Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and activists from around the world held rallies on Tuesday, 1 March, in London, Paris, Berlin, Johannesburg, and elsewhere, in tandem with a worldwide social media campaign to demand that the World Bank finally put an end to fossil fuel lending. Dressed as prisoners chained to lumps of coal, activists demanded that the Bank halt its highly controversial fossil fuel financing that led to last year’s $3.75 billion loan to one of the world’s largest coal plants, in South Africa.

Liberia is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be pregnant - one in 20 women will die during pregnancy or childbirth. But the government is launching new projects to deal with the problem. One such project began in February, with the opening of the first of seven ‘maternity waiting homes’ in Bong County, in north-central Liberia. A ‘maternity waiting home’ is a facility, within easy reach of a hospital or health centre, that is equipped with medical supplies and provides antenatal care with skilled birth attendants and emergency obstetric care.

As Southern Africa prepares itself for another year of economic partnership agreement (EPA) negotiations with the European Union, trade analysts say any deal should be about more than just liberalised trade. A December 2010 deadline that the SADC-EPA configuration set itself has come and gone. With EPA negotiations set to continue in Lesotho in March, African negotiators take the long view. 'It is no longer necessary to negotiate an interim EPA,' Namibian trade minister Hage Geingob told IPS. 'Instead we will move straight ahead with negotiations for a final EPA but this includes agreeing on contentious clauses such as the "Singapore issues". While the parties would like to reach an agreement this year, I don’t think that target will be met.'

A Senegalese journalist, Basile Niane and his three compatriot students have been selected among the 20 best bloggers of the Mondoblog competition, organized by Radio France International, a press release from RFI, made available to PANA said. In all, 100 francophone bloggers participated in the competition and the 20 best bloggers designated through a week-long training session in Dakar, the Senegalese capital, or Yaoundé, Cameroon.

Government spokesperson Jimmy Manyi on Wednesday said he would not comment on an open letter by Minister in the Presidency Trevor Manuel in which he was labelled a 'racist'. In the open letter, which was published in the Mercury newspaper, Manuel hit out at Manyi over his comments on coloured people. 'I want to draw your attention to the fact that your statements about "an over-concentration of coloureds" are against the letter and spirit of the South African Constitution, as well as being against the values espoused by the Black Management Forum since its inception,' Manuel wrote in the letter.

Unrest in Libya has cut off a 3,000km supply route the World Food Programme has used since 2004 to bring food to tens of thousands of Sudanese refugees and displaced Chadians in eastern Chad. 'WFP used the Libya corridor for about 40 per cent of its food aid to Sudanese refugees and displaced Chadians,' Jean-Luc Siblot, WFP representative in Chad, told IRIN. When unrest erupted in Libya, 11,000 tons of cereals and pulses were ready for discharge at Libya’s Benghazi port to be transported to eastern Chad. The two vessels carrying food have since been re-routed to Port Sudan, Siblot said.

Dreams of a decent living as well as good paying jobs and working conditions have gripped the lives of many young people from Somalia, Ethiopia as well as northern Kenya. Youth aged between 20 to 40 years are being lured with promises of relocation to the developed world and other countries within the region like South Africa. However, while many youth leave home dreaming big, the dreams have ended up turning into nightmares and harrowing tales for the young men and women as they travel from various destinations to the capital city of Nairobi and Mombasa. This article from the African Woman and Child Feature Service examines the issue.

The General Assembly suspended Libya from the United Nations Human Rights Council on 1 March for 'gross and systematic' human rights violations because of President Muammar Al-Qadhafi’s violent repression of peaceful protesters demanding his ouster. The vote by the 192-member Assembly, for which a two-thirds majority was required, followed a request from the Geneva-based Council itself that it suspend the North African country – one of the top UN right’s body’s 47 elected members – and was passed by acclamation.

A total of 141 journalists and media workers were killed during the decade of the 2000s in attacks and reprisals blamed on criminal groups. Mafias and cartels today pose the biggest threat to media freedom worldwide, says this Reporters Without Borders document.

Zambia’s education minister Dora Siliya who is also ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) spokesperson, has in the last few months used Facebook to make important government policy announcements as well as party matters, reports Global Voices. A few days ago, Siliya announced changes in the educational system on Facebook and, as usual, attracted a lot of comments, both positive and negative from some of her 4,950 online 'friends'.

Chatham House's Africa Programme hosted an expert discussion in February 2011 with a representative for Alassane Ouattara to discuss the post-election crisis, its impacts and prospects for a resolution. The paper available through the link provided is a summary of the event. 'As the political stand-off between incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo and elected President Alassane Ouattara remains unresolved, ordinary Ivoirians have suffered the consequences, and impacts of the impasse are increasingly being felt in the region and internationally,' says Chatham House's website.

An offensive by pro-Somali government troops and Ethiopian forces against Al-Shabab militants in the western Somali town of Bulo Hawo has forced thousands of people to flee their homes there and in the nearby Kenyan town of Mandera, say witnesses and officials. One resident of Bulo Hawo, normally home to some 60,000 people, and also close to the Ethiopian border, said much of the now nearly deserted town had been destroyed 'after days of shelling'.

Over the past decade, there has been growing international momentum to conceptualise, document and address the various manifestations of 'armed violence'. To date the discourse has focused largely on the causes and effects of armed violence and explored the range of available programming options to prevent and reduce it. Discussions on the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) currently underway in the United Nations (UN) provide an important opportunity to examine armed violence in the context of decisions concerning international transfers and the export and import of conventional arms used in armed violence, says this document from the International Action Network on Small Arms and Amnesty International.

Armed conflict is robbing 28 million children of an education by exposing them to widespread rape and other sexual violence, targeted attacks on schools and other human rights abuses, according to a United Nations report. The number accounts for 42 per cent of the primary school age children globally not enrolled in school and living in poor countries affected by conflict, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) warned in its 2011 Global Monitoring Report.

The National Syndicate of Tunisian Journalists (SNJT) met last week to discuss the state of the nation's media in the post-Ben Ali era. 'It's hardly a change,' said Soukaina Abd Samad, SNJT executive office member and Tunisian television journalist. 'The changes in the media did not keep pace with the democratic changes in the country.'

The Women Peacemakers Program-Africa (WPP-A) is organising a Movement building and Gender-sensitive Active Nonviolence training to build the capacities of 26 heads of organisations from conflict and post-conflict fragile states in Africa, notably Kenya, Nigeria, Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea, Uganda, Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia, Congo DRC, Burundi, Rwanda, Zimbabwe and Madagascar. The training is to be held in Accra, Ghana from 28 March to 1 April 2011.

'We, actors in the field of alternative information as well as citizen activists who use communication as a tool for social transformation:
Note that, in a global context:
- information is held in a stranglehold by political, economic and industrial forces and is manipulated by the governments and States;
- freedom of expression is being denied, thwarted or repressed;
- there is little or no guarantee for an unfettered access to information for all citizens;
- a violent repression is unleashed upon citizens and actors in the field of information;
- information is being commodified and standardized;
- there is an increasing distrust by public opinion regarding information conveyed by the mainstream media.'

The police have paraded a Tanzanian national; a key suspect in last year’s twin bomb blasts that killed more than 70 people in Kampala. Hijar Seleman Nyamadondo, 31, was paraded at the Rapid Response Unit (RRU) headquarters in Kireka amid tight security hours after he was extradited to Uganda by the Tanzanian authorities.

A large-scale demolition in Lubango, capital of Huíla province, carried out by the government of Angola, has already left in its wake over 5,000 displaced people in the southwest of the country, Global Voices reports.

Three MDC members from Mutare North are recovering, after they were assaulted by a mob of ZANU PF activists, wielding axes on Thursday (24 February). According to the MDC, Farai Matsika, Mabel Manhumwa and Gainmore Machikuni of Mutare North were assaulted for being MDC activists. Matsika was admitted to hospital with a deep cut on his leg, while the other two were left bruised and shaken. Machikuni and Manhumwa’s homes were also both burned down by the ZANU PF mob. The MDC said the violence is part of ZANU PF’s campaign to intimidate people ahead of possible elections.