The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has called on the Government of Niger to put an end to the intimidation and harassment of journalists allegedly accused of broadcasting “false reports” since April 1, 2009. “This is more nor less a deliberate attempt of harassing and intimidating the Dounia media group and Le Courier newspaper whose only wrong is to have organized a debate about the visit of French President, Nicholas Sarkozy and published articles considered to be defamatory”, declared Gabriel Baglo, Director of IFJ Africa Office.

The United Nations human rights envoy tasked with protecting the rights of children in armed conflict is set to arrive in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for talks to ensure greater protection for children amid the ongoing humanitarian crisis engulfing the country’s east.

Satcom is the African satellite industry’s annual get-together and this year’s was held this week. On the second day of the conference the West African Cable System announced the signing of an over-subscribed fundraising. And this is only one of half a dozen international fibre projects that will be built. At the conference itself, new satellite entrants announced services that were both innovative and cheaper.

In an ambitious plan to educate women in the Maghreb about married life, activists from Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia drafted a new marriage contract that, if certified, will provide better protection for women's rights. The idea was presented April 11th in Tunis at a meeting organised by the Global Rights Maghreb organisation and attended by human rights activists, members of women's organisations and legal experts.

In May 2008, South Africa was rocked by the worst xenophobic attacks that the country has ever seen. Less than a year later, the issue is almost invisible from the national election campaign. South Africa has long been troubled by xenophobia, but the 2008 attacks were the a significant escalation. Sixty-two foreigners were killed and tens of thousands of others fled their homes. The attacks which started in the Johannesburg township of Alexandra spread like fire throughout the country.

For the first time in Ethiopia, gay people are meeting and making concrete connections despite religious leaders in that country calling on government to, in addition to the penal code, ban homosexuality on the constitution as well. Members of Ethioglbt are meeting and working to effect positive change, something that they admit, will take time.

A pilot initiative to provide rural community health workers, nurses and doctors with advice on diagnosis and treatment via mobile phones is to launch in Ghana later this year. The project will enable rural health workers to call specially-trained doctors at a call centre, providing the daily support that health workers in richer countries take for granted.

The World Bank is willing to help Zimbabwe recover from a devastating economic crisis, but it is critical for the country's institutions to restore democracy and human rights, the bank has said. World Bank President Robert Zoellick told reporters Zimbabwe's new finance minister, Tendai Biti, would attend the the Spring meetings of the bank and the International Monetary Fund next week.

The main opposition parties in Ethiopia have held a march in Addis Ababa to call for the release of their imprisoned leader, Birtukan Medeksa. The demonstrators handed in a petition to the authorities about Ms Birtukan. She is serving a life sentence, after officials revoked a pardon which had previously seen her set free.

Eritrea's extensive detention and torture of its citizens and its policy of prolonged military conscription are creating a human rights crisis and prompting increasing numbers of Eritreans to flee the country, Human Rights Watch said in a report.

Human rights abuses on a massive scale continue to afflict the lives of millions of people across the continent of Africa. As in other parts of the world, the obstacles in pursuing justice are currently insurmountable for most victims. Against this troubling backdrop, the African Union (AU) has decided to add a human rights section to its new court which has been agreed upon but not yet set up. This court is called the African Court of Justice and Human Rights.

Schoolchildren in the war-torn western flank of the Sudan are set to benefit from a cash injection aimed at breathing new life into their educational system, the joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur (UNAMID) has announced. The UNAMID office in the West Darfur town of Zalingie has approved funds for some 19 projects that will attempt to rapidly rehabilitate and construct schools in and around camps where people uprooted by violent conflict in the area are seeking safety.

The Security Council has welcomed the convening of presidential polls in Guinea-Bissau this June, following last month’s assassination of the West African nation’s leader, calling for continued international support for the election process. In a presidential statement read out by Ambassador Claude Heller of Mexico, which holds the rotating Council presidency for the month, the 15-member body also welcomed the swearing-in of M. Raimundo Pereira, the Interim President, and the commitment of the new authorities to uphold the country’s constitutional order.

Task-shifting is the key to helping to reach South Africa’s goal of treating at least 80% of those in need of antiretroviral therapy (ART) by 2011, according to a joint statement by Médecins sans Frontières (MSF), Reproductive Health and Research Unit (RHRU) of University of the Witwatersrand, the Southern African HIV Clinicians Society, and Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), released at the Fourth South African AIDS Conference in Durban earlier this month.

Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika won 90.24% of the vote to secure his third mandate on Thursday (April 9th). The participation rate is 74.54%, Interior Minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni announced Friday morning. Although voting was held under tight security and Zerhouni affirmed that the poll was conducted in "good conditions", several attacks were reported. A bomb exploded at a polling station in Imeghenine, near (Boumerdes) and a police officer was killed by a roadside bomb in Tebessa.

The economic partnerships agreements (EPAs) will push African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries ''deeper'' into poverty and negatively affect the livelihoods of people living in ACP countries. These trade deals ''will prevent'' African countries from achieving the United Nations’ millennium development goals (MDGs). Several speakers at a two-day workshop on EPAs in Johannesburg, South Africa, were in agreement that the EPAs will do more harm than good to ACP countries.

U.S. Senator John Kerry said after talks with senior Sudanese officials on Thursday Khartoum would allow some foreign aid to be restored in its western Darfur region but that it was not sufficient. "Time is of the essence to avert a humanitarian catastrophe," said Kerry, who heads the U.S. Senate's Foreign Relations Committee and is leading a congressional delegation to Sudan.

Ivor Hartman speaks to about StoryTime, his online ezine to showcase new African writing, and his desire to tell the world about the Zimbabwean situation through writing.

My long trip started on the 20th January 2009 when I traveled from Cape Town to Durban by bus. I spent 26 hours on a City to City bus, moving from Cape Town via PE, East London and Umtata and then to Durban. As much as it was a long journey I must say it I really enjoyed it. I think it was nice touring my own country, getting the opportunity to be exposed to different corners of South Africa from Cities and Townships to Rural areas where the poorest of the poor are located as a result of the past.

A Libode community rejoiced when land, from a settlement claim worth R93 million, was handed over to it by South Africa's minister of Land Affairs. The claimant community is made up of five villages – Magcakini, Tyarha, Mamfengwini, Mdlankomo and Moyeni – which, when the claim was made, had a total of 907 households, the members of which are the direct descendants of the originally dispossessed individuals.