The Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) has issued its third annual report on the state of human rights in the Arab world in 2010, with a special focus on 12 countries: Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Sudan, Syria, Lebanon, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Iraq, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Yemen. The report is entitled 'Roots of Unrest and reveals that one of the primary roots of unrest in the Arab world is a large-scale deterioration in the state of human rights, even in those countries that were, or still are, characterised by a level of ostensible political 'stability'.

High Court Judge Justice Nicholas Ndou on Thursday 31 March 2011 quashed Magistrate Gideon Ruwetsa’s ruling denying bail to Bulawayo resident Vikas Mavhudzi, who is charged with subverting a government by unconstitutional means. Ruwetsa had on Wednesday 16 March 2011 denied bail to the 39 year-old Magwegwe resident, who is facing charges of subverting a government by unconstitutional means over a comment he allegedly made on Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s facebook page.

An Egyptian panel formed to uncover illicit gains acquired during the rule of deposed President Hosni Mubarak, will question his younger son about corruption, the state news agency said on Tuesday. Gamal Mubarak held a leading post in Egypt's former ruling party. A widely-held belief that he was being groomed for the presidency helped galvanise opposition that toppled him.

A search is under way for 150 migrants missing in the Mediterranean after their boat capsized in rough seas near the Italian isle of Lampedusa. Italian rescue vessels and a helicopter have saved 48 refugees from the boat, which had been carrying about 200.

Seventy six countries around the world criminalize homosexuality, maintaining severe punishments for consensual sexual activity between adults of the same sex, says this abstract from the Journal for International Law. While political asylum may offer hope of refuge and protection, the asylum process has many problems, especially for those individuals applying for refugee status on the basis of sexual orientation.

About 34,000 southern Sudanese have fled their homes after tribal clashes over land, water and cattle in recent weeks, a humanitarian official said, adding to southern troubles before independence in July. The oil-rich south voted overwhelmingly to separate from the north in a January referendum, promised as part of a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war in Sudan. At least two million died in the war, which destabilised much of the region.

Around 800 farmers protested Friday (1 April) against a government decision to seize land from a village in Gezira state, Sudan's agricultural heartland, without compensating the owners, witnesses said. After Friday prayers in the village of Fudasi, around 160 kilometres south of Khartoum, 800 demonstrators marched to the land that was appropriated by the government to build a university college.

A row has broken out about the infant mortality rate in Cape Town, following claims from the Democratic Alliance that they are responsible for a decrease. But critics from the Treatment Action Campaign and Social Justice Coalition have slammed the claims. 'The Democratic Alliance claims that it is responsible for a significant drop in infant deaths. It also makes much of the fact that the City of Cape Town has a much lower infant death rate than the rest of South Africa. This is both misleading and false,' say the blog Writing Rights. 'It is misleading because even under apartheid, the City of Cape Town had lower infant mortality than the homeland of KwaZulu and most other cities in the country. Historically health care is better in Johannesburg and Cape Town than elsewhere because of apartheid. It is false because any significant drop in infant mortality in Cape Town in the last decade, took place before the DA came to power.'

Hendrik Hesselman is a small-scale farmer and picks the wild indigenous rooibos plant or cultivates it in small fields. They sell it overseas as a fair trade organic product. But as local and international markets for rooibos continue to grow, climate change is a growing threat. Mr. Hesselman explains: 'In 2003 the winter rains arrived three months late. After [the rain] in August that year did not provide enough rain to replenish the groundwater, drought set in and held this area in its grip for three years.'

A majority of Kenyans want the six suspected sponsors of 2007/2008 post election violence to stand trial at the International Criminal Court, a new opinion poll shows. Of those polled, 61 per cent said they prefer the Ocampo Six (as the suspects are popularly known) to answer charges at The Hague-based court, the survey by research firm Synovate showed.

By limiting access to internet, claiming to avoid obscenity and preserve gender and sexual norms, governments are actually preventing communities from exercising their rights and freedoms. The growing practice of regulation may have an impact in how people learn about sexuality and express it – especially the most affected by regulation, women and people of diverse sexualities. The Association for Progressive Communication's EroTICs project conducted research in five countries: Brazil, India, Lebanon, South Africa and the United States. The EroTICs issue paper contains executive summaries for each country.

'This edition of the journal is produced within the context of the 2015 deadline set by the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development, which calls for gender parity within the media, as well as equal voice and fair treatment of women and men in editorial content.'

South African families are in crisis according to a new report released by the South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR). Titled ‘The First Steps to Healing the South African Family’, the report documents the extent of family breakdown in South Africa and the effect this is having on children and the youth. The research includes often under-acknowledged influences on children and young people that affect many issues in South Africa - from violent crime, through to entrenching a cycle of poverty, as well as the values and norms South Africans hold.

The British Government’s efforts to cover up one of the darkest episodes in colonial history have been revealed by the discovery of a vast cache of documents relating to the bloody Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya. The papers, documenting efforts to put down insurgency, were spirited out of Kenya on the eve of independence and have been held in secret British government archives for half a century.

After a month and a half of conflict in Libya, the situation of political prisoners and prisoners of war on both sides is uncertain, and their fundamental rights are at risk. More than 400 people in eastern Libya have gone missing since the revolt against Muammar Gaddafi began on 15 February, according to Human Rights Watch and the Libyan Red Crescent in Benghazi.

Using a vague criminal code provision allowing authorities to detain individuals deemed a threat to public order, a provincial governor in Cameroon threw a journalist in prison for inquiring about the arrests of two employees of a state-run palm oil company, according to local journalists. In a statement, the local press union Network of Journalists of The North said Adamawa Gov. Enow Abraham Egbe ordered a five-day detention for reporter Lamissia Adoularc, a correspondent for the daily Le Jour to 'ensure the protection of the journalist'.

Former truth team deputy chairperson Betty Murungi has called for those accused of sexual violence during the post-election chaos to be tried locally. 'We need to find local solutions to local problems,' Ms Murungi said during a press conference on gender violence in Africa. Ms Murungi joined the Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice (WIGJ) to lobby for justice for Kenyans who were sexually abused during the post-election violence four years ago.

Gains have been made in stopping multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB), a largely undiagnosed killer, but not enough. By 2015 there will be two million new cases, says a new report by the World Health Organisation (WHO). MDR-TB is resistant to first-line TB drugs, such as isoniazid and rifampicin, while extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) is resistant to these drugs as well as at least half of the mostly commonly used second-line drugs.

French economist Esther Duflo thinks poverty can be alleviated or even eradicated with the right policies. All it takes is for politicians to 'translate research into action', implementing programmes that have been shown to work. But that is easier said than done. Duflo, who last year won American Economic Association's prestigious John Bates Clark Medal, acknowledges that it is sometimes frustrating to get policy makers to apply the results of research that could improve people's lives. Sometimes they do not know the evidence and so cannot take the right approach, she adds.

Abahlali baseMjondolo Western Cape has welcomed the Joe Slovo Constitutional Court Judgement which was handed down on Thursday last week, which set aside an eviction order granted in June 2009. 'While this is a victory for people of Joe Slovo who did not want to be evicted to Delft, we also note that:
1. If the previous Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu was not arrogant, and was willing to engage meaningfully with the residents of Joe Slovo the whole dispute between both parties would have been resolved outside the court and a satisfactory decision to both parties would have been reached.
2. People of Joe Slovo who were shot (during the time that they barricaded the N2 for almost eight hours) by Metro Police, SAPS and Law Enforcement would not have been injured.
3. Those who were wrongfully forced out of Joe Slovo would still be residing at Joe Slovo and also those who lost their jobs after being forcefully evicted, today would have been still working.'