North and south Sudan have agreed to set up a demilitarised zone along their shared border, as the south moves closer to independence. The announcement, made by the African Union (AU) on Tuesday, comes 10 days after the north seized the disputed Abyei region, prompting tens of thousands of people to flee. Alex de Waal, an AU adviser who has facilitated negotiations on security issues between Sudan's north and south regions, said the parties agreed to the move on Monday during talks in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa.

Chevron's Annual General Meeting of shareholders kicked off at the San Ramon headquarters of the California-based oil giant in late May. Chevron's CEO John Watson, its Board of Directors and shareholders were greeted by over 150 activists, who had traveled to San Ramon from regions the world over, from Angola to Indonesia, from Alaska to Ecuador, to share the stories of the human and environmental degradation Chevron had unleashed in their communities.

Plans are underway to establish asylum reception centres on the country's borders. Home affairs director-general Mkuseli Apleni said this would also ensure that fewer foreigners entered the country. The department was recently ordered to relocate a reception centre in Crown Mines, Johannesburg, after the business community went to court claiming the large presence of refugees rendered conditions intolerable for business.

In a rare climbdown, the Angolan government has withdrawn controversial legislation severely restricting how people use the internet. It was scrapped when the government removed it from parliament moments before it was due to be voted into law. Under the proposal, which had already passed a first round of voting, it would have been illegal to share information electronically that could 'destroy, alter or subvert state institutions' or 'damage national integrity or independence'.

Since 2002, the Government of Tanzania has been implementing the Primary Education Development Programme (PEDP) with two specific aims: making education more accessible and improving its quality. While significant success has been made in extending access, improving quality remains a challenge, says a May 2011 brief from Uwazi monitoring. 'This brief is the second in a series about the quality of public schools in Dar es Salaam. The results show that many public schools in Dar es Salaam lack proper playgrounds and face debilitating sanitary conditions.'

The army and Ekurhuleni metro cops helped the police in 'unlawful raids' on shops owned by Somali nationals in Ramaphosa, east of Joburg.Details of the SANDF’s alleged actions are contained in an affidavit filed by the Somali Community Board’s (Scob) national secretary Amir Sheikh at the South Gauteng High Court. Scob, the representative organisation for Somali nationals in South Africa, successfully applied for an order to stop Greater Gauteng Business Forum (GGBF) members from 'intimidating, harassing, hindering and interfering with businesses owned by people of foreign extract'.

Violence in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, has driven the number of child casualties to a new high, the United Nations World Health Organisation (WHO) said, noting that the main cause of children’s deaths were burns, chest injuries and internal haemorrhage resulting from blasts, shrapnel and bullets. Of the 1,590 reported weapon-related injuries in May alone, 735 cases or 46 per cent were suffered by children under the age of five, compared to only 3.5 per cent in April.

More investment is needed to find a cure for HIV, the new head of the International Aids Society has said. Bertrand Audoin admits this might take as long as 25 years, but he says a cure is the only way to keep ahead of the HIV epidemic in the long term during tough financial times. Sunday sees the 30th anniversary of the first medical reports of a new illness.

This Human Rights Watch report calls on the government to bring to justice those responsible for massacres in 2007 and 2009. It says that the government should strengthen the judiciary and provide it with adequate resources, rein in and reform the security sector, and ensure that Guinea’s population can benefit from the country’s abundant natural resources. Human Rights Watch also recommended establishing a truth commission to uncover the causes of Guinea’s violent past and an anti-corruption commission to end the misuse of its wealth.

On 11 May 2011, the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development (DOJ&CD) gazetted regulations for the payment of educational assistance and health benefits exclusively to victims identified by the TRC. The regulations were gazetted after only a very superficial consultation process with victims and other stakeholders and do not address the key concerns expressed by these stakeholders, says this press release from the South African Coalition for Transitional Justice (SACTJ). 'The organisations comprising the SACTJ reject these regulations which fail to provide the full gambit of reparations needed by individuals who remained severely harmed as a result of apartheid atrocities. In rejecting the proposals, the SACTJ points to the actions of the post-apartheid state over many years in prioritising the needs of perpetrators over the needs of apartheid human rights violations victims and survivors. Measures to achieve political reconciliation in South Africa have not been balanced by redress measures for these severely harmed individuals. This represents the betrayal of a compact forged at the transition with victims of the anti-apartheid human rights struggle in South Africa.'

Rights activists are mobilising to unleash a fresh wave of protests against the Protection of Information Bill, accusing the ANC of trying to bulldoze the contentious legislation through Parliament using its majority, without making any concessions. The Right2Know campaign said it believed the ANC’s position on what it has dubbed the 'Secrecy Bill' had hardened. Some opposition MPs agreed, suggesting that with the local government elections behind it, the ruling party was now determined to have its way.

Police arrested more than 20 people to break-up rare protests in the Angolan capital but released all of them the following day, police and activists said Thursday (26 May). An anti-poverty protest near downtown Luanda was organised by the 'Revolutionary Intervention Movement', a gathering of rights activists, they said. About 100 protesters called on President Jose Eduardo dos Santos to improve living conditions in Angola, where UNICEF estimates that 87 per cent of the urban population lives in shantytowns, often without water supplies.

The City of Cape Town’s Anti-Land Invasion Unit established to prevent the illegal occupation of city and provincial land, is acting unlawfully says Lawyers for Human Rights. The announcement by the LHR comes after violent clashes between backyarders and police recently after over 4,000 backyarders occupied city-owned land in Tafelsig, Mitchell’s Plain. The Anti-Land Invasion Unit, established in 2008, demolishes about 300 illegally erected informal housing structures per month, according to the city.

Lawyers from the East African region have sued the Uganda government, accusing its security agencies of human rights violations and breach of the Constitution during the recent walk-to-work demonstrations. The East Africa Law Society sued the Ugandan authorities at the East African Court of Justice in Arusha, Tanzania, in a case filed by the vice president of the regional law body, Mr Aggrey Mwamu.

Malawi will, for the first time since the re-introduction of multiparty politics in 1994, hold tripartite elections in 2014. This follows the cancellation of local government elections that were scheduled to be held this year. 'This means voters will be voting for the president, members of parliament and councillors at the same time,' Local Government and Rural Development Minister Anna Kachikho said. Kachikho said a bill had been prepared to amend the Constitution to allow for the holding of the tripartite polls.

The Libyan government says Nato air raids have killed more than 700 civilians since bombing began in March. Spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said more than 4,000 people had been wounded, but gave no evidence to confirm his figures. Nato has denied killing large numbers of civilians, saying its air strikes are to protect Libyans from Colonel Gaddafi's forces.

A radical rethink of current energy policy can cut South Africa's greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent in 2050 compared to 1990 levels. More than that - after an initial spike in investment - South Africans four decades down the line would pay 23 billion dollars per year less for their electricity compared to business as usual. This scenario is presented in a report titled 'The Advanced Energy [R]evolution: a Sustainable Energy Outlook for South Africa', presented on 25 May in Johannesburg by the European Renewable Energy Council (EREC) and Greenpeace.

South Africa believes that the Doha round of trade talks will not be finalised this year and that 'the 2011 window of opportunity is closed', according to Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies. Davies said that the round would focus on delivering a plan b, which would focus on the less controversial issues with the prime aim of delivering something substantial to less developed countries. Davies said that, at a recent ministerial conference, attendees focused on what part of plan b could be delivered, even if on a smaller scale. This included some subjects that were less controversial in terms of the World Trade Organisation's talks, such as trade facilitation issues, customs cooperation, the abolishment of subsidies on exports, non-tariff barriers in industrial tariffs, rules about regional trade agreements, as well as fishing subsidies.

Unless drastic action is taken to reduce unemployment, South Africa may face another 1976 uprising, Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said. 'I have already over and over again pointed out the danger of a ticking bomb, that unless we can do something drastic about the crisis of unemployment, in particular youth unemployment, we risk another 1976 uprising,' he said in a speech delivered in Johannesburg. He was speaking at a discussion themed 'Critical conversations on prospects for a non-racial future in SA'.

Botswana public sector unions said on Monday (30 May) they had conditionally accepted a three per cent pay rise but a six-week strike that has shaken the ruling party's 45-year grip on power would continue until all demands were met. A spokesman for the Federation of Public Sector Unions (BOFEPUSU) said the government must reinstate 1,500 sacked workers as part of a final settlement, and lift a 'no work, no pay' policy. The agreed average pay rise is a fraction of the 16 per cent first demanded by the 90,000 state workers, and less even than the five per cent on offer from the government of the landlocked southern African country, the world's biggest diamond producer.