The effort by three of Africa’s economic communities to form a combined free trade area from Cape to Cairo involving up to 700 million people will gather momentum next month when their representatives meet in South Africa for their second tripartite summit. The combined free trade area is envisaged to unlock large cross-border infrastructure for communications, roads, rail, marine ports and air development to facilitate trade, while citizens will be able to travel freely and their skills shared by member countries.

Zimbabwe's defence minister has said the army will crush any Egyptian-style uprising led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. The latter said last week that there is nothing wrong with people demanding their rights, including in Zimbabwe. 'We in Zanu PF (Mugabe’s party, ed.) are determined to make sure that there is peace,' defence minister Emmerson Mnangagwa said to military commanders in the weekend. 'Those who may want to emulate what happened in Tunisia or what is happening in Egypt will regret it because we will not allow any chaos in this country,' Mnangagwa said.

Days after the global elite's jamboree at the Swiss resort of Davos, a week-long carnival of the oppressed and the marginalised, and those speaking for them, has begun in the capital of this western African nation, with thousands of left-leaning activists declaiming against globalisation and its discontents. The debates will revolve around resistance and struggles of the peoples of Africa for sustainable development as the continent zooms back into global focus, with some of African economies doing better than the developed world. 'The marginalisation of Africa is an important theme at the forum. Land grabs have put the focus back on issues of social justice,' Sanusha Naidu, a South African of Indian origin, who heads Emerging Powers in Africa programme at Fahamu, a global NGO, told IANS.

A low-cost maternal ultrasound system that began as a class project by a group of college students at the University of Washington in Seattle is to be tested by midwives in Uganda, a country with one of the world's highest maternal mortality rates. Around 10 Ugandan midwives will be selected to participate in the field test project. The experiment will evaluate whether the device matches the midwives' needs and skills. The device is designed to enable midwives to detect conditions that can complicate pregnancies and birth.

In parts of Madagascar's drought-prone south people have resorted to eating cattle-feed, as successive years of crop failures and the current lean season give food insecurity a firmer grip on the region. 'For some time now people have been changing their eating habits, with many eating red cactus that is usually given to cattle, or tamarind mixed with water and earth,' said Harinesy Rajeriharineranio, southern Madagascar coordinator for Actions Socio-Sanitaire et Organisation Secours (ASOS), an NGO focused on health and sanitation, based in the southeastern city of Fort Dauphin.

A radical Muslim sect responsible for killings across northeastern Nigeria demanded on Monday (6 February) that troops withdraw from the troubled region and that the government rebuild destroyed mosques. A spokesperson for the sect, known locally as Boko Haram, issued the demand after the group recently claimed responsibility for killing seven people, including the dominant gubernatorial candidate in Borno state.

The US has followed Germany's footsteps to withhold about $350 million that was supposed to be disbursed to Malawi this month through the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). Last month, US Government announced that Malawi had qualified for the $350 million grant to improve the energy sector. The signing of the same was supposed to take place mid February in Washington. However, Washington has put a plug to the whole process citing Malawi’s failure to observe governance and human rights issues.

Namibian President Hifikepunye Pohamba has publicly expressed frustration at the slow pace of the country's land redistribution programme, a process which he urged government to swiftly address. Pohamba told the country's first cabinet session in 2011 that the largely discredited willing buyer willing seller principle had been a failure and implored the Ministry of Lands and Resettlement to speedily finalise the Consolidated Draft Land Bill and the implementation of small scale farming projects.

The inland Niger delta of Mali is a unique wetland ecosystem that supports a million farmers, fishermen, and herders and a rich diversity of wildlife. But now, the country’s president and Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi have begun a major agricultural project that will divert much of the river’s water and threaten the delta’s future.

The African Union (AU) Friday called for 'appropriate reforms' in Egypt, where protesters have been pushing for President Hosni Mubarak's exit from power. In a statement made available to PANA, AU Commission Chairperson Jean Ping expressed regret at the continuing violent protests, which entered its 11th day Friday. He said the Egyptian authorities must institute appropriate reforms and respond to the needs of the protesters, while expressing concern at the violent protests and loss of lives.

The purpose of this research paper from the South Centre is to describe, above all, a negotiating process which many have described as historical. More than an analysis on the subject of public health and intellectual property, this is an analysis of a negotiating process which could change the course and the nature of an organisation such as the WHO. It is still too early to say whether this was achieved are not, but we are starting to write a chapter in the history of public health in the 21st century.

The world is in financial crisis thanks to the reckless behaviour of bankers, say campaigners, yet ordinary people are picking up the tab. Debt activists fear the recession will provide cover for a fresh round of toxic debt to countries in the South. Nick Dearden, director of the Jubilee Debt Campaign, an international coalition of about 200 organisations, says there has never been a more important time for activists to meet to discuss collaboration and strategies to bring about real change to the world's economy than now.

South African based refugee rights group, PASSOP, has accused the Zimbabwean government of robbing its citizens in South Africa, where more than a hundred thousand Zim nationals are still waiting for passports. Zimbabweans who have applied for permits to remain in South Africa legally are still waiting for their government to issue them passports so they can get the permits. But the Zim authorities have not made good on their promises to roll out the documents, even shunning meetings with civil society to explain the delay.

As the government prepares for round two of the shuttle diplomacy in its efforts to seek deferral of the ICC case, a debate is raging on the implications of the move, reports the Daily Nation. And in the raging debate, there is a view that the country is slowly reclaiming its sovereignty and a counter argument that the move is seriously hurting Kenya’s image in the international community.

Zimbabwe's main rival political parties on Saturday condemned a spate of violent clashes among their supporters, which Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai blames on President Robert Mugabe's youth brigades. In the last two weeks, Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has traded accusations with Mugabe's ZANU-PF party over attacks on some MDC members in townships around the capital Harare, including the burning down of a satellite party office.

To call the ongoing people’s revolts in Tunisia and Egypt Facebook revolutions is certainly overstating the case. In both countries, the time was ripe for revolution and social upheaval. Poverty, repression and hopelessness were enforced by greedy US-supported despots who were deaf to the needs of their people. But there is little doubt that the recent street-protest revolts in Tunis and Cairo were assisted by new social media: Facebookers, tweeters and a new generation of Internet bloggers.

Sonke's Policy, Advocacy and Research Unit and the WHO's Department of Women, Gender and Health invites applications for a 2-day training on Engaging men and boys to achieve gender equality and health equity, taking place from 24-25 February 2011 in Pretoria.

South Africa is preparing to take HIV testing into the classroom as part of its national voluntary HIV testing and counselling (VCT) campaign, but testing kids is controversial and implementing the programme is fraught with challenges – just ask those already doing it. Government departments, together with the South African National AIDS Council, are holding nationwide consultative meetings with members of the education, children's rights and HIV sectors to formulate a national policy for school-based HIV testing, as well as guidelines and recommendations for the country’s nine provinces.

The Nigerian government refused to discuss a prisoner transfer agreement with Britain unless the Crown Prosecution Service dropped corruption charges against a favoured member of the ruling party, leaked documents disclose. Britain is keen to secure an agreement allowing the transfer of more than 400 prisoners back to Nigeria. But talks over the agreement stalled after Britain refused to drop charges against James Ibori, a member of the ruling People's Democratic Party, who is accused of stealing more than £196m of state funds and channelling 'dirty money' to Britain, report the Daily Telegraph.

The true scale of the theft of overseas aid money by corrupt foreign regimes is disclosed in leaked documents obtained by The Daily Telegraph. Tens of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money has been pocketed by their ministers and officials, much of it used to buy luxury goods. In one of the worst cases, £1.2million given to Sierra Leone by the Department for International Development (DfID) to 'support peacekeeping' was stolen by the country’s 'top brass' and spent on plasma television sets, hunting rifles and other consumer items.