A law in Ethiopia is crippling human rights work in the country, forcing organizations to cut programmes, close offices and lay off staff, according to an Amnesty International report published today. 'Stifling human rights work: the impact of Ethiopia’s civil society legislation' describes how the 2009 Charities and Societies Proclamation puts in place restrictions on organizations working on human rights and allows for excessive government interference. The result is that people in the country have less access to independent human rights assistance.

Freelance photographer Abdalla Bargash had accompanied Kenya's permanent secretary for transport, Cyrus Njiru, to cover a meeting with Lamu community members over the newly constructed Lamu port. The Kililana Farmers' Association are concerned that the major construction on the once-sleepy island of Lamu off Kenya's coast could encroach on their farmland. Covering the viewpoints of those who do not support the Lamu project, however, can be challenging. When Bargash tried to take photos of the meeting between the transport official and the Kililiana Farmer's Association, officials confiscated his memory card and notebook and Njiru refused to provide Bargash a lift home, forcing him to trek two hours by foot.

The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), the South-South Exchange Programme for Research on the History of Development (SEPHIS) and the Institut des études africaines (IEA) of Université Mohammed V-Souissi, Rabat (Morocco) are pleased to announce the launching of the Advanced Institute on Afro-Arab Relations. The inaugural session will be held on 12-23 March 2012 and will be directed by Professor Shamil Jeppie of the University of Capetown (South Africa).

Why does the UN Security Council call for naming and shaming and then observe the omission of Zimbabwe without so much as a word? asks Stephen Lewis on International Women’s Day 2012. Lewis took part in an interactive panel discussion with the UN Human Rights Council titled 'Capitalizing on Women’s Potential in Times of Crisis'.

The Asian Political and International Studies Association (APISA), the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO), and the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) are pleased to announce - in the framework of the second three-year phase of the Africa/Asia/Latin America Scholarly Collaborative Program - the call for applications for participation in the Fifth South-South Summer Institute on Rethinking Development: Global and Regional Alternatives for the Development in the South. The Institute will be held in Recife, Brazil, from 21 May to 1 June 2012.

Decades after peasants’ networks have advocated for a new legal instrument to protect the rights of small farmers to land, seeds, traditional agricultural knowledge and freedom to determine the prices of their production, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) may decide to start drafting a declaration on peasants’ rights next week. 'The idea of an international declaration on peasants' rights comes from our (base) because many small farmers don’t have access to land, work, water and seeds,' Henry Saragih, the general coordinator of Via Campesina, a movement representing more than 200 million small farmers around the world, told IPS.

Kenyans on the micro-blogging sites Twitter and Facebook on Sunday heavily criticised global television network CNN for depicting grenade blasts in Nairobi as an eruption of 'violence' in the country. The news channel was forced to pull down a video seen as misrepresenting events by depicting Saturday’s grenade attacks that killed six and injured 63 as being widespread.

The Committee to Protect Journalists has called on Liberian authorities to ensure the safety of journalists who have been repeatedly threatened for exposing the practice of female genital mutilation in the country. Mae Azango, a reporter for the daily FrontPage Africa and the news website New Narratives, told CPJ she had gone into hiding after receiving several threats for an article she published about Liberian tribes practicing female genital mutilation on as many as two out of every three girls in the country. 'They left messages and told people to tell me that they will catch me and cut me so that will make me shut up,' Azango said.

Platform has released a new briefing analysing Uganda’s draft 'Petroleum (Exploration, Development and Production) Bill'. The report – entitled 'The Ugandan Upstream oil law: A search in vain for accountability and democratic oversight', highlights the lack of parliamentary oversight, transparency, or consultation or involvement of affected communities in the proposed oil law. At the same time, the Bill does include clauses that restrict information flow and could potentially threaten or close down public debate.

On the 50th anniversary of Kenya’s independence, many minority and indigenous communities feel that despite some constitutional gains, increased ethnicization of politics has deepened their exclusion, making their situation worse today than it was in 2005, a new Minority Rights Group International (MRG) report shows. The report titled 'Kenya at 50', reviews the current status of minority and indigenous groups in Kenya, particularly how legal and policy changes over the last five years have responded to the social, economic and political challenges confronting them. ‘Despite the adoption of the new Constitution in 2010, very little has changed in the way the Kenyan state approaches the question of minorities,’ says Marusca Perazzi, MRG’s Governance Programme Coordinator.

London Mining Network has published a report calling on the government to include a review of regulatory regimes as part of the current discussion on the Financial Services Bill. Looking at eight case studies, the report, 'UK-Listed Mining Companies & the Case for Stricter Oversight', argues that many mining companies listed in London have very poor records of complicity in human rights abuse, environmental pollution or destruction of people’s cultures and livelihoods around the world.

Scores of people have been killed after the Somali armed Islamist group al-Shabab attacked Ethiopian troops in a town close to the border of both countries. There were differing accounts of which side bore the brunt of the fighting in Yurkud on Saturday, the worst involving Ethiopian troops since they returned in force to Somalia last year after withdrawing in early 2009. The fighting came the day after the African Union (AU) said Ethiopia planned to pull its troops out of the Horn of Africa nation by the end of April with soldiers from Djibouti, Uganda and Burundi taking their positions.

Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika has in an astonishing broadside at perceived opponents including the country’s media warned them to desist from insulting him or they would be 'properly dealt with by the law'. A press release signed by State House press officer Albert Mungomo said that Malawi law provides for the 'total respect and protection' of the country's leader and that the authorities would no longer stand by and watch as the President of the Republic of Malawi was ridiculed.

Gold miners in Southern Africa are probably the group worst affected by tuberculosis (TB) in the world. This is according to Dr David Mametja of South Africa’s National TB Programme. In a recent interview, Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi compared the country’s TB burden to a snake, and said that TB among mineworkers the fangs of the snake. Speaking at a briefing earlier this week, Mametja also emphasised government’s concern about the high prevalence of the disease among miners, and said that it is holding an entire region back in the fight against TB.

The world’s nuclear weapons industry is being funded - and kept alive - by more than 300 banks, pension funds, insurance companies and asset managers in 30 countries, according to a new study. And these institutions have substantial investments in nuclear arms producers. Released by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), the 180-page study says that nuclear-armed nations spend over 100 billion dollars each year assembling new warheads, modernising old ones, and building ballistic missiles, bombers and submarines to launch them.

Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity can and has been used to deny fundamental rights that are guaranteed to all individuals under international law.

The marginalization of indigenous communities during concession negotiations and project implementation has resulted in high tensions around a number of foreign direct investment projects in Liberia, says this report from Columbia University's Centre for Conflict Resolution that looks at the social impact of FDI. 'This tension has occasionally led to violence and other forms of social unrest, which could feasibly lead to conditions that might threaten peace in the country.'

Brushing aside high-level UN appeals for cooperation to halt murder and violence against gays and lesbians around the globe, Muslim and Arab countries recently stalked out of a Human Rights Council panel to tackle the issue. The 57-nation Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Pakistan described homosexuality as 'licentious behaviour' while African group leader Senegal said it was not covered by global human rights accords.

The Brazilian government is stepping up South-South aid, to strengthen the South American giant’s status as a donor country and its international clout. It now provides assistance to 65 countries, and its financial aid has grown threefold in the last seven years. A project to extend financing for food purchases to five countries in Africa has helped confirm that Brazil, traditionally a recipient of aid, has taken its place among the group of foreign donor countries.

Gambia has appealed for food aid after it said that 70 percent of its crops failed during the last growing season, extending the reach of a food crisis already hitting millions of people across Africa's Sahel strip. Gambia's agriculture ministry said the impact of poor rains last year had been exacerbated by high world food prices, crippling household incomes in the West African state, which has ridden out previous food crises.