Written by Prof Morris Mottale* | 14 January 2013

Relations with South Africa and Nigeria, since they are major African powers, will be a primary concern of Beijing, but potential instability in many African countries may very well impede any sustained Chinese economic or political expansion on the continent.

Generalisations about Africa abound, even the term is a misnomer. North Africa is not Central Africa, nor is West Africa the same as Southern Africa. The continent is not only divided among nation states, whose boundaries were set by colonial powers, but also by tribal and religious cleavages, as for example in Sudan, Mali, Nigeria, Libya or Congo. Questions regarding political development and stability should be answered and analysed in the context of individual states and regions in that continent. Generally speaking, most sub-Saharan African countries have had relatively high rates of growth, with South Africa taking a slump because of labour conflicts in the last year. Development, however, has not lessened the degree of political instability in African countries, case in point being the Nigerian religious and ethnic cleavages and violence, matched by the cases of Mali or Sudan. Arab Africa, in the midst of a so-called ‘Arab Spring’ is now mired in Islamic extremism and a relative inability to develop new institutions compatible with modern democracy. This has certainly been the case in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. Political developments and internal conflicts in Mali are evidence of more Islamic extremism in the Sahel. In fact, France and the United States are already planning to intervene militarily in this area.

Written by Human Rights Watch | 11 May 2012

12,000 Tried by Military in 2011, Hundreds More Cases Pending

(New York, May 7, 2012) Egypt’s parliament on May 6, 2012, approved amendments to the Code of Military Justice that failed to end the unprecedented expansion of military trials of civilians, despite pleas for reform from the legal and human rights communities, Human Rights Watch said today. In 2011 more than 12,000 civilians, including children, faced unfair military trials which fail to provide the basic due process rights of civilian courts, more than the number of military trials of civilians during 30 years of rule by former president Hosni Mubarak.

The military has continued to try civilians before military tribunals in 2012 despite promises to limit the practice. More than 300 civilians arrested since May 4 in Cairo during the clashes near the ministry of defense in Cairo are now also scheduled for military trials.

Written by Dominique Soguel* | 05 May 2012

February 17 marks the start of a popular uprising which led to the collapse of Kadhafi's regime last year.It was unclear if the law includes acts committed after October 23, when the NTC declared Libya's liberation following the capture and killing of strongman Kadhafi. Rights groups say war crimes were committed by both sides during the 2011 conflict and warn of torture in detention centres run by militias made up of former rebels.

Written by Human Right Watch* | 21 January 2012

Source: http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/01/18/turkey-court-protects-journalist-s-killers

(Istanbul) ­– A Turkish court’s verdict on January 17, 2012, that there was no state involvement or organized plot behind the 2007 shooting of the Turkish Armenian journalist Hrant Dink is a travesty of justice, Human Rights Watch said today.  

“The Istanbul court’s denial of the plot behind Hrant Dink’s murder flies in the face of evidence,” said Emma Sinclair-Webb, Turkey researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Five years after the killing, Turkey’s criminal justice system remains unwilling to probe state collusion in political assassinations.”

Istanbul Heavy Penal Court No. 14 acquitted all 19 defendants accused of being part of a criminal organization responsible for Dink’s murder on January 19, 2007. The court concluded that the crime was not the work of a criminal organization motivated by ideological aims and that there was no deeper plot behind the murder.