Brief nine of the National Reconciliation and Transitional Justice Audit reveals perspectives on issues of conflict, peace and justice by the community in Nakapiripirit in Karamoja, in the north-east of Uganda. The major concern of the participants in Nakapiripirit was the strained relationship between themselves as citizens in Karamoja and the state ruling them from central level. They said that in their local language, 'state' is 'arirang', which can be translated as 'enemy' or 'violent institution'. According to them, the relationship has been characterized by mutual distrust right from colonial times up to now, coupled with deliberate marginalization and an attempt to take away the Karimojong's way of life. They lamented that the rest of Uganda looks at Karamoja as a region apart and says that 'we shall not wait for Karamoja to develop'. In their view, conflicts in Uganda are a reflection of bad governance practices, such as corruption, unfree and unfair elections, lack of term limits, and an absence of border security. This inspires anger towards the Government and provokes rebellion. Impacts of conflicts include more strained relationships between citizens and the state, and delayed development. In that sense, causes and impacts of conflict constitute a vicious cycle.

In the eastern Congo, a onetime rebel leader charged with a range of war crimes lived in high style for three years, in full view of a large United Nations peacekeeping force. How did the UN find itself in the middle of one of the world's bloodiest and most unmanageable conflicts? And why are its troops picking sides? These are the questions this Wall Street Journal article investigates.

Protesters against government interference in religious affairs staged the latest of a series of mosque sit-ins in the Ethiopian capital on Sunday, saying police had arrested dozens in the run up to this weekend's African Union summit. Two activists told Reuters the sit-in - in protest at the government's promotion of the moderate Al Ahbash branch of Islam over other doctrines - had already been surrounded by police although there had been no clashes as yet on Sunday. Online activists, who have been using social media to call for demonstrations, have reported several deaths during previous clashes, and published several pictures of injuries they claim are those of victims.

This discussion paper from the Transnational Institute's Agrarian Justice Programme argues that there is a need to come to grips with land issues in a changing global context and to rethink what may be needed to mobilise effectively in such a setting. 'The main frameworks of advocacy that have been employed by some academics, radical researchers and social movement activists have some particular limitations in the context of global land grabbing. Neither land reform nor land tenure security alone are well-equipped to be frameworks for analysis or action in the current conjuncture. Land reform remains important, but its limitations as a call to action are being exposed by the current cycle of land grabbing. Likewise, land tenure security is important, but alone is not enough, since adverse incorporation of the rural working poor classes into the corporate-controlled global food-feed-fuel regime does not necessarily require moving them off the land.'

About 120,000 people in the coastal, mid- and far western regions of the self-declared republic of Somaliland require emergency food assistance after four years of failed rains, says Mohamed Mousa Awale, chairman of Somaliland's environment research and disaster preparedness agency. The most affected areas include the Salel Region localities of Asha-Ado, Lughaya, Garba-Dadar, Gargaara and Waraqa-dhigta where some 450 tons of food aid from Djibouti was distributed on 6 July.

The so-called Arab Spring continues to reverberate locally, regionally and geopolitically. The 20 articles in this issue of Forced Migration Review reflect on some of the experiences, challenges and lessons of the Arab Spring in North Africa, the implications of which resonate far wider than the region itself.

Somalis living in the world’s largest refugee camp risk being recruited by armed groups and bandits as children grow up without education in increasingly desperate conditions, eight aid agencies said. Kenya’s overcrowded Dadaab camp, whose population swelled to 465,000 as a result of last year’s famine in war-torn Somalia, has been hit by a wave of bomb blasts and grenade attacks. 'You have lots of youth in Dadaab who can’t work - they don’t have an education, they’ve got limited ways of feeding their families,' Alun McDonald, Oxfam’s East Africa spokesman, told AlertNet.

The world’s 105 biggest companies are worth more than US$11 trillion. They touch the lives of people across the globe. But just how much do we know about their impact on daily lives? Too often, citizens experience little benefit from global economic activity while suffering the consequences of unethical corporate activity. Transparency in Corporate Reporting assesses the disclosure of steps these companies have in place to fight corruption. It also looks at companies’ transparency footprint across 177 countries: to what extent are earnings and taxes in specific countries made public.

The Sudanese authorities should immediately stop the torture and ill-treatment of those detained following demonstrations since mid-June 2012, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said. 'Torture and other ill-treatment are absolutely prohibited under international law,' said Aster van Kregten, Amnesty International's deputy director for Africa. 'We call on the Sudanese authorities to ensure that every credible allegation of such abuse is subject to prompt and impartial investigations, and to ensure that the victims receive reparations.'

The South Sudanese government must take immediate action to identify and prosecute those responsible for the recent attack on anti-corruption activist, Deng Athuai, said Global Witness. On 4 July, the Chairperson of the South Sudan Civil Society Alliance, Mr. Deng Athuai Mawiir, was kidnapped in front of his hotel in the South Sudanese capital, Juba. He was reportedly held and beaten for three days by unknown assailants and interrogated about his work on corruption issues in the country. 'When civil society’s freedom to operate is threatened, all efforts to fight corruption and impunity are threatened,' said Global Witness campaigner Dana Wilkins. 'The South Sudanese government has promised its citizens an open and democratic society. It must now make good on that promise by bringing Deng Athuai’s attackers to justice.'

People in the Swaziland lowveld have died of hunger, a member of the Swazi Parliament has reported. Nkululeko Mbhamali, Matsanjeni North MP, said hunger was rife in his constituency and some people had died at Tikhuba. Crops have failed this year due to poor rains. Mbhamali said a ‘food-for-work’ scheme organised by World Vision that was supposed to distribute food supplied by overseas’ donors had not been implemented properly and many people were not receiving food.

A vibrant and cutting edge Cape Town-based NGO seeks an Advocacy and Human Rights Defence Manager to manage its Advocacy Programme. The position is available from the 1st August 2012. The organisation promotes the health and human rights of sex workers within the existing legal system in which sex work is criminalised, by providing and facilitating access to health care services for sex workers in several provinces in South Africa; facilitating the defence of sex workers’ human rights in and outside of court; providing safe spaces for sex worker empowerment and organising, and conducting action-oriented research and monitoring of sex worker human rights issues.

For the second time Kenyan fighter jets have targeted districts in southern Somalia, Radio Garowe reports. According to military sources, there are also contradicting reports saying that the strikes led to many civilian casualties, with a few Al Shabaab agents being killed in the strikes.

The World Bank undermined the rights of indigenous peoples and the environment with its approval on 12 July 2012, of a US$684 million loan, Human Rights Watch, Friends of Lake Turkana, International Rivers, Survival International, and the Bank Information Center said. The loan is for a 1,000-kilometer transmission line that would supply power to Kenya from Ethiopia’s controversial Gibe III dam. The World Bank’s board of directors approved the loan without applying the Bank’s social and environmental standards to the Gibe III dam, a power source for the transmission line.

In the context of the current rush for land in which the flows of land based wealth and power are being increasingly concentrated in the hands of dominant social classes and groups, an urgent debate on the future of farming is needed. Rather than accepting and seeking to regulate land grabs as if they were inevitable, this paper from the Transnational Institute proposes alternative investment opportunities which challenge the normative assumptions of the model of large-scale, industrial agriculture that these land appropriations promote.

South African Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma was elected on Sunday to become the first female head of the African Union (AU) Commission, ending a bruising leadership battle that had threatened to divide and weaken the organisation. Cheers broke out at the AU's soaring, Chinese-built steel and glass headquarters in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa as supporters of President Jacob Zuma's ex-wife celebrated her victory over incumbent Jean Ping of Gabon.

This page on the Child Rights Information Network highlights violations of child rights in Kenya. 'The violations highlighted are those issues raised with the State by more than one international mechanism. This is done with the intention of identifying children's rights which have been repeatedly violated, as well as gaps in the issues covered by NGOs in their alternative reports to the various human rights monitoring bodies.'

A new project called Africa Express, being carried out by Frenchmen Jeremy Debreu and Claire Guibert with support from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), is bringing attention to a different breed of alternative energy on the continent, one where Africans who lack access to energy are the main beneficiaries. For a period of ten months, the pair are traveling 20,000 km through 23 countries using trains and buses to survey a range of alternative energy projects. From a community refrigeration project in northern Senegal to a massive hydroelectric dam in Morocco, the size and nature of the projects differ.

The leader of the opposition party Gambia Moral Congress (GMC) has urged the director general of the National Intelligence Agency to resign over torture allegations. Mr Mai Fatty made these remarks in an open letter addressed to Mr Numo Kujabi, the head of the spy agency. Mr Fatty said over 90 per cent of NIA detainees had alleged some form of torture, and some of the worst brutalities were alleged to have taken place inside Bambadinka.

The New York-based press freedom body, Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), has said that two unidentified gunmen shot a Somali journalist, Abdulkadir Omar Abdulle, PANA reports. The CPJ said in a communique that Abdulkadir, who works for Universal TV as a reporter and anchor, was shot on Saturday evening near his home in the southern Wadajir district of the capital, Mogadishu, but he survived the attack.