13 men from Darfur region of Sudan have been on hunger strike for 6 days at Campsfield Immigration Removal Centre in Kidlington, near Oxford.

The Judges of Trial Chamber II on 30 May sentenced convicted former Liberian President Charles Ghankay Taylor to a term of 50 years in prison for planning and for aiding and abetting crimes committed by rebel forces in Sierra Leone during the country's decade-long civil war. The Trial Chamber, comprised of Justice Richard Lussick of Samoa (Presiding), Justice Teresa Doherty of Northern Ireland, and Justice Sebutinde of Uganda, unanimously imposed the single global sentence for all 11 counts of the crimes for which Mr. Taylor was convicted. These included acts of terrorism, murder, rape, sexual slavery, outrages upon personal dignity, cruel treatment, other inhumane acts, conscripting or enlisting of child soldiers, enslavement and pillage.

About one hundred Delft residents who are living in temporary structures whilst waiting for the government to provide them with RDP houses, blocked Symphony Way Road by burning tyres in a protest over their living conditions yesterday. This demonstration was the latest in a series of such protests in the area. Two weeks ago residents burnt tyres on the same road for the same reason.

Clashes between two communities in western Kenya's Rift Valley Province have led to the displacement of thousands of people, the closure of several schools and calls for the government to beef up security. Relations between the Tugen and the Pokot in what is now known as Baringo County have for decades been marked by tit-for-tat cattle raids and the occasional attendant fatality. Over the years, firearms have replaced more traditional weapons, especially among the Pokot. An escalation - in intensity and frequency - of hostilities since January has, according to the Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS), left more than 7,500 Tugen people displaced from their homes, living either with other members of their community or in rudimentary shelters in the bush.

Since the end of apartheid in South Africa, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) communities have made unprecedented legal gains under the rubric of the bill of rights. The traditional courts bill threatens to undermine this security for millions of South Africans living in rural areas. The bill is the latest in a series of clumsy attempts to define, regularise and institutionalise the role of traditional leaders. In so doing, the bill undermines the protection afforded by constitutional civil rights.

Kenyan soldiers have killed 14 Al Shabaab fighters after the rebel force launched an attack on a Kenyan warship in the Indian Ocean. Ten other Al Shabaab fighters were injured in the attack, the first major naval operation in recent months. The Kenyan Defence Forces (KDF), which is part of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) contingent, said the Kenyan Naval Ship engaged the militants at an Al Shabaab seaport watch station on Tuesday, 29 May.

While all eyes were focused on the presidential race, on the streets of Egypt, inch by inch, bit by bit, women's rights are shrinking. Women, Muslim and Christian, who do not cover their hair or who wear mid-sleeved clothing are met with insults, spitting and in some cases physical abuse. In the urban squatter settlement of Mouasset el Zakat, in Al Marg, Greater Cairo, women told a London Guardian reporter that they hated walking in the streets.

Morocco’s glittering Mawazine international music festival wrapped up recently with performances by Mariah Carey and Lenny Kravitz, after nine days of showcasing the North African kingdom’s cool factor - even as dissident Moroccan musicians are imprisoned for their anti-establishment lyrics. Just a week before the festival began, Human Rights Watch slammed Morocco for sentencing a rapper to a year in prison for lyrics deemed insulting to police - a common theme in rap music elsewhere in the world.

West African bloc Ecowas on Monday 28 May rejected a rebel declaration of an independent Islamic state in northern Mali and repeated an earlier threat to take 'all necessary measures' to keep the country intact. The 15-nation Economic Community of West African States 'denounces in the strongest possible terms this opportunistic act', said a statement signed by Ecowas head Desire Kadre Ouedraogo.

Thousands of infants born in remote northern parts of Kenya in the past six weeks risk contracting tuberculosis (TB) due to a vaccine shortage, with medics warning that the effects could be severe in areas where there is already little access to maternity and vaccination services. In the north-central Isiolo region, for example, stocks of the TB Bacillus Camille Guérin (BCG) vaccine ran out at the main Isiolo District Hospital in early April, leaving hundreds of babies unimmunized.

Parts of the developing world, particularly India and countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, will suffer food shortages if their planned biofuels targets are implemented by 2020, a study has warned. The study, which looked at 25 countries and geographical regions, including Latin American and the Caribbean, Sub-Saharan Africa and the United States, found that the targets will also affect national wealth.

Q-zine is a pan-African, bilingual (English/French), quarterly electronic magazine by, for and about sexual minority groups in Africa. The fifth issue of Q-zine is proud to showcase LGBTI and queer African innovators and creators who are making their visions a reality. Q-Zine is looking for young LGBTI and queer people in Africa and the Diaspora who are moving, shaking, setting trends and making a difference in their lives and in their communities.

As Sudan and South Sudan sit down to peace talks they must make it a priority to sort out citizenship problems which have left hundreds of thousands of people in a 'stateless' limbo, rights activists say. People from South Sudan were left without any official nationality last year after the south became independent and the government in the northern capital of Khartoum stripped them of their Sudanese citizenship. Refugees International (RI) said as many as 500,000 southerners were still living in Sudan and warned that violence against them was on the rise. Tens of thousands have lost their jobs.

The Moroccan government’s announcement that it would issue new public media guidelines at the end of May has reignited a stormy debate around independent media in the kingdom. The debate began nearly two months ago when the Islamist government, led by Abdelilah Benkirane, forced public television channels and radio stations to broadcast the five daily calls to prayer, which put many citizens on the defensive against what they saw as a deliberate attempt to Islamise an otherwise moderate sector of society.

Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo has labelled rumours circulating about Rwanda's involvement in the eastern DRC as 'categorically false and dangerous'. She was responding to reports on the BBC of a UN report alleging that solders had been recruited and trained in Rwanda and then transferred to the eastern DRC to take part in the conflict between the Congolese government and rebel forces.

On 29 May, The New York Times published an extraordinarily in-depth look at the intimate role President Obama has played in authorizing US drone attacks overseas, particularly in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. 'While purporting to represent the world’s greatest democracy, US leaders are putting people on a hit list who are as young as 17, people who are given no chance to surrender, and certainly no chance to be tried in a court of law.'

Christine Lagarde's crass comments on Greece have caused an understandable furore in that country. But in Niger, there must be just as much contempt for the IMF director. For in dismissing the plight of mothers in Greece, Lagarde also said she felt more sympathy for 'the little kids from a school in a little village in Niger'. If 'sympathy' is what characterises the IMF's approach to Niger, then Greece would do better to avoid it. Niger comes into news headlines on a fairly regular basis – associated as it is with cycles of famine and constantly high levels of malnutrition. Less reported is the role of the IMF, along with sister organisation the World Bank, in fuelling this suffering, writes Nick Dearden in the London Guardian.

One month after human rights defender Mr Biram Dah Abeid was arrested, a peaceful anti-slavery march was violently cracked down. Several activists were severely injured and the wife of Mr. Abeid, Leila Mint Ahmed Khliva, was injured by a grenade. Since Mr. Abeid, president of the ‘Initiative de Résurgence du Mouvement Abolitionniste de Mauritanie’ (IRA) was arrested on 29 April 2012, his whereabouts continue to remain unknown.

A Moroccan draft law that seeks to grant members of the armed forces legal immunity for 'military operations' carried out inside the kingdom has sparked criticism by human rights organizations who say it violates the principle of equal justice under law. The 'basic guarantees for the military' draft law states that 'criminal investigation shall not be applied to members of the Royal Armed Forces who are executing the orders of their commanders…during an operation inside the national territories.'

Refugees who have found employment in the booming security industry say the Private Security Industry and Regulation Authority (Psira) is pushing them out of the sector. Psira’s regulations state that only South African identity document holders may be employed by registered security companies.