One year after the formation of South Sudan, the country’s women say that independence has not resulted in the positive political, economic and social changes that they had hoped for. Women activists worry that even after separation from Sudan, when South Sudan became the world’s newest country and Africa’s 54th nation, the government has not done enough to improve the lives of its women. But as people across the country celebrate the first anniversary of independence from Sudan, after a 21-year civil war, the year has been fraught with crises.

Dr. Gary K. Busch, de nacionalidade norte-americana, é especialista em política africana e possui vasto conhecimento em negócios nesse continente. Além da experiência como professor e responsável por Departamento na Universidade do Havaí, ele presta consultoria a várias companhias de transporte e logística que operam em escala mundial. Ele foi igualmente Diretor de Pesquisa em importante sindicato norte-americano e Secretário Geral Assistente de uma organização sindical internacional. O site francês Terangaweb o entrevistou com vistas a sólida análise baseada em experiência prática.

Every 40 hours in the United States one Black woman, man or child is killed by police, and by a smaller number of security guards and self-appointed vigilantes. These are the startling findings of a new Report on Extrajudicial Killings of Black People released July 9, 2012.

Seventeen human rights non governmental organizations officially launched their 'Human Rights in 100 Days' campaign to pressure new Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi to follow through on rights of Egyptian citizens. The newly created Forum of Independent Egyptian Human Rights Organizations, which includes the Egyptian Association for Community Participation Enhancement (national focal point of Social Watch), had sent a letter to President Morsi 'delineating the most important steps which must be taken to improve Egypt’s human rights condition and which they believed were missing from the President’s strategies and statements,' reported Bikya Masr news portal.

A new project called Africa Express, being carried out by Frenchmen Jeremy Debreu and Claire Guibert with support from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), is bringing attention to a different breed of alternative energy on the continent, one where Africans who lack access to energy are the main beneficiaries. For a period of ten months, the pair are traveling 20,000 km through 23 countries using trains and buses to survey a range of alternative energy projects. From a community refrigeration project in northern Senegal to a massive hydroelectric dam in Morocco, the size and nature of the projects differ.

The leader of the opposition party Gambia Moral Congress (GMC) has urged the director general of the National Intelligence Agency to resign over torture allegations. Mr Mai Fatty made these remarks in an open letter addressed to Mr Numo Kujabi, the head of the spy agency. Mr Fatty said over 90 per cent of NIA detainees had alleged some form of torture, and some of the worst brutalities were alleged to have taken place inside Bambadinka.

The New York-based press freedom body, Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), has said that two unidentified gunmen shot a Somali journalist, Abdulkadir Omar Abdulle, PANA reports. The CPJ said in a communique that Abdulkadir, who works for Universal TV as a reporter and anchor, was shot on Saturday evening near his home in the southern Wadajir district of the capital, Mogadishu, but he survived the attack.

In this article about the state of South Africa's public health system, a doctor relates her experience of working on a trauma ward. 'We shouldn’t, however, allow our feelings about how perfect we expect nurses and doctors to be to blind us to the real problem, which is the shambles in which the Department of Health has left our healthcare system,' she writes. 'It is not clinicians on the ground who decide how many hospitals there should be, how many beds those hospitals should contain, what services those hospitals should offer, and how well those hospitals should be staffed. Those things are decided by administrators, as they should be. Those administrators are appointed by the Department of Health, also as it should be. And the Department of Health is run by a bunch of politicians, who are doing the most terrible job of representing the interests of the people who put them there.'

Renewed fighting over the last week in Democratic Republic of the Congo's North Kivu province has caused more than 5,000 people to flee across the border into south-west Uganda and left an unknown number internally displaced. As of Monday 9 July, Uganda Red Cross staff in the crowded Nyakabande Transit Centre in Uganda's Kisoro District had registered 5,075 new Congolese arrivals from North Kivu's neighbouring Rutshuru territory since the latest fighting between government troops and the rebel March 23 movement exploded. The defectors on Friday captured the border town of Bunagana followed by the important town of Rutshuru, causing thousands to flee.

The time has come for social activists to campaign for a Global Constitution on the Right to Health ending the current status quo where 'our ill health is politically constructed by those above us', activist Mark Heywood told the 3rd People’s Health Assembly (PHA). He said that across the world there was a growing recognition of the right to health, but that there was no definition of the duties that flow from this right. 'This means that there has really been no change in the approach to health, which means we need a global campaign for a Global Constitution on the Right to Health,' said Heywood.

Southern Africa’s long-awaited regional infrastructure development master plan is now ready for approval by the SADC Heads of State and Government Summit set for Maputo, Mozambique in August. This follows the finalisation of the master plan by ministers responsible for infrastructure in the Southern African Development Community (SADC), who met in Luanda, Angola in late June. If endorsed by the southern African leaders, the master plan would guide development in key infrastructure such as road, rail and ports, and would also act as a framework for planning and cooperation with development partners and the private sector.

Survival International says it has received disturbing reports from members of several tribes in Ethiopia’s Lower Omo Valley, which describe how the government is destroying their crops to force them to move off their land into designated resettlement areas. Those most affected by the land grabs are Suri, Bodi and Mursi pastoralists, and the Kwegu hunter-gatherer people.

Abdramane Keita, managing editor of privately-owned bi-weekly L’Aurore newspaper was on the night of 2 July 2012 violently attacked by unknown armed men in the capital Bamako, accusing him of causing confusion in the country. The Media Foundation for West Africa’s (MFWA) correspondent reported that Keita’s assailants abducted him the same night and abandoned him at Senou, a town located in Bamako after seizing all his possessions including an unspecified amount of money.

A Ugandan legislator has proposed to penalise Ugandans who give birth to many children, saying the unchecked population growth was outstripping the country's resources. Uganda has an annual growth rate of 3.1 per cent, but legislators say this is too high and should be slowed down. Parliamentarian, Peter Claver Mutuluuza called for enactment of a policy that would limit the number of children produced by Ugandans.??

With the expiration of the seven-day ultimatum given to Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan and the country's Code of Conduct Bureau to provide information on the President's assets declaration, the Nigerian NGO Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) is heading to court to compel the bureau to comply with its request. 'Since the Bureau has so far failed to respond to our request after the mandatory period of 7 days; we have prepared the necessary court papers which will be filed before the court this week to compel the Bureau to discharge its constitutional responsibility,' SERAP said in a statement made available to PANA. SERAP had earlier sent a request to both the President and the Code of Conduct Bureau, arguing that the disclosure of the information requested will give SERAP and the general public a true picture of the assets of the President from May 2007 to May 2012, and will demonstrate the President’s oft-expressed commitment to transparency and accountability.

As a gay man living in Tanzania, Cassim Mustapha could have faced imprisonment, but prosecutions under the country's Sexual Offences Act are rare, and the bigger threat came from his own community. After one of his neighbours attacked him with an axe leaving a deep wound in his head, Mustapha fled and applied for asylum in Malawi, the first country he reached. Persecution relating to an individual's sexual orientation or gender identity is increasingly recognized by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and in refugee law as grounds for claiming asylum. Most such claims are based on the 1951 Refugee Convention's definition of a refugee as someone having a well-founded fear of persecution because of 'membership of a particular social group'. However, many lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) individuals fail to gain asylum on this basis.

Fifty four people trying to reach Italy from Libya died of thirst after a 15-day voyage in which their rubber boat gradually deflated, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said on Tuesday 10 July, citing the sole survivor. It said the man, an Eritrean national, was rescued by Tunisian coastguards in a state of advanced dehydration clinging to the remains of the boat after being spotted by fishermen the previous night, the agency said.

The world needs more doctors, nurses and other health care workers - 3.5 million of them, to be exact. The poor state of human resources in the health care system came under the spotlight at a session at the People’s Health Assembly, a five-day international meeting currently underway at the University of the Western Cape campus in Bellville. 'Human resources are at the heart of a good health system,' said Bridget Lloyd from the People’s Health Movement (PHM), who chaired the meeting. 'But in Africa we face great challenges with human resources in the health sector.'

The Tunisian League for Human Rights (LTDH), the Arab Human Rights Organization (Egypt) and the Libyan Human Rights League, among several organizations and activists, signed on Sunday an international Pact of Honour against torture in Tunis, reported TAP news agency. LTDH President Abdessatar Ben Moussa said that 'the pact commits the signing parties to defend and campaign for the respect of human rights and fundamental liberties', stressing that the league will spare no effort to include the principle of criminalising torture in the future Tunisian Constitution.

The United Nations is increasingly hiring Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) for its missions across the world, raising concerns over the use of firms known for participation in human rights abuses, as well as an overall lack of accountability structures governing these contractors within the UN system. Between 2009 and 2010 alone, the UN increased its use of private security services by 73 per cent (from 44 million to 76 million dollars), according to a new report by the independent policy watchdog Global Policy Forum (GFP).