Having spent years uprooted by conflict, farmers in northern Uganda are again facing tough times – this time caused by the weather. In late June, Joel Lacung and Margaret Ataro of Got-Ngur village in northern Uganda’s Nwoya district, laboured under the scorching sun as they drove two pairs of oxen to prepare their land for the approaching second rice-planting season. They were among many rural farmers in Uganda whose livelihoods have been affected by increasingly erratic rainfall and high temperatures. Most were displaced by the years of conflict with the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and remain poor and unable to acquire farm inputs.

Four elderly Mau Mau war veterans have been given permission to sue over alleged British colonial atrocities committed during the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya more than 50 years ago. The ruling issued by a High Court in the UK granted the war veterans permission to sue for compensation for the atrocities meted out to them by the British authorities between the 1950s and 1960s.

ARTICLE 19 says it is extremely concerned by reports of police and army clashes with demonstrators over the weekend of 15-17 July, which resulted in at least two deaths, including the killing of a 15 year old protestor, Hajlaoui Thabet, who was shot in the heart. In addition, ARTICLE 19 says it is equally concerned by reports it has received of attacks on journalists covering protests and police and army clashes with demonstrators in Tunis, on 15 July 2011.

I'm delighted to share the news with you that 'Dear Mandela' is finally completed, and will have its world premiere at the Durban International Film Festival on the 26 July.

The western region minister Paul Evans Aidoo has ordered the immediate arrest of all homosexuals in the region. He has tasked the Bureau of National Investigations and all security agencies to smoke out persons suspected to be engaging in same sex. He also enlisted the services of landlords and tenants to provide reliable information which will lead to the arrest of homosexuals.

Uganda’s Constitutional Court on Monday 18 July began hearing a petition against the law that bars homosexuals from being employed and accessing equal opportunities. An LGBTI activist Mr Adrian Juuko, the Executive Director of Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum (HRAPF), petitioned the court to nullify section 15(6) d of the Equal Opportunities Commission Act 2007.

The bandage covering Olida Soanirina’s eye does not disguise the ravages of hydrocephalus as the three-month-old recovers from an operation at the Joseph Ravoahangy Andrianavalona Hospital (HJRA) in the capital Antananarivo. Hydrocephalus is caused by an accumulation of cerebrospinal fluid in the brain’s ventricles, with those who suffer from it producing up to seven spoonfuls an hour while the average person produces one. Left untreated, the condition causes the head to swell as pressure increases, leading to disability and a painful death. Treatment in the developing world is difficult because of the high cost of neurosurgery operations.

The Civil Society Coalition for Quality Basic Education has asked Malawi president Bingu wa Mutharika to transform the Commission of Inquiry on the University impasse into a Dispute Resolution Dialogue Committee in order to resolve the stand off which has led to the firing of four Chancellor College Academic Staff Union (CCASU) lecturers. The Coalition observes that since the president, as a Chancellor, is subject to the inquiry’s probe, the objectivity of the commission is likely to be compromised as he is known to have already taken sides and so the commission may be forced to change its modus operandi to accommodate him.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced recently that Germany was prepared to sell six to eight patrol boats to Angola as part of an international cooperation deal. 'Germany is ready for an energy and raw materials partnership,' Merkel said during a visit to the oil-rich country. Politicians in Berlin are concerned about Angola's human rights record. Claudia Roth, the head of the Greens, described it as a bad move following the controversial decision to sell battle tanks to Saudi Arabia last week, calling Merkel the 'patron saint of the arms lobby'. And Rolf Muetzenich from the SPD parliamentary group alluded to Germany's concern over Angola's human rights record.

'For too long the people of the Amajuba District have been raising their concerns with the office of Land Reform and Rural Development at many levels and at many times, but in vain. It is in our view that such an audience with both senior officials and politicians will ensure accountability which has been lacking thus far within the department.'

While Kenya struggles to cope with the influx of refuges fleeing the drought in Somalia, it is estimated that about 1,300 people arrive daily at the Dadaab refugee camp. It takes on average nine days in 50-degree Celsius heat for those fleeing the drought in Somalia to travel the 80 kilometres of the sandy, expansive desert that separates Dadaab in Northern Kenya from Somalia. The journey to Dadaab is a treacherous one, made even more perilous as it snakes through territories of lawlessness where armed bandits and even police harass the refugees.

Kenya has agreed to open a new camp near its border with Somalia to cope with the influx of refugees fleeing the region's worst drought in 60 years. The lfo II camp in Dabaab will open its doors to 80,000 refugees within 10 days, the Kenyan government said. Prime Minister Raila Odinga agreed to open the new camp after visiting Dadaab's three existing camps where an estimated 380,000 refugees are now living at facilities intended to cope with a population of 90,000 people.

Zimbabwe’s immigration officials say they have instructed their officers at border posts not to accept illegal immigrants and refugees seeking to enter into the country. The ban is targeted at refugees mainly from Somalia and Ethiopia whom Zimbabwe accuses of using the country as a transit point to South Africa. The government-owned Herald newspaper reported that five border posts usually used by the Ethiopian and Somali immigrants had been instructed not to allow refugees into the country.

Gender activists have won a significant battle in their quest for more women representation in government with the final unveiling of President Goodluck Jonathan’s cabinet. Of the 40 ministers, 13 are women, a major milestone in the campaign for more involvement of women in governance. The number of female appointees in the cabinet represents about 31 per cent of the 42-member cabinet.

Amado Kafando's elation followed news on 7 March that the price of cotton, a crop he plants each summer in rows broken by a cow-tethered plow, hit a record $2.197 a pound, capping a two-year surge of 430 per cent. Finally, he said, cotton could fulfill the promise of its nickname in his homeland of Burkina Faso: white gold. But within weeks, Kafando was clenching his fists. The government and regional cotton monopolies, which Burkinabe farmers must sell to, announced they would charge growers 38 per cent more for fertilizer - and pay them as little as 39 per cent of the world price at the time for their crop.

The Satellite Sentinel Project (SSP) has revealed visual evidence of mass graves in South Kordofan, which corroborates new eyewitness reports, obtained by SSP, of systematic killings and mass burials in this conflict-torn region of Sudan. The evidence found by SSP is consistent with allegations that the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and northern militias have engaged in a campaign of killing civilians.

Domestically abused women who are financially dependent on their abusers can now report the crime with the assurance that they will be able to get financial and medical support from the state, thanks to the country’s new law on domestic violence. Women’s campaigners have welcomed the introduction of the new law, which was signed into the statue books on 8 July, and which criminalises domestic violence and offers protection to victims and their families. Until now domestic violence had not been illegal in Angola - and on the rare occasions it reached court, it was prosecuted under rape, assault and battery laws.

South Africa's fuel workers' union has rejected a minimum eight per cent wage increase and is holding out for a double-digit hike, the union's chief negotiator said on Tuesday (19 July).The strike has left petrol stations dry across South Africa for more than a week and will probably cost the continent's top economy billions of rand in lost output.

Zimbabwe is unable to fill 15,000 teaching posts in government schools because school leavers are reluctant to join the profession. The vacant posts are said to be increasing despite reports that thousands of Zimbabwean teachers, who had left the country at the height of the economic problems, were returning home. An official in the Ministry of Education told the state owned Herald newspaper that out of the 111,000 teaching posts in the country, 96,000 were filled by qualified teachers.

Hospitals in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, have been hit by a shortage of drugs following the arrival of large numbers of drought-displaced people in the past two months, with health officials reporting that up to five patients were dying daily due to disease outbreaks. 'Hospitals are experiencing shortages of medicines yet they need to distribute drugs to deal with outbreaks of measles, diarrhoea, malnutrition, malaria and respiratory diseases,' Aden Ibrahim, the Health Minister in Somalia's Transitional Federal Government, told IRIN in Mogadishu.