Speaker in the House of Assembly Prince Guduza says Swaziland and Lesotho signed the interim Economic Partnership Agreement with the European Union under duress. He said both countries signed the agreement because they had certain export quotas to the EU. He noted that the EPA sowed a seed of confusion in the Southern Africa Development Community.

Seventy six countries around the world criminalize homosexuality, maintaining severe punishments for consensual sexual activity between adults of the same sex, says this abstract from the Journal for International Law. While political asylum may offer hope of refuge and protection, the asylum process has many problems, especially for those individuals applying for refugee status on the basis of sexual orientation.

Developing countries must be given all the scientific, technical and legal help they need to counter the growing trade in fake medicines, says One estimate suggests that in some regions at least a third of the drugs supplied to patients are counterfeit. Detecting and identifying counterfeit drugs has become a major scientific and technical challenge for developing countries, and its urgency is becoming ever more widely recognised.

The rapid increase in attempts by foreign investors to acquire large tracts of land in Africa for
biofuel developments has generated substantial concern about their potential negative impact on
the communities living in the targeted areas. This paper from the Land Deal Politics Initiative in collaboration with The Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) examines three case studies of proposed biofuel developments in Mozambique and Sierra Leone.