New international HIV testing guidelines are encouraging couples to test together and for immediate initiation on antiretrovirals for the one testing positive. The World Health Organisation issued the guidelines recommending that a person living with HIV who has an HIV-negative partner (a 'sero-discordant' partnership) be offered HIV treatment regardless of their CD4 cell count level (measure of their immunity).

Migreurop, a coalition of organisations from thirteen European, African and Middle Eastern countries, has produced an extremely useful and powerful report which describes in detail ways in which the policy of preventing the entry of undocumented migrants is implemented. The first part of 'At the margins of Europe: the externalisation of migration controls', looks at the outsourcing of control at the eastern border area of Turkey (the main overland route to the EU via Greece), the high mountains, snowy and treacherous, crossed by ‘illegal’ travellers who might be from Iran or Afghanistan, Somalia or Eritrea.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) will encourage its two million members to take part in a national protest against the e-tolling system, it said. '[Cosatu] is mobilising its two million members for the mother of all protests against the act of highway robbery set to be committed from 30 April 2012 - the Gauteng e-tolls,' spokesperson Patrick Craven said in a statement. Cosatu is planning several rallies, marches, demonstrations and night vigils at the offices of the South African National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) and the transport department across the country from 23 April.

Botswana’s has confirmed a cessation clause with respect to Angolan refugees in the country. The ministry said the decision was taken after consultations with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. 'Taking into consideration the recommendations by UNHCR, the government of Botswana hereby declares, pursuant to article 1C (5) and (6) of the 1951 Convention relating to the status of refugees, Article I (4) (e) of the 1969 Organisation of African Unity Governing the specific aspects of the refugee problems in Africa and Botswana’s refugee Act that the refugee status of Angolan refugees who fled Angola as a result of the armed conflicts between 1961 and 2002 will cease as of 30 June 2012,' read part of a statement.

The weekend ransacking of a church compound in Khartoum illustrates the increasing hostility faced by some of the hundreds of thousands of residents of the Sudanese capital whose origins lie in what is now the independent state of South Sudan. Seven years after southern rebels and Khartoum signed a deal to end decades of civil war and nine months after the country split in two, recent borderland clashes have given rise to fears of a return to all-out conflict.

A major oil spill in the Niger Delta was far worse than Shell previously admitted, according to an independent assessment obtained by Amnesty International and the Centre for Environment, Human Rights and Development (CEHRD), which exposes how the oil giant dramatically under-estimated the quantities involved. The spill in 2008, caused by a fault in a Shell pipeline, resulted in tens of thousands of barrels of oil polluting the land and creek surrounding Bodo, a Niger Delta town of some 69,000 people.

Reporters Without Borders has called on the authorities of the semi-autonomous northeastern region of Puntland to immediately release radio Voice of Peace director Awke Abdullahi Ali, who has been held in the region’s capital, Bossasso, for nearly two months. Ali has not been charged although, under the law, no one should be held for more than 48 hours without charge.

Nathan Charles spent over two months investigating and exposing the poor conditions at the Bong Mines hospital in Bong County, Liberia. Through his ongoing investigation, Charles discovered that not only did the health center have inadequate facilities to serve the surrounding community, it also was short on doctors and medication. It wasn’t long before word spread about the conditions patients endured at the Bong Mines Hospital and the Liberian government was forced to step in.

One year after events that led to the deaths of 63 migrants in a boat in the waters off the coast of Libya, 4 survivors, with the support of a coalition of NGOs, filed a complaint in France concerning the responsibility of the French military for failing to assist persons in danger.

Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Helen Zille has apologised for referring to Eastern Cape pupils who flocked to the Western Cape for better education as 'refugees', it was reported. 'I am] very sorry because it was never meant in that context at all and it was never said in that way at all,' she was quoted as saying in the Cape Times.

Thousands of Malawians last Monday converged on Ndata Farm, the sprawling private estate of former President Bingu wa Mutharika, to witness the funeral service of the 78-year-old economist-turned politician. Mutharika died suddenly on 5 April after collapsing in his office at the New State House in the capital, Lilongwe. Several African leaders, including Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Mwai Kibaki of Kenya and Armando Geubuza of Mozambique and African Union Commission Chairman Jean Ping, attended the Catholic Church Ceremony.

The Zimbabwe Unemployed People’s Association (ZUPA) has issued a statement calling for investigations into allegations that girls, some barely teenagers, at a primary school in Zimbabwe were stripped in front of their male counterparts while adults examined their private parts. 'If true, this would be one of the worst cases of abuse of the rights of the girl child which is why the Ministry of Social Services must immediately commission an investigation into the allegations.'

One of the world's largest funders of science is to throw its weight behind a growing campaign to break the stranglehold of academic journals and allow all research papers to be shared online. Nearly 9,000 researchers have already signed up to a boycott of journals that restrict free sharing as part of a campaign dubbed the 'academic spring' by supporters due to its potential for revolutionising the spread of knowledge.

Osange Silou-Kieffer, the wife of Franco-Canadian journalist Guy-André Kieffer missing in Côte d’Ivoire, has received an assurance from President Alassane Ouattara that no-one would be protected in the investigation into her husband’s disappearance. Visiting Abidjan, the country’s business capital, to mark the eighth anniversary of his disappearance, Silou-Kieffer and a Reporters Without Borders representative met Ouattara to tell him of their concern at the lack of progress in the investigation.

Since 2008, the rush for land in developing countries has rapidly intensified but the sector remains largely unregulated and land deals are frequently agreed in secret between governments and investors. This report, 'Dealing with Disclosure', launched by Global Witness, the International Land Coalition and the Oakland Institute, looks at why it is vital to transform the secretive culture behind large scale land deals and, for the first time, sets out in detail what tools governments, companies and citizens can harness to ensure that this happens.

The International Criminal Court has warned Mali it is considering investigating reports of killings, rapes and other war crimes it fears may have been committed since January when fighting erupted there, triggering a wider crisis. 'The office has been closely following the developments in Mali since clashes erupted around 17 January 2012,' the ICC prosecutor's office said in a statement, adding it would now decide whether to conduct a preliminary investigation.

With Swaziland's economy crumbling due to falling revenues and the King's refusal to curtail his lavish lifestyle, a pro-democracy movement has been gaining steam. On April 13, political exiles from Swaziland and their supporters from South Africa and other African nations rallied outside the Swaziland Consulate in Johannesburg. Representatives from more than 20 organizations were on hand.

Zimbabwe police on Monday arrested 15 members of the MDC formation headed by Industry Minister Welshman Ncube, including three councilors, in Tsholotsho district accusing them of holding political meetings without clearance. They will be charged under the widely-condemned Public Order and Security Act, the party said. Police were not immediately available for comment.

Since it assumed power after Hosni Mubarak’s ouster, the performance of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) has been, at times, head-scratching, says this briefing from the International Crisis Group. 'Extolled in the wake of the uprising as the revolution’s protector, many have come to view it as an agent of the counter-revo­lu­tion. It often has been obstinate, before abruptly yielding to pressure. It values its long ties with Washington, from which it receives much assistance, but seemed willing to jeopardise them by targeting US-funded NGOs.'

Thousands of documents detailing some of the most shameful acts and crimes committed during the final years of the British empire were systematically destroyed to prevent them falling into the hands of post-independence governments, an official review has concluded. Those papers that survived the purge were flown discreetly to Britain where they were hidden for 50 years in a secret Foreign Office archive, beyond the reach of historians and members of the public, and in breach of legal obligations for them to be transferred into the public domain.