The MDC-T has embarked on a new diplomatic offensive to galvanise support from the region, for the far-reaching legislative reforms needed in Zimbabwe before elections can be held. The country will again be the focus of attention at next week’s SADC summit in Luanda, Angola, at which regional leaders will discuss the ongoing political crisis blocking implementation of the GPA and election roadmap.

The complex relationship between violence against women (VAW) and information and communication technologies (ICTs) is a critical area of engagement for women's rights activists. ICTs can be used as a tool to stop VAW, while VAW can be facilitated through the use of ICTS. However, few women's rights activists are working actively on this issue. Consequently, a political and legal framing of the intersection between these issues is not established in most countries.

The International Refugee Rights Initiative has launched the seventh paper in its series on Citizenship and Displacement in the Great Lakes Region. The paper, 'Darfurians in South Sudan: negotiating belonging in two Sudans' is about the construction of citizenship, identities and belonging at a moment of profound political change: the secession of South Sudan from the Republic of Sudan (Sudan or North Sudan) that took place on 9 July 2011. The full paper can be accessed through the website of

Arts and human rights charity, Sandblast has been knocked offline in an internet attack. The charity, founded by West Hampstead resident, Danielle Smith, works with the indigenous people from Western Sahara, the Saharawis, whose identity and culture is threatened by the impact of prolonged refugee life and Morocco’s occupation. Sandblast’s mission is to empower the Saharawis to tell their own story through the arts. The attack has come two weeks before the launch of its ambitious music empowerment project, Studio-Live, which aims to engage UK-based musicians, producers, technicians, and music industry specialists in building a Saharawi music industry from scratch in the refugee camps in the Algerian desert.

Birthing Justice: Women Creating Economic and Social Alternatives is a series featuring 12 alternative social and economic models which expand the possibilities for justice, equity, and strong community. The eighth narrative of Birthing Justice focuses on Julie Castro, a young doctor from France, a country that proves that it is possible for a nation to offer quality health care for all.

The National Press Commission (CNP), the print media regulatory body has suspended Notre Voie, a privately-owned pro-opposition daily newspaper for four publications. The suspension takes effect from 19 May 2012. According to the Media Foundation for West Africa’s (MFWA) correspondent, the decision of the regulatory body follows the publication of material that the commission says amounts to distortion of facts.

About 100 people have died of cholera, although the Ministry of Health put the death toll at 73, while thousands are being hospitalised in different health centres. The number of people affected has increased to 3,111 from 2,200 in March in 13 districts of northern, eastern and western Uganda.

New collection of rendition data brings together records of over 1100 victims and shows involvement of 45 countries

Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic

Ministry of Information

Press release

A group of rappers in Angola known for their anti-government lyrics have been beaten up in the capital, Luanda. About 15 masked men burst into the house where they were meeting. 'They didn't say a word, they just started to beat the people,' Kady Mixinge, a member of the group who was injured in the raid, told the BBC.

The verdict on 22 May 2012, in the trial of those accused of killing Ernest Manirumva, a Burundian anti-corruption activist, has been a missed opportunity to deliver justice, 20 Burundian and international nongovernmental organizations said today in a joint statement. The outcome was a grave disappointment to those who have campaigned for his killers to be held to account, as potentially important evidence in the case was not pursued. Manirumva had been investigating several sensitive cases at the time of his killing in 2009, including allegations of large-scale police corruption and illegal weapons purchases. 'The Public Prosecutor willfully ignored calls to investigate senior figures within the Burundian security services and national police who may have been involved in the killing of Manirumva,' said Hassan Shire Sheikh, executive director of the East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project.

As a food crisis continues to spread and levels of severe acute malnutrition continue to rise in Chad, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is expanding the number of emergency malnutrition treatment programs it is operating in the country. Even in a normal year, Chad has one of the highest rates of chronic malnutrition in the world. This year is showing signs of being worse than usual. In early 2012, in some areas of the country, rates of global acute malnutrition as high as 24 per cent have already been reported among children under the age of five.

The rejection of race discrimination claims brought by a young Nigerian woman who was brought to the United Kingdom illegally by her employers, brutalised and denied wages, gives a green light to racism, says this article from the Institute of Race Relations website. Mary Mounga was probably only 14 when her employer brought her from Nigeria to work in the UK as an au pair, promising to send her to school and to pay her £50 a month on top of her board and lodging. She was told to say that she was 20 and that she was coming to visit her grandmother. Once here, she was beaten, never paid any wages and not given the opportunity to go to school.

An award winning photographer who has devoted her working life to documenting the lives of black lesbians has had five years worth of her work stolen. Zanele Muholi, described by the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa as 'one of the country’s foremost artists', had more than 20 external hard drives stolen from her flat in Vredehoek, Cape Town on April 20. The hard drives contain stills and video footage, including photos from the funerals of victims of homophobic hate crimes. It is thought that the burglars were targeting Muholi’s work, as little else was taken from her flat, and back up hard drives were also taken.

Sierra Leone’s President Ernest Bai Koroma is threatening tough measures against the media in what is a departure from his traditionally tolerant bearing. 'The honeymoon for reckless journalism is over,' he said in a statement, warning journalists and civil society activists to stay away from politics. That has touched on the nerves of media figures.

A combined Amisom force comprised of Ugandan, Burundian and Somali Transitional Federal Government troops launched a massive dawn assault on al-Shabaab positions outside Mogadishu, marking the second phase of the Somalia war. Sources said an estimated 5,000 Ugandan, 1,500 Burundian and 2,000 Somali soldiers were still advancing to Afgoye and areas of Shabelle with tanks and motorised infantry fighting vehicles, including armoured mambas and tanks.

People who just want to grow food and make a living from the land are being expelled, criminalised, and sometimes killed, to make way for land grabbers. It is nothing less than an assault on peasants.

About 40 students at Wits University in Johannesburg have gone on an indefinite hunger strike to protest the unfair dismissal of 17 female workers. They were joined by 2,000 students who boycotted the canteen staffed by outsourced workers from the offending company. This is part of a larger campaign to fight the externalisation and casualisation of labour at Wits, and in South Africa generally.

The facilitation team of South African President Jacob Zuma is expected in Zimbabwe to check on progress made by the unity government in fine-tuning the election roadmap the Southern African Development Community says is necessary before the country's next polls. President Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF party have consistently called for elections this year, even in the absence of a new constitution. But the two MDC formations in the coalition government insist critical democratic reforms are implemented before any fresh polls are called, in particular the writing of a new constitution.

Kenyan police arbitrarily arrested, detained, and beat refugees following the discovery of explosives and an attack on a police vehicle in the Dadaab refugee camps in mid-May 2012. Senior officials visiting the camps on 23 May should ensure a full and speedy investigation leading to the identification and disciplinary measures against any officer responsible for abuse and the compensation of victims.