Ethiopia lost $11.7 billion to outflows of ill-gotten gains between 2000 and 2009, according to a coming report by Global Financial Integrity. According to GFI economist Sarah Freitas, who co-authored the report, corruption, kickbacks and bribery accounted for the vast majority of the increase in illicit outflows. 'The scope of Ethiopia’s capital flight is so severe that our conservative US$3.26 billion estimate greatly exceeds the US$2 billion value of Ethiopia’s total exports in 2009,' Freitas wrote in a blog post on the website of the Task Force on Financial Integrity and Economic Development.

A couple of weeks ago, newspaper editor Dawit Kebede, an International Press Freedom award winner, fled Ethiopia. Sadly, Dawit's Awramba Times is the latest in a long list of Amharic-language private publications to vanish from the market following the incarceration or flight into exile of their editors. Awramba Times was a breeding ground of young Ethiopian columnists. Apart from the usual news and sports reporters, the weekly had correspondents specialising in parliamentary affairs, health issues, women's issues, satire, and folklore. There were also featured guest columnists such as university professors and opposition party members.

Are you interested in global food justice? Are you curious about how the world will eat in the future? Will you have some free time in the next six to ten weeks? Are you familiar with at least one of the countries listed below and/or knowledgeable about one of the topic areas? We are looking for interns around the world to do foundational research for a new trans-media project on the future of the global food system.

Foreign companies have snatched $553 million worth of contracts for different projects in the country, with the Chinese getting the lion’s share, Parliament was told. Chairperson of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Budget, Finance and Investment Promotion Paddy Zhanda made the disclosure while presenting a report on the 2012 National Budget. '$553 million worth of contracts were awarded to foreign companies and most of these to Chinese companies,' said Zhanda. 'Zimbabwe has a very high unemployment rate and a liquidity crisis and we implore the Minister of Finance, Tendai Biti, to stop this bleeding,' he said.

tells the story of ten of Kenya’s unsung heroes who carry forward the tradition of the thousands of nameless freedom fighters of Kenya’s long path to liberation. These activists were part, over the last year, of the inaugural Fahamu Pan-African Fellowship (FPAF) programme. With local action and an African vision, the FPAF aimed to support a cadre of energetic, visionary and innovative activists.

[PDF] record the contribution of ten of Kenya’s community activists who daily resist oppression and dare to build alternatives. These are the Kenyans who organise rather than agonise.

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Prof Opubor was one of the first generation of specialists in the field of communication as a behavioural science. His expertise was in communication theories and message systems and their applications in development.

Following the death of separatist leader Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, Funmi Feyedi-John reflects both on his life and on the impact of Biafra's secession.

Zanele Muholi and Khanyisile Mbongwa put together a collaborative show around the idea of interstices, of spaces in between/in-between spaces - literal, metonymic, metaphorical. 'Ngaphakathi esiphakathini' is directly translated as 'inside the in-between', writes Khanyisile. The artists respond to the economies of violence of the everyday, a reality of bodies marked and inscribed in particular ways.

We will consider arresting George Bush when Amnesty International 'give us the facts', said Zambia President Michael Sata on Sunday shortly before he saw off the visiting US former president. The Zambian president also said 'it’s a coincidence' that Mr Bush and Zimbabwe long-time ruler Robert Mugabe were in Zambia at the same time. Sata was responding to questions from journalists at KK International Airport in the capital Lusaka about Amnesty International’s calls on Zambia to arrest Mr Bush for human rights violations during his 2001-2009 Presidency.

The latest edition of the Mozambique Political Process Bulletin has articles on corruption in Mozambique, the inability of coal mines to reduce poverty, the need for more jobs in Mozambique and much more. Visit the web address provided to subscribe to the Mozambique Political Process Bulletin and Joseph Hanlon's Mozambique News Reports and Clippings.

The STARS Foundation has selected three African organisations working with children for this year’s 2011 Africa & Middle East STARS Impact Awards and one organisation for the Rising Star Award. The STARS Foundation supports frontline, impactful initiatives improving children’s health, education and protection needs across the continent.

This is a call for materials for a biographical book on the life, work and legacy of David Kisule Kato – the deceased Ugandan human rights defender for sexual (and other) minorities. The biography is being developed and written by researchers in the Law, Gender and Sexuality Research Project of the Faculty of Law at Makerere University – Kampala. We are interested in a range of materials including essays, fiction, poetry, web blogs, art, crafts, photographs, film, documentaries, speeches, diaries, letters and other correspondence, music, academic publications, etc. that reflect any aspect of the life and work of David Kato.

Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, leader of the Biafran resistance to the Nigeria state’s genocide against the Igbo people, has passed away.

The Constitutional Court has directed a Mail & Guardian application to have a South African government report on the 2002 Zimbabwe general elections made public, back to the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria for further consideration. This decision, says the blog Writing Rights, shows the fragility of legality and the rule of law should the Constitutional Court become pro-executive or pro-wealth rather than stand fearlessly on the side of the Constitution and the people’s right to know.

The United Nations Trust Fund in Support of Actions to Eliminate Violence against Women is accepting applications for its 16th grant cycle (2011) from government authorities, civil society organizations and networks - including non-governmental, women’s and community-based organizations and coalitions, and operational research institutions - and UN Country Teams (in partnership with governments and civil society organizations).

EU policies are continuing to seriously undermine rights in developing countries says a new report by CONCORD, the confederation of European development NGOs. The report shows incoherencies between EU development objectives and other policies, coming at an important time as the EU reforms its agricultural, trade and development policies.

The Cameroonian authorities must immediately release two men who have been sentenced to five years in prison by a court in Yaounde for homosexual acts, Amnesty International said. A third man was sentenced without being present after jumping bail. The men were arrested in July after police alleged they were caught in a sexual act in a car.

Government cuts in research and development (R&D) funding for higher education institutions have compelled public universities in Sub-Saharan Africa to establish extensive partnerships with universities, technology and research centres in the North. But, asks Johnson M. Ishengoma on have these North-South partnerships and funding streams strengthened higher education and capacity building? 'I argue that in Tanzania, they have had limited impact. They have not contributed to meaningful capacity building either by expanding student enrolment, increasing the quantity and quality of higher education support infrastructure, or helping develop and retain academic staff.'

'La Voix de Djibouti' correspondents Farah Abadid Hildid and Houssein Robleh Dabar were released provisionally recently after being held by the gendarmerie for four days, during which time they were both reportedly tortured.

Use these maps and graphics to explore the DRC as it prepares for just its second general elections in four decades.