Unions representing Algeria's teachers on Sunday (February 21st) rejected a proposed pay increase and called for a general strike, prompting student and parent fears that the school year will be lost entirely. CNAPEST and UNPEF will begin a prolonged strike on February 24th to protest what they are calling an unsatisfactory offer.

Margot Wallström starts March 1 her two-year stint as special U.N. representative on ending conflict-zone sexual violence. She says she'll be going right away to the Democratic Republic of Congo, a global epicenter of mass rape.

When standing on the shore line at Rufisque L’est, one of the oldest neighborhoods in Dakar, Senegal, it’s hard not to buy into apocalyptic climate change scenarios. The beach is gone. Wharves built by the French colonists, once linked to the shore, have been completely swept away, with just a few wooden pillars rising from the water as evidence of their existence. In one stretch, three city blocks, which included homes, warehouses, and a mosque, were pulled into the ocean.

Google Maps was launched in 30 Sub-Saharan African countries. This is an amazing asset for everyone to use, and it’s also an incredible testament to the number of users using their “My Maps” feature, as this is where this data comes from.

Zimbabwe's still-limping economy can provide few essential services, so children living along the border cross into South Africa to attend school during the day or even to see a doctor, often at great risk to their personal safety.

South Africa's Supreme Court of Appeal ordered the Department of Home Affairs on 24 February 2010 to immediately release an Ethiopian asylum seeker from "unlawful" detention after he had languished in repatriation centres for over nine months.

New research could bolster arguments for a controversial approach that could eradicate HIV transmission in South Africa within five years, said Dr Brian Williams of the South African Centre for Epidemiological Modelling and Analysis (SACEMA).

Critics are concerned that private military contractors are positioning themselves at the centre of an emerging "shock doctrine" for earthquake-ravaged Haiti. Next month, a prominent umbrella organisation for private military and logistic corporations, the International Peace Operations Association (IPOA), is co-organising a "Haiti summit" which aims to bring together "leading officials" for "private consultations with attending contractors and investors" in Miami, Florida.

This study examines the impact of two decades of neoliberal policy reform on food production and household livelihood security in three West African countries. The rice sectors in The Gambia, Côte d’Ivoire, and Mali are scrutinized as well as cotton and its relationship to sorghum production in Mali. Although market reforms were intended to improve food production, the net result was an increasing reliance on imported rice.

The International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI) has released a trial observation report, The Gambia: Freedom of Expression on Trial, which raises concerns with respect to the Gambia’s compliance with fair trial standards and the application of criminal law to seven journalists who legitimately and peacefully exercised their right to freedom of expression.

A three-day seminar to discuss ways to strength en cross-border co-operation for the protection of children at risk and to better regulate inter-country adoption has opened in Pretoria, South Africa. South Africa's Department of International Relations and Cooperation and the Hag ue Conference on Private International Law based in the Netherlands are co-hosting the seminar, which opened Tuesday.

South Africa's land reform minister said on Friday it would be impossible for the government to meet its own target of acquiring farm land to restore to blacks after it was taken from them during apartheid.

The process of drafting a new Zimbabwean constitution has been further delayed, meaning the country’s new charter is now running seven months behind schedule. A co-leader of parliament’s constitutional committee Munyaradzi- Paul Mangwana told journalists in Harare this week that Zimbabwe would not have a new constitution before February 2011 at the earliest.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) has sentenced the former head of legal affairs at the Ministry of Defence to 25 years in prison. Lieut-Col Eprem Setako was found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity.
He was convicted of ordering the killing of at least 30 people at a military camp in 1994.

Members of Niger's military junta and the interim administration it is setting up will not be allowed to run future democratic elections. Junta spokesman Abdoul Karim Goukoye reiterated that the coup leaders' priorities were to hold transparent polls and restore democracy.

The Angolan government should promptly release three human rights defenders who were arrested on apparently political grounds following the January 8, 2010 attack on Togolese footballers in Cabinda, Human Rights Watch has said. Human Rights Watch also expressed concern about the continued detention without charge of five other people.

The Secretary General of the General Agriculture and Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe (GAPWUZ) is back in hiding this week after police raided the union’s offices on Wednesday. Gertrude Hambira fled to safety after five men and one woman, who identified themselves as officers from the Criminal Investigation Department, raided the union’s office in Harare apparently looking for her. Hambira, who wasn’t in the office at the time, is now in hiding fearing for her safety.

*The Right to Know: The Fight for Open Democracy in South Africa*

- A Short Film Showing and Discussion -

*7pm - Wednesday 3rd March*

*Room 4418 (4th Floor, SOAS Main Building)*

Nigeria's ailing President Umaru Yar'Adua has returned home after spending 92 days in Saudi Arabia, where he has been undergoing medical treatment, but no one has yet confirmed seeing him. A text message sent to the telephone handsets of several State House correspondents in Abuja in the early hours of Wednesday alerted them to the President's arrival.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy acknowledged that France made mistakes during the 1994 genocide, paid homage to the victims but stopped short of apologising during his landmark visit to Kigali on Thursday. “What happened here is unacceptable, but what happened here compels the international community, including France, to reflect on the mistakes that stopped it from preventing and halting this abominable crime,” he said.