Motsoko Pheko responds to reader comments on his article ''

Years of interviews, investigative reporting, and analysis of classified US government documents went into a book on right-wing paramilitarism in Haiti.

South African President Jacob Zuma has summoned Madagascar interim authorities for an urgent meeting in Pretoria in a fresh attempt to resolve the political deadlock in the island nation. This after a plane carrying the exiled leader Marc Ravalomanana home was turned away. The party of Ravalomanana then decided to suspend its role in Madagascar's unity government citing violation of the political roadmap.

The body of Zimbabwe’s first army commander General Solomon Mujuru had a hole in the abdomen and emitted blue flames when it was retrieved from his farmhouse that was gutted by fire last year, an inquest heard on Tuesday. Police Constable Clatwell Garisayi, who was the 23rd witness to give evidence after the inquest opened last week. Mujuru was considered to be the only politician in President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF who could stand up to the 87-year-old leader. He was believed to be leading one of the factions positioning themselves in anticipation of the ageing President Mugabe’s departure.

Sudan air force on Monday 23 January bombed Elfoj refugee camp in South Sudan’s Upper Nile state, leaving 14 civilians missing and injuring another, the UN said, raising the already high tensions between the two countries. 'The aerial bombing occurred just after 10am local time in Elfoj in South Sudan’s Upper Nile state,' the UN High Commissioner for refugees said in a statement.

Malawi is losing $28 million (about MK4.6 billion) worth of fisheries resources each year due to unsustainable fishing in natural bodies, an estimate which represents 0.8 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), according to the Ministry of Finance and Development’s Economic valuation of Sustainable Natural Resource Use report in Malawi.

Tanzanian police have freed a Burundian opposition leader, Alexis Sinduhije, who was arrested two weeks ago in Dar es Salaam at Burundi’s request, a senior Burundian security official said. 'We have just learned that Tanzanian authorities did not want to follow up on our extradition request for Alexis Sinduhije to Burundi and preferred to expel him to Uganda this morning,' the official said.

The IMF said on Tuesday a $32 billion accounting discrepancy in Angola's state funds was linked to 'quasi-fiscal operations' by state oil firm Sonangol done on the government's behalf, but not recorded in official budget accounts. 'Preliminary data indicate that quasi-fiscal operations undertaken by the state oil company on behalf of the government, financed out of oil revenues but not recorded in the budgetary accounts, can explain a large part of the discrepancy,' the IMF said in a statement.

Ugandan police clashed with opposition supporters in Kampala Tuesday 24 January after security forces tried to detain opposition leader Kizza Besigye following a protest rally over rising living costs. Police fired tear gas at protesters after they started throwing stones following an unsuccessful attempt by a plainclothed security agent to drag Besigye into a waiting van, an AFP photographer at the scene said.

The International Monetary Fund wants Kenya to slash its swelling public expenditure and increase its revenue base to cushion it from expected harsh economic conditions this year. The financial institution argues that the government should also continue focusing on consolidation of medium-term plans and effective monetary policy to curb domestic demand.

The United Nations says it is concerned about worsening security at refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia that are home to more than 700,000 Somali citizens. The UN refugee agency says it is particularly worried about the situation in Kenya’s massive Dadaab camp following a spate of kidnappings, murders and robberies there. A spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees says Kenyan police are investigating whether the Dadaab attacks are being carried out by outsiders or by people within the camp.

Even as rich countries face a slowdown, sub-Saharan African economies are expected to post nearly six per cent average growth in 2012, according to the IMF. But the wealth has a flip side, notes this Reuters article. 'The consumption boom has been fueled by fast-growing credit. In Kenya and elsewhere that has sucked in imports - cars, shoes, clothes, wines and whiskies - and swelled the current account deficit. Inflation in Kenya is now nearing 20 per cent. As always, high inflation hurts the poorest most.'

Eastern and Southern Africa, the region most affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, is making great strides to scale up access to prevention and treatment services, a United Nations official said today, adding that focus is on behavioural change and prevention of mother-to-child transmission. Of the estimated 34 million people living with HIV/AIDS across the world, almost three quarters live in Eastern and Southern Africa, Sheila Tlou, the Director of the Regional Support Team for the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) told a media briefing in Geneva.

South Africa’s economic difficulties are placing Lesotho’s economy at a crossroads, as the government struggles to push big rocks up the mountain to balance the national budget. Lesotho is wrestling with a 30 per cent decline in domestic revenues and a 15 per cent budget deficit in the 2011/12 financial year. The government expects to fund the gap with loans from international financial institutions and foreign aid.

Michael Sata, the Zambian president, has been 'assassinated' according to a mischievous alteration to his profile on Wikipedia. Reports about Mr Sata's death are not new – there were several in the run-up to the election – but generally they emanate from concerns about his health. A chain smoker with a history of heart problems, he is thought to travel with a cardiologist and go to bed early each night to prevent overstrain. But speaking to The Daily Telegraph last week, he insisted he was going nowhere. 'David Cameron has more physicians than me. He has all sorts, for eyes, for teeth, me I only have one person,' he said. 'I am 74, even if I died today, it would not be untimely.'

Allegations of sabotage, mounting debt and widespread financial mismanagement….The debacle in Limpopo has spewed out a dangerous brew of bad money and political in-fighting, writes Kim Cloete in Business Day. The financial mismanagement may have been rotten to the core, but it’s the timing of the intervention that has riled Limpopo’s ANC-run administration. National Treasury says it had warned the Limpopo Treasury throughout last year that it would run out of funds if it was going to continue with its rampant spending. Eventually the situation reached a head in November when it became clear that the province was bankrupt.

This page has live updates of the political posturings and the response of the street, as protesters organise marches to voice their demands to MPs, as Egypt's newly elected People's Assembly opens for the first time since Hosni Mubarak was toppled.

King Mswati III of Swaziland is to fly in the face of international opposition and continue his ban on political parties at the national elections next year (2013). Political parties have been banned since 1973 when Mswati’s father, King Sobhuza II, tore up the Swazi constitution and ruled by decree.

The Muslim Brotherhood's party has won 47.18 per cent of seats in the Egyptian parliament, the electoral commission announced on Saturday as it gave the final results from marathon polls. The Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) won 235 seats in the new People's Assembly, or 47.18 per cent, committee head Abdel Moez Ibrahim said. The ultra-conservative Salafist Al Nur party is in second place with 121 seats or nearly 25 per cent, while the liberal Wafd Party follows with nearly nine percent.

Gambian President Yahya Jammeh has been sworn in for a fourth term and says he will crack the whip on laziness and corruption as he bids to turn Africa's smallest mainland country into an economic powerhouse. Jammeh, who came to power in a coup in 1994 aged 29, also said his government would not tolerate any terrorist or racist acts. 'I will be more dangerous in the next five years than when I was, even in uniform, because people have to change their attitude to work,' he earlier said on state TV Wednesday, promising that people would see 'a different Yahya Jammeh'.