Angola's state-controlled oil company Sonangol - the largest single shareholder in Portugal's Millennium bcp - wants the bank to gain global scale in a restructuring that involves a management shakeup, Expresso weekly said. The lender - Portugal's largest by assets - is hampered at home by the country's debt crisis and deep austerity imposed by a 78-billion-euro bailout. It needs to find fresh capital in the next few months to comply with new European rules, with cash from rapidly-growing Angola seen as one possible solution.

A close aide to former Nigerian military ruler Sani Abacha has been sentenced to hang for killing the wife of politician Moshood Abiola in 1996. Major Hamza al-Mustapha has been in detention since 1999 over the killing. Abiola is widely believed to have won the 1993 election, which was annulled by Nigeria's junta. His wife Kudirat was shot dead in 1996.

There are about one million Ugandans living in South Sudan, according to the Kampala City Traders’ Association (KCTA). But life is not easy for the Ugandan traders who supply South Sudan with many essential goods. On a side road at the market, a Southern Sudanese policeman wearing orange fatigues strikes a passing Ugandan with his rubber whip a few times, seemingly without any provocation. The Ugandan winces and then continues on his way. Ugandan migrants say such incidents - and much worse - are not uncommon. They say they have been beaten, arrested without cause and faced a plethora of other forms of harassment by Southern Sudanese security forces.

Health services in northern Uganda are still scarce in the wake of the region's 20-year civil war, leaving many battling diseases that could be cured with proper medical treatment. Elephantiasis is a widespread disease caused by a parasite that causes limbs to swell up, leaving sufferers in pain and often ostracised from their communities. According to the World Health Organisation [WHO], neglected tropical diseases, such as elephantiasis, affect more than one billion people, primarily poor populations living in tropical and subtropical climates.

Several political parties, including the DA and ANC, are expected to make representations to the Press Freedom Commission (PFC), when it resumes hearings. Monday 30 January marked the start of the latest and final round of hearings on how best to regulate the print media. Possible models include independent regulation, co-regulation, self-regulation, and statutory regulation.

The Kenyan government plans to move hundreds of thousands of refugees to Somalia, a plan condemned by the The Refugee Consortium of Kenya.

Cosatu has mirrored the ANC's offensive on the print media faithfully, finding that the three major newspaper groups 'reflect the outlook and prejudices of the capitalist class' and backing calls for tougher regulation of the press. In a six-page submission to the Press Freedom Commission (PFC), the federation praises the ANC for having 'opened up an important public debate' on its 2007 Polokwane conference resolution on the media, and particularly for its investigation of a statutory media appeals tribunal.

Angola's ruling MPLA party has defended the re-appointment of the electoral commission chief and said opposition criticism was aimed at causing instability before an election this year. UNITA lawmakers and those of three smaller opposition parties walked out of parliament in protest as the election commission members were sworn in earlier on Wednesday, the state news agency Angop reported.

Malawi has dropped 67 places on the 2011/2012 press freedom index as a result of the 'totalitarian tendencies' of President Bingu wa Mutharika, French based media watchdog Reporters Without Boarders (RWB) has said. Malawi is now at position 146 alongside Indonesia out of 225 assessed countries.

Mozambique granted concessions to investors for more than 2.5 million hectares (ha) of land between 2004 and the end of 2009, says the Oakland Institute's country report on Mozambique, which forms part of a multi-country study on understanding land investment deals in Africa. 'Mozambique’s history of Portuguese colonialism, three wars, and then the imposition by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund of a harsh neo-liberal economic model led the government in the 1990s to accept the idea that the only way to promote development and end poverty was through encouraging foreign investment. Mozambique was identified by the World Bank as one of five sparsely populated African countries with large tracts of land available for rainfed cultivation. After 2000 rising food and fuel prices and new climate change-related attention on forests triggered the interest of investors in Mozambique, particularly for trees (for paper, timber and carbon credits) and agrofuels (notably sugar and jatropha).'

Google Kenya country manager Olga Arara-Kimani has left the firm days after the Internet giant said it had taken action against employees implicated in a recent data poaching scandal. Arara-Kimani, who had been at the helm of the firm’s Kenyan operations when the scandal broke, said someone had to take responsibility. Two weeks ago, Kenyan online business directory firm Mocality accused Google of fraudulently using its data to sell competing product to clients.

Prominent Senegalese opposition activist Alioune Tine has been released after spending two days in detention. Tine is a member of the opposition June 23 Movement (M23), formed after countrywide protests last year against incumbent President Abdoulaye Wade's plans to run for a third term. Tine told the AFP agency he had been freed without charge.

A US-based journalist convicted on politicised terrorism charges in Ethiopia was sentenced to death in absentia recently, while two other Ethiopian journalists received heavy prison sentences in connection with their coverage of banned opposition groups, according to news reports. The Committee to Protect Journalists has condemned the sentences.

Zimbabwean artists operate in one of the most politically repressive environments in the world. But despite the monumental challenges, art continues to thrive here as artists say they are determined to shape the future of the country by expressing themselves, says this report from the Global Press Institute.

Police in Swaziland fired teargas on Monday 30 January at students protesting their university's failure to open for the semester, injuring several people, a student leader said. Police arrested at least four demonstrators after students of the University of Swaziland vowed to occupy the labour ministry and clashed with peers from a teachers college who refused to join their protest. The university announced last week it would not be able to open as scheduled, the second time in two semesters it has postponed its opening.

Namibia is estimated to have lost US$750 million (over N$5.8 billion) between 2000 and 2009 in illicit dealings such as trade mis-pricing, tax evasions, corruption, bribery and kickbacks. The syndicate - reports research and advocacy group Global Financial Integrity (GFI) - involves foreign companies that are doing business in Namibia, most of which are headquartered in the West. GFI reports that these companies are bedfellows of corrupt local officials, with whom they struck ill-fated cordial relations meant to ease the flow of money from Namibia to foreign destinations.

About 40 people have died and more than 100,000 are affected by twin storms that struck Mozambique 18-26 January, according to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Tropical Cyclone Funso struck northern Mozambique, 'affecting about 64,663 people and causing floods and damage of houses, schools and health centres. In southern Mozambique, high river flows from upstream countries… combined with heavy rainfall due to tropical storm Dando, affected about 51,670 people,' it said on 27 January.

South Sudan has accused the government of neighbouring Sudan of arming gunmen alleged to have killed dozens of people in a cattle raid, as the UN warned that tensions between the two sides risked regional peace. 'A militia group from Unity state penetrated into Warrap state... and attacked people in a cattle camp, killing over 40,' Alison Manani Magaya, South Sudan's interior minister, said on Monday following the latest violence in the world's newest nation, which ceded from Sudan last year.

The man accused of masterminding two deadly bombings at Nigeria's 50th independence celebrations will face trial in October after a South African court delayed his case by nine months. Nigerian national Henry Okah is facing trial in South Africa, where he has permanent residence, on charges that he orchestrated the twin car bombings - which killed 12 people in Abuja on 1 October 2010 - from his home in Johannesburg. Okah has denied involvement in the attacks, which were claimed by the militant Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND).

South Africa's leading HIV group has warned that large numbers of 'faulty' condoms are in circulation in the Bloemfontein area, despite a recall. The problem with the condoms was discovered after people complained to the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC). Health authorities have recalled more than one million condoms handed out ahead of the recent African National Congress centenary celebrations.