In the wake of the crises and revolutions of Libya, Tunisia and Egypt, European claims to moral leadership look highly dubious, says Richard Pithouse.

Engaging in ‘unlawful and criminal evictions’ and blacklisting a journalist for her political views undermine the Democratic Alliance’s claims of support for the rule of law and press freedom, says the Western Cape branch of South African shackdwellers movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo.

‘Like perfect storms, several factors have to simultaneously and collectively come together for popular uprisings or protests to turn into a revolution,’ writes Esam Al-Amin. ‘So what are the elements that distinguish the Egyptian revolution?’

Citizenship Rights in Africa Initiative is calling on the AU Peace and Security Council to ensure that the right to nationality is respected for all, following the anticipated secession of Southern Sudan to become a new state on 9 July 2011.

Museveni blazes ahead of the opposition...

If only silencing social media was as easy as putting political opponents in prison!

Tracing Colonel Gaddafi’s dubious history of collusion with Western interests, Horace Campbell stresses that current developments in Libya must push towards a people-centred democratisation of the country’s society.

Kah Walla, the presidential candidate for Cameroon Ô’Bosso, who led yesterday’s peaceful protests which were brutally quelled by the army, produced this diary of events leading up to and during the protest.

Kenya’s youth are demanding that their government build a Dedan Kimathi museum, says Dennis Dancan Mosiere.

The Accra-based media rights body, Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), is pushing for the inclusion of issues of freedom of expression and media rights in UN Human Rights Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of West African states. Sources told PANA on Saturday in Dakar that MFWA is at an advanced stage of working on 'stakeholders’ reports and recommendations' to State delegates on the 'free expression situation' in West Africa.

More and more evidence is accumulating that a clean and green economy is most likely to deliver a more secure, prosperous and less tumultuous future for humanity, WWF has said. WWF International Director General Jim Leape was commenting on the release of the major United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) report 'Towards a Green Economy' which shows that appropriate policies and relatively modest redirections of global investment flows could grow the global economy at equivalent or greater levels than current forecasts.

'What social media has created is a sort of an alternate space for reviving a dormant public consciousness into a sentient, dynamic social discourse,' says this blog post reflecting on the significance of social media in the Egyptian revolution. 'The assumption that social media’s largest influence was during or shortly before the 18 days in which Mubarak’s regime was brought down is very naive.'

Guinea's President Alpha Conde has told the BBC the military junta that held power before he was elected has left the country bankrupt. Conde said the army leaders had spent more money in two years than in the 50 years from independence in 1958.

A project in South Africa supports mathematics education in schools using the web, social networking and mobile apps to deliver learning material directly to students’ cell phones. Teachers can also use the content in their classroom lessons. Students can practise mathematics exercises from a cell phone at any time and receive immediate feedback.

Pressure piled on President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga to defuse rising tension in the country following their standoff over state office nominations and declaration of political warfare by their lieutenants, reports The Standard. There was also fear their disagreement over picking of nominees to key judicial postings and newly created Budget Office would compromise the implementation of the Constitution, and poison the road to next year’s general election.

Amina Ahmed Barre, 29, a mother of two, has lived in refugee camps most of her life. She is one of nearly 14,000 Somali refugees in Djibouti. Barre fled Somalia with her parents in 1991 when civil war broke out; she was only eight years old. 'I do not recall much about my life in Somalia because I left there when I was very young. My parents took us away when the fighting started in Mogadishu in 1991.'

Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro has underscored the importance of education in raising the status of women in society and called for greater investment in measures to ensure gender equality, deploring the fact that two-thirds of illiterate adults across the world are female. 'Investing in women and girls is a force multiplier,' Migiro told the opening of the two-week session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women at UN Headquarters.

Various campaigns hoping to defy Robert Mugabe’s clampdown on civic action have been launched, trying to encourage Zimbabweans to follow the lead of other African countries protesting against their dictators. The campaigns, launched over email and through the social networking websites, Facebook and Twitter, encourage Zimbabweans to hold peaceful marches calling for Mugabe to step down. The ‘Zimbabwe Million Citizen March’ was launched a week ago, and calls for a mass protest next Tuesday under the theme ‘Power in numbers to remove dictatorship’.

A heated debate is raging in Tunisia over the creation of a special body to monitor the current government. A group of 28 parties and organisations of various political hues on 15 February called for the establishment of the National Council for the Protection of the Revolution, 'in dedication to the principles of the revolution, so as to counter all attempts to abort the revolution and shove the country into a state of vacuum'.

Recent Wikileaks cable releases reveal why the US continues to crush democracy in Haiti.

In the wake of the Berlusconi scandal, leaders offer advice to the Italian premier.

I wake to the news
of Egyptian unrest
on calls for freedom
and democracy…

The creation of a new department of anthropology, linguistics and gender studies at the University of Cape Town poses a number of disquieting challenges for the political and intellectual project of the African Gender Institute.

A common message through the uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East is that leaders must serve the interests of the people or quit, writes Cameron Duodu.

As the extraordinary events within North Africa and the Middle East continue, Philo Ikonya stresses that genuine support for people’s freedom around the world must increase.

Following the passing of Anthony Enahoro, Okachikwu Dibia salutes his thinking around Nigeria’s composition and laments the disingenuous public well-wishing of friends happy to reject his ideas.

Malawi’s security forces blocked a demonstration against fuel shortages on 14 February and arrested organisers of the protest, reports Bloomberg. Mavuto Bamusi, the national coordinator for the Human Rights Consultative Committee, was among those detained, Deputy Commissioner of Police Innocent Botomani told reporters in the capital, Lilongwe.

The London Guardian has established an interactive map that syncs with Twitter feeds relevant to protests currently prevalent in the region. The page makes it possible to click on a region, following which the relevant Tweets for that country show up.

The supply of water is often said to be this century’s greatest challenge, and with good reason. However, in many parts of the world it is the lack of adequate sanitation and safe hygiene practices that remain the most ubiquitous threat to people’s health. Addressing this offers the chance to bring fundamental change to the lives of billions. This is no truer than in Sub-Saharan Africa where only 31 per cent of people have access to improved sanitation facilities, a number that falls to 24 per cent in rural areas.

Multiple pre-dawn explosions rocked opposition offices in oil-rich southern Nigeria, the latest in a wave of attacks ahead of April elections, police and the party said Monday (21 February). The explosions went off at the Labour Party campaign offices in Bayelsa, President Goodluck Jonathan’s home state.

A new issue of the Journal of Refugee Studies (vol. 24, no. 1, March 2011) has just been published. It includes the following articles:
- Laws, Policies, or Social Position? Capabilities and the Determinants of Effective Protection in Four African Cities.
- Refugee Camp Security: Decreasing Vulnerability Through Demographic Controls.
- ‘Let Me Go to the City’: African Asylum Seekers, Racialization and the Politics of Space in Israel.

The annual meetings of Commonwealth women's ministers and officials began on Saturday 19 February in New York, with an assessment of the progress and challenges in implementing the Commonwealth's 10 year Plan of Action for Gender Equality. At the meeting, it was decided that regional groupings would play a bigger role in monitoring the Plan of Action. Dr Sylvia Anie, Director responsible for Gender at the Secretariat said: 'The formation of regional groups is an important development. Their observations will feed into the general monitoring of the Plan and the groups will hold their first meeting before June.'

The UN refugee agency said in Geneva on Tuesday it has become 'increasingly concerned' about the dangers for civilians inadvertently caught up in the mounting violence in Libya, especially asylum-seekers and refugees. 'We have no access at this time to the refugee community. Over the past months we have been trying to regularise our presence in Libya, and this has constrained our work,' Melissa Fleming, UNHCR's chief spokesperson, told journalists in Geneva.

Environmental activists are hopeful that negotiations at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to curb fisheries subsidies, especially those on fuel, can produce a deal that will help end overfishing. Agreement would not only help reverse the alarming depletion of global fish stocks and contribute to a broader trade deal in the WTO’s long-running Doha round, but would provide a template for tackling global problems such as climate change that have a trade dimension.

Morocco will address labour concerns and unemployment by providing 'solutions as quickly as possible', according to Communications Minister Khalid Naciri. 'The labour situation is worrying. Wages are still frozen at a time when prices are skyrocketing. Unemployment is rising. We must enter into serious discussions. As unions, our role is to prevent the country from getting into difficult situations,' said Abdelhak Azzouzi, General Secretary of the Democratic Labour Federation.

Twenty four per cent of adults living in urban centres are now using the internet, according to the latest Zimbabwe All Media Products and Services Survey (ZAMPS). The figure represents a two per cent increase in the last three months alone.

Ivorian security forces killed at least three civilians when they opened fire to disperse gatherings in an Abidjan district on Sunday, and African leaders ended meetings to resolve a three-month post-election stand-off. There were no organised protests, but security forces fired bursts of live rounds to prevent groups from forming.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has backed calls for reform of the media law in Rwanda following the ruling of the High Court in Kigali which sentenced the editor and a journalist of the private newspaper, Umurabyo, to lengthy jail terms for 'ethnic discrimination, genocide ideology, defamation and inciting civil disobedience'. 'The need for reforming the Rwandan media law to decriminalize press offences is urgent in the light of this harsh ruling against the two journalists,' said Gabriel Baglo, Director of IFJ Africa Office.

The Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) has found major IMF lapses in judgement before the financial crisis, including the promotion of 'light-touch regulation', casting doubt on the Fund's ability to contribute to taming global finance. As the banking crisis has been transformed into crises of public finance, and while the financial sector returns to business as usual, the IMF has grown increasingly vocal about the insufficient attention being paid to regulation and reform.

Closing arguments in a civil case initiated by foreign nationals seeking compensation from the state for damages suffered during the May 2008 xenophobic attacks were heard in the Western Cape High Court last Thursday. A group of 11 Somali, Ethiopian and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) nationals are suing the Safety and Security Ministry, claiming police did not protect them during the 2008 attacks.

Recently released global data by UNAids points to enormous progress in preventing and treating HIV. More people than ever before now live with HIV as a chronic disease, rather than dying from it, because they are getting antiretroviral treatment. Kenya is a good example. Over the past year, the number of people taking the drugs has risen by 25 per cent. But a central issue has been absent from the debate. The optimistic ?gures gloss over the enormous pain su?ered by millions of HIV patients - needless su?ering that can be prevented.

The ANC is a 'complete mess' and its young cadres have no interest in history, but simply want access to jobs and personal enrichment, according to a United States embassy cable obtained by City Press through the whistleblower website WikiLeaks. According to the cable, the ANC's Gauteng spokesperson Dumisa Ntuli told a US diplomat that crippling divisions were plaguing the ruling party.

Despite opposition from Ethiopia's president and environmental authorities, a rainforest area providing livelihood to an indigenous people has been leased out to make tea plantations. In a rare move, the Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia (SMNE) has been able to acquire government documents describing the struggle of the Mazenger and other indigenous people to protect their ancient forest-covered lands along tributaries to the White Nile.

'Since the beginning of this year, we have been aware of several online ‘corrective rape’ petitions and campaigns. We have made a deliberate decision not to sign or endorse these petitions. Our position and core concerns regarding these campaigns are as follows. The public exposure of bruised and battered faces and bodies of survivors is unethical and sensationalist. Many seem to assume that these petitions have been driven at least in part by survivors themselves. If you read carefully through the online petitions and the articles associated with these campaigns, you will find that the voices of survivors are largely absent. Once again black women in Africa are being cast as voiceless victims, as voiceless faces. No consideration seems to be given to the wide-ranging emotional and social impact that this kind of global and local exposure might have on survivors. The harm that this kind of sensationalist exposure is likely to have on survivors, their families and extended networks seems to have been overlooked.'

Women writers are coming into their own in African contemporary literature, dominating the shortlist - with nine out of 12 - for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize 2011 for best book and best first book from Africa. According to South Africa-based editor and writer Helen Moffet, a new generation of African women writers is dabbling in a gamut of subjects like chick lit for the educated working women, thrillers, crime, humour, women's issues and social realities.

While aesthetic standards are slowly shifting and some women refuse the destructive practice of forcing weight gain, traditionally in Mauritania a plump figure on a woman signifies wealth and well-being. For generations families force-fed their daughters litres of cow’s or camel’s milk daily in part to improve their marriage prospects. But in recent years, despite health warnings, some girls and women are voluntarily turning to other methods, like taking cortisone products - including one designed to make cattle gain weight; appetite-inducing syrups; and psychotropic medicines.

Murdered gay rights activist David Kato was mocked at a UN-backed debate on Uganda's anti-homosexuality bill, according to a US diplomat in Kampala in a leaked American embassy cable. The diplomat said Kato, who was bludgeoned to death near his home in the capital, Kampala, last month, delivered a well-written speech against the bill, but his words were almost inaudible due to 'his evident nervousness'. Throughout his talk a member of the Ugandan Human Rights Commission 'openly joked and snickered' with supporters of the bill, the diplomat claimed in the cable.