Opposition leader Paul Berenger has conceeded defeat in parliamentary elections in Mauritius.
Confirmed results gave incumbent Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam's Labour alliance 41 out of the 62 parliamentary seats that were being contested. Economic and constitutional reform, fraud, corruption, drug trafficking and ethnicity were some of the main issues of the election.

Egyptian writers have condemned a call by a group of Islamic lawyers for the classic book Arabian Nights to be banned because it is "obscene". The group, Lawyers Without Shackles, filed a complaint with Egypt's prosecutor general after the collection of folk tales was republished.

Supporters of Uganda's ruling party, including government officials, are threatening and intimidating journalists in an effort to curb criticism of the government, Human Rights Watch said. Human Rights Watch urged the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) government to honor World Press Freedom Day on May 3, 2010, by publicly condemning such practices and amending laws to protect free expression in the lead-up to the 2011 elections.

The head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has appealed for greater attention to be focused on the food security situation in sub-Saharan Africa, where nearly one third of the population is hungry. With nearly 270 million people malnourished out of a total population in the region of more than 800 million, “this situation clearly demands our urgent and undivided attention,” Jacques Diouf, FAO Director-General, told government ministers at the agency’s regional conference in Luanda, Angola.

A South African workers' union said on Friday that logistics group Transnet had improved a wage offer to its workers in a bid to avert a strike that could cripple rail, pipeline and port operations in the country. A strike at monopoly Transnet could paralyse coal and iron ore exports, distribution of fuel and interrupt shipping at ports in Africa's biggest economy.

Government officials, civil society leaders and journalists from across the Maghreb gathered in Nouakchott Monday (May 3rd) for a large regional celebration of World Press Freedom Day, held under the banner, "Freedom of information and right to know, what future for the Maghreb?"

Saeed El-Masry was born poor, raised poor and, unless he can get ‘kosa,’ will probably die poor. Kosa is the Arabic word for zucchini, but it also means someone in a position of power who can open doors to gainful employment. "There are no good jobs unless you know a cabinet minister or pay off a high-ranking official," El-Masry resigns. "That’s the way it’s always been in Egypt."

Zimbabwe's three leading figures have condemned international sanctions on the country at a World Economic Forum conference in Tanzania. In a rare show of unity, President Robert Mugabe, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and his deputy Arthur Mutambara appealed for investment. Only Mr Tsvangirai had been expected to represent Zimbabwe at the forum in Dar es Salaam.

Twenty villages in Botswana have been evacuated after the Okavango River burst its banks. Water in the river, which starts in Angola, passes through Namibia and empties into Botswana's Okavango swamp, has reached unprecedented levels.

In a remote southern part of Chad, the UNHCR began this week the transfer of some 1,100 newly arrived Central African refugees from the border to a refugee camp where they can be assisted. These refugees crossed into southern Chad's Moyen Chari province two weeks ago, after violence forced them from villages in northern Central African Republic (CAR).

Namibia and Angola have partnered to build a US$1.1 billion hydropower plant on a river that runs along their common borders. The move is to help end power disruptions that have plagued their economies for decades.

A vaccine designed to be used alongside isoniazid preventive therapy to shorten the course of drug treatment in people with latent TB will shortly undergo trials in South Africa, manufacturer Archivel Farma announced this week. Latent infection with tuberculosis, in which the bacteria which cause the disease are walled off and unable to multiply in the lungs, is present in around one-third of the world’s population.

Kepher Otieno, lead reporter in Kenya for the Global Integrity Report: 2009, is concerned with the lack of financial accountability in his country. Yet he doubts that legal reform alone will curb graft in Kenya. Speaking to this impunity, Kepher describes his Mashup Challenge entry as an attempt to "dig into possible solutions" including coupling tax law reform with greater levels of auditing and citizen input in resource allocation decisions.

A four-member delegation of ECOWAS Chiefs of Defence Staff arrived in Guinea Bissau on Monday, on a fact-finding mission in connection with the 1 April incident by a section of the country's armed forces that resulted in the brief detention of the Prime Minister and the Chief of Defence Staff.

Congolese authorities have been urged to ensure two soldiers and a civilian sentenced to death for murdering a reporter face some form of punishment. A right groups says it fears as there is a moratorium on death penalties in the Democratic Republic of Congo those found guilty this week may be freed.

The issue of corruption resonates in developing countries, writes Walden Bello. In the Philippines, for instance, the slogan of the coalition that is likely to win the 2010 presidential elections is "Without corrupt officials, there are no poor people."

Hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people living in eastern Chad, including more than 450,000 Sudanese refugees from Darfur and internally displaced Chadians, are at risk if the UN mission in Central African Republic and Chad (MINURCAT) leaves or no longer has a mandate to protect civilians.

Andrew Cranswick, the CEO of African Consolidated Resources (ACR), the company at the centre of a legal battle over the Chiadzwa diamonds claim, says one of their officials was abducted from the ACR offices in Harare on Thursday. He told SW Radio Africa that ACR Financial Officer Ian Harris was abducted at 4pm by members of Mines Minister Obert Mpofu's private police, the CID Mineral Squad. Cranswick said the police are refusing to tell lawyers where Harris has been taken.

Adult male circumcision appears to have some protective effect against high-risk strains of human papilloma virus, according to two studies published in the May 15th edition of the Journal of Infectious Diseases. In HIV-positive men, circumcision reduced the prevalence and incidence of multiple high-risk penile human papilloma virus infections. Circumcision also had these benefits for HIV-negative men, and was also associated with clearance of infections.

UNHCR has completed and inaugurated a multi-million dollar water and electrification project that will benefit tens of thousands of people, including Somali refugees and members of the local community, in a semi-arid region of eastern Ethiopia. The US$5 million Jarrar Valley Water Supply scheme in the country's Somali region is using electricity to pump 1.3 million litres of fresh water a day to 51,000 people, including 16,000 refugees.