At least three Somali immigrants have been shot and killed by border guards in Mozambique. The men were among nine traveling on foot through Tanzania headed to South Africa when they were sprayed by bullets from Mozambican forces, according to a member of the group.

Judge Nathan Erasmus ruled recently that the DA-controlled Cape Town municipality had violated the human and constitutional rights of residents of Makhaza in Khayelitsha by installing unenclosed toilets. He also dismissed the city's and Western Cape premier Helen Zille's argument that residents were consulted and had agreed to enclose the toilets at their own cost.

The Great Green Wall project aims to plant a line of trees nearly 8,000 kilometres long and 15 kilometres wide. This green belt would pass through 11 countries in the Sahel, from Senegal to Djibouti. It hopes to stop the desert from expanding and swallowing farmland. Many are happy with what is being achieved, but others are not, reports Farm Radio Weekly. Aliou Sow is a farmer in Senegal. He complains bitterly that the authorities planted trees in his community without consultation. While farmers travel miles on foot or by donkey to fetch water for the villages of Tessekeré, Amaly and Widou, wells are being dug specifically to irrigate nurseries for the Wall.

A heavily armed Sudanese military convoy entered the flashpoint border district of Abyei, sparking clashes that left up to 14 people dead, its chief administrator and a UN spokesman said on Tuesday, 3 May. The fighting broke out on Sunday when a Sudanese army major insisted on entering the disputed territory after the police tried to stop his convoy of six landcruisers mounted with machine guns and more than 200 troops, administrator Deng Arop Kuol told AFP.

Participants at the International Conference on Global Land Grabbing overwhelmingly found that land grabbing is occurring at a scale and speed as never before, and resulting in widespread displacement and dispossession of rural and urban communities, especially smallholder agricultural producers. Held on 6-8 April at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), University of Sussex, the Conference was organised by the Land Deals Politics Initiative (LDPI) in collaboration with the Journal of Peasant Studies and hosted by the Future Agricultures Consortium at the IDS.

Make-or-break talks will be held in Geneva this week to rescue the troubled Doha international trade round, amid fears that a deepening rift between rich and poor countries will see the collapse of almost 10 years of negotiations. After months of stalemate, the World Trade Organisation has set a deadline for the leading players to cut a deal in the key area of industrial tariffs. Pascal Lamy, the WTO's director general, described the situation as 'grave' after seeing no signs of a breakthrough since the start of 2011.

Violations of human rights are on the increase in northeastern Central African Republic (CAR), with aid workers expressing concern for protection of civilians amid renewed clashes between government troops and the Convention of Patriots for Justice and Peace (CPJP) rebels - one of the few groups that has not signed a peace agreement with the government. 'Killings, arbitrary arrests, burning and looting of villages, forced disappearances and abductions are frequently reported, in particular in conflict-affected areas in the north and in regions where CPJP and LRA [Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army] are present,' Fornelle Poutou, the secretary-general of the Association of Women Lawyers of Central Africa (AFJC), told IRIN.

Hundreds of Eritrean refugees gathered in the Ethiopian capital on Wednesday (20 April) to call for democratic rule in Eritrea, which thousands have fled in recent years citing rights abuses. Under banners that read 'Yes for democratic change', around 1,600 Eritreans met to decry what they described as repressive rule under President Isaias Afewerki, who has led the country since it won independence from Ethiopia in 1991.

Low- and middle-income earners across eastern and central Africa are reeling from the mounting cost of living brought on by a sharp increase in commodity prices in the past few months. Protests and demonstrations against the rising cost of food and fuel have swept across several towns in Kenya and Uganda; violent clashes between demonstrators and security forces have been reported on several occasions in Uganda. At least four Ugandans have been killed in countrywide demonstrations, while hundreds have been arrested and several hospitalized with gunshot wounds and the effects of teargas.

A Nigerian human rights group says more than 500 people died after presidential elections earlier this month. Rioting broke out when it emerged that Goodluck Jonathan, a southern Christian - had defeated a Muslim candidate from the mostly Islamic north. Correspondents say Nigeria is braced for possible further unrest over governorship elections on Tuesday (26 April) in most of Nigeria's 36 states.

The Courage Unfolds Campaign and video highlight the issues faced by LGBT people in Asia and encourage the use of the Yogyakarta Principles as a tool to promote LGBT human rights. The film can be a powerful tool to complement activism and advocacy. Click on the link for more information.

Chad went to the polls on Monday in the first round of its presidential election with incumbent Idriss Déby Itno virtually assured of extending his 21-year rule after his main rivals boycotted the vote. Key opposition leaders have withdrawn from the vote after claiming that his Patriotic Salvation Movement (MPS) party stole February parliamentary elections and the start of Monday's vote was marred by hitches. Opposition leaders Saleh Kebzabo, Wadal Abdelkader Kamougue and Ngarlejy Yorongar say they will not recognise the poll amid demands for reforms including the issuing of new voters' cards.

Anti-riot police Monday broke up a 'Day of Anger' rally by Mauritanian youths demanding the ouster of President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, detaining about 20 protesters. As the tide of Arab uprisings swept to the west of Africa, police used tear gas on hundreds of demonstrators who sought to enter a square in downtown Nouakchott that has been declared off-limits for protesters since rallies began in late February.

Europe's internal dispute about what to do with the thousands of immigrants from North Africa arriving on southern Italian islands is heating up. German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich has sharply criticized the Italian government for planning to issue immigrants with temporary visas that would allow them to travel to other European nations.

The small 10m by 15m garden behind Agnes Oroma's house in northern Uganda's Gulu district is much more than a hobby garden; according to HIV-positive Oroma, it is one of the main reasons she is in good health. She grows indigenous vegetables and tomatoes to supplement her daily diet of beans, maize meal and silver fish; Oroma also proudly shows off a sisal sack in which she grows onions. 'Do not ignore that little space behind your house, it can do a lot to feed you cheaply and lessen your financial burden that would enable you to spend on other essentials to keep you healthy on your daily ARV treatment,' 31-year-old Oroma told IRIN/PlusNews.

This post contains two short articles by Peter Kenworthy from African Contact. One is on the charging of two Swazi youth leaders for allegedly possessing explosives that Swazi police claim were to be used for acts of terrorism during the recent mass demonstrations for democracy, rule of law and socio-economic justice in Swaziland. The other article is about the general environment of insecurity for pro-democracy activists protesting against the government.

Mugabe has vowed that he would force elections to be held by June, without the consent of his partners in the country's shaky coalition government, stirring widespread fears that the vote would bring another wave of violent mayhem against his pro-democracy opponents. However, the latest development shows that Mugabe has been pushed further into a corner, Western diplomats say, after his Southern African neighbours, led by South Africa's president Jacob Zuma, last month ordered Mugabe to end the repeated cycles of violence and to carry out the democratic reforms he agreed to at the inception of the coalition government in February 2009.

Police have closed ranks about the investigation into the sex slave syndicate operating in northern KwaZulu-Natal. This after it was revealed that the police missed an opportunity to rescue the girls on Good Friday. The girls were believed to be held by a Nigerian and South African-run syndicate operating a brothel on a farm outside Paulpietersburg in KwaZulu-Natal. The girls are allegedly being trafficked from Mozambique, Swaziland and Zimbabwe to South Africa to work as sex slaves.

Their government has urged them to come home. But despite dire living conditions on the other side of the Ubangui River, 114,000 people who have fled fighting in Democratic Republic of Congo’s Equateur province since October 2009 have no plans to return soon. The UN Refugee Agency agrees it is unsafe to do so now. The wider humanitarian community reckons they will stay in Republic of Congo for the rest of this year at least and has appealed for US$60m to meet their most rudimentary needs. These are legion. Likouala province, where the refugees live in about 100 settlements dotted along the river, lacks basic services to provide even for its own residents, let alone for an influx that has more than doubled the local population.

'We no longer need to go to Hanène, three kilometres away, for vaccinations or for a check-up for our children,' said Maguette Niang, a 40-year-old mother from Keur Madaro, a village in the west of Senegal. Keur Madaro is one of many Senegalese communities that now has staff watching over the health of the village from a community health post – a simple two-roomed building right in the heart of the village. This is thanks to a five-year project launched in 2006 under the title Wër (meaning 'good health' in Wolof) being carried out jointly by the Senegalese Ministry of Health, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the non-governmental organisations Plan International, Child Fund, World Vision and Africare.