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I just opened the Africa section of BBC World News. The first photo is of a camouflage Libyan tank, with its weapon aimed at a swirling cloud of dust. The second photo shows Sudanese soldiers marching along a barbed-wire fence, with an explosion in the background ...

A weekly round-up of must-read stories, posted every Friday ...

The Senate Armed Services Committee set aside $35 million to fund a strategy for eliminating the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), Central Africa’s most brutal militia, and rebuilding communities affected by their campaign of violence ...

The Sudanese government’s use of aerial bombing campaigns to assert control over disputed territory and target civilians and humanitarian relief efforts prompted the Enough Project to come out today with a statement outlining some steps the United States and allies could take to balance out Khartoum’s currently unrivaled air capabilities and potentially change its calculations ...

Amid worsening reports on the severity of the fighting in Southern Kordofan and the impact on civilians, President Obama made a statement via audio recording late Tuesday night calling for an immediate ceasefire across a swath of Sudan’s border recently embroiled in fierce fighting. But while the president's personal attention to the crisis lends welcome gravitas, it also demonstrates a continued reluctance by the international community to identify outright which party is most responsible for the ongoing violence ...

The United Nations Group of Experts on Congo issued their latest report this week, highlighting that the Dodd-Frank legislation on conflict minerals is spurring reform in eastern Congo. The U.N. experts group is normally one of the best sources of information on eastern Congo, as they dig into the roots of the conflict and are not afraid to name officials who are helping perpetuate the war. This interim report, which will be followed up by a full investigative report in November, brought out several key issues regarding both eastern Congo and the LRA conflict ...

As a deterrent against escalating violence in Sudan, especially that caused by aerial bombing campaigns, the Obama administration should ramp up an array of new financial sanctions aimed at the heart of the Sudanese regime's military-industrial complex, and immediately begin preparations to provide air defense capabilities to the Government of South Sudan when it becomes independent, said the Enough Project ...

Achol’s face and neck were dotted with white burns from the sparks of a cluster bomb. Her daughter, one-year-old Nyibach, suffered from the same painful sores. Achol’s family, which includes four other children who went missing in the chaos of the recent attack, is from Abyei, the hotly contested region on Sudan’s North-South border. But casualties like Achol and Nyibach aren’t simply “collateral damage” of a confrontation between the northern and southern armies ...

June 20 will mark the 60th anniversary of the U.N. refugee agency, or UNHCR. Since 1951, UNHCR has been at the forefront of providing large-scale humanitarian assistance to people displaced from their homes and countries by war, conflict, and fear of persecution. In honor of this year’s World Refugee Day, the Darfur Dream Team Sister Schools Program is launching the Summer Service Challenge to create opportunities to learn more about refugees worldwide and in our local communities ...

The international community must acknowledge that an undeclared war is now beginning between North and South Sudan says Sudan Now, a group of anti-genocide and human rights organizations ...