A YouTube video is currently creating a stir among the Ivorian online community, reports Global Voices. It shows militaries beating up prisoners in the 'Maison d'Arrêt et de Correction' prison (MACA). According to the person who posted the video, the prisoners are Alassane Ouattara's partisans. Since the beginning of the political crisis in Ivory Coast, dozens of people have been arrested in Abidjan for their political opinion, and jailed at the MACA.

Last week marked the first anniversary of the magnitude 7.0 earthquake that devastated the impoverished Caribbean nation of Haiti, leaving a quarter of a million of its people dead, more than 300,000 injured, and approximately a million and a half homeless. One year after this natural disaster, the horrors facing Haiti’s population have only deepened, with a cholera epidemic claiming thousands of lives and a million left stranded in squalid tent camps.

The World Health Organisation launched a plan on Wednesday to stop a form of drug-resistant malaria from spreading from Southeast Asia to Africa, where millions of lives could be at risk. It would cost about $175 million a year to contain and prevent the global spread of the artemisinin-resistant parasite which first emerged along the Thai-Cambodian border in 2007, the United Nations agency said.

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu’s public criticism of Israeli policy towards Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank has triggered accusations of anti-Semitism and calls for him to step down as patron of the South African Holocaust Foundation. Sign a in support of a man whose ‘life has been lived in the spirit of “never again” – the ultimate lesson of the Holocaust.’

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT ) organisations of Malawi have expressed concern over the delay by the Canadian authorities to issue visa to a Malawian gay Tiwonge Chimbalanga. Chimbalanga and his colleague Steve Monjeza hit the headlines following their arrest and conviction on homosexuality charges after going public about their engagement in December 2009.They were later released following a presidential pardon last year.

South Africa has given tens of thousands of illegal Zimbabwean immigrants a reprieve after agreeing to extend the deadline for them to regularise their stay to 31 March. It is estimated that 1.5 million Zimbabweans are in South Africa illegally and most of them do not have proper identification documents.

Khartoum has denied it will take on Sudan's entire debt to free an independent south of any liabilities, after former US president Jimmy Carter said he received assurances the north would do so. The Daily Nation reports that Sudan's foreign ministry 'categorically refuted the statements of the former US president Jimmy Carter to CNN... that the president of the republic told him Sudan's entire indebtedness would be carried by north Sudan,' the official SUNA news agency reported late on Monday.

With barely months to go before the second India-Africa Forum Summit, India has said the Indian model of 'green revolution' had an appeal for African countries across the board and underlined that boosting agriculture and food security were at the heart of its engagement with the 53-nation African continent. 'Agriculture is without doubt at the forefront of India's engagement with Africa in the current transformation phase,' Gurjit Singh, joint secretary in charge of east and southern Africa, told experts at a seminar on exploring twin themes of food security and India-Africa relations in the context of South-South cooperation.

During the night of Wednesday, 5 January, young people took to the streets in the Algiers neighborhoods of Bab El Oued, Climat de France and Rais Hamidou to shout their anger at a socio-economic situation characterised by a high cost of living and unprecedented misery in such a rich country. Several other cities in the country also saw rioting, especially Oran, located west of Algiers, where young people ransacked several public buildings. The riots continued in other towns: Akbou and Tazmalt in Kabylie. This post from Global Voices contains links to commentary from bloggers about the protests, and a video showing some of the protest action.

The past year has seen mixed fortunes for activists working towards abolishing the death penalty in Africa. Togo and Burundi joined the ranks of African states that have removed capital punishment from their statutes, while Gambia extended its application to new offences. In April, Nigerian state governors announced they wished to see executions resumed 'as a measure to decongest prisons' and directed prison authorities to initiate execution papers.

Pierre Sané

Olympe Bhêly-Quenum

Pathé Mbodje

President Zuma’s latest plan to address stagnating land reform is a positive move, say land and agricultural experts, but clarification of the details, the input of all stakeholders, and government support for black farmers is crucial to its success. Speaking at the ANC’s 99th birthday bash in Polokwane this weekend, Zuma said land reform would be based on the de-racialisation of the rural economy to enable shared and sustained growth, as well as the democratic and equitable allocation of land across gender, race and class.

It's a 'whopping' increase in the matric pass rate, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga said triumphantly last Thursday morning. But education specialists were immediately divided on the question of whether so unexpected and so huge an improvement is educationally both believable and reliable as a true indicator of pupils' aptitudes. At 67,8 per cent, the pass rate for the 2010 national senior certificate (NSC) outstrips 2009's 60,6 per cent by 7.2 per cent and all nine provinces recorded increases in their pass rates as well, reports the Mail and Guardian.

There has not been much progress in government's job creation project due to the economic crisis that hit the world recently, President Jacob Zuma said during an interview with the South African Broadcasting Corporation, reports the Mail and Guardian. Speaking a day after addressing the 99th African National Congress (ANC) anniversary celebration in Polokwane, Limpopo, Zuma said the issue of job creation was going to be a central issue at the upcoming ANC congress, as well as how resources would be allocated to see to it.

Akina Mama wa Afrika is tendering for applications for consultants to conduct a Tracer Study on the African Women’s Leadership Institute.

Russian sailors did not shoot at sea pirates in the Gulf of Aden, Navy Commander Admiral Vladimir Vysotsky said in comment on a video clip showing crewmembers of the Marshal Shaposhnikov large anti-sub ship fire at small boats, which presumably belonged to Somali pirates. 'Our sailors would have never opened fire at people at sea. That is an absurdity, which is not worth a comment,' he said. The three-minute video clip posted on the Internet displays firing sailors, a pirate boat and an approaching ship, and missiles flying from the warship.

Widespread unrest continued to rock Algeria on Sunday (9 January) as protests continued against rising food prices despite government action to stem the riots. The Algerian cabinet agreed on Saturday to lower the custom duties and taxes on sugar and other food stuffs by 41 per cent as a temporary act to cut prices. But the measure, which will last through the end of August, did not end days of conflict in the streets between angry youth and security services.

As the continuing political stalemate threatens to unleash a civil war in Cote d’Ivoire, the United Nations is taking an increasingly aggressive stance in the widening standoff with the West African nation. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who has routinely opted for quiet, low-keyed diplomacy in political trouble spots such as North Korea, Sudan, Palestine and Myanmar (Burma), has been vociferously outspoken in condemning President Laurent Gbagbo, who has refused to step down after his defeat in the 28 November elections.

Freeman Mbowe, the chairman of Tanzania's opposition party Chadema has been released on bail by a local court, a day after police shot dead two anti-government protesters. After being released along with a group of other opposition legislators and their supporters on Thursday, Mbowe urged his followers to continue to fight for their rights.

This week, South Sudan is again going to the polls, this time to vote in a referendum on secession from the North. The preliminary result should be known by 15th January, and will mark one of the final stages of the historic 2005 agreement to end the long-standing conflict between North and South Sudan. All eyes will be on this vote, which is widely seen as likely to result in the South’s separation from the North. How will this shape women’s lives in North and South Sudan? asks this article from