Largely unnoticed by most Namibians, the local German-language daily Allgemeine Zeitung provides a forum for colonial apologetics. Reinhart Kössler and Henning Melber examine recent comments and readers’ letters in this newspaper, exposing the reactionary attitudes and privileging strategies that maintain the minority language as a barrier to national reconciliation.

Namibian-born Horst Kleinschmidt provides challenging observations and personal family history linked to the colonial era. Urging both Germany and German-speaking Namibians to confront their past honestly, he offers examples of apologies made in similar circumstances, and guidelines for reconciliation and redress.

Refuting in detail the arguments proffered by Germany on the questions of apology and compensation for the genocide of the Herero and the Nama, Dr Kwame Opoku notes that the Namibia-Germany case is being keenly observed by other African peoples and states with unresolved issues relating to the colonial era.

Former Namibian Ambassador to Germany, Prof. Peter H. Katjavivi, who was instrumental in getting the repatriation process with Charité started, calls upon both Namibians and Germans to confront the past honestly as part of the process of recovering human dignity and thereby healing of the wounds of the past. This process, he writes, is in the interest of both nations.

The Supreme Court of Appeal has upheld an attempt by the Democratic Alliance for access to the records that led to the suspension of criminal charges against President Jacob Zuma in 2009. The DA wanted a review of the decision, by then acting National Director of Public Prosecutions Mokotedi Mpshe, to drop charges against Zuma before he was elected president. The SCA ruled that Mpshe should hand over the record to the registrar of the Supreme Court of Appeal within 14 days.

South Africa will not probe allegations that mobile operator MTN paid bribes to win a license in Iran, in exchange for Pretoria backing Tehran's nuclear program, the foreign minister said Monday. MTN - which operates in 21 countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East - has said it would investigate the allegations, but denied any wrongdoing. MTN owns a 49 per cent stake in the Iranian telecom Irancell, which holds the operating license.

Anti-government protesters torched a police station in Malawi's capital on Monday 19 March, raising tension in the destitute country that was last year rocked by the police killing of 20 people in similar protests. The latest outbreak of violence followed the weekend arrest of the chairman of the government's Human Rights Commission. The commission had sharply criticised the administration of President Bingu wa Mutharika for the July 2011 crackdown, accusing his government of using unjustifiable violence and arrests to intimidate its critics.

The small west African state of Guinea-Bissau went to the polls on Sunday to elect a new president - an office no one has yet held for a full five-year term. Ahead of the voting, the appeals for calm multiplied from the international community well aware of the impoverished country's violent history. Since independence from Portugal in 1974, achieved after an 11-year armed conflict, three presidents have been overthrown by coups, and one was assassinated in office in 2009.

According to a report by the UN Country Team in Swaziland, released on 16 March, a fiscal crisis which started early in 2011 has put an additional strain on poor households like Thwala’s and worsened poverty in a country which already had high rates of unemployment and food insecurity and the highest HIV rate in the world. The report, based on a November 2011 survey of 1,334 households, found that poor households have had to adopt extreme measures to cope with reduced incomes resulting from job losses and wage cuts, as well as higher food and fuel prices and reduced access to social services.

On Monday 12 March, the water justice movement met with United Nations special rapporteur Catarina de Alburquerque, as well as eight national governments and the deputy mayor of Paris, outside the corporate World Water Forum in Marseille, France to highlight the need to implement the right to water and sanitation worldwide. Later that afternoon, eight governments - the United States, Germany, Spain, Nigeria, Uruguay, Panama, Colombia and Bolivia - met with 60-75 civil society activists at a meeting organized by numerous groups. Speakers presented on the problematic nature of the World Water Forum, the negative experiences with water privatization, challenges related to the implementation of the right to water and sanitation, how the green economy would undermine these rights, and much more.

NATO has not sufficiently investigated the air raids it conducted on Libya that killed at least 60 civilians and wounded 55 more during the conflict there, according to a new United Nations report. Nor has Libya’s interim government done enough to halt the disturbing violence perpetrated by revolutionary militias seeking to exact revenge on loyalists, real or perceived, to the government of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the report concluded.

A 30-minute

‘We’ve agreed to so many things before – but it’s always in the implementation that we get bogged down.’

Biafra secessionist leader Odumegwu Ochuku has left a legacy for a new generation of Nigerians who must now see personal sacrifice as a prerequisite for public service.

A mother is not easily convinced that her daughter is okay in the head when she admits to being gay. She thinks that there must be some underlying psychological and emotional problems.

A year has passed since the military assumed power after President Hosni Mubarak was ousted. But is Egypt any closer to the freedom and justice it sought when its people rose up against the Mubarak regime?

The notion that modern day development is achievable purely through mega projects is perhaps misplaced as it ignores the place of technology and, for Africa, the contribution of ‘small’ industries at this stage in achieving sustainable industrialisation.

A new constitution for Zimbabwe is only one step in a series of fundamental reforms that are needed before Zimbabwe can hold elections.

Africa is being recolonised. American interventionist activities in the continent’s Great Lakes region provide a perfect example. African peoples must rise up to protect their own interests by demanding a new relationship with the West.

Forget that the Kony 2012 video has flaws. Rather, bring on the help and catch Joseph Kony.