Veteran award winning reporter Hunter-Gault blends personal memoir with reportage and analysis, to challenge stereotypical reporting of Africa by, primarily, the Western media. It is no secret that media representations of the continent are most often stereotypical or sensationalised, focusing on conflict and disease; and the author sets out to systematically paint a different portrait: one of Africa which shows good, or so-called ‘new’ news.

A Nigerian governor has sacked the entire 34,000-strong workforce in his state for refusing to heed a call to suspend their one-month old strike over pay, a government spokesperson said on Thursday. Public-sector workers in the south-western state of Oyo launched the industrial action last month to force Governor Adebayo Alao-Akala to pay increases approved by his predecessor.

While civil society movements have grown, become more vocal and are leading municipal protests, they pose no immediate threat to the ruling African National Congress (ANC), analysts say. These non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have made their presence felt recently by staging service delivery protests across the country, especially in Gauteng. The government has responded by accusing the organisers of misleading communities, saying development plans were already in place.

The United Nations and World Bank launched a bid on Monday to strip crooked leaders of the money they steal from poor countries, and to plough the sums into health and development efforts. 'From now on it should be harder for kleptocrats to steal the public's money, and easier for the public to get its money back', said Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the world body's agency in charge of the initiative.