Teachers have threatened another national strike to press for better housing allowances. They are also demanding increases in commuter, medical, hardship and other allowances. The Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) said its members were unhappy with the government’s failure to involve them in budget preparation through which they would have made their proposals.

South Africa's governing African National Congress (ANC) has upheld the expulsion of Julius Malema as the party’s youth league leader, a statement has said. The ANC's statement said: 'In respect of the present disciplinary hearing, the [ANC National Disciplinary Committee of Appeal] NDCA confirms the sanction imposed by the NDC that the appellant be expelled from the ANC.' Malema, 31, was suspended in November after being found guilty of three of the charges against him - including bringing the party into disrepute by calling for regime change in Botswana.

The South African Minister for Women, Children and People with Disabilities, Lulu Xingwana, has called for Southern African countries to develop a comprehensive, holistic and integrated approach to end gender-based violence (GBV). In her keynote address to the opening session of the third annual Gender Justice and Local Government Summit in Johannesburg, Xingwana, added that countries must continue to focus on the links between HIV and AIDS and GBV in strategies for prevention, response and support.

Gay rights activists in Uganda want the government to declassify homosexuality as a mental health disorder. Activists have expressed concern that most health workers interviewed said homosexuals were mad people deserving psychiatric intervention.

The Moroccan Parliament is debating a new bill that would give the prime minister some of the power now held by King Mohammed VI. The proposed law is considered among the most important political reforms brought by the new constitution in Morocco, since the power of appointments was limited to the king under the previous constitution.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) will encourage its two million members to take part in a national protest against the e-tolling system, it said. '[Cosatu] is mobilising its two million members for the mother of all protests against the act of highway robbery set to be committed from 30 April 2012 - the Gauteng e-tolls,' spokesperson Patrick Craven said in a statement. Cosatu is planning several rallies, marches, demonstrations and night vigils at the offices of the South African National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) and the transport department across the country from 23 April.

Botswana’s has confirmed a cessation clause with respect to Angolan refugees in the country. The ministry said the decision was taken after consultations with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. 'Taking into consideration the recommendations by UNHCR, the government of Botswana hereby declares, pursuant to article 1C (5) and (6) of the 1951 Convention relating to the status of refugees, Article I (4) (e) of the 1969 Organisation of African Unity Governing the specific aspects of the refugee problems in Africa and Botswana’s refugee Act that the refugee status of Angolan refugees who fled Angola as a result of the armed conflicts between 1961 and 2002 will cease as of 30 June 2012,' read part of a statement.

The weekend ransacking of a church compound in Khartoum illustrates the increasing hostility faced by some of the hundreds of thousands of residents of the Sudanese capital whose origins lie in what is now the independent state of South Sudan. Seven years after southern rebels and Khartoum signed a deal to end decades of civil war and nine months after the country split in two, recent borderland clashes have given rise to fears of a return to all-out conflict.

A major oil spill in the Niger Delta was far worse than Shell previously admitted, according to an independent assessment obtained by Amnesty International and the Centre for Environment, Human Rights and Development (CEHRD), which exposes how the oil giant dramatically under-estimated the quantities involved. The spill in 2008, caused by a fault in a Shell pipeline, resulted in tens of thousands of barrels of oil polluting the land and creek surrounding Bodo, a Niger Delta town of some 69,000 people.

Reporters Without Borders has called on the authorities of the semi-autonomous northeastern region of Puntland to immediately release radio Voice of Peace director Awke Abdullahi Ali, who has been held in the region’s capital, Bossasso, for nearly two months. Ali has not been charged although, under the law, no one should be held for more than 48 hours without charge.

Nathan Charles spent over two months investigating and exposing the poor conditions at the Bong Mines hospital in Bong County, Liberia. Through his ongoing investigation, Charles discovered that not only did the health center have inadequate facilities to serve the surrounding community, it also was short on doctors and medication. It wasn’t long before word spread about the conditions patients endured at the Bong Mines Hospital and the Liberian government was forced to step in.

One year after events that led to the deaths of 63 migrants in a boat in the waters off the coast of Libya, 4 survivors, with the support of a coalition of NGOs, filed a complaint in France concerning the responsibility of the French military for failing to assist persons in danger.

A quiet walk through nature offers moments of beauty and serenity that often go unnoticed. In celebration of Earth Day 2012, we invite you to take a few minutes to enjoy this journey through cycles of light, water, wind and earth.

In this week's edition of the Emerging Powers News Round-Up, read a comprehensive list of news stories and opinion pieces related to China, India and other emerging powers...

Organization for Refuge, Asylum & Migration has released its newest publication, 'Rainbow Bridges: A Community Guide to Rebuilding the Lives of LGBTI Refugees and Asylum Seekers'. Rainbow Bridges is the first guide of its kind directed at US LGBT and accepting communities. It is a 48-page guide developed in a pilot project to resettle LGBT refugees in San Francisco. Rainbow Bridges offers practical step-by-step guidance on welcoming new refugees, ensuring their mental and physical well-being, and helping them find support in their new communities.

Activists have sent another letter to Cepheid, the manufacturer of the revolutionary GeneXpert multi-drug resistant TB diagnostic machine, urging them to bring down the price of their products so that more people can access this lifesaving test.

Thousands of young Mauritanian opposition protestors took to the streets of Nouakchott Sunday to demand President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, a former coup leader, step down. 'We're ready to oust Aziz,' the demonstrators chanted during a march that wound up in front of the national broadcaster, which the protestors described as 'the symbol of the regime's tyranny'.

Grantees of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis (TB) and Malaria who allegedly committed fraud or misused funds unwittingly did a lot of damage to the Fund – and, many say, global health - as donors withdrew and the beleaguered organization faced a 'crisis of confidence' in recent years. But the Fund has responded and is undergoing an extensive restructuring process. IRIN/PlusNews takes a look at some of the alleged fraudsters and the progress of the investigations.

The Editors of African and Black Diaspora: An International Journal are pleased to announce a special issue on 'There are no Blacks in Argentina.': Policing the Racial Border to explore the hidden and invisible history of Blacks and the ways in which racial ideology and practice have erased the presence and memory of the African descendant populations while valorizing whiteness in Argentina. While a number of critical works have began to uncover the presence of African descendant populations in Argentina, this topic remains under theorized.

The African Anthropologist is the official journal of the Pan-African Anthropological Association. It is published biannually by CODESRIA on behalf of the Association. The journal is planning to produce a special issue focusing on ‘sexuality’. We hereby invite contributions on various aspects of sexuality.