NAIROBI, 1 Sep 2005 (IRIN) - Human rights violations, including harassment of minorities and trafficking in human beings, have remained rampant in Somalia despite the creation of a transitional government for that country, an independent expert said on Thursday.

"The human rights situation has not improved," Ghanim Alnajjar, the UN Independent Expert on the Situation of Human Rights in Somalia, told a news conference in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, at the end of an 11-day mission to Somalia.

He said the fledgling Somali transitional federal government lacked the capacity to deal with the human rights problem, mainly because it had still not established its authority on the ground.

DAKAR, 1 Sep 2005 (IRIN) - Human rights and government accountability will top the list of priorities for a new UN assistance team, set to step into Sierra Leone after the last peacekeepers leave at the end of the year.

The UN Security Council unanimously approved the establishment of the UN Integrated Office for Sierra Leone (UNIOSL) in a resolution late Wednesday, saying it was crucial that international support continued to help the West African country rebound from a decade of civil war.

The last of the blue-hatted peacekeepers in Sierra Leone are due to leave this December, just over six years after the UN peacekeeping mission (UNAMSIL) first went in.

At its height, UNAMSIL comprised 17,000 troops. It has been gradually drawn down, with around 3,200 still in the country.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said in a report earlier this year that while Sierra Leone had made impressive progress toward peace since the official end of the war in early 2002, the country remains fragile and needed “concrete steps aimed at addressing the root causes of the conflict and nurturing a culture of human rights."

BOUAKE, 1 Sep 2005 (IRIN) - The New Forces rebels categorically rejected South Africa as mediator in the Cote d'Ivoire crisis on Thursday, accusing Pretoria of being partisan after its report to the UN Security Council put the blame for the faltering peace process squarely with the rebels.

“We categorically do not want the South African mediation continuing here in Cote d’Ivoire,” rebel spokesman Sidiki Konate told IRIN. “The New Forces will not answer to any action coming from the South African mediation. We will no longer work with them.”

The declaration from the rebels, who have held the northern half of Cote d'Ivoire for the past three years, is the latest set-back in a peace process that was to have been cemented with elections on 30 October but now looks increasingly shaky.

Last month, rebels said that the poll could not be held in their territory because basic requirements, such as the compilation of a voter register and the establishment of a National Electoral Commission to oversee the poll, had yet to be put in place.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 31 (Reuters) - South Africa told the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday its mediation efforts had cleared the way for implementing an accord ending civil war in Ivory Coast but government and rebel leaders had yet to fulfill their obligations under the deal.

South African Defense Minister Mosiuoa Lekota advised the council to move cautiously in deciding whether it was time to impose sanctions such as a travel ban or asset freeze on those leaders found to be blocking peace.

With high levels of mistrust between the government and rebels and long-awaited elections due by the end of October, council members should act on sanctions "in a manner that does not negatively affect the peace process," he said.

NAIROBI, Aug 31 (Reuters) - The United Nations announced on Wednesday it would launch one of the world's largest refugee operations later this year to help several million people who fled conflict in Sudan begin returning home.

Ending his second trip to east Africa since taking office in May, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres also urged the world not to neglect the Darfur conflict in western Sudan, which has slipped down the international agenda.

Conflicts in the west, east and south of Africa's largest nation over the last two decades have sent some 700,000 refugees fleeing to neighbouring countries and displaced between 4-6 million Sudanese internally, Guterres told a news conference.

NAIROBI, 31 Aug 2005 (IRIN) - The European Union (EU) has urged Somalia's interim leaders to resolve wrangles amongst the different institutions of their transitional government so that donors can release some aid, an EU official said.

Derek Fee, acting head of the EU mission responsible for Somalia, said a meeting held on Tuesday with the interim Somali Prime Minister, Ali Muhammad Gedi, in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, which discussed the wrangles had been "very positive".

Gedi, he added, told the meeting that "dialogue was the way forward" in resolving the problems within the Somali transitional institutions.

"This is what the international community wants to hear," Fee told IRIN on Wednesday. "The messages coming from the prime minister are very positive. The EU is ready to support [him]."