The petition available through the web address provided calls for the suspension of removals of failed asylum seekers in the United Kingdom until there has been a full inquiry into the safety of failed asylum seekers on return to the DRC, in order to prevent future ill-treatment of vulnerable Congolese asylum seekers.

Last week five of the UN's smallest member states, describing themselves as the 'small five' (S5), challenged the five permanent members (P5) of the Security Council, namely the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia, over the misuse of their veto powers. But hours before it was to be debated and voted in the 193-member General Assembly, the resolution unceremoniously disappeared from the hallowed precincts of the United Nations.

In this broadcast from The Real News Network, Maurice Carney, a co-founder and Executive Director of the Friends of the Congo, talks about the expansion of AFRICOM on the African continent. 'Although the United States has continued to push AFRICOM, it has been roundly rejected by African leaders. An initial aim of AFRICOM was to establish a based presence on the African continent. And because of the, you know, vicious or, you know, intense pushback on the part of African leaders, President Bush had to backtrack on that aim. But nonetheless we still see the push for AFRICOM to have a large footprint on the African continent.'

The Basic Health Centre or Centre de Santé de Base (CSB) II in Anjalajala, near Antsohihy, the capital of Madagascar's northern Sofia Region, is housed in a recently renovated building and its status as a CSB II promises the availability of a trained doctor. But the doctor left for Antananarivo, the capital, in 2002 and has not been replaced, and whenever the remaining nurse is absent, services stop. The situation at this clinic is not unique in Madagascar, where an already weak healthcare system has been in a state of decline since 2009 when the international community branded Andry Rajoelina's ousting of President Marc Ravalomanana a coup, and donors halted all but emergency aid.

The Democratic Republic of Congo is ruling out a peaceful solution to a stand-off with rebels in the east. The government has refused to negotiate with the group known as M23, who have deserted from the army. In this exclusive video report, Al Jazeera crosses the frontline to speak to the fighters.

Dozens of legislators have walked out of the inaugural session of Algeria's parliament to protest what they say was an election rigged to hand a majority to the ruling elite's party. Saturday's walk-out saw 49 legislators from the Green Algeria Alliance (AVV) along with MPs from two smaller parties, who combined hold 60 of the 462 seats in the parliament, boycott the first meeting of the chamber since a May 10 election.

An explosion ripped through a building full of small shops in downtown Nairobi on Monday, wounding at least 16 people, the police commissioner said. He could not immediately confirm what caused the blast. The force of the explosion ripped apart the one-story building's aluminum roof, but a high-rise building with a glass exterior right next to the blast did not appear to sustain major damage.

Preliminary results in Lesotho parliamentary elections have put the ruling Democratic Congress (DC) in the lead with 45 per cent of the vote in 77 constituencies out of 80 counted. The results show that the Democratic Congress has won 46 seats, followed by the All Basotho Convention with 27 and the Lesotho Congress for Democracy with 13 seats. Official results are still being verified by the Electoral Commission with final results expected tomorrow.

The Economic Cost of Violence survey - the result of a collaboration between Karama and its economic realm in Egypt, which is led by the Egyptian Association for Community Participation Enhancement (EACPE) - was released last month, stating that the total national cost of women’s exposure to violence exceeds 785 million Egyptian Pounds (LE) a year, over three billion LE over the last three years. Launched in 2010, the study aims to quantify the monetary cost of women’s exposure to violence as the basis of a campaign to prevent violence against women by demonstrating that the impact of violence goes beyond women and has implications for the nation as a whole.

Rampant poverty is the main source of potential instability in Angola, with the main threat emerging from rapidly growing cities, according to this paper commissioned by the US Africa Command and written by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

Unexpectedly sharp price rises in April for local cereals like millet, rice and maize in parts of Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad mean many vulnerable people in the drought-hit Sahel could find it even harder to get enough to eat. The high prices of basic foods are the most alarming feature of the current Sahel crisis, according to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) of the US Agency for International Development (USAID). Prices are expected to keep rising until the end of August - during the lean season - but the size of recent hikes has surprised food price analysts and humanitarian aid personnel.

Mali's embattled transitional government has rejected the declaration by an alliance of northern rebels of an independent Islamic Tuareg state. 'The government of Mali categorically rejects the idea of the creation of an Azawad state, even more so of an Islamic state,' a government official told the AFP news agency on Sunday. 'Even though this state creation is just on paper and not de facto, we are coming forward to stress that Mali is secular and will remain secular,' said Hamadoun Toure, information minister in the transitional Malian administration. The two groups that seized control of Mali's north had announced that they agreed to merge and create an independent state in the northern half of the west African nation.

The reality of Indian and Chinese investment in Africa is much more complex than the good cop, bad cop image of Asia’s two emerging economic giants. China and India have caused an explosion of trade and investment in Africa in the past decade. Yet they are perceived quite differently: China has a reputation for economic ruthlessness, while India’s business interests are generally seen as beneficial to Africa. But their investment in Africa needs to be viewed in the context of broader investment trends on the continent, trade experts said at the 'Money, Power and Sex: the Paradox of Unequal Growth' conference organised by the Open Society Institute of Southern Africa, which took place from May 22 to 24 in Cape Town, South Africa.

Demonstrators have attacked African migrants in Tel Aviv in a protest against refugees and asylum-seekers that indicates an increasingly volatile mood in Israel over what it terms as 'infiltrators'. Miri Regev, a member of the Israeli parliament, told the crowd 'the Sudanese are a cancer in our body'. The vast majority of asylum-seekers in Israel are from Sudan and Eritrea. Around 1,000 demonstrators took part in the demonstration on Wednesday night, waving signs saying: 'Infiltrators, get out of our homes' and 'Our streets are no longer safe for our children.'

The Presidential Elections Commission will announce on Monday afternoon the first-round results of the presidential poll, an official said, after early counts showed it would go to a runoff between the Muslim Brotherhood candidate and the last prime minister of Hosni Mubarak. State-run news agency MENA said on Monday that the commission would hold a conference to announce full details of the electoral process, including the number of valid and invalid votes, the voter turnout, the votes won by each of the 13 candidates, and the names of the top two runners who will compete in the runoffs slated for 16 and 17 June.

Although just a few hundred kilometres from Nairobi, the county of Turkana, where newly-confirmed oil reserves are set to go on stream in the next few years, feels more like a million miles away from the gleaming skyscrapers and concentrations of power and money found in Kenya’s capital. Turkana’s socioeconomic indicators do indeed set it apart. Only 39 per cent of the youth aged 15-18 in Turkana attend school, compared to the national average of 70.9 per cent. Can oil, coupled with an unprecedented process of political devolution enshrined in a new constitution, reverse Turkana’s fortunes?

Arts and human rights charity, Sandblast has been knocked offline in an internet attack. The charity, founded by West Hampstead resident, Danielle Smith, works with the indigenous people from Western Sahara, the Saharawis, whose identity and culture is threatened by the impact of prolonged refugee life and Morocco’s occupation. Sandblast’s mission is to empower the Saharawis to tell their own story through the arts. The attack has come two weeks before the launch of its ambitious music empowerment project, Studio-Live, which aims to engage UK-based musicians, producers, technicians, and music industry specialists in building a Saharawi music industry from scratch in the refugee camps in the Algerian desert.

Birthing Justice: Women Creating Economic and Social Alternatives is a series featuring 12 alternative social and economic models which expand the possibilities for justice, equity, and strong community. The eighth narrative of Birthing Justice focuses on Julie Castro, a young doctor from France, a country that proves that it is possible for a nation to offer quality health care for all.

Saferworld is an independent non-governmental organisation that works to prevent and reduce violent conflict and promote co-operative approaches to security. We work with governments, international organisations and civil society to encourage and support effective policies and practices through advocacy, research and policy development and through supporting the actions of others. We are seeking a country manager with experience in the areas of conflict prevention, peace- and security- building to manage Saferworld’s Somalia/Somaliland programme.

The visiting United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has called on Zimbabwe’s political leaders to quickly find a solution to their differences and implement key reforms, in order to avoid the violence that marred the 2008 elections. Speaking to journalists at the end of her five-day visit to assess human rights, Navi Pillay said unless the parties quickly agree on key reforms, the next election could turn into 'a repeat of the 2008 election which resulted in rampant politically motivated human rights abuses, including killings, torture, rapes, beatings, arbitrary detention, displacements and other violations'.