Burkina Faso's Network for Access to Essential Medicines (RAME) has called on the Burkinabè government to increase the budget allocation to the health sector to avoid interruptions to AIDS treatment. Despite an emergency plan announced in January, which will see the government spend around one billion CFA francs - two million dollars - to procure AIDS drugs in this West African country, patients and civil society groups are demanding permanent measures to ensure the availability of anti- retrovirals and reagents.

A raft of women's rights organisations and individuals have taken the executive director of Human Rights Watch to task for his introduction to Human Rights Watch’s World Report 2012.

A post on the Free Gender blog explains how in a meeting between LGBTI activists and church leaders, their sexuality was referred to as 'a thing'. 'Some left the boardroom with so many unanswered questions as they felt that conversation had a lot to do with dictatorship instead of opening up a holy and safe space for proper discussion that will make LGBTI feel welcomed at churches regardless of one’s sexuality or gender expression.'

Zimbabwe has suspended 29 NGOs in what has been described as a renewed clampdown on aid workers ahead of elections President Robert Mugabe wants held this year. The veteran ruler’s Zanu-PF party, at its annual conference last December, tabled a report claiming that there were 2,500 NGOs operating in the country, and most of them were pushing a 'regime change agenda'.

At least 10 people have died after Cyclone Giovanna struck Madagascar but details of its impact on the regions which bore the brunt of the category-four tropical storm remain sketchy, as communications and electricity supplies have been cut. The cyclone made landfall in the early hours of 14 February south of the port town of Toamasina and then carved a path through heavily populated areas towards the capital, Antananarivo, reportedly uprooting trees, damaging infrastructure, causing landslides and flooding as it moved inland.

Prime Minister Raila Odinga and Eldoret North MP William Ruto exchanged angry words in Parliament recently over the implementation of the Constitution and the trial of the Ocampo Four at The Hague. Facing-off from opposite sides of the Chamber, the former political allies traded words on campaign propaganda and the reasons for the International Criminal Court taking two cases related to 2008 post election violence. Speaker Kenneth Marende was forced to intervene.

Armed militias operating across Libya commit widespread human rights abuses with impunity, fuelling insecurity and hindering the rebuilding of state institutions, warned Amnesty International in a new report released a year on from the start of the February 2011 uprising. The report 'Militias threaten hopes for new Libya', documents widespread and serious abuses, including war crimes, by a multitude of militias against suspected al-Gaddafi loyalists, with cases of people being unlawfully detained and tortured - sometimes to death.

A meeting to discuss the return of people to their lands after they were evicted during post-election violence led to the illegal arrest of 31 people on 26 February.

In this East African article, Charles Onyango-Obbo, writes about the old school information sharing approach of the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF). It has reduced the regular press briefings to a drip. And even when it brings the generals out to speak to the media, they give very little away. There are rarely any leaks. But a juicy leak about the KDF's approach to Kismayu did come through - revealing important implications for businessmen, tax collectors, Al Shabaab and the environment.

At least 600 Ugandan girls have been forced into Malaysia’s sex trade in what has become a human trafficking epidemic, a foreign diplomat has said. Hajah Noraihan, the Malaysian consul to Uganda, said despite an early warning to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2008 when the number of trafficked girls stood at 30, the constant flow of victims had not slowed.

Four months ago, Clemence Uzizo, 21, a welder living in Soweto, Johannesburg's most populous suburb, made the mistake of venturing out to a local shop without his asylum-seeker permit. Neither the police who arrested him, nor the immigration officials who detained him, verified Uzizo's legal status before deporting him to Zimbabwe, the country of his birth. 'My permit was at home but I didn't have a cell phone to call to ask someone to bring it,' he told IRIN not long after making a risky and expensive return to South Africa via the Limpopo River. 'Since my father brought me [to South Africa] in 1992 I've lived here, so I don't know anyone in Zimbabwe.'

Women, who are already compensating for rising food prices and energy costs with additional time and labour - are now further disadvantaged through land grabbing. Land grabs are land lease or sale agreements between parties with unequal bargaining power, often transacted through covert or illegal means. Although land grabs in the 21st century bear some resemblance to massive land grabs that characterized colonization and empire-building in Africa in the 18th and 19th centuries, grabs today are courted by African governments, endorsed through intentionally vague paperwork and lauded in official speeches espousing their trickle-down merits.

Was the ANC’s decision disciplining or silencing the ANC Youth League? asks Zama Ndlovu on the Mail and Guardian blog Thought Leader. 'Before Julius Malema entered the political scene, there was very little public discourse on the acute socio-economic issues faced by a growing number of young South Africans today. After 18 years of political freedom, more than half of South Africans under the age of 25 remain unemployed – among the highest jobless rates in the world.'

Africa may be an Eldorado for corporates and businessmen outside the continent. Even foreign governments are buying land heavily in several African countries. Indian corporate houses too, have joined the fray. 'There is land grabbing in Burkina Faso and farmers are fighting against this. It is not clear at this time if Indian concerns are involved in this because of the limited information available in the public place,' said Ms Bernadette P. Ouattara, managing director of Inades-Formation Burkina. She is among a team from Africa that visited Hyderabad and Medak for a week to attend Bt Cotton and Beyond – Status and implication of genetically engineered crops and post-GE technologies for small farmers in Asia and Asia.

Interface journal is seeking additional book reviewers for its upcoming publication. Our list of 'books offered for review' are here:

We welcome contributions by movement participants and academics who are developing movement-relevant theory and research. Our goal is to include material that can be used in a range of ways by movements - in terms of its content, its language, its purpose and its form.

If interested in reviewing a book feel free to write to Mandisi Majavu: [email]majavums@gmail.com

The UN recognises the international community’s Responsibility to Protect (R2P) civilians during conflict, and this philosophy has quickly become embedded in peacekeeping and peace enforcement missions, but a new report questions some basic humanitarian assumptions. The reality - reinforced by a new study from the UK’s Overseas Development Institute (ODI) entitled 'Local to Global Protection in Myanmar (Burma), Sudan, South Sudan and Zimbabwe' - is that in conflicts and crisis people almost always have to provide their own protection, for themselves, their families and their villages.

Sudan and South Sudan have signed a 'non-aggression' pact over their disputed border following talks in Addis Ababa where African Union-led negotiations between the two sides are being held. Al Jazeera's Harriet Martin, reporting from Khartoum, said that one of the mediators told her there were no expectation of immediate change on the ground, but that the agreement would be a 'means of calling [both countries] to account because they have signed up to the deal'.

More than 5,000 of the 25,000 young school leavers who were recently recruited into the public service have failed to show up to sign their employment contracts. 'I am a university graduate and they are offering me a monthly salary of $200 plus the equivalent of $40 as rents allowance. There is no way I can accept that kind of salary. Since graduating from the university, I have been farming in the village and what I earn from the farm is triple what they are offering me so I cannot accept that,' one of the recruits who sought anonymity told Africa Review.

Zimbabwe must hold elections before the end of June 2013, but the reforms needed to ensure appropriate conditions are critically wanting, says the International Crisis Group. 'Opportunity for a calibrated, full removal of sanctions before the next elections, geared to broad progress on reform, such as perhaps existed three years ago when the Global Political Agreement (GPA) was fresh and the Inclusive Government formed, has probably passed. But a chance to promote progress and break the current deadlock still exists through a coordinated approach that distinguishes types of sanctions and focuses on specific reforms needed for those elections. It should be seized.'

From conflict and natural disasters to progressive laws and the ascension of women into key political posts, 2011 brought progress and setbacks to women's rights. The Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID) has put together a visual overview of the year through a women's rights lens.