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.

Fighting that started a month ago between Sudan and South Sudan along the oil-rich Heglig region on the border has provoked increased repression in Sudan, noticeably on the media, report the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI), Human Rights Watch, Index on Censorship and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). 'Sudan is cracking down on civil and political rights in the face of conflict and opposition,' says Daniel Bekele, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. 'But locking up critics and silencing dissent will not solve Sudan's problems.'

Government should revise the Traditional Courts Bill, which activists argue is promoting patriarchal practices in rural areas and also discrimination against women. This article gives the example of The Rural Women’s Movement (RWM), a KwaZulu-Natal NGO, which has in the course of its work with more than 50,000 rural women extensively documented the harsh realities of rural lives under the unaccountable authority of traditional leaders and their institutions of power. 'In a district that cannot be named for fear of reprisal the traditional leader unilaterally controls community resources and access to land. In most instances, where there are projects that rural women have initiated without him, for example a sewing machines project, he tries to undermine the projects and threatens to remove the resources needed for the project.'

Some schoolgirls in Kibera, Kenya's largest slum, are writing down their problems and submitting them to a message box. Schools are using the information to alleviate everything from molestation to family financial pressures. Concerns range from their families' inability to pay school fees to revelations of abuse and neglect. The Talking Box is a program started by Polycomdev, a local community-based organization in Kibera.

A United Nations agency, charged with helping member nations secure their national infrastructures, plans to issue a sharp warning about the risk of the Flame computer virus that was recently discovered in Iran and other parts of the Middle East. The confidential warning will tell member nations that the Flame virus is a dangerous espionage tool that could potentially be used to attack critical infrastructure.

Algeria swore in newly elected MPs on 26 May amidst protests from Islamists alleging electoral fraud. Mohamed Larbi Ould Khelifa presided over the first plenary session of the new People's National Assembly (APN), assisted by two younger MPs, Assia Kenane and Hocine Maaloume. Islamist protesters disrupted the proceedings when 49 Green Algeria Alliance members held up placards and called the May 10th election a fraud, followed by a similar act by the 28 MPs representing the Front for the Protection of Democracy.

‘Politics is the main hindrance for the ICC’ was the main conclusion drawn from ‘Building Restorative International Justice: the ICC of the Future’. The topical debate took place in London at the Royal Commonwealth Society.

At least six ZANU PF activists have reportedly been arrested in connection with the murder of an MDC-T ward official in Mudzi North last Saturday, but already there are concerns that the arrests were simply a ZANU PF ploy to save face, ahead of the SADC summit. Cephas Magura, the MDC-T chairperson for ward 1, Mudzi North, died from injuries sustained during an assault by ZANU PF thugs at Chimukoko Business Centre. The MDC-T had organised a rally there with permission from the police.

Revival of Pan-Africanism Forum presents:

Celebrating the Life of Thomas Sankara with a roundtable discussion on
Revolution and Counterrevolution in Africa

The 25th anniversary of the assassination of Thomas Sankara provides a moment for reflection upon Sankara’s life and his contributions to PanAfrican thought and the relevance of his thinking to the uprisings currently in North Africa and beyond.

Speakers include:

Patricia Daley, Lecturer in Geography at Jesus College, University of Oxford

Jeremy Keenan, Department of Anthropology and Sociology, London School of Oriental and African Studies

Gnaka Lagoke, Founder, The Revival of PanAfricanism Forum

Firoze Manji, Editor in Chief, Pambazuka News

Carina Ray, Department of History, Fordham University

Date: 8 June, 2012

Time: 2.30pm - 6.30pm

Location: Habakkuk Room, Jesus College

For more information, please contact
Joseph Kangah [email][email protected] Amber Murrey [email][email protected] or visit us at www.revivalofpanafricanism.org

Africa's newest sovereign state, South Sudan, is the highest riser in this year's internationally acclaimed global ranking Peoples Under Threat, indicating that the risk of further ethnic killings in the country remains critical, Minority Rights Group International (MRG) says. In South Sudan, a new entrant in the top ten, a history of cattle raiding between the Lou Nuer and the Murle, as well as other groups, has developed into inter-communal violence on a highly organised scale in Jonglei state, affecting some 120,000 people. Tens of thousands of refugees have also fled across the border into South Sudan in recent months, escaping Sudanese government shelling of communities in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile state.

South Sudan is losing its forests. And with no unified policy to deal with the situation the government is at odds, with one ministry saying that the loss of forests is a necessity for farming and another warning of the dire environmental consequences if this continues unchecked. While there is no information on the exact number of forests in the country, according to 2009 figures from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, forests and woodlands cover an estimated 29 per cent of the land area in South Sudan or 191,667 square kilometres.

Hundreds of Salafists have attacked bars and shops and clashed with security forces in a Tunisian town in the latest incident to raise religious tensions in the home of the Arab Spring uprisings. Police and witnesses in the northwestern town of Jendouba said on Saturday that hundreds of the ultra-conservative Muslims began rioting to protest the arrest of four men in connection with previous attacks on alcohol vendors.

Tunisia's justice ministry has sacked 81 magistrates over suspicions of graft and their links to ousted president Zine el Abidine Ben Ali's regime. The magistrates, whose identities were not revealed, are accused of having 'obeyed orders and dabbled in embezzlements, while handing down rulings in violation of the law to protect personal interests', said Justice Minister Nourredine Bhiri in an interview on Sunday with newspaper Achourouk.

The petition available through the web address provided calls for the suspension of removals of failed asylum seekers in the United Kingdom until there has been a full inquiry into the safety of failed asylum seekers on return to the DRC, in order to prevent future ill-treatment of vulnerable Congolese asylum seekers.

Last week five of the UN's smallest member states, describing themselves as the 'small five' (S5), challenged the five permanent members (P5) of the Security Council, namely the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia, over the misuse of their veto powers. But hours before it was to be debated and voted in the 193-member General Assembly, the resolution unceremoniously disappeared from the hallowed precincts of the United Nations.

In this broadcast from The Real News Network, Maurice Carney, a co-founder and Executive Director of the Friends of the Congo, talks about the expansion of AFRICOM on the African continent. 'Although the United States has continued to push AFRICOM, it has been roundly rejected by African leaders. An initial aim of AFRICOM was to establish a based presence on the African continent. And because of the, you know, vicious or, you know, intense pushback on the part of African leaders, President Bush had to backtrack on that aim. But nonetheless we still see the push for AFRICOM to have a large footprint on the African continent.'

The Basic Health Centre or Centre de Santé de Base (CSB) II in Anjalajala, near Antsohihy, the capital of Madagascar's northern Sofia Region, is housed in a recently renovated building and its status as a CSB II promises the availability of a trained doctor. But the doctor left for Antananarivo, the capital, in 2002 and has not been replaced, and whenever the remaining nurse is absent, services stop. The situation at this clinic is not unique in Madagascar, where an already weak healthcare system has been in a state of decline since 2009 when the international community branded Andry Rajoelina's ousting of President Marc Ravalomanana a coup, and donors halted all but emergency aid.

The Democratic Republic of Congo is ruling out a peaceful solution to a stand-off with rebels in the east. The government has refused to negotiate with the group known as M23, who have deserted from the army. In this exclusive video report, Al Jazeera crosses the frontline to speak to the fighters.

Dozens of legislators have walked out of the inaugural session of Algeria's parliament to protest what they say was an election rigged to hand a majority to the ruling elite's party. Saturday's walk-out saw 49 legislators from the Green Algeria Alliance (AVV) along with MPs from two smaller parties, who combined hold 60 of the 462 seats in the parliament, boycott the first meeting of the chamber since a May 10 election.

An explosion ripped through a building full of small shops in downtown Nairobi on Monday, wounding at least 16 people, the police commissioner said. He could not immediately confirm what caused the blast. The force of the explosion ripped apart the one-story building's aluminum roof, but a high-rise building with a glass exterior right next to the blast did not appear to sustain major damage.