As pro-democracy forces advance toward Gaddafi's main strongholds, the dictator of Libya is stepping up efforts to retake regions lost to the rebellion. Amidst an almost complete Internet and media blackout, videos still manage to be leaked, giving us a glimpse of what's happening on the ground. This post from Global Voices contains a round-up of the videos that emerged.

Kenyan Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka started a second round of shuttle diplomacy on Sunday to lobby for International Criminal Court deferment of Kenya’s post election violence case by a year. Musyoka left the country for a meeting with UN secretary general Ban Ki Moon on Tuesday and US officials on Wednesday.

The protesters who stormed the offices of Egyptian state security this weekend say the buildings are proof of 'the greatest privacy invasion in history', filled with transcripts of phone conversations, surveillance reports and stark reminders of the torture carried out inside.Hundreds of protesters seized the state security building - a prominent symbol of the Egyptian government's brutality - after hours of protests. Protesters say they hope the documents are used to prosecute state security officers.

The three-month long conflict in Ivory Coast has entered a particularly bloody stage. Nearly 400 people have been killed in the west African country, including 32 on 3 March alone, almost all of them men who had voted for opposition leader Alassane Ouattara, according to UN figures. The photographs on this page provide an illustration of recent events in the country.

Opposition forces in Libya are bracing for a prolonged campaign in their bid to overthrow the regime of Muammar Gaddafi, the country's long-time leader, as their fighters battle to repulse ferocious assaults by government soldiers. Forces loyal to Gaddafi have attacked several rebel-held cities along the country's coastline in a bid to halt the anti-government forces' rapid advance to the capital Tripoli. Dozens have died in a dramatic escalation of the conflict gripping the oil-rich North African nation.

Police backed by gangs of youths have ransacked at least 10 houses belonging to ministers and other allies of the internationally recognised president of Ivory Coast, according to witnesses. The raids came amid worsening tensions between Alassane Ouattara and the sitting president, Laurent Gbagbo, whose refusal to step down has pushed the west African country to the brink of civil war. Fighters loyal to Ouattara said they captured the western town of Toulepleu, but Gbagbo's military said fighting continued.

This map shows fighting in Zawiyah, Misrata, Bin Jawad and Ras Lanuf as the Tripoli government tries to claw back gains made by the rebels.

An Israeli company is recruiting mercenaries to support Moammar Gadhafi’s efforts to suppress an uprising against his regime, an Israeli news site said Tuesday. Citing Egyptian sources, the Hebrew-language news site Inyan Merkazi said the company was run by retired Israeli army commanders.

While protest movements are developing against dictatorial regimes in northern Africa and the Middle East, the statements and actions by European governments are mere rhetoric when it is a matter of reaffirming the necessity of a closure of borders that undermines fundamental rights, says this article. Thus, while Gaddafi brandishes the spectre of a migratory invasion by threatening European states of putting an end to any 'cooperation in the field of the fight against irregular immigration', the EU, through the words of its representative for foreign affairs, Catherine Ashton, claims that it does not want to give in to blackmail. At the same time European bodies continued to negotiate, less than a week ago, Libyan participation in their policy to secure the Mediterranean space.

Is Tripoli being set up for a civil war to justify US and NATO military intervention in oil-rich Libya, asks Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya. Are the talks about sanctions a prelude to an Iraq-like intervention?

Senegal Saturday (27 Feb) lost three more soldiers in Casamance (southern region), during violent clashes against fighters of the Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (MFDC) in northern Sindian near the Gambian border, PANA learnt here from military sources. According to the sources, the clashes also left seven other soldiers wounded, including one whose legs were cut off by an anti-personnel mine.

The signatory organisations to this statement have stressed that civilians are not to be prosecuted and tried for non-military crimes before military tribunals composed of military officers, which is contrary to the basic rights of citizens to a fair trial. This follows the conviction of Amr Abdallah Abd el-Rasoul el-Beheiry on 1 March on charges of assault of an officer and breaking curfew.

Those who have solidarity with the Libyan uprising must not only support the people in Libya but also ‘denounce any attempts by the Western forces for military intervention’, argues Horace Campbell, in an interview with Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman.

Clashes in two Sudanese flashpoints left scores dead, officials said on Wednesday, reigniting fears for the stability of the country's oil-producing south in the countdown to its independence. Arab nomads and militias fought southern police in the contested north-south border area of Abyei on Wednesday (3 March) killing at least six people, the latest in a series of clashes, officials said. Renegade militia fighters clashed with south Sudan's army on Sunday in the southern oil state of Jonglei, where French oil giant Total is due to start exploring, both sides said.

The UN refugee agency said Tuesday (02 March) it was alarmed by an upsurge in violence against civilians by a rebel Ugandan group in north-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. A particularly worrying development is that the Lord's Resistance Army, or LRA, appears to be targeting more populated areas.

Analysts say there is growing evidence that Egyptian security forces planned attacks on Christian churches and clergy, or allowed them to happen. The apparent purpose of the attacks was to reinforce the idea to sympathetic Western governments that without Mubarak, radical Islamist groups would gain a foothold in Egypt and wage a holy war on its Christian community.

A competition has broken out between Government and civil society groups opposed to the deferral of International Criminal Court cases. Government functionaries have launched a bid to collect two million signatures from Kenyans to prove that the deferral bid has popular support. This is a direct response to civil society groups that announced they would collect a million signatures to oppose the deferral drive.

Violent clashes broke out in the early morning hours of Saturday (26 February) in the city of Dakhla. The unrest left two dead and 14 injured, according to Moroccan officials. While Moroccan authorities blamed supporters of the Polisario for the latest events, Sahrawi activists were just as quick to accuse Moroccans. 'Armed militias of Moroccan origins,' were behind the events, the Collective of Sahrawi Human Rights (CODESA) claimed.

A total of 141 journalists and media workers were killed during the decade of the 2000s in attacks and reprisals blamed on criminal groups. Mafias and cartels today pose the biggest threat to media freedom worldwide, says this Reporters Without Borders document.

Armed conflict is robbing 28 million children of an education by exposing them to widespread rape and other sexual violence, targeted attacks on schools and other human rights abuses, according to a United Nations report. The number accounts for 42 per cent of the primary school age children globally not enrolled in school and living in poor countries affected by conflict, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) warned in its 2011 Global Monitoring Report.