Wednesday 25 January marked the one-year anniversary since the beginning of 18 days of protests that ousted the previous regime of Hosni Mubarak. Since that day, Egypt remains struggling to see the revolution succeed. Website has a useful timeline of important events throughout the year.

Allieu Sesay, a broadcast journalist working with Freetown-based Radio Democracy, was reportedly assaulted on 15 January 2012 and briefly detained by some policemen drawn from the Operation Support Division (OSD) of the Sierra Leonean police. Sesay met his ordeal when covering the arrest of Aziz Carew, a constituency chairman of the opposition Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) at his Fourah Bay home in the east of the capital Freetown. This was after a bye- election which resulted in violence.

Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta distributed close to Sh50 million to mobilise and arm attackers during the post-election violence, according to the ruling of ICC judges. The money was released in instalments through three former MPs from Kiambu and Nakuru counties and former Mungiki leader Maina Njenga. In the ruling delivered on Monday 23 January, the judges pieced together events leading to the revenge attacks on ODM supporters in Naivasha and Nakuru by Mungiki members, who were said to be supporters of the rival Party of National Unity (PNU).

Last week BBC News reported that 70,000 indigenous people have been forced to relocate in the western Gambella region of Ethiopia to new villages that lack adequate resources for their survival. The land has been signed over to foreign investors, including Saudi Star Agriculture Development Plc, a company owned by Saudi-Ethiopian billionaire Mohammed Al Amoudi. Saudi Star has begun rice cultivation on 10,000ha of land in Gambella and a 10,000ha irrigation project along the already-compromised Alwero River. Only grain that does not meet export requirements will be sold locally.

Malawi's president says he has ordered police to arrest anyone who attacks women for wearing trousers in public. President Bingu wa Mutharika spoke out on national radio after several women were beaten and stripped on the street for wearing non-traditional dress.

Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has opted to come clean over her role in the country’s civil war. Over the years innuendoes have circulated about her sponsoring the National Patriotic Front of Liberia of former warlord Charles Taylor, who is facing possible conviction before the UN-backed Sierra Leone Specia Court sitting at The Hague. Mrs Sirleaf is now promising to appear before the Leymah Gbowee committee set up last year to address pre-election abuses. The president she was ready to 'challenge the untruths' about her civil war role.

OSIWA calls for proposals that seek to:
1. Foster building of strong governance institutions, processes and structures that are transparent, accountable and intolerant of impunity;
2. Build the capacity of civil society organizations and increase citizen participation in decision-making processes and
3. Promote the protection of fundamental rights and citizenship groups exposed to discrimination.

The programs will be implemented in one or more of these countries: Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone.

Please click on the link provided to access the full Call for Proposals, which contains further links to a detailed strategy to guide the application process and the application documents.

There is no threat, sanctions lead to war and war leads to welfare cuts: These are three of the 10 reasons advanced by the website against possible war against Iran by Western powers.

Ghana’s President John Atta Mills on 25 January announced a cabinet reshuffle that saw two ministers - Health minister Joseph Yieleh Chireh and Information minister John Tia – lose their jobs. The reshuffle had been speculated about over the past several months following revelations that a leading member of the ruling National Democratic Congress had been awarded millions of dollars in court-approved debt payments that went against the government.

Reporters Without Borders says it welcomes blogger Maikel Nabil Sanad's release late on 25 January under an amnesty announced on 21 January for around 2,000 civilians who had been convicted by military courts during the past year. Sanad, who had been detained for 10 months on a charge of insulting the armed forces, was freed from Cairo's Tora prison late in the afternoon.

The Tanzanian government has indicated it was bowing to pressure from medical doctors in public hospitals, who have been on strike to press for improved working conditions. Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda has appealed to the doctors to resume work, underlining his readiness to meet with their representatives in order to work out a lasting solution to their grievances.

This page has live updates of the political posturings and the response of the street, as protesters organise marches to voice their demands to MPs, as Egypt's newly elected People's Assembly opens for the first time since Hosni Mubarak was toppled.

Allegations of sabotage, mounting debt and widespread financial mismanagement….The debacle in Limpopo has spewed out a dangerous brew of bad money and political in-fighting, writes Kim Cloete in Business Day. The financial mismanagement may have been rotten to the core, but it’s the timing of the intervention that has riled Limpopo’s ANC-run administration. National Treasury says it had warned the Limpopo Treasury throughout last year that it would run out of funds if it was going to continue with its rampant spending. Eventually the situation reached a head in November when it became clear that the province was bankrupt.

South Africa’s economic difficulties are placing Lesotho’s economy at a crossroads, as the government struggles to push big rocks up the mountain to balance the national budget. Lesotho is wrestling with a 30 per cent decline in domestic revenues and a 15 per cent budget deficit in the 2011/12 financial year. The government expects to fund the gap with loans from international financial institutions and foreign aid.

Islamist militants have launched a suicide truck bomb attack on an Ethiopian military base in central Somalia, witnesses say. Al-Shabab says it killed 10 Ethiopian soldiers in the attack in the town of Beledweyne but this has not been confirmed. Ethiopian forces seized Beledweyne from al-Shabab earlier this month.

“The liberation of the oppressed people cannot come as a result of magical practices, nor of a natural shock, nor of a friendly understanding”. Those were the powerful words of Frantz Fanon in his masterpiece “The Wretched of the Earth”. Fanon spoke of decolonisation as a violent process to create new men and to overthrow a system that exploits the native, dehumanises him and plunders his resources. Talk by Dr Leo Zeilig: Institute of Commonwealth Studies, 28 January at 15:00. Goodenough College, Mecklenburgh Square, London WC1N 2AB

A court in Algeria has sentenced a fugitve leader of al-Qaeda's north African wing and three of his followers to death for attacks against the military. The sentence against Mokhtar Belmokhtar and the three others was handed down in absentia on Sunday night after a day-long trial in Algiers.

STOP PRESS: Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta has 'stepped aside' as finance minister, as well as head of the civil service Francis Muthaura.

'On the basis of the President's statement that he would act once the charges are confirmed, and not withstanding the said individuals right to appeal and presumption of innocence until proven guilty, we the undersigned people of Kenya exercising our sovereignty as expressed below under Chapter One and Chapter Four (Bill of Rights) of the Constitution of Kenya 2012 call upon the President to move with speed and honour his word and pledge to Kenyans by compelling Amb. Francis Kirimi Muthaura, Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta and William Samoei Ruto to step down from the public offices they currently occupy.

The President should also state categorically that the said individuals are not fit to hold public office in Kenya unless and if when the very serious charges against them are dismissed. We feel that the three individuals can no longer inspire confidence from the majority of Kenyans in exercise of their official duties and that their personal activities will indeed interfere with the discharge of their duties in service of the people of Kenya.'

View the rest of the statement and sign the petition through the link provided.

Ugandan police clashed with opposition supporters in Kampala Tuesday 24 January after security forces tried to detain opposition leader Kizza Besigye following a protest rally over rising living costs. Police fired tear gas at protesters after they started throwing stones following an unsuccessful attempt by a plainclothed security agent to drag Besigye into a waiting van, an AFP photographer at the scene said.

The Permanent Representatives Committee (PRC) of the African Union has called for monitoring of human rights in occupied Western Sahara, during its 23rd ordinary session in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The PRC asked the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights to provide constant information on the developments taking place in occupied Western Sahara.