Ethiopia released the country's most prominent opposition leader from jail on Wednesday, four months after the government's landslide win in elections criticised by Western powers. Birtukan Mideksa, a former judge, is the leader of Ethiopia's biggest opposition party, Unity for Democracy and Justice.

Uganda has taken the lead in the fight against the Islamist militants, with more than 4,000 so-called peacekeepers in the African Union force in Mogadishu. More than 90 trainers from 14 European Union countries are currently giving the Somali army a boost at a Ugandan training base.

The former leader of Nigeria's armed group has said he was arrested because he refused to tell the group to retract a statement claiming responsibility for last week's deadly attacks in the capital, Abuja. Henry Okah, currently being held in jail in South Africa, told Al Jazeera on Tuesday that he received a phone call from a 'close associate' of Goodluck Jonathan, the Nigerian president, telling him to urge the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) to withdraw its claim for the bombings, which killed at least 10 people and left 36 others injured on the 50th anniversay of Nigeria's independence.

Efforts to treat children poisoned by lead and to clean up contaminated sites in northern Nigeria's Zamfara State are being hampered by the reticence of communities to divulge cases, for fear of a government ban on lucrative illegal gold mining. Lead poisoning linked to informal mining has killed over 400 children under five since March 2010, according to the United Nations. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the medical relief agency, noticed high numbers of convulsions and deaths among children in Dareta and Yargalma villages in Zamfara State in March 2010, and started investigating.

President Robert Mugabe has insisted that foreign investors should embrace Zimbabwe's equity laws, which require them to sell a 51 per cent stakes to locals, or 'stay out'. 'Our resources are ours, they belong to Zimbabweans, they belong to the sons and daughters of Zimbabwe," he said.

Fahamu’s Refugee Programme is pleased to announce the [pdf], a monthly publication that aims to provide a forum for providers of refugee legal aid. With a focus on the global South, it aims to serve the needs of legal aid providers as well as raise awareness of refugee concerns among the wider readership of Pambazuka News.

The EU is nowhere near implementing the burden sharing regime on immigration, which Malta has been lobbying for, according to the Council of Europe’s Human Rights Commissioner, Thomas Hammarberg. Scolding northern EU member states for resisting the much needed changes in the way the EU deals with asylum, Mr Hammerberg warned the situation was becoming very serious and accused the resisting member states of disrespecting the rights of asylum seekers.

In support of the hundreds of thousands of refugees who have fled from conflict and disaster areas, Ericsson and Refugees United, in partnership with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and mobile operator MTN in Uganda, have launched the first project to locate and reconnect refugee and IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) families through the innovative use of mobile phones and internet. The program enables refugees to use mobile phones to register and search for loved ones via an anonymous database.

The December 31 amnesty deadline for Zimbabweans living in South Africa illegally must be extended, People Against Suffering, Suppression, Oppression and Poverty (Passop) said on Wednesday. The home affairs department recently appealed to Zimbabweans living in South Africa to take up the government's offer to get their documentation in order to 'regularise' their stay in South Africa, beginning last Monday.

Socio-economic problems are the major cause of xenophobia in South Africa, the United Nations refugee agency said in Johannesburg on Wednesday. 'No society is xenophobic by nature, these attacks were caused by lack of development,' UN High Commissioner for Refugees deputy regional representative Sergio Calle Norena told the Congress of South Africa Trade Unions' summit on xenophobia.

Gunmen in Nigeria have hijacked a school bus carrying 15 children and demanded a $130,000 ransom for their release. The kidnapping, which occurred on Monday, is believed to be the first in Abia state in Nigeria's oil-rich south, according to Geofrey Ogbonna, a police spokesman.

The number of Congolese refugees repatriated from neighbouring Zambia by UNHCR since 2007 has topped the 40,000 mark. The milestone was passed last Sunday when a UNHCR-chartered boat carrying 555 people arrived at Moba in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's Katanga province after crossing LakeTanganyika from the north Zambian port of Mpulungu.

The protection of civilians in conflict situations is a key challenge for blue berets across the world, but what would it take for peacekeepers deployed in Africa to do better? This question has gained added urgency from the mass rape by armed rebels over four days in late July and early August 2010 of more than 300 civilians in villages in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo that lie close to a UN peacekeepers’ base. According to Paul Williams, associate professor at George Washington University, 'For many, civilian protection is the very essence of peacekeeping. But protecting civilians in Africa’s war zones raises huge challenges.'

Findings published by the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) expose how in their drive to maximise catch and minimise cost, illegal ‘pirate’ fishing operators ruthlessly exploit the crews working aboard their boats. EJF’s new report ‘All at Sea – the abuse of human rights aboard illegal fishing vessels’ documents how individuals working on pirate fishing vessels can be subject to excessive working hours, incarceration, and physical abuse up to and including murder.

Ugandan authorities should either release a Kenyan human rights activist who is being held on terrorism charges or provide details of the charges, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said in a joint letter to the Ugandan government. Al-Amin Kimathi was arrested, along with Kenyan lawyer Mbugua Mureithi, on September 15 after the two travelled from Kenya to Uganda to observe a hearing of six Kenyans charged with terrorism in connection with the July bomb attacks in Kampala, which killed over 76 people who were watching the World Cup final.

The Peace Council, a club at the Kenya Methodist University, helped launch the organisation known as "Sisi ni Amani" (We are Peace) at the Baba Ndogo slum estate in Nairobi, Kenya. Sisi ni Amani organisation is focused on interviewing and peace mapping, a concept where any individual sends a message about any peaceful, violent or volatile activity in their area to a number and analysts are able to gather this information, map it and send it to the relevant authorities for support. The launch involved many youths and children. It also aimed at promoting local talent such as music, dance, poetry and acting in the slum area. Contact: Njoroge Caleb, [email][email protected]

The University of East London's School of Law is seeking to appoint an international scholar with an outstanding research record to lead our research in the area of international and comparative human rights and to become Director of the Centre on Human Rights in Conflict

Margot Wallstrom, the United Nation's special representative on sexual violence and conflict, and Zainab Salbi, the founder and CEO of Women for Women International, an organisation that aids women in conflict zones, were recently interviewed on violence against women in conflict zones. 'It's very extensive, unfortunately. It has happened historically. It is taking one of the worst shapes in Congo. About a thousand women is getting raped every month in the last 12 years, according to the state department.' This post includes video and audio.

As public involvement in creating a new constitution for Zimbabwe draws to a close, a rights group reports the process has sparked increased human - rights violations. The Zimbabwe Peace Project says ZANU-PF supporters were the main perpetrators of intimidation at the outreach program. The Zimbabwe Peace Project said it has monitors around the country and they have witnessed many acts of physical intimidation at public meetings.

While they may appeal at a rhetorical level, South African ideas around pan-Africanism and greater regional integration tend to be ambivalent and even antagonistic, writes Ella Philda Scheepers.