Ten women have been arrested in Cameroon on suspicion of being lesbians. They have been detained in Ambam, some 190 miles south of the capital of Yaounde, until they go on trial, Cameroon Radio Television reported. Consensual same-gender sex is considered criminal in the West African nation and punishable by a jail sentence from six months to five years and a fine.

Farmers’ organisations in the Democratic Republic of Congo say the country’s new Agriculture Law - enacted last December - could lead to many smallholder farmers losing their land. 'We have launched a major appeal to the government to modify the law,' Paluku Mivimba, president of FOPAC, the Congo Federation of Smallholder Farmer Organisations, told IPS. 'Several articles of this law create insecurity of tenure for peasant farmers because they eliminate the possibility of peasant farmers becoming owners of land they have been cultivating for many years,' said Mivimba, who is also the head of the federation’s lobbying unit.

Last year alone, 376,000 people with HIV started antiretroviral medication - over 100 000 more than the previous year. Sadly, during that same year up to 450 000 people were infected with HIV, mostly due to 'the lack of a co-ordinated and effective prevention response'. These are some of the issues raised by the Health Systems Trust’s SA Health Review 2011, which was launched recently in Pretoria.

The Kenyan government's recent failure to adequately treat a patient with extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) has some civil society organizations questioning whether the country's TB programme is equipped to diagnose and treat such patients. In October 2011, an HIV-positive Nairobi woman was diagnosed with XDR-TB while receiving her treatment at the Kenyatta National Hospital for multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB). Treatment was provided by the hospital; however, she was prescribed three additional medicines that she had to buy herself, to supplement the regimen.

Mass incarceration has created an underclass of Black US citizens with fewer rights and more bitter futures than the rest of America.

The consolidated Ballot Update is a creation of the findings from 210 long term observers deployed by the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) in 2011. The Update seeks to provide an analysis of the human rights situation in Zimbabwe and implications for free and fair elections. 'While the GNU has brought a semblance of normalcy to the country, on the political scene, it has been a mixed bag of successes and failures to implement its letter and spirit. This update is a synthesis of data from observers deployed from April to December 2011.'

Walter Turner, host of the show, Africa Today, a weekly radio program on Africa and the African Diaspora interviewed Onyango Oloo on 24 February 2012. The focus of the interview was on the political and historical developments in Kenya between 1963 with a special emphasis on the responses of Kenyans to the ICC process.

GRAIN has made available a new data set documenting 416 recent, large-scale land grabs by foreign investors for the production of food crops. The cases cover nearly 35 million hectares of land in 66 countries. The collection of deals provides a stark snapshot of how agribusiness has been rapidly expanding across the globe since the food and financial crises of 2008 and how this is taking food production out of the hands of farmers and local communities.

Senegalese Human Rights League (LSDH) and the Senegalese section of Amnesty International (AI) have again denounced the practice of torture in the country, following the death of another student. Both organisations accused the police of having 'inflicted cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment on the student Ousseynou Seck until death'. The statement said the student, who was reportedly arrested and taken to a police station, during protests against the candidacy of President Abdoulaye Wade ahead of Sunday's election, reportedly died a few hours after his release.

Nearly 130,000 people have been displaced by fighting between Tuareg rebels and government forces since mid-January in Mali, the UN has warned. The clashes had displaced an estimated 60,000 people inside Mali, and a further 69,000 had fled to neighbouring countries, a spokesman told the BBC.

Cameroonian women have called on the government to respect national and international conventions it signed by ensuring parity between men and women in appointments to top positions and elective offices. The call was made in Douala this week during a meeting of members and leaders of various women’s associations and civil society organisations in Cameroon. The women met under the auspices of a newly-formed women’s umbrella group — Ensemble Pour la Parité (Together For Parity).

Voters booed Senegal's president as he went to cast his ballot in elections Sunday, the latest sign of how his decision to seek a third term in office has caused his popularity to plummet and divided a country long considered a model of tolerance. The results issued late Sunday from the polling station where Wade and his family have voted for decades made clear that the aging leader is facing the biggest challenge of his career. Of the 484 votes case at Bureau No. 2 in the Point E neighborhood, Wade received only 102 – not even 22 per cent.

The Wanjiru Kihoro Fellowship Programme aims to contribute to the development of a new generation of African women leaders who are dedicated to utilizing their voices and experience so as to further women's central role in peace building and development work in their country, region and continent. Currently, Femmes Africa Solidarité is offering a position
within the Fellowship Programme to commence in 2012.

Zimbabwe will no longer be represented in this year’s Mr Gay World after the man who intended to compete finally withdrew from the contest. Taurai Zhanje, who last week was verbally attacked by many from his local community, pulled out of the contest citing personal reasons.The 'Mr Gay World' Director for Africa, Coenie Kukkuk said: 'We are sad to loose Taurai, but in Africa, the personal sacrifice for gay and human rights is sometimes too much to expect from people.'

Britain is involved in a secret high-stakes dash for oil in Somalia, with the government offering humanitarian aid and security assistance in the hope of a stake in the beleaguered country's future energy industry. Riven by two decades of conflict that have seen the emergence of a dangerous Islamic insurgency, Somalia is routinely described as the world's most comprehensively 'failed' state, as well as one of its poorest. Its coastline has become a haven for pirates preying on international shipping in the Indian Ocean.

In just one week the city of St. Petersburg could pass an outrageous bill that will make it a crime to read, write, speak or meet to discuss anything considered 'Gay'. St. Petersburg is one of Russia's number one tourist destinations. That's why an international storm of bad publicity will force the Governor to think twice about the cost of signing this bill. This campaign on is calling for your signature to protest against the bill.

The recent rush to acquire farmland in order to meet rising global demands for food and fuel is putting African countries at risk of bearing the social, economic, and environmental costs of global resource scarcity, says a new study by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR). Many of these costs threaten to arise from the rising direct competition between established land uses and plantation monoculture. At the local level, this can be manifested in environmental degradation, loss of access to socially and economically valuable land resources, and conflicts between subsistence and commercial agriculture.

Former Liberian first lady Jewel Howard Taylor has introduced a bill making homosexuality liable to a death sentence. Jewel is a senator and former president Charles Taylor’s ex-wife. Uganda re-tabled a similar controversial anti-gay bill recently. Homosexuality is outlawed in 38 African countries and it can be punishable by death in Mauritania, Sudan, and northern Nigeria. This Global Voices post summarises the reactions from the blogosphere.

Following controversial utterances made by the Zulu monarch King Goodwill Zwelithini during a speech at the KwaZulu Natal legislature opening, there have been concerns raised about the implications this may have on what are already strained relations between South Africans and foreign nationals, particularly Congolese nationals. He was quoted in the Sowetan newspaper as saying: 'I understand that South Africa is a democratic country and welcomes people from different countries who have run away from their countries for different reasons. As a result, South Africa is home to many Africans but I must express my disappointment at the behaviour of these people.' He said this in reference to the recent marches by the Congolese Freedom and Justice Fighters living in South Africa who marched to the Union Building; ANC’s headquarters, Luthuli House; and parliament in Cape Town to show their dissatisfaction with the South African government's involvement or lack of in the Congolese elections processes.

ANC Youth League president Julius Malema has reiterated the league's stance that it would ignore any suspensions the ANC handed down to him or his fellow leaders in the league, as such sentences would amount to political persecution. The controversial youth leader's statements are the latest in the ongoing battle between the youth league and the ruling party after Malema and several other leaders were suspended by the ANC's national disciplinary committee (NDC) in November after being found guilty of sowing division within the ANC.