Across regions, young people are disproportionately affected by unemployment, underemployment, vulnerable employment and working poverty, says this article from the UN Focal Point on Youth, which looks at youth unemployment in the aftermath of the financial crisis. 'Even during periods of economic growth, many economies have been unable to absorb large youth populations into the labour market. In recent years, however, the global financial and economic crisis has further hit young people particularly hard in the developed world.'

A prominent Sudanese opposition politician has been arrested, amid growing unrest over economic hardship. Kamel Omar was taken from his home by unknown men who showed no warrant, a spokesman of his party said. A government official said he was held for alleged links to Darfur rebels, as well as to the recent protests.

Sudanese security forces fired tear gas on Sunday after demonstrations broke out at the University of Khartoum, where nationwide protests against high prices began last month, a witness said. The university is where an unprecedented three weeks of national protests began on June 16, when students first voiced their opposition to high food prices.

One week after its creation, IndustriALL Global Union announced its intention to shine a light on Rio Tinto’s unethical behavior around the world, starting with the release of a report on the company’s operations in Africa. Speaking to journalists at the Foreign Press Association in London, the newly elected General Secretary of IndustriALL Global Union Jyrki Raina said, 'Rio Tinto’s operations in Africa are a story of displaced communities, broken promises, cozy arrangements with local dictators and the oppression of union involvement.'

A report on Monday said 1.63-million Malawians, out of a population of 13-million, would need food aid after crops failed in the south of the country, despite a bumper harvest of three-million tonnes nationwide. The study was conducted by the Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee, which comprises several government departments, the United Nations, embassies and humanitarian agencies. Only 200,000 people required food aid last year.

Well-known blogger Usamah Mohamed, known on Twitter as @simsimt, was detained by the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) during protests in Sudan, and continues to be held in custody. Mohamed has been a long-time critic of Sudan’s government. His arrest came after he posted a video on why he would join the mass protests for Al-Jazeera’s The Stream.

Zambia’s immediate past president, Rupiah Banda, says he has sent a letter to former US President George W. Bush’s offices, offering an apology on behalf of the Zambian people following a controversial debacle in Lusaka in which President Michael Sata referred to Bush as a 'colonialist'. During a ceremony held at State House in Lusaka, the Zambian capital, on Wednesday, President Sata castigated President Bush in front of an audience as a 'colonialist' who had returned to pay back the resources that had been stolen from Africa.

The death of rare conjoined twins in Cameroon last week stirred debate about society’s perception of the disabled and children with birth defects. While the government and nongovernmental organizations offered support to the twin’s family, community members and local leaders vary on whether they call the rare medical condition a gift or a curse, reports Global Press Institute.

Between 11- and 20-million undocumented immigrants live in the United States. The photo gallery on the site of photographer Mary Beth Meehan were taken inside the homes of undocumented residents in New England, with 'the goal of using the texture of their living spaces to make visible these human beings, and to provide a window into the very personal paths they have chosen'.

This study (by Salimah Valiani, Associate Researcher, Centre for the Study of Education and Work, University of Toronto, With a Foreword by Samir Amin) traces the structural forces creating the conditions for the increased supply and demand of temporary migrant nurses around the world. It is argued that technology-driven health care cost escalation, the restructuring of nursing work, persistent undervaluing of nursing labour, and concerted state effort to produce nursing labour for export, put in motion, the global integration of nursing labour markets. Please click for details of launch events in Kenya and South Africa.

A new study from Earth Open Source called 'GMO Myths and Truths' - authored by two well known genetic engineers with help from an investigative reporter - conducted an exhaustive survey of hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific studies. The report concluded not only that GM food crops pose significant, if largely under-evaluated, health risks, but that they have so far failed to deliver on their promise to increase crop yields and lower herbicide and pesticide use.

As European elections show the public increasingly rejecting austerity, critics call on the IMF to focus on the flaws of the eurozone rather than austerity in country programmes. Throughout the past months the prolonged recession in parts of Europe saw unemployment reach record highs and output stall, with concerns that austerity is hindering growth and the prospects to achieve fiscal and debt targets.

United Nations ambassadors for South Africa and Brazil have demanded more action and discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity as part as universal human rights standards, and to combat hate crimes. The Ambassador of South Africa to the United Nations, on behalf of his country and Brazil, delivered a statement on 2 July to the United Nations Humans Rights Council, saying that LGBT rights are part of the Universal standard of Human Rights, and demanding action against discrimination and hate crimes.

A coalition of local and international non-governmental organisations in health in Ghana, is asking the government to reject World Bank's proposal to adopt cost-sharing to sustain its National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), which has been operational since 2003. In its January report titled: 'Health Financing in Ghana at a Crossroads', the World Bank said Ghana's NHIS basic benefit package was financially unsustainable and, therefore, the government must consider cost-sharing. The coalition, which has been at the forefront of the promoting free universal access to health care in the country, said on Wednesday that it did not agree with the World Bank's suggestion, especially when it acknowledges that government expenditure on health is low.

This briefing from the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre provides an overview of corporate legal accountability for human rights, summarising trends and developments in this field. The goal is to help a wide audience understand what is happening in different parts of the world.

South Africa's education system is spiralling out of control and failing millions of pupils. From failure to deliver textbooks to unpaid bills and corrupt education officials, not much has been achieved since 1994. Former health minister Barbara Hogan has added her voice to the growing list of critics lambasting the failures of the country's education system. Speaking at non-governmental organisation Equal Education's national conference, Hogan urged young people to mobilise and 'start holding government accountable', adding the 1976 Soweto uprising showed pupils' strength.

The process of awarding oil exploration licences targeting Lake Malawi and other areas was so fraught with irregularities that the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) took preliminary steps to investigate senior government officials. In separate interviews, two former ministers of Natural Resources, Energy and the Environment – Goodall Gondwe and Grain Malunga – and other technical officials who spoke anonymously, provided evidence of irregular procedures that could have led to unqualified and/or not evaluated companies getting licences to explore oil in Malawi.

Investigative journalist John Allan Namu, has fled Kenya after exposing a secret military squad which offers protection to Rwandan genocide fugitive, Felicien Kabuga, who is wanted in connection with the country’s brutal genocide. In the first of its kind investigation ever carried out on the trail of the Rwandan genocide suspect, NTV, a private Kenyan television network, revealed a network operating within the Kenyan military that appeared to offer round the clock protection to Kabuga.

A 105-page Human Rights Watch report documents violations of due process rights, patterns of wrongful deprivation of liberty, and the harsh, unacceptable prison conditions in which detainees live. The research was done during a 10-month period before and after South Sudan’s independence, on 9 July 2011.

The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) is calling for proposals for its new Multinational Working Group (GMT) on the theme of "Africa in the Information Society Era". The MWG is an important CODESRIA program aimed at promoting multinational and multidisciplinary reflections on issues affecting the African community of social science researchers. Each MWG will be led by two or three coordinators and will include a maximum of fifteen researchers. Two to three senior researchers will be selected as independent assessors and will also be resource persons during meetings of each Group. The average length of a MWG is two years during which all phases of the research process should be completed and final results prepared for publication in the CODESRIA Book Series.