Guy Marius Sagna et Fodé Roland Diagne

Fodé Roland Diagne

Malick Ndiaye

Alex Free

A group of civil society organisations are making public a letter sent to the Minister of the Interior of Angola Mr Roberto Leal Monteiro Ngongo to express their concern about the situation of human rights defenders in that country.

On 3 June 2010, The Post newspapers and its editor in chief, Fred M’membe were found guilty of one count of contempt of court, a charge arising from an opinion article authored by United States of America-based Zambian Law Professor, Muna Ndulo and published by the newspaper on 27 August 2009. However, presiding Magistrate Simausamba reserved sentence to 4 June 2010. Meanwhile, M’membe’s lawyer, Remmy Mainza said the case in which his clients were convicted of was a misdemeanor which attracted a sentence of six months or a fine. He prayed to the court to give his clients a non- custodial or suspended sentence because the two were first offenders who had no track of a criminal record.

Progress on a "Zero Tolerance" national campaign in Côte d'Ivoire to eliminate female genital mutilation or cutting (FGM/C) by the end of 2010, has been slowed down by health and education infrastructure, aid groups said. Since the campaign began, 180 villages in Marandallah prefecture, in the north-central Worodougou region, no longer practise FGM/C and the aim is to double this by the end of the year

Migration in search of work has long been common in Sourou Province, northern Burkina Faso, but the trend is increasingly for younger girls to join the exodus, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the NGO Terre des hommes (Tdh). “Migration is after all a method of survival,” Herman Zoungrana, head of Tdh’s protection programme in Burkina Faso, told IRIN. He said traditionally after the harvest people would fill up their granaries then set out to find work until the next planting season.

The excitement over the FIFA World Cup is not just about football, it's also about the party. Large quantities of alcohol are sure to be consumed as foreign football fans rub shoulders with locals, and inhibitions are likely to fall away. The World Cup has long been associated with boom times for the sex trade, but in a country where one in five adults is living with HIV, the price of throwing caution to the wind and having unprotected sex with a local, let alone a sex worker, could be extremely high.

Stocks of millet and sorghum in northern Nigeria's markets are dwindling as traders buy them up to export across the border to Niger, where some 10 million people face food insecurity. Grain merchants from Niger head to Dawanau market in Kano - West Africa's largest grain market – to buy truck-loads of millet and sorghum, locally known as Guinea corn, to bolster declining food stocks.

Last week's Ethiopian presidential election result was no surprise, with Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's governing party winning nearly every seat. Harassment and intimidation of voters and journalists, and the absence of a free, independent media was behind this smooth victory, report Human Rights Watch and the International Press Institute (IPI).

The first in a series of elections has brought simmering discontent with Burundi's electoral commission to the boil. Just over a week after the May 24 communal elections, five opposition presidential candidates have demanded the resignation of members of the National Electoral Commission and announced that they will boycott the presidential poll scheduled for June 28.

"Polakow-Suransky puts Israel's annual military exports to South Africa between 1974 and 1993 at $600 million, which made South Africa Israel's second or third largest trading partner after the United States and Britain. ... He puts the total military trade between the countries at well above $10 billion over the two decades." - Glenn Frankel in review of new book "The Unspoken Alliance". Polakow-Suransky's book The Unspoken Alliance: Israel's Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa (http://www.africafocus.org/books/isbn.php?0375425462), is hardly the first to outline the open secret of Israel's military relationship with apartheid South Africa (see books listed below). But it is certainly the most well-documented and will arguably be the most influential.

At least 17 civilians have been killed after Somali government forces, supported by African Union peacekeepers, launched attacks against fighters from al-Shabab, the armed anti-government group, in Mogadishu. Among the dead are six women and a family of five whose home was destroyed by shelling, Ali Muse, the head of the city's ambulance service, said on Thursday.

Aid analysts have welcomed some of the international development priorities of Britain’s new coalition government, particularly the commitment to stick to the previous government’s pledge to boost aid spending to 0.7 percent of national income by 2013. But they also worry that the independence and impartiality of aid may be eroded under a new “coherence” push.

The government's decision to renew Egypt's longstanding Emergency Law has drawn furious reactions from opposition figures and rights advocates. While government spokesmen say the law will only be used against terrorism and drug trafficking, critics say it is aimed primarily at stifling political dissent. Egypt voted in elections to the upper house of its parliament Tuesday with many denied the right to contest because of the Emergency Law.

While the two Malawian gay men Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga have been granted a presidential pardon on “humanitarian grounds”, annulling a 14 year sentence for “gross indecency and unnatural acts”, speculation is mounting on the exact conditions of their release.

The Sudanese government has said it will no longer engage in peace talks with the Justice and Equality Movement (Jem), Darfur's main anti-government group, saying instead its leaders will be prosecuted. Ghazi Atabani, chief negotiator of the talks, said mediators had been notified of the government's decision.

In Hopley Farm, a resettlement camp about 10km south of Zimbabwe's capital, Harare, Simon Dhewa's chicken coup has been converted into a bedroom for his three daughters, the eldest of which also uses it as a venue for her commercial sex activities. The 20-year-old is the sole bread winner for her 45-year-old widowed father, her two sisters and two brothers. The residents of Hopley Farm have nicknamed her "chicken".

With the first Review Conference of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) under way in the Ugandan capital Kampala, women are crying out for justice for gender-based violence inflicted upon them during the civil conflict in the country’s north. "Women who were raped, those who were once abducted and have since come back with children, as well as those who have lost property during this conflict are all crying out for some form of justice," says Jane Adong, Legal Officer of the Hague-based Women’s Initiative for Gender Justice (WIGJ).

President Museveni has said Ugandans are opposed to homosexuality because it is not part of African culture. Speaking to Christians who gathered to mark the Uganda Martyrs Day at the Anglican shrine in Nakiyanja, President Museveni castigated Europeans for imposing what he called western culture onto African countries.

World Environment Day, commemorated on 5 June since 1972, is one of the ways in which the United Nations focuses world attention on the environment and encourages political action. Since its inception, hundreds of thousands of people from countries all over the world have mobilized for individual and organized environmental action. Activities involve all sectors of society – governments, non- and inter-governmental organizations, businesses, industries, civil society, media and schools.

A Ugandan draft policy recommending that HIV-positive children be informed of their status by the age of 10 has drawn mixed reactions from health workers. The previous policy required parental consent to tell children under the age of 12, but the new policy allows health workers - with the support of parents and guardians - to disclose HIV status after the child has been prepared and an assessment of their ability to understand and deal with the condition has been made.