The United Kingdom has been surprisingly silent about Nigeria’s harsh new laws targeting homosexuals. This would be the perfect situation for the British government to launch its much-heralded policy of cutting aid money to countries that discriminate against homosexuals, but so far British money to Nigeria keeps flowing, and British officials remain silent. There’s a reason for this – but it’s not good enough. By SIMON ALLISON.

A cabinet reshuffle in Khartoum saw 14 posts go to members of the opposition - at first glance a rare sign of President Bashir loosening his grip on power. But in Sudan there’s opposition and there’s opposition, and Bashir is only embracing the people he thinks he can control. By SIMON ALLISON.

1Time’s new route to Mombasa, Kenya is an exciting expansion of its small but growing African network. It wants to get bigger, and – with other low cost airlines – make Africa’s exorbitant airfares a little cheaper. But it’s expanded just about as far as the continent’s governments will let it. By SIMON ALLISON.

They’re beginning to sound like the paranoid delusions of a madman. In most other countries Morgan Tsvangirai’s claims of plots, conspiracies and set ups would be dismissed without a second thought. But this is Zimbabwe, and here Tsvangirai should be heeded - carefully. By SIMON ALLISON.

The revolution might be won, but there’s still plenty of chaos and guns around Libya, and especially in Tripoli. The newly appointed interim government is struggling to cope with armed militias that control the city, so people are taking matters into their own hands. By SIMON ALLISON.

Egyptian blogger and activist Alaa Abd El Fattah has been detained in prison on trumped-up charges since 30 October. An appeal on Monday for him to be released immediately was dismissed. On Tueday his wife and fellow activist Manal Bahey Al Din Hassan gave birth to the couple's first son, Khaled. El Fattah remained behind bars, rather than being able to attend the birth of child. By THERESA MALLINSON.

On Sunday, three advocacy officers from Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe were arrested by the police. Then on Monday, the MMPZ's Harare offices were searched, and Andrew Moyse, the MMPZ project co-ordinator, was also detained. Although Moyse was released yesterday, his three colleagues are still imprisoned. The Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition is demanding their immediate release. Doesn't seem the government is listening though. By THERESA MALLINSON.

The United Nations Security Council passed new sanctions against Eritrea on Monday, punishing the tiny country in the Horn of Africa for its continued political, financial, training and logistical support to Al Shabaab, the radical Islamist militant group in Somalia – an allegation which Eritrea denies. But with sanctions as weak as these, there’s not much incentive for Eritrea to change its ways. By SIMON ALLISON.

Guinea Bissau’s leader is in a Paris hospital to receive treatment for an illness too serious to tell his people about it himself. In the meantime, in what feels like a repeat of recent history, his officials are frantically denying rumours of his death. We’ve been here before, and on that occasion it didn’t end very well for Nigeria’s former president Umaru Yar Adua – or Nigeria. By SIMON ALLISON.

Negotiations at the UN Climate Change conference, COP17, have so far focused on the politics of the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions. Equally important, however, are the negotiations on adapting to the effects of climate change in embattled parts of the developing world like Africa’s Sahel. By KHADIJA PATEL.

In the early hours of Thursday morning, Charles Ingabire, a Rwandan journalist in exile in Kampala, Uganda, was fatally shot. The murder weapon? No less than a submachine gun. In fairness, it's probably too early to say who was behind Ingabire's death; still, it seems reasonable to assume this was no random killing. By THERESA MALLINSON.

There was a time when you could buy yourself a big shiny rock with a clean conscience. Thanks to the Kimberley Process, you were confident it would not fund child soldiers or murderous African warlords. But that time is no more, according to Global Witness, which has withdrawn from the process in a move that shocked the industry and should make consumers think twice before buying any more of a girl’s best friends. By SIMON ALLISON.

South Africa’s black lesbians and transgender men in disadvantaged areas regularly confront hostility and abuse from their families, communities and in their workplaces, according to a damning Human Rights Watch report released on Monday. By GREG NICOLSON.

The apprehension is palpable. Ever since the Muslim Brotherhood strolled to victory in Egypt’s parliamentary elections last week – their assured performance built on decades of grassroots organisation and community development – the headlines making international media have been dominated by talk of the “Islamists” in Egypt and the incipient threat to the democracy which Egypt is still struggling to realise. Are they terrorists? Are they going to implement Sharia law? Just how scared should we be? By SIMON ALLISON.

The diplomatic spat between Kenya and Sudan over Bashir’s arrest warrant continues, with a Sudanese ultimatum making a mockery of Kenyan attempts to rectify the situation. The ultimatum was clear: Kenya has two weeks to sort the problem out, or else. But Kenya might find that rather tricky. By SIMON ALLISON.

Last week’s elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Egypt went about as well as could be expected. Observers pronounced themselves broadly satisfied, with caveats. Results are being processed. But now comes the hard part. For elections to mean anything, politicians need to learn hard lessons about choice and acceptance. By SIMON ALLISON.

It’s easy to laugh at Morgan Tsvangirai’s failed marriage which lasted just 12 days, if it even happened at all. Jokes comparing him to the Kardashians are inevitable, but misplaced. Tsvangirai’s story is more classic tragedy than modern reality show. By SIMON ALLISON.

After Zanu PF-aligned group Chipangano threatened action against Nando’s for flighting a satirical advert featuring Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe (via DStv), the fast-food chain has withdrawn the commercial from our screens. And yes, that includes South Africa. We can still all watch it on YouTube though, where it's gone viral, racking up almost 25,000 hits so far. By THERESA MALLINSON.

The recent case of two journalists detained in South Sudan, and their subsequent release without charge, illustrates the difficulties the media faces in the newly independent country. South Sudan may now be free, but its press clearly isn't. By THERESA MALLINSON.

Last week president of The Gambia, Yahya Jammeh, gave journalists yet another one of his strongly-worded messages. In short: media freedoms will be curtailed for the good of development. He doesn't seem to notice, or care, about the false binary his remarks imply. By THERESA MALLINSON.

There’s little doubt that Laurent Gbagbo, the former president of Côte d’Ivoire, deserves to stand trial for what happened under his watch and, allegedly, under his direct command – the rapes, the beatings, the murders. But is the International Criminal Court the best place to see substantive justice done? And is now the right time to do it? SIMON ALLISON is not so sure.

It isn’t just South Africa that has an almost insurmountable HIV/Aids problem. Countries like Swaziland have it worse: they are hit by the double whammy of the pandemic and a really bad economy, which severely limits treatment programme options for the government. SIPHO HLONGWANE spoke to Swazi “expert patient” and counsellor Sikhulu Matsenjwa about his experience of living with HIV/Aids in one of the poorest countries in the world.

Sudan's cut diplomatic ties in disgust at a Kenyan court decision to arrest President Omar al-Bashir if he's ever in Kenya again. While this has caught Kenya's bemused government by surprise, alienating Sudan might just have made its incursion into Somalia significantly more rigorous. By SIMON ALLISON.

Evangelicals, Charismatics, Happy-Clappies, Ecstatics – call them what you will, they’re now more than 10% of Africa’s population and starting to flex their political muscles. This is Christianity on steroids, fuelled by devotion to God, the promises of better things to come, and just a little bit of American stardust. But who’s leading the prayers? By SIMON ALLISON

When Egyptians went to the polls on Monday, several journalists and bloggers were still nursing bruises and broken limbs after the crackdown on the media in the lead up to the elections. Others remained in jail. Seems the country's current military rulers are no better than the Mubarak regime – certainly not in their treatment of the press, particularly female journalists. By THERESA MALLINSON.

Medecins sans Frontieres doesn’t mince its words. Should the current trend of less money for HIV/Aids treatment programmes continue, all the progress seen in the last few years will be wiped away. By SIPHO HLONGWANE.

Timbuktu is neither mythical nor exotic. It exists - a harsh, cruel and ugly reality, as the South African citizen kidnapped there on Friday found out. Timbuktu’s romance has long gone, its exoticism extinguished by problems all too modern and all too familiar. By SIMON ALLISON.

Zimbabwe’s still not producing enough food, according to the World Food Programme, and a million people will need food aid in the near future. But the country is producing a lot more food than it used to as its battered agricultural sector recovers. By SIMON ALLISON.

A Kenyan survey into political corruption struggled to single anyone out for criticism. The problem? They’re all dirty – at least as far as the Kenyan public is concerned. Not that the politicians will be too worried; after all, politics isn’t always about serving the public. By SIMON ALLISON.

“Africa’s Pinochet” Chad’s brutal former dictator Hissene Habre has been in exile for 20 years, sunning himself in his Dakar home as his countrymen bickered about how and where he should stand trial. Now they’ve agreed he can be tried in Belgium. All the same, Habre’s case reveals how international justice is sometimes no justice at all. By SIMON ALLISON.