The Aids and Rights Alliance of Southern Africa (Arasa) has organised a meeting for rights organisations to discuss human rights issues with a focus on LGBTI issues. It brings together human rights defenders from Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Mozambique, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania and South Africa.

This short report examines the practice in daaras (Koranic schools) of sending boys as young as five years old out to beg for several hours a day. Often living far from home and in squalid conditions, talibés are frequently subjected to abuse if they fail to meet their begging quotas. The report updates the information used in Begging for Change (Anti-Slavery International, 2009) and recommends action to bring an end to this situation in Senegal.

Eritrea has been cleared of allegations that it was arming Al Shabaab militants in Somalia late last year.
A preliminary report by the Somalia and Eritrea Monitoring Group (SEMG) to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) concludes that the allegations were untrue.

Osmond Ugwu and Raphael Elobuike are Nigerian labour activists and human rights defenders currently spending their second month in Enugu Federal Prison in South East Nigeria. They are being detained on charges of attempted murder of a policeman following their arrest at a workers rally on 24 October 2011 at Enugu.

The goal of this campaign is to reach 20,000 signatures and we need more support. You can read more and sign the petition .

If the ICC process is to contribute to the deterrence of future political violence in Kenya, the court and its friends must explain its work and limitations better to the public, says a new report from the International Crisis Group. Furthermore, Kenya’s government must complement that ICC process with a national process aimed at countering impunity and punishing ethnic hate speech and violence.

Last year, a fly over of Hwange National Park (HNP) revealed increased mining activity in and around the Sinamatella area, reports 'In addition to the mining carried out by Hwange Colliery Company Limited there are now at least 3 other coal mining developments, two adjoining HNP and one actually within the Park...This mining activity is of grave concern. The associated building of roads and increased human activity is bound to lead to an increase in poaching as the area is opened up, access becomes easier, and there are more people in the area to carry out the poaching and to buy the poached meat.'

An award for young women scientists in developing nations is helping to motivate female researchers and assist them in overcoming cultural barriers. The 2011 OWSD (Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World) Award for Young Women Scientists from the Developing World recognised biologists, physicists, chemists and mathematicians from Argentina, Bangladesh, Cuba, Egypt, India, Jordan, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Africa; mathematicians and physicists from India and Mexico; and chemists from Egypt and Nigeria.

Around 47 people have been killed in tribal violence in South Sudan, the latest in a cycle of attacks that have displaced some 60,000 people in the new African nation, officials said. A youth armed group from the Murle tribe attacked Duk Padyet in Jonglei state late on Monday, mostly killing young children, women and old people from the Lou Nuer tribe, said Philip Thon Leek Deng, a local leader and member of parliament.

This edition of African Agenda published by Third World Network-Africa in collaboration with Pambazuka News examines the Durban climate change conference in November.

What did the removal of the fuel subsidy mean for the LGBT community in Nigeria amongst other Nigerian citizens? The strike and protests had one positive effect for the LGBT community in that they brought mainstream civil society activists closer to LGBT activists, something that would have been unthinkable a couple of months ago when the anti-gay bill was brought to the Nigerian parliament and no voices from the wider civil society spoke out against it. Some local LGBT activists told Behind the Mask that they regard the current situation as an opportunity to buy time and make allies in their advocacy against the anti-gay bill.

Parliament has directed the Electricity Regulatory Authority (ERA) to halt a 47 per cent power price increase which was announced last week. Legislators on the parliamentary ad hoc committee on energy slapped a moratorium on the implementation of the new power tariffs after officials of ERA failed to produce minutes of the special board meeting, which sanctioned the new tariff regime.

The trial of Egypt’s ousted dictator Hosni Mubarak got underway again on 18 January, a day after his defense team said there was 'no evidence' linking Mubarak to orders to shoot protesters during the 18 days of protests that led to his downfall. Farid al-Deeb, the lead lawyer for the 83-year-old former leader, praised Mubarak, and said the court could not convict the man activists and families of those killed in January and February last year say is responsible for their deaths.

In this week's edition of the Emerging Powers News Round-Up, read a comprehensive list of news stories and opinion pieces related to China, India and other emerging powers...

It would be hard to find a better symbol of media repression in Africa than Eskinder Nega. The veteran Ethiopian journalist and dissident blogger has been detained at least seven times by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's government over the past two decades, and was put back in jail on 14 September 2011, after he published a column calling for the government to respect freedom of speech and freedom of assembly and to end torture in prisons. Eskinder now faces terrorism charges, and if convicted could face the death sentence. He's not alone: Ethiopia currently has seven journalists behind bars. More journalists have fled Ethiopia over the past decade than any other country in the world, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

WACSI on behalf of African Security and Governance Project Members, supported by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and the Open Society Institute (OSI), is conducting a survey to collate views on the need and practicality of a Pan-African Capacity Building Network of CSOs, Networks and Research Institutions working in security sector in Sub-Saharan Africa. The information from the survey will be used to decide whether there is a need and relevance for the creation of a Pan-African Capacity Building Network of CSOs working in the security sector. Kindly see the link to the survey in English and French. Complete all columns of the questionnaire to support the initiative.

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There is now substantial evidence of the role of financial liberalisation in triggering financial crises, and on how these crises particularly affect the poor. Latin America is a clear example of a region that in the 1980s and 1990s, under the conditionality and advice of the World Bank and the IMF, embraced financial liberalisation, suffered several financial crises and is now increasingly relying on different forms of regulation of inflows and outflows. Argentina, Brazil and Costa Rica are among the countries that have recently implemented capital account regulations. This report reviews the evidence available on the impact of the measures implemented in these countries.

Senegal's Appeals Court has on a technicality rejected a request by Belgium to extradite former Chadian ex-President Hissene Habré. Handing down its ruling following days of interrogation of the request, the court Wednesday said that there were 'technicalities in the format', further arguing that there was no annex of the original application for arrest and detention by Belgium. Belgium has sought to extradite Mr Habré after it charged him with crimes against humanity and torture during his term in power.

Two of the seven men arrested last Thursday, following skirmishes between police and vendors in central Harare the day before, were allegedly tortured to confess their roles in attacking a police officer. Barnabas Mwanaka and Kudakwashe Usavi were among the first group of three to be picked up by the police in a morning raid at Harvest House on Thursday. The MDC-T said Mwanaka is their Youth Assembly secretary for Mbare district.

The Commercial, Stevedoring, Agricultural and Allied Workers Union (CSAAWU), the Mawubuye Land Rights Forum, the Trust for Community Outreach and Education, and the Democratic Left Front (DLF) launched the Speak-Out Campaign on the 27th of November 2011 at a mass meeting in Robertson (some 2 hours from Cape Town). Farm workers and farm dwellers spoke of the inhumane living and working conditions that they face each and every day. They do backbreaking work to produce food for everybody yet they are forced to work under unsafe and unhealthy conditions, to drink dirty water, live without electricity, live with threats of evictions, to live on poverty wages and to suffer abuse at the hands of the bosses. The Speak-Out Campaign aims to bring an end to the oppression and exploitation of farm workers and farm dwellers by coming together to build solidarity, strength and hope amongst the rural working class.

Africa saw good economic results in 2011 with average growth of between 5.5 per cent and 6 per cent, African Union (AU) commission chairperson Jean Ping said on a visit to Libya. 'Africa progressed on average between five and a half and 6 per cent. We are nearly at 6 per cent, and seven countries are between seven and 11 per cent,' he said on his first trip to Tripoli since Muammar Gaddafi's fall.