South Africa is to build a R1,6bn pharmaceutical plant to produce the ingredients for antiretroviral medicines, used in the treatment of HIV and Aids, government announced. Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies said South Africa consumed R25bn-worth of medicines each year, the 'majority' of this imported.

President Robert Mugabe will not sign the draft constitution into the new supreme law of the country as long as it disqualifies him from contesting the next elections, a senior Zanu PF official has declared. Mugabe, who turns 88 next week, has already been endorsed as the Zanu PF Presidential candidate for elections set to take place later this year or in 2013. The Constitution Select Committee (Copac) last week published the first draft of the long awaited new supreme law of the country which has many sections which Zanu PF is strongly opposed to. Section 6.4.2 of the draft disqualifies from standing in Presidential elections, any person who has already held the office for 10 years, meaning that President Robert Mugabe cannot contest the next polls.

The Malawi Law Society (MLS) has said it sees no end in sight to the judiciary strike which has paralysed the country’s justice delivery system for six weeks now. MLS president John-Gift Mwakhwawa said lawyers are yet to be briefed on the outcome of a recent between government and the judiciary. 'What is at stake in not just our right to economic activity, but the suspension of people’s rights. It also compromises the independence and impartiality of the Judiciary if it is literally going to beg for an increment.'

Swaziland’s Prime Minister Barnabas Dlamini who was at the centre of controversy last year (2011) when it was revealed he bought Swazi nation land for himself at a price massively below its true value, has a personal fortune of E12 million (US$1.56 million) it has been revealed. Among his assets are E392,000 worth of shares in Swazi Empowerment (Pty) Limited (SEL), a company that in turn has a 19 per cent shareholding with MTN Swaziland, the monopoly mobile phone operator in the kingdom. Details of Dlamini’s fortune are contained in a statement of assets and liabilities that was submitted by the Prime Minister to the Swazi Integrity Commission last week, leaked to the Times of Swaziland, the kingdom’s only independent daily newspaper, reports Swazi Media Commentary.

Members of parliament Monday 13 February slammed the preliminary report issued by the fact-finding committee probing the 1 February Port Said football massacre that left 71 dead, describing it as 'vague' and 'insufficient'. Hussein Ibrahim, head of the Freedom and Justice Party's (FJP) parliamentary bloc, demanded that the Homeland Security chief in Port Said and General Intelligence officials be summoned to the People's Assembly (PA) to present their official reports on the clashes.

The Institute of African Studies journal Nokoko, Volume 2, is available. It includes:
- Editorial Note: The Front Lines and the Margins of a Global Anti-Poverty Movement
Toby Moorsom
- Economics of Afro-Pessimism: The Economics of Perception in African Foreign Direct Investment
Victoria Schorr
- Beyond an Epistemology of Bread, Butter, Culture and Power: Mapping the African Feminist Movement
Sinmi Akin-Aina
- Designed Disempowerment and Hegemonic Benevolence: A critical analysis of individual behavior change HIV/AIDS prevention programming in Sub-Saharan Africa
Imara Ajani Rolston
- “Something Ironic Happened on the Way to the Black Revolution”: The Politics and Power of Definition and Identity Construction within the Historiography of the African Diaspora
Leslie Wells
- Indian Hair, the After-Temple-Life: Class, Gender and Race Representations of the African American Woman in the Human Hair Industry
W. R. Nadège Compaoré
- Two Cities: Guangzhou / Lagos
Wendy Thompson Taiwo

Topics linked to migration, such as remittances and brain drains, have attracted increasing attention in discussions of development. But such specific issues should be considered in the wider context of the goal of reducing the grossly unjust levels of inequality between nations. The brain drain of medical personnel, for example, cannot be solved simply by looking at migration flows, but by focusing on how to provide the human and financial resources needed for equitably assuring the right of health to all. The latest AfricaFocus Bulletin contains an excerpt on migration and development from a longer study by the AfricaFocus editor published in 2011 by the Nordic Africa Institute, 'African Migration, Global Inequalities, and Human Rights: Connecting the Dots.'

In November last year CODESERIA held its annual Gender Symposium in Cairo, Egypt on the theme 'Gender and the Media in Africa', opening up a much needed platform on which gender and media scholars could renew reflection on the multi-faceted connection between media and gender in Africa. This special issue of Africa Media Review seeks to continue the dialogue by examining how political and social transformations on the continent resulting from re-democratisation, neo-liberalism and globalisation are implicating the nature of the relationship between media and gender.

Libya has demanded Niger hand over one of Muammar Gaddafi's sons who is under house arrest in the neighbouring nation after he warned in a television interview that his homeland was facing a new uprising. Mohammed Hareizi, spokesman for the ruling National Transitional Council (NTC), said on Saturday that Niger must extradite Saadi Gaddafi and other ex-regime officials to 'preserve its relationship and interests' in Libya. Saadi Gaddafi and more than 30 other loyalists fled to Niger after Tripoli fell to rebels in September.

It is a topic more likely to be whispered about than discussed openly, but could Ethiopian strongman Meles Zenawi, now closing in on his 17th year as Prime Minister (after four earlier as President), be thinking of calling it a day? It is for many familiar with Ethiopian politics an almost unimaginable prospect, while skeptics will point out that Meles has repeatedly promised to step down. But early this month, senior officials of the ruling EPRDF party (Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front) hinted at a succession plan to replace its 56-year-old leader at the end of his current term in 2015.

22 February is the third anniversary of a raid on Radio Bana in central Asmara in which about 50 journalists were arrested. Most were released but at least 11 are still held and are in solitary confinement. Reporters Without Borders is continuing to campaign for them and other journalists who are imprisoned in Eritrea, some since September 2001.

The January 2011 revolution in Tunisia brought an end to Internet filtering and control of online content but old habits seem to be resurfacing and Reporters Without Borders urges the Tunisian courts not to take any decision that could lead to the restoration of filtering. A court order requiring the Tunisian Internet Agency (ATI) to block access to pornographic websites, upheld by a Tunis appeal court in August 2011, revived the debate about censorship. If the order is confirmed, the ATI will be forced to censor online content in accordance with a complaint brought by a group of lawyers calling for the blocking of pornographic content that poses a threat to minors and Muslim values.

A Ugandan cabinet minister has said the government does not support the Anti Homosexuality Bill 2009 which was re-tabled for debate in Parliament. However, he was quick to add that the debate on homosexuality was good for Uganda. Ethics and integrity minister, Lokodo Simon who is also a Catholic priest said, 'Whilst the government of Uganda does not support this bill, it is required under our constitution to facilitate this debate. The facilitation of this debate should not be confused for the government’s support for this bill.'

The CNN Press Office (London) has answered the concerns raised by Maka Angola on the agreements between the international news network and the Angolan regime, regarding a media campaign to promote a better image of the latter, due to grave concerns of nepotism and corruption. But Maka Angola has offered a further rejoinder arguing that it is 'highly unusual for a respectable international media outlet, such as CNN, to make formal agreements with a regime on news coverage of a given country'.

The Zimbabwe Association of Community Radio Stations (ZACRAS) has condemned what it believes is an attempt by the Mugabe regime to target community radio initiatives in the country. Speaking to SW Radio Africa’s Behind the Headlines programme Gift Mambipiri, the ZACRAS chairperson, said police officers from Gwanda visited Mvelo Zondo, a committee member of the Ntepe rural community radio station. The officers wanted to know the project’s ‘agenda and activities’. The police officers who were from the Law and Order Section told Zondo that they had been led to believe that 'Ntepe was established with the goal of disseminating information which undermines the President'.

A woman was killed and 10 people were arrested during service delivery protests in Masoyi, south of Hazyview, Mpumalanga police said. The woman was killed after a truck accidentally reversed into her on a road barricaded by protesters, Sergeant Gerald Sedibe said.

Health officials and women in Liberia say family planning options can empower girls and women to stay in school and concentrate on their businesses. But many fathers and husbands here don’t approve of the introduction of family planning. As a result, many young women are keeping their contraceptive choices secret, reports Global Press Institute.

Marking a year since ousted President Hosni Mubarak handed over power to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) on 11 February 2011, university students have called for a general strike to end military rule, but their calls have yet to mobilize the masses. Osama Ahmed, spokesman of the students of the Revolutionary Socialists movement, said that the strike has not started yet, but that the group has been promoting it and establishing coordination committees to rally the people.

Africa may be an Eldorado for corporates and businessmen outside the continent. Even foreign governments are buying land heavily in several African countries. Indian corporate houses too, have joined the fray. 'There is land grabbing in Burkina Faso and farmers are fighting against this. It is not clear at this time if Indian concerns are involved in this because of the limited information available in the public place,' said Ms Bernadette P. Ouattara, managing director of Inades-Formation Burkina. She is among a team from Africa that visited Hyderabad and Medak for a week to attend Bt Cotton and Beyond – Status and implication of genetically engineered crops and post-GE technologies for small farmers in Asia and Asia.

Interface journal is seeking additional book reviewers for its upcoming publication. Our list of 'books offered for review' are here:

We welcome contributions by movement participants and academics who are developing movement-relevant theory and research. Our goal is to include material that can be used in a range of ways by movements - in terms of its content, its language, its purpose and its form.

If interested in reviewing a book feel free to write to Mandisi Majavu: [email][email protected]