Chad's army fought to hold off advancing rebels 100 km (60 miles) from the capital N'Djamena on Friday and the renewed combat delayed the deployment of European peacekeepers to the central African country. Up to 3,700 European Union troops were due to arrive in coming weeks on an urgent peacekeeping mission to eastern Chad, but anti-government rebels pre-empted the deployment with a lightning offensive this week towards the capital in the west.

Rebels in Chad are advancing from the east of the country towards the capital, N'Djamena, after seizing a strategic central town, officials say. Armed forces have gone to intercept a column of 300 rebel vehicles, advancing along the main road to the capital.

It is a question almost as old as the aid industry itself: How to avoid waste and inefficiency when dozens of humanitarian agencies are working alongside each other in a rapidly evolving emergency? Two years ago the key humanitarian policy decision making body, the Inter-Agency Standing Committee, endorsed the cluster approach, the UN’s answer to the problem.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has called on the Chadian authorities to end a wave of media repression, which started in November 2006 in the wake of violent conflict in the eastern part of the country and has most recently been seen in the detention and intimidation of media executives.