'Ekurhuleni Pride Organizing Committee (EPOC), the key LGBTI organization in the township of Kwa-Thema, Gauteng, South Africa, and the Coalition of African Lesbians (CAL,) condemn the brutal rape and murder, in cold blood, of a member of EPOC. Noxola Nogwaza is believed to have been murdered in the early hours of Sunday, April 24, 2011.'

When it comes to discussing HIV/AIDS in Egypt, most probably you’d be faced by either one of two reactions: one that is characterized by fear, shock, and discomfort or a reaction marked by denial and disdain, writes Ahmed Awadalla, an Egyptian who works in the area of reproductive and sexual health. 'A comprehensive survey of Egyptian youth revealed that only 21 per cent of them would be willing to interact with a person living with HIV, which is definitely disturbing. We all need to realise that stigmatising those groups leads to higher spread of the virus into the community, by denying those people access to health and awareness services, and not allowing them to get the care and compassion they need.'

This workshop will provide an opportunity for postgraduate students in the broad field of law and development to reflect on its themes, progress and future.

Switzerland says it has frozen nearly $1bn worth of assets linked to Libya's Muammar Gaddafi and the deposed leaders of Egypt and Tunisia. Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey said some 830m Swiss francs (£580m; $960m) had been discovered. Of that, the largest proportion - 410m SFr - was linked to former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his circle, the minister said.

Every minute, somewhere in the world, a child goes blind according to the World Health Organisation. Three in five poor children who go blind are likely to die within two years of losing their sight - yet half of cases of childhood blindness are avoidable. Sub-Saharan Africa is the region with the highest prevalence of blindness in the world - 1.24 per 1,000 children, compared to 0.8 in India and 0.3 in Europe.

A new article from the Bank Information Centre's Paulina Garzon looks at the current status of the World Bank's energy strategy review, which has run into controversy at the Board of Directors. The article notes the politics surrounding the policy. 'The WB has spent almost two years developing the new Energy Sector Strategy (EsE),[1] expected to be approved in July 2011. The EsE will be the guiding instrument in modernizing the energy sector with two main objectives: 1) to increase access to modern and reliable energy, especially for the poor, and 2) to facilitate the transition into an energy sector that is environmentally sustainable and with low carbon emissions.'

Some 21 villagers from Nyambeya in Cashel Valley have been forced to flee their village after ZANU PF militia carried out an early morning raid on Sunday (01 May) and burned down seven houses owned by MDC-T officials. Homes belonging to MDC ward chairman Moses Chemwanyisa, ward youth chairman Admire Chizikani and his mother Naomi were torched.

Tunisia has denied requesting foreign military aid to confront the escalating crisis on its border with Libya. The country's 'territorial integrity is a red line that no one can touch', Deputy Tunisian Foreign Minister Radouane Nouicer said Sunday (1 May) on state television. But Libyan rebels have been chased across the border, sending at least a dozen shells onto Tunisian soil.

Mozambique is one of the world's poorest countries, with over half of its 22 million people living below the poverty line. It pays the lowest salaries in southern Africa, according to a recent report by accounting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers. Last year, violent riots against price increases left at least 14 dead, prompting the government to subsidise food and fuel.

A monument should be built for liberation songs and it should have its own precinct. This is according to Wally Mongane Serote, the poet, author and former MK soldier testifying in the hate speech trial in the Johannesburg High Court against ANC Youth League President Julius Malema. Defending Malema - who was charged by Afriforum, an Afrikaner minority group, for singing certain lines of the song Dubulu ’ibhunu (Kill the Boer) - Serote said the songs were 'as important as the Voortrekker monument', kept 'as a memory even after apartheid'.

Two senior opposition figures arrested in late April in Equatorial Guinea have been released, a senior party colleague said. Vicente Nze and Juan Manuel Nguema Esono of the main opposition Convergence for Social Democracy (CPDS) party had been released late Friday (29 April), CPDS secretary general Placido Mico Abogo told AFP. Esono was detained for having put up a poster calling for a demonstration against President Teodoro Obiang Nguema on Sunday, 1 May, said a CPDS statement.

Anglo American plc has offered medical treatment to 14 former miners, who have brought a test case against its South African subsidiary, but it won't accept liability for the silica dust levels in apartheid-era gold mines that the former workers say caused their debilitating respiratory tract infections. If the test case succeeds it could open the door for tens of thousands of former mine workers to claim damages from companies such as Anglo, resulting in compensation payouts worth billions of rands.

Several senior advisors to US President Barack Obama recently met a high powered delegation from the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) in Washington, to discuss mounting violence and arrests in Zimbabwe. Although the focus of the meeting for the US seemed to be the mounting violence and arrests in Zimbabwe, the SADC delegates focused on the removal of targeted sanctions placed on companies and individuals aligned to the Mugabe regime.

The Tanzanian government plans to take urgent measures to alleviate economic hardships that the majority of the population is facing to ward off a replication of protests taking place in the East African Community. Economists and activists told The Citizen that they won’t be surprised if the Kenyan and Ugandan scenarios were to be witnessed in Tanzania since the government 'seems not to be acting to put the matters in line'.

The murder of a 24-year-old lesbian activist from Kwa-Thema township in Gauteng appears to be the latest in an epidemic of brutal homophobic attacks, Human Rights Watch has said. Noxolo Nogwaza was found murdered on 24 April 2011, in a vicious attack that seems to have been motivated by her sexual orientation. Nogwaza's face and head were completely disfigured by stoning, she was stabbed several times with broken glass.

The Africa Initiative Graduate Research Grant program supports short-term academic placements for students enrolled in a Master’s or PhD program at select African universities. The program offers grants of up to CAD$10,000 each to fifteen students per year to conduct research for up to four months at select Canadian universities.

An independent daily newspaper critical of Zimbabwe's president says thieves raided its offices and stole computer hard drives and the editor's laptop. No other items were stolen. In front page headlines last week, the paper called on President Robert Mugabe, 87, to step down.

The latest statistics by JSE-listed job placement company, Adcorp, show that since January 2000 permanent employment declined by 20.9 per cent while contract and other forms of employment increased by 64.1 per cent. This, says the company’s March employment index, means that only 1.9 million South Africans were employed into permanent jobs while 2.4 million were hired into temporary jobs since 2000. Samela Manene, the general secretary of the National Council of Trade Unions, said there was nothing much for workers to celebrate because inequality and unemployment had risen, despite the country’s good labour laws.

Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni, on one of the days on which opposition leader Dr Kizza Besigye was arrested, attacked academics and religious leaders at a conference that brought together key stakeholders, including senior religious and political leaders, academicians, media experts, heads of security agencies, development partners, civil society organisations and cultural leaders from around the country. Museveni was irked by what he described as lies spread by some academicians.

The Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, has issued a statement saying they are 'alarmed' by the implications of the situation in Libya for migrant workers and members of their families. 'The Committee is equally concerned about the difficulties encountered by migrant workers and members of their families trying to leave Libya, either to return to their countries of origin or to seek protection from the violations and threats facing them by claiming asylum in third countries. In this context, the Committee is concerned about the dangerous interception of migrants at sea and at inland borders.'