Women’s rights in Morocco have come under the spotlight recently after a young woman was assaulted in a Rabat market by people she called 'Salafists', or ultra-conservative Islamists. She said she was accosted by the men because of the short dress she was wearing. Other witnesses were reported by the Magharebia news portal as saying the girl was attacked with stones and beaten after the assailants said the dress was 'too revealing'.

Although Zimbabwe is a mineral-rich country, mine laborers and owners say that profits aren’t enough to cover costs, leading to low or little pay and unsatisfactory working conditions. The government has implemented laws aiming to reform both issues, but fee hikes to boost federal revenue have been problematic, says this article from the Global Press Institute.

With an average of 100 children under five dying each day, it may be hard to believe that Zimbabawe was once the country of choice for medical treatment in Africa. In this video report, Al Jazeera's Haru Mutasa, in Harare, explains why the healthcare system there has not been able to regain its title.

On 8 May 2012, the Johannesburg High Court declared that a girl taken in and treated as a daughter by a woman in Soweto could inherit as her customary law heir. Judge Coppin declared the daughter (who prefers to remain anonymous and will be referred to as ‘Ms K’) to be the descendant of a woman who died intestate in 2006. This was despite the fact that the woman never formally adopted Ms K and was not her birth mother. Lawyers for the Socio-Economic Rights Institute (SERI) successfully argued that Ms K had been adopted in terms of customary law and should be recognised as her mother’s descendant in terms of the Reform of Customary Law and Succession and Regulation of Related Matters Act 11 of 2009.

A Zimbabwean minister has ordered traditional leaders to seize land belonging to homosexuals and expel them from their communities. Local Government minister Ignatius Chombo, who belongs to President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party, said homosexuality was a 'foreign value'.

The United Nations has adopted global guidelines for rich countries buying land in developing nations. The voluntary rules call on governments to protect the rights of indigenous peoples who use the land. It is estimated that 200m hectares, an area eight times the size of Britain, has been bought or leased over the past decade, much of it in Africa and Asia.

The trial of journalist Ramiro Aleixo began on 11 May, 2012, at the Luanda Provincial Court, in Angola. Aleixo stands accused of the crimes of defamation, slander and injury against the military justice system, namely its Supreme Court and office of the military attorney. From a legal standpoint, the accusation against Mr. Aleixo has two serious flaws, says the blog makaangola.org.

Employees at Kayerekera Uranium Mine in Karonga have gone on strike demanding a 40 per cent salary increase in the wake of the recent devaluation of the Malawi currency, the kwacha last week. Effectively, this has completely halted all activities at the mine which is supposed to run for twenty fours on daily. A senior management employee was reported as saying that their demands are justified by the 49.7 per cent devaluation of the kwacha.

The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) is pleased to announce its 2012 Child and Youth Institute that will be held for three (3) weeks, from 3rd to 21st September 2012. The institute is one of the components of the Child and Youth Studies Programme and is aimed at strengthening the analytic capacities of young African researchers on issues affecting children and youth in Africa and elsewhere in the world. The institute is designed as an annual interdisciplinary forum in which participants can reflect together on a specific aspect of the conditions of children and youth, especially in Africa.

The tough times for Malawians after the kwacha was devalued by 49 per cent on are finally here, reports Malawi Today. The announcement made on Friday of the rise in fuel prices is expected to trigger a reciprocal upward movement in the prices of other basic commodities. Petrol is now selling at K490 from K380, representing a 29 per cent increase. Diesel is selling at K475 from K360 representing a 31 per cent surge while paraffin has been pegged at K171 for domestic use and K388 for industrial use from K171, translating to 126 per cent increase.

Egypt’s state-owned MENA news agency reported on Saturday that a court ruling in Switzerland has been issued in favor of Egypt, which would allow Egypt to recover funds embezzled by former President Hosni Mubarak and his cronies. The ruling was in response to Egypt’s efforts to recover the money since the January uprising ousted the former president, who smuggled money illegally into Switzerland, and had been frozen since February 2011.

The Talking Box is an initiative for girls in Nairobi’s Kibera slum that invites students to write down concerns that they are afraid to discuss with their teachers or parents. According to this article from Global Press Institute, educators say it’s reducing school dropouts and improving academic performances.

At least 41 people have been injured in clashes in Guinea between police and opposition protesters demanding long-delayed parliamentary elections. A total of 24 protesters were hurt in Thursday's (10 May) riots, including one in a serious condition after being shot, hospital sources said, while 17 police officers were injured by missiles, according to local television reports.

State prosecutors requested a life sentence for Burundian radio reporter Hassan Ruvakiki who was imprisoned after airing a November interview with a purported rebel leader, according to news reports. Chief Prosecutor Barbatus Ntakarusho made the request during a hearing at a court in Cankuzo, a city in eastern Burundi, saying the reporter had engaged in 'acts of terrorism', the journalist's defense lawyer, Onesime Kabayabaya, told CPJ. Ruvakiki is a reporter for the French government-funded Radio France Internationale and the local station Radio Bonesha FM.

Thousands of Mauritanian opposition activists staged a march and sit-down protest in Nouakchott Wednesday evening 9 May, calling for former coup leader President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz to step down. The turnout was larger than on May 2, when the demonstrators tried to occupy a square in the centre of the capital before being dispersed by security forces.

The European Parliament has adopted a resolution calling for the European Patent Office to stop granting patents on the conventional breeding of plants and animals. The resolution was jointly tabled by Members of Parliament from several parties and was adopted with a large majority. The vote follows the demands of some national parliaments, such as the German Bundestag, to put a stop to patents on plant and animal breeding. 'This is a huge success for all farmers, breeders and consumers who are concerned about the monopolisation of our food resources,' says Ruth Tippe from the coalition No Patents On Seeds!

In this BBC video, Komla Dumor reports that luxury cars are selling fast Luanda, the capital of Angola. In fact, the local Porsche dealership cannot keep up with demand.

The African Commission of Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR) has issued a stinging rebuke to the Swazi government - and called on it to respect human rights and take all necessary measures to ensure the conduct of free, fair and credible elections in 2013. The Swazi Media Blogspot says even though the Swazi authorities seem immune to most criticism of their anti-democratic antics and their contempt for human rights, they will surely be embarrassed to read that the Commission is deeply concerned and even alarmed by some of their actions.

Former president FW de Klerk must retract comments he made in a CNN interview, the Council for the Advancement of the SA Constitution (Casac) said on Saturday. 'Casac condemns in the strongest terms the reckless attempts by former president FW de Klerk to justify and defend the apartheid system,' it said in a statement. 'The very notion of 'separate development' was at the centre of the apartheid ideology, and was predicated on notions of racist supremacy as was Nazism.'

Global mortality among children younger than five years declined by 26 per cent between 2000 and 2010 - meaning that the lives of some two million children were saved - but this is still not enough for many countries to meet the Millennium Development Goal of reducing deaths in this age group by two-thirds by 2015, according to recent US research. 'Too much emphasis has been placed in recent years on global numbers and mortality, and less on understanding the determinants and direction of trends,' wrote Zulfiqar Bhutta, head of the maternal and child health division at the Aga Khan University Medical Centre in Karachi, Pakistan in a commentary accompanying the study.