Skeletal academic activity enveloped Tanzania's public universities Thursday as lecturers joined a strike to press for better retirement benefits from the government. While the government remained silent about the strike, a meeting of seven public higher learning institutions held here has agreed to go ahead with the strike.

Slowly by slowly and amidst controversy the loop against corruption in Tanzania’s elections is becoming tighter as the new Elections Expenses Act 2009 becomes operational. The Act which was controversially tabled in December 2009 and approved in February 2010 seeks to control the use of funds and curb illegal practices in the nomination process, election campaigns and elections processes.

Tanzania has taken ‘the bold and commendable decision to offer citizenship to 162,000 Burundian refugees who fled their country in 1972’, writes Lucy Hovil. But, warns Hovil, it seems premature to refer to the refugees as ‘citizens’, as recent telephone interviews with them suggest that they are ‘neither allowed freedom of movement, nor the security of having the necessary and vital documentation to prove their new status’.

Tanzania is deporting 57 Somali migrants who illegally entered that country last month, officials said. The migrants who were fleeing from the war in Somalia are mostly youth and included six children, officials said.

Tanzania's business community has rejected the government's suggestion to raise minimum wages in the private sector by 100 percent, saying it is unpayable. Employment, Labour and Youth Development Minister Juma Kapuya early this week an nounced that the government and stakeholders in the labour sector had agreed to the hike, but the business community's reaction has not been in favour of the move because it would hurt private enterp rises.