Over the last 20 years, there has been a radical shift in public perceptions of and political reactions to asylum seekers in democratic states across the world. As numbers of asylum seekers have risen, at times dramatically, governments of all political persuasions have implemented restrictionist policies designed to prevent and deter individuals from seeking asylum. This political and conceptual transformation has been particularly marked in the United Kingdom. This paper seeks to examine the development of this restrictionist trend by exploring the conceptual foundations of New Labour’s asylum policies.

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 group of vendors in Malawi's capital Lilongwe on Tuesday 17 January went berserk and started stripping naked women wearing trousers and miniskirts claiming they had President Bingu wa Mutharika’s consent to do so. It is said that President Bingu wa Mutharika on 15 January raised concerns on the way women were dressing singling those wearing miniskirts and trousers.

Families resettled by Brazilian mining giant Vale in the Tete region of Mozambique have protested that the company had failed to keep promises it made to them in 2009. About 700 families, resettled approximately 60 kilometres away from the Moatize coal mining site, demonstrated against the lack of access to water, electricity and agricultural land at their resettlement Cateme area.

Involving men is increasingly being promoted as a key element in the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV, and while its benefits are well-documented - in one Kenyan study it reduced the risks of vertical transmission and infant mortality by more than 40 percent compared with no involvement - it can occasionally lead to domestic discord and even violence.

Reducing methane and black carbon emissions could quickly tackle climate change while improving food security and people's health, especially in developing countries, a study reports.Scientists identified 14 emission control measures that, when applied together, could reduce global warming by around 0.5 degrees Celsius by 2050, avoid up to 4.7 million premature deaths, and boost crop yields by up to 135 million metric tonnes by 2030.

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.'

Grady Johnson, on the site, discusses the issue of whether mapping gender violence online raises the unintended risk of spreading it. 'Feminist campaigners and activists have raised the question of the possible conflicts between the "I don't forward violence" action and the push to map gender-based violence. Does it contradict each other? How can we report on violence without spreading it, and forcing victims to relive their experience?'

The Aids and Rights Alliance of Southern Africa (Arasa) has organised a meeting for rights organisations to discuss human rights issues with a focus on LGBTI issues. It brings together human rights defenders from Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Mozambique, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania and South Africa.

This short report examines the practice in daaras (Koranic schools) of sending boys as young as five years old out to beg for several hours a day. Often living far from home and in squalid conditions, talibés are frequently subjected to abuse if they fail to meet their begging quotas. The report updates the information used in Begging for Change (Anti-Slavery International, 2009) and recommends action to bring an end to this situation in Senegal.

Eritrea has been cleared of allegations that it was arming Al Shabaab militants in Somalia late last year.
A preliminary report by the Somalia and Eritrea Monitoring Group (SEMG) to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) concludes that the allegations were untrue.

Osmond Ugwu and Raphael Elobuike are Nigerian labour activists and human rights defenders currently spending their second month in Enugu Federal Prison in South East Nigeria. They are being detained on charges of attempted murder of a policeman following their arrest at a workers rally on 24 October 2011 at Enugu.

The goal of this campaign is to reach 20,000 signatures and we need more support. You can read more and sign the petition .

The death of the president of Guinea-Bissau, Malam Bacai Sanhá, could usher in a replay of the military uprisings that have set an unmistakable seal of instability on the political life of this small West African country. Sanhá, who died Monday 9 January in Paris, was one of the few surviving heroes of the liberation struggle against the Portuguese colonial army. That enabled him to play a mediating role in the frequent disputes for power in Guinea-Bissau, which gained independence in 1974.

Al-liquindoi is partnering with Contemporary Image Collective and NOOR to produce this long-term training opportunity for Egyptian documentary photographers and photojournalists. This program is supported by a grant from Open Society Foundations. The program provides fully funded training and support to Egyptian 15 photographers who are using the medium to critically explore current social,economic and political issues in Egypt and the region.

The Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, the Center for New Community, and Indiana University Press have announced the publication of 'Food Justice', a new issue of the journal Race/Ethnicity: Multidisciplinary Global Contexts that explores the intersection of race and food in the national and global food systems. With a wide range of academic- and activist-authored papers, the issue takes readers through the entire food chain from - 'field to fork' - in an examination of the challenging intersections between race, sustainability, food safety, access to healthy food, land ethics, food worker justice, and food sovereignty.

A revised media law promised by the Rwandan government prior to and during its Universal Periodic Review at the UN Human Rights Council in 2011 fails to safeguard the right to freedom of expression and a free media, says Article 19. The State retains its control over the media in the draft Law by determining rules for its operation and defining journalists’ professional standards. Media freedoms and the right to freedom of expression are not safeguarded and can be restricted in violation of international law due to overbroad definitions and the creation of vaguely defined prohibitions.

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.

As a nationwide strike and protests against the lifting of the fuel subsidy paralysed Nigeria last week, analysts say the billions of dollars a year lost to corruption in the oil industry could have been used to leave the subsidy in place. 'We know that because of the corruption and irrelevant people placed in certain key positions in the sector, a lot of crude oil is being lost,' Garba Ibrahim Sheka, a senior lecturer in economics at Bayero University in the northern city of Kano, told IPS.

A Ugandan advocate for sex workers and homosexual rights, Busingye Kabumba has said prostitution and anti-abortion laws should be repealed to encourage the sexual and reproductive health and rights of young women. Kabumba, a lecturer at Makerere University’s Faculty of Law in Kampala also said there was a 'need to streamline the Ugandan legal framework in light of the international legal structure on the sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHRs) for young women in the country.'

Former president Thabo Mbeki has said he was sceptical about Twitter being a great conveyor of reliable knowledge. 'If you want to discuss knowledge which has got to do with the betterment of society I don't think it is appropriate ... Even the internet in general, blogging and so on, is not the place where you can … put all these things under theories.' In his speech Mbeki questioned whether knowledge had become 'less democratised and more compromised' as an instrument for the improvement of society. He said traditional media institutions were unable to control which political rhetoric 'caught fire' with the public.