The Kenyan government has created the first ever tribunal to handle legal issues relating to HIV, including discrimination against people living with HIV and protecting the confidentiality of medical records.

The Nigerian Senate has unanimously rejected calls for the declaration of a fresh state of emergency in crisis-ridden north-central Plateau State. Plateau State had been engulfed in sectarian violence, which began Sunday in capital, Jos, and had claimed several lives.

Zimbabwe has suspended its constitution making process following sharp differences within President Robert Mugabe’s unity government over a consultation process that is already behind schedule by several months.

The army has taken over responsibility for security in the central city of Jos, Nigeria's Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan has said. At least 65 Christians and 200 Muslims are believed to have died in religious rioting in Jos in recent days.

Sudan would accept the south's secession if southerners were to vote for independence in a referendum next year, President Omar al-Bashir said. Speaking at a ceremony marking five years since the end of the north-south war, he said his Northern Congress Party did not want the south to secede

A team of researchers combine maps, satellite images and participatory mapping techniques to develop an accurate picture of land use among pastoralists in southern Ethiopia.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned the four year jail term handed down to Tunisian journalist Fahem Boukadous on 13 January by a court for his reporting on the demonstrations against unemployment and corruption in the mining town of Gafsa in 2008.

Ivory Coast's electoral commission (CEI) has apologised for errors made in drawing up a voter list, saying thousands of names disputed by President Laurent Gbagbo were never intended to be on it.

When Nairobi was founded in 1899, it took its name from what the Maasai called the place: Ewassi Nyirobi, "cool waters." A century later, the river has something stuck in its throat: millions of plastic bags threaten to choke it.

Cabinet has approved the newly-crafted national information communication technology strategy plan and the ICT blueprint is expected be launched at the end of next month.

Members of Morocco's Parliament must declare their assets by May 2010, as the government implements a law passed in 2008 to govern the conduct of elected officials.

Charity Mwansa, a former minister and member of parliament, knows just exactly what being one of the very few female politicians in Zambia means. When she left politics it had nothing to with not being able to do the work and instead had everything to do with the mad world of male-dominated politics.

Dialoubé is in a region of sparse savannah in north-western Mali, near the Mauritania border. A cold, dry harmattan wind whistles through the fence surrounding the nursery full of young Acacia senegalensis seedlings, about 100 metres away from the villagers' mud houses. Further out lies a 50-hectare plantation established in 2007: part of Mali's Acacia Senegal Plantation Project which aims to plant 6,000 hectares of acacias in four villages in the area.

Freelance journalist Stanley Kwenda, who writes for the private weekly, The Zimbabwean, has fled the country after he said he received a telephone threat from a high-ranking police officer, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said quoting the paper's editor, Wilf Mbanga.

Exiled Swazis and supporters are to hold a weekly Vigil outside the Swaziland High Commission in London in protest at human rights abuses in that country.

Angola's parliament has approved a new constitution which abolishes direct presidential elections. The head of state will now automatically be the leader of the party with the parliamentary majority.

Guinea's military rulers have chosen opposition leader Jean-Marie Dore to be prime minister, overseeing a return to civilian rule, officials say. Junta spokesman Idrissa Cherif said 70-year-old Mr Dore had "experience and understanding of Guinean politics".

The important judicial decisions of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) have enriched the law on genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, Human Rights Watch said as it released a comprehensive digest with the judgments of the tribunal presented by topic.

The Year 2009 can be considered as one of the worst years for press freedom in the African continent. Considering the year under review, 13 journalists were killed across the continent; 32 journalists imprisoned, a significant number of journalists arrested, some violently attacked and wounded, while threats and intimidation against journalists continued unabated.

Nearly 80 percent of the 300,000 conflict-related deaths in Darfur were due to diseases like diarrhoea, not violence, Belgian scientists said on Friday. An analysis of deaths dating from 2003, when rebels took up arms against the government of Sudan, showed that after an initial peak of violent deaths in the still-ongoing conflict, diseases associated with diarrhoea became the major killers.