A new study from Earth Open Source called 'GMO Myths and Truths' - authored by two well known genetic engineers with help from an investigative reporter - conducted an exhaustive survey of hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific studies. The report concluded not only that GM food crops pose significant, if largely under-evaluated, health risks, but that they have so far failed to deliver on their promise to increase crop yields and lower herbicide and pesticide use.

As European elections show the public increasingly rejecting austerity, critics call on the IMF to focus on the flaws of the eurozone rather than austerity in country programmes. Throughout the past months the prolonged recession in parts of Europe saw unemployment reach record highs and output stall, with concerns that austerity is hindering growth and the prospects to achieve fiscal and debt targets.

United Nations ambassadors for South Africa and Brazil have demanded more action and discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity as part as universal human rights standards, and to combat hate crimes. The Ambassador of South Africa to the United Nations, on behalf of his country and Brazil, delivered a statement on 2 July to the United Nations Humans Rights Council, saying that LGBT rights are part of the Universal standard of Human Rights, and demanding action against discrimination and hate crimes.

A coalition of local and international non-governmental organisations in health in Ghana, is asking the government to reject World Bank's proposal to adopt cost-sharing to sustain its National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), which has been operational since 2003. In its January report titled: 'Health Financing in Ghana at a Crossroads', the World Bank said Ghana's NHIS basic benefit package was financially unsustainable and, therefore, the government must consider cost-sharing. The coalition, which has been at the forefront of the promoting free universal access to health care in the country, said on Wednesday that it did not agree with the World Bank's suggestion, especially when it acknowledges that government expenditure on health is low.

This briefing from the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre provides an overview of corporate legal accountability for human rights, summarising trends and developments in this field. The goal is to help a wide audience understand what is happening in different parts of the world.

South Africa's education system is spiralling out of control and failing millions of pupils. From failure to deliver textbooks to unpaid bills and corrupt education officials, not much has been achieved since 1994. Former health minister Barbara Hogan has added her voice to the growing list of critics lambasting the failures of the country's education system. Speaking at non-governmental organisation Equal Education's national conference, Hogan urged young people to mobilise and 'start holding government accountable', adding the 1976 Soweto uprising showed pupils' strength.

The process of awarding oil exploration licences targeting Lake Malawi and other areas was so fraught with irregularities that the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) took preliminary steps to investigate senior government officials. In separate interviews, two former ministers of Natural Resources, Energy and the Environment – Goodall Gondwe and Grain Malunga – and other technical officials who spoke anonymously, provided evidence of irregular procedures that could have led to unqualified and/or not evaluated companies getting licences to explore oil in Malawi.

Investigative journalist John Allan Namu, has fled Kenya after exposing a secret military squad which offers protection to Rwandan genocide fugitive, Felicien Kabuga, who is wanted in connection with the country’s brutal genocide. In the first of its kind investigation ever carried out on the trail of the Rwandan genocide suspect, NTV, a private Kenyan television network, revealed a network operating within the Kenyan military that appeared to offer round the clock protection to Kabuga.

A 105-page Human Rights Watch report documents violations of due process rights, patterns of wrongful deprivation of liberty, and the harsh, unacceptable prison conditions in which detainees live. The research was done during a 10-month period before and after South Sudan’s independence, on 9 July 2011.

The Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) has launched its annual state of media freedom report, 'So This is Democracy?' The current edition documents numerous media freedom and freedom of expression violations that MISA recorded in Southern Africa during the course of 2011. Most of the country reports in the 2011 edition note that the existence of archaic laws is fundamentally threatening media freedom as such laws are open to abuse, based on level of interpretation.

Only 13 diseases or infections transmitted from animals to humans like tuberculosis (TB) and Rift Valley fever, are responsible for around 2.4 billion cases of human illness and 2.2 million deaths per year, mostly in low- and middle-income countries. In the least developed countries, 20 per cent of human sickness and death was due to zoonoses - diseases that had recently jumped species from animals to people - according to a new study by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), based in Nairobi, Kenya, the Institute of Zoology in Britain, and the Hanoi School of Public Health in Vietnam. The World Health Organization (WHO) has noted that at least 61 per cent of all human diseases, and 75 per cent of emerging infectious diseases, are zoonotic or caused by a bacterium, virus, fungus or other communicable disease agent picked up from an animal source.

Madagascar has launched an online research network, the Research and Education Network for Academic Learning Activities (iRENALA), which aims to boost science, technology and education in the country, as well as internationalise its science. The network, launched earlier this month (8 June), will promote discussions between worldwide researchers, students and policymakers, and facilitate access to digitised documents available in virtual libraries, according to Horace Gatien, president of Toamasina University. It will also encourage remote learning in the higher education sector, he said.

A high court judge in Uganda, Justice Eldad Mwangushya has said security agencies should 'infiltrate' gay rights groups to ascertain if children are 'recruited into homosexuality'. The judge made in Kampala at the beginning of the hearing of a case brought by gay activists against the government and Ethics and Integrity Minister for forcing the closure of a gay rights workshop in February this year.

Burkina Faso is enjoying something akin to a gold rush. The precious metal generates a huge amount of money for the government, but there is a downside to the boom. Of the thousands taking up work in illegal gold mines, many are children, often opting out of school to enjoy the meagre gains earned at mine pits.

Algerians celebrated with unprecedented enthusiasm on Wednesday (July 4th) the eve of the nation's 50th independence day. The country's 48 wilayas joined together with concerts, parades and processions that punctuated a long, emotionally-charged evening that remembered the 1962 break from 132 years of French rule.

In this podcast, Africa Today interviews Nisrin Elamin and Natalina Malwal on history, political developments, and current affairs in the country of Sudan. Nisirin Elamin is a Sudanese educator and activist and Natalina Malwal is the President of the South Sudanese Community organization.

Hundreds of families from villages in Somalia's Bal'ad District, in Middle Shabelle Region, have been displaced following recent fighting between African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and Transitional Federal Government (TFG) forces and Al-Shabab insurgents, say officials. 'Our settlements are now the front line between the AMISOM/TFG alliance forces and Al-Shabab and we don't know where to go,' Hussein Mayow, a father of six, told IRIN. The displacement followed 25 June clashes in Bal'ad, about 40km northwest of Mogadishu, with the worst affected areas being the villages of Wala-Moy and Hamar-Daye, said an official with the Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs, Youth and Sport, who preferred anonymity.

Meet Mohammed aged 22. He has never left Dadaab, the world’s largest refugee complex, but that hasn’t stopped him learning how to create and host websites, set up a small business and teach others how to use computers. When he isn’t out interviewing people for a local newspaper produced in the camp, Mohammed can usually be found in the Hag youth ICT laboratory, tucked away in a discreet corner of Ifo2 camp, an extension of Hagadera, one of the three camps that make up the sprawling Dadaab complex.

Ben Cousins, co-author of 'Land, Power & Custom: Controversies generated by South Africa’s Communal Land Rights Act' and Research Chair at the Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at UWC, recently talked with Talk Radio 702 about the difficulties surrounding land distribution. He stated that the fair distribution of land was an enormously complex issue, but that there was no need to change the Constitution in order to distribute land. You can listen to the podcast by clicking on the link provided.

Rebels from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have taken control of three towns in the country's eastern North Kivu province, a spokesperson for the group has said. The rebels, known as the M23 movement, had taken Rutshuru and the towns of Ntamugenga and Rubare, less than 10km away, on the road to the provincial capital Goma, by midday (local time) on Sunday. The rebels said they did not face any opposition from the FARDC, the DRC's national army.