For Moroccan women, the International Women's Day on 8 March provided an opportunity to evaluate the status of their rights. Women still suffer from discrimination and have yet to achieve much-desired equality in the workplace, officials and experts say. According to the economy and finance ministry, the level of women's employment in the civil service is 36 per cent. Women account for 14 per cent of senior employees, constituting 10 per cent of division heads and 16 per cent of department heads.

Kenya's President Mwai Kibaki did not take strong action against Uganda for ‘grabbing’ Migingo Island to politically undermine Prime Minister Raila Odinga. That was the thinking by US embassy officials in Nairobi, as revealed by secret diplomatic cables made public by whistleblower website WikiLeaks. The cable analyses the background to the tiny disputed island on Lake Victoria, the way it has impacted on Kenya-Uganda relations and also become a political dispute in Kenya.

African academics are backing a drive to establish closer research and higher-education ties between countries on the continent to boost its development. The vision is set out in a document finalised in January by the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) - with the support of the African Union and the Association of African Universities - and recently seen by SciDev.Net.

To mark International Women’s Day on 8 March, Reporters Without Borders released a report on the problems of women who work as journalists. It reaffirms several important principles, contains interviews with women journalists throughout the world and describes all the different problems they encounter, ranging from everyday discrimination to the most tragic forms of violence.

In 2011 Oxfam will launch a new section of its website aimed at development and humanitarian professionals. The new site aims to share Oxfam's policy, practice and research with development practitioners, researchers, advocacy and campaign organisations, and policy formers worldwide. This site will replace the current Oxfam Publications website
Oxfam needs your help and your input by completing a short survey to help influence the development of the new site so that it can better support your work. This survey is an important part of building the new website, and we would be grateful if you could take a few minutes of your time to fill it in. The survey will take no more than 10 minutes to complete and your input is extremely valuable. If possible please share this survey with colleagues and pass it on to your wider networks. The closing date for completion is 25 March. This is the url for the survey:

Since 1992, 34 journalists have been killed in Somalia, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. This doesn't take into account journalists who die in car accidents, but only instances where deaths are work-related. In 2010 two Somali journalists were killed as a direct result of their work, Sheikh Nur Mohamed Abkey, who worked for state-run Radio Mogadishu, was gunned down near his home, and Barkhat Awale, director of Hurma community radio, was killed by a stray bullet from nearby fighting. No Somali journalists have been killed this year - so far. Death is the most extreme example of the many dangers facing journalists in Somalia. Already this year, two journalists have been captured by militia groups, although both have been released.

Just one woman has been included into the newly sworn-in cabinet. Essam Sharaf, Egypt’s new prime minister, has instead announced the creation of a committee that deals with the advancement of women, formed under the supervision of the cabinet. Throughout the uprising, women were at the forefront of the street protests. However, they have largely kept quiet about their gender rights in a country where they have faced rampant discrimination and received little legal protection against widespread violence and sexual abuse.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has two ironclad reasons to issue arrest warrants for George W. Bush and Tony Blair, according to this article. Firstly, they are accused by the United Nations of being co-conspirators in kidnapping and torture; and, secondly, the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom have no intention of prosecuting their former leaders.

A tussle over a road gave a glimpse of the inner workings of the Central African Republic government with a leaked US cable suggesting that President Francois Bozize had sought to personally profit from money set aside for the project. The $2.75 million USAid-funded project would have been an integral part of an east-west road that directly responded to the Central African government’s own poverty reduction strategy paper. But according to new WikiLeaks cables, a frenzy of meetings with Mr Bozize and his cronies ahead of the scheduled 26 October 2009 launch of the road works left the US ambassador with the impression that the President was 'personally interested in the monetary benefits that international development money brings'.

South Africa's genetically modified crop area for the 2010/11 season rose 6 per cent but perceptions make it hard for other African countries to adopt the practice, the deputy agriculture minister said on Thursday (03 March). South Africa, the world's seventh-largest producer of GM crops but Africa's biggest, has seen a rapid increase in gene-altered crop output since it started growing GM farm produce in 1998.

Women and girls returning to northern Uganda from forced conscription into the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) struggle to resettle in their home communities because of stigma and a severe shortage of reintegration facilities tailored to their needs, say analysts and returnees. After leaving the LRA, former female combatants return to their villages with children forcibly fathered by LRA commanders and delivered in the bush. They are often shunned by their families and stigmatised as 'bush women' by their communities.

Oil and gas companies have improved the transparency of how they report revenues and information about anti-corruption programmes but should take bolder actions to stop corruption, according to a new report by Transparency International (TI) and Revenue Watch Institute (RWI). The 2011 'Report on Oil and Gas Companies', which is based on research conducted in 2010 and is an expanded version of a report published in 2008, rates 44 companies on the public availability of information on their anti-corruption programmes and how they report their financial results in all the countries where they operate. By disclosing anti-corruption measures and key organisational and financial data, especially on a country-by-country level, companies demonstrate their commitment to stop the misappropriation of revenues. In particular, detailed publication of fiscal payments allows citizens to hold governments to account.

The World Bank's new Africa strategy, which was unveiled on Thursday (03 March), carries three main risks, including a volatile global economy, political violence and conflict, and inadequate resources. The new strategy will focus on the three main pillars of competitiveness and employment; vulnerability and resilience; and governance and public sector capacity.

After months of lobbying and campaigning by Zambian activists, the government has announced that it will provide free third-line antiretroviral (ARV) drugs to people living with HIV. This week the government invited bids for supplying the drugs, which they at first had said were too expensive, and the number of people needing them still too small. It is expected that the drugs will be available by mid-2011. More than 300,000 people receive ARV treatment at over 1,400 counselling and testing sites across Zambia.

Benin last month saw mass protests, demanding a delay of the elections planned for 27 February as 1.4 million voters were missing in the electoral roll. The Constitutional Court of Benin ruled in the favour of the country's opposition - backed by crowds of protesters - and delayed the presidential elections for another week, to 13 March, in order to expand the electoral roll further.

A Zimbabwean magistrate's court has freed 38 activists charged with treason for discussing the mass protests in Egypt that toppled president Hosni Mubarak, a lawyer said. 'Of the 46 who were in custody, 38 have been released completely after the state agreed with us that they had no case to answer,' their attorney Alec Muchadehama told Agence France-Presse. But eight others, including Munyaradzi Gwisai, a university lecturer and former lawmaker from Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party, remained in custody after the court denied them bail.

ECOWAS member states should announce that members of the unrecognised Gbagbo government and his entourage are 'persona non grata' in their territory and break all economic and financial ties with public or semi-public companies, particularly in the oil and energy sectors, controlled by that regime. This is according to a report from the International Crisis Group. Côte d’Ivoire is in crisis after Laurent Gbagbo refused to step down after he lost the November 2010 presidential election.

A shortage of money means Uganda is unlikely to shift its prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) programmes to a more efficient UN World Health Organisation (WHO) regimen soon, say government officials. In 2010, WHO recommended two equally effective options for PMTCT. The first, Option A, is fairly similar to the system Uganda currently uses. It involves single-dose antiretroviral (ARV) drugs for the mother - if her CD4 count is over 350 - from the 14th week, as well as ARVs during labour, delivery and one week post-partum. Pregnant women with CD4 counts below 350 are advised to start taking ARVs for their own health. Option B involves triple therapy ARVs from the 14th week of pregnancy until one week after breastfeeding has ended, which can be up to one year. The Ugandan government has expressed its intention to shift to Option B, which is simpler for health providers and mothers to implement than Option A. However, an already stressed HIV budget may make this impossible.

Sex workers and civil society groups across Africa took to the streets on Thursday (03 March) to demand access to health care services and an end to the violation of their human rights. Several African countries held marches including Botswana, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe to mark International Sex Workers' Rights Day. In South Africa, people marched in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Mussina. The march was led by the Sex Workers' Education and Advocacy Task Force (Sweat) and Sisonke Sex Workers Movement, which are organisations that seek to ensure human rights for sex workers.

Thousands of Zimbabweans attended a rally organised by President Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party on 3 March in the capital, Harare, to mark the launch of an anti-sanctions campaign. The aim is to collect at least two million signatures on a petition against the sanctions, which Mugabe has blamed for the country's dire economic situation and prolonged food insecurity.