As more aid groups pull out of camps for internally displaced people (IDPs) and more people flee Mogadishu to escape the violence, the plight of IDPs is at its most extreme, says a doctor-turned-relief-worker in Mogadishu. "[Relief] aid is at its lowest and the need is even greater than at any time," Hawa Abdi, who turned her 26ha property into an IDP camp, told IRIN on 29 March.

Due to the global economic and financial crisis, growth on the African continent dropped to an average of 1.6 percent in 2009, compared to 4.5 percent in 2008. These figures were announced by Abdoulie Janneh, executive secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), at a joint annual conference of the African Union and UNECA in Malawi’s capital of Lilongwe.

Pambazuka Press is delighted to announce that Marcelino Dos Santos, Mozambiquan poet, revolutionary and founder of FRELIMO (Mozambican Liberation Front) will launch , edited by Chambi Chachage and Annar Cassam, at the Second Julius Nyerere Intellectual Festival Week (12-15 April 2010).

More than £1tn may have flowed out of Africa illegally over the last four decades, most of it to western financial institutions, according to a new report. Even using conservative estimates, the continent lost about $1.8tn (£1.18tn) – meaning Africans living at the end of 2008 had each been deprived of an average of $989 (£649) since 1970, according to the US-based research body Global Financial Integrity (GFI).

In meetings with media stakeholders, Niger's transitional Prime Minister Mahamadou Danda is promising full press freedom. Already, prison sentences for journalists are repelled and the Niamey House of the Media is reopened.

China Mobile, China's largest mobile operator, is looking at possible acquisition and investment opportunities in Asia and Africa as profit growth slows at home, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing the company's Chairman and Chief Executive Wang Jianzhou. Meanwhile, Wang stressed that any expansion through acquisitions would be balanced with continued investments in its home market because there is still huge growth potential in mainland China.

Egyptian courts are handing down death sentences with "alarming frequency" as the state attempts to use capital punishment to stem rising crime rates. Over 269 death sentences were imposed in 2009, up from 86 the previous year. Rights groups say the courts appear to be acting under government pressure to send a strong message to the public.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the International Criminal Court prosecutor, is set to begin an investigation into the 2007-08 post-election violence. He talks to Al Jazeera about how victims and witnesses will be assured given protection.

Trials of a vaccine against the most common cause of pneumonia and meningitis — both leading causes of death in HIV sufferers in Africa — have proved so successful that scientists say it could be a major breakthrough in combating the diseases. The new vaccine protects against Streptococcus pneumoniae which causes pneumonia and, when it invades the bloodstream and brain, causes septicaemia and meningitis.

The South African office of the Public Protector has more vicious teeth than anyone ever imagined, but what lacks are the resources to expedite the duty without hindrance. This is what the newly appointed public protector in South Africa, Advocate Tuli Madonsela, told the media yesterday following her consultations that took her and her team across the breath and width of the country.

NuMobile, Inc. (OTCBB: NUBL) is scheduled to begin work on a project constructing a wireless broadband network in Nairobi, Kenya next month. Through the joint project with Greenfield Program Partners NewMarket Technology, Inc. (PINKSHEETS: NWMT), China Crescent Enterprises, Inc. (OTCBB: CCTR) and Nova Energy, Inc. (OTCBB: NVAE), NuMobile will take part in the implementation of the wireless broadband network, intended to provide a wireless metering capability to local utility companies.

More than 110 nations, including top greenhouse gas emitters led by China and the United States, have backed the non-binding Copenhagen Accord for combating climate change, according to the first formal UN list. The list, including countries from Albania to Zambia, helps end weeks of uncertainty about support for the deal, agreed at an acrimonious summit in the Danish capital in December. The list was compiled by the United Nations Climate Change Secretaria

"How do Somali communities deal with their need for security and governance in the absence of a state? The reality is that since 1991 numerous Somali-led reconciliation processes have taken place at local and regional levels. Often these have proven more sustainable than the better resourced and better publicized national reconciliation processes sponsored by the international community." Pat Johnson and Abdirahman Raghe in new report from Conciliation Resources and Interpeace

Nigerian authorities charged 20 people on Thursday over their roles in sectarian clashes that killed hundreds in central Plateau state last month, and some could face the death penalty. Authorities are under growing pressure to prosecute those behind the March 7 attacks on three villages near Jos, the capital of Plateau state, in a bid to prevent future violence.

The Nigerian government is pushing its national academies to re-align their priorities following criticisms of their perceived lack of contribution to sustainable development. The Federal Ministry of Science and Technology met with the representatives of the five national academies — the Nigerian Academy of Science, Nigerian Academy of Engineering, Social Sciences Academy of Nigeria, Nigerian Academy of Education and Nigerian Academy of Letters — earlier is month (1 March) to address the situation.

In Senegal women who become pregnant outside of marriage - their husbands living abroad - commonly kill their babies out of fear and shame. Husbands’ absence is one of many factors contributing to infanticide in Senegal, where many young women with unwanted pregnancies see eliminating the child as their only option, authorities and researchers say. Abortion is illegal in Senegal and clandestine abortion is also common.

A director at the Institute of West Asian & African Studies at Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Dr. He Wenping, has hailed the prevailing good relations between Rwanda and China. Wenping, who is in charge of African Studies, made the observation while presenting a paper on China-Africa Relations in the Era of Globalization during a public lecture at Kigali Institute of Education (KIE).

A group of army officers in Guinea-Bissau is reported to have detained the chief of staff and the prime minister. Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior was set free after several hours. The whereabouts of President Malam Bacai Sanha are unknown. Heavily armed troops attempted to gain access to the UN headquarters, where a former head of the navy had fled.

The rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) killed at least 321 civilians and abducted 250 others, including at least 80 children, during a previously unreported four-day rampage in the Makombo area of northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo in December 2009, Human Rights Watch said in a report.

Human rights organisations have been demanding an independent inquiry into the death of a Nigerian asylum seeker died while being deported and a stop to all forced repatriations. Switzerland's sixth deportation flight of 2010, scheduled for the evening of Mar. 17 with 16 Nigerians on board, never took off. Among the prisoners was Alex Uzowulu, 29, whose asylum claim had been previously rejected.