In this Ceasefire Magazine article, Micah Roshan Reddy reports from Wits University, South Africa, about a hunger strike by students against a proposed abusive sacking of 17 catering staff that became an international campaign and secured a remarkable victory.

South Sudan has shut down more than 20 private universities, placing the future of higher education on the spot in a country where public universities are partially operational. The move that has left thousands of students confused is part of streamlining the higher education system. Country's minister for Higher Education, Science and Technology, Peter Adwok Nyaba, said the institutions have been operating on letters of no objection that were only meant to enable them to acquire and develop land.

'The first time I saw a drone in the sky was about eight years ago, when I was thirteen. I have counted six or seven drone strikes in my village since the beginning of 2012. There were sixty or seventy primary schools in and around my village, but only a few remain today. Few children attend school because they fear for their lives walking to and from their homes. I am mostly illiterate. I stopped going to school because we were all very afraid that we would be killed. I am twenty-one years old. My time has passed. I cannot learn how to read or write so that I can better my life. But I very much wish my children to grow up without these killer drones hovering above, so that they may get the education and life I was denied.' This is one of the voices collected by the UK human rights group Reprieve and included in a lawsuit filed against the British government for aiding America’s unaccountable and illegal drone campaign.

While both African and European leaders continue to warn against partition in Mali, the rival movements backing a new, independent state in the north of the country have failed to follow through on a joint agreement to form the Islamic Republic of Azawad, leaving the project uncertain and raising suspicions that their show of unity masked deep divisions. The Tuareg-dominated National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) was reported to have signed an agreement with the Islamic Ansar Dine movement in the northern city of Gao on 25 May. But in the days that followed, contradictory briefings, interviews and communiqués from both sides have suggested the document prepared after three weeks of talks was at best preliminary, with disagreements resurfacing as a final communiqué was worked on.

India has found a new gateway to project its Africa diplomacy as it explores a partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which is engaged in a range of activities in the emerging continent. This possibility of collaborating in Africa emerged from talks between External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna and Microsoft founder Bill Gates. With Africa suffering a host of debilitating health problems like malaria and HIV/AIDS, health has been identified as a focus area for prospective cooperation.

A suicide bomber has driven a car full of explosives into a church in northern Nigeria, killing 12 people in the latest deadly attack on Christians. Security forces at a road block nearby said the bomber forced his car through the checkpoint and drove into the church in Yelwa, on the outskirts of the city of Bauchi, on Sunday. A Reuters reporter at the scene counted 12 bodies being pulled from the building.

Sierra Leone's Anti-Corruption Commission has summoned Ghana's investigative journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas, to testify in a landmark corruption case involving a top government official. In a joint story with Sorious Samura aired on Al- Jazeera, the award winning Ghanaian journalist shocked the nation after he exposed a criminal ring defying an existing moratorium on timber export in the country. The indicted men allegedly claimed to be representing a top government official and accepted bribe to facilitate the registration of their illegal timber export business.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has advised Ghana to remove subsidies on energy and fuel, a move that is likely to be met with resistance as it will make the commodities more expensive. Ghana's neighbour, Nigeria at one point removed fuel subsidies but the move was met with fierce and sometimes violent resistance. The IMF advised that a public service audit and the scrapping of subsidies will generate monthly savings of about GH¢160 million, which are needed to protect more productive expenditure and allow for an expansion of well-targeted social programmes to help the most vulnerable groups to cope with the tighter cost of living.

When Redempta*, 22, fled the violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) two years ago and came to Kenya, she quickly had to find a source of income to feed and house herself and her two younger siblings. But as an illegal immigrant with no knowledge of local languages, her options were very limited. 'I met some women from my country [DRC] and they introduced me to sex work because I needed to pay for the house and buy food for my siblings. I couldn't get any [other] work,' she told IRIN/PlusNews. As an illegal immigrant she is especially vulnerable because she can't report violent clients to the police, and is too afraid to seek medical help for her injuries.

In this Birthing Justice narrative, Nayeli Guzman, a young Mexican woman who went to New Mexico to be part of the effort to restore traditional agriculture, talks about how she and other farmers are using long-abandoned farmland to grow long-abandoned crops, building up seed libraries, and teaching others ecological methods for growing food. Birthing Justice: Women Creating Economic and Social Alternatives is a series features twelve alternative social and economic models which expand the possibilities for justice, equity, and strong community.

The Peace and Security Council of the African Union and the Political and Security Committee of the European Union have called for 'concerted international action' and inclusive solution to the political crisis in Guinea-Bissau, worsened by the coup d'etat of 12 April. According to a statement, made available to PANA in Luanda, Angola, the call is part of the recommendations at the fifth annual advisory meeting between the two councils, held from 29 to 30 May, 2012, in the Belgian capital, Brussels.

France is not ruling out military intervention in Mali, but the former colonial power says that would only be in the context of a UN Security Council resolution. That was the gist of the message newly-elected French President François Hollande put across at a joint press conference with Benin’s President Boni Yayi following a closed-door meeting in Paris. Boni Yayi is the first African president to be received at the Elysée Palace since the election of Hollande.

This article written by Ndifuna Ukwazi researcher Fritz Jooste recognises recent commitments made by Cape Town mayor, Patricia De Lille, and the City to address service delivery shortcomings in poorer areas, but it goes on to identify certain obstacles that stand in the way of meaningful engagement between local government and communities, calling on the City to address these.

The Ethiopian government has committed gross human rights violations by uprooting the indigenous people of Gambella from their traditional territories, which they have inhabited for centuries, in order to make more land available for commercial agricultural investment. During the first phase of the government’s 'villagization' programme, over 21,000 households were forcefully relocated from their traditional villages, farms and water resources. By the end of the programme 45,000 households (about a third of Gambella’s indigenous population) will be moved to new villages. The government has failed to fulfill promises to provide new villages with social services. And since the land in the new places is not suitable for traditional agriculture, people now rely on gold mining in order to survive.

The Judges of Trial Chamber II on 30 May sentenced convicted former Liberian President Charles Ghankay Taylor to a term of 50 years in prison for planning and for aiding and abetting crimes committed by rebel forces in Sierra Leone during the country's decade-long civil war. The Trial Chamber, comprised of Justice Richard Lussick of Samoa (Presiding), Justice Teresa Doherty of Northern Ireland, and Justice Sebutinde of Uganda, unanimously imposed the single global sentence for all 11 counts of the crimes for which Mr. Taylor was convicted. These included acts of terrorism, murder, rape, sexual slavery, outrages upon personal dignity, cruel treatment, other inhumane acts, conscripting or enlisting of child soldiers, enslavement and pillage.

About one hundred Delft residents who are living in temporary structures whilst waiting for the government to provide them with RDP houses, blocked Symphony Way Road by burning tyres in a protest over their living conditions yesterday. This demonstration was the latest in a series of such protests in the area. Two weeks ago residents burnt tyres on the same road for the same reason.

13 men from Darfur region of Sudan have been on hunger strike for 6 days at Campsfield Immigration Removal Centre in Kidlington, near Oxford.

Since the end of apartheid in South Africa, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) communities have made unprecedented legal gains under the rubric of the bill of rights. The traditional courts bill threatens to undermine this security for millions of South Africans living in rural areas. The bill is the latest in a series of clumsy attempts to define, regularise and institutionalise the role of traditional leaders. In so doing, the bill undermines the protection afforded by constitutional civil rights.

Kenyan soldiers have killed 14 Al Shabaab fighters after the rebel force launched an attack on a Kenyan warship in the Indian Ocean. Ten other Al Shabaab fighters were injured in the attack, the first major naval operation in recent months. The Kenyan Defence Forces (KDF), which is part of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) contingent, said the Kenyan Naval Ship engaged the militants at an Al Shabaab seaport watch station on Tuesday, 29 May.

Clashes between two communities in western Kenya's Rift Valley Province have led to the displacement of thousands of people, the closure of several schools and calls for the government to beef up security. Relations between the Tugen and the Pokot in what is now known as Baringo County have for decades been marked by tit-for-tat cattle raids and the occasional attendant fatality. Over the years, firearms have replaced more traditional weapons, especially among the Pokot. An escalation - in intensity and frequency - of hostilities since January has, according to the Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS), left more than 7,500 Tugen people displaced from their homes, living either with other members of their community or in rudimentary shelters in the bush.