ARTICLE 19 is seeking to engage a Legal Consultant, fluent in both English and Arabic, who will be responsible for ensuring it is able to play an enhanced role in promoting the rights to freedom of expression and freedom of information by developing an enabling legal and policy environment in the MENA region.

An iWatch News report finds that as the famine in southern Somalia worsens, aid experts fear that corruption and the politics of terrorism are crimping the flow of humanitarian relief to areas where starvation is worst. Abundant U.S. aid targeted for the Horn of Africa cannot directly reach starving people in southern Somalia because it’s blocked by Al-Shabaab, an Al-Qaeda-aligned Islamist group labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department.

In Human Rights Watch’s newest report, 'Corruption on Trial? The Record of Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission,' this highly credible NGO takes a break from its more usual investigations into conflict and violence to assess the successes and failures of Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) — the agency tasked to investigate and prosecute financial crimes ranging from advanced fee fraud, more commonly known as '419' scams, to money laundering to government corruption.

The new . This issue includes breaking news about Australia's plan to 'swap' asylum seekers with Malaysia; an in-depth article on the issue by Dr Savitri Taylor; a trio of pieces about the situation faced by Rwandan refugees, including an important statement, which you can sign on to, against the planned invocation of the Cessation Clause; a review of issues faced by LGBTI people in Sudan, a little-known topic; case notes on rulings about Dadaab camp and UK-Cyprus return; discussion of a recent review of asylum in Poland; and a report from visits to Syrian refugees in camps in southern Turkey – as well as our usual announcements of opportunities, requests and relevant new resources.

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Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC) in session.

In a review of ‘Haki Zetu: Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in Practice’, Hakim Mbanzamihigo writes that the ‘handbook could be a useful tool for the promotion of ESCR at the most local level’.

Your prodigious, insightful work on the nature of world capitalism, its origins and evolution, and on the long but necessary transition to socialism has educated, enlightened and inspired us over the last half a century. Truly you are one of the most original thinkers of the 20th and early 21st century. Your treatment of Eurocentricity and on the epistemological and philosophical consequences of the worldwide expansion of European capitalism has given us a frame of reference within which the cultural diversity of humanity is validated as an intrinsic part of authentic socialism.

The global aid industry has made a core group fabulously wealthy, writes Rasna Warah.

Gaddafi’s fall points to more Western interventions to come in Africa, writes Mahmood Mamdani.

With South Sudan continuing to face a number of acute historical challenges, the Pan-Africanist movement must move to develop campaigning and lobbying on the side of the ‘marginalised majority’ in South Sudan and Sudan alike, writes Explo Nani-Kofi.

In the second and final part of an article on LGBT rights in Sudan, Ghareeb writes that South Sudan has a long way to go before it becomes a society tolerant of homosexuality. Part one of the article is available here:

With serious concerns around the city’s pro-pollution policy and activity, will Durban – the host of the upcoming COP17 summit – clean itself up, asks Patrick Bond.

I think it is absolutely disgusting how black cities in Libya like Tawergha are being emptied out by the rebels and US airstrikes. One thing that I have noticed is that in all the videos I have seen where the rebels are 'liberating' a city, there seems to already be no one there! How are we protecting the civilians if most people have fled in fear? The Wall Street Journal even reported a rebel commander saying that the people in Tawergha should just pack up their things and go because it won't exist anymore after the rebels arrive.

In spite of the declaration of a unilateral ceasefire in South Kordofan by President Bashir on 23rd August there has been a continuation of aerial bombardment of civilian targets by Government forces and attacks by Government soldiers and their allied militias. At the same time SPLA forces continued to attack Government garrisons.

Malawi’s president has been running the country’s 22 ministries on his own after firing his entire cabinet. But political and economic analysts say that his delay in appointing a new cabinet is detrimental to the country’s development. Some analysts say government has come to a standstill because of this, while others say the situation shows that the president has lost control.

A Sudanese reporter was freed after President Omar al-Bashir ordered the release of all detained journalists, a government official said. But a press freedom activist and local journalists say a number of media professionals and technical staff are still being held.

Two men who are currently being tried for alleged homosexuality in Yaounde were recently denied bail. Police said the men - aged 19 and 20 - were caught having oral sex in a car after visiting a nightclub in the capital, Yaounde. Their bail application was refused and they are to remain in custody at the Kondengui maximum security prison in Yaounde until the case is over.

Low price cellular telephones are helping advance mHealth opportunities across Africa, prompting developers to examine possible applications to address public health challenges. One application being developed for the Kenyan market provides symptom checkers, medical alerts and a searchable database of medical facility locations.

Kenya has finally joined a growing number of countries in the world which have allowed the importation, growing and commercialisation of genetically modified organisms. The National Biosafety Authority (NBA) gazetted the final regulations that allow for the commercialisation of genetically modified organism in Kenya. This means that on application to the agency, one can import such products for commercial use, and soon, modified seeds and planting materials will be available to Kenyan farmers.

At least 24 people were arrested for trying to stage a rally calling for more democracy and the resignation of Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos. The rally, organized in Luanda by a youth movement, gathered about 200 at Independence Square, in Luanda when the police stepped in and made the arrests. Protesters, journalists and several police officers were injured.

Nigeria's anti-graft agency, set up in 2002, was supposed to crack down on corruption in Africa's most populous nation but it has failed to deliver, Human Rights Watch said.

Research on futurechallenges.org, including an African climate vulnerability map via finds that floods, droughts, desertification, coastal storms and famine are just a few of the impacts of climate change in Africa. Climate change is endangering the lives and livelihoods of millions of Africans and also hindering the continent’s economic growth and social progress.

The objective of the Africa Business Women Connect Summit is to enhance economic performance on the continent in the three largest export sectors for women: craft/textiles, agribusiness and services. ABW intends to unite successful African businesswomen from 53 countries in Africa. The initiative will be launched at a summit in Ethiopia in 2013, reaching 530 African Business Women, followed by in-country activities reaching an additional 5300 women supported by a Wisdom Exchange TV.

While Libya's neighbours rush to recognise rebels who ousted Muammar Gaddafi, regional powerhouse South Africa is blocking the release of Tripoli's frozen millions to them. The policy reflects Pretoria's strong ties to Libya's former strongman that date back to the anti-Apartheid struggle, and frustration that Western intervention, not African mediation under the African Union, has again proven decisive on the continent.

HIV affects older people in two main ways. Large numbers of older people are themselves living with HIV. Many are also taking on vital caring responsibilities for loved ones living with HIV and the children orphaned by AIDS. This briefing is aimed at the European Union (EU) and member states. It sets out the need to strengthen the response to HIV in Africa by providing interventions on the basis of genuine need rather than age.

The discussion paper on the 'emotive' land reform issue is now out, and the Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform, Gugile Nkwinti, is set to table it in Parliament. Releasing it to the media, he said that the draft Land Protection Bill would be out in the next three months. The minister said consultations around land reform were scheduled for completion in the next two months.

There is continuing debate about the impact of microfinance on poverty reduction. In this analysis for Africa Renewal, David Mehdi Haman and Oliver Schwank argue that while microfinance cannot transform African economies, the scheme is necessary to help advance the continent’s development goals.

Led by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) the U.S. is stepping up its war in Somalia, The Nation magazine reports. 'The CIA presence in (the capital) Mogadishu is part of Washington’s intensifying counter-terrorism focus on Somalia, which includes targeted strikes by US Special Operations forces, drone attacks and expanded surveillance operations,' writes Jeremy Scahill, the magazine’s national security correspondent.

If more small farmers in Africa's drought-prone regions grew improved varieties of dryland crops, their communities would be better prepared for prolonged dry spells and scarce rain, reports The Guardian.

Friday August 26, 2011 saw the Coalition of African Lesbians, CAL, launch its LGBT Human Rights Defenders, HRD project in Lagos, Nigeria. Participants in the HRD workshop, which was held in collaboration with The Initiative for Equal Rights, TIER, a Nigerian-based LGBT human rights organization, attended the launch alongside some members of the Lagos LGBT community.

The Frontier Strategy Group finds that the adoption of new forms of communication in Africa over the past decade – both mobile telephone and internet – has been nothing short of revolutionary. The continent is estimated to have produced over 316 million new mobile phone users since 2000, passing 500 million total subscriptions late in 2010, and its total internet user population is now estimated at almost 120 million. Previously, communicating over long distances was fraught with difficulty and expense; that outlook has been transformed. The significance of these trends for African economic development, transparency and democratization is profound; the opportunity for technology companies and indeed for businesses across many other sectors capable of leveraging such channels for advertising and delivery is no less significant.

South Africa's official opposition party the Democratic Alliance (DA) has launched a website developed to track the opportunity cost of not implementing the youth wage subsidy policy announced by President Jacob Zuma in his February 2010 State of the Nation Address. Nobody disputes that South Africa has a crisis of youth unemployment. The rate of joblessness in the country is amongst the highest in the world, and 71% of the unemployed are under the age of 34.

Botswana is developing a policy to protect, preserve and promote its indigenous knowledge and mainstream it into the country's macro-economic framework. Development of the policy will involve identifying, documenting and gathering local traditional knowledge practices from areas including agriculture, health, culture and religious beliefs, and then feeding them into a legislative framework.

Though much of the attention on land grabs in Africa has focused on Asian and Middle Eastern buyers, the Oakland Institute has been revealing that U.S.-based institutions are active as well. This is particularly true of South Sudan, where 'US investors are intimately involved' in land dealing.

In an opinion piece in the FT, William Wallis asserts that Africans are relishing something of a reversal in roles. The former colonial powers in Europe are wrestling with debt crises, austerity budgets, rising unemployment and social turmoil. By contrast much of sub-Saharan Africa can point to robust growth, better balanced books and rising capital inflows. There is an opportunity in this novel scenario: for Africa to assert itself on the global stage, and for European countries to take advantage of their historic footprint in Africa by stimulating commercial expansion to their south. But it is far from clear either side will grasp it.

The Karonga Natural Resources Justice Committee (KANRJC) has petitioned the government of Malawi for access to information that would allow them to monitor effectively mining activities to ensure compliance of labour standards and respect of people's rights.

According to a new report released by the Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) at the World Bank, African countries that transition to taking a leadership role in safe water and sanitation service delivery to the millions of people without access have an unprecedented opportunity to drastically reduce these numbers by 2015.

A high-level ECOWAS delegation led by the President of the Commission, Ambassador James Victor Gbeho, arrived in Abidjan on Monday, 22nd August 2011 for talks with officials of the Government of Cote d’Ivoire on how the regional organisation can support the country’s post-conflict reconstruction.

New media platforms are changing how people communicate with each other around the world. However, there is great variation in both the kind of communication platforms people make use of as well as in how they access these platforms. Computer ownership and internet access are still the prerogative of the wealthy few in wide swathes of the African continent. All the same, mobile internet access is on the rise and if current growth rates continue, African mobile phone penetration will reach 100 per cent by 2014.

After 30 years and over 20 million deaths in Africa alone, US researchers report that early treatment of people infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that leads to AIDS cuts transmission of the disease by over 96 per cent. Announced by the US National Institutes of Health on 12 May after a six-year, nine-country clinical trial that cost $73 million, the discovery that anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) can make people living with HIV far less infectious means that humanity finally has the tools to reverse the epidemic.

Africa will conquer hunger when its governments give the citizens tools and resources they need to feed themselves, Kanayo F. Nwanze, president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), said on the eve of an international conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to address the famine crisis in the Horn of Africa. In a statement sent to PANA, Nwanze urged African countries not to wait for the international community to solve problems facing the continent.

Kenya is losing its grip in the battle for foreign direct investments (FDI) to Uganda and Tanzania as heightened political tensions and restrictions on foreign ownership in some sectors turn away multinationals. The FDI inflows to Kenya dipped from Sh67.8 billion in 2007 to Sh13.1 billion in 2009 and Sh12.4 billion last year, according to the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Last year, Uganda’s FDI inflows jumped to Sh78.8 billion from Sh75.9 million while Tanzania’s increased from Sh60 billion to Sh65.1 billion—making the twin countries the key beneficiaries of the region’s common market.

Local authorities in South Africa are unable to consider the full effect of population migration trends in their budgeting and planning, leading to inadequate service provision, poor social cohesion and economic marginalisation, the South African Local Government Association (Salga) warned.

Applications are invited for the post of Programme Manager to join the Partnership for Child Development (PCD). PCD is an organisation committed to improving the education, health and nutrition of school-age children and youth in low-income countries. The Partnership for Child Development has launched a new programme that will support government action to deliver cost effective school feeding programmes in sub-Saharan Africa. The Home Grown School Feeding (HGSF) programme supports government action to deliver sustainable, nationally owned school feeding programmes sourced from local farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. The programme provides direct, evidence-based and context-specific support and expertise for the design and management of school feeding programmes linked to local agricultural production.

A solar cooker manufactured by Consumer’s Choice that uses bio-ethanol gel and cuts down on harmful indoor emissions has sold over 2,000 units and is looking to upscale its production by creating partnerships with UN agencies and other non-governmental organisations. Consumer’s Choice is currently partnering with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, UNHCR in a pilot project at the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya. Under the programme, 70 families have been supplied with the stove and a daily one litre ration of bio-ethanol gel.

The expansion of schools in the rural areas has shown significant growth, according to the Ministry of Education. Reports indicated that the number of schools ranging from elementary to secondary level rose from about 750 in 1996/7 to 1,681 in 2010/2011, of which 1,176 are in the rural areas.

Containing video documentation, this report reveals that a joint undercover investigation by BBC Newsnight and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has uncovered evidence that the Ethiopian government is using development aid as a tool for political oppression. Posing as tourists, the team of journalists travelled to the southern region of Ethiopia.