The global financial crisis of 2008/09 has not sent migrant workers streaming back home, despite worsening employment prospects and anti-immigration rhetoric in some destination countries, says a new book on migration and remittances, published by the World Bank. In fact, migrants may have mitigated some of the pain of the crisis as they tend to work for lower wages, receive fewer benefits and rely relatively little on the state, says the ‘Migration and Remittances during the Global Financial Crisis and Beyond’ book.

Negotiations for Rio+20 have been fraught with attempts to take 'people' and social development out of the equation and lay the solutions at the altar of market driven forces through the 'green economy.' For women and young people, this means that fundamental issues affecting them, such as their right to health and education, are in danger of being sidelined, says this article.

After killing a man in self-defense, Benson turned himself in to Malawi's police. More than two years later, he was still waiting for a court hearing, while his body showed the scars from the long wait in Lilongwe's main prison. The Open Society Justice Initiative is spearheading a Global Campaign for Pretrial Justice, documenting the costs of excessive and unnecessary pretrial detention. Watch Benson's story in the video accessible through the link provided.

Despite marked improvements, numerous grievances that plunged Liberia into bloody wars from 1989 until President Charles Taylor left in August 2003 (originally for exile in Nigeria) remain evident, says this briefing from the International Crisis Group. These include a polarised society and political system; corruption, nepotism and impunity.

The latest issue of the South Bulletin focuses on the Rio Plus 20 Summit to be held in 20-22 June in Brazil. The meetings actually begin on 13 June. Twenty years after the Earth Summit the world faces even more serious crises in the environment and the economy. Will Rio+20 do better in rising to the challenge of tackling the global crises?

Formidable social and economic challenges threaten to undermine – or even halt – progress in Tunisia, despite the country’s positive transition to democracy. 'Tunisia: Confronting Social and Economic Challenges', the latest International Crisis Group report, shines a spotlight on the economic problems that largely were at the root of Tunisia’s uprising and that remain unresolved in its aftermath: rising unemployment, stark regional inequalities, smuggling and corruption.

Sudanese refugees have started dying as a camp in South Sudan ran out of water four days ago after a massive influx of people fled across the border to escape war and hunger. The refugees are fleeing Sudan’s Blue Nile state where insurgents are fighting to overthrow the Sudanese government.

The Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC) of PEN International is extremely concerned about the condition and whereabouts of the Sudanese poet Abdelmoniem Rahma, who was arrested on 2 September 2011 in Blue Nile State, Sudan. He was reportedly tried in a military court in November and there have been alarming reports that he has since been sentenced to death. It is unclear, however, on what charges he has been convicted.

There are an estimated 3.3m migrant workers from other SADC countries in South Africa, between them sending around R11.2 billion rand home each year – R7.6 bn of which is estimated to flow through informal channels such as sending cash with a bus or taxi driver. The sheer volume of cross-border remittance flows and the large proportion sent informally indicates not only an untapped market opportunity for the formal sector to capitalize on, but also a strong policy imperative to reduce access barriers to the formal financial system for migrant workers and facilitate formalization of cross-border remittances. These are the high-level findings of a recent study commissioned by FinMark Trust and conducted by DNA Economics.

As of the end of 2011, more than 26 million people were internally displaced by conflict and violence across the world. More than a third of them were in Africa. A new publication from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre says that in a number of African countries, IDPs live in protracted displacement; their process of finding a durable solution has stalled, often leaving their rights unprotected and their communities marginalised.

Egyptian activists declared Wednesday, 13 June as the day to write about sexual harassment on social websites and blogs in an effort to combat the rising level of sexual violence in the country. The same event took place last year with large success that saw it spread to neighboring countries like Lebanon, Tunisia and Morocco.

The Ethiopian government has passed new legislation that criminalises the use of Internet-based voice communications such as Skype and other forms of Internet phone calling. Authorities have also installed a new filtering system that monitors the use of the Internet in the tightly-controlled Horn of Africa country in a move seen as targeting dissidents.

Ethiopia and the World Bank signed late on Tuesday three loan agreements worth $400 million to finance various existing projects.

Since 2009, Whitestone (SL) Limited has managed to obtain 13 leasehold titles covering a staggering 1.34 million acres of land in the Bombali and Koinadugu Districts of Northern Sierra Leone for large-scale agricultural development. Whitestone is owned and managed by two British entrepreneurs, Charles Anderson and Cenk Yildiran. Ostensibly lacking the funds to develop the land themselves, Whitestone is planning to parcel the land and sub-lease these to interested agricultural inventors.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has sought a 30-year sentence for Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga. In March, the Hague-based court found him guilty of recruiting and using child soldiers between 2002 and 2003. At that time, an inter-ethnic conflict was raging in the north-east of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Lubanga headed a rebel group.

The New York-based global press freedom watchdog Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) Wednesday condemned the Ivorian police's assault on a journalist, Cybèle Athangba. CPJ said in a statement made available to PANA here that Athangba, a reporter with the daily 'La Nouvelle', was attacked while covering a protest of about 100 police officers in front of the police headquarters in the economic capital, Abidjan.

Armed forces and armed groups that attack schools and teachers should face consequences from the United Nations Security Council, the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack (GCPEA) said. The UN Secretary-General’s annual report on children and armed conflict, released on June 11, 2012, highlights grave violations against children in 22 countries. Armed forces and groups in four countries were added for the first time to the UN 'list of shame' for attacking schools and hospitals.

Tunisia's ousted president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali has been sentenced to 20 years imprisonment in absentia for inciting violence and murder. The charges relate to an incident in the town of Ouardanine last January, when four men were shot trying to stop the president's nephew fleeing Tunisia.

Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, an independent charity, tracks the social & environmental impacts of 5100 companies worldwide. We seek a highly-motivated person, based in South Africa, to lead our work on Anglophone countries in Southern & Western Africa. NGO experience, excellent English language skills, and the right to work in South Africa are required. Fees: R190,000/year for 3 days per week work. Further details are below. Closing date 3 July.

Tunisia's government has condemned as 'terrorism' a spate of overnight attacks on courts and other state buildings by gangs including Islamist hardliners and vowed to punish them. The ultra-conservative Salafists denied involvement in the rampage in several areas of the capital Tunis and in the country's northwest, and instead called a protest after this week's Friday prayers.