An activist serving life imprisonment with hard labour for printing and distributing T-shirts calling for an end to dictatorship in The Gambia must be freed, global rights body, Amnesty International (AI), has said. The global rights body made the call as it marked its annual Day of Action, calling for improved human rights in the West African country.

From 12-14 July, the International Detention Coalition hosted the first Africa Regional Immigration Detention Workshop in Johannesburg, South Africa. 18 organizations from 10 countries participated, including representatives from Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, South Africa and Senegal. Over the three days, participants had the opportunity to share detention related skills, experiences, challenges and opportunities, thereby building relationships, learning from each other and engaging on thematic issues including legal framework for detention, monitoring places of detention, working with vulnerable people in detention, self care and advocacy techniques.

Global funding for humanitarian aid interventions saw the biggest shortfalls in 10 years in 2011, according to a new report, raising questions about the international community’s ability to meet a 20-per cent greater need for 2012 driven by drought and conflict. The launch of the 2012 Global Humanitarian Assistance (GHA) report last week coincided with the release of new mid-year data by the UN that scaled up earlier projections of humanitarian needs from 7.9 billion to 8.8 billion dollars for 2012.

The current political instability in Bamako and the insecurity in northern Mali continue to trigger important influxes of refugees into the neighboring countries of Burkina Faso, Mauritania and Niger, says UNHCR. Altogether, the crisis has now displaced over 400,000 Malians.

The head of the US war crimes office has warned Rwanda's leaders, including President Paul Kagame, that they could face prosecution at the international criminal court for arming groups responsible for atrocities in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Stephen Rapp, who leads the US Office of Global Criminal Justice, told the Guardian the Rwandan leadership may be open to charges of 'aiding and abetting' crimes against humanity in a neighbouring country.

The international workshop and seminar, 'Agrarian Reform and the Defense of Land and Territory in the 21st century: The Challenge and Future' culminated on 15 July in a celebration in Sibaladuang, Sungai Kamuyang Village, Limapuluh Kota Regent, West Sumatra, Indonesia. Delegates from 26 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe attended. The final declaration of the international workshop was read out, outlining some of the key elements of a new vision of agrarian reform and the sovereignty of peoples over their territories. Among them were that peasants and family farm production play the central role in the building of food sovereignty.

A virtual lecture hall, enabling lectures to be streamed to university campuses from around the world, aims to plug the gap in scientific teaching staff at the University of Zimbabwe (UZ), which has suffered years of brain drain. The Virtual Lecture Hall (VLH) was launched last month (29 June) at UZ’s College of Health Sciences (UZ-CHS) and Faculties of Science and Veterinary Science, by the UK-based Council for Assisting Refugee Academics (CARA) and Econet Wireless, the mobile communications company funding the project.

By selling the presidential jet and getting rid of 60 limousines driven by high-ranking officials, Joyce Banda, Malawi’s new president, is making waves. But even before trimming the fat from the state budget, Ms. Banda made headlines when she announced her intention to repeal the country’s anti-gay law shortly after her April swearing-in. If she has her way, Malawi would be one of the rare African countries to do so, reports Africa Renewal Online.

Zambia’s Minister of Mines, Energy and Water Development Isaac Banda from the opposition Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) has relinquished his ministerial position with immediate effect, as pressure mounts for ministers appointed from the opposition to resign their posts. Banda is among the nine MMD Members of Parliament from the former ruling party who were threatened with expulsion by party president Nevers Mumba if they did not give up their ministerial positions.

Hopes of a new, more effective therapy for tuberculosis have been raised following the results of early trials. The study showed three drugs given in combination killed more than 99 per cent of TB bacteria after two weeks of treatment. The therapy appeared to be equally effective on the drug-resistant form of the disease in the trials of 85 patients, a team led by Stellenbosch University in South Africa reported.

This report from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees states that while sexual violence against women and girls has also become a central protection concern in displacement contexts, sexual violence against men and boys is less understood or acknowledged. 'It is increasingly evident, nevertheless, that this is a recurrent protection concern in situations of conflict and displacement.'

A first-of-its-kind study released by Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) maps progress across 23 countries on HIV treatment strategies, tools and policies needed to increase treatment scale-up. The results show that governments have made improvements to get better antiretroviral treatment (ART) to more people, but implementation of innovative community-based strategies is lagging in some countries.

As the nineteenth International AIDS Conference continued in Washington, thousands of protesters marched on the White House with a set of demands to end the epidemic. At the forefront were calls for an end to free trade deals that protesters argue make vital AIDS medicines unaffordable. The march comprised a coalition of AIDS advocacy and activist groups organised under the mantra 'We Can End AIDS', and ended with a dramatic display when activists gathered symbols of the fight against AIDS – pill bottles and money – tied them with red ribbons, and threw them in front of the White House.

The Kenya representatives at the ongoing Sex Workers Freedom Festival have won accolades for their passion and for spearheading a protest against US policies that do not favor sex workers. To begin with, John Mathenge, who was heading the delegation with two other female sex workers from the Kenya Sex Workers Alliance (KESWA) and the Bar Hostess and Empowerment Programm (BHESP), was accorded the Global Youth Activist on Sex Workers Award by the Global Network of Sex Workers Project (NSWP).

This course provides a policy lens on social exclusion and marginalisation, providing a theoretical framework for understanding the process by which certain groups are systematically disadvantaged. Furthermore, the course will look at the ways in which systematic discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, race, religion, sexual orientation, caste, descent, gender non-confirmation, age, disability, HIV status, migrant status or where they live, shaped certain communities’ social prospects, access to services and ability to mobilise in defence of their rights.

This Africa Today recording is of a special program highlighting the countries of Mali and Nubia and the efforts to prevent the destruction of Africa’s history. The guests include: Professor Manu Ampim, Dr. Runoko Rashidi, and Shayaam Shabaka.

An estimated one million people in Madagascar are diabetic, but only about half of them know it. Finding the other half presents a major challenge for this large, island nation in which 80 per cent of the population live in rural areas where few people have ever heard of this chronic and potentially deadly disease. With the country’s underfunded public health sector barely functioning, this task has mainly fallen to the Madagascan Diabetes Association which dispatches its doctors and nurses to the provinces to conduct blood sugar tests and raise awareness at fairs, schools and health centres.

The United States said Sunday it is suspending military aid to Rwanda because of 'deep concerns' over evidence it is supporting a mutiny in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo. State Department spokeswoman Darby Holladay said Washington 'has decided it can no longer provide foreign military financing appropriated in the current fiscal year to Rwanda.'

Transnational organized crime activities, and the money they generate, appear to play a significant role in perpetuating the instability, lawlessness and violence, particularly in the East of the DRC. It is estimated that in the East of the DRC, there are still between 6,500 and 13,000 active members of armed groups who are benefiting from criminal activity. The Organized Crime and Instability in Central Africa threat assessment describes the interconnections between different criminal actors, outlines the various trafficking flows and identifies some possible options for intervention.

The Forum of National Human Rights Organisations (FONADH), an umbrella organisation of about 15 non-governmental organisations, has strongly condemned the repression of a recent peaceful demonstration by workers of the Copper Mining Company of Mauritania (MCM) that led to the death of one worker and injuries to several others. In a statement issued in Nouakchott, FONADH demanded that the authorities should 'clarify the circumstances of the death of Mohamed Ould Mechdhoufi.' It demanded that those responsible for the death of the worker be brought to justice, saying 'FONADH considers them responsible for the consequences of this barbaric act and demands the immediate release of detained workers'.