Ethiopian authorities have released former opposition politicians, jailed for causing mayhem after the 2005 general elections, but the fate of an influential former party leader, Birtukan Mideksa, remains unclear.

Niger's president, Mamadou Tandja, on Wednesday opened the campaign for 27 December local elections and urged his compatriots to turn out in their numbers to elect their representatives for the 266 local councils.

A lot has happened since the 44th and first African American US President was sworn in. Some scholars, like Prof. Issa Shivji at the University of Dar es Salaam, argue that the issue now is not Obama’s presidency and what it portends to Africa, but rather the emergence of new ‘hegemonic’ powers in global political and economic governance.

A Western Sahara activist expelled by Morocco has been allowed to return from Spain after maintaining a hunger strike for 32 days. Aminatou Haidar, 42, left Lanzarote airport in the Canary Islands on a small, private plane after a deal was reached, details of which are unclear.

Opposition parties in Namibia have launched a court challenge to the results of last month's election. President Hifikepunye Pohamba and his Swapo party won a landslide victory with more than 70% of the vote.

Many governments' policies toward migrants worldwide expose them to human rights abuses including labor exploitation, inadequate access to health care, and prolonged detention in poor, overcrowded conditions, Human Rights Watch has said, in advance of International Migrants Day, on December 18, 2009.

The World Bank and China are discussing setting up low-cost factories in industrial zones in Africa, that the Chinese will build. A nice little idea that’s maybe meant to help could end in a new regime of industrial slavery.

People across the world leave their homes, families and countries in search of work and education, and to escape poverty, discrimination and conflict. Many risk everything, even their lives, for security and a chance to earn a living. At every step, they are vulnerable to exploitation, fraud and human rights abuses.

United Nations peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have suspended logistical or other support for units of the National Armed Forces (FARDC) when there are sufficient grounds to believe their operations would violate human rights, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said.

AMERA-Egypt is pleased to advertise the vacancy of Psychosocial Team Leader. The job of Psychosocial Team Leader is full-time for 35 hours per week, and s/he works under the day-to-day supervision of the Deputy Country Director. Its purpose is to develop affective and adequate programming, manage the operation and effective delivery of the psychological and social services for refugees seeking asylum in Egypt.

At the opening of the Copenhagen conference on climate change, twenty UN human rights experts, including Olivier De Schutter, stated that a “weak outcome of the climate change negotiations threatens to infringe upon human rights”. The Special Rapporteur warns that only climate policies deeply rooted in a human rights regime can guarantee minimized impacts upon the most vulnerable.

Sudan wants to attract foreign investors to cultivate vast tracks of land that are currently unused in Africa’s largest country, State Minister for Finance Tarek Shalabi said.

Gender activists from East and Southern Africa have expressed shock at the backward trends in the 50/50 campaign in recent elections. The African Union (AU) has set a goal of achieving parity between women and men in decision-making by 2020, while the Southern African Development Community (SADC) target calls for 50% women in decision-making in all sectors by 2015.

The Deputy Commander for Civil/Military Affairs of the US African Command (AFRICOM), Amb. Anthony Holmes, Wednesday visited Luanda, Angola, to foster a working relationship with the Angolan government.

Four freelance journalists on 17 December 2009 filed an application with the High Court in Harare seeking a nullification of the election of the new Zimbabwe Union of Journalists (ZUJ) executive. The applicants are citing irregularities in the manner that the elective Congress was convened and conducted.

The former governor of Nigeria's oil-rich Delta State has been cleared of 170 charges of corruption - involving the laundering of millions of dollars. The federal court in Asaba said there was no clear evidence against James Ibori, governor from 1999 to 2007.

The more people in a meeting, the more difficult it is to achieve consensus. Accordingly the UN negotiating system, built on consensus processes and inordinately influenced by the wealthy G8 nations, makes agreement difficult, writes Glenn Ashton.

On the ninth day of the Copenhagen climate summit, Africa was sacrificed. The position of the G77 negotiating bloc, including African states, had been clear: a 2C increase in average global temperatures translates into a 3–3.5C increase in Africa, writes Naomi Klein.

It's really no surprise that a major split has occurred between developing countries at the United Nations climate conference in Copenhagen over the best way to help the most vulnerable countries, or that developing countries reacted furiously to the leaked draft agreement that would hand more power to rich nations, sideline the UN's negotiating role and abandon the Kyoto protocol.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the Eastern Africa Journalists Association (EAJA) welcome the re-launch of Tanzanian Union of Journalists (TUJ). In a three-day meeting in Dar es Salaam, which ended on 5th December 2009, Tanzanian journalists elected a seven-member committee to steer the Tanzania Union of Journalists (TUJ) into proactive labour union and to convene a congress as a way of re-building and promoting democracy in the union, ensuring better conditions of service and ethical journalism.