Since 2009, Whitestone (SL) Limited has managed to obtain 13 leasehold titles covering a staggering 1.34 million acres of land in the Bombali and Koinadugu Districts of Northern Sierra Leone for large-scale agricultural development. Whitestone is owned and managed by two British entrepreneurs, Charles Anderson and Cenk Yildiran. Ostensibly lacking the funds to develop the land themselves, Whitestone is planning to parcel the land and sub-lease these to interested agricultural inventors.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has sought a 30-year sentence for Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga. In March, the Hague-based court found him guilty of recruiting and using child soldiers between 2002 and 2003. At that time, an inter-ethnic conflict was raging in the north-east of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Lubanga headed a rebel group.

The New York-based global press freedom watchdog Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) Wednesday condemned the Ivorian police's assault on a journalist, Cybèle Athangba. CPJ said in a statement made available to PANA here that Athangba, a reporter with the daily 'La Nouvelle', was attacked while covering a protest of about 100 police officers in front of the police headquarters in the economic capital, Abidjan.

Armed forces and armed groups that attack schools and teachers should face consequences from the United Nations Security Council, the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack (GCPEA) said. The UN Secretary-General’s annual report on children and armed conflict, released on June 11, 2012, highlights grave violations against children in 22 countries. Armed forces and groups in four countries were added for the first time to the UN 'list of shame' for attacking schools and hospitals.

Tunisia's ousted president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali has been sentenced to 20 years imprisonment in absentia for inciting violence and murder. The charges relate to an incident in the town of Ouardanine last January, when four men were shot trying to stop the president's nephew fleeing Tunisia.

Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, an independent charity, tracks the social & environmental impacts of 5100 companies worldwide. We seek a highly-motivated person, based in South Africa, to lead our work on Anglophone countries in Southern & Western Africa. NGO experience, excellent English language skills, and the right to work in South Africa are required. Fees: R190,000/year for 3 days per week work. Further details are below. Closing date 3 July.

Tunisia's government has condemned as 'terrorism' a spate of overnight attacks on courts and other state buildings by gangs including Islamist hardliners and vowed to punish them. The ultra-conservative Salafists denied involvement in the rampage in several areas of the capital Tunis and in the country's northwest, and instead called a protest after this week's Friday prayers.

MPs have said they are being restricted from accessing details of the Oil Sharing Agreements (PSAs) as the Parliamentary Natural Resources Committee proposed stringent clauses that will, among others, see government officials who negotiate bad oil contracts face jail. Kitgum Woman MP Beatrice Anywar said they are subjected to tough guidelines. 'To look at a copy of the PSAs you must first write to the speaker notifying her about the date, hour and which pages you want to look at to enable them assign you a library staff to supervise you when you are reading that particular page,' Ms Anywar said.

The UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, Ms. Gulnara Shahinian, has said more than half of the 215 million children working throughout the world are subjected to the worst forms of child labour, including sexual and labour exploitation. In a statement she issued in New York to mark the World Day Against Child Labour, Ms. Shahinian said one of the most abhorrent forms of child slavery is found in mining and quarrying, where children start work from the age of three.

The green economy is nothing more than capitalism of nature, states this article from 'The 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, which is promoting a green economy, is the next step in the evolution of capitalism. The goal is to implement an alternative to global regimes cashing in on creation by privatizing, commodifying and selling off all forms of life - including air, water and genes, plants, traditional seeds, trees, biological and cultural diversity, ecosystems and even indigenous traditional knowledge.'

This book is a compilation of feature stories and news articles by journalists who participated in the media trainings on environmental reporting organised in six states across the Nigerian federation by the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN). The book is an attempt to assess the quality of reports from journalists and to contribute to enhancing the capacity of members of the network and media users to further broaden the environmental discourse by opening new vistas for investigation. It can be downloaded through the link provided.

The parliament in Burkina Faso has granted amnesty to President Blaise Compaore and all of the country's previous heads of state. The immunity from prosecution will cover all presidents since independence from France in 1960. President Compaore came to power in a 1987 coup in which popular leader Thomas Sankara was killed.

On 28 May 2012, a group of organisations wrote to the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) to request that it urgently investigate the state of health and health care service provision at Lindela Repatriation Centre (Lindela). Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), SECTION27, Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR), and People against Suffering, Oppression and Poverty (PASSOP) requested a response from the SAHRC by 11 June 2012. To date, they have not received a response. Recent reports of violent protests within Lindela add even further urgency and credence to the request and the need to ensure that health and health rights are protected. Therefore, the organisations are now making the request public.

The Japanese government is bowing to pressures of the nuclear lobby in Japan.

Jennifer Abalo struggles to support two of her own and two of her late sister's children. She lost her father, sister and two of her children to Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) violence between 1998 and 2004, but like thousands of other victims she has never received any compensation, despite government promises. In 2010 Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni promised monetary compensation to 10,000 victims of the two-decade-long war between the LRA and the government.

Burundi has announced the setting up of a committee to investigate alleged cases of extra-judicial executions in the country. Public prosecutor Valentin Bagorikunda announced that a committe of six magistrates of the Public prosecutor's office would investigate allegations made over the past few months by national and international human rights organizations.

Isaac Mangena, in this opinion piece, assesses the political in and outs of Toyko Sexwale and his apparent bid to take the top spot of the ruling ANC from Jacob Zuma. 'Sexwale is not tainted much, and perhaps that’s why he is hated and not trusted so much inside the ANC than he is outside it. Unlike our current president, Sexwale is not exposed and his wealth make him less susceptible to corruption.'

A meeting of the Democratic Left Front (DLF) in South Africa discussed a proposed youth wage subsidy, the crisis of democracy, organising women and building the movement.

Ethiopia’s only ISP, state-owned Ethio-Telecom, has just installed a system for blocking access to the Tor network, which lets users browse anonymously and access blocked websites. At the same time, the state-owned printing presses are demanding the right to censor the newspapers they print.

Representatives of the International Criminal Court arrived in Tripoli on Sunday to try to secure the release of a detained delegation visiting Muammar Gaddafi's captured son, a Libyan official said. The four-member delegation was being held in the western mountain town of Zintan after one of its lawyers, Australian Melinda Taylor, was found carrying documents regarded as suspicious for Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, a Libyan lawyer and a militia member said.