Parliament this week, has been labelled inhumane, ill-conceived and draconian by lawyers and human rights activists, who say that asylum-seekers and refugees will be hard hit by it. 'The Bill favours the rich at the expense of the vulnerable,' said Fatima Khan, the director of the University of Cape Town's refugee rights project. Khan said the Bill allowed for asylum-seekers to be pre-screened at South Africa's border, in spite of the fact that immigration officials were not qualified to do this.

Fighting in eastern Libya between pro-government and opposition forces has left thousands of Libyans internally displaced in recent days. Libyans arriving at Egypt's Sallum border crossing said civilians had been seeking shelter with host families as well as in schools and university buildings.

Police in Algeria's capital have used teargas to disperse a crowd of young men who threw stones and petrol bombs to try to stop bulldozers demolishing dozens of illegally built homes. Wednesday's (23 March) riot was unusually violent and took place at a time when Algerian authorities are wary of any sign of contagion from the unrest elsewhere in the Arab world. A police spokesman said 50 officers were injured in the clashes. Reporters on the spot said the demonstrators replied with iron bars and stones.

With the escalation of fighting across Somalia since January, armed groups have reportedly recruited more child soldiers to their ranks, some even forcing teachers to enlist pupils. In a recent offensive against rebel groups in Bulo Hawo town on the border with Kenya, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) stated on 17 March, '...children were involved as fighters and a significant number of them were killed. According to reports, intense fighting in the area between Dhusamareb and Ceel bur in Galgadud has also resulted in many child casualties.'

In one of the largest and oldest refugee settlements in the world, education is a luxury denied most of the 90,739 children who live there. Set up at the outset of Somalia’s civil war in 1991 to accommodate 90,000 refugees, three camps near the northeastern Kenyan town of Dadaab - Hagadera, Ifo and Dagahaley - are now home to more than three times that number, and persistent conflict in Somalia, from where 95 per cent of the refugees originate, means the population grows daily.

Amnesty International has urged the Nigerian authorities to act to stem a rising tide of political, ethnic and religious violence that risks threatening the stability of April elections. In a short report entitled 'Loss of life, insecurity and impunity in the run up to Nigeria’s elections' highlights how hundreds of people have been killed in politically-motivated, communal and sectarian violence across Nigeria ahead of presidential and parliamentary polls.

This blog post from Scarlett Lion is made up of pictures of some of the more than 40,000 Ivorian refugees who have fled post election violence and insecurity in Cote d’Ivoire. 'Liberians, who had been refugees in Ivory Coast just a couple of years earlier, are hosting many refugees in villages along the border and others are being relocated to camps by UNHCR.

The Ugandan police Rapid Response Unit frequently operates outside the law, carrying out torture, extortion, and in some cases, extrajudicial killings, Human Rights Watch says in a new report. Ugandan authorities should urgently open an independent investigation into the unit's conduct and activities and hold accountable anyone responsible for human rights violations, Human Rights Watch said. The 59-page report, 'Violence Instead of Vigilance: Torture and Illegal Detention by Uganda's Rapid Response Unit', documents the unit's illegal methods of investigation and serious violations of the rights of the people it arrests and detains.

The three-month campaign of organised violence by security forces under the control of Laurent Gbagbo and militias that support him gives every indication of amounting to crimes against humanity, Human Rights Watch has said. A new Human Rights Watch investigation in Abidjan indicates that the pro-Gbagbo forces are increasingly targeting immigrants from neighboring West African countries in their relentless attacks against real and perceived supporters of Alassane Ouattara, says Human Rights Watch.

The political crisis in Cote d’Ivoire is increasingly having a toll on the country's neighbours, with the spillover effects ranging from the political and social to the economic. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has already suggested that growth in the region would be affected this year if the stalemate persists. Many experts have also raised the alarm, saying that it is an example that must not be allowed to take root in West Africa.

Unregulated large-scale land acquisition in south Sudan by foreign companies threatens the rights of the people, with an area bigger than Rwanda earmarked for use by outside businesses, a report warns. Investigations commissioned by Norwegian People's Aid calculated that between 2007 and 2010, 'foreign interests sought or acquired a total of 2.64 million hectares of land (6.52 million acres) in the agriculture, forestry and biofuel sectors alone.'

Hundreds of residents have been left homeless in Juba town following demolitions at Custom Residential Area. The demolitions came following a week long notice given to the residents to vacate the area. Authorities of Central Equatoria State warned the residents that the State government wanted to use the land for constructing a government building.

The High Court in Kenya has relied upon the work of Stuart Wilson, the Socio-economic Rights Institute of South Africa's director of litigation, in granting a conservatory order preventing the eviction of thousands of informal settlers in Nairobi. In granting the order, Mr. Justice Musinga held that 'Eviction should not result in individuals being rendered homeless or vulnerable to the violation of other human rights. Where those affected are unable to provide for themselves, the State party must take all reasonable measures, to the maximum of its available resources, to ensure that adequate alternative housing, resettlement or access to productive land, as the case may be is available.' The Judge also urged the Kenyan government to adopt a comprehensive housing policy which includes measure to provide interim relief for desperately poor people facing eviction.

Tanzania has asked South Africa to send warships into the seas off its coast, Defence Minister Lindiwe Sisulu says. International shipping off the East African coast has come under increasing attack from pirates over the past decade. A European Union naval task force currently operates off the Somali coast in an effort to protect vessels passing through that part of the Indian Ocean.

Heavy fighting between rebels and the south Sudanese army in the oil-producing states of Unity and Upper Nile, has left at least 70 people dead, according to an army spokesman. At least 30 soldiers and 11 rebels died in clashes that broke out on Thursday morning in Mayom county, in Unity state, Philip Aguer, a spokesman for the south's Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), said.

Loud explosions have rocked the Libyan capital, Tripoli, for a third night as forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi attempt to stop any new attack from an international military coalition enforcing a no-fly zone over the country. Gunfire and anti-aircraft fire lit up the sky late on Monday in and around the capital, where two large explosions could be heard about 10 minutes apart shortly after 9pm, said Al Jazeera's Anita McNaught, reporting from Tripoli.

With the United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) imposing a no-fly zone in the airspace of Libya by a predicted 10-0, no one stopped to ask what ends the means of military force hoped to achieve. As the United States and its allies, notably France and Britain, enter their third consecutive day of ferocious air strikes against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s ground controls Monday, this vital question remains unanswered, a vacuum that is swiftly filling up with fears that the UNSCR may have left too much wiggle room for powerful Western states with a notorious track record of invasion and occupation.

President Museveni has hit out at members of the United Nations Security Council who voted in support of imposing a no-fly-zone over Libya, describing their actions as evidence of the 'double standards' that they employ on countries where their interests are threatened. Museveni warned that the habit of the Western countries abusing their technological superiority to impose war on less developed societies 'without impeachable logic' could re-ignite an arms race in the world.

The Centre for Constitutional Rights has presented its third annual Human Rights Report Card on South Africa. 'During the past year South Africans have continued to enjoy most of the constitutional rights to which they are entitled. However, proposed legislation and government initiatives raise very serious concerns with regard to some core rights such as freedom of expression; property rights; important aspects of the right to equality; and freedom of trade, occupation and profession; labour relations; and the right to freedom and security of the person,' the report says.

The highest court of the land has ruled invalid the law enacted to disband the former elite crime-fighting unit, the Directorate of Special Operations (or 'the Scorpions'). The Court’s two main findings are that: first, the state is constitutionally bound to 'establish and maintain an independent body to combat corruption and organised crime'; and second, that the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation ('the Hawks') established after the disbanding of the Scorpions 'does not meet the constitutional requirement of adequate independence' and is 'insufficiently insulated from political influence in its structure and functioning'.