The Conference of Rectors, Vice-Chancellors and Presidents of African Universities (COREVIP) is an assembly of the chief executive officers of member institutions or their representatives. The theme for the Conference is: "The African Brain Drain - Managing the Drain: Working with the Diaspora". The conference will take place from 21-25th of October, 2007. The deadline for registration is June 30, 2007.

The recently concluded International Conference on Women and Law issued a declaration dubbed "Tripoli Declaration to Ensure the Women's Rights". The document stresses the role of women as essential in societies of today since women represent "half the world and a mother of the second half."

The chairman of Libya's International Organisation for Peace, Care and Relief (IOPCR) pledged on Monday in Geneva to support UNHCR's work on behalf of refugees caught in mixed migratory movements in North Africa.

Western criticism of death sentences handed to five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor by a Libyan court shows a lack of respect for the Libyan people, Libya's foreign ministry said late on Thursday (28 December 2006). The medics were sentenced last week for deliberately infecting 426 children in the late 1990s with the virus that causes Aids.

The European Union has criticised a ruling by a Libyan court sentencing to death five nurses and a doctor for infecting more than 400 children with the HIV virus at a hospital. Johannes Laitenberger, an EU spokesman, said they had yet not decided whether to take steps against Libya, but said he "did not rule anything out."

Libya's internal security agency has held an outspoken critic of Libyan leader Muammar al-Qadhafi in incommunicado detention for almost a month, Human Rights Watch said. Libya's Internal Security Agency detained Idrees Mohamed Boufayed, a doctor who had been living in Switzerland for the past 16 years, on November 5 during a visit to Libya, his family and Libyan organizations abroad report.

Libya has reportedly signed a deal with Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project for 1.2 million laptops. The OLPC laptop is a low-cost Linux-based notebook for use in developing nations. The deal is estimated to be worth $250 million and Libya will receive 1.2 million OLPC computers for students, one server per school, a team of technical installation advisers, satellite Internet service, and other network infrastructure.

Libyan police have detained about 1 930 illegal migrants over the past 27 days trying to sail to Europe via Italy from the Libyan coast, the Interior Ministry has said. In the same period, the Libyan government deported 3 768 other would-be migrants from several African countries, who had been arrested earlier attempting to cross illegally to Italy, the Ministry added in a statement.

The authorities in Libya have ordered protesters at a jail in Tripoli to return to their cells by the end of the day after violence erupted. A sit-in protest began at Abu Salim prison last week over trial delays. Amnesty International say security forces fired live ammunition and tear gas at the prisoners, leaving one dead. Hundreds were reportedly shot dead by guards during a protest over conditions in the same prison in 1996. The authorities are refusing to comment.

On 4 October 2006, Reporters Without Borders published the full report of the fact-finding visit it made to Libya from 13 to 17 September. It was first time the press freedom organisation has been able to go to Libya in 20 years. This in itself is one of the signs of the changes taking place under the "Brother Leader," Muammar Gaddafi.

A new Human Rights Watch Report documents how Libyan authorities have arbitrarily arrested undocumented foreigners, mistreated them in detention, and forcibly returned them to countries where they could face persecution or torture, such as Eritrea and Somalia.

For the first time in more than a quarter of a century, the United States and Libya have agreed to cooperate in various fields of science and technology. The plans were announced during last week's (10-13 July) visit to Libya by Paula Dobriansky, the US under secretary of state for democracy and global affairs, reports SciDev.

The African Telecommunications Union (ATU) on Sunday 9 July started a series of meetings in Libya devoted to the formulation of a four-year telecommunications development plan for Africa. The meetings taking place in the Libyan capital from July 9-17 include a special session of the ATU board of directors (9-11 July), a preliminary committee of the ministerial conference (12- 15 July) and the 2nd conference of ministers (16-17 July).

President Muammar Gaddafi of Libya has pledged to build a school for war-affected youths in Liberia. The Libyan leader made the pledge in Tripoli, Libya, during an official visit by President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. He made the pledge after a young Liberian boy who lost his arm in the Liberian war explained his ordeal.

The United Nations World Food Programme has welcomed its first ever contribution from the Government of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. The donation of 6.1 million Libyan dinars (US$4.5 million) will help feed 2.7 million people in the Darfur region of western Sudan and 200,000 Sudanese refugees in eastern Chad.

The Libyan government is arbitrarily detaining women and girls indefinitely in “social rehabilitation” facilities, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today (February 28). Officially portrayed as protective homes for women and girls “vulnerable to engaging in moral misconduct,” these facilities are de facto prisons. The 40-page report, “A Threat to Society? Arbitrary Detention of Women and Girls for ‘Social Rehabilitation'" documents numerous and serious human rights abuses that women and girls suffer in these facilities. These include violations of their rights to liberty, freedom of movement, personal dignity, privacy and due process.

This report, by the Forced Migration and Refugee Studies Centre at the American University in Cairo, seeks to shed light on the experiences of refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants temporarily residing in and passing through Libya en route to the EU. It also analyses the notion of protection for refugees and asylum-seekers in Libya both from a legal perspective and as understood by refugees and asylum-seekers themselves.

As Libya emerges from long-term international isolation, the government has taken some important steps to improve human rights, including the recent release of 14 political prisoners. But the Libyan government continues to hold political prisoners, conduct unfair trials, and severely restrict free speech and association, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today (January 25). “We welcome Libya’s first steps toward reform,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch who visited Tripoli this week to present the government with the report. “But the government has a long road to travel before it meets the international standards of human rights.”

On the first anniversary of cyber-dissident Abdel Razak Al Mansouri's arrest, Reporters Without Borders has reiterated its call for the immediate release of this former bookseller, who is serving an 18-month prison sentence for posting articles critical of President Muammar Gaddafi on the Internet. "Al Mansouri has become the symbol of the fight for free expression in Libya," the organisation said. "By using the Internet to publish independent news and information, he opened a path which many other Internet users are bound to follow."

Libya's Supreme Court should consider the torture claims of six foreign medical workers on death row for injecting 426 Libyan children with HIV, Human Rights Watch said. The court will review the case. Four of the six defendants, five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor, told Human Rights Watch in May that they confessed after enduring torture, including beatings, electric shock and sexual assault. Libyan officials denied all of the defendants prompt access to a lawyer, they said. In June, a Tripoli court acquitted 10 Libyan security officials accused of using torture against the defendants.