A recent march by over a thousand Ghanian Muslims against “the growing activities of gays and lesbians” in this West-African country, could hamper initiatives that target Men having sex with Men (MSM), such as HIV and Aids interventions, activists have warned. Mac-Darling Cobbinahof the Centre for Popular Education and Human Rights Ghana, an organisation that also caters for the MSM community said, following a march that went through principal streets of the Metropolis against homosexuality, after an alleged report that close to 60 gays and lesbians from eastern

“I would like to thank everybody for the support that I have been given since Friday and before that,” The Post editor Fred M’membe told Reporters Without Borders as he was released this afternoon from Lusaka prison, where he had just spent three days. “I am very grateful to my fellow journalists,” said M’membe, who was sentenced to four months in prison with hard labour on 4 June on a contempt of court charge. “I have received more than the support I thought I would get and I deserve.”

An experimental treatment for Ebola that could potentially save human lives has been shown to be completely effective in monkeys. If approved for human use it would be the first treatment for the deadly disease, according to Thomas Geisbert, a microbiologist at the US-based National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories Institute.

Allegations of massive fraud during May’s local elections in Burundi have cast a shadow over the country's democratic transition, prompting international calls for compromise rather than confrontation. Attributing the ruling CNDD-FDD’s landslide victory to ballot-box stuffing, vote-buying with state resources, the illegal use of proxies and a lack of secrecy in some polling stations, 13 opposition parties have announced a boycott of the 28 June presidential race, leaving President Pierre Nkurunziza as the only runner.

There is intense lobbying for the finalisation of a formal trade agreement on agricultural products between Namibia and China. The general mood in government corridors is explicitly clear that as of next year trade flows from Namibia to China should add tangible value to the local economy, instead of comprising minerals exports, as is the present case.

Outrun by large Chinese state corporations, now India is making ground in its fastest growing sector - telecommunications. The $10.7bn acquisition by Bharti Airtel, India’s largest mobile network, of the African assets of Kuwait’s Zain is a long awaited foray across the Indian Ocean.

The ICHRP is pleased to announce the publication of its new report Irregular Migration, Migrant Smuggling and Human Rights: Towards Coherence. Migration policies across the world are driven by three core concerns: border and law enforcement, economic interest, and protection. The report argues that official policies are failing partly because protection has been marginalised. Intensified efforts to suppress migration have not deterred people from seeking security or opportunity abroad but drive many into clandestinity, while the promotion of open economic markets has attracted millions of people to centres of prosperity but tolerated widespread exploitation. As a political consequence, discussion of migration is widely polarised and distorted by xenophobia and racism.

Hanging from a rafter in Jane Wanjiku’s home is a calendar bearing the image of the International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo. It's an illustration of how the ICC has seized the imagination of ill-treated people around the world. Wanjiku has lived in Kibera for more than 60 years and witnessed many upheavals. But the 74-year-old says she has never seen violence as severe as what followed the 2007 elections.

Ethiopian rebels said on Friday the military had killed 71 civilians in the last month as part of a growing crackdown in a region where international oil and gas companies are exploring. "The Ethiopian army combed the countryside, summarily executing men in front of their families while beating, raping or killing the women," the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) said in a statement.

Reporters Without Borders regrets the Cameroonian government’s foot-dragging in the investigation into journalist “Bibi” Ngota Ngota’s death in Yaoundé’s Kodengui prison on 22 April. See previous release. At the end of April, President Paul Biya called for an investigation into the circumstances of Ngota’s death but a report on its findings has yet to be published.

In colonial times, Senegal's metropolis Dakar was famous for its open and tolerated homosexual prostitution market, and as late as in the 1970s, as many as 17 percent of Senegalese men admitted having had homosexual experiences.

African Union members have adopted plans to implement the Kampala convention on the protection of internally displaced people, including increasing their contributions to refugee and IDP funding and accelerating the convention’s ratification, signature and domestication, the AU said. Signed by 26 countries since it was endorsed in the Ugandan capital of Kampala on 23 October 2009, the convention obliges governments to recognize that IDPs have specific vulnerabilities and must be supported, according to Walter Kälin, Representative of the UN Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons.

It is a sign of the times that the second-largest cross-border acquisition by an Indian company involves Africa. The Bharti Airtel deal of $10.7 billion to acquire most of Zain Africa is, first, a measure of the changing footprint of global finance. Second, given that the African continent is being heralded as the global economy’s next frontier, the deal is an important chapter in the evolutionary narrative of India and Africa, which has lately been getting overshadowed by China’s presence in the continent.

The Chinese government will fund the construction of a new science university in Malawi as part of the country’s ambitious initiative to open five new institutions of higher learning in the next decade, according to President Bingu wa Mutharika. China is funding major development projects in Africa, in a diplomatic initiative aimed at building good relations on the continent and averting criticism that it is only after Africa’s rich natural resources.

ARTICLE 19 and the Cairo Institute of Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) submitted a joint oral statement at the UN Human Rights Council's 14th session welcoming the annual report of the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression, Mr Frank La Rue. In the statement to the Human Rights Council on 4 June, ARTICLE 19 and CIHRS expressed their strong support for the Special Rapporteur's opinion that laws on "defamation of religions" are incompatible with international human rights law on freedom of expression.

The entry of a Swedish-led oil consortium into southern Sudan in 1997 triggered civil war and crimes against humanity, claims a European coalition of aid agencies. The European Coalition on Oil in Sudan (ECOS) has called on the Swedish, Austrian and Malaysian governments to investigate into the possible complicity of the consortium in war crimes and crimes against humanity.

On World Day Against Child Labour 2010 on Saturday 12th June, leading NGO Plan International is concerned the problem is on the increase in Niger where children are being forced to work because of the food crisis. Children are being pulled out of school and sent to work for money or food to supplement their family's income.

Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET) celebrated 10 years of empowering women and women organizations through the use of ICTs on 1st and 2nd June 2010 at Hotel Africana in Kampala, Uganda. Among the activities to mark the celebrations, was a one week SMS awareness campaign which took place from 24th to 29th May 2010, a two day exhibition and a one day symposium.

Alpha Condé, the "eternal opposition leader" of Guinea who is widely believed to have won the 1993 presidential election, is gathering the largest crowds as Guinea's first truly democratic poll has kicked off.

BET, the acronym for the three northern regions of Chad – Borkou, Ennedi and Tibesti – comes up regularly in meetings of international aid agencies frustrated by the lack of information and difficulty of access to the remote territory. Drought in 2009 triggered the government’s call for international assistance, but no one really knows the full extent of the problem, according to a local NGO.