Thousands of Liberian refugees will leave the Ghanaian camp they have lived in for years to an uncertain future back in their country. UNHCR is closing the camp on the grounds that Liberia is now a stable democracy. But is that so?

The Angolan Constitutional Court has received lists of candidates from 27 political formations for the parliamentary elections scheduled for 31 August. Making the announcement, court boss Onofre dos Santos said the 19 parties and eight coalitions now had 10 days to correct their nomination irregularities or inadequacies. Mr Santos said the irregularities or inadequacies would include replacement of candidates.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has halved food rations to refugees living in camps in at least four African countries citing a funding shortfall. The cuts have already affected 16,000 refugees in Malawi’s Dzaleka camp who have been on half rations since March, while a further 120,000 refugees in Uganda began receiving half rations of cereals in May.

The secessionist group based at Kenya’s coast raises genuine concerns about historical injustices. But they are dead wrong to demand their own state.

Africa is often said to be overpopulated. But it is quite easy to debunk this myth. The continent is a spacious, rich and arable landmass that can support its population well into the foreseeable future.

The anti-apartheid struggle has been betrayed. But all is not lost. The people must once again unite and wage a new struggle to liberate themselves.

Increased police brutality and the prospect of conservative politicians using public money to sue and bankrupt organizations they ideologically oppose - these are the likely outcomes of last week’s Constitutional Court judgment against protest organisers.

The new collection provides a nuanced overview of the political, social, and economic forces shaping contemporary Zimbabwe.

This page provides information for the communications procedure of the Commission on the Status of Women. 'Any individual, non-governmental organization, group or network may submit communications (complaints/appeals/petitions) to the Commission on the Status of Women containing information relating to alleged violations of human rights that affect the status of women in any country in the world. The Commission on the Status of Women considers such communications as part of its annual programme of work in order to identify emerging trends and patterns of injustice and discriminatory practices against women for purposes of policy formulation and development of strategies for the promotion of gender equality.'

As a treatment provider for tens of thousands of HIV+ people across the globe, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) says it is deeply concerned about the proposal outlined in the editorial piece 'ARV Programme Not Free Entitlement for Those Affording' which appeared in The Herald 15 May 2012 issue. The article proposes to shift the financial burden of purchasing antiretroviral medication (ARVs) to HIV+ people who can 'afford' as a response to the looming funding gap for ARV treatment (ART). While the increasing funding retreat by international donors is a serious concern that needs to be dealt with, making the already vulnerable group of HIV+ people pay for their treatment is the last option that should be considered.

Bestowing an honour on America's first black president might seem an uncontroversial choice for post-apartheid South Africa. But what was good enough for the Nobel peace prize committee is just the latest trigger for acrimony in the polarised city of Cape Town. Its decision to grant president Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, the freedom of the city has provoked a growing backlash from rival parties, churches, Muslim groups and trade unions, who branded it a 'political gimmick'. They warn that if the couple ever set foot in Cape Town to accept the award, they will be greeted by mass protests drawing attention to America's human rights record.

The Angolan government announced on Friday in Luanda that it concluded fully the withdrawal of Missang forces in the territory of Guinea Bissau. According to a press note from the Angolan government, which reached Angop, the process included a complete withdrawal by sea and air of all military personnel, as well as all military equipment and techniques of Missang.

The Ethiopian Telecommunication Corporation, which happens to be the sole telecommunication service provider in Ethiopia, has deployed or begun testing Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) of all Internet traffic. This post analyses the results on web access, following on from previous analysis of censorship in China, Iran, and Kazakhstan.

The oil industry in Uganda will be the most capital intensive that the country has ever seen. Many ordinary people believe that it may also result in mass job creation, alleviating unemployment and under-employment - said by some reports to run as high as 80 per cent among rural youth - that not only blights lives but could also foment social and political unrest. But the reality is that the oil industry is notorious for consuming large sums of money in its operations, while employing relatively few people, most of whom have particular expertise.

Gay Biafran activist Joshua Odeke was billed for forced deportation from the UK on 7June 2012.
He fled Nigeria due to his political activities there, namely his involvement with the non-violent Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), which campaigns openly for Igbo tribe freedom and an independent state. Joshua is deeply worried about returning to Nigeria because both his father and brother were killed by authorities because of their involvement with MASSOB.

Local Egyptian reports mentioned on Monday 11 June the dreadful progress in the case of the Islamist parliamentarian whom police have accused of public indecency, as the girl in the case has been detained for four days under orders by the prosecutor. A report said that the prosecutor has also ordered a 'virginity test' on her to determine if she is a virgin or not. The news has caused an uproar among the rights community over the virginity tests, which brought back to mind the same tests that were forced upon female protesters in Tahrir Square in March 2011.

Zimbabwe’s transition to a new democratic government remains a difficult challenge, given the current regime’s culture of corruption and military intransigence.

‘It is not too long ago that being African was ignorantly believed to be an aberration, an abnormality, in much the same way that some Africans are choosing to label African homosexuality an aberration today.’

Tunisia's ousted president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali has been sentenced to 20 years imprisonment in absentia for inciting violence and murder. The charges relate to an incident in the town of Ouardanine last January, when four men were shot trying to stop the president's nephew fleeing Tunisia.

The parliament in Burkina Faso has granted amnesty to President Blaise Compaore and all of the country's previous heads of state. The immunity from prosecution will cover all presidents since independence from France in 1960. President Compaore came to power in a 1987 coup in which popular leader Thomas Sankara was killed.

The Ethiopian government has passed new legislation that criminalises the use of Internet-based voice communications such as Skype and other forms of Internet phone calling. Authorities have also installed a new filtering system that monitors the use of the Internet in the tightly-controlled Horn of Africa country in a move seen as targeting dissidents.

The president's address to the Makana Local Football Association, Zondani Townhall, Grahamstown, Saturday 9 June 2012.

Media freedom in South Africa has been receiving bad press recently, although most of the attention has focussed on threats to print and broadcasting freedom. Little attention has been paid to creeping censorship of the supposedly most democratic medium of all, namely the Internet.

This article from the Oxford Monitor of Forced Migration explores the ways in which Eritrean asylum-seekers in Israel narrate their experiences of suffering. These narrators were held hostage in the borderlands of the Northern Sinai desert by human traffickers for indefinite periods of time en route to Israel. Numerous Eritrean asylum-seekers experience and bear witness to torture, kidnapping, extortion, rape, and organ removal during the journey.

Tunisia's government has condemned as 'terrorism' a spate of overnight attacks on courts and other state buildings by gangs including Islamist hardliners and vowed to punish them. The ultra-conservative Salafists denied involvement in the rampage in several areas of the capital Tunis and in the country's northwest, and instead called a protest after this week's Friday prayers.

In the southwest region of Cameroon, within a beautiful rainforest, several Indigenous communities are working hard to make their voices heard. Their struggle began in 2011 when the government of Cameroon granted a vast land concession to SG Sustainable Oils, a subsidiary of the New York-based Herakles Farms. What the government overlooked, was that this concession occurred on the homelands of the Oroko, Bakossi, and Upper Bayang peoples in the Ndian, Koupé-Manengouba, and Manyu divisions of Cameroon.

MPs have said they are being restricted from accessing details of the Oil Sharing Agreements (PSAs) as the Parliamentary Natural Resources Committee proposed stringent clauses that will, among others, see government officials who negotiate bad oil contracts face jail. Kitgum Woman MP Beatrice Anywar said they are subjected to tough guidelines. 'To look at a copy of the PSAs you must first write to the speaker notifying her about the date, hour and which pages you want to look at to enable them assign you a library staff to supervise you when you are reading that particular page,' Ms Anywar said.

The long-running spat between the African Union (AU) and International Criminal Court (ICC) over perceived bias has prompted the AU to push ahead with plans to form its own Africa-wide criminal court, but analysts believe the move could complicate, rather than enhance, international justice. 'Africa wants regional ownership of its crimes and its leaders,' Alan Wallis, an international justice lawyer at the Johannesburg-based Southern African Litigation Centre (SALC), told IRIN, but pointed out: 'There is a misbelief [by the AU] that Africa is being targeted, as all cases before the ICC concern African situations, but this ignores the fact that of those six [cases], three were referred to the ICC by the countries concerned.'

The UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, Ms. Gulnara Shahinian, has said more than half of the 215 million children working throughout the world are subjected to the worst forms of child labour, including sexual and labour exploitation. In a statement she issued in New York to mark the World Day Against Child Labour, Ms. Shahinian said one of the most abhorrent forms of child slavery is found in mining and quarrying, where children start work from the age of three.

Togolese security forces on Tuesday 12 June used teargas to disperse a huge demonstration staged by civil society organizations and some opposition political parties in the capital, Lomé. Tens of thousands of people led by opposition and civil society figures defied a heavy downpour to heed the call by the umbrella 'Let's Save Togo' to denounce actions by the government they claimed were intended to manipulate the electoral process.

The green economy is nothing more than capitalism of nature, states this article from 'The 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, which is promoting a green economy, is the next step in the evolution of capitalism. The goal is to implement an alternative to global regimes cashing in on creation by privatizing, commodifying and selling off all forms of life - including air, water and genes, plants, traditional seeds, trees, biological and cultural diversity, ecosystems and even indigenous traditional knowledge.'

Armed militants hostile to the Ivorian government have recruited Liberian children and carried out deadly cross-border raids on Ivorian villages in recent months, Human Rights Watch says. Liberian authorities have failed to investigate and prosecute dozens of Liberian and Ivorian nationals who crossed into Liberia after committing war crimes during Côte d’Ivoire’s 2010-2011 post-election crisis, some of whom have been implicated in the recent attacks, Human Rights Watch said.

This book is a compilation of feature stories and news articles by journalists who participated in the media trainings on environmental reporting organised in six states across the Nigerian federation by the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN). The book is an attempt to assess the quality of reports from journalists and to contribute to enhancing the capacity of members of the network and media users to further broaden the environmental discourse by opening new vistas for investigation. It can be downloaded through the link provided.

A meeting of the Democratic Left Front (DLF) in South Africa discussed a proposed youth wage subsidy, the crisis of democracy, organising women and building the movement.

An Ethiopian musician has just released an upbeat song and a tribute to Emperor Menelik II of Ethiopia, the first African leader who defeated the Italian colonial forces at the battle of Adwa in 1896.

Judges at the International People's Tribunal at Columbia University Law School on January 14, 2012 found that the evidence presented made a prima facie case of crimes against humanity committed by Western powers.

A glimpse of the African side of India shows people with severe psychotic problems apparently related to their poverty and intense subjection to racist contempt.

Walter Rodney’s seminal work remains a compelling and persuasive living history and totem of critical resistance to the exploitation and underdevelopment of the African continent.