In an interview on the Panos website, a woman talks about learning from the radio that women’s rights violations are happening in the regions the rebels are occupying in the north. 'Since the cities of Timbuktu, Gao and Kidal have come under the rebels’ control many women and girls are reported to have been raped. The national radio station announced that in Gao some women died trying to give birth as the city’s hospital has been destroyed.'

Top negotiators for Sudan and South Sudan met Tuesday 29 May for their first talks since deadly border fighting last month took them to the brink of war, even as Juba accused Khartoum of fresh air strikes. Teams from both sides are in the Ethiopian capital to restart the African Union-led talks which were stalled by heavy clashes last month, the worst fighting since the South won independence last July.

Ghana will lose $378 million if the country goes ahead to sign the Economic Partnership Agreements with the European Union, a trade activist has said, citing a United Nations Economic Commission for Africa study. According to Mr. Sylvester Bagooro of the Third World Network, the study which has been updated by the South Centre in Geneva, Ghana would lose that amount in tariff revenue and companies exporting to the EU would pay $58 million as duty to the EU if Ghana does not sign the EPA.

Governments in East Africa are providing a wide range of tax incentives to businesses to attract greater levels of foreign direct investment (FDI) into their countries. Such incentives include corporate income tax holidays, notably in export processing zones (EPZs), and reductions from the standard rate for taxes such as import duties and VAT. Yet this study, which focuses on Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda, shows that such tax incentives are leading to very large revenue losses for governments, are promoting harmful tax competition in the region, and are not needed to attract FDI. In total, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda are losing up to US$2.8 billion a year from all tax incentives and exemptions.

In a sign of their rising cooperation on key international economic issues, members of the BRICS grouping (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) have decided to disclose their contributions to the $430 billion global fund that was created by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to shield the world economy from the European debt crisis. Countries including Brazil, Russia, India, China, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand did not disclose their contribution to the fund created in April during the IMF-World Bank spring meeting. IMF had, however, said that the amount put together by the emerging economies was close to $68 billion.

Authorities in Equatorial Guinea should cease all harassment of a jailed political opponent and those close to him, Human Rights Watch, Physicians for Human Rights and EG Justice said today (25 May).

Eskom might face difficulties in raising funds for its coal-fired projects in future if environmental organisations kept challenging decisions to fund coal plants, Econometrix’s chief economist, Azar Jammine, said. Jammine was reacting to the release of a report by the World Bank on Friday, which showed that water and environmental concerns regarding the coal-fired Medupi power plant were valid. The World Bank’s inspection report shows that significant environmental, social and climate impacts were not adequately addressed by the bank when it awarded a $3.75 billion (R31bn) loan to Eskom for the construction of Medupi.

While all eyes were focused on the presidential race, on the streets of Egypt, inch by inch, bit by bit, women's rights are shrinking. Women, Muslim and Christian, who do not cover their hair or who wear mid-sleeved clothing are met with insults, spitting and in some cases physical abuse. In the urban squatter settlement of Mouasset el Zakat, in Al Marg, Greater Cairo, women told a London Guardian reporter that they hated walking in the streets.

Morocco’s glittering Mawazine international music festival wrapped up recently with performances by Mariah Carey and Lenny Kravitz, after nine days of showcasing the North African kingdom’s cool factor - even as dissident Moroccan musicians are imprisoned for their anti-establishment lyrics. Just a week before the festival began, Human Rights Watch slammed Morocco for sentencing a rapper to a year in prison for lyrics deemed insulting to police - a common theme in rap music elsewhere in the world.

West African bloc Ecowas on Monday 28 May rejected a rebel declaration of an independent Islamic state in northern Mali and repeated an earlier threat to take 'all necessary measures' to keep the country intact. The 15-nation Economic Community of West African States 'denounces in the strongest possible terms this opportunistic act', said a statement signed by Ecowas head Desire Kadre Ouedraogo.

Thousands of infants born in remote northern parts of Kenya in the past six weeks risk contracting tuberculosis (TB) due to a vaccine shortage, with medics warning that the effects could be severe in areas where there is already little access to maternity and vaccination services. In the north-central Isiolo region, for example, stocks of the TB Bacillus Camille Guérin (BCG) vaccine ran out at the main Isiolo District Hospital in early April, leaving hundreds of babies unimmunized.

Parts of the developing world, particularly India and countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, will suffer food shortages if their planned biofuels targets are implemented by 2020, a study has warned. The study, which looked at 25 countries and geographical regions, including Latin American and the Caribbean, Sub-Saharan Africa and the United States, found that the targets will also affect national wealth.

Q-zine is a pan-African, bilingual (English/French), quarterly electronic magazine by, for and about sexual minority groups in Africa. The fifth issue of Q-zine is proud to showcase LGBTI and queer African innovators and creators who are making their visions a reality. Q-Zine is looking for young LGBTI and queer people in Africa and the Diaspora who are moving, shaking, setting trends and making a difference in their lives and in their communities.

As Sudan and South Sudan sit down to peace talks they must make it a priority to sort out citizenship problems which have left hundreds of thousands of people in a 'stateless' limbo, rights activists say. People from South Sudan were left without any official nationality last year after the south became independent and the government in the northern capital of Khartoum stripped them of their Sudanese citizenship. Refugees International (RI) said as many as 500,000 southerners were still living in Sudan and warned that violence against them was on the rise. Tens of thousands have lost their jobs.

The Moroccan government’s announcement that it would issue new public media guidelines at the end of May has reignited a stormy debate around independent media in the kingdom. The debate began nearly two months ago when the Islamist government, led by Abdelilah Benkirane, forced public television channels and radio stations to broadcast the five daily calls to prayer, which put many citizens on the defensive against what they saw as a deliberate attempt to Islamise an otherwise moderate sector of society.

Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo has labelled rumours circulating about Rwanda's involvement in the eastern DRC as 'categorically false and dangerous'. She was responding to reports on the BBC of a UN report alleging that solders had been recruited and trained in Rwanda and then transferred to the eastern DRC to take part in the conflict between the Congolese government and rebel forces.

On 29 May, The New York Times published an extraordinarily in-depth look at the intimate role President Obama has played in authorizing US drone attacks overseas, particularly in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. 'While purporting to represent the world’s greatest democracy, US leaders are putting people on a hit list who are as young as 17, people who are given no chance to surrender, and certainly no chance to be tried in a court of law.'

Christine Lagarde's crass comments on Greece have caused an understandable furore in that country. But in Niger, there must be just as much contempt for the IMF director. For in dismissing the plight of mothers in Greece, Lagarde also said she felt more sympathy for 'the little kids from a school in a little village in Niger'. If 'sympathy' is what characterises the IMF's approach to Niger, then Greece would do better to avoid it. Niger comes into news headlines on a fairly regular basis – associated as it is with cycles of famine and constantly high levels of malnutrition. Less reported is the role of the IMF, along with sister organisation the World Bank, in fuelling this suffering, writes Nick Dearden in the London Guardian.

One month after human rights defender Mr Biram Dah Abeid was arrested, a peaceful anti-slavery march was violently cracked down. Several activists were severely injured and the wife of Mr. Abeid, Leila Mint Ahmed Khliva, was injured by a grenade. Since Mr. Abeid, president of the ‘Initiative de Résurgence du Mouvement Abolitionniste de Mauritanie’ (IRA) was arrested on 29 April 2012, his whereabouts continue to remain unknown.

A Moroccan draft law that seeks to grant members of the armed forces legal immunity for 'military operations' carried out inside the kingdom has sparked criticism by human rights organizations who say it violates the principle of equal justice under law. The 'basic guarantees for the military' draft law states that 'criminal investigation shall not be applied to members of the Royal Armed Forces who are executing the orders of their commanders…during an operation inside the national territories.'