In Senegal women who become pregnant outside of marriage - their husbands living abroad - commonly kill their babies out of fear and shame. Husbands’ absence is one of many factors contributing to infanticide in Senegal, where many young women with unwanted pregnancies see eliminating the child as their only option, authorities and researchers say. Abortion is illegal in Senegal and clandestine abortion is also common.

A director at the Institute of West Asian & African Studies at Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Dr. He Wenping, has hailed the prevailing good relations between Rwanda and China. Wenping, who is in charge of African Studies, made the observation while presenting a paper on China-Africa Relations in the Era of Globalization during a public lecture at Kigali Institute of Education (KIE).

The East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project (EHAHRDP) urges the African Heads of State to seize the opportunity of the forthcoming May 2010 Council elections to ensure that the African group encourages the states from Africa with a human rights record of the ‘highest standard’ to run for election, in line with the spirit of UN General Assembly Resolution 60/251 creating the Council.

Gender DynamiX has asked victims of Dr Aubrey Levin, well known during the apartheid era for using electric shock to “cure” homosexual soldiers, and recently arrested on charges indecently assaulting his male patients, to come forward in order to strengthen the case against him. Also known as Dr Shock, Levin is a psychiatrist who left South Africa for Canada in the 1990’s amidst charges of chemically castrating gay men as part of their therapy and had been identified by South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation (TRC) as having committed “gross human rights abuses.”

Kenya will expand Africa's biggest refugee settlement to accommodate an additional 80,000 people, relieving severe overcrowding, a top U.S. official said. Dadaab, a settlement of three camps in northern Kenya, was designed to house 90,000 refugees but now hosts 270,000 people - one of the world's largest concentrations of refugees.

More than one billion people in the developing world suffer chronic undernourishment and without radical changes to global agricultural research systems another billion risk going hungry, says Uma Lele, writing in Science. At the first Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development (GCARD) this week, world leaders in science and society will gather to organise these crucial changes (see Global summit seeks to transform agricultural research).

As more aid groups pull out of camps for internally displaced people (IDPs) and more people flee Mogadishu to escape the violence, the plight of IDPs is at its most extreme, says a doctor-turned-relief-worker in Mogadishu. "[Relief] aid is at its lowest and the need is even greater than at any time," Hawa Abdi, who turned her 26ha property into an IDP camp, told IRIN on 29 March.

Due to the global economic and financial crisis, growth on the African continent dropped to an average of 1.6 percent in 2009, compared to 4.5 percent in 2008. These figures were announced by Abdoulie Janneh, executive secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), at a joint annual conference of the African Union and UNECA in Malawi’s capital of Lilongwe.

Pambazuka Press is delighted to announce that Marcelino Dos Santos, Mozambiquan poet, revolutionary and founder of FRELIMO (Mozambican Liberation Front) will launch , edited by Chambi Chachage and Annar Cassam, at the Second Julius Nyerere Intellectual Festival Week (12-15 April 2010).

More than £1tn may have flowed out of Africa illegally over the last four decades, most of it to western financial institutions, according to a new report. Even using conservative estimates, the continent lost about $1.8tn (£1.18tn) – meaning Africans living at the end of 2008 had each been deprived of an average of $989 (£649) since 1970, according to the US-based research body Global Financial Integrity (GFI).

In meetings with media stakeholders, Niger's transitional Prime Minister Mahamadou Danda is promising full press freedom. Already, prison sentences for journalists are repelled and the Niamey House of the Media is reopened.

China Mobile, China's largest mobile operator, is looking at possible acquisition and investment opportunities in Asia and Africa as profit growth slows at home, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing the company's Chairman and Chief Executive Wang Jianzhou. Meanwhile, Wang stressed that any expansion through acquisitions would be balanced with continued investments in its home market because there is still huge growth potential in mainland China.

Egyptian courts are handing down death sentences with "alarming frequency" as the state attempts to use capital punishment to stem rising crime rates. Over 269 death sentences were imposed in 2009, up from 86 the previous year. Rights groups say the courts appear to be acting under government pressure to send a strong message to the public.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the International Criminal Court prosecutor, is set to begin an investigation into the 2007-08 post-election violence. He talks to Al Jazeera about how victims and witnesses will be assured given protection.

Trials of a vaccine against the most common cause of pneumonia and meningitis — both leading causes of death in HIV sufferers in Africa — have proved so successful that scientists say it could be a major breakthrough in combating the diseases. The new vaccine protects against Streptococcus pneumoniae which causes pneumonia and, when it invades the bloodstream and brain, causes septicaemia and meningitis.

The South African office of the Public Protector has more vicious teeth than anyone ever imagined, but what lacks are the resources to expedite the duty without hindrance. This is what the newly appointed public protector in South Africa, Advocate Tuli Madonsela, told the media yesterday following her consultations that took her and her team across the breath and width of the country.

NuMobile, Inc. (OTCBB: NUBL) is scheduled to begin work on a project constructing a wireless broadband network in Nairobi, Kenya next month. Through the joint project with Greenfield Program Partners NewMarket Technology, Inc. (PINKSHEETS: NWMT), China Crescent Enterprises, Inc. (OTCBB: CCTR) and Nova Energy, Inc. (OTCBB: NVAE), NuMobile will take part in the implementation of the wireless broadband network, intended to provide a wireless metering capability to local utility companies.

President Robert Mugabe swore in members of electoral and human rights commissions on Wednesday, a step toward fully implementing his power-sharing agreement with rival Morgan Tsvangirai. "I think what is important is that we are able to fulfill some of the agreements," Tsvangirai said after the swearing-in ceremony, according to state news agency New Ziana.

A network of community knowledge workers (CKWs) in Uganda uses a suite of mobile applications to give farmers a broad range of information. The CKWs can provide farming advice, market data, pest- and disease-control training, plus weather forecasts. Working with GPS, they have also collected survey data to supply agricultural researchers with detailed, location-specific information on diseases affecting local crops.

The world's 49 least developed countries (LDCs), described as the poorest of the poor, could feel the effects of the global economic crisis for decades, a senior U.N. official warned this week. Under-Secretary-General Cheick Sidi Diarra told IPS that if the international community does not live up to pledges made under Brussels Programme of Action nearly a decade ago, even the small gains made during 2000-2008 could be reversed.