The African Union High Level Implementation Panel (AUHIP) committee of experts has tabled a proposal that could lead to a settlement for the thorny oil issue between Sudan and South Sudan. The proposal was submitted at the current round of talks in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on post independence issues between the two countries.

The party of Marc Ravalomanana has decided to suspend its role in Madagascar's unity government, after a plane carrying the exiled leader home was turned away, a top official said. The main parties on the Indian Ocean island formed a power-sharing government in November, with strongman Andry Rajoelina remaining president until new elections are held, in theory later this year.

Thanks to generator breakdowns and the worst drought in the Horn of Africa in 60 years, blackouts and frequent power cuts have become common in Kenya. As a result, costs are soaring. Among the groups most affected are women who own small businesses. After putting in years of hard work to build their businesses and become financially independent, some say power cuts are threatening everything they’ve worked for.

The People’s Health Assembly (PHA), organised by the People's Health Movement (PHM), is a global event bringing together health activists from across the world to share experiences, analyse global health situation, develop civil society positions and to develop strategies which promote health for all. It will look at forms of action to address identified challenges and build capacity among health activists to act.

Forum 2012, to be held 24-26 April 2012 in Cape Town, is the beginning of an exciting new series of the well-known and respected Global Forum for Health Research meetings. Under the theme of 'Beyond Aid...Research and Innovation as key drivers for Health, Equity and Development', COHRED and the Global Forum for Health Research will focus on potentials, solutions, and developing capacities - specifically in low-and middle-income countries and emerging economies - and how global collaboration canleverage this for a new era of global development support.

The Ethiopian government under its villagization' program is forcibly relocating approximately 70,000 indigenous people from the western Gambella region to new villages that lack adequate food, farmland, healthcare, and educational facilities, Human Rights Watch said in a new report. State security forces have repeatedly threatened, assaulted, and arbitrarily arrested villagers who resist the transfers.

Population growth and rising consumption by a minority of people around the world are fuelling global land acquisitions and Africa is a 'prime target', says the International Land Coalition. 'The best land is often being targeted for acquisition. It is often irrigable, with proximity to infrastructure, making conflict with existing land users more likely,' says a 14 December 2011 report. Africa accounts for 134 million hectares of reported land deals. Worldwide, between 2000 and 2010, deals under consideration or negotiation amounted to 203 million hectares, the Coalition says.

Two Senegalese journalists with the private daily Le Quotidien have been handed suspended prison sentences in a criminal libel case over their coverage of an armed insurgency in a separatist province, according to the New York-based media watchdog, Committee to Protect Journalists(CPJ). A statement from CPJ said a magistrate in a criminal court in the capital, Dakar, handed Le Quotidien editor Mamadou Biaye and reporter Mamadou Ticko Diatta suspended three-month prison terms.

Gambian President Yahya Jammeh has been sworn in for a fourth term and says he will crack the whip on laziness and corruption as he bids to turn Africa's smallest mainland country into an economic powerhouse. Jammeh, who came to power in a coup in 1994 aged 29, also said his government would not tolerate any terrorist or racist acts. 'I will be more dangerous in the next five years than when I was, even in uniform, because people have to change their attitude to work,' he earlier said on state TV Wednesday, promising that people would see 'a different Yahya Jammeh'.

In this week's edition of the Emerging Powers News Round-Up, read a comprehensive list of news stories and opinion pieces related to China, India and other emerging powers...

In this episode, Africa Today interviews Connie Fields and Gregory Scharpen of Clarity Films on their film 'Have You Heard From Johannesburg', the epic story of the global anti-apartheid movement and also speaks with Christine Nyanda ChaCha, the executive director and founder of African Immigrants Social and Cultural Services.

As thousands of Israelis have been protesting racism directed at Ethiopian Israelis recently, a new recording revealed Wednesday an Israeli school bus driver in Jerusalem spewing racist slurs at schoolgirls of Ethiopian origin. 'People tell you that you smell bad, deal with it. Put on deodorant every day. You’ll smell better,' the driver was heard saying in the recording. 'You need to respect us. We were living here before you, our lives are much more modern.'

There is strong evidence that NATO carried out war crimes in its eight-month war for regime-change in Libya, according to a report released Thursday by Middle East human rights groups. The report is based upon a fact-finding mission to Libya conducted by the Arab Organization for Human Rights, together with the Palestinian Center for Human Rights and the International Legal Assistance Consortium. The investigators conducted extensive interviews with victims of war crimes as well as witnesses and Libyan officials. The mission carried out on-site field investigations in and around Tripoli, Zawiya, Sibrata, Khoms, Zliten, Misrata, Tawergha and Sirte.

The death toll from co-ordinated bombings and gunfire in the northern Nigerian city of Kano has risen to at least 178, medical sources said, making this the deadliest attack claimed by the radical Islamist group Boko Haram. Gunfire continued to echo through some areas of Kano on Saturday, despite a strict curfew imposed on Friday night which will remain in place until further notice, local officials said.

The UN refugee agency is concerned about fresh violence in the eastern regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo that has forced more than 100,000 civilians to flee their homes since November. In North Kivu province, an estimated 35,000 people have been displaced as a result of attacks and clashes between rival militia groups in Walikale and Masisi territories. At least 22 people were reported killed and an unknown number of women raped during the fighting, UNHCR said in a statement from Kinshasa, DRC, Friday.

The Muslim Brotherhood's party has won 47.18 per cent of seats in the Egyptian parliament, the electoral commission announced on Saturday as it gave the final results from marathon polls. The Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) won 235 seats in the new People's Assembly, or 47.18 per cent, committee head Abdel Moez Ibrahim said. The ultra-conservative Salafist Al Nur party is in second place with 121 seats or nearly 25 per cent, while the liberal Wafd Party follows with nearly nine percent.

The African Activist Archive Project is preserving records and memories of activism in the United States to support the struggles of African peoples against colonialism, apartheid, and social injustice from the 1950s through the 1990s. The project is reaching out to the hundreds of organisations and individuals that supported African liberation struggles and is urging them to preserve their vital records and to make selected materials available to the public on this website. The project also assists groups and individuals to deposit their archives in public repositories, including the African Activist Archive in Special Collections at Michigan State University Libraries.

Two journalists and a US-based blogger who was tried in absentia were convicted on charges of terrorism in Ethiopia recently and could be sentenced to the death penalty, according to news reports. Reeyot Alemu, a columnist with the independent weekly Feteh, Deputy Editor Woubshet Taye of the now-defunct weekly Awramba Times, and Elias Kifle, exiled editor of the Washington-based opposition website Ethiopian Review, were convicted in Federal High Court in the capital, Addis Ababa, according to news reports. The journalists were charged in September with lending support to an underground network of banned opposition groups, including Ginbot 7, that the government had designated terrorists, according to CPJ research.

Amnesty International has called for the immediate release of four activists arrested over the distribution of T-shirts calling for an end to dictatorship in the Gambia. One activist, Dr Amadou Scattred Janneh, the country's former Minister for Information and Communication, was sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labour for treason. Modou Keita, Ebrima Jallow and Michael Uche Thomas were each sentenced to three years with hard labour for sedition.

In this study, researchers found that the annual costs of FGM-related obstetric complications in six African countries studied ranged from 0.1 to 1 per cent of government spending on health for women aged 15–45 years. In the current population of 2.8 million 15-year-old women in the six African countries, a loss of 130,000 life years is expected owing to FGM’s association with obstetric haemorrhage.