Amnesty International has said it backs the International Criminal Court's proposal to conduct the confirmation of charges hearings for the suspected post-poll violence sponsors (Ocampo Six) in Kenya. The rights organisation said the move, if successful, would bring justice closer to the victims who bore the brunt of the post election violence that left 1,133 people and 650,000 others uprooted from their homes.

Kenya goes to elections again in about a year’s time, but already concerns are being raised that there could be a repeat of 2007/2008 when a disputed presidential election left more than 1,000 dead and over 600,000 homeless. Some leaders have warned that political tension persists in Rift Valley, the region which bore the brunt of Kenya’s post election in 2008. Bishop Cornelius Korir cited the fact that some people have chosen not to spend the nights in their homes because of the tension. President Kibaki’s advisor on ethnic relations, Raphael Tuju, has blamed joblessness amongst the youth and the failure of the Kazi kwa Vijana programme as providing tribal lords with idle youth to recruit into their armies.

Tunisia's ousted President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, who fled to Saudi Arabia in January, is to go on trial in absentia on 20 June. Announcing the date, interim Prime Minister Beji Caid Essebsi said Saudi Arabia had not replied to requests to hand him over. Charges range from conspiring against the state to drug trafficking.

A new sex workers initiative in Botswana has included an LGBTI component in its programme. African Sex Workers Alliance (ASWA) is a Pan African movement and alliance for the rights of sex workers which was established in 2009 in Johannesburg South Africa, with a number of 105 sex workers from different countries in Africa. Sisonke Botswana, a sex work group currently housed by Botswana Network on Ethics Law and HIV/AIDS (BONELA), joined ASWA and dedicated a week to the mapping of sex workers rights in Botswana with the aim to forming a coalition which will advance the human health rights of most key population (sex workers, transgender, MSM and drug users).

A Ugandan woman who was branded with a hot iron in her home country as a punishment for her sexuality, is facing forced removal from the UK. Betty Tibikawa, 22, who is detained in Yarl's Wood immigration removal centre in Bedford, is awaiting removal directions after her asylum claim was refused. Human rights organisations have consistently documented abuses against gay men and lesbians in Uganda and say that it's one of the most dangerous countries in the world for gay people.

Southern African leaders on Sunday pressured Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe to make democratic reforms ahead of new elections, hoping to set a new timetable for polls. Leaders of the 15-nation Southern African Development Community had discussed Zimbabwe late on Saturday on the eve of a free trade summit. After failing to reach a decision, they resumed talks after Sunday's trade meeting.
The full summit is expected to sign off on a roadmap that will lay out a new timetable for the constitution and later elections.

Botswana’s government deployed heavy security in the capital Gaborone for the second day on Friday 10 June as despairing union leaders announced a suspension of a seven-week civil service strike that has driven the peaceful nation to the brink of full-scale violence. Armed police backed by the paramilitary Special Support Group (SSG) and a helicopter were out in force on Thursday 9 June to prevent the striking workers from engaging in acts of violence and destruction that have accompanied the strike.

Chinese analysts have dismissed a statement by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that warned Africa to be wary of 'new colonialism' as China expands its ties in the continent, saying that trade and economic cooperation between China and African countries are conducted on the basis of mutual benefit. Clinton said that 'we don’t want to see a new colonialism in Africa', when asked about China’s growing influence in the continent during a television interview in Lusaka, Zambia.

The UN food agency has warned of worsening food shortages due to drought in the Horn of Africa region, saying eight million people in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia need aid now. 'The current crisis is not an unusual or chance event, but rather a chronic feature of the region,' Rod Charters, regional emergency coordinator for the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), said in a statement. 'The region has now experienced two consecutive seasons of significantly below-average rainfall, resulting in failed crop production, depletion of grazing resources and significant livestock mortality,' FAO said.

Aerial bombardments, killings of civilians and house-to-house searches are escalating in the Northern Sudanese state of Southern Kordofan, aid workers and residents report. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimates that some 53,000 people have been displaced by fighting that broke out on 5 June near Kadugli, the state capital, between the Northern army, the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), and former members of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA).

Over 30 people have so far been arrested in an operation to crack down on illegal encroachment and settlement in the national forest reserves in Kibaale district that started on Monday, 13 June. The operation which started last week in Kangombe Central Forest Reserve was mounted by National Forestry Authority (NFA) with the help of police. However, Deo Ndabiyareza, one of the encroachers, claimed that some encroachers bought land in the reserves. 'They very well know it that some of us came into the forest and the old settlers sold land to us. We cannot accept to leave this land because we have already planted crops,' he said.

After a newspaper that Prudence* (16) used as sanitary wear fell from her while she played with friends at school, she left and never returned. The impoverished A-student could not handle the teasing or embarrassment. The prevalence of this problem has the Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT) considering approaching government. According to SNAT gender officer Bongiwe Khumalo, many teachers have identified this problem at their schools. Very few have been able to assist the young girls because of lack of resources. However, the organisation has no statistics available on how many girls are leaving school.

Dr Willy Mutunga, the man set to become Kenya’s next chief justice had to publicly declare he was not gay this week in front of a committee that was vetting him for office. Opponents of Dr Mutunga's nomination for the post who included leading members of the clergy had implied that because he wears a stud and has in the past been supportive of LGBTI causes, Dr Mutunga was gay or might support an LGBTI agenda and as such was unfit for office.

Although members of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) are reluctant to label the Doha development round of multilateral trade negotiations ‘dead’, Trade and Industry Minister Dr Rob Davies says that there is no hope of concluding the round in 2011, and it is time to pursue ‘plan B’. He explains that ‘plan B’ is to decide what part of the work programme of Doha could be delivered this year. 'The fundamental focus should be to deliver something for the least-developed countries (LDCs),' says Davies. This will likely include a duty-free quota-free access agreement - an aid-for-trade package opening markets to LDCs - which could facilitate the elimination of non-tariff barriers in LDCs, and a resolution of the ‘cotton dossier’, which would put a stop to subsidies for cotton farmers in the US.

A gay woman was stabbed four times by men who accused her of stealing their girlfriends in Crossroads in the Western Cape, the Times reported. Noxolo Nkosana (23) was getting out of a car, returning home after work when two men, both Crossroads residents, approached her.

Police in Bulawayo are still camped at a house used for meetings by Women and Men of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA), following a raid on the premises, the organisation has said. It’s understood the police are after WOZA leaders Jenni Williams and Magodonga Mahlangu, as well as the owner of the house, who is not a WOZA member and is understood to be out of the country. 'Since the beginning of the year, 38 WOZA members have been arbitrarily arrested and 24 detained and charged under the Criminal Law Codification and Reform Act. Threats were made that upon the eventual arrest of Williams and Mahlangu, they would be denied bail and imprisoned in the male prison,' a WOZA statement said.

Mobile phone users should not expect any further call price cuts for now. This is after Safaricom and Telkom Kenya got backing from the country’s top offices - that of the President and of the Prime Minister to suspend implementation of new termination rates. Safaricom and Telkom Kenya had warned that a further cut would have a negative effect on the sector’s profitability, risk of job losses, curtail new capital investments, reduce government revenue and competitiveness.

While the social and political movements gaining momentum in the Middle East and North Africa appear to be opening the door for democracy, initially progressive revolutions do not often result in sustained improvements for women’s rights, notes this article. 'While Arab women have been crucial in the revolutions that have shattered the status quo, their role in the future development of their own countries remains unclear. In Tunisia, for example, the fear is that women will be sucked into an ideological and religious tug-of-war over their rights, reducing the complexities of democratisation into a binary secular/non-secular battle.'

Local understanding of children’s immune systems may be delaying access to paediatric HIV treatment, according to a study at a rural clinic in northern Malawi, where just 15 per cent of children in need of antiretrovirals (ARVs) are receiving the drugs. Research presented at the 1st International HIV Social Science and Humanities Conference in Durban, South Africa, showed that caregivers were reluctant to start sick, HIV-positive children on ARVs because they believed the children’s bodies were too weak for pills and their blood was 'still raw', but that as it 'ripened' with time, HIV-related opportunistic infections would leave them.

The Governor of the Central Bank says President Museveni’s erratic policies and the government’s fiscal indiscipline have led to higher inflation and declining foreign reserves, a UK-based newspaper reported. Mr Emmanuel Tumusiime-Mutebile told the Financial Times newspaper that he had disagreed with Mr Museveni over the decision to spend $740 million on jet fighters, which has pushed reserves down from six to four months of import cover. The Ministry of Defence, under President Museveni’s directive, withdrew a reported $400 million (Shs960 billion) from the Central Bank to pay for the fighter jets without parliamentary approval.