A week after the date of the revolution supposed to 'dethrone' Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos and his royal court, the situation in the country appears calm. It is as if there had never even been a call for revolution, reports Global Voices. The actions of the State contributed greatly to this. A preemptive manoeuvre involved putting troops at the ready and convened pro-MPLA rallies from Cabinda to Cunene.

African governments must ensure transparency and accountability in the management of natural resources, including oil, to generate revenue for growth through diversifying economies, a United Nations official told delegates at an industrial policy conference in Ghana. 'African leaders must have bold visions and good planning,' Kandeh K. Yumkella, the Director-General of the UN Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), told delegates attending the two-day conference in Accra entitled 'Competitiveness and Diversification: Strategic Challenges in a Petroleum-Rich Economy'.

A Nigerian militant group claimed responsibility for an attack on an Agip oil facility in the Niger Delta on Wednesday (16 March), but the military said it was an isolated incident carried out by local youths. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said in a statement emailed to media that its fighters had carried out the attack on the Clough Creek oil flow station late on Tuesday and warned of more strikes on energy infrastructure.

As the world discusses the protests and battles sweeping North Africa where is the African Union (AU)? asks Wangari Maathai. 'In discussing the situation in Libya, US president Barack Obama did include the AU in a list of partners for finding a solution. But, by and large, the voice of the AU has been faint and largely ignored by the international media. Surely the AU should have been among the first international organisations consulted as internal conflict engulfed AU member states in North Africa.'

'There is a critical need for greater investment to support agriculture and livestock production in the area. In particular, policies should promote the local production of food with improved nutritional value, especially among the poorest groups,' says a Save the Children briefing investigating why it is that a fertile and agriculturally productive region like the DRC that can produce a variety of foods is the very same region where child stunting has reached a staggering rate of 50 per cent.

A pensioner has been convicted of trafficking and exploiting an African woman she used as a slave. While it was the first prosecution of its kind, could there be many more cases behind the UK's front doors? Caroline Haughey, prosecuting, told Southwark Crown Court the Tanzanian woman, from her arrival in England, had been 'made to sleep, work and live in conditions that fall by any understanding into that of slavery.'

The European Union (EU) uses a plethora of policy instruments to protect its agricultural sector and to ensure that European farmers, despite having higher production costs, are still able to continue production for both the European and export markets. This paper from the South Centre provides a snapshot of these instruments and also gives an overview of the new instruments that are increasingly being used resulting from the on-going reforms in the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

Human rights activist Munyaradzi Gwisai and five others, detained on treason charges in Harare, were on Wednesday (16 March) granted bail, more than three weeks since their arrest. The group, who have been held in solitary confinement for more than a week, appeared in a Harare court on Wednesday for a bail hearing. The judge granted them US$2,000 bail each, with conditions to report three times a week to the police.

Responding to pressure from citizens, Morocco is taking steps to reform its human rights institutions. The Advisory Council on Human Rights (CCDH) will become the National Human Rights Council (CNDH), but it is more than just a change of name. The March 3rd royal decree boosts the independence of the council and creates regional authorities for protecting human rights.

The SIDENSI/IKM/ESAACH international interdisciplinary colloquium on traducture aims to create an intercultural dialogue on the significance of the dynamics of translation as a lever for knowledge management in international development and the question of power. Its purpose is to bring together translation and knowledge management practitioners and networks, researchers, policy makers, advocacy agents, academics, practitioners and end users to share insights, experiences, strategies, knowledge, techniques and the use of traducture, personnel, artefacts, tools and methodologies.

UNAIDS has released a new policy brief to help countries make intellectual property rights work for them, amid growing concern that an impending free trade agreement between the European Union (EU) and India could threaten the world's supply of generic antiretroviral (ARV) drugs. The UNAIDS brief, published on 15 March, noted that few developing countries had exercised this right and cited a lack of capacity to deal with the complicated legal paperwork required. Nevertheless, the flexibility afforded by TRIPS has brought increased competition, helping to lower the cost of first-line generic ARVs by as much as 99 per cent in the last decade.

The United States helped to investigate allegations and prepare corruption charges against a former Bank of Tanzania director of personnel and administration, Amatus Liyumba, according to leaked diplomatic cables. In the latest Dar es Salaam cables released by the whistle-blowing website, WikiLeaks, US deputy ambassador D. Purnell Delly revealed how a team of investigators from New York City’s Department of Investigation helped Tanzanian authorities to prepare the groundwork for the high profile prosecution two years ago.

When the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria suspended funding to Zambia in late 2010 it made international headlines and rocked donor confidence, but the stock-outs and drug rationing in the wake of the scandal have received little attention. In March 2009 a whistle blower's allegations of corruption in the Zambian Ministry of Health (MoH) triggered an investigation by the auditor general, and a web of corruption in the health sector began to unravel. The audit found that the largely donor-funded ministry could not account for more than US$7.2 million, about five per cent of which was estimated to have come from Global Fund coffers.

This paper from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights analyses Israel's response to a recent influx of African asylum seekers. Since early 2006 Israel has become a destination country for thousands of Africans who are willing to take a long and risky journey to Israel. As with other industrialised countries, Israel has responded with a range of exclusionary and at times contradictory policies which aim to control and limit entrance to its territory. Unlike other such countries, however, until very recently Israel did not have an asylum system, and its ongoing institutional evolution is partly a response to the recent influx.

A recent Constitutional Court judgment rendering the Communal Land Rights Act (CLARA) unconstitutional must not be allowed to throw decentralisation policy making into disarray, says this policy brief from Sindiso Mnisi of the Law, Race and Gender Research Unit at the University of Cape Town. 'Decentralisation holds much potential for lively, participatory democratic law making and enforcement, through which rural women can gain greater power and secure more rights. However, there are many challenges in the often fraught context of decentralised law and power.'

A major offensive by African Union troops in Somalia, in which dozens of peacekeepers from Burundi and Uganda were killed, reclaimed 'significant' territory from insurgents, an African Union envoy has said. Burundi has announced that at least 43 of its soldiers were killed, but Uganda has yet to acknowledge any deaths.

Zimbabwe police raided Harvest House, the headquarters of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) arresting five people whose charges are yet to be known. The MDC said 30 police officers besieged Harvest House at around 7pm on Sunday night (13 March) and arrested officials and youths who were at the headquarters. The party said the five arrested are still in police custody.

Grace Mwalabu lives in Chikalogwe, Balaka District, in southern Malawi. On a warm day, she stands smearing cucumber seeds on the outside wall of her kitchen. She explains, 'It is our tradition. I smear them one or two metres from the ground. The advantage is that the seeds dry quickly, do not rot and survive the dry season.' Hybrid seeds are popular in some areas of Malawi. They often yield more than local varieties. But they are expensive. Farmers need to buy them every year, so they are dependant on seed companies and distributors. They know that saving local seeds from harvest is cheaper and more reliable, reports Farm Radio Weekly.

When it comes to Zimbabwe, tough questions lie ahead, not just for South African foreign policymakers, but for the general South African public, says this article from Free African Media. Langton Miriyoga, a Zimbabwean national working for People Against Suffering, Oppression and Poverty, a community-based non-profit organisation, said: 'South Africans and Zimbabweans living in South Africa can and should do more to put pressure on the South African government to intervene more decisively and proactively to stop Mugabe’s human rights abuses.' He added that people in Zimbabwe are either too scared to do anything, fearing retribution, or have completely bought into the propaganda that there can be no Zimbabwe without the Zanu-PF.

This report from the Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa examines the impact of attempts to formalise street trading in the City of Durban since 2000 on the livelihood of traders, particularly female and migrant traders. 'Durban has been at the forefront of developing policies to manage and control informal economy activities; however, as the report notes, the effect of the push for formalisation is exclusionary and mimics the influx control regimes of the apartheid administration, which prevented black communities from pursuing business opportunities in central business districts,' says the abstract of the report.