The governments of Puntland and Galmudug have withdrawn from a planned trip to the Republic of Turkey, where the Istanbul Conference Il on Somalia is supposed to take place 31 May 2012 - 1 June 2012. A press release said the event was not a Somali-owned process and the purpose and agenda of the conference was ambiguous.

Assailants in Mogadishu have gunned down the host of a critical radio program, further punctuating what has already been a deadly year for the Somali press corps and for the journalist's employer, the Shabelle Media Network. Four unidentified men fired repeatedly at Ahmed Addow Anshur while he was in Bo'le Market, in Dharkenley District, local journalists said.

This fact sheet highlights the progress of rural women against key Millennium Development Goal (MDG) indicators, pointing to some of the advancements made and gaps that still exist. It suggests that globally, and with only a few exceptions, rural women fare worse than rural men and urban women and men for every MDG indicator for which data are available.

Africa's newest sovereign state, South Sudan, is the highest riser in this year's internationally acclaimed global ranking Peoples Under Threat, indicating that the risk of further ethnic killings in the country remains critical, Minority Rights Group International (MRG) says. In South Sudan, a new entrant in the top ten, a history of cattle raiding between the Lou Nuer and the Murle, as well as other groups, has developed into inter-communal violence on a highly organised scale in Jonglei state, affecting some 120,000 people. Tens of thousands of refugees have also fled across the border into South Sudan in recent months, escaping Sudanese government shelling of communities in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile state.

South Sudan is losing its forests. And with no unified policy to deal with the situation the government is at odds, with one ministry saying that the loss of forests is a necessity for farming and another warning of the dire environmental consequences if this continues unchecked. While there is no information on the exact number of forests in the country, according to 2009 figures from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, forests and woodlands cover an estimated 29 per cent of the land area in South Sudan or 191,667 square kilometres.

Hundreds of Salafists have attacked bars and shops and clashed with security forces in a Tunisian town in the latest incident to raise religious tensions in the home of the Arab Spring uprisings. Police and witnesses in the northwestern town of Jendouba said on Saturday that hundreds of the ultra-conservative Muslims began rioting to protest the arrest of four men in connection with previous attacks on alcohol vendors.

Tunisia's justice ministry has sacked 81 magistrates over suspicions of graft and their links to ousted president Zine el Abidine Ben Ali's regime. The magistrates, whose identities were not revealed, are accused of having 'obeyed orders and dabbled in embezzlements, while handing down rulings in violation of the law to protect personal interests', said Justice Minister Nourredine Bhiri in an interview on Sunday with newspaper Achourouk.

The petition available through the web address provided calls for the suspension of removals of failed asylum seekers in the United Kingdom until there has been a full inquiry into the safety of failed asylum seekers on return to the DRC, in order to prevent future ill-treatment of vulnerable Congolese asylum seekers.

Last week five of the UN's smallest member states, describing themselves as the 'small five' (S5), challenged the five permanent members (P5) of the Security Council, namely the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia, over the misuse of their veto powers. But hours before it was to be debated and voted in the 193-member General Assembly, the resolution unceremoniously disappeared from the hallowed precincts of the United Nations.

In this broadcast from The Real News Network, Maurice Carney, a co-founder and Executive Director of the Friends of the Congo, talks about the expansion of AFRICOM on the African continent. 'Although the United States has continued to push AFRICOM, it has been roundly rejected by African leaders. An initial aim of AFRICOM was to establish a based presence on the African continent. And because of the, you know, vicious or, you know, intense pushback on the part of African leaders, President Bush had to backtrack on that aim. But nonetheless we still see the push for AFRICOM to have a large footprint on the African continent.'

The Basic Health Centre or Centre de Santé de Base (CSB) II in Anjalajala, near Antsohihy, the capital of Madagascar's northern Sofia Region, is housed in a recently renovated building and its status as a CSB II promises the availability of a trained doctor. But the doctor left for Antananarivo, the capital, in 2002 and has not been replaced, and whenever the remaining nurse is absent, services stop. The situation at this clinic is not unique in Madagascar, where an already weak healthcare system has been in a state of decline since 2009 when the international community branded Andry Rajoelina's ousting of President Marc Ravalomanana a coup, and donors halted all but emergency aid.

The Democratic Republic of Congo is ruling out a peaceful solution to a stand-off with rebels in the east. The government has refused to negotiate with the group known as M23, who have deserted from the army. In this exclusive video report, Al Jazeera crosses the frontline to speak to the fighters.

Dozens of legislators have walked out of the inaugural session of Algeria's parliament to protest what they say was an election rigged to hand a majority to the ruling elite's party. Saturday's walk-out saw 49 legislators from the Green Algeria Alliance (AVV) along with MPs from two smaller parties, who combined hold 60 of the 462 seats in the parliament, boycott the first meeting of the chamber since a May 10 election.

An explosion ripped through a building full of small shops in downtown Nairobi on Monday, wounding at least 16 people, the police commissioner said. He could not immediately confirm what caused the blast. The force of the explosion ripped apart the one-story building's aluminum roof, but a high-rise building with a glass exterior right next to the blast did not appear to sustain major damage.

Preliminary results in Lesotho parliamentary elections have put the ruling Democratic Congress (DC) in the lead with 45 per cent of the vote in 77 constituencies out of 80 counted. The results show that the Democratic Congress has won 46 seats, followed by the All Basotho Convention with 27 and the Lesotho Congress for Democracy with 13 seats. Official results are still being verified by the Electoral Commission with final results expected tomorrow.

The Economic Cost of Violence survey - the result of a collaboration between Karama and its economic realm in Egypt, which is led by the Egyptian Association for Community Participation Enhancement (EACPE) - was released last month, stating that the total national cost of women’s exposure to violence exceeds 785 million Egyptian Pounds (LE) a year, over three billion LE over the last three years. Launched in 2010, the study aims to quantify the monetary cost of women’s exposure to violence as the basis of a campaign to prevent violence against women by demonstrating that the impact of violence goes beyond women and has implications for the nation as a whole.

The complex relationship between violence against women (VAW) and information and communication technologies (ICTs) is a critical area of engagement for women's rights activists. ICTs can be used as a tool to stop VAW, while VAW can be facilitated through the use of ICTS. However, few women's rights activists are working actively on this issue. Consequently, a political and legal framing of the intersection between these issues is not established in most countries.

The International Refugee Rights Initiative has launched the seventh paper in its series on Citizenship and Displacement in the Great Lakes Region. The paper, 'Darfurians in South Sudan: negotiating belonging in two Sudans' is about the construction of citizenship, identities and belonging at a moment of profound political change: the secession of South Sudan from the Republic of Sudan (Sudan or North Sudan) that took place on 9 July 2011. The full paper can be accessed through the website of

Arts and human rights charity, Sandblast has been knocked offline in an internet attack. The charity, founded by West Hampstead resident, Danielle Smith, works with the indigenous people from Western Sahara, the Saharawis, whose identity and culture is threatened by the impact of prolonged refugee life and Morocco’s occupation. Sandblast’s mission is to empower the Saharawis to tell their own story through the arts. The attack has come two weeks before the launch of its ambitious music empowerment project, Studio-Live, which aims to engage UK-based musicians, producers, technicians, and music industry specialists in building a Saharawi music industry from scratch in the refugee camps in the Algerian desert.

Birthing Justice: Women Creating Economic and Social Alternatives is a series featuring 12 alternative social and economic models which expand the possibilities for justice, equity, and strong community. The eighth narrative of Birthing Justice focuses on Julie Castro, a young doctor from France, a country that proves that it is possible for a nation to offer quality health care for all.