Civil Society organizations, including Global Witness, Human Rights Watch, and Partnership Africa Canada, have condemned the state-sponsored harassment and intimidation of a Zimbabwean nongovernmental organization, the Centre for Research and Development (CRD). The group has been instrumental in exposing ongoing human rights abuses in Zimbabwe's notorious Marange diamond fields.

Human rights campaigner group Amnesty International has condemned the reported execution of 18 people in Libya. The 18, some from Chad, Egypt and Nigeria, were executed on Sunday in Tripoli and Benghazi, Libyan media reported. Amnesty International said they feared the accused had not had fair trials.

There is growing alarm among Kenyan farmers about a government announcement that 2.3m bags of maize were unfit for human consumption. Health experts say the maize contained high levels of lethal aflatoxins, which have killed at least one child. The government has pledged to buy and destroy the contaminated maize.

A leading rights activist in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been found dead in the capital, Kinshasa. Floribert Chebeya's body was discovered, partially clothed, on the back seat of his own car. Rights group Amnesty International says oppression of activists in DR Congo is growing.

Clashes between Somali government forces and Islamist militants have killed at least 28 people and wounded about 60 in the capital Mogadishu. The fighting appears to be the start of a government offensive using troops trained in Ethiopia, analysts say.

Four thousand children are exploited sexually every day in Cameroon, according to an investigation by the Coalition, "Let's Protect our Children". The Coalition organizes an advocacy campaign against the exploitation of children for sexual purposes, Pastor Blaise Kemogné, one of the organizers of the campaign, told PANA.

The human rights situation in key parts of DR Congo remains extremely serious, according to a report by UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions Philip Alston. The expert warned that killings, rapes, mutilation, village burnings and displacement would continue to take place unless civilian protection measures are urgently improved.

As reports warn of an alarming rise in the recruitment of child soldiers in Somalia, UNICEF and the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict are calling on all parties to put an immediate end to this criminal practice.

The Egyptian Emergency Supreme State Security Court (ESSSC) convicted and sentenced 26 individuals who Cairo accuses of being part of an active Hizbullah cell in Egypt on 28 April. The case, which ‘continues to arouse strong emotions inside Egypt and the wider region, marks the first time Egypt has prosecuted alleged members of Hizbullah,’ writes Chris Zambelis. But it also ‘showcased an underlying subtext behind the dynamic shaping some of the most important trends in Middle East politics today’, a shift in the Egypt’s pan-Arabian allegiances towards Western powers such as the US and Israel.

The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) Indonesia is working alongside its partner organisations to ensure the wellbeing of African refugees and asylum seekers in Indonesia, write Savitri Taylor and Brynna Rafferty-Brown. But do the displaced receive the support they need and do they have reason to be optimistic about their future stability?

Nigerian police routinely carry out summary executions of suspected criminals, use torture to extract confessions from detainees, and rape as an interrogation technique, according to a report by the Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI), a rights group, which appeals to President Goodluck Jonathan to make good on promises to urgently reform the force.

South Africa is hosting the continent's first soccer World Cup but the mounting anticipation is not drowning out a vicious whispering campaign calling for the expulsion of foreign nationals within hours of the curtain going down on football's biggest jamboree. The local media has been awash with anecdotal stories of conspiracies brewing at taxi ranks, shebeens and markets to bring a pogrom against foreign African nationals, who are blamed for taking jobs and diverting government services, while NGOs concerned with the plight of refugees and migrants are becoming more worried as 12 July - the day after the final game - draws near.

Trucks of soldiers and police have entered the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. Survival believes this is to intimidate the Bushmen, and perhaps even force them out, because:
1) Gem Diamonds wants to open a diamond mine on their land;
2) the Botswana High Court is now due to hear a Bushman application to reinstate their water borehole.

Renewed fighting between Government troops and armed opposition groups have displaced over 17,000 people from the Somali capital, Mogadishu, over the past month, with more than 14,300 fleeing in the last two weeks alone, the United Nations refugee agency reported. This brings to 200,000 the number of Somalis estimated to have been uprooted since the beginning of this year, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

As of May 2010, at least 4.9 million people are internally displaced in Darfur, the Greater Khartoum area, South Kordofan and the ten States of Southern Sudan, with unknown numbers of internally displaced people in the other northern and eastern States. They make up one of the two largest internally displaced populations in the world, alongside that of Colombia. Some people have been displaced for more than two decades, while others were newly displaced in 2009 and 2010.

A group of 124 organizations from more than 25 African countries have released a declaration calling on African governments to advance accountability for grave international crimes at the review conference for the International Criminal Court (ICC). The conference, which will take place in Kampala, Uganda from May 31 to June 11, 2010, is being convened to discuss amendments to the court's treaty.

The International Criminal Court has reported Sudan to the UN Security Council for refusing to arrest two suspected Darfur war criminals. Former Minister Ahmed Haroun and militia leader Ali Muhammad Al Abd-Al-Rahman are both alleged to have been involved in attacks on civilians. The ICC took the unprecedented move after the government refused to accept arrest warrants for the two men.

French authorities have arrested a Rwandan doctor accused of involvement in the 1994 genocide. Eugene Rwamucyo has been wanted by Interpol since 2006, and was dismissed from his job in a hospital in northern France last month. Rwandan authorities, who allege Dr Rwamucyo committed war crimes during the genocide, welcomed the arrest.

Ghana and Togo on Wednesday agreed that about a 1,000 Ghanaians, and not 3,500, were sheltering in Togo after fleeing ethnic conflict in Ghana's Northern Region. The figure was agreed after a closed-door meeting between a Togolese government delegation led by National Security Minister Colonel Mohammed Atcha Titikpina and Ghana's President John Evans Atta Mills and senior security officials in Accra.

Squealing with delight, young Elvis rushes off to greet his mother as she wends her way towards the family's hut in north-eastern Botswana's Dukwi refugee camp. The Zimbabwean infant, aged almost three, is a picture of health. But one year ago, carrying the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), he was near death's door. Elvis could barely sit up. His body was wracked with opportunistic infections, including tuberculosis, and he was constantly in hospital for treatment.