Nita Bhalla

The British parliament is set to finally approve a divisive law this week to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, but further legal hurdles could yet hold up or derail one of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's key policies.

The "Safety of Rwanda" bill aims to cut immigration by deterring migrants from arriving without permission, but refugee rights groups say it criminalises genuine asylum seekers, and Britain's Supreme Court ruled last year that the East African nation was not a safe country to send people.

In just one year, Sudan has been brought to its knees: thousands of people have been killed, millions have lost everything they own and with critical infrastructure reduced to rubble, five million people are now on the brink of famine.

Aid agencies accuse the warring factions of using food as a weapon of war and are calling on the international community to do more to help the millions caught up in one of the world's most acute humanitarian crises, and one of the least heeded. 

In towering glasshouses at a tomato farm in South Australia, everything from the temperature to the ultraviolet radiation levels is tightly controlled.

But despite the farm's scientific approach, pollinating the crops can still be hit or miss.

In the first two months of 2024, millions of people, from voters in Pakistan to families forced to flee Sudan's civil war, were plunged into digital darkness as governments, and others, imposed internet shutdowns.

In a bumper year for elections, digital rights activists fear more blackouts as governments, or other powerful forces, seek to control what people do or see online.

Uganda's Constitutional Court is expected to rule in the coming weeks on a legal challenge to last year's Anti-Homosexuality Act, which allows the death penalty for some same-sex acts and 20 years in jail for "promoting" homosexuality.

LGBTQ+ rights activists, who launched the appeal, are also urging the international community to intensify pressure on the Ugandan government to repeal the law by imposing more sanctions, but emphasised that such penalties should be targeted.

Kenyan digital rights campaigners warn a phone tracking programme the government said it was pressing ahead with to trace counterfeit devices and curb fraud could lead to increased state surveillance and invasion of privacy.

Kenya's Ministry of Information, Communication and the Digital Economy Eliud Owalo said this month that the government intends to go ahead with plans to roll out a Device Management System (DMS) to allow authorities to access the unique identification number of mobile phones and block services to fake devices.

As African countries line up to cash in on the global carbon offset market, concern is growing that the multimillion-dollar deals to keep their forests intact could threaten the land rights and way of life of people who live there.

At COP28 in Dubai, more deals were announced as part of the Africa Carbon Markets Initiative (ACMI), which aims to raise $6 billion by 2030 by selling offsets to companies striving to shrink their carbon footprint by funding pollution-reducing projects like forest or savannah preservation.

Hundreds of Africans tasked with scouring platforms such as Facebook, TikTok and ChatGPT for graphic content have joined the continent's first union for content moderators, but organisers say some fear losing their jobs if their membership is revealed.

The union was established in Nairobi in May with the help of former Facebook moderator and whistleblower Daniel Motaung, who experienced firsthand both the mental toll of this gruelling work, and the challenges of holding Big Tech to account.

U.S. funding to support millions of people in Africa living with HIV/AIDS could be under threat due to opposition from Republican lawmakers who say funds were being diverted to fund abortions.

The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is a multi-billion-dollar HIV/AIDS programme that the U.S. government says has saved millions of lives globally since it was launched 20 years ago.

Africa has become a hotspot for surveillance technology exports from countries including the U.S., Britain, China, Israel as well as the European Union, according to new research published this week.

Nigeria, Ghana, Morocco, Malawi and Zambia spend more than $1bn every year on surveillance technology, estimates a report by the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) and the African Digital Rights Network (ADRN).