Nairobi  - A lack of political will has prevented the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights from hearing a single case in the ten years since it was established, campaigners said Wednesday.

A spokesman for Minority Rights Group said that the failure to act came despite major human rights crises in Darfur, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe.

Nairobi/Mogadishu - Fresh clashes between Islamic insurgents and African Union peacekeepers have broken out in the Somali capital Mogadishu, reports said Wednesday.

The BBC reported that insurgents attacked the AU peacekeepers, who responded with tank and artillery fire, late on Tuesday night.

Some of the AU fire landed in residential neighbourhoods, killing at least ten civilians, eyewitnesses told the BBC.

No AU casualties were reported.

Heavy clashes have been ongoing since insurgents shelled Mogadishu airport last Friday as an AU plane defied a flight ban.

No planes had landed since Tuesday after insurgent group al- Shabaab said it would destroy any aircraft that attempted to touch down at the airport.

Nairobi/Kinshasa  - The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has demanded the immediate release of 90 schoolchildren it says were abducted in the Democratic Republic of Congo by a notorious Ugandan rebel group.

The agency said local authorities informed them that the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) took 50 children from the village of Kiliwa and 40 from a secondary school in Duru in the northeast of the sprawling nation, which borders Uganda.

"UNICEF demands the unconditional release of the abducted children," Julien Harneis, UNICEF's Chief of Field Operations in eastern DR Congom said.

Nairobi (Kenya) Sept. 20 : The African media environment has received a shot in the arm with the launch of A24 Media’s online content delivery site, which is designed to bring the African voice to a global audience hungry for an authentic perspective on African issues.

“A vision that started three long years ago is finally coming to reality. A24 Media will change the face of journalism in Africa and will truly give us Africans control over our stories,” said Salim Amin, the chairman of A24 Media at Thursday’s glittering launch event in Nairobi. Over 100 top media executives and journalists attended the event.

Nairobi - Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called on the Kenyan government on Friday to reform its electoral system after an independent report found serious problems with last December's disputed presidential elections.

"This report must not be simply brushed aside and allowed to gather dust," Annan told journalists in Nairobi. "The devastation wreaked in this country was too grave."

"This is why I urge all concerned... to take heed of this report and see that it is implemented," he continued.

Nairobi - Thousands of wildebeest huddle together in Kenya's Masai Mara national reserve, their gazes flicking nervously between the lush grasslands on the opposite bank of the Mara River and the crocodile-infested waters separating them from their meal.

Eventually the unlucky wildebeest at the front takes the plunge and the rest follow en-masse, churning up the muddy water and lashing out at snapping crocodile jaws with powerful hind legs.

From the number of four-by-fours packed with tourists cheering on the wildebeest - or the crocodiles - you would not think that Kenya's tourism industry was still in a slump. But appearances can deceive.