A three-day seminar to discuss ways to strength en cross-border co-operation for the protection of children at risk and to better regulate inter-country adoption has opened in Pretoria, South Africa. South Africa's Department of International Relations and Cooperation and the Hag ue Conference on Private International Law based in the Netherlands are co-hosting the seminar, which opened Tuesday.

India has issued a moratorium on Bt Bringal, which is genetically modified to produce a toxin that protects the crop from pests including stalkborers. Trevor Wells warns that following the introduction of the similarly modified Bt maize in South Africa, pests appear to have developed resistance to the previously widely used and effective natural pesticide Bacillis thurengiensis, which could have significant ecological and economic consequences.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Congo-Brazzaville has said it is expecting more displaced people to pour in from the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo. The UNHCR said that more than 120,000 refugees are already crammed into camps in Congo-Brazzaville and Central African Republic.

The Ethiopian government and United Nations have opened a new refugee camp for thousands of Somalis fleeing violence in the Horn of Africa country. Somalia shares its northwestern border with Ethiopia, which has experienced a growing influx of Somalis over the last three months.

Security forces in Ivory Coast fired live bullets and tear gas to disperse hundreds of protestors in Gagnoa on Friday, wounding dozens, sources said from the southern town. A source at the hospital, who asked not to be named, said dozens of people were being treated there, mainly for gunshot wounds.

The United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia expressed grave concern today at the latest spike in violence in the capital, Mogadishu, which has killed at least 80 civilians and forced more than 8,000 others to flee their homes since the start of the month.

The aim of the Summer School is to provide its participants with an comprehensive understanding of the immigration and asylum policy of the European Union from a legal point of view. The programme is organised by the "Academic Network for Legal Studies on Immigration and Asylum in Europe", founded with the financial support of the Odysseus Programme of the European Commission and co-ordinated by the Institute for European Studies of the Université Libre de Bruxelles.

The Refugee Studies Centre’s International Summer School fosters dialogue between academics, practitioners and policymakers working to improve the situation of refugees and other forced migrants. It provides the time and space for them to reflect on their experiences and to think critically about some of the aims and assumptions underlying their work.

Millions of Egyptian children continue to live in poverty, despite recent gains made for young people, particularly on the legislative front, a study commissioned by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has found.

International prosecutors have promised there will be "no impunity" for anyone suspected of taking part in the killing of Guinean activists last September. The International Criminal Court's Fatou Bensouda, who is visiting Guinea, told the BBC victims' families would have justice.

The Rwandan government and its military have largely been suspected by a UN Panel of Experts, human rights organizations and independent journalists, of financially supporting a number of violent militias that have destabilized the eastern Congo region to illegally traffic millions-of-dollars worth of minerals such as coltan, gold, and cassiterite. These minerals are then brought from neighboring Congo into Rwanda for eventual sale on the international market.

You are invited to join us a screening of ‘’, a documentary that features the voices of women speaking in the aftermath of Kenya's 2007 post-election crisis.

The film (30 minutes) will be followed by a Q&A session with Firoze Manji, editor of Pambazuka News. Titles from Pambazuka Press will also be on sale.

DATE: Tuesday 2 March
TIME: 7pm
PLACE: Oxford Brookes University Human Rights Film Festival.

Ahmed Maher and Amr Ali, both leaders in the April 6th Youth Movement, were arrested in the early morning on 16 February as they were driving home from a meeting regarding the welcoming reception planned for Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Mohamed Elbaradei, who many activists are calling on to run for presidency in Egypt's upcoming election. Maher and Ali were stopped at a security checkpoint, forced out of their car, and taken to jail.

Cultural Survival is appealing to Kenyan government authorities to halt police operations in Northern Kenya, where Indigenous Samburu villages have suffered brutal police attacks over the last year.

In a paper to be published in the March issue of the academic journal Conflict, Security & Development, Joseph Hanlon argues that Mozambique poses some stark questions for development cooperation. In particular, "Current economic management strategies mean that a growing group of young people are leaving school with a basic education but no economic prospects. Will ‘marginal’ youth in towns and cities pose a threat of political and criminal violence? Can peace be built on poverty and rising inequality? Are elections and expanded schooling enough when there are no jobs?"

Kenya's failure to put in place a comprehensive disaster preparedness policy means its response to high-risk events such as droughts, floods, epidemics and major accidents tends to be slow, poorly coordinated and unnecessarily expensive, say specialists.

Tensions following clashes in N’zérékoré, southeastern Guinea, are hampering the movement of some humanitarian workers and supplies, according to the UN.

One of Senegal's leading lawyers has mediated labor strikes and defused election violence. Her name is Amsatou Sow Sidibe and Malena Amusa thinks she's a major reason why Senegal is relatively peaceful compared to neighboring Guinea.

Clashes between government forces and the Al-Shabaab militia in the Somali capital Mogadishu are displacing thousands of civilians. Reportedly, some 24 civilians have been killed and another 40 injured in the latest fighting, which erupted on Wednesday.

Nigeria's acting president, Goodluck Jonathan, should take immediate and concrete steps to address large-scale violence, endemic corruption, a lack of accountability for abuses, and other pressing human rights problems in Nigeria, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to the newly mandated leader.