The independent news magazine Kontext TV, supported by Noam Chomsky and others, was at the World Social Forum in Dakar, Senegal in February and has produced a series of broadcasts on the occasion of the Forum's 10th anniversary. The first programme is now online in English and German versions under The programme reports about some of the key issues at the Forum such as the impacts of the revolutions in North Africa and the formation of a worldwide movement for climate justice and land grabbing. Another broadcast focussing on Africa is going to follow.

African academics are backing a drive to establish closer research and higher-education ties between countries on the continent to boost its development. The vision is set out in a document finalised in January by the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) - with the support of the African Union and the Association of African Universities - and recently seen by SciDev.Net.

More than 191,000 people have fled the violence in Libya, according to a report by the UN's Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), citing figures from the International Organisation for Migration. People fleeing Libya for Tunisia said they had to pass through dozens of checkpoints on their way from Tripoli, the capital, and that they had been robbed by Gaddafi's security forces.

Citizens in Equatorial Guinea trying to take advantage of the government’s pledge to allow greater citizen participation continue to face serious obstacles that hinder their efforts, EG Justice says in a new report. The country was delisted from the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) - a voluntary international effort to strengthen governance in resource-rich countries through improved transparency and accountability - in April 2010 for its failure to comply with the EITI’s requirements, including failing to allow unfettered civil society engagement. Nearly one year later, the Equatoguinean government has not implemented the necessary reforms to guarantee citizen participation and to increase the likelihood that the country will be readmitted to the EITI. The 37 page report, 'Disempowered Voices: The Status of Civil Society in Equatorial Guinea', identifies systematic failures on the part of the Equatoguinean government to allow the full and independent participation of civil society organisations.

The African Leadership Centre (ALC) was established in Kenya in June 2010 as a joint initiative of King’s College London and the University of Nairobi. The ALC is pleased to announce a call for applications for the Peace and Security Fellowship for African Women for 2011/2012. This Fellowship is an intellectual and financial award to those who have demonstrated obvious or potential capacity to make a change in their field. Please note that the Fellowship does not lead to an academic qualification, rather it is a postgraduate non-degree programme.

The African Studies Association (ASA) will hold its 54th Annual Meeting in Washington, DC, 17-21 November 2011, at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel. We are soliciting proposals for papers, panels, and roundtables, especially relating to the theme '50 Years of African Liberation', which will reflect on African experiences over the past five decades when African nations began to win independence from colonial rule.

International Rivers supports civil society groups and communities around the world which seek to stop destructive dams and promote better methods of meeting energy and water needs. We are looking for an experienced, skilled, dynamic director of our Africa Program. The position will be based at our main office in Berkeley or at a strategic location in Africa (such as Nairobi, Johannesburg, or Accra).

The American Political Science Association (APSA) and the Institute for Development Studies (IDS) University of Nairobi, are pleased to announce a call for applications from individuals who would like to participate in a workshop on 'Representation Reconsidered: Ethnic Politics and Africa’s Governance Institutions in Comparative Perspective' from 23 July to 6 August 2011.

The Open Society Foundations invite photographers to submit a body of work for consideration in the Moving Walls 19 group exhibition. Application deadline is April 1, 2011.

Kenya Female Advisory Organisation (KEFEADO) in partnership with the Urgent Action Fund – Africa are pleased to announce a new grant to support undergraduate and masters women students in Kenyan universities who are in the final stages of their dissertation work. The Dolphine Okech Writing Grant (DOWG) seeks to facilitate rigorous engagement of undergraduate and masters students in research, strengthen their research skills, and provide the fellows an opportunity for timely completion of their dissertations.

The mission of Fahamu's Tuliwaza Program is to generate and share knowledge towards a liberated Africa based on the needs and input of African social movements using progressive, feminist and people-centred approaches and methods.

Synergos is looking to recruit an innovative and entrepreneurial leader to be its Regional Director for its Southern African region to champion Synergos’ efforts to change the systems that perpetuate poverty and social injustice. Synergos supports leaders, leadership networks and partnerships that promote equitable access to basic human rights and needs – with particular emphasis on health and nutrition, the wellbeing of children and women, and education.

As the uprising in Libya enters its second week, Al Jazeera's live blog is indispensable for keeping up with the fast-moving events in that country.

The Popular Resistance blog contains writing in Arabic and English. It covers postings on the rapidly
escalating situations in the Arab world.

Human rights violations including sexual violence and unlawful killings are being perpetrated by forces loyal to both Côte d'Ivoire's outgoing President Laurent Gbagbo and internationally recognised incumbent Alassane Ouattara, an Amnesty International investigation has revealed. Victims and eyewitnesses first-hand accounts of the ongoing abuses, which follow the disputed November 2010 election, are contained in a six-page summary of preliminary findings compiled by Amnesty International researchers during a four-week visit to Côte d'Ivoire.

At least 50 Somali and Ethiopian migrants died when a ship carrying 129 people sank off the northern coast of Mozambique last week, media reports said. Reuters reports that survivors, thought to be illegal migrants, have been taken to refugee camps.

'On 18 and 19 February 2011, the National Steering Committee of the Democratic Left Front (DLF) held its first meeting after the historic DLF’s founding conference held last month at Wits University. This committee meeting was held in eThekwini as part of initiating the launch and growth of the DLF process, campaigns and structures in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. The meeting was held in the immediate aftermath of the people’s revolutions for democracy and wealth redistribution in the countries of the Maghreb and the Arab world, President Jacob Zuma’s State of the Nation Address, the forthcoming municipal elections and the current wave of worker and community protests as we have seen with the recently-ended truck driver’s strike, the Equal Education Campaign’s protest outside parliament concerning the crisis in the Eastern Cape education system, and the community protests in Grahamstown, Ermelo and others bubbling elsewhere.'

Algerian students staged a two-day sit-in last week outside the higher education ministry in Algiers in order to demand that authorities not lessen the value of their degrees under a new system. The sit-in, which ended on Thursday (17 February), sought greater prestige for engineering degrees by granting them the same status as a Level 2 masters degree, enabling students who hold them to progress to PhD studies.

Bertha Hamases is a tall, lanky woman with a weathered face and a friendly sparkle in her eyes. A few years ago she was one of the many people circling the drain in Otjivero, a dead end settlement one hundred kilometres from the capital. Here evicted farm workers gathered in misery. For Hamases, a single mom with four kids aged between 9 and 16, life looked hopeless. Until a coalition of civil society organisations picked Otjivero for a privately-funded pilot project to show that a universal basic income grant can make all the difference.

Jean Paul Noel Abdi, President of the Ligue Djiboutienne des Droits Humains, has been arrested on 9 February 2011 and is detained at the prison of Gabode. Jean Paul Noel Abdi is unfairly accused of 'participation in an insurrectionary movement' on the basis of Articles 145 and 146.4 of the Djiboutian Penal Code for having carried out his activities as human rights defender by denouncing the repression, on 8 February 2011, of a student demonstration by the security forces.