More than 50,000 women have been treated for complications from unsafe abortions in Zambia during the past decade, compared to just 600 women who have received legal abortions in the same period. International organizations and local activists cite barriers to safe and legal abortion, despite a law regarded liberal regionally. Others say abortion should not be legal under any circumstances in a Christian nation such as Zambia.

On 14 February, police pre-emptively dispersed a planned demonstration in central Maputo by the Forum of Mozambican Demobilised Soldiers. The police response and lack of progress in negotiations between the demobilised fighters and the government is likely to drive further protests in Maputo in the next weeks, says Think Africa Press. There are over 13,000 demobilised fighters in Mozambique. While former combatants of the anti-colonial struggle have received pensions, demobilised fighters from the 1975-1992 civil war have not received the same benefits. The civil war soldiers demand equality of status and a monthly pension of $460.

Out of a population of 49-million, 7.5-million South Africans are out of work. Young people are worst affected, with over half of 18- to 25-year-olds unemployed. According to the labour federation, Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), there's no other middle income country in the world with such a high rate of unemployment. 'This is a crisis. We call it a ticking bomb,' said Zwelinzima Vavi, Cosatu's general secretary.

While there is a strong relationship between increasing urbanisation and increasing prosperity, it cannot be assumed that gender inequalities are reduced at the same time. In several spheres of urban life such as labour, education and transport, urbanisation may have contradictory effects for women and girls.

By systematically refusing to answer questions about abuses and dispossession in Sudan and Ethiopia the oil giant Lundin Petroleum and Sweden's minister for foreign affairs Carl Bildt have found a winning strategy, writes Kerstin Lundell, author of the award winning 'Business in Blood and Oil: Lundin Petroleum in Africa'. 'Based on earlier experiences, we find it's not of a constructive nature to comment on unsubstantiated claims about Lundin Petroleum and the corporation's business.' That's all the answer I've received for all the questions I've asked for the past four years about the company's knowledge of or involvement with all the events - the murders, the burning of entire villages - in Sudan and Ethiopia that I've encountered as I collected material for my book 'Business in Blood and Oil' and for articles in Process Nordic magazine.

In this KPFA special broadcast, Africa Today and Transitions on Traditions present a three-hour program on artist, musician, and poet Gil Scott Heron and a tribute to the Peoples Free Medical Clinic survival program of the Black Panther Party. The program features the music of Gil Scott, interviews on his life and work, and discussions on the Survival Programs of the Black Panther Party.

Sudanese police have raided student dormitories at the main university in the capital Khartoum, arresting and beating hundreds of students, activists say. The youth activist group Change Now said Friday's raid took place before dawn, adding that more than 350 students had been arrested at the University of Khartoum. The university has been the scene of student protests since late December. The students have previously staged a sit-in to demand the right to form a student union and to protest against police violence in earlier raids there.

The Conservative government's new plan to reform the refugee system will prevent legitimate claimants from telling their stories and will damage the Immigration and Refugee Board's ability to review those claims, says one immigration expert. The reforms were announced by Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, who said Canada is being preyed upon by 'bogus' refugees from democratic countries with strong human rights records.

The detention without charge of Dr. Wenceslao Mansogo Alo, a medical doctor who is also a prominent human rights defender and opposition member in Equatorial Guinea, for more than five days following the death of a patient during surgery is a source of serious concern, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said today. Both organizations are calling for his immediate release. Mansogo is a member of the leadership of the opposition Convergence for Social Democracy (CPDS) party and serves as its secretary for international relations and human rights. He is a medical doctor and owns and runs a private clinic in the city of Bata. He is also a member of the local city council.

Halliburton Co. said it’s responding to a subpoena from the Securities and Exchange Commission relating to a probe into its operations in Angola over possible violations of US foreign bribery law, the Wall Street Journal reports. It isn’t the first time Halliburton has faced problems with the FCPA. The company and its former subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root Inc., agreed in February 2009 to pay the US $579 million to resolve violations of the FCPA in connection with a four-company joint-venture project, dubbed TSKJ, to get $6 billion in contracts for liquefied natural gas facilities at Bonny Island, Nigeria.

A Save the Children report has cited Zambia as one of the ten countries with the slowest annual reduction of stunting between 1990 and 2010. Rising food prices and malnutrition are putting future global progress on child mortality at risk. According to a press release by Save the Children Zambia director Marc Nosbach, 45 per cent of children in Zambia were chronically malnourished and there has been no significant improvement in reducing the rate in the last few years.

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has said that he reserves the right to disregard efforts by South African President Jacob Zuma to mediate disputes in the nation’s troubled coalition government. Mugabe also repeated his pledge to hold elections this year, even if it means defying Zuma and other regional leaders who say new polls should be held only after a new democratic constitution is in place. 'This year we must have elections, they must take place with or without a new constitution,' Mugabe said in interviews aired by the state broadcaster on the eve of his 88th birthday.

This BBC page examines why the UK government, at a time when it has made drastic cuts in domestic expenditure, is maintaining it's foreign aid budget and taking a greater interest in Somalia. It has useful infographics on areas of political control, piracy, refugees and food aid.

It is a financial controversy that has already led to the sacking of an attorney general; the resignation of a former attorney general; the arrest and appearance before court of two top civil servants and a businessman. In 2009, the businessman managed to convince the then attorney general that the government of Ghana owed him money. According to him, a contract he had to build football grounds was cancelled illegally by the previous government of then-President John Kufuor. The businessman then went to court to seek compensation - by which time the sum of money he was claiming had undergone many inexplicable upward changes. The attorney general decided not to contest the claims, and the businessman emerged from court a much richer man.

An American reconnaissance plane crashed six miles (10 kilometers) from the only US base in Africa, killing four service members on board, after returning from a mission in support of the war in Afghanistan, the military said Monday 20 February. The statement said that the crash occurred at about 8pm Saturday in Djibouti.

Egypt's first presidential elections since a popular uprising ousted veteran leader Hosni Mubarak a year ago will be held in the first week of June, officials were quoted as saying on Sunday. 'The election will start in the first days of June and will end in the last week of June if there is a run-off,' Ahmed Shams El-Din, a member of the presidential election committee told the independent daily Al-Masry Al-Youm. The head of the electoral committee Faruq Sultan told a press conference on Sunday that hopefuls can register for the election starting from March 10 to April 8.

An estimated six per cent of Kenyan couples - about 344,000 - are HIV discordant, while a further 22 per cent of couples know the HIV status of their sexual partners. Although Kenya has national guidelines for promoting prevention among people living with HIV, implementing them has proved to be a challenge. Dr Charles Okal, the AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD) Coordinator for Nyanza Province says providing services for discordant couples is made difficult by the fact that testing is the only way to find them, yet couples rarely turn out for testing together.

Top United Nations officials say 10 million people need help amid a food crisis in West Africa's Sahel region. UN Development and Humanitarian chiefs Helen Clark and Valerie Amos called Saturday for greater humanitarian response to the crisis that effects eight countries, including Niger.

An alleged police hit squad exposed by the Sunday Times is being investigated for at least 51 suspicious murders - including one in its offices and another in its toilets. The body count is higher than initially thought - and 18 KwaZulu-Natal police officers are now suspects. They include two from the National Intervention Unit and 16 from the notorious Cato Manor Organised Crime Unit. The Sunday Times initially investigated seven cases involving the Cato Manor unit and 16 suspicious deaths.

Swaziland and Lesotho have the highest HIV prevalence in the world. They also share another distinct feature: during the last century, they sent a large numbers of migrant workers to South African mines. This paper examines whether participation in mining in a bordering country affects HIV infection rate.