The African Union has announced that it will form a 5,000-strong brigade to hunt down Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), believed to be hiding in the jungles of central Africa The brigade will be led by Uganda and include troops from the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan, the countries that have been ravaged by LRA raids.

Source:  The Guardian

Following the resounding success of its YouTube launch, the KONY 2012 video and movement saw a barrage of criticism from the darker corners of the internet. As someone who has worked in propaganda for a long time, I’m concerned that people all over the world are sending money to an organization that is fundamentally different to what they imagine it is. And even as interest wanes across the web, there are still lots of unanswered questions. Like the ones I came up with to ask Invisible Children representatives after Kenny Laubbacher, head of “artist relations” for IC, invited VICE to interview members of IC at the organization’s offices in San Diego immediately following our original Kony Post . Laubbacher claimed that our post was “pretty massively misinformed and quotes a lot of bogus sources.”

Source:  Vice Magazine

The International Committee of the Red Cross was again prevented from entering the Baba Amr area of Homs, four days after the former opposition stronghold fell to the Syrian army.Activists in Homs said the area was now deserted. The ICRC delivered aid to the nearby village of Abel, where if found a “considerable” number of families who had fled from Baba Amr.

Source: The Guardian

Syrian government troops fired heavy barrages of artillery and rockets on Monday into districts across Homs, where rebels have been holding out through weeks of bombardment, opposition activists said.

“Intense shelling started on Khalidiya, Ashira, Bayada, Baba Amr and the old city at dawn,” activist Muhammad al-Homsi told Reuters from Homs.

“The army is firing from the main thoroughfares deep into alleyways and side streets. Initial reports indicate at least two people killed in the Souk area,” he said.

Syrians took part in a referendum on Sunday to clear the way for multi-party elections that could see Bashar al-Assad entrenched as president until 2028, in a vote widely dismissed by the opposition as a figleaf for reform.

Source:  The Guardian

Britain has continued to sell arms to Bahrain despite continuing political unrest in the Gulf state, new official figures disclose.

According to the figures the government approved the sale of military equipment valued at more than £1m in the months following the violent crackdown on demonstrators a year ago. They included licences for gun silencers, weapons sights, rifles, artillery and components for military training aircraft.

Source: The Guardian

The final results in Egypt’s first post-Mubarak parliamentary elections confirm an overwhelming victory for Islamist parties. The Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) won the largest number of seats under Egypt’s complex electoral system.

Source:  BBC News

In December 2010, a man in Tunisia burned himself to death in protest at his treatment by police. What followed was an extraordinary year as pro-democracy rebellions erupted across the Middle East. Our interactive timeline traces key events.

Source: The Guardian