Fahamu’s Refugee Programme is pleased to announce the February issue of the , a monthly publication that aims to provide a forum for providers of refugee legal aid. With a focus on the global South, it aims to serve the needs of legal aid providers as well as raise awareness of refugee concerns among the wider readership of Pambazuka News.

Despite claims of a boom in Tanzania’s mining industry, the bulk of taxes paid to the government comprises deductions from the workers’ wages and not levies on extracted minerals, it has been revealed. At least 54.5 per cent of the taxes collected from mining, gas and oil companies in the country is being paid by ordinary workers in form of various taxes, according to a new report released here yesterday by the Tanzania Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (TEITI).

Tunisia and Italy have agreed to work together to counter illegal immigration after thousands of people arrived on the tiny island of Lampedusa. According to Tap, Tunisia's official news agency, an agreement between Italy's foreign minister and Tunisia's interim prime minister was made late on Monday night. Under the deal, Italy will give Tunisia practical aid including a 'network of radars and fast boats that will be operated by Tunisians', the agency quoted Franco Frattini, the Italian minister, as saying.

These are strategic weaknesses that global anti-capitalist civil society has to confront as part of the build up to COP17 in South Africa, says this Red Pepper article. '...the build up to COP17 has to harness global public opinion around the alternatives represented by Bolivia and anti-capitalist civil society. The role of global pubic opinion, of over 6 billion humans on the planet, is crucial to democratise the climate change negotiations.'

The UNCAC Coalition, a group of over 240 civil society organisations in more than 100 countries, including the Afro-Egyptian Human Rights Organisation (AEHRO) and NADAFA-Egyptians against corruption, is deeply concerned about public wealth illicitly transferred out of Egypt. A report by Global Financial Integrity released in January 2011 finds that Egypt is losing more than US$6 billion per year - US$57.2 billion in total from 2000 to 2008 - to illicit financial activities and official government corruption. Earlier this week, allegations were published about the wealth of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his family. This wealth should be thoroughly investigated, and if illicitly transferred should be immediately frozen and then repatriated.

Bt cotton has increased crop yields for small farmers in southern India, a study has confirmed. But the increase is less than claimed by some studies, is unlikely to be sustainable and has come at a substantial cost to the farmers.

The American Political Science Association (APSA) is accepting participant applications for its fourth Africa Workshop, entitled 'Representation Reconsidered: Ethnic Politics and Africa's Governance Institutions in Comparative Perspective.' It will take place 23 July to 6 August, 2011 at the Institute for Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Nairobi. The organisers, with a grant secured from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, will cover all the costs of participation (travel, lodging, meals, daily stipend, and materials) for up to 23 qualified applicants (20 African, plus 3 based in the US). Professional fluency in English is absolutely required. Because the workshop will have a strong cross-regional component, US-based PhD students with expertise in either Africa or Latin America are encouraged to apply. African scholars of all social science fields with a graduate degree and limited professional experience are welcome to submit applications.

Application forms and additional information is available at:

The Rwandan government plans to expand its national voluntary male circumcision programme using a new device, the PrePex system, which officials say saves both time and money. The PrePex system works through a special elastic mechanism that fits closely around an inner ring, trapping the foreskin, which dries up and is removed after a week. A study conducted by the Rwandan Ministries of Defence and Health in 2010 found the device to be safe and effective.

Immunisation against pneumococcal disease, a leading killer of children in Africa, is beginning as a vaccine made by British company GSK is rolled out across Kenya. Thousands of lives will be saved - but could it have been done more cheaply? asks this blog article from the London Guardian.

Supporters beat drums in the slums while workers spruced up his private villa as Haitians prepared on Tuesday for the possible return of Jean-Bertrand Aristide with feverish anticipation. 'Some people are cleaning the streets, others are getting the residence ready, and we are making preparations for a beautiful party,' Rene Civil, a die-hard follower of Haiti's first democratically elected leader, told Agence France-Presse.

On 3 February 2011, Minister of Information and Broadcasting Services (MIBS) Lieutenant General Ronnie Shikapwasha said government would not re-open Radio Lymabai in Mongu until investigations into its alleged involvement in the broadcast of seditious materials regarding the Barotseland controversy were completed. On 14 January 2011, Radio Lyambai was forced off air when police confiscated equipment that enables the station to be on air.

With the world’s attention focusing on mass mobilization and historic shifts of power in Tunis and Cairo, the crisis in Côte d’Ivoire has faded into the background but remains completely unresolved. There has been no face-to-face meeting between Laurent Gbagbo and his long-time political rival Alassane Ouattara, while both men, backed by their respective camps, continue to lay claim to the presidency.

ZANU PF Member of Parliament for Gokwe Central Dorothy Mhangami with the help of war veterans and party youths on Tuesday 26 January 2011 force marched villagers to attend a rally at Gokwe Centre where she told scores of people in attendance to come in their numbers and sign a petition calling for the removal of sanctions. This is part of a ZANU PF campaign to have more than a million signatures throughout the country against the targeted sanctions imposed by the West on President Robert Mugabe and his allies endorsed on a petition.

Gabon's late president Omar Bongo allegedly lined his pockets with money from a 37-million-dollar (28-million-euro) bank embezzlement scheme and funneled some of it to French political parties and President Nicolas Sarkozy, according to a classified US embassy cable published in Spanish daily El Pais.

A cabinet minister has accused a renegade militia in Southern Sudan's Jonglei oil state of killing at least 211 people, doubling earlier estimates of the death count. James Kok Ruea, the humanitarian affairs and disaster management minister, called the killings a 'massacre'. Renewed violence has sparked concerns for the security of the underdeveloped south where voters last month overwhelmingly voted to declare independence from the north in a referendum.

A coalition of over 35 African grassroots organisations, known as the African Biodiversity Network (ABN), has launched a new website to raise the voices of those working across the continent in the development sector. The website shares the work of partners across Africa who are working together to find local, African-led solutions to the challenges they face.

Saharawis in Algerian refugee camps and in Morocco-occupied Western Sahara are watching the revolution wave in North Africa with jubilation and unease. Mass protests in Algeria have been announced - Algeria being the main ally of Saharawis fighting for their independence and the host for around 150,000 Saharawi refugees. For next weekend, marches are announced in Morocco - their occupying power.

Spin the wheel and get a tip to spoil your better half; spend more time together or go out for a romantic evening: A new Ugandan HIV prevention programme hopes a 'love wheel' will encourage couples to seek excitement within their own marriages rather than in the arms outsiders. The wheel, categorised into eight thematic areas such as family, fitness, fun, friends and finances, has a number of tips relating to each theme. Currently stocked in supermarkets in the capital, Kampala, its promoters say they have sold more than 1,500 units since its launch in November 2010.

As South Africa prepares to host the United Nations climate change summit in Durban this year, Lake Chad is living proof of the continent's environment in crisis. It was almost double the area of Gauteng just four decades ago but has shrunk by 95%. It is now smaller than Johannesburg.

The African National Congress (ANC) has disputed predictions by political analyst Moeletsi Mbeki that the South African government would face a Tunisia-style revolt, on the same day police fired live ammunition to disperse residents who took to the streets over poor service delivery in Mpumalanga. Mbeki predicted in an opinion piece published in Business Day that SA would face a civil revolt around 2020, when the government would no longer be in a position to sustain the welfare programmes 'it uses to placate the black poor and to get their votes'.