Most Kenyans are not aware that 2012 is not just a critical election year, but also the year that will usher in a major change in the financial landscape of the country and Eastern Africa, writes Rasnah Warah in the Daily Nation. Next year, the East African Community is set to adopt a common currency in the five member states (Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda), which is expected to reduce the cost and risk of doing business in the region. While the EAC is determined to go ahead with plans to adopt a common currency, sceptics are not sure whether the currency will be viable, especially as the region’s various members experience vastly differing socio-economic conditions, which could hinder the sustainability of the monetary union.

Noncedo Pulana lacks many things, but she is certainly not short of confidence as she prepares to stand for election as Khayelitsha ward councillor. She feels her long years as an activist in the sprawling township have prepared her to do a better job. Khayelitsha is reputed to be the largest township in South Africa. Created in 1985 to accommodate an influx of black labour to Cape Town, in 20 years its population grew beyond 400,000. Seventy percent of residents still live in shacks of wood and corrugated metal; one in three must walk 200 metres or more to the nearest public water point.

Abortion remains a thorny issue in Kenya today. It was one of the divisive topics that generated emotive debates during the discourse preceding the referendum to enact the new constitution. The issue of right to life and when a pregnancy should be terminated took centre stage to the point that it was tearing this country apart. However, whether it is ethical or not; moral or not, abortion remains an issue that cannot be swept under the carpet. Many women in their 40s and 50s and teenage girls who get unwanted or unplanned pregnancies die every day as they procure unsafe abortions.

Oxford University’s Master's programme in International Human Rights Law is offered jointly by the Department for Continuing Education and the Faculty of Law. It is conducted on a part-time basis over 22 months. It involves two periods of distance learning via the internet as well as two summer sessions held at New College, Oxford. The degree programme is designed in particular for lawyers and other human rights advocates who wish to pursue advanced studies in international human rights law but may need to do so alongside work or family responsibilities. The aim of the degree programme is to train and support future leaders in the field of international human rights law. A central objective of the course is to ensure that participants not only know but can also use human rights law. The curriculum places roughly equal emphasis on the substance of human rights law, its implementation, and the development of human rights advocacy skills.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) on Monday called on President Jacob Zuma to remove controversial former columnist Jon Qwelane as South Africa's ambassador to Uganda. Qwelane had in the past 'launched many verbal assaults on gay and lesbian people', stating publicly that he 'would have disowned his own children if they were gay'.

The poverty line for maintaining a family of five in economically ravaged Zimbabwe rose last year to $467 per month - but without increased earnings to cover the 8 per cent rise, Zimbabwe's state statistics agency said on Monday. The nation's 240,000 civil servants, teachers and government workers are planning to strike to protest average monthly incomes of about $200. With massive unemployment, most Zimbabweans survive on the equivalent of about $1 a day. Two million people are set to receive food aid in coming months, according to the United Nations.

International press institutes have come out strongly against Egyptian authorities’ suppression of the media, following the withdrawal of Al Jazeera’s license to broadcast from the North African country. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemned on Sunday the information ministry’s move to shutdown Al Jazeera’s bureau in the country. The CPJ described the move as an attempt to 'disrupt media coverage by Al Jazeera and calls on them to reverse the decision immediately'.

Fighting between government and rebel groups in North and South Darfur in western Sudan has displaced tens of thousands of people and hindered access by humanitarian workers to some affected areas, sources said. 'While the international community remains focused on Southern Sudan, the situation in Darfur has sharply deteriorated,' said Daniel Bekele, Africa director at Human Rights Watch (HRW). 'We are seeing a return to past patterns of violence, with both government and rebel forces targeting civilians and committing other abuses.'

A dramatic spike in physical science distinctions is expected to cause a flood of last-minute applications for the medical, engineering and commerce faculties when the country's universities open for the new academic year. Statistics released exclusively to the Sunday Times show there was an enormous increase in the number of physical science distinctions - from 999 in 2009 to 5962 last year - in what experts have described as 'very surprising'.

Secret US embassy cables sent from Cairo in the past two years reveal that the Obama administration wanted to maintain a close political and military relationship with the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, who is now facing a popular uprising. A frank briefing note in May 2009 ahead of Mubarak's trip to Washington, leaked by WikiLeaks, reported that the Egyptian president had a dismal opinion of Obama's predecessor, George Bush.

With four years to go, Tanzania still lags behind other East African countries towards the realisation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), says the latest report by the Centre for Global Development (CGD). The US-based think-tank puts Tanzania at fourth position, having one out of eight points, only surpassing war-torn Burundi which has 0.5 points on the eight core MDG targets of ridding extreme poverty, hunger, improving education, ensuring gender parity, reducing child mortality and maternal mortality, HIV/Aids, and attaining sufficiency in water provision.

Major trading powers agreed on Friday to push for an outline deal in the decade-old Doha trade talks by July as world leaders appealed for all nations to make concessions or risk losing the opportunity for years. European Union Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht said the ministers from seven key economies had also agreed to instruct officials to negotiate a deal in the Doha round across the board and leave the trade-offs for ministers to tackle to a minimum.

Women continue to reap less benefits from employment in agriculture than men in rural areas, and the recent global financial and food crises have slowed down progress towards gender equality in farming-related labour, three United Nations agencies said in a joint report. The report – entitled 'Gender dimensions of agricultural and rural employment: Differentiated pathways out of poverty' – notes that women need access to education, training, credit, markets, technical assistance and labour protection. They also need equal, secure access to land and other assets and 'social capital', including the ability to participate equally in farmers’ organisations.

With no sign at present of an end to the political deadlock in Côte d’Ivoire, the country remains partitioned. The economic repercussions of the crisis are being felt in both south and north. In Abidjan and the south, where Laurent Gbagbo and his administration are still in control, in the face of regional and international condemnation and isolation, prices of key commodities have risen dramatically. In the north - long held by former rebels Forces Nouvelles, and providing the main support base for Alassane Ouattara, internationally recognized as the elected president - livelihoods are being crippled and basic services reduced to a minimum in regions which have been marginalized for decades.

The Revenue Watch Institute (RWI) is a non-profit policy institute and grant-making organization that promotes the transparent, accountable and effective management of oil, gas, and mineral resources for the public good. RWI provides expertise, capacity building and funding to help countries maximize the long-term economic benefit of their natural riches.

Nigerian soldiers opened fire on students in central Nigeria in late January in a fresh round of violence that also saw churches and mosques set ablaze, officials and witnesses said. A hospital official said 24 people were admitted with bullet wounds and one person had died, but the commander of a military task force in the region said only four students were shot and injured when soldiers fired in self-defence.

A group of engineers from Google, Twitter and SayNow (which Google acquired last week) have built a speak-to-tweet service for protesters in Egypt. The service, which is already live, enables users to send tweets using a voice connection. Anyone can tweet by leaving a voicemail on one of three international phone numbers: +16504194196 or +390662207294 or +97316199855. Tweets sent using the service will automatically include the hashtag #egypt.

Egyptian air force fighter planes buzzed low over Cairo, helicopters hovered above and extra troop trucks appeared in a central square where protesters were demanding an end to President Hosni Mubarak's rule. State television said that a curfew has been imposed in the capital and the military urged the protesters to go home. But the thousands of protesters in Tahrir Square chose to stay on Sunday. The show of defiance came as Egypt entered another turbulent day following a night of deadly unrest.

Orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) comprise a fifth of Swaziland's roughly one million people, 80,000 more than predicted in a doomsday scenario back in 2004, but a social meltdown feared by some, has not happened. In 2004 the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) projected a grim future for the landlocked country as a consequence of the world's highest HIV prevalence rates - 26.1 per cent of people aged 15-49 are living with the virus - but although the nation is struggling, it is managing to cope.

Parliament threw MPs debating the contentious Protection of Information Bill a lifeline on Friday with a last-minute extension of their deadline. The mandate of the ad hoc committee set up in March last year to process the bill was due to expire on Friday. But the chairman, ANC MP Cecil Burgess, said at the last scheduled sitting that though he could not cite the rule making it possible, he had been assured that the speaker, Max Sisulu, would announce an extension before the current mandate ran out. He told reporters later the deadline had been extended to March 31.