Oxfam seeks to expand its capacity to hold global multi-lateral institutions and African States accountable to the claims of people living in poverty, suffering and injustice in the African countries we work in. The Pan Africa Programme is a continental public policy advocacy programme with staff in based Nairobi, Hague, Addis Ababa and Dakar. Together with the State of the Union coalition (www.stateoftheunionafrica.net) , we are looking to fill seven exciting vacancies based in Nairobi. Are you ready to act with poor people and their allies to make claims on the global and African policy processes? Are you committed to holding African States accountable to their own decisions within the African Union? We are looking for people like you to fill a total of seven positions. The first three positions will form the Nairobi based secretariat of newly established State of the Union coalition. The remaining four positions will be Oxfam staff working within the Pan Africa programme office in Nairobi, Kenya.

To thousands of Egyptian revolutionaries, Khadiga Hennawi is mother, says this article on Hennawi, who started out bringing food to protestors camped in the historic square, earned the moniker 'the Mother of Tahrir' by taking care of younger activists, often offering refuge at her home from attacks by security forces. The fifty-nine-year-old divorcee has become a figurehead of the struggle for freedom and democracy.

Kenya has been urged to continue providing refuge to Somalis fleeing violence and hunger in their homeland, a US State Department official said. 'We continue to rely on and advocate strongly for the protection of Somalis inside Kenya, that they should not be sent back into Somalia in order to create some sort of a buffer zone,' declared David Robinson, acting assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration. Mr Robinson spoke at a press briefing in Washington Tuesday on the status of the food crisis in Kenya and elsewhere in the Horn of Africa.

Kenya's Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta and Head of Public Service and Secretary to the Cabinet Francis Muthaura step aside from office after ICC pre-trial Judges confirmed charges levelled against them. Mr Kenyatta will however retain his post as Deputy Prime Minister. President Kibaki accepted the decision of the two to step aside and appointed Nairobi Metropolitan Minister Njeru Githae to act as Finance Minister. Internal Security Permanent Secretary Francis Kimemia also takes over Mr Muthaura's duties on an acting capacity.

The press freedom watchdog, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), Tuesday 24 January condemned the killing of Nigerian journalist, Enenche Akogwu, in Kano, northern Nigeria. According to IFJ, Enenche, a reporter with the privately-owned Channels Television station, was gunned down on Friday, 20 January. 'We condemn this latest killing which shows that journalists in Nigeria need adequate protection in the face of increasing risks,' Gabriel Baglo, the IFJ Africa Director, was quoted as saying.

The body of Zimbabwe’s first army commander General Solomon Mujuru had a hole in the abdomen and emitted blue flames when it was retrieved from his farmhouse that was gutted by fire last year, an inquest heard on Tuesday. Police Constable Clatwell Garisayi, who was the 23rd witness to give evidence after the inquest opened last week. Mujuru was considered to be the only politician in President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF who could stand up to the 87-year-old leader. He was believed to be leading one of the factions positioning themselves in anticipation of the ageing President Mugabe’s departure.

Years of interviews, investigative reporting, and analysis of classified US government documents went into a book on right-wing paramilitarism in Haiti.

The ECOWAS Commission has said that it roundly condemns the spate of terror attacks in different parts of Nigeria. It maintained that the attacks by Boko Haram were 'aggravating insecurity among both citizens and visitors'. According to the sub-regional group, the West African leaders have noted with regret that 'the latest deadly attacks in the country’s ancient northern city of Kano on Friday, January 20, 2012 happened in spite of the determined efforts by the government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to rein in those behind these attacks.' Nigeria’s violent situation has reportedly featured at the United Nations Security Council.

The international dimension of Liberia’s civil war is rarely given the attention it deserves, writes Boima Tucker on the blog Africa is a Country. 'The fact that Charles Taylor stands on trial for war crimes in Sierra Leone points to it partially, but often not realized are the roles that countries like Libya, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Nigeria played in initiating a truly multinational war. Recent revelations by the CIA - which have always been suspected - put the United States’ role in the war at center stage, adding fuel to claims of outside intervention in Liberian politics, since its founding as a Western style nation-state, up until today.'

World Bank Managing Director Caroline Anstey recently announced a new partnership with Google that will apparently empower citizen cartographers in 150 countries worldwide. This has provoked some concern among open source enthusiasts. The worry is, says this post, that Google will organize crowdsourced mapping projects and use people with local knowledge to improve Map Maker data, which will carry Google licencing agreement restrictions. Does this really empower citizen cartographers?

Alleged brutality by security forces against journalists and proposed draconian legislation against newspapers have plunged Uganda 43 places lower in the latest press freedom ranking by the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF). The Press Freedom Index notes that an increased number of journalists in Uganda reported more acts of violence meted out on them by security agencies. 'Journalists in Uganda were the targets of violence and surveillance during the presidential election in February (2011) and were targeted again during the brutal crackdown on the Walk-to-Work protests later in the year, when dozens of journalists were arrested,' the report indicated.

This seminar series explores the role the media play as political actors in developing countries and fragile states. It gathers scholars from a variety of disciplines to examine how old and new media are used to support different political agenda: from foreign countries trying to win the hearts and minds of a local population to local governments aiming at increasing their ability to communicate with, but also exercise control over, their citizens.

Asylum-seekers entering South Africa are no longer being issued with the necessary documents to apply for refugee status. Without a so-called section 23 permit, they are being turned away from Refugee Reception Offices (RROs) and denied the opportunity to legalize their stay in the country. The section 23 permit is normally issued to anyone entering the country who wants to apply for asylum. It gives them 14 days to report to an RRO and formally apply for refugee status, although following an amendment to South Africa’s immigration law, the section 23 permit will soon only be valid for five days.

Michael Sata, the Zambian president, has been 'assassinated' according to a mischievous alteration to his profile on Wikipedia. Reports about Mr Sata's death are not new – there were several in the run-up to the election – but generally they emanate from concerns about his health. A chain smoker with a history of heart problems, he is thought to travel with a cardiologist and go to bed early each night to prevent overstrain. But speaking to The Daily Telegraph last week, he insisted he was going nowhere. 'David Cameron has more physicians than me. He has all sorts, for eyes, for teeth, me I only have one person,' he said. 'I am 74, even if I died today, it would not be untimely.'

The International Criminal Court has confirmed charges against four of the six Kenyan suspects thought to be most culpable for the post election violence that followed a disputed presidential election in 2007. Charges against deputy prime minister Uhuru Kenyatta, MP William Ruto, radio broadcaster Joshua arap Sang and civil service boss Francis Muthaura were admitted. The ruling has been highly anticipated in the country following its impact on the elections expected to be tightly contested.

Eastern and Southern Africa, the region most affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, is making great strides to scale up access to prevention and treatment services, a United Nations official said today, adding that focus is on behavioural change and prevention of mother-to-child transmission. Of the estimated 34 million people living with HIV/AIDS across the world, almost three quarters live in Eastern and Southern Africa, Sheila Tlou, the Director of the Regional Support Team for the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) told a media briefing in Geneva.

If it was not for HIV/AIDS, the population of South Africa would be over 4.4 million more than it is today, according to the South African Institute of Race Relations' latest South Africa Survey. The survey, published this week, says there are 50.6 million people in the country and in the absence of AIDS, this would have been 55.0 million.

On 30 January, only five days into the revolution, the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions was born, the first such federation to be established since the union movement was monopolized by the state-controlled Egyptian Trade Union Federation in 1957. Since then, some 300 independent unions have been established nationwide, with a reported membership of nearly two million workers. Labour leaders met recently at a conference titled 'Workers and Revolution', to discuss how the declared objective of 'Bread, Freedom and Social Justice' has yet to be realised for much of Egypt’s working class. The conference, which was held at the Center for Socialist Studies in Giza, also focused on the campaign 'The Factories and the Square are One', with the aim of coordinating the struggles of protesters in the streets with those of labourers in their workplaces.

The United Nations says it is concerned about worsening security at refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia that are home to more than 700,000 Somali citizens. The UN refugee agency says it is particularly worried about the situation in Kenya’s massive Dadaab camp following a spate of kidnappings, murders and robberies there. A spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees says Kenyan police are investigating whether the Dadaab attacks are being carried out by outsiders or by people within the camp.

The latest US cable released by Wikileaks accuses Chinese ICT companies doing business in Kenya of 're-colonising Africa' with 'good and cheap' equipment. The US embassy cable, from Nairobi to Washington, says Chinese firms selling into Kenya’s ICT sector are 'throwing a lot of money around' and influence may be so great 'that it is distorting important investment decisions in the country', according to industry contacts.