Shell's plans to drill wells for natural gas across a large swathe of the Karoo are fatally flawed and should be rejected, according to lawyers representing local landowners. Derek Light Attorneys criticised Shell's environmental management plan submitted to the Petroleum Agency of South Africa (Pasa) this week, describing it as 'a worthless paper exercise' that was misleading, biased, unprocedural and unconstitutional. Shell's plan has set the stage for a possible legal battle over its ambitions to drill for natural gas in shale formations that cover about 90 per cent of South Africa.

In energy terms, China's top African oil suppliers are Angola, Sudan and Nigeria – all ahead of Libya. Around 80 per cent of Libya's oil reserves, of roughly 44 billion barrels, are in the Sirte basin – spread out between Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, a great deal of it under on and off rebel control. Beijing would hate to contemplate a balkanisation of Libya along Korea's lines – an impoverished, oil-less, Gaddafi-ruled west/North Korea opposed to an affluent, oil-rich, Western-aligned Cyrenaica/South Korea.

Reporters Without Borders says it is 'deeply shocked' to learn that deputy prosecutor Marc Ndabakeshimana has asked a Bujumbura court to sentence detained journalist Jean-Claude Kavumbagu to life imprisonment on charges of treason and defamation. The court has 60 days to render its verdict. The editor of the online newspaper Net Press, Kavumbagu has been held since 17 July 2010 because of an article about a terrorist bombing in the Ugandan capital of Kampala with a toll of 76 dead, in which he questioned whether the Burundian armed forces would be able to deal with a similar threat in Burundi.

The Shuttleworth Foundation Fellowship Programme supports individuals to implement their own innovative ideas for social change in the world. Apart from the individual Fellowship grant, it offers an enabling support structure and an existing network of social change agents. This includes technological, financial, and legal support.

It is only months since the US diplomatic cables released by whistleblowing website WikiLeaks made headlines around the world with their revelations about Nigeria. Among them, allegations that Nigeria's government dropped legal action against pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, which is accused of running a clinical trial that killed and disabled children, after the drugs company threatened to investigate the attorney-general. But as voters head to the polls for presidential and regional elections, how many will be influenced by the material published over the last few months, and could such revelations bring about real change?

Gender-based violence and the quality of health care and schooling were among the top concerns raised by refugee women in the latest round of UNHCR consultations that ended over the weekend in Zambia. The UN refugee agency's Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, Erika Feller, joined donors and other stakeholders in reaffirming their commitment to support and empower refugee women, at the Fifth Regional Dialogue with Refugee Women and Girls held in the Zambian capital, Lusaka.

Additional charges are being brought against a Nigerian being held for an alleged terror attack in his country last year, the Johannesburg Regional Court heard on Monday (18 April). Henry Okah, who was living in Johannesburg at the time, was arrested the day after the twin car bombing in Abuja, Nigeria, in October, in which 12 people died and 36 were injured. The State prosecutor on Monday said additional charges of terrorism and terror financing were being added to the charge sheet.

Malawi's Chief Justice Lovemore Munlo adjourned to 11 April hearing of a case in which the Malawi Human Rights Commission (MHRC) is challenging the constitutionality of Section 46 of the Penal Code. The section, which was amended by parliament in November 2010, empowers the Minister of Information to ban either importation or publication of materials which, according to the minister, are not in the public interest. MHRC took the matter to court arguing that the section was inconsistent with the Constitution and therefore invalid.

Failure to diagnose and treat syphilis and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among pregnant women in Kenya means thousands of mothers risk losing their children or passing on the infections to their unborn children. While prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission (PMTCT) has expanded, with more than 1,000 sites offering the services across the country, STIs - which raise the risk of contracting HIV and can lead to congenital STIs, low birth weight and stillbirths – are often missed, even when women visit antenatal care centres; an estimated 92 per cent of Kenyan women will seek antenatal care at least once during pregnancy.

The Democratic Republic of Congo is rebuilding its power grid as part of the war-torn country's reconstruction. Originally built to power copper mines, the grid reaches just 6 per cent of the nation's people and bypasses some of its biggest cities. Rather than improve its citizens' access to electricity, the government plans to provide electricity from the rehabilitated power grid and new dam projects for mining and exports to South Africa and other countries. The rehabilitation's slow pace, ballooning costs and emphasis on energy exports raise serious concerns that it will only perpetuate Congo's great energy divide, says this page on the website of International Rivers.

Britain will send a team of experienced military officers to Libya to help support and advise the country's opposition council, the UK foreign minister has said. William Hague said that military advisers would join a group of British diplomats already co-operating with the Libyan National Transitional Council, based in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi. 'They will advise the National Transitional Council on how to improve their military organisational structures, communications and logistics, including how best to distribute humanitarian aid and deliver medical assistance,' he said.

The United Nations has appealed for a ceasefire in the Libyan city of Misrata, saying at least 20 children had been killed in attacks by besieging government forces on rebel-held parts of the city. Libya's third city, where hundreds are believed to have been killed by shelling and sniper fire by Muammar Gaddafi's forces, is the main focus of efforts to protect civilians caught up in the Libyan leader's bid to put down an armed rebellion.

Ghana’s investment in organic farming could transform the country’s agriculture sector and improve the country’s economy dramatically, reports Journalists for Human Rights. One small organic project is called the Abusua Sustainable Organic Farm (ASOF) is attempting to tap into the organic industry and convince the country of the benefits in organic farming.

The Manuel Rivera-Ortiz Foundation for International Photography is currently seeking to award one social documentary photographic project produced in the journalistic tradition of Manuel Rivera-Ortiz. One project based on pressing social issues in the developing world will receive a grant of 5,000 USD to be utilised for the production or completion of a pre-approved project.

The death of Andries Tatane at the hands of police officers has forced South Africans to question the direction in which the nation's law-enforcement body is moving. Tatane, a teacher, activist, husband and father of two young sons, was among a group of about 4 000 Meqheleng township residents who marched on the Ficksburg municipal offices. Observers have noted the increasing brutality of the police force over the past few years. In 2009, the police chief raised eyebrows when he called for a change to legislation that would allow police offers greater freedom to shoot at suspects.

Zambia has frozen LAP Green Network’s 75 per cent shares in Zamtel in conformity with the international community’s decision to freeze all assets belonging to Libya following the unrest in the Arab country, Zamtel managing director Hans Paulsen said in Lusaka on 15 April. The international community has been freezing some Libyan assets dotted across the globe. Mr Paulsen said Zamtel will not be affected by the new development and there is no need for customers to worry.

Jacob Zuma is facing pressure to clarify the situation of a close ally, Minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Sicelo Shiceka, against whom there have been serious allegations of wasteful and possibly fraudulent use of state resources. The public protector has been asked to probe Shiceka’s spending of R335,000 on a trip to Switzerland, R640,000 in one year to stay at the One&Only Hotel, and R160,000 in eight months flying his extended family round the country. The Sunday Times has reported that there is deep unhappiness in Shiceka’s home village of Ingquza Hill in the Eastern Cape, where water has been laid on for the building of a house for the minister and a R32m tarred road is being routed past this house, which would be among the first in the area to be electrified.

Civilians evacuated from the war-ravaged western Libyan city of Misrata have described the humanitarian situation there as grim, saying families are barely able to find enough food and water, that medical treatment is hard to come by, and corpses are lying in the streets. 'We could hear the snipers picking people off in the street outside,' said Mariam Doua, a teacher in the city. 'Eventually some [rebel fighters] came to lead us to safety in the middle of the night when the militia were dozing. We covered the mouths of the children and ran out into the street, barefoot.'

A new policy on education will be in place before the end of next year, the Ministry of Education has pledged. The number of those in need of basic education, both young and old, has ballooned. The new policy is expected to tackle ways of improving access of education to this number (about 10 million children), fight cultural barriers to education such as female genital mutilation and how to keep children in school even in the worst climatic conditions like drought.

Boubacar Diallo Badiane

Horace Campbell

Michael Neocosmos