The UN refugee agency has said it welcomes the positive indications it has received over the past two days from Tunisia and Egypt that they will maintain open borders for people fleeing the continuing violence in Libya. 'Given the continued reports of violence and human rights abuses inside Libya, it is imperative that people fleeing the country are able to reach safety,' the refugee agency added in a press release. Several hundred people have been killed in the violence that followed anti-government protests last week.

This research report from the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) describes and analyses 12 programmes and interventions from around the world that have sought to alter the sexual attitudes and behaviours of men. It is intended for use by programme managers, service providers, and researchers who are part of IPPF Member Associations and other organisations seeking to develop more effective ways of engaging men and boys and addressing their health needs. In all areas - sexuality and sexual and reproductive health, violence and healthy relationships - the interventions led to behaviour change.

South Africa’s poor ‘are steadily getting angrier and they are preparing for something.' They have little to lose, except the hope that drives their movements, informed by desire for justice for those 'systematically dehumanised in our country today', writes Pedro Alexis Tabensky.

If only silencing social media was as easy as putting political opponents in prison!

The annual meetings of Commonwealth women's ministers and officials began on Saturday 19 February in New York, with an assessment of the progress and challenges in implementing the Commonwealth's 10 year Plan of Action for Gender Equality. At the meeting, it was decided that regional groupings would play a bigger role in monitoring the Plan of Action. Dr Sylvia Anie, Director responsible for Gender at the Secretariat said: 'The formation of regional groups is an important development. Their observations will feed into the general monitoring of the Plan and the groups will hold their first meeting before June.'

Lecturers at the Chancellor College, a constituent college of the University of Malawi in the eastern city of Zomba, some 80 kilometres from Blantyre, Monday held peaceful demonstrations, protesting what they called an intrusion on their academic freedom. This follows the summoning, by Inspector General of Police, Peter Mukhito, of political science lecturer, Dr. Blessings Chinsinga, over an example he allegedly gave in one of his classes. Dr. Chinsinga reportedly drew parallels between Malawi's current fuel crisis with the insurrections that toppled the government of President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt.

COSATU has condemned the continued persecution of political activists in Zimbabwe and the never improving situation in that country. 'The detention of about 52 activists of the International Socialist Organisation (ISO) in Harare on baseless charges of plotting to topple the government indicates the state of insecurity in that country. Amongst those arrested was a former MP for Highfield, who is also the general coordinator of International Socialist Organisation (ISO).'

Amid revolutionary struggles across North Africa and the Middle East that have already toppled dictatorial regimes in Tunisia and Egypt, details continue to emerge of the corrupt ties between these dictators and leading French politicians. These revelations are embarrassing the French political establishment, including the main bourgeois 'left' opposition party, the Parti Socialiste (PS), writes Kumaran Ira on the World Socialist Web Site.

The high cost of maternity and health care, the lack of a proper follow-up system, and a limited ability to diagnose HIV infection early in babies means many Zimbabwean children are not being caught by the safety net that the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) programme was intended to provide. At least 150,000 children below the age of 15 are living with HIV, and more than 90 per cent of HIV infections can be attributed to vertical transmission, according to government figures.

A senior United Nations official has welcomed a verdict by a military court in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) which marked the first time that a high-ranking commander and several other army personnel were arrested, tried and sentenced for conflict-related sexual violence in the conflict-prone nation.

I wake to the news
of Egyptian unrest
on calls for freedom
and democracy…

AWID's Resisting and Challenging Religious Fundamentalisms initiative is an advocacy-research project that seeks to strengthen the responses of women's rights activists to the rise of religious fundamentalisms across regions and religions. The February 2011 edition of the Facing Fundamentalisms Newsletter is now available. Email [email][email protected] to subscribe.

The Radio for Peacebuilding Africa Awards 2011 are now open for submissions. The RFPA Awards recognise radio programs that contribute to peace in Africa. The awards particularly celebrate programs that help to reduce group and community tensions, that enhance and give value to shared interests, that break down listener stereotypes, and/or that provide positive role models.

Witnesses say security forces fired on protesters for the second consecutive day in Ivory Coast’s biggest city, following a call for an 'Egypt-style' uprising to depose sitting president Laurent Gbagbo.
The witnesses say military police encircled a group of supporters of Alassane Ouattara in the Abobo district of Abidjan on Sunday afternoon, before opening fire. There were reports of several injured, though their numbers could not be independently verified.

A subsidiary of one of the world's largest commodity trading companies stands accused of a series of tax irregularities in Zambia - a desperately poor developing country where life expectancy is 47 and tax revenues are urgently needed. According to a leaked auditors' report, the copper and cobalt mining company Mopani Copper Mines Plc may be using derivatives trades to shift profits out of Zambia in order to minimise its tax bill in the country. Swiss giant Glencore International AG has a 73 per cent interest in Mopani through one of its subsidiaries.

The Accra-based media rights body, Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), is pushing for the inclusion of issues of freedom of expression and media rights in UN Human Rights Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of West African states. Sources told PANA on Saturday in Dakar that MFWA is at an advanced stage of working on 'stakeholders’ reports and recommendations' to State delegates on the 'free expression situation' in West Africa.

'What social media has created is a sort of an alternate space for reviving a dormant public consciousness into a sentient, dynamic social discourse,' says this blog post reflecting on the significance of social media in the Egyptian revolution. 'The assumption that social media’s largest influence was during or shortly before the 18 days in which Mubarak’s regime was brought down is very naive.'

A project in South Africa supports mathematics education in schools using the web, social networking and mobile apps to deliver learning material directly to students’ cell phones. Teachers can also use the content in their classroom lessons. Students can practise mathematics exercises from a cell phone at any time and receive immediate feedback.

Amina Ahmed Barre, 29, a mother of two, has lived in refugee camps most of her life. She is one of nearly 14,000 Somali refugees in Djibouti. Barre fled Somalia with her parents in 1991 when civil war broke out; she was only eight years old. 'I do not recall much about my life in Somalia because I left there when I was very young. My parents took us away when the fighting started in Mogadishu in 1991.'

Various campaigns hoping to defy Robert Mugabe’s clampdown on civic action have been launched, trying to encourage Zimbabweans to follow the lead of other African countries protesting against their dictators. The campaigns, launched over email and through the social networking websites, Facebook and Twitter, encourage Zimbabweans to hold peaceful marches calling for Mugabe to step down. The ‘Zimbabwe Million Citizen March’ was launched a week ago, and calls for a mass protest next Tuesday under the theme ‘Power in numbers to remove dictatorship’.