The South African National Editors' Forum and the Press Gallery Association have condemned the DA's decision to take Sowetan reporter Anna Majavu off their mailing list in protest against her reporting. 'The move by the DA against reporter Anna Majavu flies in the face of the DA’s founding liberal values, including commitment to press freedom,' Sanef chairman Mondli Makhanya, who is also editor in chief of Avusa, said in a statement.

The Parliamentary Communication Services has issued a statement condemning the Right2Know’s behaviour as 'particularly unseemly' and threatening to apply the 'full might of the law' against our supporters. This is in response to an incident on Tuesday, when five Right2Know supporters silently donned masks depicting Minister of State Security Siyabonga Cwele during a sitting of the parliamentary committee dealing with the Protection of Information Bill (the Secrecy Bill).

ARTICLE 19 has welcomed the announcement by the new Tunisian government of the endorsement of major international commitments relating to human rights and calls on the government to swiftly proceed with these plans. 'We urge the Tunisian government to change their domestic legislation to create an enabling environment for media and civil society, in compliance with international legal standards on freedom of expression,' says Dr Agnes Callamard, ARTICLE 19 Executive Director. 'ARTICLE 19 stands ready to provide support in making such reforms a reality.'

Charles Taylor, the former Liberian president, could have as much as $400 million hidden away out of reach of prosecutors, according to leaked US diplomatic cables. A leaked cable sent from US officials in the United Nations in October 2007 reported the concerns of Stephen Rapp, who was the Special Court for Sierra Leone prosecutor at time, about Mr Taylor's alleged missing millions.

Gabon's late president Omar Bongo allegedly lined his pockets with money from a 37-million-dollar (28-million-euro) bank embezzlement scheme and funneled some of it to French political parties and President Nicolas Sarkozy, according to a classified US embassy cable published in Spanish daily El Pais.

Reporters Without Borders says it is relieved that three employees of the opposition weekly 'Al-Midan', who had been arrested on 2 February 2011, were released on 12 February. But it is very concerned about the three who are still being held. The detainees have been beaten and subjected to torture, including electric shocks and sleep deprivation. They were arrested because of the coverage that 'Al-Midan', the Sudanese Communist Party's mouthpiece, gave to street protests on 30 January.

On 3 February 2011, Minister of Information and Broadcasting Services (MIBS) Lieutenant General Ronnie Shikapwasha said government would not re-open Radio Lymabai in Mongu until investigations into its alleged involvement in the broadcast of seditious materials regarding the Barotseland controversy were completed. On 14 January 2011, Radio Lyambai was forced off air when police confiscated equipment that enables the station to be on air.

Gay Kenya has announced their February 2011 newsletter issue. The last issue focused on security of gay persons, which was further brought to fore with the killing of prominent Uganda gay rights activist, David Kato in late January. David Kato begins this issue, with the editorial and feature story focussing on him.

As it now stands, the United States appears content to contemplate exchanging Hosni Mubarak for Egypt's new Vice President, Omar Suleiman, the Egyptian spy master - that is, one dictator for another - to maintain the status quo. But as this article from Mother Jones points out, Suleiman 'looks to be a nasty piece of work'.

In the wake of the Tunisian revolution, the country's once repressed music and cultural scene is flourishing. Rappers whose songs were once banned under former President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali held their first public concert on Saturday (29 January) in Tunis. 'I now started to breathe freedom and the field has now become mine,' rapper Mohamed Ben Hamada said after ascending to the stage and raising the Tunisian flag to enthusiastic applause.

In 2009, this paper from the Centre for International Media Assistance says, the Arab region had 35,000 active blogs and 40,000 by late 2010. Although Egypt’s interior ministry maintains a department of 45 people to monitor Facebook, nearly five million Egyptians use the social networking site among 17 million people in the region, including journalists, political leaders, political opposition figures, human rights activists, social activists, entertainers, and royalty who are engaging online in Arabic, English, and French. This paper was commissioned and largely reported in the period leading up to the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, and elsewhere in the region in early 2011. It is published as a stage-setter for the events that are rapidly unfolding in the Arab world.

The International Federation of Journalists has mourned the loss of the first journalist to die in the social unrest in Egypt. Journalist Ahmed Mohammed Mahmoud died in hospital in Cairo from injuries sustained after he was shot in the eye by a sniper. The journalist, aged 39, worked for the A’wada newspaper, a part of the Al Ahram media group. His death comes after a week of continuing unrest that has seen journalists and media staff among those targeted by groups loyal to the regime of President Hosni Mubarak.

A Libyan writer and political commentator arrested and accused of a driving offence appears to have been targeted for calling for peaceful protests in the country, Amnesty International has said. Jamal al-Hajji, a former prisoner of conscience who has dual Libyan and Danish nationality, was detained on 1 February in Tripoli by plain clothes security officers. They accused him of hitting a man with his car, which he denies.

Journalists, broadcasters and media entrepreneurs on Monday raised a red flag over the proposed changes to the set of laws governing the operations of the media industry. Speaking at a consultative meeting at Nairobi's Sarova Panafric Hotel, the industry players said the government's draft Media Bill, 2010, was taking the industry 'many steps back'. According to the Media Council chairman, Dr Levi Obonyo, the proposal to limit the aspect of self-regulation in the new draft Bill is 'retrogressive'.

The Black Sash has accepted a settlement offer after taking the government to court on behalf of tens of thousands of people waiting to have their social grant appeals heard. The human rights organisation and 24 disabled people from the Eastern Cape launched a legal application in June last year following persistent attempts to persuade the Department of Social Development to clear the huge appeals backlog and deal with excessive delays. According to the Department's own figures, more than 65,000 people across the country are trapped in a systemic appeals backlog in the office of its Minister and at the tribunal appointed to hear the appeals of those who've had their grant applications rejected.

The Nigerian government refused to discuss a prisoner transfer agreement with Britain unless the Crown Prosecution Service dropped corruption charges against a favoured member of the ruling party, leaked documents disclose. Britain is keen to secure an agreement allowing the transfer of more than 400 prisoners back to Nigeria. But talks over the agreement stalled after Britain refused to drop charges against James Ibori, a member of the ruling People's Democratic Party, who is accused of stealing more than £196m of state funds and channelling 'dirty money' to Britain, report the Daily Telegraph.

Egypt's new vice-president, Omar Suleiman, has long sought to demonise the opposition Muslim Brotherhood in his contacts with skeptical US officials, leaked diplomatic cables show, raising questions whether he can act as an honest broker in the country's political crisis. US Embassy messages from the anti-secrecy WikiLeaks cache of 250 000 State Department documents, which Reuters independently reviewed, also report that the former intelligence chief accused the Brotherhood of spawning armed extremists and warned in 2008 that if Iran ever backed the banned Islamist group, Tehran would become 'our enemy'.

Ayman Mohyeldin, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Cairo who was held by the military outside Tahrir (Liberation) Square, has spoken to the network about the experience following his release. Mohyeldin describes how he was taken to a separate holding area, where he was handcuffed with plastic strips, had his equipment taken off him and was interrogated.

To call the ongoing people’s revolts in Tunisia and Egypt Facebook revolutions is certainly overstating the case. In both countries, the time was ripe for revolution and social upheaval. Poverty, repression and hopelessness were enforced by greedy US-supported despots who were deaf to the needs of their people. But there is little doubt that the recent street-protest revolts in Tunis and Cairo were assisted by new social media: Facebookers, tweeters and a new generation of Internet bloggers.

Without access to sanitary towels, a girl child in the SADC region may be excluded from her right to education. The Commonwealth Education Fund (CEF) and the Girl Child Network (GCN) have discovered that despite the provision of free schooling by the Kenyan government, more than 800,000 children (mostly girls) continue to forgo the opportunity of education. The CGE and the GCN found that during menstruation, some girls refused to go to school because they cannot access sanitary towels and the school toilets are unsafe or unusable. The high cost of sanitary towels also results in the use of unhygienic sponges, tissue paper and even foliage during menstruation.