The Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) and Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE) have condemned US Representative Chris Smith’s recent trip to Kenya, where he attacked the country’s new constitution and opened a new front in the international offensive of his war on women. Smith spoke under the guise of human rights at the Kenya Christian Professionals Forum. He condemned the new Kenyan constitution’s decriminalisation of abortion in emergency situations or to protect the life or health of the pregnant woman, telling audience members that 'we need a world that is free of abortion'.

Many State parties to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) assert that they cannot fully implement the Convention because it is in conflict with Shari‘ah, or family laws and practices based on the Qur’an. This research project on CEDAW examined the reports of 44 Muslim majority and significant minority countries (2005-2010) that justify not implementing portions of the treaty based on these perceived conflicts.

The state-controlled trade union federation that for over half a century was employed by Egyptian rulers to suppress workers' protests and mobilise voters for sham elections appears to be crumbling with the recent ouster of president Hosni Mubarak. 'There is a movement against state control of unions,' says Mohamed Trabelsi, a regional specialist on union activities at the International Labour Organisation (ILO). 'You now have many strikes and labour protests in Egypt, and workers in many sectors have started to organise and form free and independent unions.'

Civil society organisations want to see government taking a firmer stand to stop antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) from being smuggled onto the black market. Government needs to take the theft of anti-retroviral drugs or ARVs seriously as people’s lives are at risk. This is according to the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and the National Association of People Living with AIDS (NAPWA). Many HIV-positive people are now afraid to go fetch their treatment from public health facilities for fear of being victims of people stealing their medicine.

Despite improvements in Southern Africa’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2010 compared to 2009, job creation and poverty reduction remain limited. Charles Dan, a representative of the International Labour Organisation expressed this view at a meeting in Windhoek of Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) ministers responsible for labour. He said that GDP for Southern Africa as a whole has improved in 2010, up from negative one per cent in 2009 to 3.7 per cent in 2010. He said the real test of recovery should not be whether the economy in aggregate is back on track but whether there are concrete signs of improvement in the labour market.

reports on media freedom in Botswana, which it says has been 'steadily eroded' over the last decade. 'The controversial Media Practitioners Act, passed in 2008, calls for all media practitioners to register with the press council, while simultaneously defining a media practitioner as anyone who transmits information. Civil society groups have filed a law suit against the state, but it has yet to have its day in court.'

Nigeria may have foreclosed any plans to explore nuclear energy as an alternative source of electricity power generation. Minister of state for power, Nuhu Wya, who gave this hint in Lagos, said the country would explore other means of power generation in which it has comparative advantage. Following the earthquake in Japan, global concern has been raised about the dangers of nuclear plants, especially for developing countries like Nigeria.

'At times shocking, sometimes heart-warming', a new collection of stories compiled by author Sarah Forde, takes us into the worlds of nine teenage girls in Kenya's Kilifi district as they face the challenges of adolescence.

Developing countries must be given all the scientific, technical and legal help they need to counter the growing trade in fake medicines, says One estimate suggests that in some regions at least a third of the drugs supplied to patients are counterfeit. Detecting and identifying counterfeit drugs has become a major scientific and technical challenge for developing countries, and its urgency is becoming ever more widely recognised.

Egypt's ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces should drop all charges against a blogger for his internet posts critical of the military, Human Rights Watch has said. A military tribunal is expected to deliver the verdict in the case against Maikel Nabil, who faces up to three years in prison on charges of 'insulting the military'. 'It's pretty stunning in Egypt's supposed new era of rights to see the military government prosecuting someone in a military court for writing about the military,' said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch.

Another delay in court has infuriated gay rights groups in Shirley Phangisa’s rape case which has been pending for over two years now in Nelspruit’s Magistrate Court. Phangisa will only know on 6 April 2011 when the next court date will be, as the case was postponed on 1 April 2011 after the defence lawyer told the court that he had double booked himself and could not represent the accused.

The main purpose of this United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) report is to highlight the impact and effectiveness of the participation of CSOs and NGOs in promoting development and governance in Africa. The report draws mainly from case studies in three African countries, namely, Mali, Senegal and Uganda.

The Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) has issued its third annual report on the state of human rights in the Arab world in 2010, with a special focus on 12 countries: Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Sudan, Syria, Lebanon, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Iraq, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Yemen. The report is entitled 'Roots of Unrest and reveals that one of the primary roots of unrest in the Arab world is a large-scale deterioration in the state of human rights, even in those countries that were, or still are, characterised by a level of ostensible political 'stability'.

High Court Judge Justice Nicholas Ndou on Thursday 31 March 2011 quashed Magistrate Gideon Ruwetsa’s ruling denying bail to Bulawayo resident Vikas Mavhudzi, who is charged with subverting a government by unconstitutional means. Ruwetsa had on Wednesday 16 March 2011 denied bail to the 39 year-old Magwegwe resident, who is facing charges of subverting a government by unconstitutional means over a comment he allegedly made on Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s facebook page.

An Egyptian panel formed to uncover illicit gains acquired during the rule of deposed President Hosni Mubarak, will question his younger son about corruption, the state news agency said on Tuesday. Gamal Mubarak held a leading post in Egypt's former ruling party. A widely-held belief that he was being groomed for the presidency helped galvanise opposition that toppled him.

A search is under way for 150 migrants missing in the Mediterranean after their boat capsized in rough seas near the Italian isle of Lampedusa. Italian rescue vessels and a helicopter have saved 48 refugees from the boat, which had been carrying about 200.

Seventy six countries around the world criminalize homosexuality, maintaining severe punishments for consensual sexual activity between adults of the same sex, says this abstract from the Journal for International Law. While political asylum may offer hope of refuge and protection, the asylum process has many problems, especially for those individuals applying for refugee status on the basis of sexual orientation.

About 34,000 southern Sudanese have fled their homes after tribal clashes over land, water and cattle in recent weeks, a humanitarian official said, adding to southern troubles before independence in July. The oil-rich south voted overwhelmingly to separate from the north in a January referendum, promised as part of a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war in Sudan. At least two million died in the war, which destabilised much of the region.

Around 800 farmers protested Friday (1 April) against a government decision to seize land from a village in Gezira state, Sudan's agricultural heartland, without compensating the owners, witnesses said. After Friday prayers in the village of Fudasi, around 160 kilometres south of Khartoum, 800 demonstrators marched to the land that was appropriated by the government to build a university college.

A row has broken out about the infant mortality rate in Cape Town, following claims from the Democratic Alliance that they are responsible for a decrease. But critics from the Treatment Action Campaign and Social Justice Coalition have slammed the claims. 'The Democratic Alliance claims that it is responsible for a significant drop in infant deaths. It also makes much of the fact that the City of Cape Town has a much lower infant death rate than the rest of South Africa. This is both misleading and false,' say the blog Writing Rights. 'It is misleading because even under apartheid, the City of Cape Town had lower infant mortality than the homeland of KwaZulu and most other cities in the country. Historically health care is better in Johannesburg and Cape Town than elsewhere because of apartheid. It is false because any significant drop in infant mortality in Cape Town in the last decade, took place before the DA came to power.'