In a distinct echo of the tactics they pursued to encourage US intervention in the Balkans and Iraq, a familiar clutch of neo-conservatives appealed Friday for the United States and NATO to 'immediately' prepare military action to help bring down the regime of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and end the violence that is believed to have killed well over a thousand people in the past week.

Anti-government protesters, who have taken to the streets of Khartoum and other Sudanese cities over recent weeks, run the risk of sexual assault, torture and detention, say human rights workers and demonstrators. 'We confirmed five cases of women who were sexually assaulted during or after the protests,' said Rania Rajji, Amnesty International’s Sudan researcher, adding that there had also been cases of torture, and injured people being denied medical care while in detention. According to Amnesty, some 60 people who took part in protests are in the custody of security forces.

Most Swazis go to traditional healers if they feel ill, but in a country with the world’s highest HIV prevalence rate healers are struggling to cope. Thabile Xaba, 37, a healer who has been diagnosed HIV-positive at a clinic, told IRIN about her experiences. 'I was almost done with high school when our traditional healer told me the ancestral spirits wanted me to become a healer. He did this by reading the "bones", which is what I can now do too. A person who is chosen must agree or there will be misfortune, like an illness will strike you. You must accept your fate. It is like being chosen as one of the king’s wives. You accept it.'

Burundi has became the sixth country to sign a new draft agreement on the management of the River Nile, ending nearly 12 months of doubts about the future of the agreement and of the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI). The NBI is a regional partnership that seeks the best ways of developing the continent’s longest river. Burundi’s decision to sign the agreement now leaves DR Congo, Egypt and Sudan as the only countries yet to do so.

SECTION27 and the TAC have welcomed the proposed increases in health expenditure outlined in the budget tabled by Minister of Finance Pravin Gordhan on 23 February 2011. 'However, we are concerned that the additional R11 billion available for 2011/12 will not necessarily translate into improvements in the delivery of health care services in the absence of a reasonable plan to address endemic and systemic problems with budgeting and expenditure within health departments at all spheres of government,' said a statement.

Idasa's submission to February’s National Climate Change Response Green Paper, on behalf of the Electricity Governance Initiative of South Africa (EGI-SA) which it co-ordinates, has pointed out that the challenges of climate change need different approaches to development than in the past, and may require difficult tradeoffs. Idasa stresses the importance of transparent, accountable and inclusive processes to work through such trade-offs.

Kenya Female Advisory Organisation (KEFEADO) in partnership with the Urgent Action Fund – Africa are pleased to announce a new grant to support undergraduate and masters women students in Kenyan universities who are in the final stages of their dissertation work. The Dolphine Okech Writing Grant (DOWG) seeks to facilitate rigorous engagement of undergraduate and masters students in research, strengthen their research skills, and provide the fellows an opportunity for timely completion of their dissertations.

'The 2011/12 budget tabled this afternoon by Minister Pravin Gordhan represents continuity in Government’s approach to economic policy to economic development. Great emphasis is placed on "macro-economic stability", fiscal prudence and monetary policy directed to keeping inlation within the 3 – 6 per cent band. Yet, these orthodoxies of economic policy is precisely what has hampered an effective response to the tremendous socio-economic challenges confronting our society and contradict the idea that South Africa has entered a New Growth Path.'

The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights should impose immediate measures on the Libyan government to end the massive human rights abuses occurring throughout the country, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), Human Rights Watch, and INTERIGHTS have said. The three human rights organisations submitted a joint request to the commission on 24 February 2011, asking it to act on Libya during its meeting in Banjul, Gambia, which began on 23 February.

Opposition groups in Cameroon organised protests on Wednesday, 23 February 2011 to call for President Paul Biya to leave office. President Paul Biya, who is running for re-election later this year, has been in power for 28 years. Paul Biya's Special Intervention Brigade crushed the protest with brute force. Global Voices issues this report on how the police responded.

There is growing condemnation of the ongoing detention of a group of activists in Zimbabwe, arrested almost a week ago for watching TV footage of the revolution in Egypt. Former MDC MP Munyaradzi Gwisai, and 44 other activists, will spend the weekend behind bars after their case was postponed until next Monday. They were this week charged with treason for watching the footage of events in Egypt and Tunisia, which led to the fall of the governments in those countries. Local and international rights groups are calling for the immediate release of the activists, condemning their detention and their treatment at the hands of state security agents.

The planned resumption of mass protests in Djibouti this weekend was hindered by massive police presence in the capital and arrests of about 300 opposition and civil society leaders. Friday 18 February saw an estimated 30,000 Djiboutians protesting in central Djibouti City.

Unversed in Burundi's official languages of French and Kirundi, children of refugees returning after decades spent in Anglophone countries, such as neighbouring Tanzania, often find it difficult to continue their studies and some drop out. To ensure such students continue learning, a group of returnee teachers has set up an education centre in the commune of Mabanda in Makamba Province, near Tanzania. The teachers work without pay.

Lindiwe Zono is a member of the Phadima Agricultural Association in the Sekhukhune District of Limpopo province, in northwestern South Africa. The association has started a seed bank to preserve and increase their supply of traditional food plants, reports Farm Radio Weekly. Zono says that seed saving was once an almost sacred duty among the Pedi, the largest ethnic group in the province. The seed bank builds on this tradition. It aims to make use of and promote traditional crops such as sorghum, millet, cowpeas, maize, and pumpkin. It began in 2000 and covers seven villages.

The Arab revolt fever could be spreading across the southern African region with Zambia, Angola, Zimbabwe and Swaziland reportedly on the edge over a possible mass protests. And the leaders of those countries are not taking chances. They have openly warned against any kind of revolt.

Fears of Prime Minister Raila Odinga ascending to the presidency after the 2007 general election by close confidantes of President Kibaki have been revealed in a diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks, reports the Daily Nation. A Cabinet minister warned a US embassy official that Mr Odinga was likely to turn into a dictator if he won the hotly disputed general election.

ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema has taken a thinly veiled swipe at President Jacob Zuma and the Gupta family, saying the youth must protect the ANC from being used by 'families' to enrich themselves. Speaking at the launch of the ANC's municipal elections manifesto, at the Royal Bafokeng stadium, in Rustenburg, Malema drew huge applause when he said democracy was not for people who exploited the resources of the country to enrich themselves in the name of freedom.

The Women Peacemakers Program-Africa (WPP-A) is organising a Movement building and Gender-sensitive Active Nonviolence training to build the capacities of 26 heads of organisations from conflict and post-conflict fragile states in Africa, notably Kenya, Nigeria, Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea, Uganda, Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia, Congo DRC, Burundi, Rwanda, Zimbabwe and Madagascar. The training is to be held in Accra, Ghana from 28 March to 1 April 2011.

'We, actors in the field of alternative information as well as citizen activists who use communication as a tool for social transformation:
Note that, in a global context:
- information is held in a stranglehold by political, economic and industrial forces and is manipulated by the governments and States;
- freedom of expression is being denied, thwarted or repressed;
- there is little or no guarantee for an unfettered access to information for all citizens;
- a violent repression is unleashed upon citizens and actors in the field of information;
- information is being commodified and standardized;
- there is an increasing distrust by public opinion regarding information conveyed by the mainstream media.'

The police have paraded a Tanzanian national; a key suspect in last year’s twin bomb blasts that killed more than 70 people in Kampala. Hijar Seleman Nyamadondo, 31, was paraded at the Rapid Response Unit (RRU) headquarters in Kireka amid tight security hours after he was extradited to Uganda by the Tanzanian authorities.