A total of 27 people have died as a result of a cholera outbreak, the Health Ministry in Sierra Leone has declared. Over 1,000 cases have been recorded in three districts in the northern region of the country - Port Loko, Kambia and Pujenhun. Health ministry officials confirmed that those who have contracted the disease did so from drinking contaminated water.

On 24 February, at the same time as a British government backed meeting on the fate of Somalia was held, another conference conference was held under the sponsorship of the 'Friends of Syria' grouping. 'This initiative grew out of the failure of the US and other imperialist states to get the UN Security Council endorsement for a war against Syria,' says this article from Worker's World, which draws a parallel between the two meetings.

The Arab Spring uprisings last year brought no increase in the number of women in the region's parliaments, a UN report said Friday. At the end of 2011, women accounted for only 10.7 percent of lawmakers in Arab states, barely the same number as before the protests which brought down leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen.

Mozambique’s Finance Minister plans this year to increase State revenues in order to overcome the growing lack of funding from abroad, Minister Manuel Chang said. 'With that increase in revenue the aim is to establish conditions needed to reduce the budget deficit, increasing the contribution of domestic resources within the State Budget,' the Finance Minister said at the 19th National Public Spending Seminar.