Gambia's immigration ministry said on Tuesday 29 May Guinea-Bissau's former army chief, elections chief and ousted interior minister were being detained 'for security reasons' after fleeing to Banjul. Former army chief Jose Zamora Induta, elections commission chief Desejado Da Costa and Fernando Gomes, who was interior minister in the government overthrown in the country's latest coup last month, fled Guinea-Bissau over the weekend.

The prevalence of drug-resistant HIV strains in Uganda has risen from 8.6 per cent to 12 per cent in the last five years, one of the highest rates in Sub-Saharan Africa, according to a recent study. The PharmAccess African Studies to Evaluate Resistance (PASER) monitoring cohort study report for 2008-2012 found that the prevalence of transmitted drug resistance among people who have never taken life-prolonging antiretroviral (ARV) medication was substantially higher in Uganda.

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.

Rampant poverty is the main source of potential instability in Angola, with the main threat emerging from rapidly growing cities, according to this paper commissioned by the US Africa Command and written by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

Unexpectedly sharp price rises in April for local cereals like millet, rice and maize in parts of Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad mean many vulnerable people in the drought-hit Sahel could find it even harder to get enough to eat. The high prices of basic foods are the most alarming feature of the current Sahel crisis, according to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) of the US Agency for International Development (USAID). Prices are expected to keep rising until the end of August - during the lean season - but the size of recent hikes has surprised food price analysts and humanitarian aid personnel.

Mali's embattled transitional government has rejected the declaration by an alliance of northern rebels of an independent Islamic Tuareg state. 'The government of Mali categorically rejects the idea of the creation of an Azawad state, even more so of an Islamic state,' a government official told the AFP news agency on Sunday. 'Even though this state creation is just on paper and not de facto, we are coming forward to stress that Mali is secular and will remain secular,' said Hamadoun Toure, information minister in the transitional Malian administration. The two groups that seized control of Mali's north had announced that they agreed to merge and create an independent state in the northern half of the west African nation.

The reality of Indian and Chinese investment in Africa is much more complex than the good cop, bad cop image of Asia’s two emerging economic giants. China and India have caused an explosion of trade and investment in Africa in the past decade. Yet they are perceived quite differently: China has a reputation for economic ruthlessness, while India’s business interests are generally seen as beneficial to Africa. But their investment in Africa needs to be viewed in the context of broader investment trends on the continent, trade experts said at the 'Money, Power and Sex: the Paradox of Unequal Growth' conference organised by the Open Society Institute of Southern Africa, which took place from May 22 to 24 in Cape Town, South Africa.

Demonstrators have attacked African migrants in Tel Aviv in a protest against refugees and asylum-seekers that indicates an increasingly volatile mood in Israel over what it terms as 'infiltrators'. Miri Regev, a member of the Israeli parliament, told the crowd 'the Sudanese are a cancer in our body'. The vast majority of asylum-seekers in Israel are from Sudan and Eritrea. Around 1,000 demonstrators took part in the demonstration on Wednesday night, waving signs saying: 'Infiltrators, get out of our homes' and 'Our streets are no longer safe for our children.'

The Presidential Elections Commission will announce on Monday afternoon the first-round results of the presidential poll, an official said, after early counts showed it would go to a runoff between the Muslim Brotherhood candidate and the last prime minister of Hosni Mubarak. State-run news agency MENA said on Monday that the commission would hold a conference to announce full details of the electoral process, including the number of valid and invalid votes, the voter turnout, the votes won by each of the 13 candidates, and the names of the top two runners who will compete in the runoffs slated for 16 and 17 June.

Although just a few hundred kilometres from Nairobi, the county of Turkana, where newly-confirmed oil reserves are set to go on stream in the next few years, feels more like a million miles away from the gleaming skyscrapers and concentrations of power and money found in Kenya’s capital. Turkana’s socioeconomic indicators do indeed set it apart. Only 39 per cent of the youth aged 15-18 in Turkana attend school, compared to the national average of 70.9 per cent. Can oil, coupled with an unprecedented process of political devolution enshrined in a new constitution, reverse Turkana’s fortunes?

In contrast with Morocco, Tunisia and Libya, Islamists in Algeria refused to join the incoming government. Furthermore, the Movement of Society for Peace (MSP), which has four ministers in the current government, decided to withdraw them altogether. The Islamist party, which until now had been a partner in the governing coalition, on Saturday (May 19th), decided to return to the ranks of the opposition after a resounding 134 to 35 vote by the consultative committee.

Most of those displaced by post-election violence mainly in Kenya’s Rift Valley Province five years ago have been resettled, but those whose relatives were killed or who lost their property are seeking justice and further compensation. With few perpetrators of the violence having been bought to book, 'the compensation they need is not only in monetary terms, but also in accessing justice for lost lives', said Collins Omondi, an official with the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR).

Tens of thousands of Moroccans have taken to the streets of Casablanca in protests against the government’s failure to tackle unemployment and other social woes. Sunday’s rally, which is believed to be the largest opposition protest since a new government took office, was organised by trade unions. They accuse Abdelilah Benkirane, the prime minister of failing to deliver on the pledges of social justice that brought his party to power in November.

The first ever Global African Diaspora Summit was held in Sandton, South Africa, on Africa Day, 25 May 2012. The meeting was attended by Heads of States or representative of the 54 Member States of the Union, the Government of the Caribbean Community, South and Latin America. The Summit began with welcome remarks by the Host, President Jacob Zuma which was followed by the remarks of Dr. Jean Ping, the Chairperson of the AU Commission, Honorable David Dikins, former Mayor of New York , as Eminent person from the Diaspora, Honorable Arnold Joseph Nicholson, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Honorable Samuel Hins, Prime Minister of the Republic of Guyana, on behalf of CARICOM, Mr. Esteban Lasto, the Vice President of the Republic of Cuba and President Nguema of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea. The opening session was concluded with the opening remarks of President Boni Yayi, President of the Republic of Benin and Chairperson of the Union.