Recent condemnation of homosexuality by religious and political leaders in Ghana has led to a climate of fear preventing men who have sex with men (MSM) from accessing vital health services, say local NGOs. The minister of Ghana’s Western Region, Paul Evans Aidoo, publicly described homosexuality as 'detestable and abominable'. As a result, far fewer MSM are accessing safe sex education and support programmes run by the Centre for Popular Education and Human Rights (CEPEHRG) to prevent the spread of HIV, said MacDarling Cobbinah from the Coalition against Homophobia in Ghana and a member of CEPEHRG.

The International Freedom of Expression Exchange Tunisia Monitoring Group (IFEX-TMG), a coalition of 21 IFEX members, is urging action to prevent any repeat of recent violent crackdowns on demonstrators and journalists in the run up to scheduled constitutional elections in October. The IFEX-TMG's concerns deepened after a statement by Interim Prime Minister Béji Caïd Essebsi in which he accused journalists of stirring up trouble.

While members of Freedom and Roam Uganda (FARUG) are shaken by a break in and robbery at their offices, FARUG director Kasha Jacqueline says a 'Hate No More Campaign' will go forward as planned. The campaign launches on 10 August before the possible reintroduction of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda’s Parliament by far-right extremists.

Morocco's King Mohammed is pushing for early polls to hasten reforms he has initiated but this alone is unlikely to satisfy critics without serious steps to curb corruption and to give the next assembly teeth. The monarch acted promptly in March to contain any spillover from the Arab Spring after protests spread to Morocco, promising constitutional changes to reduce the king's powers. The new palace-made charter won near-unanimous support in a July referendum that critics said was itself far too hasty to allow proper debate.

The opportunities for international oil companies (IOCs) to acquire new reserves are narrowing considerably, states this report from Oil Change International and Greenpeace. The companies have met this challenge with the development of technology and engineering that has enabled oil production in technically difficult locations and conditions. But the development of these resources, especially the offshore Arctic, Canadian tar sands and other unconventional oil such as oil shale, is significantly dependent on failure to adopt and implement effective policy to prevent climate change rising above the critical 2ºC mark, a stated aim of most of the world’s governments, says the report.

Hundreds of thousands of people have fled Libya since the crisis began in February 2011, but European policy has shown a lack of hospitality. Following a meeting in Cecina (Italy), a coalition of Euro-Mediterranean migrants’ rights organisations, decided to charter a flotilla which will undertake maritime surveillance so that assistance is finally provided to people in danger. The participatory organisations call on European bodies and governments on both sides of the Mediterranean to establish relations within this common area on the basis of exchange and reciprocity.

Côte d’Ivoire remains fragile and unstable, says this report from the International Crisis Group. 'The atrocities after the second round of the presidential elections on 28 November 2010 and Laurent Gbagbo’s attempt to retain power by all means despite losing exacerbated already acute tensions. The next months are crucial. The new government must not underestimate the threats that will long jeopardise peace and must avoid the narcotic of power that has caused so many disastrous decisions over recent decades.'

A report by US-Africa Command (AFRICOM) says despite the Botswana government's significant achievements since 1966, Botswana's prosperity and political stability are more fragile than is frequently recognised. Dated June 2011, the report says three current realities form the core of this fragility: a population that is highly-dependent on social welfare programmes provided by the state; a state that is heavily reliant on a single commodity (diamonds) that is highly sensitive to fluctuations in the global economy; and a narrow economic base that leaves the country deeply tied to that of neighbouring South Africa.

While millions in East Africa are caught in the cobweb of a devastating drought that has spread its tentacles across Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia, the government in Addis Ababa is snatching some of Ethiopia's most productive farmland from local tribes and leasing it to foreign companies to grow and export food. A Survival International investigation has uncovered shocking evidence that vast blocks of fertile land in the Omo River area in south west Ethiopia are being leased out to Malaysian, Italian and Korean companies. Vast stretches of land are also being cleared for huge state-run plantations producing export crops, even though 90,000 tribal people in the area depend on the land to survive.

The blog Rantings of a Sand Monkey reflects on what it means to be an activist in Tahrir Square. '...what intrigued me and got me moving around, doing things and staying there,' he writes, 'was the fascinating social experiment that the sit-in was creating. In essence, Tahrir was very quickly becoming a miniature-size Egypt, with all of its problems, but without a centralized government. And the parallels are uncanny.'

The aim of this blog is to challenge readers and contributors to re-think the political common sense that denies migrants and immigrants access to health care and impedes their capacity to enjoy the social determinants of good health.

The Society for International Development (SID)'s triennial World Congress, which concluded Sunday in Washington, drew over 1,000 attendees this year, 40 per cent hailing from the global south, making it arguably one of the most influential and far-reaching forums for development experts and organisations in the world today. 'The emergence of new paths to development has [grown] along with the rise of middle-and low-income countries,' Rebeca Grynspan, associate administrator of the UN Development Programme, said at the opening plenary. 'But we have seen that we can also have growth without inclusion. In Latin America, for example, one in every four young people is not studying or working - 25 per cent out of the education system and out of the labour market. If that's not exclusion, then I don't know what is,' she said.

Despite the stigma attached to divorce, ending a marriage is still relatively easy for Muslim women in Egypt. All they have to do is file paperwork with a family court and the deed is done, as long as they're not seeking alimony or damages from their husbands. For the country's millions of Orthodox Christians, or Copts, it's been nearly impossible since Pope Shenouda III, the head of one of the most conservative churches in Christianity, forbade divorce except in the case of conversion or adultery three years ago. That overturned a 1930s law that allowed Copts to obtain a divorce or an annulment for several reasons, such as impotence, mental disabilities and cruelty.

Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ) says that it is outraged by the way that the country's media has targeted homosexuality in its reporting on the case of a police officer accused of sodomising his brother’s ten-year-old son. 'There has been a trend in the media to equate sodomy with rape,' said the organisation. 'This is alarming because it promotes the dangerous myth that homosexual men are automatically rapists and abusers of children.'

Blogger Natasha Elkington writes about a controversial online game involving refugees that was taken offline a few months ago, but has recently been relaunched. The game, which was taken offline after its launch amid claims it objectified refugees and lacked sensitivity, was developed by the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) with funding from ECHO, the European Commission’s humanitarian agency, and designed to raise awareness of Dadaab refugee camp on the Kenyan-Somali border. It is now back online but with some noticeable changes.

Education values and needs are often superseded by governments’ need to adhere to policies promoted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, states this report from the Global Campaign for Education. 'Despite strong gender research, multiple gender strategies and operational policies, and much rhetoric about gender equality, the World Bank is often failing to translate their statements, strategies and policies into tangible reform in their investments. Education operations must be made
gender-sensitive and especially seek to promote fee abolition, gender-responsive budgeting and demand-side incentives to target marginalized groups.'

The British medical journal, The Lancet, has published a study that shows the Aids virus has mutated into strains resistant to ARTs used around Africa. The study published on 28 July, was funded by the Dutch Foreign Ministry, and aimed to assess the prevalence of primary resistance in six African countries after anti-retroviral treatments (ARTs) were introduced and whether wider use of ARTs in the region is associated with rising prevalence of drug resistance in areas south of the Sahara, as has been widely suspected in some circles.

A wave of mysterious poisonings has hit hundreds over the last two days in Angolan schools, but police have yet to identify the toxin that has sown panic in the country, officials said on Friday. About 300 students from both public and private schools have been hit by symptoms that include vomiting, headaches, sore throats and sometimes suffocation, said Renato Paulata, director of a public hospital in Luanda.

Zambia's President Rupiah Banda launched his re-election campaign on 1 August with scathing attacks on his main challenger Michael Sata, describing him as a 'crook' that 'behaves like a punch-drunk boxer'. The president also pledged to sustain the country's economic growth if given another chance to lead the southern Africa country.

Mandera town, on the border between Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia, is the hub for aid operations in the drought-affected Mandera district in Kenya. It could have been a possible logistics base for sending help by road to the famine-affected areas in south-central Somalia, but the security risk is high. About four months ago, Al-Shabab militia took over Bulo Hawo on the Somali side, and continue to mount sporadic attacks in the area even though it has been retaken by the authorities.