A report released on Tuesday 27 March by the UN refugee agency shows that new conflicts and a rising outflow from older crisis spots such as Afghanistan together contributed to a 20 per cent rise in asylum claims in industrialized countries in 2011. UNHCR's report, 'Asylum Levels and Trends in Industrialized Countries 2011', says that an estimated 441,300 asylum claims were recorded last year compared to 368,000 in 2010. The report covers 44 countries in Europe, North America, Australasia and north-east Asia.

The UN has proposed that countries set limits on the size of agriculture land sales to regulate the growing trend of so-called farmland grabs. The new voluntary guidelines won the consensus of nearly 100 countries this month after three years of negotiations and are now set to be ratified in May at a special session in Rome of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation. The guidelines, which officials say are largely pro-business, nonetheless state that countries should 'provide safeguards' to protect tenure rights.

The births of tens of thousands of children during Côte d'Ivoire's eight-year rebellion were not formally recorded. While many families take a lax attitude towards registering new babies, the gaps in birth and other records are particularly serious in the central, northern and western parts of Côte d'Ivoire, where government functions were effectively suspended by the rebellion between 2002 and 2010. As children born during this period move up through the school system, they have run into problems.

The Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell has been hit by a swarm of 11,000 villagers seeking compensation for oil spills which they said have polluted their waters and devastated farmlands. The villagers from Bodo community, a network of 35 villages in Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta are set to square off against the oil company in a London Courtroom with Martyn Day of law firm Leigh Day & Co. saying the spills devastated a once-thriving fishing community.

Cholera infections are ten times higher than the number of cases reported to the World Health Organisation (WHO), according to new estimates of the global disease burden. Cholera is caused by eating food or drinking water contaminated with the Vibrio cholera bacterium. The disease causes watery diarrhoea and severe dehydration that can be fatal. In a study published in the Bulletin of the World Health Organisation this month (1 March), researchers from the International Vaccine Institute, in South Korea found a more accurate estimate of the global cholera burden is nearly three million cases a year, and around 93,000 deaths - the majority in children under the age of five.

The global population of farm animals increased 23 per cent between 1980 and 2010, from 3.5 billion to 4.3 billion, according to research by the Worldwatch Institute for its Vital Signs Online publication. These figures continue a trend of rising farm animal populations, with harmful effects on the environment, public health, and global development. Both production and consumption of animal products are increasingly concentrated in developing countries. In contrast, due in part to a growing awareness of the health consequences of high meat consumption, the appetite for animal products is stagnating or declining in many industrial countries.

Human rights activist John Kapito says there was drama at a hotel in Lilongwe on Saturday afternoon when over 25 police officers swooped on him as he made his way out. Kapito said within minutes, his car was surrounded by the officers, scrambling for it as they opened every door and boot in search of 'harmful' materials. Contrary to police's earlier charge of illegal possession of forex, Kapito said a new charge of alleged possession of materials carrying seditious works emerged.

The runner-up in Sunday's presidential election in Guinea-Bissau has said he will not participate in a run-off vote. Former president Kumba Yala has claimed the first round of voting was unfair. Provisional results from Sunday's poll gave ex-prime minister Carlos Gomez 49 per cent of the vote out of nine candidates. Kumba Yala came in second with 23 per cent.

Reporters Without Borders has condemned the occupation of the headquarters of the state radio and TV broadcaster ORTM by renegade soldiers since yesterday and the interruption of broadcasting by many other radio and TV stations as a result of an apparent military coup against President Amadou Toumani Touré. 'Whether this is a real coup or just a mutiny, we are appalled that soldiers have occupied the state broadcaster and taken control of its broadcasts,' Reporters Without Borders said. 'As it is often the case in such circumstances, control of news and information is primordial and the media are among the mutineers’ first targets.'

Health-e news reports on Musa Ernest Nkoko, a 52-year old ex-miner with multi-drug resistant (MDR) tuberculosis. He lives in KaShoba in the Lubombo region of Swaziland with his wife and five children aged between 9 and 27 years. Co-infected with HIV, Nkoko says he has been on treatment for MDR-TB for the last four years. The disease has diminished Nkoko’s lung capacity and rendered him too weak to do any work, and he and his family relies on his wife’s income as a part time cleaner.

Simmering tensions between the ANC and its ally Cosatu are expected to come into sharp focus at a high-level meeting. Said to be aimed at thrashing out differences over e-tolling and labour broking, the two issues over which Cosatu called a one-day strike and led well-attended protest marches earlier this month, the meeting is expected to encompass broader underlying issues that are fuelling discord in the alliance.

An international rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) says the Malawi government's recent arrests and threats against critics reflect its broader crackdown on free speech and other basic rights. Deputy Africa director at Human Rights Watch Leslie Lefkow said arresting government critics was the latest sign of increasing repression in Malawi. He asked President Bingu wa Mutharika to take urgent steps to end the harassment and arrests of people seen as opposing the government.

Britain’s Kaleidoscope Trust has submitted its recommendations for changes to the Commonwealth Charter and called for an agreed timetable to end the criminalisation of LGBT people. The call came in response to a request by the Royal Commonwealth Society for proposals to amend the new draft Charter of the Commonwealth. Eighteen countries in Africa are currently part of the Commonwealth of Nations (with Zimbabwe having departed in 2003).

Hundreds of protestors rallied in Rabat on 17 March to press for a review of the legal exemption allowing a rapist to marry his victim, following the suicide of a Tangier teenage girl. Amina al-Filali, 16, drank rat poison last week in Larache, after being forced to marry her rapist. Under Moroccan law, rape is punishable by several years in prison if the victim is a minor. Marriage to the victim, however, shields the perpetrator from prosecution.

The Collaborative Tri-continental Program was launched in 2005 by the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO), the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) and the Asian Political and International Studies Association (APISA) with the purpose of carrying out high quality social science research and enhancing the production of knowledge suitable for fostering southern perspectives on critical issues, and feeding these into global debates. The Program includes an annual South-South summer institute, research conferences, and grants for advanced research. The research grants are intended to promote collaboration among researchers from the South and to stimulate analytical empirical studies on topics of relevance for their regions and for the Global South.

While the future of Mali's hitherto free press is unclear, the Twitter narrative during last week;s coup demonstrated the ways in which traditional media are increasingly less relevant in any case. 'Marking papers, with one ear tuned to RFI. But def got more quality reporting from Twitter today about #Mali than from any other medium,' tweeted Philippe M. Frowd, a MacMaster University doctoral student living in Canada.

The prosecution case against three Mthwakazi Liberation Front (MFL) leaders who are facing treason charges is shaky, their lawyer has said. Defence lawyer Sabelo Sibanda said the prosecution team has failed to produce evidence to prove that MFL leaders Charles Thomas, John Gazi and Paul Siwela, distributed flyers calling for the separation of Matebeleland and other parts from the rest of Zimbabwe.

Eritrean President Isaias Afewerki accused the United States of plotting cross-border raids by Ethiopian troops, saying the two allies were out to divert attention from a festering border spat in the volatile Horn of Africa. Addis Ababa, Washington's main ally in the region, said it attacked military bases used by rebels inside Eritrea earlier this month.

It is the pleasure of the Masters programs at the American University of Paris to host an international and bilingual conference on contemporary critical and experimental engagement with Frantz Fanon’s work, co-organized by Lisa Damon, Sousan Hammad and François Huguet.
The conference will take place at AUP and at the Lavoir Moderne Parisien and is open to everyone.

The European Union has agreed to expand its mission against Somali pirates by allowing military forces to attack land targets as well as those at sea. In a two-year extension of its mission, EU defence ministers agreed warships could target boats and fuel dumps. Up to 10 EU naval ships are currently on patrol off the Horn of Africa.