Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has in recent months stepped up targeting tourists and aid workers for murder and kidnapping in Mali, Niger, and Mauritania, Human Rights Watch has said. AQIM should immediately and unconditionally free hostages in its custody and end attacks on civilians, Human Rights Watch said.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) and its partners hope to eliminate the circulation of the polio virus in West Africa as soon as June by launching the first round of national synchronised immunisation days against the debilitating disease

Human rights groups, under the umbrella Coalition for International Criminal Court (CICC), have urged governments that are not yet party to ICC, to demonstrate their commitment to international justice and the rule of law by ratifying Rome Statute, the founding treaty, before 1 April, 2010

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) is deeply concerned about the security and safety of journalists in Somalia following the detention of Mohamed Salad Abdulle, of Somali Broadcasting Corporation and correspondent of Markabley radio in Kismayo and Mohamed Abdikarim, a correspondent with Hornafrik and Markabley radio station. The two were arrested on Tuesday 16 March 2010 by the Al Shabaab Administration in Jubba and Gedo regions.

A United Nations tribunal has affirmed the conviction and 15-year sentence of a famous Rwandan singer and composer for his role during the mass killings that engulfed the country in 1994, and reduced the sentence handed down against a top official after reversing a number of his convictions.

From April 15, everyone attending a clinic or hospital will be offered an HIV test, regardless of whether they have symptoms of the disease or not. Dubbed the HIV Counselling and Testing campaign, or HCT, this is the most ambitious HIV testing campain in the world, according to SA National AIDS Council (SANAC) co-chairperson Mark Heywood.

There is a high prevalence of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis amongst patients with HIV in South Africa, investigators report in the April 1st edition of Clinical Infectious Diseases.

Kate Ofwono recently visited Geneva to join UNHCR events linked to International Women's Day. The 23-year-old refugee from Uganda took part in a panel discussion and presented a film she made about her life in Kakuma camp. She fled to the camp in north-west Kenya four years ago after her father was killed and her mother kidnapped in eastern Uganda.

It has been called the “new Great Trek” by South Africans who remember their history. Presently, over 30-million hectares in almost 30 African countries have been auctioned to a host of corporations and governments, from China — housing one fifth of the world’s population on 8% of the world’s arable land — to oil-rich, water-poor Gulf nations.

Nigeria's acting president, Goodluck Jonathan, has dissolved the country's cabinet. Mr Jonathan became acting president in February amid the continuing illness of President Umaru Yar'Adua.

Ethiopia has admitted it is jamming the Voice of America's (VOA) broadcasts in Amharic, accusing the radio station of engaging in "destabilising propaganda".
Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said Ethiopia had been testing jamming equipment, although there had been no formal decision to bloc the US station.

At least two protesters have been shot dead by Ugandan police after they tried to stop the president from visiting the site of a fire at a royal mausoleum. The protesters booed President Yoweri Museveni and set up a barricade to stop him from reaching the tombs at Kasubi.

The thickest book on secondary school teacher Hellen Ndalama’s desk is her indigenous language dictionary. It is also her most-used book. The front cover is partly ripped and the upper end of the spine is secured with adhesive tape. With 35,000 entries, the new book which translates Chichewa to English (CE) and English to Chichewa (EC) is the first comprehensive dictionary of its kind in Malawi.

Togo's Constitutional Court declared Thursday incumbent President Faure Gnassingbe Essozimna winner of the presidential polls held 4 March, with 60.88 per cent of the votes cast, PANA reported from here. According to the final results, Gnassingbe, candidate of the Rally of the Togolese People (RPT), won 1,242,409 votes or 60.88 per cent, followed by Jean-Pierre Fabre, candidate of the Union of Forces for Change (UFC opposition) with 692,554 votes or 33.93 per cent.

Ministers of Environment from ECOWAS Member States will meet on Thursday in Accra, Ghana, to adopt a draft regional programme of action to reduce vulnerability to climate change in West Africa. Experts from the region, currently meeting in Accra to validate the document, will present their recommendations to the ministers for consideration, according to a communique from the ECOWAS Commission in Abuja, the Nigerian capital.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned the ruling of Monday, 8 March by the Ethiopian Supreme Court which reinstated the hefty fines which had been imposed by the country’s High Court against four publishing houses which had successfully appealed a judgment of the High Court following the infamous treason trial of 2005.

South African President Jacob Zuma has come under fire for his failure to denounce the resurgent political violence in the rural areas, spearheaded by ZANU PF supporters. Zuma ended a two-day ‘mediation’ visit to Zimbabwe on Thursday without mentioning the escalation in violence or calling on the political leaders to rein in their supporters.

Global telecoms giant Tata Communications was set to increase its investments in Africa to capitalise on the arrival of new submarine data cables, CEO Srinath Narasimhan said last week.

Among adolescents in Harare, Zimbabwe, HIV is now the single most common cause of acute admission and in-hospital death, Rashida A. Ferrand and colleagues reported in a study published in the February online edition of PLoS Medicine.

Mercy Gondwe, 51, from Rumphi in northern Malawi, was married for 34 years. When her husband died in 2008, she assumed she would inherit the land they had been cultivating together since they got married. But this was not the case.