Judge Birtukan Mideksa, head of an opposition party in Ethiopia and a truly inspiring figure who is a staunch advocate of human rights, was re-arrested following her refusal to comply with a demand by the Ethiopian government that she revoke a statement she made disclosing that her prior release was not based on a formal legal pardon, but rather a politically negotiated settlement. Judge Mideksa was imprisoned in December 2008.

The decolonisation of Africa from the 1950s saw the irruption on the world stage of multiple, new nation-states. Between 1951 (Libyan independence) and 1994 (the end of apartheid in South Africa), 50 states emerged. Most dramatic were the months between January 1960 and November of the same year. In eleven months, 17 new states. By the end of 1962, France's African Empire was in tatters.

The Gender Festival is an open forum that brings together feminist and gender-focused groups, other civil society organizations/institutions, activists and other development actors working at various levels. These organizations reflect, share experiences, build capacity, strategize and plan collectively. This has also served as a networking forum for stakeholders in and out of the host country on the questions of gender, gender equality, feminism, sexuality and the intersections between these and power (both public and private).

When Manuel Noriega of Panama, was captured by a contingent of U.S. soldiers in 1989, the world was literally shaken from the heat it generated. Noriega, was then sitting President of Panama, one of the Latin American countries, known more for its drug-related image than many other things. In fact, his abduction and subsequent trial in America, was on account of this. But what seemed to make the most news was not the drug angle, but the fact that a sitting leader of a sovereign country, could be uprooted from his country and taken away in that fashion. However America, has since shown it is possible.

Serious gender-based crimes were committed against women and girls during Sierra Leone's decade-long armed conflict. This article examines how the Special Court for Sierra Leone has addressed - and, in some cases, has failed to address - these crimes in its first four judgments. The June 20, 2007 trial judgment in the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council case assists international criminal law's heretofore limited understanding of the crime against humanity of forced marriage, especially through the separate concurring opinion of Justice Sebutinde and the partially dissenting opinion of Justice Doherty.

While EU and other global leaders have talked tough about re-regulating the financial sector in the wake of the economic crisis, they remain committed to pushing through banking deregulation in the developing world via trade deals. This strategy is undermining poverty reduction in these countries and is reproducing the same type of circumstances that led to the crisis in the first place, warns a new report published on Wednesday (11 March) by the World Development Movement, an UK-based anti-poverty NGO.

About two weeks ago, traditional authorities in the mountain kingdom of Swaziland slapped the nation's most outspoken political columnist, Mfomfo Nkambule, with a fine--to be paid in cows--for criticism of the administration of King Mswati III, Africa's last absolute ruler.

“POOR countries are innocent,” says Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the Nigerian managing director of the World Bank. They did not contribute one jot to the global credit crunch, and their banks and firms have few links to global capital markets. For a while, it seemed as if the rich world’s mess might even pass them by. The oil-price fall of 2008 benefited oil-importing developing countries to the tune of 2% of their national incomes.

Togo is like much of West Africa — small, poor and an occasional producer of sensational soccer players—but for the bank. Lomé, Togo's capital, is home to Ecobank, a 21-year-old pan-African retail and corporate bank that, according to CEO Arnold Ekpe, employs 11,000 people in 620 branches in 26 countries, with a balance sheet of $8 billion.

Attacking the US for its alleged double standards, Sudan Friday sought India’s diplomatic support against International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo’s decision to indict President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on charges of genocide in Darfur. “Sudan strongly rejects the decision of the ICC. The targeting of Sudan’s president is political, not judicial,” Omer Elamin Abdalla, charge d’affaires at the Sudanese embassy, told reporters here.

China is regaining its appetite for acquisitions in Africa as asset prices on the continent tumble, according to Standard Bank, Africa’s largest lender that is partially owned by China’s biggest bank. Jacko Maree, Standard’s chief executive, said in an interview with the Financial Times that Chinese companies were readying to “turn on the taps” once more after 2007’s surge of investment into Africa fell away dramatically due to the global financial crisis.

There are many apologists for the Indian armed forces serving the ideal of world peace under the UN flag. They believe that serving in the conflict-torn areas of Africa builds India’s image worldwide, earns it long-lasting friends and secures India’s strategic and commercial interests. This news report about the Indian peacekeepers being unwelcome in Congo should come as a timely wakeup call to these misguides advocators.

China's navy will renew an anti-piracy mission to the Gulf of Aden when the current commitment expires in the coming months, a naval top officer was quoted as saying by state media on Monday. China's three-ship anti-piracy flotilla took up its duties off the Somali coast in January on a four-month mission and new ships will be sent to take over in late April or in early May, the China Daily newspaper quoted the navy deputy chief of staff, Rear Adm. Zhang Deshun, as saying.

Nigeria and other developing countries face a financing shortfall of $270-700 billion to pay for their imports and service their debts this year, as the global economy falters and foreign investors withdraw, the World Bank has said. In a report published yesterday ahead of a March 14 meeting of Group of 20 finance ministers, the World Bank also said only one quarter of the most vulnerable countries have the resources to prevent a rise in poverty.

United States President Barack Obama is eager to promote good relations between his country and the East African Community (EAC), according to a letter he has written to EAC Secretary General Amb. Juma Mwapachu. In his letter, Obama expresses confidence of working together with the EAC in a spirit of peace and friendship in order to build a more secure world.

With an annual growth of 7%, substantial foreign investment, and rapid expansion of education, Mozambique is often billed by donors as a development success. But in a new book, Do Bicycles Equal Development in Mozambique?, Joseph Hanlon and Teresa Smart argue that poverty is increasing and that a development model based on neo-liberalism and the Millennium Development Goals has failed.

As a leading UN economist argued that China could lead the world out of slump, all the signs last week were that Chinese investment in Africa was continuing unabated. So was concern by campaigners at the possible environmental and social impact of some Chinese deals and debate over the impact of Chinese traders and migrants. But there were also signs of continuing efforts by larger Chinese corporations to attend to their image. Meanwhile, the annual meeting of China’s parliament provided an occasion for an insight into future policy trends and thinking by China’s rulers.

Over 100 observers, 80 of them from the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) and the UN, will be in Algeria to monitor the presidential election to be held on 9 April, Algerian prime minister, Mr. Ahmed Ouyahia, said here Wednesday. Speaking on national radio, Ouyahia said that over 20 million voters had been registered to vote following the revision of the voters' register.

Gambian authorities on Wednesday dragged Halifa Sallah, the detained opposition leader and publisher of pro-opposition Foroyaa Newspaper, before Brikama Magistrate’s Court on three-count charges relating to “sedition and spying,” authoritative sources in Banjul informed PANA. Sallah, a respected sociologist and leader of Gambia’s opposition coalition National Alliance for Democracy and Development (NADD), was later remanded at the “Mile Two Central Prison” on the outskirts of the capital.

The mass expulsion of humanitarian aid organizations from Darfur is having immediate and alarming consequences, with thousands of people already being denied critical health services. The government of Sudan terminated work licenses of the International Rescue Committee and 12 other international aid groups in Darfur yesterday and today, decimating the relief effort in a region where more than two million people remain displaced and dependent on foreign assistance.

Zimbabwe will shortly have a new daily newspaper Mr. Trevor Ncube the chairman of the Zimbabwe Independent and the Standard newspapers announced this week. The paper to be called NewsDay will be published everyday except Sunday. The company’s other titles namely the Zimbabwe Independent and the Standard will continue to be published as at present on a Friday and Sunday.

Dissident troops in Madagascar say they have moved tanks into the capital amid a violent power struggle between the president and opposition leader. President Marc Ravalomanana issued a radio appeal urging civilians to help defend the presidential palace.

Nigeria's cabinet has rejected reforms that would have empowered the judiciary to pick the chairman and board members of the electoral commission. President Umaru Yar'Adua's cabinet insisted he should retain those powers. Democracy activists called the decision a U-turn and said it raised fears for the fairness of the next federal elections, due to be held in 2011.

One thing that almost everyone across the political spectrum can agree on is that land reform in South Africa is in crisis. The pace of transfer is consistently slower than planned for, and much redistributed land is not being used productively. Government policies favour land redistribution, but land use models are not so clearly defined. In the absence of creative thinking about how land can be used, government has defaulted to a position that commercial agriculture is the only viable use for rural land.

How should the international community engage in election processes in post-conflict countries such as Rwanda, Cambodia and Sudan? This study from Princeton University argues that the international community should move towards a broader concern with fair political environments. Policymakers should not overstate the importance of electoral assistance in the short-term, nor lose sight of its ability to contribute to the conditions for genuine democracy in the long-term. Greater political will for longer-term electoral support is required.

Attempts to make sure affirmative action becomes law in a country that prided itself as having hosted the third UN Conference of women in Africa has been marred with sideshows and arguments that have seen the Bill either thrown out of Parliament or excuses given as to why Parliament cannot pass it. In some countries, however, Affirmative Action has been embraced.

African leaders called for a bigger say in the management of the International Monetary Fund and urged rich nations to maintain aid flows as the U.S. and Europe spend billions of dollars to rescue their own economies. “The current crisis poses the greatest danger to development in recent history,” Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete told African finance ministers and central bank governors at an IMF conference in Dar es Salaam today. “So far, Africa’s voice on this unnerving situation has been muted.”

Calling it “significant progress” toward the much-delayed elections in Côte d’Ivoire, the United Nations mission there today announced that the number of voters identified so far in the West African nation has surpassed 5.4 million. The Mission “urges all parties involved in the identification and registration process to redouble their efforts to maintain the momentum,” Hamadoun Touré, spokesperson for the UN Operation in Côte d'Ivoire (UNOCI), told reporters in Abidjan.

Zimbabwe’s widespread cholera epidemic has now claimed over 4,000 lives since August, and almost 90,000 people have contracted the deadly disease, according to the latest United Nations report on the outbreak. Some 2,151 new cases of cholera were identified last week, down from 8,000 per week at the at the start of the year, noted the joint UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and World Health Organization (WHO) report.

The number of Rwandan Hutu rebels who have left the Democratic Republic of Congo and gone home has risen substantially since the beginning of the year, Bruno Donat head of the United Nations' disarmament, demobilization and repatriation efforts in the DRC has said. The UN official credits his organisation for convincing rebel fighters that repatriation is best for them and for the stability of Africa's Great Lakes Region.

The South African government took over a farm this week for the first time under a controversial new policy of taking back unproductive farms allocated to blacks as part of a land redistribution programme. Agriculture and Land Affairs Minister Lulu Xingwana announced the "use it or lose it" initiative last week for farms which the black beneficiaries have left idle.

Gangs of South African men are raping lesbians in the belief it will "cure" the women's sexual orientation, an aid agency said on Friday. NGO ActionAid said in a report titled "Hate Crimes: the rise of corrective rape in South Africa" lesbians were increasingly at risk of rape, particularly in South African townships where homosexuality is largely taboo.

Researchers have estimated that there were about one million infections and a half a million deaths from HIV-related cryptococcal meningitis worldwide in 2006. The findings published in the February 20th edition of the journal AIDS also show that sub-Saharan Africa had the highest global burden of cryptococcal meningitis among people living with HIV.

In the cramped basement of a public housing apartment block in New York's Staten Island, 25 minutes by ferry from Manhattan's financial district, a small group of mostly volunteer staff are preparing to open the doors of health clinic in an area that recently saw the closure of two local hospitals. The weekly clinic caters to a cross section of the blue-collar Park Hill neighbourhood; day labourers, newly arrived immigrants and former refugees, most of the latter from Liberia.

The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) has resolved to represent the case against John Qwelane in the Equality Court. This is subsequent to Qwelane’s July 2008 column which infuriated many gay rights groups where he expressed his sheer hatred of homosexuals saying, among other things, that they are a degradation of values and traditions.

Editor of the daily The Point, Pap Saine, has had two trials in which he is facing charges adjourned to later in the month. In the first, before a court in Kanifing, near Banjul, on a charge of “publication and dissemination of false news”, the judge, Sainabou Wadda-Ceesay, ordered an adjournment until 23 March, because of the need to ensure the charges against the journalist conformed with a 2005 amendment to the criminal code.

The Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) is to launch the Pan African Alliance on E-Commerce to intensify cooperation and initiate common projects of interest in African countries, as part of a two-day workshop on Trade Facilitation and Aid for Trade which ends in Addis Ababa today.

Dead Aid, a controversial new book by economist Dambisa Moyo, argues that cutting off all non-emergency assistance to Africa within five years "would help stimulate growth". But in countries like Zambia, the author's homeland, such a prescription could prove problematic, given the global financial turndown.