It is now official that almost half of Tanzania’s public servants and politicians are yet to declare their wealth as required by the law. According to the 1995 public servants ethics code and act all public servants are required to declare their wealth 30 days within their election and appointment. Thereafter they are required to continue declaring their wealth annually.

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Prime Minister Raila Odinga has disowned the shuttle diplomacy spearheaded by Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka to seek the support of African Union to defer Kenya’s case at the International Criminal Court. Mr Odinga, at a news conference in Nairobi, said what Cabinet had agreed on was the referral of the cases involving the masterminds of the post-election violence suspects to the International Criminal Court and not to defer them.

The protest movement in Egypt has mobilised the young and the middle classes using the Internet and social networks in a challenge to the authorities that has seen both Twitter and Swedish video-streaming site Bambuser blocked. Mobile phones too were unable to get a signal on Tuesday in Tahrir Square in the centre of the capital Cairo, which has been a rallying point for thousands of protesters. Pro-democracy activists countered on Wednesday by disseminating technical advice to overcome these obstacles to enable the mobilisation to continue.

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The United Nations and the African Union will hold a high-level meeting in a few days to review efforts to achieve peace, security and reconciliation in strife-torn Somalia, which has been suffering through two decades of conflict and numerous humanitarian challenges. The meeting will be held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on the sidelines of the African Union Summit.

Consultations on the post-transitional government process in Somalia have started, and will involve all stakeholders and the international community, the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General to Somalia said. 'There was unanimous agreement, both inside and outside Somalia, that the transitional period has to end in August as envisaged under the Djibouti Peace Agreement,' Augustine Mahiga told a news conference in Nairobi. 'In the meantime, consultations are under way to develop a consensus on how to end the transition and on the nature of post-transition political arrangements.'

Alarmed by the increase in piracy, the United Nations has proposed the establishment - for a transitional period - of a Somali extra-territorial jurisdiction court in the Tanzanian city of Arusha to deal just with piracy cases. Jack Lang, the Special Adviser on Legal Issues related to Piracy, told reporters the estimated costs of setting up a court would be around 25 million dollars. This, he pointed out, was 'a relatively modest expense compared to the estimated seven billion dollars' that is the current cost of piracy, including the multi-million-dollar ransoms extracted by pirates in the high seas.

The government wants to focus on job creation, not spend time debating whether it is worthwhile creating jobs that do not meet certain standards, says Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant. Her comments reinforce those last week of African National Congress secretary-general Gwede Mantashe, who said demanding that new jobs should be decent was 'putting the cart before the horse' - a departure from President Jacob Zuma’s promise in 2009 that the 'creation of decent work will be at the centre of our economic policies'.

Gustave Massiah

Hany Besada

Samir Amin

An explosive WikiLeaks cable claims that spy boss and President Jacob Zuma confidante Mo Shaik threatened to expose the 'political skeletons' of Zuma’s enemies and reveals that he was cultivated by the Americans as a key informant within the Zuma camp. The fresh revelations are likely to shake the Zuma administration as they involve one of the president’s key allies and the man tasked with running the country’s secret service.

Two hundred and fifty activists from across South Africa met last week to form a united front against big capital. In the concluding conference statement, they called for unity and mobilisation.

The latest survey by the South African Institute for Race Relations (SAIRR) has found that the African National Congress (ANC) has lost 38 wards in local government elections over the past four years. The study also found that between the previous local government elections in 2006, and up until August 2010, the ANC managed to hold 306 ward seats, gain 17, and lose 55. SAIRR researcher, Marius Roodt, predicted the ANC is likely to lose support in the upcoming local government elections.

While the African Heads of State and Government are preparing to discuss African shared values during the 16th Summit of the African Union (AU), 'concrete responses are awaited from the continental organisation for dealing with the crisis and conflict situations in a manner respectful of Human Rights', stated Souhayr Belhassen, International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) president. FIDH calls on the AU to adopt a firm attitude in the case of Ivory Coast, in order to avoid an electoral conflict degenerating into a bloody civil war, at the same time creating a dangerous precedent for democracy in Africa at a time when 19 presidential elections are to be held in 2011.

Independent multimedia reporting website Mediahacker reports on WikiLeak documents in which Dominican President Leonel Fernandez expressed concern that a United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) general had been assassinated.

The year 2011 will move southern Africa another step closer to becoming a regional community, as one of the building blocks of a united Africa with its African Economic Community. Southern Africa is expected to take this step towards deeper regional and continental integration when three Regional Economic Communities (RECs) encompassing 26 countries in eastern and southern Africa – almost half of all African countries – approve a plan this year to establish a Grand Free Trade Area (GFTA).

High poverty levels and the skewed distribution of resources in Zambia's poorest province is stirring secession talk - with an ethnic dimension. 'The tensions in Western Province are a consequence of the neglect that the place has suffered in terms of socio-economic and infrastructure development,' Thomas Mabwe, head of Development Studies at the Zambia Open University, told IRIN. 'Poverty levels in Western Province are the highest in the country, and there is very little to show in terms of infrastructure development. So, to some extent, people are just reacting to that under-development of their region,' he said.

With the government moving to protect suspects from the International Criminal Court (ICC), Gado wonders what would happen if Jesus were to be tried in Kenya today.

The head of a Rwandan rebel group accused of committing war crimes in Democratic Republic of Congo has been extradited from France to The Hague. Callixte Mbarushimana was arrested in Paris last October, following a request from the International Criminal Court. The Hutu rebel leader has denied accusations that he ordered his FDLR fighters to kill and rape civilians.

The Angolan government is preparing to renew efforts to eradicate polio with support from global partners, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has made polio eradication its top priority. Angola succeeded in stamping out polio for three consecutive years at the beginning of the century, but a strain of the virus prevalent in India reappeared in 2005 and has since spread to the neighbouring countries of Namibia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of Congo.