May Brutus, wife of South African poet-activist Dennis, died suddenly on 12 March in London. ‘Those who knew May will remember a feisty, outspoken and awe-inspiring figure, speaking her mind on racism and injustice wherever she found it,’ writes her son, Tony Brutus.

Attending the World Assembly of Migrants at WSF Dakar, Colin Rajah is disappointed by the emphasis on ‘individual migrants, rather than movements and organizations’, the lack of global representation among participants, and the exclusion of key issues from the assembly’s final charter.

The SIDENSI/IKM/ESAACH international interdisciplinary colloquium on traducture aims to create an intercultural dialogue on the significance of the dynamics of translation as a lever for knowledge management in international development and the question of power. Its purpose is to bring together translation and knowledge management practitioners and networks, researchers, policy makers, advocacy agents, academics, practitioners and end users to share insights, experiences, strategies, knowledge, techniques and the use of traducture, personnel, artefacts, tools and methodologies.

The Institute of Peace Leadership and Governance (IPLG) at Africa University seeks to contribute to a culture of peace, good governance, security and socio-economic development in Africa through research, teaching, networking and community-level action.

Human rights activist Munyaradzi Gwisai and five others, detained on treason charges in Harare, were on Wednesday (16 March) granted bail, more than three weeks since their arrest. The group, who have been held in solitary confinement for more than a week, appeared in a Harare court on Wednesday for a bail hearing. The judge granted them US$2,000 bail each, with conditions to report three times a week to the police.

Oil bearing and hosting communities of the Niger Delta, Nigeria's main oil and gas basin, and Environmental Rights Action (ERA) concluded a meeting in Effurun, Delta State, resolving to mount pressure on the Federal Government to urgently regulate oil activities in the country. In a communique, the two parties explained why government should regulate the extractive industry. According to them, 'the Nigerian Government should exercise its statutory powers to regulate oil and other extractive industry activities to bring an end to impunity and environmental degradation in the Niger Delta and other parts of the country.'

Visit this multimedia page on for the latest videos on the situation in Libya.

The UN estimates that some 60,000 people could come into Niger from Libya in the coming weeks. As of 10 March, 2,205 had arrived - 1,865 of them Nigeriens and the rest from other West African countries - according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

When violence broke out in the western Libyan town of Zawiyah, Bangladeshi migrant worker Mohammed Nienn, 28, was doing a shift as a steelworker. In a hurry to leave, he persuaded his Libyan supervisor to hand back his passport, but not the wages he was due. Then he jumped into a taxi with four other Bangladeshis and headed for the Tunisian border, where a bus eventually took him to Choucha transit camp, 25km from the frontier town of Ras Ajdir. Ten days later, he was still there, waiting for a flight to Dhaka.

Documents seized from State Security offices in Alexandria and Cairo prove it - Egyptians have been spied on and tortured by our own government for decades. We need a massive public outcry now to press the military urgently to abolish the SS and instruct the public prosecutor to try those suspected of crimes.

TWAS Fellowships: 2011 Call for Applications
Postgraduate, postdoctoral, visiting scholar and advanced research fellowships available to scientists from developing countries

TWAS, the academy of sciences for the developing world, is now accepting applications for its postgraduate, postdoctoral, visiting scholars and advanced research fellowship programmes.
The fellowships are offered to scientists from developing countries and are tenable at centres of excellence in various countries in the South, including Brazil, China, India, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan and Thailand.

Eligible fields include: agricultural and biological sciences, medical and health sciences, chemistry, engineering, astronomy, space and earth sciences, mathematics and physics.

Please see > Programmes > Exchange > Fellowships (http://twas.ictp.it/prog/exchange/fells/fells-overview) for the latest information regarding all these programmes, including eligibility criteria, deadlines, etc, and to download the application forms and guidelines.

Women scientists are especially encouraged to apply.

Italy, which did more than any other country to legitimise Libya and its mercurial leader, is going through a foreign policy nightmare as civil strife in its former colony threatens its energy supplies, international image and the stability of some of its blue chip companies. Italy imports about 80 per cent of its energy needs. About 32 per cent of Libya's oil output goes to Italy - making up about 25 per cent of Italy's imports - and about 12 per cent of Italy's gas comes from Libya.

No newspapers were distributed on Friday in Côte d’Ivoire, where the protracted political impasse is creating an extremely grave if not impossible situation for journalists and news media. As the country seems to head steadily towards civil war, with casualties every day, journalists are being exposed to threats, arrests and reprisals, and often have to risk lives to report in some neighbourhoods, says RSF.

The Brenthurst Foundation is inviting applications from young graduates for the newly established Machel Mandela Internship Programme, named in honour of former South African President Nelson Mandela and his wife Graca Machel. The Machel Mandela Internship programme aims to be the most prestigious of its kind in Africa. It will help sharpen the Brenthurst Foundation’s focus on Africa’s burgeoning youth population and help nurture Africa’s future leaders.

When violent unrest erupted in Libya recently, Ahmed al-Agouz, 25, was doing casual work in the Libyan city of Sabha. Realizing he had to flee, he managed to reach the Tunisian border, where he eventually boarded a plane to Cairo. But returning to his home village in the Egyptian Nile Delta Governorate of Sharqia, north of Cairo, has made one thing abundantly clear to al-Agouz and tens of thousands of other returnees: There simply are no jobs back home.

Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan has threatened to sue a local newspaper, NEXT, over its report on Sunday that he voted four times during the 2007 general elections, when he was a state governor and a vice presidential candidate under the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Accusing the newspaper of waging a 'malicious campaign of falsehood and calumny' against him, the President also demanded a retraction of the story, which the paper credited to whistleblower website Wikileaks. NEXT, quoting Wikileaks, said the disclosure that Jonathan, then the governor of oil-producing Bayelsa, voted several times was made by the Governor of southern Edo state and former labour leader Adams Oshiomhole to US Political Officers (poloffs), who visited him shortly after the court victory in his election petition.

African Women and Child Feature Service has produced a 24-page special newspaper that looks at the gains, challenges and obstacles women have faced - particularly in relation to advancing in leadership and education. 'Strength of a Woman' takes stock of women's progress 25 years after the Nairobi Forward Looking Strategies and 16 years after the Beijing Platform for Action.

At least 80,000 households in 133 districts are expected to be covered by research aimed at testing reading and basic arithmetic capacity of children aged between five and 16 years. 'We are embarking on the second annual assessment after the release and dissemination of the findings from the maiden one in 2010 where we covered 38 districts,' the Uwezo Research Manager, Dr Grace Soko said.

Cameroon’s Biya regime has embarked on a ‘futile battle it will never win’, writes Dibussi Tande, following the government's attempt to silence digital activists by banning a mobile Twitter service.

is an online video and photographic archive documenting the Egyptian revolution.