This video from The Real News reports on how Israel's Knesset has approved plans to jail asylum seekers for the longest period in the western world.

Last week BBC News reported that 70,000 indigenous people have been forced to relocate in the western Gambella region of Ethiopia to new villages that lack adequate resources for their survival. The land has been signed over to foreign investors, including Saudi Star Agriculture Development Plc, a company owned by Saudi-Ethiopian billionaire Mohammed Al Amoudi. Saudi Star has begun rice cultivation on 10,000ha of land in Gambella and a 10,000ha irrigation project along the already-compromised Alwero River. Only grain that does not meet export requirements will be sold locally.

Kenya has been urged to continue providing refuge to Somalis fleeing violence and hunger in their homeland, a US State Department official said. 'We continue to rely on and advocate strongly for the protection of Somalis inside Kenya, that they should not be sent back into Somalia in order to create some sort of a buffer zone,' declared David Robinson, acting assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration. Mr Robinson spoke at a press briefing in Washington Tuesday on the status of the food crisis in Kenya and elsewhere in the Horn of Africa.

The international dimension of Liberia’s civil war is rarely given the attention it deserves, writes Boima Tucker on the blog Africa is a Country. 'The fact that Charles Taylor stands on trial for war crimes in Sierra Leone points to it partially, but often not realized are the roles that countries like Libya, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Nigeria played in initiating a truly multinational war. Recent revelations by the CIA - which have always been suspected - put the United States’ role in the war at center stage, adding fuel to claims of outside intervention in Liberian politics, since its founding as a Western style nation-state, up until today.'

Joint operations between the police and military are becoming increasingly commonplace. But maintaining a strict demarcation between the police and the military is essential to the protection of democracy.

There is no threat, sanctions lead to war and war leads to welfare cuts: These are three of the 10 reasons advanced by the website against possible war against Iran by Western powers.

The ECOWAS Commission has said that it roundly condemns the spate of terror attacks in different parts of Nigeria. It maintained that the attacks by Boko Haram were 'aggravating insecurity among both citizens and visitors'. According to the sub-regional group, the West African leaders have noted with regret that 'the latest deadly attacks in the country’s ancient northern city of Kano on Friday, January 20, 2012 happened in spite of the determined efforts by the government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to rein in those behind these attacks.' Nigeria’s violent situation has reportedly featured at the United Nations Security Council.

Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has opted to come clean over her role in the country’s civil war. Over the years innuendoes have circulated about her sponsoring the National Patriotic Front of Liberia of former warlord Charles Taylor, who is facing possible conviction before the UN-backed Sierra Leone Specia Court sitting at The Hague. Mrs Sirleaf is now promising to appear before the Leymah Gbowee committee set up last year to address pre-election abuses. The president she was ready to 'challenge the untruths' about her civil war role.

This infographic briefly defines what a conflict mineral is and follows up with a map that shows worldwide production of each mineral. We have also included a graphical representation of the estimated amount of funds that are going to the armed conflict within the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Jubilant youths overran a blood-splattered police station on Wednesday 25 January after it was attacked by a radical Islamist sect, revealing a streak of popular discontent with a government that many say has failed them in Africa's most populous nation. Suspected members of Boko Haram surrounded the police station Tuesday night in Kano, ordered civilians to get off the street, began chanting 'God is great' and threw homemade bombs into the station while spraying it with assault rifles, witnesses said. The attack followed coordinated assaults on Friday that killed at least 185 people in Kano, Nigeria's second-largest city.

The IMF has issued a blunt warning that unless the European economic crisis is resolved, the global economy faces another 1930s style ‘Great Depression’ which would negatively affect frontier markets including Nigeria. This followed the failure of European finance ministers to reach a restructuring agreement with private holders of Greek debt Monday night. If Greece does not put itself in a position to receive aid funding by the end of March, it will suffer a disorderly default on its debt. A drop in global demand would affect Nigeria negatively, as the country depends almost exclusively on oil sales to fund more than 90 per cent of its budget and Foreign Exchange earnings.

Parliament should prioritize abolishing repressive legislation over creating a new constitution, said Mohamed ElBaradei, former presidential hopeful. On Twitter, he said that 'the focus should be on achieving independence for the judiciary and the media, restructuring security and revitalizing the economy.' ElBaradei said dialogue among the revolutionaries, MPs, the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) and the government was key to achieving national consensus.

A court in Algeria has sentenced a fugitve leader of al-Qaeda's north African wing and three of his followers to death for attacks against the military. The sentence against Mokhtar Belmokhtar and the three others was handed down in absentia on Sunday night after a day-long trial in Algiers.

Foreign ministers of the four countries involved in the fight against terrorism by the Al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) - Algeria, Mali, Mauritania and Niger – have met to discuss the issue. Nigeria and the African Centre for Study and Research on Terrorism (ACSRT) are also guests at the meeting whose agenda is to 'review the terrorist threat in the Sahel-Sahara, assess joint action in the field of security and development and agree on measures to be taken to consolidate the regional strategy for implementation of the Common policy.'

The International Criminal Court denied Monday that it had agreed that Seif al-Islam, slain Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi's most prominent son, can be tried in Libya. 'The ICC has made no decision on this matter,' court spokesman Fadi el-Abdallah told AFP in response to a claim by Libya's Justice Minister Ali H'mida Ashur that Seif would be judged by a Libyan court.

Islamist militants have launched a suicide truck bomb attack on an Ethiopian military base in central Somalia, witnesses say. Al-Shabab says it killed 10 Ethiopian soldiers in the attack in the town of Beledweyne but this has not been confirmed. Ethiopian forces seized Beledweyne from al-Shabab earlier this month.

The Ethiopian government has said it will defend itself from 'terrorist' acts sponsored by Eritrea following a deadly attack this week on western tourists which Addis Ababa said was carried out by armed groups sponsored by its arch-rival. In a statement, Ethiopia said it would invoke its right to self-defence as the already-strained relations between the two neighbours threatened to deteriorate even further. Asmara denies the allegation and said it had put its troops at their border on high alert following the accusation.

The International Criminal Court has confirmed charges against four of the six Kenyan suspects thought to be most culpable for the post election violence that followed a disputed presidential election in 2007. Charges against deputy prime minister Uhuru Kenyatta, MP William Ruto, radio broadcaster Joshua arap Sang and civil service boss Francis Muthaura were admitted. The ruling has been highly anticipated in the country following its impact on the elections expected to be tightly contested.

A Rwandan man has been deported from Canada to Kigali where he faces charges of helping to incite the 1994 genocide. Leon Mugesera has been fighting deportation for 16 years with a series of appeals, even after the Canadian Supreme Court upheld the order in 2005. He faces charges in Rwanda of inciting genocide and crimes against humanity stemming from an incendiary anti-Tutsi speech he gave in 1992.

The flood waters of the Incomati river and its tributaries swept across Mozambique's main north-south highway cutting off Maputo from the north and centre of the country, it was reported on Monday. Earlier, disaster relief officials said storms had forced tens of thousands of people from their homes and had killed 22 in Mozambique, the Associated Press (AP) reported.