Sanusha Naidu compiles a list of the top stories on Sino-African relations.

Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai is urging the United States to support his government despite abuses by his coalition partner, President Robert Mugabe. Tsvangirai plans to make his case Friday in a meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama as part of a three week tour of Western countries. He also will meet Thursday with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Tax cuts and incentives have been announced in Kenya intended to boost broadband and mobile take-up as a new fibre optic cable is launched. Kenya's Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta cut the 16% VAT on new phone handsets. He also allowed internet providers to offset the cost of purchasing new fibre optic bandwidth for 20 years.

"Kenya has a long history of serious human rights violations but it now has an opportunity to turn the page," said Irene Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International, concluding the mission to Kenya. "Successive Kenyan governments have been good at establishing Commissions and Taskforces and poor at implementing their recommendations. This government must not repeat that pattern."

Madagascar's armed forces are on maximum alert, days after African economic bloc COMESA declared military intervention to end the island's political crisis remained an option, the government said on Friday. Armed Forces Minister Noel Rakotonandrasana told Reuters that COMESA's stance, which has drawn criticism from both France and the United Nations, had to be taken seriously.

We participants of the Civil Society Forum for the Durban Review Conference 2009 held in Geneva 17 to 19 April strongly welcome the holding of the Durban Review Conference and reaffirm our full and dedicated support for the Durban Declaration and Plan of Action (DDPA) adopted by the 2001 World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.

Somali Coalition for Freedom of Expression (SOCFEX) has condemned the killing of the director of radio Shabelle Muqtar Mohamed Hirabe who was murdered in Bakare market, Mogadishu by two unknown gunmen. And the journalist Ahmed Omar Hashi who was with Hirabe has been injured and took him to the hospital.

The Big Read is a campaign produced by the Global Campaign for Education and South Africa’s Public Participation in Education Network (PPEN). The movement aims to encourage public participation in education in creative ways, including The Big Read book, which is an exciting book specifically designed to campaign for education and literacy. The Big Read book is a special collection of short stories and poems that contains an amazing array of stories from inspiring people and since April this year has been read by more than 13 million people
around the world.

East African states are seeking modest economic stimulus packages, aimed at steering their countries through the global economic turbulence, and outlining plans to increase agricultural production and increase regional trade. In the fiscal plans unveiled Thursday in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania, the respective finance ministers unveiled plans aimed at steering their economies through the financial crisis and avoiding adverse tax measures likely to create social backlashes.

The parties in Wiwa v. Shell have agreed to settle human rights claims charging the Royal Dutch/Shell company, its Nigerian subsidiary, Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC or Shell Nigeria), and the former head of its Nigerian operation, Brian Anderson, with complicity in the torture, killing, and other abuses of Ogoni leader Ken Saro-Wiwa and other non-violent Nigerian activists in the mid-1990s in the Ogoni region of the Niger Delta.

The speaker of the senate in Gabon has been sworn in as the country's interim head of state, following the recent death of President Omar Bongo. Under the constitution, Rose Francine Rogombe, an ally of Mr Bongo, must organise elections within 45 days. On Thursday, Mr Bongo's body will be repatriated from Spain where he had been undergoing medical treatment.

Amnesty International has released its report into the dire conditions and gross human rights abuses endured in Nairobi's informal settlements. The Unseen Majority: Nairobi's Two Million Slum Dwellers describes how half of Nairobi's population live in informal settlements, but are crammed into only 5 per cent of the city’s residential area and just 1 per cent of all land in the city.

United Nations peacekeepers are refusing to patrol a zone in eastern Congo, leaving tens of thousands of civilians vulnerable to massacres, rapes and looting by gunmen, officials and witnesses said. The civilians, under attack from Rwandan Hutu rebels, are trapped in a corner of North Kivu province Indian peacekeepers officially operate in but cannot get to due to poor roads, and Pakistani soldiers nearby refuse to enter due to procedures.

The close of the entry period for the Champions of Quality Education in Africa competition is just around the corner, so make sure to enter online until June 24th 2009 at You can also nominate yourself or someone you know today. We’re looking to schools, teachers and administrators to find the best practices that are changing lives at the local, district or national levels. And with the help of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, we’re going to help them take it to the next level with networking opportunities and chances for funding.

The Arab Program for Human Rights Activists follows up with deep concern and complete resentment the security procedures' aftermath that accompanied the visit of U.S. President Barak Obama to Cairo on Thursday 04/06/2009. In this regard, the Program purses the serious breaches of citizens' rights that had been conducted between 4th and 6th of June. In addition to the desistance state that took place in Cairo.

The City of Geneva and the organization 3D recently organized a public debate between Olivier De Schutter, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, and Pascal Lamy, Director-General of the WTO. The debate, which was opened by the Mayor Manuel Tornare, was held on May 11th and focused on “Trade liberalization: support or impediment to the right to food?"

Burkina Faso's Prime Minister, Tertius Zongo, has urged striking national union of teachers and researchers (SYNADEC) to end their two two-month old strike saying government is prepared to dialogue with them. “Government remains sensitive to the material and moral interests of workers and will never stop dialoguing with them through their trade unions,” he told a news conference in the capital, Ouagadougou.

Sudan has authorised four aid agencies expelled from the country in March to return to troubled Darfur, says the UN's humanitarian chief John Holmes. The four groups - named as Care International, Save the Children, Mercy Corps, and Padco - were among 13 organisations expelled in March.

President Umaru Yar'Adua of Nigeria, halfway through his presidential mandate, has undermined the country's foremost anti-corruption body, done little to rein in an abusive police force, and failed to address the root causes of the escalating crisis in the Niger Delta, Human Rights Watch has said. Human Rights Watch said in a letter to Yar'Adua that there have been serious setbacks during the first two years in addressing Nigeria's chronic human rights problems and endemic corruption.

The head of the joint United Nations–African Union mission in Darfur (UNAMID) has reiterated that there is no military solution to the problems facing the strife-torn Sudanese region, as he met with the leader of a major rebel group. The meeting in North Darfur between Joint Special Representative Rodolphe Adada and the Chairman of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), Khalil Ibrahim, was the second of its kind this year and part of a “continued effort to establish a good working relationship with all parties involved in the Darfur conflict,” the mission said in a news release.