NATO has not sufficiently investigated the air raids it conducted on Libya that killed at least 60 civilians and wounded 55 more during the conflict there, according to a new United Nations report. Nor has Libya’s interim government done enough to halt the disturbing violence perpetrated by revolutionary militias seeking to exact revenge on loyalists, real or perceived, to the government of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the report concluded.

'Defanging' - that’s what one observer has called it. 'Wrecking' might be another term for what CIDA is doing to Canada’s once vibrant, once independent NGO sector. A survey of 158 organizations just released by the Canadian Council for International Cooperation (CCIC) and its seven provincial/regional counterparts has confirmed what many already suspected: that CIDA’s new rules of engagement have weakened the credibility and the capacities of NGOs, added to their costs, damaged or disrupted their overseas programs and put a chill on the advocacy work of those that were so inclined.

As investors turn to land-based assets and commodities, large areas of fertile land are being acquired around the world to produce biofuels, food commodity crops, timber and develop extractive industries. Where land governance is weak, new risks are being created. These include, on one hand, the security of local people, their access to food and water, and conflicts associated with forced evictions. A report, 'The Land Security Agenda', from the Earth Security Initiative, outlines the security and risk implications of the growing wave of investments in farmland and commodities.

On Monday 12 March, the water justice movement met with United Nations special rapporteur Catarina de Alburquerque, as well as eight national governments and the deputy mayor of Paris, outside the corporate World Water Forum in Marseille, France to highlight the need to implement the right to water and sanitation worldwide. Later that afternoon, eight governments - the United States, Germany, Spain, Nigeria, Uruguay, Panama, Colombia and Bolivia - met with 60-75 civil society activists at a meeting organized by numerous groups. Speakers presented on the problematic nature of the World Water Forum, the negative experiences with water privatization, challenges related to the implementation of the right to water and sanitation, how the green economy would undermine these rights, and much more.

The Sixth World Water Forum taking place between 12-17 March in Marseille, France costs $1,000 for participants from wealthy nations, and about $450 for participants from the ‘under-developed countries,’ making the the forum inaccesible to those who come from the countries of the Global South, writes Marcela Olivera for Climate Connections. 'And so it is that every three years those of us who believe this Forum to be illegitimate gather together to denounce it. And every three years, over the course of many months, organizations and movements from around the World come together to hold the Alternative World Water Forum.'

Thousands of people in the Sudanese border region of South Kordofan have fled their homes to the nearby mountains, fearing attacks by Sudanese forces that have left entire villages devastated. Al Jazeera's Peter Greste gained access to the remote region and documented evidence of villages and crops destroyed and spoke to people who said they had abandoned their homes out of fear that they would be killed if they stayed. Sudan's army has been accused of deliberately targeting civilians in South Kordofan during a months-long military campaign that has included air raids and allegations of soldiers razing villagers.

According to a report by the UN Country Team in Swaziland, released on 16 March, a fiscal crisis which started early in 2011 has put an additional strain on poor households like Thwala’s and worsened poverty in a country which already had high rates of unemployment and food insecurity and the highest HIV rate in the world. The report, based on a November 2011 survey of 1,334 households, found that poor households have had to adopt extreme measures to cope with reduced incomes resulting from job losses and wage cuts, as well as higher food and fuel prices and reduced access to social services.

Malawi's leading rights activist John Kapito, who was detained by police for possession of foreign currency, has been released on bail, a spokesman for the country's rights body said. Kapito was charged with two counts of carrying seditious material and illegal possession of foreign exchange, he said.

Almost a year after the West African nation was shaken by six months of violence and terror when former president Laurent Gbagbo refused to cede power to Alassane Ouattara who won the November 2010 presidential elections, Ivorian children are still trying to recover from the psychological and social trauma the unrest caused them. 'Children were major victims of the post-electoral violence. Many heard gunfire and shelling, saw people running, saw adults afraid and witnessed brutalities, fighting and killings,' says Désiré Koukoui, the director of the International Catholic Children’s Office (BICE) in Abidjan, an organisation protecting children’s rights.

Ethiopian troops have carried out more attacks on what they say are rebel bases inside neighbouring Eritrea, a government official said. The attacks are the first on Eritrean soil that Ethiopia has admitted to since the end of a 1998-2000 war that killed 70,000 people and left a border dispute unresolved. Eritrea says there have been others.

Ending gender-based violence will mean changing cultural concepts about masculinity. This includes recognition of the importance of active engagement of men and women at all levels, whether they are policy makers, parents, spouses or young boys and girls.

It is only when women start to organise in large numbers that we become a political force, and begin to move towards the possibility of a truly democratic society in which every human being can be brave, responsible, thinking, and diligent in the struggle to live at once freely and unselfishly.

The United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) must be reformed, according to an ANC discussion document on international relations. 'The current global governance regimes remain untransformed and ill-prepared to respond to the systemic challenges that are arising,' the ANC said in new policy papers.

At least 77 people in southeastern Africa have been killed and more are still missing as Tropical Cyclone Irina sweeps through the region. The storm struck northern Madagascar more than two weeks ago and has slowly tracked down the west of the country. Torrential rain from the system hit the whole of the island, leading to the deaths of 65 people, weather officials said on Monday. The majority of the deaths occurred in the southeastern district of Ifanadiana. The storm has also affected southern areas of Mozambique and eastern South Africa.

Zambia environment authorities on Saturday closed a copper mining plant operated by the Mopani Copper Mine company after health complaints from local residents continued to drag the mine. The move was seen by locals as an attempt to crackdown on poor conditions at mines across the country and comes after environmental activists called on the government to enhance oversight on mining operations in the country. The plant, which is controlled by Swiss commodity trader Glencore AG, was placed under the spotlight for its pollution levels.

Eldoret North MP William Ruto has agreed to give up a 100-acre piece of land he is accused of grabbing from an internally displaced person. Ruto has offered to leave the land belonging to Mr Adrian Gilbert Muteshi, who was displaced during the 2008 post-election violence, by April 10. In a concession filed in court on Monday, the Eldoret North MP said that he required two months to remove his properties including fences and hedges from the land.

Over the last seven years Karuturi Global has acquired rights to 311,700 hectares of land in Gambela and Bako region in Ethiopia for the purpose of agricultural development. But Karuturi’s practices in Ethiopia has also attracted less welcome attention from human rights activists. Investigators from New York-based Human Rights Watch paid a visit to a Karuturi lease area in Gambela in May 2011 where they found that maize, sorghum, and groundnut crops planted by local Anuak farmers had been cleared without consent and residents moved off their land.

A section of an Egyptian pipeline supplying gas to Israel and Jordan has been blown up in the thirteenth attack on the energy link since January 2011. According to witnesses, the attack on the gas pipeline, which crosses the Sinai Peninsula, occurred on Monday in the Massaeed area west of the Mediterranean coastal town of al-Arish in the northern Sinai.

On the first anniversary of the dissolution of the State Security Investigation Apparatus, the April 6th Youth Movement (the Democratic Front in Alexandria), issued a statement declaring that they do not see a big difference between the state security apparatus during the regime of Mubarak and the National Security Agency, which is marred by the same shameful practices and the same violations of human rights and suppression of freedoms of activists and revolutionaries and human rights organizations and contributed to the worsening state of security chaos taking place in the country.

Sweden, whose citizen has been jailed by Eritrea for more than ten years without charge, has moved to block the flow of diaspora money to the isolated Red Sea nation. Its parliament, Riksdag, is preparing legislation to block a two per cent mandatory tax collected by Eritrea from its citizens living in Sweden. Sweden has been demanding that Asmara releases Eritrean-born Swedish journalist Dawit Isaak who has been in jail since 2001 for being critical of President Isaias Afewerki's government.

Brazil is supporting the controversial UNESCO-Obiang prize in an attempt to improve relations with President Obiang, but this puts Brazil's own international reputation at stake. Brazil is showing questionable judgment by actively supporting the UNESCO-Obiang prize in an apparent effort to strengthen its relations with the regime of President Obiang, which has accumulated a long list of human rights violations in the course of its 32 years in power, says this article on the EG Justice website.

The North Gauteng High Court is to hear an application to compel SA to abide by its legal obligations to investigate and prosecute high-level Zimbabwean officials accused of crimes against humanity. The case, which has been set down for hearing from March 26-30, is the first of its kind in SA. The court would have the opportunity to provide guidance on the scope and nature of the obligations placed on SA by signing up to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

The Law Society of SA has written to the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) raising a concern about South African judges serving on the bench in Swaziland, saying that the Swazi judiciary appeared to be compromising the rule of law. There is a long tradition of southern African judges, especially when retired, serving on the benches of each other’s courts, However, the Swazi judiciary has come in for increasing criticism over the past couple of years, reaching crisis point last year when Judge Thomas Masuku was fired by King Mswati on what were believed to be trumped-up charges.

Thousands of people who have returned to their homes in areas close to Ndélé, in northern Central African Republic's (CAR) Bamingui-Bangoran region, after years of displacement, are living in difficult conditions as the security situation is still precarious, say officials. Between 2009 and 2011, Ndélé was the scene of fighting between government troops and various armed rebels, forcing thousands to flee.

A fire that killed two workers and destroyed a gas exploration rig off Nigeria's south-east coast has gone out after 46 days, Chevron has said. Friends of the Earth, which said this was the world's worst such accident in recent years, welcomed the news. The environmental group has urged Chevron to compensate local Nigerian fishermen for income lost while the fire burned.

Public universities in Kenya have become ethnic bastions, reveals a report by the National Cohesion and Integration Commission presented to Parliament on Tuesday. The Big Five ethnic groups in Kenya dominate the work forces of the centres of higher education, the report shows. Although the Kikuyu, Luhya, Kalenjin, Luo and Kamba, make up 66 per cent of the country’s population, they take up 93 per cent of the jobs at Masinde Muliro University, 89.8 per cent at Moi University, 87.3 per cent at Egerton University, 86 per cent at Jomo Kenyatta University, 82.3 per cent at the University of Nairobi and 81.7 per cent at Kenyatta University.

The Council of Canadians, Food and Water Watch, and Focus on the Global South invite you to virtually Occupy the World Water Forum – a corporate trade show aimed at giving the world’s largest water multinationals privileged access to high-level policy making behind closed doors. Many social justice and environmental groups will be in Marseille to denounce the World Water Forum and promote an alternative vision at the Forum Alternatif Mondial de l’Eau (FAME). You can support our protests virtually from anywhere in the world by occupying the World Water Forum online.

Tanzania’s Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda has warned medical doctors in public hospitals to refrain from a nationwide strike saying the government could react with very drastic measures against them. 'At present, we see no reason to apply the force of law. We are trying to do what is humanly possible with a patriotic sense in order to avert a disaster that could affect poor patients whose lives are in the hands of medical staff,' Pinda said at a press conference he called to address the issue.

Nigerian NGO Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has filed a request before the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights in Arusha, Tanzania, asking the court to 'consider the effects of corruption on the poverty level in Nigeria, and whether rising and systemic poverty violates specific human rights under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.' According to a statement made available to PANA in Lagos on Sunday, the organization told the court that Nigeria has ratified both the African Charter and the African Court Protocol.

East Africa is in the middle of a major scramble for oil and gas resources as exploration firms rush to seal deals and optimism grows about more oil strikes. Last year saw at least 17 notable deals in East Africa, including five corporate ones worth over $250 million combined, more than double the number in 2010, which was just eight. Mid this year, Tullow, a wildcat oil prospector, is expected to announce the results of the wells it is currently drilling in Kenya and Ethiopia.

Ighsaan Schroeder of the Casual Workers Advice Office explains why Cosatu called for a general strike against the practice of labour broking. However, he argues that the trade union federation’s call for a ban on labour brokers is highly problematic for a number of reasons, not least of which is Cosatu's inability to respond to the changing nature of the South African work force.

Libyan leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil has said he will defend national unity 'with force' after tribal leaders and a political faction declared that the east would become a semi-autonomous region. 'We are not prepared to divide Libya,' Jalil said, calling on eastern leaders to engage in dialogue and warning them against remnants of the former regime in their ranks.

Following advocacy by the Refugee Law Project, the Attorney General of Uganda exercised his powers under section 24 of the Births and Deaths Registration Act and has waived the registration fees payable by refugees in order to register a birth or death in Uganda. Previously, refugees were treated as foreigners and were therefore required to pay $40 in order to obtain a birth or death certificate.

Former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo was a poor choice to mediate the Senegalese election crisis and the voters wasted no time in throwing him out.

Is the liberation struggle over? If not, what are we fighting? And how can we build a caring society?

Is Cameroon's language policy integrating the nation, as it was intended to do? Or is the approach to language threatening to tear the country apart?

A vicious land grab is being carried out in Uganda, pairing the country’s dictator with an ‘investor,’ and the targets are the Acholi, genocide survivors who live on abundant, fertile and mineral-rich land.

A key message the marchers wanted to pass across was the problem of stigma and discrimination they face in their lives and work. These include challenges in accessing health, legal, medical and social services.