South Africa served as a transit point for a shipment of crowd-control weapons to Madagascar's former president, a Johannesburg-based newspaper reported. The Sunday Independent cited a cable from the United States embassy in Antananarivo saying Chinese-made riot control equipment - including grenades, rubber bullets and teargas - were unloaded in South Africa and then collected by then-president Marc Ravalomanana's private jet.

By systematically refusing to answer questions about abuses and dispossession in Sudan and Ethiopia the oil giant Lundin Petroleum and Sweden's minister for foreign affairs Carl Bildt have found a winning strategy, writes Kerstin Lundell, author of the award winning 'Business in Blood and Oil: Lundin Petroleum in Africa'. 'Based on earlier experiences, we find it's not of a constructive nature to comment on unsubstantiated claims about Lundin Petroleum and the corporation's business.' That's all the answer I've received for all the questions I've asked for the past four years about the company's knowledge of or involvement with all the events - the murders, the burning of entire villages - in Sudan and Ethiopia that I've encountered as I collected material for my book 'Business in Blood and Oil' and for articles in Process Nordic magazine.

The perpetrators, of what were unquestionably crimes against humanity appear to have got off free. The consequences of the Igbo genocide for Africa have been catastrophic.

A new book scrutinises the labour structure of the South African mining industry over the last 350 years.

The power imbalances underpinning the structural layout of public worlds have reflected economic inequalities in areas characterised by those lacking political capital.In Zimbabwe, the scene is ripe for private waste sanitation companies or toilet capitalists.

‘It is necessary to formulate alternative policy options which have their centre of gravity in social struggles, antagonistic to today’s ruling class.’

Education in Nigeria is in crisis following years of underfunding. And private universities that have mushroomed to meet the growing need for higher education have become so commercialised many of them are no better than glorified high schools.

Having almost completely destroyed their own fisheries, European fishing fleets are attacking the fish stocks of African waters. As a result, traditional fishing communities along the west African are catching fewer and fewer fish. Their livelihoods are under threat. The next Senegalese presidential elections will take place in February - so now is the perfect time to pressure politicians. Tell future leaders of Senegal to make sustainable fishing a priority. To sign the petition, go to

Article 43 of Kenya’s constitution provides for social and economic rights of the citizens. All proponents of change need to work very hard to realise these rights, which are essential for ending the suffering of the poor.

‘They tell you in the mainstream media that Quattara won? How did he win? Who decides on who wins elections? What constitutional body has absolute and final say on election malpractices? The Supreme Court.’

A Belgian court has rejected an application to ban a colonial-era book about the Congolese adventures of the cartoon character Tintin for breaching racism laws. Documents from the court of first instance in Brussels show that it did not believe the 1946 edition of Tintin in the Congo was intended to incite racial hatred, a criteria when deciding if something breaks Belgium's racism laws. In 2007, Congolese campaigner Bienvenu Mbutu Mondondo launched legal proceedings to ban the book, arguing its portrayal of Africans was racist.

The international community has failed to grapple with the real underlying political and economic issues facing the troubled East African nation of Somalia, which has been surviving without an effective government for over two decades, according to a new study released here. With the country's 3,300-km coastline virtually unprotected, industrial fishing vessels from Europe and Asia have entered the area in large numbers and are plundering Somalia's rich maritime resources. 'Having over-fished their home waters, these sophisticated factory ships are seeking catch in one of the world's richest remaining fishing zones,' says the report published by the New York-based Global Policy Forum (GPF).

An Ethiopian politician standing trial for terrorism is said to be injured and in fear for his life after being attacked in his prison cell by a convicted murderer. The leader of the largest opposition party is appealing to Ethiopia's human rights body to intervene in the case. Former Ethiopian president Negasso Gidada sent an urgent appeal to Human Rights Commission chief Teruneh Zenna asking protection for opposition leaders being held at Addis Ababa's Kaliti prison.

At least one person has been killed in Uganda as government troops evict an estimated 6,000 squatters from a nature reserve where authorities say the people are living illegally. The local people claim the property in question as their ancestral land and have accused the government of attempting to sell it to foreign developers.

A gas-fuelled fire, with flames as high as 5m, may burn for months in waters off the Niger Delta in south-east Nigeria, Chevron has told the BBC. Two workers died after January's explosion at the KS Endeavour exploration rig, owned by the US firm. Friends of the Earth says this is the world's worst such accident in recent years.

The Kenyan government has denied it is planning to close the world's largest refugee camp, playing down suggestions that President Mwai Kibaki might do so during his visit to London. Kibaki is currently in the UK for a three-day conference with David Cameron. Almost half a million Somalis live in the Dadaab camp, 60 miles from the Somalian border. Numbers in the camp grew steadily last year as famine gripped the region.

There are more than 20 community radio stations in Zambia. Most have a coverage radius of less than 20 kilometres. Yet they are significant to both rural and urban dwellers, whose interests range from politics to agriculture. But Zambia’s progress towards meeting this new demand for information is meeting some obstacles. The country recently dropped four places on the Reporters Without Borders index of press freedom. Gagging of journalists, censorship and political interference have all negatively affected the quality of service delivery to Zambia’s listening audience.

Liberia's Independent National Human Rights Commission has said it would from next month begin implementing the recommendations of the defunct Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which included prosecuting key warlords. The Truth Commission had also recommended that President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf be barred from holding public office for a period of 30 years, which analysts say would be near-impossible to implement. The sanctions carry financial, political and legal ramifications, sources said.

The International Monetary Fund has warned that Swaziland's fiscal crisis has reached a critical point and there is a high risk that the kingdom will be unable to pay its civil servants' wages for the next few months. The report also says that Swaziland's gross domestic product (GDP) will contract by 2 per cent during 2012 and, if the country does not change its 'unsustainable' fiscal policy, its debt-to-GDP ratio could reach more than 80 per cent by 2016.

An interesting survey from Greek survey organisation Public Issue shows that in 2011 one third of the population agreed that 'Our society must change radically through revolution'. Only one per cent surveyed agreed that 'our society is fine the way it is.

As we enter a period of a profound crisis of capitalism, as working people and the poor are being forced to pay the costs of that crisis, the challenges facing Pambazuka are greater than ever. Our task in the coming period will be to expand the capacity of Pambazuka to support the growing movements for social and political transformation. We want you to join us in helping to build and support those movements. If you think that Pambazuka is important, if you find what we do useful, if you like the materials we publish in Pambazuka News, then join the Friends of Pambazuka with a donation today. Together we will dare to invent the future.

It's not only money and military power that count in this world. Popular mobilisation can transform societies from below and it can strengthen states against private and imperial interests.

A local rights group has demanded that parliament repeals a law issued by the ruling military council that allowed for settlements in cases of squandering public funds. The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) sent a memo to the People’s Assembly’s legislative and economic committees Wednesday demanding the repeal of a law issued by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) on 3 January to settle with investors under legal investigations in cases of squandering of public funds. The law is an adjustment to the Investments Guarantees and Incentives Law No. 7 of 1997, giving the government full authority to settle with investors in financial corruption probes even if they are referred to criminal courts or are subject to preliminary prison sentences.

The meeting, dubbed ‘Encounter of Intellectuals for Peace and Environmental Conservation’, was attended by more than a hundred laureates in literature, history and social and natural sciences and eminent thinkers from 21 countries.

A leading gay activist in Libya has responded to his country's delegate who told a planning meeting of the UN Human Rights Council that gays threatened the continuation of the human race. Libya's representative told the gathering of ambassadors that LGBT topics 'affect religion and the continuation and reproduction of the human race.' But a gay activist from Tripoli responded: 'Human rights are universal and include LGBT rights. Therefore how can a human right be a threat to humanity?'

Zimbabwe's trade with the European Union increased by 36 per cent last year, reaching 664 million euros from 488 million euros in 2010, the European Union Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Mr Aldo Dell'Ariccia, has said. Meanwhile, trade between the two partners is set to receive a further boost as Zimbabwe is now very close to completing the ratification of an Economic Partnership Agreement with the EU. There are concerns, however, that Zimbabwe's full EPA ratification will pose further challenges for local industry.

Madagascar is aiming to plug its energy gap and reduce its carbon emissions by encouraging a major investment in large-scale wind-turbines, the country’s interim president, Andry Rajoelina, has announced. Unofficial figures put the cost of the initiative at US$80 million. But experts say that instead of importing costly infrastructure, the country should make micro-wind power stations from locally available materials.

South Africa as a powerhouse on the continent expected to take the AU Commission Chairperson’s job. But the outcome of the election indicates that opposition to Ms Dlamini-Zuma was intractable.

‘The attack on Libya was an attack on Africa! It was an attack on my aspirations as a person of African descent to have a free and independent Africa. That's what was attacked!’

'We are now also faced with a new scramble for Africa – the mad rush by European countries and multi-national companies to loot African resources and re-occupy our land.'

Saharawis are becoming increasingly impatient with the UN and many are willing to break the ceasefire between Western Sahara’s liberation front, Polisario, and Morocco, which has been in place since 1991, and return to war.

The Lesbian and Gay Equality Project (LGEP) has described the Traditional Courts Bill as 'highly anti-democratic, unconstitutional and discriminatory'. The organisation says it is 'extremely concerned' that the Bill puts rural women in a discriminatory position. 'The Bill basically opens the door for women not to approach the customary court but be represented by a man. Women’s rights to equality before the law is compromised in this situation which make it worse for lesbian women since it is the general knowledge that customary law is not favorable to people who have intimate relations with people of the same sex,' said LGEP in a press statement.

Victims of environmental disasters or other abuses inflicted by corporations in Nigeria are being denied justice as they are too poor or do not know how to seek legal recourse, jurists say. 'Poor rural victims of corporate human rights abuse are usually unaware of their legal rights and don't have the financial resources to file court process, gather information and evidence, and afford legal services,' said Carlos Lopez, the International Commission of Jurists' senior legal advisor in a report.

While welcoming aspects of South Africa's new budget announced on 22 February, civil society grouping SECTION 27 says it remains concerned about aspects of the health budget. Even though the health budget has increased, SECTION 27 fears this could be undone by mismanagement, corruption, wasteful expenditure and a lack of capacity for implementation. Amongst other concerns, it notes that increases in allocations for HIV and AIDS programmes will not result in the expected expansion of these programmes unless problems relating to staffing, infrastructure and the payment of service providers are resolved.

European governments have opened the door to a radical offer of 'debt relief' for Arab north African neighbours such as Egypt, EU and governmental sources said. The plan emerged barely 24 hours after eurozone governments backed an unprecedented write-down of Greek sovereign debt held by private investors, one expected to reduce Athens' debt burden by nearly one third, some $141 million.

The Zimbabwean president is amazingly still going strong.

How much do they own?

President Wade wants a third term in office over the dead bodies of Senegalese people. Yet this is the same man who has tried to identify with Pan-Africanism. After Sunday’s elections, popular struggles for a better Senegal will continue.

Authorities in and around Misrata are preventing thousands of people from returning to the villages of Tomina and Kararim and have failed to stop local militias from looting and burning homes there, Human Rights Watch has said. The abuse mirrors the treatment of roughly 30,000 displaced people from the nearby town of Tawergha, who have also been blocked from returning home for at least five months, Human Rights Watch said.