Ethiopia is boosting its health worker numbers, building thousands of health centres and working with donors to prioritize the prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission (PMTCT). Even so, most women still prefer to have their babies at home. An estimated 2.4 per cent of pregnant women in Ethiopia are thought to be HIV-positive - rising to 3.5 per cent in the 15-24 age group. The national average is just over 2 per cent. About 20 per cent of children born to HIV-positive mothers annually are also infected with HIV, according to government statistics.

The Israeli government is employing Eritrean asylum seekers to help build a border fence designed to keep out other migrants seeking to enter the country from Africa via the Sinai Peninsula. A man who gave his name as August, one of four Eritreans working for a contractor along the fence route, said he had sought work for a long time before he was told a construction job was available near Eilat.

Pierre Sané

Bernard Founou-Thuigoua

Darfur rebels attacked a Sudanese army supply convoy in the insurgents' mountainous Jabel Marra stronghold, leaving at least 17 people dead, the military said. No one was immediately available for comment from the rebels group named by the military - a faction of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) loyal to Abdel Wahed al-Nur which walked out of peace talks in 2006 and has refused to return.

In Egypt, where the country begins to look toward its future, women are in danger of being sidelined again. 'Incredibly, despite decades of discrimination and inequality, women are being denied a role in the creation of a new Egypt. They are being excluded by both the caretaker government and the international community. Most recently, a new national committee formed to write the new Egyptian constitution was composed only of men. This is not acceptable,' says Widney Brown, Amnesty International’s Senior Director of Law and Policy.

At least 80,000 households in 133 districts are expected to be covered by research aimed at testing reading and basic arithmetic capacity of children aged between five and 16 years. 'We are embarking on the second annual assessment after the release and dissemination of the findings from the maiden one in 2010 where we covered 38 districts,' the Uwezo Research Manager, Dr Grace Soko said.

Africa faces an unprecedented opportunity to transform itself, says the World Bank. Its new strategy for the continent aims to leverage growing South-South investment to ensure more inclusive development, while identifying five poor states as 'Growth Poles'. The Bank says its new plan will prioritise employment and competitiveness, while also addressing the problems that make African countries particularly vulnerable to disaster, disease and climate change.

Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan has threatened to sue a local newspaper, NEXT, over its report on Sunday that he voted four times during the 2007 general elections, when he was a state governor and a vice presidential candidate under the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Accusing the newspaper of waging a 'malicious campaign of falsehood and calumny' against him, the President also demanded a retraction of the story, which the paper credited to whistleblower website Wikileaks. NEXT, quoting Wikileaks, said the disclosure that Jonathan, then the governor of oil-producing Bayelsa, voted several times was made by the Governor of southern Edo state and former labour leader Adams Oshiomhole to US Political Officers (poloffs), who visited him shortly after the court victory in his election petition.

The Netherlands is ending its development relationship with seven African countries. The partnership with the DR Congo, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Egypt, Tanzania, Zambia and South Africa will be terminated, Dutch newspaper Trouw is reporting. The new list of partner countries contains 15 countries, ten of which are African.

Redy Wilson Lima, Aquilino Varela, Quintino Tavares

Bia Barbosa

Emir Sader

The South Africa government is extremely concerned about the continued dissatisfaction of patients who often face rude staff, long queues as well as dirty and unsafe clinics and hospitals, the Director General of Health acknowledged at a meeting on healthcare standards and quality. Dr Precious Matsoso said South Africa’s healthcare outputs were very poor in relation to its inputs.

Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka has apparently failed in his mission to the United States. Soon after Mr Musyoka met in Washington on Wednesday (09 March) with Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg, a State Department official told the Nation.co.ke that 'we do not support a UN Security Council resolution to defer the ICC Kenya investigation'.

African countries, which have not ratified the various African Union protocols regarding gender and the rights of women, should urgently do so to preserve gender equality and equal access to education for women and girls. The Alliances for Africa, a Nigeria-based civil society organisation, said on Tuesday (08 March) that this year's 100th anniversary celebration of the International Women's Day, was also critical because it marked the start of the AU Decade of Women (2010-2020).

International Women's Day 2011 will be remembered in Cameroon for more technological reasons. Bouba Kaele, a marketing manager at the South African MTN telecom company in Cameroon, announced on social network Twitter that the Cameroonian Government banned access to twitter via SMS for MTN customers. This news caused anger among the Cameroonian online community.

When violent unrest erupted in Libya recently, Ahmed al-Agouz, 25, was doing casual work in the Libyan city of Sabha. Realizing he had to flee, he managed to reach the Tunisian border, where he eventually boarded a plane to Cairo. But returning to his home village in the Egyptian Nile Delta Governorate of Sharqia, north of Cairo, has made one thing abundantly clear to al-Agouz and tens of thousands of other returnees: There simply are no jobs back home.

Six socialist activists in Zimbabwe face the death penalty for watching a video about the revolt in Egypt. Munyaradzi Gwisai, Hopewell Gumbo, Antonater Choto, Welcome Zimuto, Eddson Chakuma and Tatenda Mombeyarara are charged with treason. Treason is punishable by death.

Please join the protest outside the Zimbabwean embassy this Friday 11 March, 12 noon – 1.30pm, Zimbabwe Embassy, 429 Strand, London, WC2R 0JR.

The first issue of the Oxford Monitor of Forced Migration (OxMo) is now available. This new student-run publication offers 11 short essays, personal accounts and academic articles. Titles include:
- The Politics of Social Exclusion: Asylum Support Provisions in the UK's Draft Immigration Bill 2009
- An Epic Journey towards a Refugee Visa
- A Culture of Disbelief or Denial? Critiquing Refugee Status Determination in the United Kingdom
- 'Come, we kill what is called "persecution life"': Sudanese Refugee Youth Gangs in Cairo'.

Many people living with HIV continue to face unfair discrimination in various aspects of their lives, says social justice organisation SECTION27. 'SECTION27 often receives reports from people who are denied access to insurance products solely on the basis that they are HIV positive, or are offered cover at what appear to be highly inflated prices. The practice of denying cover has gone on for more than two decades, with little change. And yet the implications of HIV infection for health status and life expectancy have changed dramatically over the same period.'

Representatives of the parties to the Western Sahara dispute, Morocco and the Frente Polisario, have wrapped up another round of talks, during which both sides continued to reject each other’s proposal as a sole basis for future negotiations, United Nations envoy Christopher Ross said. 'The proposals of the two parties were again presented,' said a communiqué read by Mr. Ross, the Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy for Western Sahara at the end of the two-day meeting, held in Malta. 'By the end of the meeting, each party continued to reject the proposal of the other as a sole basis for future negotiations,' it added.

African Women and Child Feature Service has produced a 24-page special newspaper that looks at the gains, challenges and obstacles women have faced - particularly in relation to advancing in leadership and education. 'Strength of a Woman' takes stock of women's progress 25 years after the Nairobi Forward Looking Strategies and 16 years after the Beijing Platform for Action.