Mali's army has said it fought off attacks by Tuareg rebels, some of whom recently returned from fighting in Libya and have launched an offensive to seize several northern towns. Fighting erupted in the towns of Aguelhok and Tessalit, keeping residents indoors as gunfire was exchanged, a day after the army said it had fought off an attack in the town of Menaka by bombing rebel positions.

A startling revelation made by a US newspaper indicates that former Liberian President Charles Taylor was aided by American intelligence agents to escape from a Boston prison where he was awaiting extradition back to his country. The Boston Globe newspaper this week carried the report which also indicated Taylor worked as a spy for the Americans for many years. He had fled Liberia where he was wanted for embezzling millions of dollars from the government and was awaiting extradition from the US when he escaped from the Massachusetts jail in 1985.

Rwanda has suspended and put under house arrest four of its top military officers, an army spokesperson says.They are being investigated over 'acts of indiscipline' concerning alleged business dealings in mineral-rich Democratic Republic of Congo. One of those arrested is the military intelligence chief, who has also advised President Paul Kagame on security issues.

Amnesty International has called for the immediate release of four activists arrested over the distribution of T-shirts calling for an end to dictatorship in the Gambia. One activist, Dr Amadou Scattred Janneh, the country's former Minister for Information and Communication, was sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labour for treason. Modou Keita, Ebrima Jallow and Michael Uche Thomas were each sentenced to three years with hard labour for sedition.

In this study, researchers found that the annual costs of FGM-related obstetric complications in six African countries studied ranged from 0.1 to 1 per cent of government spending on health for women aged 15–45 years. In the current population of 2.8 million 15-year-old women in the six African countries, a loss of 130,000 life years is expected owing to FGM’s association with obstetric haemorrhage.

A magistrate in Bulawayo ruled on Monday 16 January that activists Jenni Williams and Magodonga Mahlangu will have to defend themselves against kidnap and theft charges, even though the key witnesses denied the incident ever happened and contradicted police statements. Williams and Mahlangu, leaders of Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA), were in the Bulawayo Magistrates Court for a ruling on their application to have the case dropped without having to present a defence.

Recently hundreds of dead fish floated to the surface of a stream which was the only water source for a rural community in Swaziland's drought-prone eastern region. A local sugar processing plant admitted to accidentally discharging toxic effluent into the stream, and brought in water tanks to supply the community until clean-up operations could be completed. Communities like this one were at the mercy of polluters until the Swaziland Environmental Authority (SEA) was established five years ago. An environmental watchdog group comprising 16 scientists from various fields, SEA is tasked with enforcing Swaziland's 2002 Environmental Management Act as well as various international environmental treaties to which Swaziland is a signatory.

A coalition of Sierra Leone women groups plan to stage a march to push for better security in the country. The women singled out the government for failing in its responsibilities to maintain peace during political rallies. 'Our political leaders are a disgrace,' Yasmin Jusu-Sheriff, one of Sierra Leone's leading women activists, said.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned the arrest of 25 journalists in Somaliland recently, accusing the authorities of waging a campaign of intimidation to silence independent reporting. Reports say that 21 journalists were detained over the weekend by security forces and held in Hargeisa, Borame and Las Anod police stations. They were released 16 January, according to the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ), an IFJ affiliate, but four who had been arrested earlier remain in custody.

In the early hours of 5 January, a 21-year-old man from Guinea-Conraky, died in Barcelona's immigration detention centre after complaining of chest pains or (according to another report) breathing problems. The young man was the second person to die in a Spanish migrant detention centre in less than three weeks. On 19 December 2011, an unnamed woman, aged 41, believed to be from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, died of meningitis hours after her admission to hospital from the Aluche detention centre, in the suburbs of Madrid.

Office of the Polisario National Secretariat expressed, in a communiqué issued Saturday, its strong condemnation 'of brutal repression perpetuated by the Moroccan occupation authorities against the defenseless Saharawi citizens, who are peacefully protesting the farce of taking civilians and human rights activists to military trail.' The Office called on the UN to immediately intervene to protect the Saharawi civilians, establish a UN-mechanism to protect human rights and report about it, reveal the fate of more than 651 Saharawi missing, end the Moroccan looting to the Saharawi natural resources and eradicate the military wall that divided Western Sahara Territories, land and people.

Parts of Ethiopia are still reeling from the effects of recent drought, flooding, conflict or a combination of the three, resulting in increased numbers of children dropping out of school, say officials. At least 385,000 school-children need 'emergency education assistance this school year', Alexandra Westerbeek, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) communication manager in Ethiopia, told IRIN. 'In addition, 70,000 children among [the] refugee population also need emergency education assistance.'

President Jacob Zuma does not want the South African military to equip itself with an aircraft carrier -- despite reports suggesting otherwise. A newspaper report claimed that Zuma had personally authorised the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) to acquire an aircraft carrier as part of a project codenamed 'Project Millennium'. It was alleged the programme was established to procure a warship that could operate 'more than a dozen helicopters' and 'vertical take-off jets'.

The International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHO) Committee is seeking organisation's activities for the next International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia in 2012 and have issued a letter relating to the day which can be read through the link provided.

There are some unlikely comparisons between the work lives of Mohammed Bouazizi, the Tunisian fruit seller who sparked the Arab revolution, and Francis Tachirev, a fruit seller in Zimbabwe. Like Bouazizi did, Tichareva earns a modest living pushing his fruit cart along Harare’s central business district, selling his wares. And like Bouazizi too, Tichareva lives in fear of the local police.

The ad-hoc committee investigating the petroleum subsidies saga continues to unravel one bombshell after the other. The lastest discovery is that Nigeria over-imported petrol on a daily basis to the tune of 24 million litres in 2011. The difference between fuel consumed and fuel imported is 24 million liters. Nigeria pays subsidy on this 24 million litres that is not even utilised by Nigerians.

Many of the tens of thousands of civilians who have fled their homes following a string of deadly attacks by 'terrorist group' Boko Haram in northern Nigeria over recent weeks have not yet been able to return home - or been offered any shelter by the authorities. Local government authorities are wary of setting up camps for the displaced, says the Nigerian Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), as these could turn into further Boko Haram targets.

A rising proportion of abortions worldwide are putting women's health at risk, researchers say. The World Health Organization study suggests global abortion rates are steady, at 28 per 1,000 women a year. However, the proportion of the total carried out without trained clinical help rose from 44 per cent in 1995 to 49 per cent in 2008.

Families resettled by Brazilian mining giant Vale in the Tete region of Mozambique have protested that the company had failed to keep promises it made to them in 2009. About 700 families, resettled approximately 60 kilometres away from the Moatize coal mining site, demonstrated against the lack of access to water, electricity and agricultural land at their resettlement Cateme area.

Involving men is increasingly being promoted as a key element in the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV, and while its benefits are well-documented - in one Kenyan study it reduced the risks of vertical transmission and infant mortality by more than 40 percent compared with no involvement - it can occasionally lead to domestic discord and even violence.