Ethics Minister Fr Simon Lokodo recently appeared before the High Court in Kampala over the closure of a gay meeting in Entebbe, but was not cross examined as earlier expected. Lokodo, along with the Attorney General, is being sued by four gay activists – Jacqueline Kasha Nabagesera, Julian Pepe Onziema, Frank Mugisha and Geoffrey Ogwaro – who accuse him of infringing on their rights when he closed their ongoing two-week meeting in February.

The police in Bauchi in northern Nigeria said Sunday morning's suicide bombing at a Catholic Church in the city left three dead and 46 injured, representing an increase in the figure of one dead earlier given by the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA). Police spokesman Hassan Auyo gave the fIgures to journalists, saying those killed included the suicide bomber. According to Auyo, the suicide bomber detonated his explosive-laden vehicle at the gate of the St. John's Catholic Church after a barricade erected there prevent him from driving into the premises during the early morning Mass.

Women farmers in Côte d’Ivoire are achieving greater autonomy and economic independence thanks to new varieties of cassava. Cassava is an important staple food in this West African country according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, second only to yams, a similar starchy tuber. Farmers in the southern and eastern parts of the country have taken up three high-yielding varieties of cassava, known as Bocou 1, 2 and 3, which are resistant to disease and pests, according to Boni N’zué, the coordinator of the Cassava Project, an initiative launched in 2008 by the country’s National Centre for Agricultural Research.

Thousands of Somali refugee adolescent girls ages 10 to 16 are living in refugee camps in Ethiopia. This report from the Women's Refugee Commission details their protection and empowerment needs and priorities; programs and community-based strategies that serve them; and gaps in services from girls’ perspectives.

The Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellows Program at the Washington, DC–based National Endowment for Democracy invites applications for fellowships in 2013–2014. This federally funded program enables democracy activists, practitioners, scholars, and journalists from around the world to deepen their understanding of democracy and enhance their ability to promote democratic change.

Pro-and anti-Malema factions have vowed to demonstrate outside court as the expelled ANC Youth League leader faces criminal charges. The Polokwane Regional Court looks set to become the stage for a media circus, as both supporters and opponents of expelled ANC Youth League president Julius Malema vowed to launch protests and counter-protests in the Limpopo town ahead of his court appearance this week.

An international AIDS vaccine conference held in Boston, in America, discussed the importance of community participation in the search for a preventative AIDS vaccine. Jim Maynard of the HIV Trials Network says the development of a vaccine will succeed or fail depending on the buy-in of community members in every society. 'I don’t think the vaccine work can progress at all without the community. It’s asking a huge sacrifice from any community, saying: "We’d like to work with your people and try something that we hope will save millions of lives, but we don’t know because it is experimental’". And, if you’re going to ask something that big of them, the community can then say: "How will this help our community? If you do succeed in this vaccine, will we get access to this vaccine?"'

The French government has ordered an investigation into genetically-modified corn after a study found it was linked to cancer. France's government asked a health watchdog to carry out a probe, possibly leading to EU suspension of a genetically-modified corn, after a study in rats linked the grain to cancer.

Anuak indigenous people from Ethiopia’s Gambella region have submitted a complaint to the World Bank Inspection Panel implicating the Bank in grave human rights abuses perpetrated by the Ethiopian Government. The complaint alleges that the Anuak people have been severely harmed by the World Bank-financed and administered Protection of Basic Services Project (PBS), which has provided 1.4 billion USD in sectoral budget support for the provision of basic services to the Ethiopian Government since 2006.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has said the seeking of asylum is not a criminal act and those who seek it should not be detained. In a statement obtained by PANA in New York Sunday, the UN refugee agency also called on all states to seek out alternatives to detention when dealing with migrants and refugees. The statement, issued following the agency’s new guidelines on the detention of asylum-seekers, urged the world’s governments to make better use of alternatives to detention for those irregular migrants seeking refuge within their borders.

Global leaders from governments, international organizations and civil society have endorsed an urgent Call to Action to ensure the world’s most vulnerable children and youth receive a good quality education by protecting schools from attacks, significantly increasing humanitarian aid for education and planning and budgeting for emergencies before they occur. The leaders urged immediate action for the 28 million children – nearly half of all children not in primary school – who live in countries scarred by war and conflict, as well as millions more struck by humanitarian emergencies such as flooding, food shortages, earthquakes and other disasters.

Civil rights organisation Touche pas à ma nationalité TPMN (in English: Do not interfere with my citizenship) has called for a large march on September 27, 2012 in the capital Nouakchott to commemorate the passing of anti-racism activist Lamine Mangane. Mangane was killed a year ago by authorities in the town of Maghama during protests against a census that marginalized black citizens of Mauritania.

The Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellows Program at the Washington, DC–based National Endowment for Democracy invites applications for fellowships in 2013–2014. This federally funded program enables democracy activists, practitioners, scholars, and journalists from around the world to deepen their understanding of democracy and enhance their ability to promote democratic change.

A decision by COPAC to exclude civil society organizations from the second all stakeholders’ conference has sparked a firestorm of controversy, with accusations that the move is not only retrogressive, but dangerous. Following meetings of COPAC’s secretariat and the select committee this week it was decided, allegedly because of budgetary constraints, to reduce the number of participants from 2,400 to 2,000. They also decided that each of the three parties will send 600 delegates, with the remaining 200 slots being allocated to Members of Parliament.

An analysis of gendered fighter constructions in the liberation movements in Eritrea and southern Sudan (EPLF and SPLA/M), examining the question of female access to the sphere of masculine fighter constructs and the relevance of this for influence in peacetime affairs. Empirical research in both countries, in particular interviews with participants, reveals that what keeps women out of the sphere of legitimized violence is not some 'inherent peacefulness', but the exclusivist construct of the masculine fighter, which is supported by society.

Jalila Khamis, a Nuba woman activist, faces charges under articles 50 and 51 of the Sudanese Criminal Act of 1991. Both articles are crimes against the state and punished by death.

It is a long-standing tradition in many African countries to frown upon the selling of land. When land is snapped up by large agribusiness interests in these countries, it is experienced as a brutal violation of this tradition, one that compromises the lives and livelihoods of entire generations to come. This phenomenon of large-scale land appropriation really took off with the food crisis of 2008. As the many cases of land grabbing identified in West and Central Africa have demonstrated, profit seems to be the only motive pursued. The whole model is inimical to - really a frontal attack on - the goals of food sovereignty, which is fundamentally about human survival, especially in African countries that are still largely rural. Read the rest of this GRAIN article by clicking on the link provided.

Campaigners have called for a UK criminal investigation to be brought against Trafigura for the dumping of toxic waste in Ivory Coast in 2006. The Dutch-based company with London offices paid an Ivorian company to dump the waste in Abidjan. Thousands of people sought hospital treatment. Amnesty and Greenpeace say a three-year investigation shows the UK and Dutch authorities failed to stop the dumping or hold Trafigura to account.

Proscovia Alengot Oromait has become Africa's youngest Member of Paliament (MP) at the age of 19, after she won the Usuk county election with 11,059 votes. The outspoken youngster replaces her father who died earlier this year, reports Global Voices Online. Alengot is a member of National Resistance Movement, headed by President Yoweri Museveni. Other people who stood for the post included, Charles Ojok Oleny with 5,329 votes, Charles Okure from FDC with 2,725 votes and Cecilia Anyakoit of UPC with 554 votes.

On the evening of 12 September, a dispute between Eritrean and Nigerian detainees at the Khoms detention centre for 'irregular migrants' had escalated into violence, reports this Amnesty International blog post. During the chaos a group of Somalis chose their moment to escape. A 29-year-old man from the Eritrean capital Asmara, who has spent six months in various detention centres across Libya, told Amnesty International that one man in military uniform hit him on the head with a metal bar and deliberately stepped on his hand with his military boots.