Rescue teams in Uganda are still digging into heaps of mud in an effort to rescue survivors of a landslide that has so far killed 88 people while 400 are still missing. Lack of advanced rescue equipment has complicated the rescue efforts. There are no earth movers on site and some residents are digging with their bare hands.

The main opposition party in Togo has claimed widespread irregularities in the country's presidential election. People in Togo voted on Thursday to chose a new head of state - five years after hundreds died following the last, disputed election.

The European Union Election Observation Mission to Sudan should consider the impact of ongoing human rights abuses and insecurity on the elections process, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to the mission on March 2, 2010.

Adolescent girls have often been missing in policy and programming. Yet many believe that their well-being the key to eliminating poverty, achieving social justice, stabilizing the population, and preventing foreseeable humanitarian crises.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) condemns firmly the physical assault and violence by security operatives and supporters of the opposition Sierra Leone people’s party (SLPP) in Bo, Southern Sierra Leone against ten journalists.

At least 30 people were killed in Sudan after clashes between two rival tribes in the volatile southern region, witnesses said. Deputy state governor David Noc Marial has said clashes began after armed men from the Dinka tribe's Atuot and Ciek clans clashed in south Sudan's remote area over the weekend.

About a year ago, Muqtar Ali's brother was shot dead by gunmen in the busy Bakara market of Somalia's capital Mogadishu, and his $200 in cash was stolen. Ali says that if a new mobile money transfer service unveiled by Somalia's biggest mobile telecoms firm last month had been in place then, his brother would still be alive.

The national executive council of the MDC has resolved that SADC should be called in to mediate in the long running stalemate between parties in the Global Political Agreement. Party spokesman Nelson Chamisa said his party had evaluated the political landscape currently prevailing in the country and found out ‘things were going backwards instead of forward.’

On February 21, 2010, the world witnessed the launch of a global initiative to support pro-democracy forces in Swaziland: the Swaziland Democracy Campaign (SDC). This is a product of many years of working together between South African and Swaziland organisations, which includes political parties, trade unions, churches, youth and students organisations.

Plans to transform the east African oil sector by building a pipeline from south Sudan to the Kenyan coast were boosted this week when a Japanese company expressed interest in joining the project.

Ethiopia is one of the main targets in the current global farmland grab. The government has stated publicly that it wants to provide 3 million hectares of farmland in the country to foreign investors and around 1 million hectares have apparently already been signed away. Much of the land that these investors have acquired is in the province of Gambella, a fertile area that is home to the Anuak Nation.

This latest briefing from the International Crisis Group, analyses the situation resulting from the Global Political Agreement (GPA) that broke the stalemate following failed 2008 presidential elections and led to formation of the unity government in February 2009. It concludes that all domestic signatories of the GPA, as well as the South African mediation, must embrace democratic transformation as the vital objective of the transition.

As Burundi approaches elections designed to cap the country’s democratic transition after years of civil conflict, there is growing concern about worsening security and limits to political freedom. “The situation is explosive,” Pierre Clavier Mbonimpa, chairman of the Association for the Promotion of Human and Prisoner Rights (APRODH).

More than 450,000 people have signed an online petition urging Uganda's parliament to drop a bill that would impose the death sentence for the crime of "aggravated homosexuality" - when an HIV-positive person has sex with anyone who is disabled or under the age of 18.

During 2009 there was an upsurge in Chinese academic and journalistic writings concerning the question of a "Chinese model". Since last year Chinese intellectuals have been heatedly debating whether there is such a distinct Chinese model for development - and, if so, what are its contents and is it transferable for other countries?

The UN Millennium Campaign, Femnet and Oxfam GB have announced the commencement of a series of global conversations to discuss the status of the promises world leaders have made to women in the Millennium Development Goals.

Progress in sustaining high-level and job-creating growth in Africa will remain unsatisfactory unless bold country specific growth and employment strategies are adopted and implemented with the support of committed political leaders, according to a paper jointly prepared by the Africa Union Commission (AUC) and the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA).

The University of Sussex Students’ Union has called for global resistance to the United States' plans to establish and consolidate AFRICOM on the African continent.

Any popular movement that is serious about building the power of the poor and about demanding the full recognition of the equal humanity of the poor will face many challenges and tests, write Abahlali baseMjondolo: 'We have confronted and passed many challenges and tests since 2005. The attack on our movement in Kennedy Road has been the greatest test that we have faced so far. But we have passed it.'

The Conflict, Security and Development Group (CSDG) at King’s College London together with the Africa Leadership Centre (ALC), is pleased to announce a call for applications for the Peace and Security Fellowships for African Women for 2010/2011. These Fellowships are intellectual and financial awards for personal, professional and academic achievements, as well as the recognition of future potential.