Jean Paul Noel Abdi, President of the Ligue Djiboutienne des Droits Humains, has been arrested on 9 February 2011 and is detained at the prison of Gabode. Jean Paul Noel Abdi is unfairly accused of 'participation in an insurrectionary movement' on the basis of Articles 145 and 146.4 of the Djiboutian Penal Code for having carried out his activities as human rights defender by denouncing the repression, on 8 February 2011, of a student demonstration by the security forces.

Bloomberg reports that Djiboutian authorities released three opposition leaders as opponents of President Ismail Guelleh clashed with police in the second day of protests against his rule, a party head said. Mohamed Daoud Chehem, head of the Djibouti Party for Development; Ismael Guedi Hared, president of the Union for a Democratic Alternative; and Aden Robleh Awaleh, leader of the National Democratic Party, were detained yesterday morning (18 February), Awaleh said in a telephone interview from the capital, Djibouti.

Tidiane Kassé

Eric Toussaint

Firoze Manji

« Intervention chirurgicale » en Cote d’Ivoire : la stratégie du pire ?
Pierre Sané

This briefing relies on new research into how new technologies are being used by abusers and by women fighting back. The cases were uncovered in research commissioned by the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) in 12 developing countries in 2009, unless an additional website reference is included.

The Algerian government has said it will end its 19-year-old state of emergency 'within days'. Mourad Medelci, the foreign minister, made the announcement on Monday, echoing a similar promise made by Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the president, earlier this month. A state of emergency has been in place in Algeria since 1992 and the government has come under pressure to remove the laws following popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia.

Human Rights defenders are outraged after Malawian President Bingu wa Mutharika passed a Bill outlawing lesbianism. The new Section 137A, titled 'Indecent practices between females', states that any female person who, whether in public or private, commits 'any act of gross indecency with another female', shall be guilty of an offence and liable to a prison term of five years.

Bertha Hamases is a tall, lanky woman with a weathered face and a friendly sparkle in her eyes. A few years ago she was one of the many people circling the drain in Otjivero, a dead end settlement one hundred kilometres from the capital. Here evicted farm workers gathered in misery. For Hamases, a single mom with four kids aged between 9 and 16, life looked hopeless. Until a coalition of civil society organisations picked Otjivero for a privately-funded pilot project to show that a universal basic income grant can make all the difference.

On Sunday, 13 February - just 48 hours after the resignation of Hosni Mubarak as president of Egypt in response to 18 days of street demonstrations - physician, novelist and former political prisoner Nawal El Saadawi welcomed 12 other women's rights activists into her Cairo apartment. They joined to celebrate and look forward and backward. 'We need to guarantee that there is no abortion of the revolution,' she told Women's eNews, adding that she had already been in touch with women and men as to how to proceed in this new Egypt. 'I have confidence in the revolution. I am optimistic by nature. I believe in the collective power of women and men.'

The Rwandan government plans to expand its national voluntary male circumcision programme using a new device, the PrePex system, which officials say saves both time and money. The PrePex system works through a special elastic mechanism that fits closely around an inner ring, trapping the foreskin, which dries up and is removed after a week. A study conducted by the Rwandan Ministries of Defence and Health in 2010 found the device to be safe and effective.

Immunisation against pneumococcal disease, a leading killer of children in Africa, is beginning as a vaccine made by British company GSK is rolled out across Kenya. Thousands of lives will be saved - but could it have been done more cheaply? asks this blog article from the London Guardian.

Supporters beat drums in the slums while workers spruced up his private villa as Haitians prepared on Tuesday for the possible return of Jean-Bertrand Aristide with feverish anticipation. 'Some people are cleaning the streets, others are getting the residence ready, and we are making preparations for a beautiful party,' Rene Civil, a die-hard follower of Haiti's first democratically elected leader, told Agence France-Presse.

On 3 February 2011, Minister of Information and Broadcasting Services (MIBS) Lieutenant General Ronnie Shikapwasha said government would not re-open Radio Lymabai in Mongu until investigations into its alleged involvement in the broadcast of seditious materials regarding the Barotseland controversy were completed. On 14 January 2011, Radio Lyambai was forced off air when police confiscated equipment that enables the station to be on air.

With the world’s attention focusing on mass mobilization and historic shifts of power in Tunis and Cairo, the crisis in Côte d’Ivoire has faded into the background but remains completely unresolved. There has been no face-to-face meeting between Laurent Gbagbo and his long-time political rival Alassane Ouattara, while both men, backed by their respective camps, continue to lay claim to the presidency.

ZANU PF Member of Parliament for Gokwe Central Dorothy Mhangami with the help of war veterans and party youths on Tuesday 26 January 2011 force marched villagers to attend a rally at Gokwe Centre where she told scores of people in attendance to come in their numbers and sign a petition calling for the removal of sanctions. This is part of a ZANU PF campaign to have more than a million signatures throughout the country against the targeted sanctions imposed by the West on President Robert Mugabe and his allies endorsed on a petition.

Gabon's late president Omar Bongo allegedly lined his pockets with money from a 37-million-dollar (28-million-euro) bank embezzlement scheme and funneled some of it to French political parties and President Nicolas Sarkozy, according to a classified US embassy cable published in Spanish daily El Pais.

A cabinet minister has accused a renegade militia in Southern Sudan's Jonglei oil state of killing at least 211 people, doubling earlier estimates of the death count. James Kok Ruea, the humanitarian affairs and disaster management minister, called the killings a 'massacre'. Renewed violence has sparked concerns for the security of the underdeveloped south where voters last month overwhelmingly voted to declare independence from the north in a referendum.

A coalition of over 35 African grassroots organisations, known as the African Biodiversity Network (ABN), has launched a new website to raise the voices of those working across the continent in the development sector. The website shares the work of partners across Africa who are working together to find local, African-led solutions to the challenges they face.

Saharawis in Algerian refugee camps and in Morocco-occupied Western Sahara are watching the revolution wave in North Africa with jubilation and unease. Mass protests in Algeria have been announced - Algeria being the main ally of Saharawis fighting for their independence and the host for around 150,000 Saharawi refugees. For next weekend, marches are announced in Morocco - their occupying power.

Spin the wheel and get a tip to spoil your better half; spend more time together or go out for a romantic evening: A new Ugandan HIV prevention programme hopes a 'love wheel' will encourage couples to seek excitement within their own marriages rather than in the arms outsiders. The wheel, categorised into eight thematic areas such as family, fitness, fun, friends and finances, has a number of tips relating to each theme. Currently stocked in supermarkets in the capital, Kampala, its promoters say they have sold more than 1,500 units since its launch in November 2010.

As South Africa prepares to host the United Nations climate change summit in Durban this year, Lake Chad is living proof of the continent's environment in crisis. It was almost double the area of Gauteng just four decades ago but has shrunk by 95%. It is now smaller than Johannesburg.