Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir continues to commit crimes against humanity and carry out genocide against the residents of Darfur in defiance of the United Nations, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Luis Moreno-Ocampo, told the Security Council. In 2005 the Council referred the situation in Darfur to the ICC after a UN inquiry found serious violations of international human rights law. The ICC has since issued arrest warrants against Mr. Bashir on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, making him the first sitting head of State to be indicted by the court.

'When I was pregnant with my son I drank a lot – mostly on weekends,' says Marion Williams, a 45-year-old mother who lost two of her five children in childbirth. Williams lives in one of South Africa’s famous wine-growing areas in the Western Cape. She started drinking as a teenager and was taken out of school, she suspects, to work to buy wine for her parents. 'It is estimated that at least one million people in this country have fetal alcohol syndrome and approximately five million have partial fetal alcohol syndrome and [other] fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. It’s tragic because it’s completely preventable,' says researcher and human geneticist Denis Viljoen in Cape Town, the provincial capital of South Africa’s Western Cape.

The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) has applauded President Goodluck Jonathan, of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, for signing into law the Freedom of Information (FOI) Bill. 'The objective of the act is to make public records and information more freely available and to also protect public records and information to the extent that they are consistent with the public interest and the protection of personal privacy,' according to a statement from the presidency.

Two witnesses were taken to task by the truth commission over their contradicting and inconsistent testimonies on the 1984 Wagalla massacre, reports the Daily Nation. Former Finance minister David Mwiraria maintained that a visit by the Kenya Intelligence Committee to Wajir a day before the killings was purely to assess development projects. But on closer scrutiny, he admitted that the trip was sanctioned to resolve the Shifta movement in north eastern Province.

Parties to the conflict in Western Sahara continued to deepen their discussions on the electoral mechanisms for self-determination during three days of United Nations-backed informal talks in New York, according to a communiqué issued at the end of the meeting. By the end of the talks, however, 'each party continued to reject the proposal of the other as a sole basis for future negotiations,' said the communiqué, reached after the meeting in Long Island, New York, that was convened by the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Western Sahara, Christopher Ross.

Around the world, street papers have been welcoming people who felt too insecure to stay in their home lands. Whether or not they have official refugee status in their newly adopted countries, what these vendors often have in common is the fear of returning to where they came from. Coming to a new country might save people from a potentially dangerous situation but it is not, by any means, a magical solution for all problems.

Liberian officials at Bahn refugee camp - set up by the government and the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) to shelter Ivoirians fleeing violence - prefer residents to play down their political affiliations, and discourage the wearing of partisan T-shirts or the holding of political meetings. But late on a Saturday afternoon, with little to do and much to discuss, Ivoirian refugees talked with anger and concern about their future, while ruefully reviewing the events of the past six months in their country just across the border. 'I don't want to be here, but what choice does a refugee have?' asked Sandigui Lacinje Traoré, who previously worked for the Ivoirian state media in Yamoussoukro, Côte d’Ivoire’s administrative capital. 'The war is not over yet as far as I am concerned,' Traoré told IRIN.

The homes of 12 Tafelsig backyarder families were demolished by the city’s Anti-Land Invasion unit recently, in a fierce face-off that left several people injured, including a woman who was seven months pregnant. This came two days after the Cape High Court granted a postponement to allow backyarders sufficient time to get legal representation to appeal the city’s application for an eviction order.

An African gay activist, Edson 'Eddy' Cosmas, has had his first appeal for UK asylum turned down by a judge in a hearing 26 May at Harmondsworth detention centre, where he is being held. Judge S. Chana accepted the UK Border Agency (UKBA)'s argument that Cosmas's story was not 'credible' and that he has no reason to fear persecution in Tanzania even if he was gay, which he isn't. A lawyer for Cosmas, who had only been instructed for the case the previous night, asked for the case to be removed from the 'fast track process' so a psychological and physical assessment (to establish whether he had been tortured) could take place. This was refused.

FEATURING: Raakwys (The reunion of one of Cape Town's greatest Bands)

PLUS: The Zoe Abrahams & De Kaapo, DJ Sampie: Zounds of Da South, Spoken word/poetry, Stand up Comedy & more...

DATE: 15 June 2011

TIME: 7pm till late

VENUE: AIDC Solidarity Centre,129 Rochester Rd, Observatory, Cape Town

DONATION: R10, Bring your own XYX and meat to braai.

INFO: [email]Andre@amandla.org.za, 0838867164 or 0214472525

The bodies of 150 African refugees fleeing turmoil in Libya have been recovered off the Tunisian coast after vessels carrying them to Europe got into difficulty. The boats ran into problems about 12 miles off the Tunisian island of Kerkennah, en route to Italy. Tunisian coastguard vessels aided by the military rescued 570 people, but many others went into the water when a stampede to get off the small fishing boats caused some of the vessels to capsize.

The UN Security Council has called on the Khartoum government to withdraw its forces immediately from the Abyei region, a key area of dispute in the north-south division of Sudan next month. There has been no agreement on which country the oil-producing region should belong to when south Sudan becomes independent on July 9, but the northern military seized it on 21 May 21, sparking fears of a renewed civil war. 'The council demands that the government of Sudan withdraw immediately from the Abyei area,' said a unanimous formal council statement.

'The Congress of South African Trade Unions welcomes the decision by ANC MPs to extend the 24 June deadline to complete drafting the Protection of Information Bill. COSATU hopes that the extra time will be used to re-examine the problematic clauses of the Bill which could conflict with Clause 16 of the Constitution’s Bill of Rights. In particular the parliamentary ad-hoc committee needs to examine the genuine concerns from civil society that the provisions of the bill could be abused to cover up crime, corruption and misuse of funds by allowing officials to classify the evidence of this as secret.'

Between 20 September and 31 December 2010, the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) carried out the Zimbabwe Documentation Process (ZDP). Intended as a model for similar documentation projects that the DHA plans to extend to other categories of Southern Africans, the process provided a path for regularising the status of undocumented migrants. It also provided an alternative to the asylum system, which Zimbabweans have turned to in large numbers. The African Centre for Migration and Society (ACMS) - formerly the Forced Migration Studies Programme - began sending researchers to observe the situation at several DHA offices. The findings from this monitoring provide a picture of how the process worked and highlight important problem areas.

Producing electricity from the local waterfall was once just a dream for two farming communities on the fertile lower slopes of Mount Kenya. But thanks to a local initiative backed by UN cash and know-how, it is now a reality. Eager to harness power from the waterfall, villagers started the project by building a weir and powerhouse. But without a turbine, the work was in vain. But then the UN Industrial Development Organisation, or UNIDO, stepped in to provide the turbines.

From 9-26 April, Nigeria held parliamentary, presidential and governorship elections. During the last parliamentary term, only 7.3 per cent of the representatives in Nigeria’s upper and lower houses were women. In this year’s election, 200 out of 2400 (8.33 per cent) candidates for the House of Representatives and 80 out of 720 (11.11 per cent) candidates for the Senate were women. Abiola Akiyode of the Lagos-based Women Advocates Research and Documentation Center (WARDC) says that overall, 909 out of 10037 (9.06 per cent) candidates for all elective positions were women. These positions include the Presidency, governorships and parliamentary seats. There has been an overall regression in women’s representation in political decision-making positions.

The state security agency is probing links between various loose-knit 'business forums' fomenting xenophobic violence across the country. The move comes as momentum builds in the number of attacks against foreign-owned businesses across the country and follows ­violence directed at Somali business people in Port Elizabeth. On Wednesday 1 June, police held back a crowd of more than 100 – including members of the Greater Gauteng Business Forum (GGBF) – in Ramaphosa informal settlement near Germiston, east of Joburg, as they attempted to forcibly close foreign-owned businesses there.

A former Egyptian minister, Youssef Boutros-Ghali has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for squandering public funds and abuse of power. He is also expected to pay a fine of approximately $11 million. The ruling delivered in his absence indicates the country's determination to deal with past mistakes as it prepares for a new dispensation. Youssef Boutros-Ghali, the nephew of former UN Chief Boutros Boutros-Ghali, was a finance minister and a close confidant of Gamal Mubarak, son to the ousted president Hosni Mubarak. Reports that we couldn't verify independently indicate that he is in currently living Beirut. An arrest warrant has been issued by the International Police, the Interpol.

'We wholeheartedly endorse the position of our federation COSATU in criticising the current state of the Protection of Information Bill. We are also alarmed that the ANC Parliamentary Caucus is using its majority to ensure that no significant improvements and safeguards against abuse of the bill are being taken into consideration. Many other organisations supporting the growing Right to Know Campaign have eloquently outlined what the implications will be for civil liberties and accountability if the Bill is passed, and we are grateful to them for bringing this to the attention of the South African public, but we also believe that for those of us in the municipal sector, there are particular concerns. SAMWU has been in the forefront of fighting corruption at municipal level, and long before it was politically acceptable to do so.'

China is evaluating the impact of the Jasmine revolution on its overseas investment and outward business expansion strategy, says this article. 'Africa - once considered the lab for Chinese companies’ reach outside – is being relegated into a destination with too many risk factors. Safer political destinations and countries closer to home are likely to benefit from the shift. The readjustment has been in the works for some time but the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya have made those subtle shifts more pronounced.'