The 9th session of the African Commission for Intelligence and Security Services (CISSA) concluded 27 June in Algiers with plans to further co-ordinate counter-terrorism initiatives across the continent. Government officials and security experts took part in the two-day closed session, which aimed to find solutions to the volatile situation in Mali, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) encroachment into the Sahel-Saharan region and other security threats. The annual meetings provide the African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council with necessary information to draft African policy, preserve peace and settle disputes.

The World Bank, an institution set up to provide loans to developing countries and reduce global poverty, is often criticised in development circles. Much of this is directed at its failed structural adjustment programmes in the late-1980s which broke a trend of state-led development and introduced a market liberal approach. Questions remain about the bank's approach. Think Africa Press spoke to former World Bank President Robert Zoellick - replaced by Jim Yong Kim - and Peter Chowla of the Bretton Woods Project, an institution which aims to challenge the power of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund while opening the policymaking space and promoting alternative approaches.

Human rights organisations in Sudan are calling on the government to release more than 1000 protestors reportedly arrested in the last two weeks over strikes which started on 16 June. The protests have been going on in the capital Khartoum and other regional towns, were triggered by the government's cut on fuel subsidies but generally they are due to economic hardships. Using tear gas and rubber bullets Sudan's anti-riot police units and plain clothed security agents of the National intelligence and Security Services (NISS) engaged in running battles with protestors arresting some in the process.

Kenya has asked several countries to help it recover corrupt cash stashed in overseas accounts, but not all have agreed, the east African country's top legal adviser said. Corruption has blighted the image of east Africa's biggest economy for decades and many Kenyans view efforts to stamp it out as bogus and ineffective. Githu Muigai, Kenya's attorney general, said four territories had agreed to cooperate - Switzerland, Japan, the United Kingdom and Jersey, a British dependency known for its offshore banking.

The Legal Resources Centre (LRC) has welcomed the news that the Department of Basic Education (DBE) will work closely with Section27 to resolve the text book crisis in Limpopo and that they have indicated that they intend meeting with civil society. This was revealed in a joint statement by Section27 and the DBE on Thursday 28 June 2012. Sarah Sephton, the LRC’s director in Grahamstown said the LRC has not had any response from the Minister of Basic Education’s office on the non-delivery of workbooks in the Eastern Cape and urged the Minister to adopt a similar approach to this issue as she has taken to the text books.

In this podcast, Africa Today talks with Dr. Peter Lewis of the Center for Strategic International Studies at John Hopkins University on contemporary politics in Nigeria and the 4th Republic.

There were 800,000 new refugees in the world in 2011, according to the latest data out this week from the UNHCR. 2011 is a record year for forced displacement, with more people becoming refugees than at any time since 2000. This online map provides an excellent data visualization tool for patterns of displacement globally.

A survey of international refugee assistance organizations has found widespread failures to protect Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex (LGBTI) refugees. As increasing numbers of refugees flee persecution because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, the Organization for Refuge, Asylum & Migration (ORAM) and Indiana University sociologists have released the first ever survey of attitudes of the international refugee assistance non-governmental organizations (NGOs) serving asylum seekers and refugees worldwide.

Egypt’s first democratically-elected President, Mohamed Morsi has ordered the formation of a commission to review the cases of the people arrested following last year’s popular revolution. The commission is going to be made up of members of the military and the Interior Ministry as well as a general prosecutor, the country's official Middle East News Agency (MENA) reported. It quoted Morsi as saying 'this commission should be formed as soon as possible to release all who were proved not involved in any criminal cases'.

One in three children in Ghana are engaged in child labor, which is increasing in Africa. Ghana’s government, international organizations and local associations used the recent World Day Against Child Labor to pledge their commitment to getting children out of the workplace and into the classroom, reports Global Press Institute.

Namibia Dairies, a subsidiary of the Ohlthaver and List Group, loses up to N$20 million a year due to South African predatory pricing practices, while the production of Namibian cheese has already been halted, because the market has been killed by South African products. This was revealed by the Managing Director of Namibia Dairies, Hubertus Hamm, during a visit by Botswana President Lieutenant-General Seretse Khama Ian Khama to the dairy Super Farm at Mariental.

A new report by the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) says while the linkages between the economic, social and environmental pillars of sustainable development are well understood within Southern Africa, the subregion has not adopted an integrated approach to development. The report, 'Progress towards sustainable development in Southern Africa' prepared with the assistance of the African Development Bank, and circulated at the ongoing Rio+20 conference, says that for this reason, the 'inter-linkages between the economic, social and environmental pillars of sustainable development are fundamentally not being achieved'.

The way of life of minorities and indigenous communities in East and Horn of Africa is under threat as governments and investors expand natural resource extraction on their lands, Minority Rights Group International (MRG) says in its 2012 annual report. 'State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2012' documents the scale and severity of the impact on minorities of an unprecedented competition for scarce resources, prompted by the prolonged drought that wreaked havoc in the region and the knock-on effects of the global economic downturn.

Ethiopia has always been a country at the cutting edge of Internet censorship in Africa. In the wake of violence after the 2005 elections, when other states were only beginning to recognize the potential for online reporters to bypass traditional pressures, Meles Zenawi's regime was already blocking major news sites and blog hosts such as blogspot.com. Some sites and Web addresses have been blocked for their reporting ever since, including exiled media like Addis Neger Online and Awramba Times.

Hundreds of Libyan protesters demanding greater autonomy for the country’s east have stormed the election commission building in the city of Benghazi, setting materials on fire. Chanting slogans in support of federalism on Sunday, the angry protesters, some of whom were armed, occupied the election commission office in the eastern city, took computers and ballot boxes out of the building and began crushing them.

Liberal Egypt news website al-Badil recently called on journalists and human rights activists to join them in a protest outside the Press Syndicate in Cairo after two of its reporters who were assaulted by security forces and military police during recent clashes, were taken to court by police, who are accusing them of participating in the violence. Islam Abu el-Ezz and Ahmed Ramadan were arrested while covering the development of the violent clashes and attacks on protesters in the populated area of Abbassiya last April.

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The human rights situation in the Middle East and North Africa is currently a significant focus of Amnesty International’s global campaigning. Use your experience as a campaign strategist and your expert knowledge of human rights in the region to inspire worldwide action on what have become high-profile issues.

The latest podcast by the Tax Justice Network is available: the edition contains news on celebrity tax avoidance, Greece’s missing billions, what should have been on the G20 agenda and trade mispricing – the tricks of the corruption trade.

The Climate Connections blog has a variety of photographs from the just-held Rio+20 Conference and Peoples’ Summit in Brazil. Visit their blog to have a look.

Civil society space in Uganda is rapidly shrinking, warn global network CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation and Uganda-based East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project (EHAHRDP). Independent civil society organisations are being openly threatened and placed under excessive scrutiny by senior government officials. For example, on 18 June, a skills-building workshop for LGBTI human rights defenders organised by EHAHRDP was closed abruptly after police raided the training venue.