Schools in Dongo, Equateur Province, in western Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the scene of inter-ethnic clashes from October to December 2009, are still closed because parents are worried about security, despite a call for their reopening by the provincial government.

Jabulile Dlamini* is sweet sixteen and has never been kissed. And she is not expecting to be kissed any time soon or to even receive any gifts this Valentine’s Day.

The 2010 session of the CODESRIA sub-regional methodological workshops will explore the conditions for the employment and validation of qualitative perspectives in African contexts. To this end, the workshops will be open to all the social research discipline. The East and Southern Africa edition of the methodology workshops is designed for doctoral and masters students and young, mid-career African researchers resident in East and Southern Africa.

For the Foresight journal’s Special Issue on the theme “Is Africa the land of the future?”, we invite papers that look at the potential conditions and the roles of Africa and Africans in the future world. In addition to the exploration of possible futures, the theme of the Special Issue also calls for considerations for robust policies and creative strategies that could ensure sustained transformation within the African continent.

Soldiers have been deployed to help restore order after a resurgent communal violence in Nigeria's northern Gombe state has claimed six lives and left many more injured, the News Agency of Nigeria reported Thursday, quoting a Nigeria Red Cross official.

Nigeria's Vice President Goodluck Jonathan has assumed office as the country's Acting President, after the two chambers of the National Assembly (parliament) passed separate res olutions that ended 78 days without anyone being in charge of Africa's most populous nation,.

The international peasant's movement La Via Campesina welcomes the preliminary UN recognition of the role and rights of peasants and small farmers in the world. The Fourth Session of the Advisory Committee of the UN Human Rights Council, who met in Geneva on 25-29 January 2010, adopted the report of the Advisory Committee titled “Discrimination in the Context of Right to Food” (A/HRC/AC/4/2).

Opposition party members are facing increasing threats, attacks, and harassment in advance of Rwanda's August 2010 presidential election, Human Rights Watch has said. Human Rights Watch urged the government to investigate all such incidents and to ensure that opposition activists are able to go about their legitimate activities without fear.

Clashes between government forces and the Al-Shabaab militia in the Somali capital Mogadishu are displacing thousands of civilians. Reportedly, some 24 civilians have been killed and another 40 injured in the latest fighting, which erupted on Wednesday.

Officials from the United Nations health agency and the Beninese Government are urging the West African nation’s citizens to be extra vigilant in observing good hygiene amid a recent cholera outbreak that has already claimed several lives. Since the outbreak began in early January, 131 cases have been confirmed of which two resulted in death, according to Léon Kohossi with the UN World Health Organization (WHO) in Benin.

Madagascar's vice Prime Minister Ny Hasina Andriamanjato has resigned in a sign of growing divisions within the government over how to end the Indian Ocean island's year long political crisis.

The UNESCO Chair & Institute of Comparative Human Rights at the University of Connecticut invites applications for the sixth annual International Leadership Programme: A Global Intergenerational Forum. The Forum seeks to empower young leaders by involving them in finding solutions to emerging human rights problems, and nurturing individuals to be effective leaders in the field of human rights.

If man and woman are equal, why should the former be allowed to have several wives while the latter can only have one husband? This is the question the Constitutional Court will answer after listening to submission from a human rights organisation, Mifumi (U) Ltd that wants the polygamous marriages declared unconstitutional.

Foreign nationals are being attacked with "impunity" in South Africa, a leading human rights organization charged as the latest service delivery protests turned violent and several hundred residents turned their anger on Ethiopian refugees living in Siyathemba township, about 80km east of Johannesburg.

Sixteen years after the Rwandan genocide, many women are struggling to come to terms with the violence they endured. According to the association of genocide widows NGO, Avega Agahozo, sexual violence was used to humiliate, degrade and abuse women during the 6 April to 16 July 1994 killings. In many cases, the violence was meted out before, during or after the women had witnessed the killing of a relative.

The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa is pleased to announce the 2010 session of its Advanced Research Fellowship Programme and to invite interested scholars based in African universities or research centres to submit applications for consideration for an award.

The Winter 2009 issue of Food First News reports that last November the World Summit on Food Security in Rome issued a declaration that the world is now hungrier than ever before. Significantly, this is not the result of food shortage, with world production at 11/2 times that needed to feed every man, woman, and child on the planet.

The Ivorian government has announced the suspension, "until further notice," of the review of voters' list, due to the tension surrounding the process of validating the provisional list. The decision was made at the end of a working session between President Laurent Gbagbo and Prime Minister Guillaume Soro Wednesday evening.

Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's party has called for fresh elections if the current logjam in talks between rival factions of the frayed power-sharing government persisted.

Just over a month ago the legendary Dennis Brutus passed away. He became a legend for so many across South Africa and indeed the whole world not simply because of his exquisitely crafted poetry of passion and his never-ending activist commitment to justice and equality for all but precisely because he lived a life of principled consistency. The content of his public legend was umbilically linked to the character of his personal example. Simply put, Dennis practiced what he preached, writhes Dale McKinley.