Two Kenyan activists working on the cases of suspects charged with terrorism for the July 11, 2010 Kampala bombings have been illegally detained in Uganda and are at risk of abuse, Human Rights Watch has said. Human rights activist Al-Amin Kimathi of the Kenyan Muslim Human Rights Forum and Kenyan lawyer Mbugua Mureithi were arrested on September 15, 2010, when they arrived at Entebbe airport, and taken to the Ugandan police's Rapid Response Unit headquarters in Kireka, Kampala.

Research published in 'Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences' finds virtually no correlation between climate-change indicators such as temperature and rainfall variability and the frequency of civil wars over the past 50 years in sub-Saharan Africa, reports Nature News. The analysis challenges a study published last year.

The Islamist insurgency in Somalia has had a spillover effect on security in the northeast of neighbouring Kenya, affecting livelihoods and the delivery of services, say residents and officials. The worst crimes reported in the region recently include killings, carjackings and abductions – including, in 2009, of aid workers and, in 2008, of two nuns. Insecurity in the borderlands has led thousands of livestock herders to abandon their traditional grazing land, say locals.

The Centre for Rights Education and Awareness CREAW, and the Africa Community Development Media ACDM together with other partners have set up Safariafricaradio which is an online human rights radio station broadcasting online. This is in recognition of the need for a radical paradigm shift of the societal mindset that is anchored on core human rights values , democratic governance and developmental principles that shall drive the kind of change that Kenya needs to get it out of current challenges.

This year's rainy season in Mauritania damaged critical infrastructure and displaced hundreds of families, but it may have alleviated the threat of famine facing other countries in the Sahel. The considerable rainfall has led to widespread damage and cut the main routes linking the capital, Nouakchott, to the rest of the towns and cities in the country's interior.

The Beyond Juba Project proudly announces the sixteenth issue of PeaceTalk, a newsletter targeting Ugandan teenagers. Issue # 16 (Vol.3 Issue 4) will be published in the Monitor newspaper of Sunday, September 19, 2010, and will be uploaded onto our website on Monday, 20 September, 2010.

East African countries will face more devastating food crises in future unless governments take action now, international aid agency Oxfam warned Thursday in a new report aimed at tackling world hunger within the next five years.

This 88-page report documents abuses against the displaced by all warring parties in all phases of displacement – during the attacks that uproot them; after they have been displaced and are living in the forests, with host families, or in camps; and after they or the authorities decide it is time for them to return home. The report is based on interviews with 146 people displaced from their homes in eastern Congo, as well as government officials, humanitarian workers, and journalists.

Andrew Adam is 12 years old, and a fisherman by trade. In Malawi’s southern district of Zomba, Lake Chilwa is the lifeblood of its villagers. Since Adam left school more than a year ago, he has been working as a bila boy – a worker who dives underwater and pulls the nets in.

Earlier this year, 25-year-old Adam Osman Abdile received an ultimatum from Somalia's Al Shabaab: join the militia or die. He decided to flee to Kenya. The journey nearly killed him, but it is one that many young men are willing to risk in Somalia and other countries in eastern Africa to escape persecution or violence.

Contrary to the claim by Times magazine that the war on drugs, the longest war that has cost American taxpayers $2.5 trillion over 40 years, has ‘no clear enemy’,[1] the NAACP in 2010 rightly condemned the war on drugs as a racist war against African Americans and against the poor generally.[2] Californian voters have also proposed the legalization of marijuana to avoid the unnecessary criminalization of otherwise law-abiding responsible adults, aid the sick who need the drug and create fair employment opportunities and wealth for the people and tax revenues for the state.[3]

Only 46,722 people, approximately a third of the number of the disabled in Angola, receive assistance from the National Association of the Disabled (ANDA), according to the Angolan News Agency (ANGOP). More than 150,000 disabled persons are registered in Angola, but this figure is unreliable as the national census had overlooked areas in the country with large numbers of disabled people.

The Security Council has called on all parties to take urgent action to ensure that next January’s referenda to determine whether southern Sudan remains part of Africa’s largest country or becomes an independent nation are peaceful and held on time.

Recent reports of LRA attacks in the Central African Republic and southern Sudan suggest something significant is happening. The LRA is either in complete disarray and acting out of desperation, or the rebel group has rediscovered a sense of purpose: to destabilize southern Sudan in return for military support from Khartoum. As is often the case with the LRA, the truth is hard to ascertain, says this article on Raise Hope for Congo.

Conditions in Mugunga camp for displaced people on the outskirts of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo city of Goma are tough, but tougher still are those endured by hundreds of people from the Bambuti Pygmy community living just outside the camp. “We can’t plant seeds here,” said Bambuti chief Mupepa Muhindo, scratching the ground, which is littered with lava from a 2002 volcanic eruption. “It's not possible to cultivate the land.” The Bambuti are believed to be among Central Africa’s oldest inhabitants. For generations they were nomadic forest-dwellers, living off the land, hunting and gathering.

This report suggests that the racist attacks that occurred in South Africa in 2008 were rooted in the micro-politics of townships and informal settlements. The author argues that violence was used as a means to drive foreigners out of South Africa and thereby decrease competition for jobs and other scarce resources.

The recent mass rapes in a mineral-rich area of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo underscore the urgency of a new U.S. law to certify consumer goods free of "conflict minerals" tied to the violence. The law may be hard to enforce but supporters have high hopes

Over 30 laureates of the Right Livelihood Award, known as the ‘alternative Nobel Prize’, have signed an open letter to President Khama of Botswana urging him to allow the Bushmen access to water. The appeal comes as world experts arrive in Stockholm for World Water Week, and ahead of the Right Livelihood Award conference in Bonn, 14-19th September. It follows the UN’s adoption of water as a human right in July.

A Darfur rebel group has said it was attacked by Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army guerrillas in Sudan's west. "A group of LRA attacked our forces in Dafak in South Darfur yesterday," Haydar Galucuma Ateem, vice president of the Darfur rebel Liberation and Justice Movement (LJM), told Reuters from Qatar-based peace talks.

Chekib El-Khiari, a human rights defender and journalist, is serving a three-year prison sentence in Morocco after he denounced corruption of some Moroccan officials. Amnesty International believes that Chekib El-Khiari’s conviction is politically motivated and that he is being punished for daring to mention the involvement of high-ranking officials in a drug-trafficking ring. Amnesty International considers Chekib El-Khiari to be a prisoner of conscience, solely detained for his anti-corruption statements and his human rights activities.