In the southwest region of Cameroon, within a beautiful rainforest, several Indigenous communities are working hard to make their voices heard. Their struggle began in 2011 when the government of Cameroon granted a vast land concession to SG Sustainable Oils, a subsidiary of the New York-based Herakles Farms. What the government overlooked, was that this concession occurred on the homelands of the Oroko, Bakossi, and Upper Bayang peoples in the Ndian, Koupé-Manengouba, and Manyu divisions of Cameroon.

The long-running spat between the African Union (AU) and International Criminal Court (ICC) over perceived bias has prompted the AU to push ahead with plans to form its own Africa-wide criminal court, but analysts believe the move could complicate, rather than enhance, international justice. 'Africa wants regional ownership of its crimes and its leaders,' Alan Wallis, an international justice lawyer at the Johannesburg-based Southern African Litigation Centre (SALC), told IRIN, but pointed out: 'There is a misbelief [by the AU] that Africa is being targeted, as all cases before the ICC concern African situations, but this ignores the fact that of those six [cases], three were referred to the ICC by the countries concerned.'

Togolese security forces on Tuesday 12 June used teargas to disperse a huge demonstration staged by civil society organizations and some opposition political parties in the capital, Lomé. Tens of thousands of people led by opposition and civil society figures defied a heavy downpour to heed the call by the umbrella 'Let's Save Togo' to denounce actions by the government they claimed were intended to manipulate the electoral process.

Armed militants hostile to the Ivorian government have recruited Liberian children and carried out deadly cross-border raids on Ivorian villages in recent months, Human Rights Watch says. Liberian authorities have failed to investigate and prosecute dozens of Liberian and Ivorian nationals who crossed into Liberia after committing war crimes during Côte d’Ivoire’s 2010-2011 post-election crisis, some of whom have been implicated in the recent attacks, Human Rights Watch said.

Egyptian activists declared Wednesday, 13 June as the day to write about sexual harassment on social websites and blogs in an effort to combat the rising level of sexual violence in the country. The same event took place last year with large success that saw it spread to neighboring countries like Lebanon, Tunisia and Morocco.

The Ethiopian government has passed new legislation that criminalises the use of Internet-based voice communications such as Skype and other forms of Internet phone calling. Authorities have also installed a new filtering system that monitors the use of the Internet in the tightly-controlled Horn of Africa country in a move seen as targeting dissidents.

Ethiopia and the World Bank signed late on Tuesday three loan agreements worth $400 million to finance various existing projects.

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.

Gay rights activists in Uganda have launched a new documentary tracing gay love in pre-colonial Ugandan society. Kabaka Mwanga II, widely believed to have been gay, ruled Buganda from 1884 to 1897. The documentary, 'Gay Love in Pre-colonial Africa: The Untold Story of Ugandan Martyrs' was premiered in Kampala last week ahead of the 3 June public holiday to commemorate the burning to death of Ugandan martyrs.

Journalists from across Africa announced the creation of the first continent-wide professional association of health journalists. The new organization, the African Health Journalists Association, aims to improve the quality and quantity of reporting on health issues so that people across the continent can make healthy choices for their lives. The group’s media coverage will encourage the best possible public health programs and policies throughout the continent.