Global funding for humanitarian aid interventions saw the biggest shortfalls in 10 years in 2011, according to a new report, raising questions about the international community’s ability to meet a 20-per cent greater need for 2012 driven by drought and conflict. The launch of the 2012 Global Humanitarian Assistance (GHA) report last week coincided with the release of new mid-year data by the UN that scaled up earlier projections of humanitarian needs from 7.9 billion to 8.8 billion dollars for 2012.

Hopes of a new, more effective therapy for tuberculosis have been raised following the results of early trials. The study showed three drugs given in combination killed more than 99 per cent of TB bacteria after two weeks of treatment. The therapy appeared to be equally effective on the drug-resistant form of the disease in the trials of 85 patients, a team led by Stellenbosch University in South Africa reported.

An activist serving life imprisonment with hard labour for printing and distributing T-shirts calling for an end to dictatorship in The Gambia must be freed, global rights body, Amnesty International (AI), has said. The global rights body made the call as it marked its annual Day of Action, calling for improved human rights in the West African country.

‘The challenge is not how the state can regulate the market, but how society can regulate both the state and the market.’

The mysterious collapse of honey-bee colonies is becoming a global phenomenon, scientists working for the United Nations have revealed. Declines in managed bee colonies, seen increasingly in Europe and the US in the past decade, are also now being observed in China and Japan and there are the first signs of African collapses from Egypt, according to the report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The authors, who include some of the world's leading honey-bee experts, issue a stark warning about the disappearance of bees, which are increasingly important as crop pollinators around the globe.

The international workshop and seminar, 'Agrarian Reform and the Defense of Land and Territory in the 21st century: The Challenge and Future' culminated on 15 July in a celebration in Sibaladuang, Sungai Kamuyang Village, Limapuluh Kota Regent, West Sumatra, Indonesia. Delegates from 26 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe attended. The final declaration of the international workshop was read out, outlining some of the key elements of a new vision of agrarian reform and the sovereignty of peoples over their territories. Among them were that peasants and family farm production play the central role in the building of food sovereignty.

A global super-rich elite had at least $21 trillion (£13tn) hidden in secret tax havens by the end of 2010, according to a major study. The figure is equivalent to the size of the US and Japanese economies combined. The Price of Offshore Revisited was written by James Henry, a former chief economist at the consultancy McKinsey, for the Tax Justice Network.

The United States said Sunday it is suspending military aid to Rwanda because of 'deep concerns' over evidence it is supporting a mutiny in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo. State Department spokeswoman Darby Holladay said Washington 'has decided it can no longer provide foreign military financing appropriated in the current fiscal year to Rwanda.'

Can shopping save the world? The Story of Change urges viewers to put down their credit cards and start exercising their citizen muscles to build a more sustainable, just and fulfilling world.

Alliance Magazine aims to facilitate the exchange of information and ideas among philanthropists, social investors and others working for social change worldwide in order to maximize the impact of funding for social development. To help achieve this, Alliance offers free electronic subscriptions to those in countries not designated as high-income countries by the World Bank. Visit their website to find your country on an interactive map and to sign up.

The David Kato Vision & Voice Award was launched to recognize those who are working to eliminate violence, stigma and discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people. The award celebrates the life and work of human rights activist David Kato, who was murdered in his home in Kampala, Uganda on 26 January 2011. Maurice Tomlinson, an outspoken advocate for LGBTI rights in Jamaica, received the inaugural award in January 2012.

The recent Nairobi conference by Kenya, IGAD, AU and UN is another misfortune that will remain in the hearts of many Somalis, and it’s again showing how the international community is using a negative approach to resolve the crisis in Jubbaland regions.

The US government’s growing reliance on aerial drones to pursue its war on al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Yemen, Afghanistan and elsewhere is proving controversial. As governments are increasingly relying on drones, this Al Jazeera People and Power documentary asks what are the consequences for civil liberties and the future of war?

After 18 months of having its funding nearly completely cut off by a payment industry blockade, WikiLeaks says it’s finally found a new workaround that allows it to receive credit card donations. And after a legal victory against Visa in Iceland, the group is literally daring the card companies to shut down payments to his site again.

Beijing is eager to rewrite negative perceptions of its growing ties with Africa at a summit this week, citing expanding private investment and a push to shift low-end manufacturing to the continent long seen as a commodities and energy cache for China. Chinese state-owned firms in Africa face criticism for using imported labour to build government-financed projects like roads and hospitals, while pumping out resources and leaving little for local economies, an image Beijing wants to change at the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation.

Experts say older people are affected more severely than the rest of the population during displacement. 'People who have energy can resist or run or take away belongings. An old person doesn't have the energy to do all this. So in cases of forced evictions, for instance, they lose a home and lose belongings and also a critical social network,' Protus Waringa, a Kenyan human rights law expert, told IRIN. Globally, an estimated 26.4 million people were displaced by armed conflict, generalized violence and human rights violations at the end of 2011, according to a 2011 overview by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC); the overview noted that there were huge gaps in the data available on older IDPs, with just six out of 50 countries making specific reference to older persons in their data on IDPs.

This discussion paper from the Transnational Institute's Agrarian Justice Programme argues that there is a need to come to grips with land issues in a changing global context and to rethink what may be needed to mobilise effectively in such a setting. 'The main frameworks of advocacy that have been employed by some academics, radical researchers and social movement activists have some particular limitations in the context of global land grabbing. Neither land reform nor land tenure security alone are well-equipped to be frameworks for analysis or action in the current conjuncture. Land reform remains important, but its limitations as a call to action are being exposed by the current cycle of land grabbing. Likewise, land tenure security is important, but alone is not enough, since adverse incorporation of the rural working poor classes into the corporate-controlled global food-feed-fuel regime does not necessarily require moving them off the land.'

Crucial hearings will begin on Monday 16 July 2012 in the High Court on time limitation periods applicable in the landmark case brought by Kenyan victims of alleged torture during the Kenya Emergency in the 1950s and 1960s. The British Government is arguing that the claims are time-barred and should be struck out, but the victims contend that this is a case in which the Judge should exercise his discretion and allow the claims to proceed. REDRESS, a London-based human rights organisation that helps torture survivors obtain justice and reparation, has made submissions in support of the victims’ claims.

The world’s 105 biggest companies are worth more than US$11 trillion. They touch the lives of people across the globe. But just how much do we know about their impact on daily lives? Too often, citizens experience little benefit from global economic activity while suffering the consequences of unethical corporate activity. Transparency in Corporate Reporting assesses the disclosure of steps these companies have in place to fight corruption. It also looks at companies’ transparency footprint across 177 countries: to what extent are earnings and taxes in specific countries made public.

IHRFG and the Foundation Center are excited to launch the first-ever visualization tool of the contemporary scope and landscape of global human rights grantmaking!