Asylum-seekers entering South Africa are no longer being issued with the necessary documents to apply for refugee status. Without a so-called section 23 permit, they are being turned away from Refugee Reception Offices (RROs) and denied the opportunity to legalize their stay in the country. The section 23 permit is normally issued to anyone entering the country who wants to apply for asylum. It gives them 14 days to report to an RRO and formally apply for refugee status, although following an amendment to South Africa’s immigration law, the section 23 permit will soon only be valid for five days.

Fighters loyal to Libya's overthrown leader Muammar Gaddafi took control of a town south-east of the capital on Monday, flying their green flags in defiance of the country's fragile new government. The fightback by Gaddafi supporters defeated in Libya's civil war, though unlikely to spread elsewhere, added to the problems besetting a government which in the past week has been reeling from one crisis to another. Gaddafi himself was captured and killed in October after weeks on the run.

As thousands of Israelis have been protesting racism directed at Ethiopian Israelis recently, a new recording revealed Wednesday an Israeli school bus driver in Jerusalem spewing racist slurs at schoolgirls of Ethiopian origin. 'People tell you that you smell bad, deal with it. Put on deodorant every day. You’ll smell better,' the driver was heard saying in the recording. 'You need to respect us. We were living here before you, our lives are much more modern.'

The UN refugee agency is concerned about fresh violence in the eastern regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo that has forced more than 100,000 civilians to flee their homes since November. In North Kivu province, an estimated 35,000 people have been displaced as a result of attacks and clashes between rival militia groups in Walikale and Masisi territories. At least 22 people were reported killed and an unknown number of women raped during the fighting, UNHCR said in a statement from Kinshasa, DRC, Friday.

The death toll from co-ordinated bombings and gunfire in the northern Nigerian city of Kano has risen to at least 178, medical sources said, making this the deadliest attack claimed by the radical Islamist group Boko Haram. Gunfire continued to echo through some areas of Kano on Saturday, despite a strict curfew imposed on Friday night which will remain in place until further notice, local officials said.

There is strong evidence that NATO carried out war crimes in its eight-month war for regime-change in Libya, according to a report released Thursday by Middle East human rights groups. The report is based upon a fact-finding mission to Libya conducted by the Arab Organization for Human Rights, together with the Palestinian Center for Human Rights and the International Legal Assistance Consortium. The investigators conducted extensive interviews with victims of war crimes as well as witnesses and Libyan officials. The mission carried out on-site field investigations in and around Tripoli, Zawiya, Sibrata, Khoms, Zliten, Misrata, Tawergha and Sirte.

Rwanda has suspended and put under house arrest four of its top military officers, an army spokesperson says.They are being investigated over 'acts of indiscipline' concerning alleged business dealings in mineral-rich Democratic Republic of Congo. One of those arrested is the military intelligence chief, who has also advised President Paul Kagame on security issues.

President Jacob Zuma does not want the South African military to equip itself with an aircraft carrier -- despite reports suggesting otherwise. A newspaper report claimed that Zuma had personally authorised the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) to acquire an aircraft carrier as part of a project codenamed 'Project Millennium'. It was alleged the programme was established to procure a warship that could operate 'more than a dozen helicopters' and 'vertical take-off jets'.

Many of the tens of thousands of civilians who have fled their homes following a string of deadly attacks by 'terrorist group' Boko Haram in northern Nigeria over recent weeks have not yet been able to return home - or been offered any shelter by the authorities. Local government authorities are wary of setting up camps for the displaced, says the Nigerian Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), as these could turn into further Boko Haram targets.

Mali's army has said it fought off attacks by Tuareg rebels, some of whom recently returned from fighting in Libya and have launched an offensive to seize several northern towns. Fighting erupted in the towns of Aguelhok and Tessalit, keeping residents indoors as gunfire was exchanged, a day after the army said it had fought off an attack in the town of Menaka by bombing rebel positions.

In the early hours of 5 January, a 21-year-old man from Guinea-Conraky, died in Barcelona's immigration detention centre after complaining of chest pains or (according to another report) breathing problems. The young man was the second person to die in a Spanish migrant detention centre in less than three weeks. On 19 December 2011, an unnamed woman, aged 41, believed to be from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, died of meningitis hours after her admission to hospital from the Aluche detention centre, in the suburbs of Madrid.

The Association for Political Prisoners has demanded that Egypt’s incoming parliament push for the release of all 46 political prisoners still languishing in jail from the days of the ousted Mubarak regime. The first session of Egypt’s first post-Mubarak parliament is scheduled to convene on 23 January. Under the Mubarak regime, which was overthrown in the wake of last year’s Tahrir Square uprising, tens of thousands of Egyptians were detained for political reasons.

A philosopher accused of inciting mass murder in Rwanda will remain in detention until a hearing that may put an end to his 19 years in Canada – or may keep him here for months. The order by the Immigration and Refugee Board keeping Léon Mugesera in custody cleared up a long weekend of confusion about the next steps in the long-running case.

Around 47 people have been killed in tribal violence in South Sudan, the latest in a cycle of attacks that have displaced some 60,000 people in the new African nation, officials said. A youth armed group from the Murle tribe attacked Duk Padyet in Jonglei state late on Monday, mostly killing young children, women and old people from the Lou Nuer tribe, said Philip Thon Leek Deng, a local leader and member of parliament.

In this article from the online journal The Chimurenga Chronic Parselelo Kantai looks at the rise of Somali diaspora capital in Nairobi. 'Somali money was supplanting more established ethnic capital; the Indian and Kikuyu, the two most visible mercantile communities, were being outmanoeuvred. As a result, street panic curdled into open xenophobia.'

A partnership of humanitarian organizations working with community volunteers in South Kivu, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), has helped demobilize thousands of children formerly associated with armed groups in the province, says the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF). At least 33,000 children have been demobilized across the country with UNICEF's assistance since 2004, according to Alessandra Dentice, UNICEF's chief of child protection in the DRC.

If the ICC process is to contribute to the deterrence of future political violence in Kenya, the court and its friends must explain its work and limitations better to the public, says a new report from the International Crisis Group. Furthermore, Kenya’s government must complement that ICC process with a national process aimed at countering impunity and punishing ethnic hate speech and violence.

Senegal's Appeals Court has on a technicality rejected a request by Belgium to extradite former Chadian ex-President Hissene Habré. Handing down its ruling following days of interrogation of the request, the court Wednesday said that there were 'technicalities in the format', further arguing that there was no annex of the original application for arrest and detention by Belgium. Belgium has sought to extradite Mr Habré after it charged him with crimes against humanity and torture during his term in power.

Somalia's Islamist al-Shabab group have killed at least six Kenyans in a cross-border raid, claiming revenge for Nairobi's troop deployment against the al-Qaeda-linked group, police and fighters said. Four police officers, a local government official and a civilian were killed in the attack by assailants, using firearms and an explosive device, said regional police chief Leo Nyongesa.

In January 2011, Abyei’s residents were supposed to vote in a referendum to determine whether they wanted Abyei to remain in Sudan, or join what is now the independent nation of South Sudan. The Government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) failed to organise the referendum due to a dispute over who was eligible to vote. The past year has seen the worst violence in Abyei since the second civil war, with a series of attacks by militias, backed by the Government of Sudan, culminating in a full-scale invasion of the territory by Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) in May 2011. Around 110, 000 Ngok Dinka residents fled the area, and have yet to return. It is now just over a year since Abyei’s aborted referendum, and there is little prospect of a resolution in the near future, says a report from the Small Arms Survey.