Reporters Without Borders condemns the Zimbabwean authorities' repeated harassment and intimidation of "The Zimbabwean", a privately-owned newspaper that is edited in Britain and printed in South Africa.

CSDG, King's College London/ALC, is pleased to announce a call for applications for the Peace, Security and Development Fellowships for African Scholars starting September 2010. The Fellowships are over 18-month period and comprise a rigorous training programme on peace, security and development, which includes a 12-Month Master's (M.A) programme at King's College London and an attachment to an African University.

Cultural Survival is appealing to Kenyan government authorities to halt police operations in Northern Kenya, where Indigenous Samburu villages have suffered brutal police attacks over the last year.

Evidence of grand corruption is mounting in Beijing’s showcase $6 billion barter deal with the Kinshasa government.

'Environmental determinism’ – the theory that Africa’s development has been hindered as a result of ‘the environmental conditions that Africans inhabit’ – does not accurately explain Africa’s poverty. Environmental determinism is both ahistorical and apolitical: "Poverty is not a problem of nature, it is a problem of power." To tackle the real issues behind Africa’s slow development and poverty would mean to go against Western economic interests and to radically change the world system in which we exist.

The International Monetary Fund's board will consider whether to restore Zimbabwe's IMF voting rights in a meeting on Friday, an IMF spokesman said on Thursday. By reestablishing Zimbabwe's voting rights -- which would allow the country to take part in IMF decision-making again -- the international community would be sending a strong signal of support for policies of the new unity government led by President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.

A Ugandan clergyman's decision to show gay pornography to his congregation has been labelled as "twisted, homophobic propaganda" by a gay rights groups. Behind the Mask says the stunt, by anti-gay Pastor Martin Ssempa, equated homosexuality to paedophilia.

The US has imposed impossible conditions on aid agencies in Somalia, a UN envoy to the country says. Humanitarian co-ordinator Mark Bowden said the US was trying to ensure that aid was not diverted to Islamist insurgents fighting the government.

As the East Africa Community (EAC) gradually moves towards a political confederation, women’s rights groups from the five member states are pushing for an East African Protocol on Gender and Development to bridge the gender gaps within the integration process.

The Refugee Studies Centre’s International Summer School fosters dialogue between academics, practitioners and policymakers working to improve the situation of refugees and other forced migrants. It provides the time and space for them to reflect on their experiences and to think critically about some of the aims and assumptions underlying their work.

The top United Nations envoy in Côte d'Ivoire is holding intensive talks with all sides in the divided West African country to ensure that last week’s dissolution of the Government and the independent electoral authority does not affect repeatedly delayed elections, currently slated to be held next month.

South Africa's largest labour federation COSATU has threatened to call a general strike in October if the government does not take steps to improve workers' rights. The union said the use of employment agencies, mostly by foreign companies to source temporary labour, denies workers the the rights they are entitled to under South Africa's labour laws.

Zimbabwe's power-sharing government has made no real progress in implementing political reforms and ending human rights abuses after a year in office, Human Rights Watch has said. The government has demonstrated little political will or capacity to enact meaningful changes to improve the lives of Zimbabweans.

Moremi Initiative for Women’s Leadership in Africa is pleased to announce its call for applications for the 2010 Moremi Leadership Empowerment and Development (MILEAD) Fellows Program for young African women leaders. The MILEAD Fellows Program is a one-year leadership development program designed to identify, develop and promote emerging young African Women leaders to attain and succeed in leadership in their community and Africa as a whole.

This five-day training, offered by Minority Rights Group International (MRG), aims to equip minority and indigenous peoples activists (individuals and NGOs) with media skills to generate their own information and to interact with local, regional and international media especially in the European Union.

Egypt will invite bids in March for 50,000 acres of land in North Sinai for agro-business projects, the agriculture minister said yesterday. Egypt said this month it planned to lease farmland for agro-business projects during 2010 but was waiting for the agriculture ministry to allocate suitable plots.

Zimbabwe's Supreme Court has ordered two government mining firms to stop operations on British-owned diamond mining fields plagued by human rights abuses, state newspapers have reported. The case was brought to the court by British-based African Consolidated Resources (ACR) in a bid to win back its mining rights which were suspended in 2006. The government is appealing a court ruling returning the fields to ACR.

International prosecutors have promised there will be "no impunity" for anyone suspected of taking part in the killing of Guinean activists last September. The International Criminal Court's Fatou Bensouda, who is visiting Guinea, told the BBC victims' families would have justice.

"Hidden Herstories: Women of Change" is a youth-led heritage project which looks at 4 influential women who haven't had their rightful place in the history books. 20 young people from west London have set out to right this wrong; using their film-making and writing skills, they have made a one hour documentary and published a magazine. The film exposes the plights and determination of Octavia Hill, Amy Ashwood Garvey, Claudia Jones and Jayaben Desai. For more information on these women, click below to view the 28 page magazine featuring contributions from Tristram Hunt, Jenny Bourne, Nzingha Assata and Marika Sherwood.

Communities, environmental groups, academics and NGOs are calling on the World Bank to cease and desist from a proposed loan of R29 billion ($3.75 bn) to Eskom. If this loan – which may come up for a Board vote in March or April – goes through, poor South Africans will have to bear the burden of Eskom’s debt and the World Bank’s cost recovery programme, and climate change will intensify.