, including a refugee camp at Yida in oil-rich Unity state, where reports indicate at least 12 people have been killed and some 20 wounded. Another seven were killed in the remote area of Guffa, Upper Nile State. (See map.) UN human rights commissioners Navi Pillay wanred that a war crime may have been committed, and called for an investigation. The Khartoum government denied that Sudan's armed forces were to blame. (Sudan Tribune, BBC News, NYT, Nov. 11).

At least 63 people were killed in bombings and armed attacks by the Islamist movement Boko Haram in the northeastern Nigerian town of Damaturu Nov. 5. Bombs went off at both civilian targets and the headquarters of the Yobe state police. A Roman Catholic parish priest told the BBC his church had been burnt down and eight other churches also attacked. Suicide attacks also targeted a military headquarters and Christian theological school in Maiduguri, capital of neighboring Borno state. Boko Haram contacted called Nigeria's Daily Trust newspaper to say it carried out the attacks. The attacks come days after Yobe police commissioner Suleimon Lawal denied that Boko Haram had any presence in the state.

In a 122-page report, "'You'll Be Fired If You Refuse': Labor Abuses in Zambia's Chinese State-owned Copper Mines," Human Rights Watch charges that despite improvements in recent years, safety and labor conditions at Chinese owned mines in Zambia are worse than at other foreign-owned mines, and that Chinese mine managers often violate government regulations. The report details persistent abuses at four Chinese-run mines, including substandard health and safety conditions, 12- to 18-hour shifts of strenous labor, and anti-union activities. The violations were based on interviews with more than 170 mine workers, from both the four Chinese-run companies and from other multinational copper mining operations. The Chinese companies are subsidiaries of China Non-Ferrous Metals Mining Corp., a state-owned enterprise.

Tanzania's last remaining hunter-gatherer tribe won an unprecedented victory over development interests who claimed they were extinct, acquiring a certificate of "customary rights of occupancy" (CCRO) to their communal lands in the Yaeda Chini area of the Great Rift Valley. In announcing the move Oct. 30, Doroth Wanzala, assistant commissioner for land in Tanzania's Northern Zone, said: "We have resolved that the Hadzabe should be given official title deeds to ensure that the country's last hunter-gatherers are not troubled by land-hungry-invaders particularly in the wake of scramble for land." The United Arab Emirates' Safaris Ltd has been seeking to buy the 2,267 square kilometers of virgin bush in northern Tanzania for commercial hunting and tourism. The Hadzabe have resisted efforts to relocate them and "civilize" them since the 1960s by fleeing deeper into the bush.

At least five people, including three children, were killed when a displaced persons camp at Jilib in southern Somalia was bombed yesterday, the charity Doctors Without Border (MSF) says. Now, predictably, the Kenyan army and Shabab rebels are blaming each other. Kenya's military released a statement saying the camp had come under fire by a Shabab "technical battle wagon" mounted with an "anti-aircraft gun." Sheikh Abukar Ali Ada of the Shabab countered: "Kenya has brutally massacred civilians already displaced by hardship. We will ensure that Kenya mourns more than we did." (The Telegraph, BBC News, Capital FM News, Nairobi, Oct. 31)

King Emere Godwin Bebe Okpabi and four other tribal leaders in Nigeria's Ogoniland last week filed a lawsuit in US federal court against Royal Dutch Shell PLC, charing the oil giant polluted local groundwater with benzene at levels 900 times the limits set by the World Health Organization. The lawsuit is based on a UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report assessing the impact of oil contamination on the environment and public health in Ogoniland. The report, which was published in August, found high levels of the carcinogen benzene as well as several inches of refined oil floating in groundwater that the village uses for drinking and agriculture. The UN investigators suggested that both Royal Dutch Shell and Nigeria's state oil company (Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation—NNPC) were responsible for the pollution, although Shell abandoned the area in 1993. The complaint, filed in US District Court in the Eastern District of Michigan, contends that Shell's actions were willfully negligent in contaminating groundwater. Suing under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), the plaintiffs are seeking $1 billion in damages, an injunction and immediate cleanup.

Kenya's military forces crossed into Somalia Oct. 26 to support transitional government troops in a campaign against Shabab insurgents. The operation follows a wave of kidnappings by suspected Shabab militants that has threatened Kenya's multi-million dollar tourism industry. A Nairobi military spokesman said Kenyan and Somali government troops had killed 73 rebels in fighting, but Shabab denied it had suffered any casualties. Shabab fighters are converging on the Somali border town of Afmado in lower Jubba region to block the advance of Kenyan forces. Nearly the entire population of Afmado has reportedly fled.

US troops have been deployed to back up the forces of Uganda and neighboring nations to fight the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), in what authorities hope will be a final offensive to crush the notoriously brutal guerilla group, known for its campaigns of killing, rape, and use of child soldiers over the past two decades. US troops are landing in Uganda and from there may deploy to the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and southern Sudan, where the LRA's scattered force of some 400 is also operating. The US troops are combat-ready and have instructions to fight if attacked, but Pentagon spokesman Cpt. John Kirby said their mission is limited to helping Ugandan and other regional forces crush the LRA.