A farmer from Inyathi was released from police custody on Thursday, after spending two nights behind bars in what is being described as a deliberate drive to force his farming partner to give up his land. Ernest Nyoni was arrested on Tuesday night and charged with ‘contravening’ the Gazetted Lands (Consequential Provisions) Act by not leaving the farm he co-owns with farmer Glen James. He was only released after his lawyer argued that the farm, Robert Block 14, is not wholly owned by Nyoni, who was being charged in his personal capacity.

Thirty Moroccan teachers are continuing a two-month hunger strike to highlight the issue of family reunification and the right of women to work near home. Many people with public-sector jobs, including those in education and health care, say that living apart from family members while posted to remote locations is a hardship.

The United Nations has proclaimed 2010 to be the International year of Biodiversity. The theme of the International Day for Biological Diversity 2010, on 22 May, is Biodiversity, Development and Poverty Alleviation. Biodiversity is the sum of all existing species, their interactions and the ecosystems they form. According to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), human beings share the planet with as many as 13 million living species, including plants, animals and bacteria – of which only 1.75 million have been named and recorded.

The conviction of a gay couple of "gross indecency" and "unnatural acts" has caused an international uproar. Malawi's donors are disappointed and South African trade unionists prepare for protests.Not surprisingly, a court in Blantyre, Malawi's second city, yesterday convicted Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga for committing so-called "unnatural offences" and "indecent practices between males". Mr Monjeza and Mr Chimbalanga were arrested in December 2009 after celebrating their engagement and have been in jail ever since.

Hundreds of children and adults in volatile Casamance are not even aware of the mental trauma they suffer, let alone how to get help to banish sleepless nights, empty days and learning disabilities. Tne young student who used to be top of her class in high school is now completely withdrawn, her academic performance in free-fall, said Demba Ba, former director of the regional social centre in Casamance’s main city Ziguinchor.

The Kenyan government has won praise for a national door-to-door HIV testing drive that aims to test 80 percent of the population for HIV/AIDS by the end of 2010, but once-enthusiastic counsellors are beginning to show signs of burnout.

Under the Capacity Building Programme FEMNET is planning to undertake a study to assess the extent to which trade arrangements between African countries and the European Union facilitate African women’s economic empowerment and realization of their economic rights. FEMNET seeks the services of five Consultants, four of whom will undertake the study ies and one will be the lead Consultant to will provide technical support, monitor progress, facilitate the planning meeting and finally compile the Regional Comparative Report.

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for social and economic development in emerging economies have long been a focus of governments, the private sector, and most certainly donors and international development agencies. Yes, despite all the attention garnered on this field, we are seeing a checkered history of ICTs as a tool for development, with both successes and significant failures littering the landscape.

Human Rights First is a nonprofit, nonpartisan international human rights organization based in New York and Washington D.C. We build respect for human rights and the rule of law to help ensure the dignity to which everyone is entitled and to stem intolerance, tyranny, and violence. Human Rights First is seeking a consultant to conduct research and prepare materials to support advocacy efforts aimed at improving responses to racist, xenophobic and other forms of bias-motivated violence impacting refugees, asylum seekers and migrants.

Press freedom is still in danger in Africa despite 20 years of democratisation. Independent journalism continues to be a perilous profession on the continent, both in the peaceful arena as well as in conflict zones. This according to the 2009 Africa Press Freedom Report.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) begins a three-day visit to Guinea today to consult with judicial authorities and seek an update on local investigations into last year’s bloody suppression by the military of opposition protests in which 156 civilians were killed. The mission follows a trip to Guinea in February by the ICC’s deputy prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, four months after the prosecutor’s office made public its preliminary examination in Guinea, as the international community demanded accountability either through ICC or Guinean judicial proceedings following the September 2009 massacre and brutal assault against civilians.

Morocco has expelled foreign Christians who tried to convert Muslims because, as a moderate Islamic state, it wants to foster "order and calm" and avoid a clash between faiths, its Islamic affairs minister said. The government has expelled around 100 foreign Christians since March, many of them aid workers, in what Western diplomats have called an unprecedented crackdown on undercover preaching.

The global economic crisis highlighted the necessity of transforming global economic governance. But least developed countries (LDCs) have little voice in this process. It is time they are allowed a seat at the meetings of the Group of 20 industrialised and emerging economies. "LDCs face a double challenge: they have to absorb the impact of the economic and financial crisis, but in the resolution of the crisis itself they have a very marginal role to play," stated Debapriya Bhattacharya, special advisor on LDCs at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

Mxit is a massive mobile social network that was started in South Africa a couple years ago. Today, Safaricom announced a partnership with them, using their marketing muscle (7 pages of ads in today’s newspaper) to import Mxit into Kenya.

IRIN is pleased to announce the launch of its new series of short films illustrating the challenges that children face living in the cities of the developing world. The first two chapters of our "Kids in the City" series look at South Africa's rape crisis - where as many as 40 percent of rape victims are under 18 - and the hundreds of Sierra Leonean children who work breaking rocks for the construction industry to pay for their school fees

Since the civil war ended in 2003, the combination of returning refugees, population growth, and ongoing land tenure tensions dating back 25 years has led to at least 250 land dispute deaths in Liberia, according to NGOs. Leading reformists are worried the right mechanisms to address land rights are still not in place. The latest significant clashes over land took place in 2008 on the border between Grand Bassa and Margibi counties in which 15 people were killed. Since then people have continued to be killed in smaller-scale disputes.

Diagnosing HIV early and starting antiretroviral (ARV) treatment could be the most important weapons in the battle against HIV-associated tuberculosis, but this would need a huge injection of resources in southern Africa, where the dual epidemics of TB and HIV claim the most lives. The authors of a paper, part of a series on TB in the British medical journal, The Lancet, note that the disease accounted for more than a quarter of the two million deaths attributed to AIDS-related diseases in 2008, and is the number one cause of illness and death in people living with HIV in Africa, yet efforts to contain TB-HIV co-infection have been "timid, slow and uncoordinated".

In 1986, over 100,000 Southern Sudanese in Magwi County fled to Uganda to take up refuge. They were settled in camps in northern Uganda, notably in Achol-pii, Adjumani, Kiryandongo and later in other camps. Following the signing of a Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the SPLA/M and the Government in Khartoum in 2005, thousands of these refugees were repatriated with the help of the UNHCR to their original homes in Southern Sudan. In Magwi County, these homes are: Agoro, Omeo, Magwi, Obbo, Palwar, Lobone, Pajok and Panyikwara. According to the recent Sudanese census, there are 170,000 persons in Magwi County.

As mobile and web technologies become increasingly accessible to those living in remote poverty around the world, the potential to expand access to health care to underserved populations becomes ever more real. It’s exciting to see the many ways that innovative people and organizations are able to take advantage of the spread of technology to make positive social change. Ushahidi, an open-source platform that can be used by anyone to collect and visualize user-generated information, is an excellent example. They’re using mobile and web technology – including social media platforms like Twitter – to capture critical up-to-date reports from individuals in crisis areas through crowd-sourcing and filtering

The Centre for Citizens’ Participation on the African Union (CCP-AU) seeks an Executive Director to provide strategic direction as well as operational and administrative oversight to the organisation. Based in Kenya (with potential relocation of the position to Addis Ababa) the Executive Director will work closely with and report to the CCP-AU Board of Directors.