There is no threat, sanctions lead to war and war leads to welfare cuts: These are three of the 10 reasons advanced by the website against possible war against Iran by Western powers.

Ghana’s President John Atta Mills on 25 January announced a cabinet reshuffle that saw two ministers - Health minister Joseph Yieleh Chireh and Information minister John Tia – lose their jobs. The reshuffle had been speculated about over the past several months following revelations that a leading member of the ruling National Democratic Congress had been awarded millions of dollars in court-approved debt payments that went against the government.

Reporters Without Borders says it welcomes blogger Maikel Nabil Sanad's release late on 25 January under an amnesty announced on 21 January for around 2,000 civilians who had been convicted by military courts during the past year. Sanad, who had been detained for 10 months on a charge of insulting the armed forces, was freed from Cairo's Tora prison late in the afternoon.

The Tanzanian government has indicated it was bowing to pressure from medical doctors in public hospitals, who have been on strike to press for improved working conditions. Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda has appealed to the doctors to resume work, underlining his readiness to meet with their representatives in order to work out a lasting solution to their grievances.

Sudan air force on Monday 23 January bombed Elfoj refugee camp in South Sudan’s Upper Nile state, leaving 14 civilians missing and injuring another, the UN said, raising the already high tensions between the two countries. 'The aerial bombing occurred just after 10am local time in Elfoj in South Sudan’s Upper Nile state,' the UN High Commissioner for refugees said in a statement.

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) has highlighted the recent death of two activists. Political activist Mohamed Jamal, member of a coalition of committees defending the revolution, was found bleeding from a stab wound on 21 January and died of his injuries. Meanwhile, political activist Karim Abo Zed, member of the revolution coalition in Algharbya governorate, died on the same day in a mysterious accident on the desert road, said ANHRI.

Oxfam seeks to expand its capacity to hold global multi-lateral institutions and African States accountable to the claims of people living in poverty, suffering and injustice in the African countries we work in. The Pan Africa Programme is a continental public policy advocacy programme with staff in based Nairobi, Hague, Addis Ababa and Dakar. Together with the State of the Union coalition (www.stateoftheunionafrica.net) , we are looking to fill seven exciting vacancies based in Nairobi. Are you ready to act with poor people and their allies to make claims on the global and African policy processes? Are you committed to holding African States accountable to their own decisions within the African Union? We are looking for people like you to fill a total of seven positions. The first three positions will form the Nairobi based secretariat of newly established State of the Union coalition. The remaining four positions will be Oxfam staff working within the Pan Africa programme office in Nairobi, Kenya.

To thousands of Egyptian revolutionaries, Khadiga Hennawi is mother, says this article on Hennawi, who started out bringing food to protestors camped in the historic square, earned the moniker 'the Mother of Tahrir' by taking care of younger activists, often offering refuge at her home from attacks by security forces. The fifty-nine-year-old divorcee has become a figurehead of the struggle for freedom and democracy.

Kenya has been urged to continue providing refuge to Somalis fleeing violence and hunger in their homeland, a US State Department official said. 'We continue to rely on and advocate strongly for the protection of Somalis inside Kenya, that they should not be sent back into Somalia in order to create some sort of a buffer zone,' declared David Robinson, acting assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration. Mr Robinson spoke at a press briefing in Washington Tuesday on the status of the food crisis in Kenya and elsewhere in the Horn of Africa.

Kenya's Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta and Head of Public Service and Secretary to the Cabinet Francis Muthaura step aside from office after ICC pre-trial Judges confirmed charges levelled against them. Mr Kenyatta will however retain his post as Deputy Prime Minister. President Kibaki accepted the decision of the two to step aside and appointed Nairobi Metropolitan Minister Njeru Githae to act as Finance Minister. Internal Security Permanent Secretary Francis Kimemia also takes over Mr Muthaura's duties on an acting capacity.

The press freedom watchdog, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), Tuesday 24 January condemned the killing of Nigerian journalist, Enenche Akogwu, in Kano, northern Nigeria. According to IFJ, Enenche, a reporter with the privately-owned Channels Television station, was gunned down on Friday, 20 January. 'We condemn this latest killing which shows that journalists in Nigeria need adequate protection in the face of increasing risks,' Gabriel Baglo, the IFJ Africa Director, was quoted as saying.

Fighters loyal to Libya's overthrown leader Muammar Gaddafi took control of a town south-east of the capital on Monday, flying their green flags in defiance of the country's fragile new government. The fightback by Gaddafi supporters defeated in Libya's civil war, though unlikely to spread elsewhere, added to the problems besetting a government which in the past week has been reeling from one crisis to another. Gaddafi himself was captured and killed in October after weeks on the run.

Angola's state-owned oil company Sonangol EP and some of the African country's banks are interested in stakes in Portuguese companies, Angolan Economy Minister Abraao Gourgel said. Angolan companies and investors have been increasing their stakes in companies in Portugal, which last year became the third euro-region country to request a bailout from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. Sonangol owned 11.6 per cent of Banco Comercial Portugues, Portugal's second-biggest publicly traded bank in terms of market value, as of last June. Isabel dos Santos, daughter of Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, owned 10 per cent of Portugal's Banco BPI SA and 10 percent of Zon Multimedia SGPS SA , Portugal's biggest cable television operator. Angola is Africa's second-biggest oil producer.

A Rwandan man has been deported from Canada to Kigali where he faces charges of helping to incite the 1994 genocide. Leon Mugesera has been fighting deportation for 16 years with a series of appeals, even after the Canadian Supreme Court upheld the order in 2005. He faces charges in Rwanda of inciting genocide and crimes against humanity stemming from an incendiary anti-Tutsi speech he gave in 1992.

The International Criminal Court denied Monday that it had agreed that Seif al-Islam, slain Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi's most prominent son, can be tried in Libya. 'The ICC has made no decision on this matter,' court spokesman Fadi el-Abdallah told AFP in response to a claim by Libya's Justice Minister Ali H'mida Ashur that Seif would be judged by a Libyan court.

Mobile phone company Orange has struck a deal with Wikipedia to make its digital encyclopaedia available free of data charges to millions of mobile phone users across the Middle East and Africa. The free service will be launched in 20 markets across 2012, with a spokesman from Orange saying that the aim is to increase the proportion of 2G and 3G phones to 50% of customers by 2015.

The imprisoned former Liberian president Charles Taylor has categorically denied working as a United States spy and vows to sue the Boston Globe newspaper that made the revelation. Reacting to the publication through his Jamaican-born lawyer Courtenay Griffiths, Taylor said he has never worked or played any role on behalf of any US government intelligence agency in his 'personal capacity'.

Ethiopia, which is deemed an 'important regional security partner' by the US government and one of the largest recipients of US aid (over $1 billion a year since 2007), is forcibly relocating 70,000 people from Gambella to make land available for investment in agriculture. In doing this they are also aggravating current hunger while laying the groundwork for future famine in Ethiopia, as people are losing their livelihoods and being moved to areas where they cannot readily feed themselves.

Parliament should prioritize abolishing repressive legislation over creating a new constitution, said Mohamed ElBaradei, former presidential hopeful. On Twitter, he said that 'the focus should be on achieving independence for the judiciary and the media, restructuring security and revitalizing the economy.' ElBaradei said dialogue among the revolutionaries, MPs, the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) and the government was key to achieving national consensus.

The IMF has issued a blunt warning that unless the European economic crisis is resolved, the global economy faces another 1930s style ‘Great Depression’ which would negatively affect frontier markets including Nigeria. This followed the failure of European finance ministers to reach a restructuring agreement with private holders of Greek debt Monday night. If Greece does not put itself in a position to receive aid funding by the end of March, it will suffer a disorderly default on its debt. A drop in global demand would affect Nigeria negatively, as the country depends almost exclusively on oil sales to fund more than 90 per cent of its budget and Foreign Exchange earnings.