After a year of fragile and uneven recovery, global economic growth started to decelerate on a broad front in mid-2010, says this UN publication. The slowdown is expected to continue into 2011 and 2012 as weaknesses in major developed economies continue to provide a drag on the global recovery and pose risks for world economic stability in the coming years.

Members of the gay community are taking the government to court to challenge the constitutionality of its anti-sodomy laws. In 2005 gays attempted to register their association, the Lesbians, Gays and Bisexuals of Botswana (LEGABIBO), with the Registrar of Societies, but their application was turned down in 2007 on the grounds that the republican Constitution does not recognise homosexuals.

The head of a parliamentary science committee has expressed dismay at drastic cuts planned for Nigeria's capital development budget for science. The cuts were highlighted last week (9 February) during a hearing by the House of Representatives Committee on Science and Technology. The government will slash the budget, which funds buildings and equipment but not salaries, from 53 billion naira (US$350 million) in 2010 to US$33 million in 2011.

Museveni blazes ahead of the opposition...

Based on comments from presenters and the audience the key priorities emerging from the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) public debate on rural transformation 'Back to the Plot!' held on 31 January 2011 included land reform; service delivery in rural areas; experimenting with alternative modes of agricultural production, such as smallholder producers and organics; enabling access to food value chains for more producers, especially small producers; addressing the rising cost of farm inputs, including new technologies, fertiliser and petrol; and addressing ecological matters. For more details about presentations at the event, please click on the link provided.

Malaria is the leading cause of mortality among children under the age of five in this West African nation, and UNICEF is concerned that stocks of essential drugs to treat the deadly disease are in danger of running out in two to four weeks’ time.

More and more evidence is accumulating that a clean and green economy is most likely to deliver a more secure, prosperous and less tumultuous future for humanity, WWF has said. WWF International Director General Jim Leape was commenting on the release of the major United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) report 'Towards a Green Economy' which shows that appropriate policies and relatively modest redirections of global investment flows could grow the global economy at equivalent or greater levels than current forecasts.

Guinea's President Alpha Conde has told the BBC the military junta that held power before he was elected has left the country bankrupt. Conde said the army leaders had spent more money in two years than in the 50 years from independence in 1958.

Pressure piled on President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga to defuse rising tension in the country following their standoff over state office nominations and declaration of political warfare by their lieutenants, reports The Standard. There was also fear their disagreement over picking of nominees to key judicial postings and newly created Budget Office would compromise the implementation of the Constitution, and poison the road to next year’s general election.

Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro has underscored the importance of education in raising the status of women in society and called for greater investment in measures to ensure gender equality, deploring the fact that two-thirds of illiterate adults across the world are female. 'Investing in women and girls is a force multiplier,' Migiro told the opening of the two-week session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women at UN Headquarters.

A heated debate is raging in Tunisia over the creation of a special body to monitor the current government. A group of 28 parties and organisations of various political hues on 15 February called for the establishment of the National Council for the Protection of the Revolution, 'in dedication to the principles of the revolution, so as to counter all attempts to abort the revolution and shove the country into a state of vacuum'.

Egyptian women, just like men, took up the call to ‘hope’ represented by Tahrir Square. In this article, they describe the spirit of Tahrir – the camaraderie and equality they experienced – and their hope that the model of democracy established there will be carried forward as Egyptians shape a new political and social landscape.

Over the last two years, a small vehicle known as the 'motorcycle-wheelbarrow' has changed the lives of farmers in Pokola, reports Farm Radio Weekly. The vehicle has three wheels and features a large bucket on the back. Before the motorcycle-wheelbarrows arrived, many producers abandoned their fields because they were unable to get their produce to market. But with its help, farmers now lose fewer of their crops after harvest. Many farmers have increased their productivity.

The annual meetings of Commonwealth women's ministers and officials began on Saturday 19 February in New York, with an assessment of the progress and challenges in implementing the Commonwealth's 10 year Plan of Action for Gender Equality. At the meeting, it was decided that regional groupings would play a bigger role in monitoring the Plan of Action. Dr Sylvia Anie, Director responsible for Gender at the Secretariat said: 'The formation of regional groups is an important development. Their observations will feed into the general monitoring of the Plan and the groups will hold their first meeting before June.'

Lecturers at the Chancellor College, a constituent college of the University of Malawi in the eastern city of Zomba, some 80 kilometres from Blantyre, Monday held peaceful demonstrations, protesting what they called an intrusion on their academic freedom. This follows the summoning, by Inspector General of Police, Peter Mukhito, of political science lecturer, Dr. Blessings Chinsinga, over an example he allegedly gave in one of his classes. Dr. Chinsinga reportedly drew parallels between Malawi's current fuel crisis with the insurrections that toppled the government of President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt.

COSATU has condemned the continued persecution of political activists in Zimbabwe and the never improving situation in that country. 'The detention of about 52 activists of the International Socialist Organisation (ISO) in Harare on baseless charges of plotting to topple the government indicates the state of insecurity in that country. Amongst those arrested was a former MP for Highfield, who is also the general coordinator of International Socialist Organisation (ISO).'

Amid revolutionary struggles across North Africa and the Middle East that have already toppled dictatorial regimes in Tunisia and Egypt, details continue to emerge of the corrupt ties between these dictators and leading French politicians. These revelations are embarrassing the French political establishment, including the main bourgeois 'left' opposition party, the Parti Socialiste (PS), writes Kumaran Ira on the World Socialist Web Site.

The high cost of maternity and health care, the lack of a proper follow-up system, and a limited ability to diagnose HIV infection early in babies means many Zimbabwean children are not being caught by the safety net that the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) programme was intended to provide. At least 150,000 children below the age of 15 are living with HIV, and more than 90 per cent of HIV infections can be attributed to vertical transmission, according to government figures.

A senior United Nations official has welcomed a verdict by a military court in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) which marked the first time that a high-ranking commander and several other army personnel were arrested, tried and sentenced for conflict-related sexual violence in the conflict-prone nation.

I wake to the news
of Egyptian unrest
on calls for freedom
and democracy…