The Socio-Economic Rights Institute (SERI) of South Africa is representing 71 people facing eviction from a temporary refugee shelter in Randfontein. The occupiers are all people displaced from their communities during the xenophobic attacks of May 2008. They were taken to the Reit Shelter and promised they would receive assistance to re-integrate into South African society or to resettle outside South Africa. The shelter failed to provide the assistance promised, despite being contractually obliged to do so. SERI is defending the occupiers against eviction and has brought a counter-application seeking an order compelling the shelter to comply with its contractual obligations.

With serious human rights concerns surrounding the development of the Kajbar dam in Sudan, Peter Bosshard of International Rivers says the companies involved need to respect the interests of local people.

Ugandan gay rights activists have dared Rolling Stone Editor Guiles Muhame to continue outing gays and lesbians in that country, warning that he may be up for a surprise that could end his career or land him in jail. This after Muhame vowed to continue publishing articles outing Ugandan homosexuals despite a recent court ruling that permanently barred the newspaper from publishing such articles and even instructing the Rolling Stone to pay three plaintiffs damages of over 1.5 million Ugandan Shillings.

The phenomenon of regional warriors in West Africa is rearing its head again today, as Cote d’Ivoire hovers on the brink of civil war. Thousands of combatants roam this fragile region from conflict to conflict, fighting as a means to survive in some of the poorest nations on earth, where peace without proper reintegration has brought not happiness but rather a life of idle deprivation for some former fighters, many of whom were coerced to take up arms as children.

Flooding in South Africa has killed more than 100 people, forced at least 8,400 from their homes and prompted the government to declare 33 disaster areas. With unusually heavy rainfall forecast until March, the UN has warned that almost every country in southern Africa is on alert for potentially disastrous flooding.

The head of a Rwandan rebel group accused of committing war crimes in Democratic Republic of Congo has been extradited from France to The Hague. Callixte Mbarushimana was arrested in Paris last October, following a request from the International Criminal Court. The Hutu rebel leader has denied accusations that he ordered his FDLR fighters to kill and rape civilians.

Between 20 September and 31 December 2010, the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) carried out the Zimbabwe Documentation Process (ZDP). In the period leading up to the documentation process, civil society organisations began voicing concerns about the short timeline provided and the management of the process. These concerns continued as the process got underway. In light of these concerns, and in order to identify any obstacles as they emerged, the African Centre for Migration and Society (ACMS) – formerly the Forced Migration Studies Programme – began sending researchers to observe the situation. The findings from this monitoring provide a picture of how the process worked and highlight important problem areas. This report presents the key lessons learned, with suggestions for carrying out future regularisation measures.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres, on Wednesday called on European countries to increase resettlement places and support for refugees as a show of solidarity for the host countries of the world's refugees, four fifths of whom live in developing countries. Guterres made a specific request to Switzerland to consider restoring their resettlement programme.

Alassane Ouattara, the internationally recognised president of the Cote d'Ivoire, has called for a month-long ban on cocoa exports, in an attempt to oust Laurent Gbagbo, who remains president despite being widely considered to have lost the disputed November poll. Anyone contravening the ban will be liable to sanctions, according to a statement issued on Sunday by the government nominated by Ouattara, who is holed up in a hotel guarded by UN troops.

Fleeing Somalia may mean an end to dodging bullets and living in fear, but for many Somalis who manage to cross the border into Kenya, it is also the start of a long and difficult journey as a refugee. 'We have refugees who have been in Kenya since 1991,' said Salam Shahin, registration officer with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Dadaab, the world's largest refugee complex, home to more than 300,000 people, mainly Somalis.

One of the many places in our society where the fracturing in who counts as a full member of our national public and who does not is immediately visible is Motala Heights near Durban. Motala Heights is nestled into a valley between the factories on the outskirts of Pinetown and a steep hill that leads up to the expensive suburb of Kloof. Some of the people in the valley are poor and live in tin houses that they have built on rented land and some are middle class or wealthy and live in large suburban homes. There is also a shack settlement at the foot of the hill that leads up to Kloof. On Friday last week a bulldozer shuddered up the hill adjacent to the shack settlement, went straight to the Shembe temple and obliterated it. There was no warning of what was about to happen, writes Richard Pithouse on The South African Civil Society Information Service.

An estimated 300,000 to 350,000 people remained internally displaced within Ethiopia in late 2010. There were reported displacements related to violence and human rights violations in Gambella and Somali Regions in 2010. Armed conflicts and localised episodes of violence have continued to cause displacement in various areas. In particular, government forces have continued to fight insurgency groups including the Ogaden National Liberation Front in Somali Region and the Oromo Liberation Front in the south of the country.

Flood alert levels are on orange in parts of Mozambique as disaster management services mobilise to respond to flooding potentially as bad as the catastrophe in 2000. Heavy downpours are steadily swelling the Southern African country’s rivers, while authorities watch rainfall and water level indicators in countries upstream with a wary eye. Some people living in the Limpopo Rver basin in the south of the country have started moving to safer ground after warnings that some 7,000 people could be affected if the river reaches the expected 2 metres above alert levels.

The Rotary Foundation is now accepting applications for the world-competitive Rotary Peace Fellowship. The fellowship provides academic and practical training to prepare scholars for leadership roles in solving conflicts around the world.

The extrajudicial killings that were carried out along Lang'ata Road by the Kenya Police indicates to all Kenyans that the death squads are now completely out of control. It is now clear to all that the Kenya Police have abandoned all pretext of any reform and are now operating totally outside the law.

When Washington and Brussels ordered the killing of Patrice Lumumba 50 years ago, ‘little did they know that they were inventing an immortal African martyr for freedom; and making a vital investment for Congo’s rebirth today,’ writes Okello Oculi.

Judges at the International Criminal Court at The Hague have rejected William Ruto’s application criticising its chief prosecutor's investigations and seeking to bar summons or arrest warrants over Kenya poll violence. Mr Ruto had filed an application at the court arguing that chief prosecutor Louis Moreno-Ocampo failed to conduct proper investigations on the Kenya case and instead relied on reports by the Waki Commission and the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR).

Policemen were on Wednesday caught on camera executing three men in cold blood on a busy Nairobi street, reports the Daily Nation. A motorist who happened upon the confrontation between plainclothes policemen and alleged criminals in the morning traffic pulled out his camera and took photographs. All the three men had already surrendered and were lying on the tarmac on Langata Road near Wilson Airport. As they lay on the tarmac, a policeman in plain clothes was pointing a gun to their heads.

Cholera, though easily preventable, is one of the most deadly diarrhoeal diseases. Once someone is infected through contaminated food or water, the vibrio cholerae bacteria are present in faeces for one to two weeks, and without proper sanitation are likely to infect others. But proper sanitation facilities, as well as safe drinking water, are out of reach for most Chadians. And tackling this, experts say, must be the priority post-emergency. With the rate of infection slowing as of mid-December, Chad had 6,369 documented cases of cholera with 180 deaths, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Almost two years into the trial of Thomas Lubanga for war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC), several international justice experts and observers say the court has had a largely positive impact on the ground in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but some differ. Indicted for enlisting, conscripting and engaging children in armed hostilities in eastern DRC in 2002 and 2003, Lubanga, alleged leader of the Union of Congolese Patriots and of the Patriotic Forces for the Liberation of Congo, was detained by the ICC in 2006. His trial began in January 2009.