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The Tshwane local government election battle has heated up, with revelations from whistleblower website WikiLeaks that the ANC is nervous the DA's 'day dreams' will be realised in the metro. The DA said this confirms the ANC's fears in the capital. According to a WikiLeaks cable which emerged last month, the ANC's Gauteng spokesperson Dumisa Ntuli told an American diplomat that the ANC was bothered that it could possibly lose Tshwane to the DA.

Fierce contestations over the African state has weakened rather than strengthened states on the continent when it comes to performing their functions, said Omano Edigheji from the Human Sciences Research Council in South Africa. He was speaking at an event held in Ghana to discuss the impact of the global financial crisis on Africa. The neoliberal agenda, he argued, had very little democracy. If anything, it was very supportive of autocracy. In effect, the dominant neoliberal regime supported authoritarianism. The African state has to be both developmental and democratic.

'The Botswana Caucus for Women in Politics has failed to realise the objectives it was intended for, but we will not give up on it just yet,' says Margaret Nasha. The BCWP is a platform established to enable women from all political parties to converge and support each other in their attempts to make their mark in a male-dominated field. When it was set up 15 years ago, its membership was initially restricted to women in parliament. Nasha, the first woman to serve as Speaker of Parliament in Botswana, explained that four years in, they realised that only women from the ruling Botswana Democratic Party were benefiting from it and they decided to open membership to any active woman member of a political party.

A key human rights bill passed by Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan can help tackle abuses in the country, Amnesty International has said. It was announced that Jonathan had signed into law The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) Amendment Act, which had been pending approval for six years. The bill secures the independence and funding of the NHRC, which works to protect and promote human rights.

The Ivorian refugee crisis is spreading further across West Africa, with Ghana and Togo receiving a growing number of new arrivals. On Côte d'Ivoire's eastern flank, Ghana has received 3,129 new refugees, mainly from Abidjan and its suburbs. UNHCR has set up a transit centre at the Elubo border crossing, as well as a refugee camp in the town of Ampain that can hold 3,000 people. The agency is providing food and relief items while racing to complete works on water, health and sanitation facilities.

Niger inaugurated its new parliament 30 March for a term of five years following an election on 31 January that ended a year of military rule, reports Bloomberg. The parliament has 107 of its full complement of 113 lawmakers after elections in the northern Agadez region were annulled due to irregularities. The vote will be held again on 16 May.

Thousands of people, many who left North Africa following recent unrest, are stranded on the Italian island of Lampedusa in appalling conditions, Amnesty International reports. The unequivocal assessment by Amnesty International's delegation on the island came as Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi pledged 'to clear Lampedusa within 48-60 hours'. There are currently about 6,000 foreign nationals on the island, mostly from Tunisia.

With drought spreading to almost all regions of Somalia, officials and aid workers have expressed concern for those affected, saying drought was now a major cause of displacement. 'Drought, not insecurity, is now the main reason for new displacement in Somalia,' the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA Somalia) said in a March update. 'More than 52,000 people have been displaced due to drought since 1 December 2010, many of them moving to urban areas in search of assistance.'

Ivorian militias and Liberian mercenaries loyal to Laurent Gbagbo killed at least 37 West African immigrants in a village near the border with Liberia on 22 March, Human Rights Watch says. In response to the intensifying abuses and descent into civil war, the United Nations Security Council on 30 March imposed strong measures on Gbagbo, the incumbent president, who has refused to step down and cede power to his rival, Alassane Ouattara. Witnesses in Côte d'Ivoire told Human Rights Watch that armed men, some in uniform and others in civilian clothes, massacred the villagers, presumed to be Ouattara supporters, possibly in retaliation for the capture of nearby areas by pro-Ouattara forces.

Nigeria's elections look set to be particularly unpredictable, but are critical for the future of Africa's most populous country and potential economic giant. This Chatham House paper examines the key electoral issues facing the country and looks at the long-term view of reforms required if Nigeria is to fulfil its potential and avoid the growing dangers stemming from continued corruption and mismanagement.

The African Development Bank (AfDB) has established a $57-million fund for renewable energy projects across the continent. The Denmark-backed Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa joins two other similar green energy funds in the region worth $6-billion being run by the AfDB and twelve non-African donor countries.

World renowned lesbian photographer and visual activist Zanele Muholi has once again been recognised for her work as her award winning film 'Difficult Love' is being screened in local and international film festivals. The film was commissioned by the SABC and is co-directed by Peter Goldsmid and Zanele Muholi. It was first screened last year at the Out in Africa Gay and Lesbian Film Festival in Johannesburg and Cape Town. The film has been described as a portrait of Muholi and her work and a highly personal take on the challenges facing Black lesbians in South Africa.

Zambians head to the polls sometime before October and civil society groups are working hard to ensure their voices are heard. Groups which were excluded during the 2005 elections and the National Constitutional Conference that began in 2007 are mobilising to ensure they are not excluded. Four years ago, Clotilda Mwale was among those who besieged the Zambian parliament, arguing the National Constitutional Conference would not represent of the interests of all Zambians. Along with church groups and some opposition parties, gender activists were frozen out of the process; with general elections coming up in 2011, they are determined not to let this happen again.

Two weeks after establishing the National Human Rights Council (CNDH), Morocco reformed another state body. The Mediator Institution, set up in mid-March to replace the 10-year-old Diwan Al Madhalim, will have greater powers to tackle rights abuses and conduct probes. The institution will have the power to carry out inquiries and investigations, propose disciplinary action or refer cases to the public prosecutor.

Since 2000, Zimbabweans have suffered from high levels of political violence, human rights violations and intimidation. In response, a number of states and the European Union (EU) have imposed arms embargoes. In contrast, China and Russia have voiced no concerns about the situation and continue to supply arms and military equipment. Zimbabwe thus provides a useful case study that illustrates the diverging opinions among major international arms exporters regarding the circumstances that justify a restriction on the supply of arms and military equipment, says this background paper.

This Al Jazeera video clip covers the first days of the uprising Benghazi. New footage has emerged from this period showing gunmen – who appear to be Gaddafi loyalists – shooting unarmed protesters dead. With armed men dragging people from Benghazi’s mosque, others were left to die on the streets.

Trade in creative goods and services has remained robust despite a decline in global commerce as the result of the world financial crisis, reflecting the potential of the 'creative economy' to boost economic growth particularly in the developing countries, according to a new United Nations report. Global trade in services and products of creativity continued to register an annual average growth of 14 per cent even as world commerce declined by 12 per cent in 2008, according to 'Creative Economy Report 2010: A Feasible Development Option'.

Power transfers from soldiers to civilians, concession speeches, post-poll lawsuits, unprecedented violence - West Africa has seen mixed outcomes in recent elections, and the region’s most populous country and largest economy is up next: Nigerians are scheduled to vote for a president, legislators and state governors in the coming weeks. Various think tanks and rights groups have been examining election-related violence, calling on candidates and new leaders to safeguard Nigerians' rights, suggesting measures for avoiding a repeat of the nearly universally condemned 2007 elections, and recommending what’s needed to seal much-needed reforms. Observers say with these polls Nigeria could either explode or blossom.

The Emerging Powers in Africa Initiative commissioned four research policy reports in June 2010 following the successful completion of the first round of commissioned reports that was undertaken in 2009, culminating in an electronic publication available on the Fahamu website. Understanding that attention towards China’s deepening engagement with Africa should not overshadow the activities of other emerging powers in Africa, including India, Russia, Brazil and South Africa, the four research policy reports sought to develop an African perspective by strengthening the civil society voice in the discourse surrounding the engagement between Africa and these emerging powers. To this end, the research projects were themed around comparative African perspectives on China and other emerging powers in Africa by providing seed funding to African civil society organisations and activists to undertake research that can contribute to the emerging scholarship on the footprint of the emerging actors in Africa. The completed research reports are available .