'Egypt is one of only two states to have entered reservations on ratification of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The three reservations concern the guarantee of freedom of conscience, non-discrimination of women and children and the right to receive information...The African Commission has been resolute in rejecting the subjugation of continental human rights standards to restrictive national laws that nullify the human rights guaranteed. This is particularly critical in the context of the current transition in Egypt. It is important that the people access information on the decades of injustice and find the truth about corruption, torture, missing persons.'

Egypt’s new leadership has promised to open the Rafah crossing into Gaza permanently after more than five years of partial and occasionally full closure, but observers wonder how far this will go to ease the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). 'Our intention is to alleviate the human problems and living conditions for the people in Gaza,' Ambassador Mahna Bakhoum, spokesman for the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told IRIN. 'It is under study now - how, when and what [the opening of Rafah crossing will involve]. This is all being discussed by the government and by the whole country, not just the Foreign Ministry.'

Soon after the Libyan crisis broke, decision-makers and humanitarian workers faced a critical challenge: lack of information about events inside the country. Within hours, Andrej Verity, information management officer at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Geneva, called a meeting with volunteer-based and/or technically focused groups. OCHA activated the Standby task force, comprising more than 150 volunteers skilled in online crisis mapping. The idea was to map out social and traditional media reports from within Libya. That led to the creation of LibyaCrisisMap.net. There are more than 1,000 articles on the platform with some information extracted and placed on maps.

This World Health Organisation fact file contains 10 facts on how smoking impacts on women. 'Women who smoke are more likely than those who do not to experience infertility and delays in conceiving,' it says, 'Smoking during pregnancy increases risks of premature delivery, stillbirth and newborn death, and may cause a reduction in breast milk. Smoking increases women's risk for cancer of the cervix.'

The number of refugees in 10 countries in Eastern Africa has risen to nearly 1.4 million, an eight per cent increase since September, the United Nations humanitarian office said 13 May in an update that shows that the majority of the new asylum-seekers travelled to Kenya and Ethiopia. Kenya received more than 50,000 of the total number of 103,874 new refugees, while some 19,000 entered Ethiopia. The majority of the refugees going to the two countries were Somalis fleeing drought and conflict in their homeland, according to the report prepared by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

The Kenyan government and rights groups have expressed outrage at a project in western Kenya that is paying HIV-positive women to undergo long-term contraception. Project Prevention, a US-based NGO, offers cash to drug addicts in the US and the UK to undergo long-term contraception or permanent sterilisation. In 2010, the project started offering HIV-positive women in western Kenya US$40 to be fitted with intrauterine devices (IUDs), which can prevent pregnancy for over a decade. The project uses a medical practitioner in the western Kenyan town of Kakamega to insert the IUDs for $7 per woman; so far, 22 women have undergone the procedure.

A recent report on Zimbabwe’s progress toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals, complied by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organisation (WHO), said about 80 per cent of the posts for midwives were vacant in the public sector. 'The shortage of skilled and competent midwives can avert 80 to 90 per cent of maternal deaths. The shortage of skilled and competent midwives can result in women and their newborns dying from the complications that could be prevented by a health worker with the right skills, the right equipment and the right support,' the report pointed out.

Up to five people were killed when Ugandan police clashed with opposition supporters who attacked cars carrying African leaders at the inauguration of President Yoweri Museveni. A government spokesman confirmed at least one death in the capital, Kampala, on Thursday. But local independent TV station WBS reported that five had died when police opened fire on opposition supporters who threw stones at the cars. At the same time as the inauguration, a crowd of thousands supporting Besigye had gathered in the capital to welcome him back to Uganda from Kenya.

A controversial anti-homosexuality bill that could've seen the death penalty imposed for certain homosexual acts has failed to make it through the Ugandan parliament before it broke for recess. But the MP who tabled the bill in the first place says he will table it again in the next parliamentary session.

An open field in Tafelsig turned into a war zone at the weekend as a group of land invaders pelted police and city law enforcers with rocks and bottles. The officers retaliated by firing rubber bullets and blasting the invaders with a water cannon to bring them under control. The group, who call themselves the Mitchell’s Plain Backyarders’ Association, moved on to the Swartklip Sports Field on Saturday.

At least three Somali immigrants have been shot and killed by border guards in Mozambique. The men were among nine traveling on foot through Tanzania headed to South Africa when they were sprayed by bullets from Mozambican forces, according to a member of the group.

The Tanzanian government plans to take urgent measures to alleviate economic hardships that the majority of the population is facing to ward off a replication of protests taking place in the East African Community. Economists and activists told The Citizen that they won’t be surprised if the Kenyan and Ugandan scenarios were to be witnessed in Tanzania since the government 'seems not to be acting to put the matters in line'.

Judge Nathan Erasmus ruled recently that the DA-controlled Cape Town municipality had violated the human and constitutional rights of residents of Makhaza in Khayelitsha by installing unenclosed toilets. He also dismissed the city's and Western Cape premier Helen Zille's argument that residents were consulted and had agreed to enclose the toilets at their own cost.

The murder of a 24-year-old lesbian activist from Kwa-Thema township in Gauteng appears to be the latest in an epidemic of brutal homophobic attacks, Human Rights Watch has said. Noxolo Nogwaza was found murdered on 24 April 2011, in a vicious attack that seems to have been motivated by her sexual orientation. Nogwaza's face and head were completely disfigured by stoning, she was stabbed several times with broken glass.

The Great Green Wall project aims to plant a line of trees nearly 8,000 kilometres long and 15 kilometres wide. This green belt would pass through 11 countries in the Sahel, from Senegal to Djibouti. It hopes to stop the desert from expanding and swallowing farmland. Many are happy with what is being achieved, but others are not, reports Farm Radio Weekly. Aliou Sow is a farmer in Senegal. He complains bitterly that the authorities planted trees in his community without consultation. While farmers travel miles on foot or by donkey to fetch water for the villages of Tessekeré, Amaly and Widou, wells are being dug specifically to irrigate nurseries for the Wall.

The Africa Initiative Graduate Research Grant program supports short-term academic placements for students enrolled in a Master’s or PhD program at select African universities. The program offers grants of up to CAD$10,000 each to fifteen students per year to conduct research for up to four months at select Canadian universities.

A heavily armed Sudanese military convoy entered the flashpoint border district of Abyei, sparking clashes that left up to 14 people dead, its chief administrator and a UN spokesman said on Tuesday, 3 May. The fighting broke out on Sunday when a Sudanese army major insisted on entering the disputed territory after the police tried to stop his convoy of six landcruisers mounted with machine guns and more than 200 troops, administrator Deng Arop Kuol told AFP.

Mary Wambui, the wife of Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki, is considered an impostor, says Gado.

In a review of ‘Milk and Peace, Drought and War: Somali Culture, Society and Politics’, edited by Markus Hoehne and Virginia Luling, Nilani Ljunggren De Silva highlights an ‘important work for all who wish to understand Somalia and its beleaguered and courageous people’.

A three-day strike beginning 4 May has been announced by the Uganda Law Society as an expression of displeasure at the government’s high-handed clampdown on the walk-to-work protests against high fuel prices. At an extra-ordinary meeting of the Law Society held in Kampala, it was also agreed that other professionals be asked to join in this show of disapproval against the excessive and disproportionate use of force by the police, army and other security agencies in breaking up peaceful protests.

When it comes to discussing HIV/AIDS in Egypt, most probably you’d be faced by either one of two reactions: one that is characterized by fear, shock, and discomfort or a reaction marked by denial and disdain, writes Ahmed Awadalla, an Egyptian who works in the area of reproductive and sexual health. 'A comprehensive survey of Egyptian youth revealed that only 21 per cent of them would be willing to interact with a person living with HIV, which is definitely disturbing. We all need to realise that stigmatising those groups leads to higher spread of the virus into the community, by denying those people access to health and awareness services, and not allowing them to get the care and compassion they need.'

President Goodluck Jonathan has again stated that his promise made on the 35 per cent representation of women in governance will be fulfilled. Jonathan said recently: 'In Nigeria, today, we have many competent and credible women who have built capacities in thousands of lives, contributed immensely to building the civil, public, and private service sectors. Women have championed debt relief, grew the stock exchange, waged war against fake drugs, ensured justice and human rights and so on. These facts made me to promise during my campaigns that the 35 per cent representation of women in governance will be fulfilled.'

Videos from the international conference on global land grabbing held at the Institute for Development Studies at the University of Sussex between 6-8 April 2011 are now available. The selection of videos include Olivier de Schutter, Sam Moyo and Shalmali Guttal.

The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, CODESRIA, will hold its 13th General Assembly on 5-9 December 2011, in Rabat, Morocco. The triennial General Assembly is one of the most important scientific events of the African continent. It provides the African social science research community with a unique opportunity to reflect on some of the key issues facing the social sciences in particular, and Africa and the world at large. The theme of the scientific conference of the 13th CODESRIA General Assembly is ‘Africa and the challenges of the 21st century’.

In the wake of the ‘furore about the racist remarks attributed to Mr Jimmy Manyi’, Neville Alexander discusses the challenges around creating a ‘raceless society’ in post-apartheid South Africa.

Thousands of ethnic Berbers from Libya have fled into Tunisia after a brief hiatus in their exodus last week because of fighting between Libyan government troops and opposition forces for control of a border crossing point. 'This past weekend, more than 8,000 people, most of them ethnic Berbers, arrived in Dehiba in southern Tunisia. Most are women and children,' a UNHCR spokesperson said. The latest arrivals bring the number of people to have fled fighting in Libya's Western Mountains region to almost 40,000 in the past month.

When Malawi's Inspector General of Police Peter Mukhito summoned political science senior lecturer Dr Blessings Chinsinga over an example he gave in the lecture room, he had no idea that the incident will appear on Boniface Dulani's blog. And when it did, Malawi media picked and followed the rest of the developments which have left the University of Malawi's two main colleges closed for a month now. Global Voices author Victor Kaonga interviewed Dulani about his blogging experiences and the movement for academic freedom. You can read the interview on the Global Voices site.

'Sonke Gender Justice Network condemns the murder of Noxolo Nogwaza who was raped and brutally murdered in the early hours of Sunday morning over the Easter weekend in Kwa-Thema township, outside of Johannesburg. We offer our condolences to Noxolo’s family and to our comrades at EPOC and to the Coalition of African Lesbians (CAL).'

A decision to exclude crimes committed in the western city of Kisumu and the Nairobi slum of Kibera from a case against alleged organisers of violence following Kenya’s 2007 election could undermine the International Criminal Court’s effort to combat impunity in the East African nation, civil society groups have warned. Judges ruled in March that ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo had failed to demonstrate that high-profile extrajudicial killings by police in the western city of Kisumu as well as killings, injuries and rapes carried out in the Nairobi slum of Kibera were part of a state policy involving three suspects linked to President Mwai Kibaki’s Party of National Unity.

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) says he has unearthed 'enough evidence' to pursue up to five warrants for crimes against humanity committed by forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader. Luis Moreno-Ocampo made the announcement a day before he was to brief the UN Security Council on his investigation into alleged crimes commited by Gaddafi's forces. 'We have security forces shooting civilians at demonstrations and evidence of security forces arresting people in different cities, including Tripoli, even today, because they think these people are not loyal,' the prosecutor said.

For almost three years, Jane Ngoyoini, 39, has not seen or heard from her daughter. In 2007, Frieda Ngoyoini, 15, completely vanished during a school girl-scout jamboree program near Chelmsford, Essex, Ireland. To date no one, including the police, has given her mother, Jane Ngoyoini, any answers or clues to the whereabouts of Frieda. As one of the missing girls that left for a sponsored trip to Ireland, Frieda has never been heard from again and has never returned. This disturbing special case, which has not reached the larger media, is still unsolved. It has left many questions unanswered. Child trafficking in Kenya is a daily occurrence, but police reports and actions to solve crimes are too many times non-existent.

A new article from the Bank Information Centre's Paulina Garzon looks at the current status of the World Bank's energy strategy review, which has run into controversy at the Board of Directors. The article notes the politics surrounding the policy. 'The WB has spent almost two years developing the new Energy Sector Strategy (EsE),[1] expected to be approved in July 2011. The EsE will be the guiding instrument in modernizing the energy sector with two main objectives: 1) to increase access to modern and reliable energy, especially for the poor, and 2) to facilitate the transition into an energy sector that is environmentally sustainable and with low carbon emissions.'

Commenting on the Western media’s preference towards coverage of particular uprisings across North Africa, Tendai Marima asks ‘what makes Burkina Faso's crisis so un-newsworthy that it is easily swept under the news pile?'

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has joined its African group, the Federation of African Journalists (FAJ) to mark World Press Freedom Day by sending an open letter to President Issayas Afewerki of Eritrea, urging him to release all journalists detained by his government. The IFJ and FAJ say the situation of human rights and freedom of expression has been steadily deteriorating in Eritrea where it is estimated that some 30 journalists have been detained, without charges, since the Eritrean government imposed a ban on independent media in September 2001.

Following on from

Media rights group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has said Robert Mugabe is among the seven worst ‘press freedom predators’ on the African continent. In a statement released to mark World Press Freedom Day the group also named leaders Yahya Jammeh (Gambia), Issaias Afeworki (Eritrea), Teodoro Obiang Nguema (Equatorial Guinea), Paul Kagamé (Rwanda), King Mswati III (Swaziland) and Somalia’s Islamist militias, Al-Shabaab and Hizb-Al-Islam. Despite the formation of a coalition government in Zimbabwe, Reporters Without Borders, said because of Mugabe, 'Zimbabwe’s privately-owned print media are constantly harassed and that the state-owned Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) has a monopoly of radio and TV broadcasting'.

Medical supplies are running short in Benghazi, putting overwhelmed doctors under heavy strain. To address the challenges, professionals, hospital managers and health officials gathered last week to look for solutions. 'We held this meeting in order to identify the problems facing the health sector and try to find solutions for them,' Economic Support and Assistance Commission member Jamal Jabr said. 'After that, we shall send these solutions to the economic council. Our aim is to boost competency and performance in the health sector.'