Apparently the rough draft of a new panel report by an expert panel to the UN on its ineffective arms embargo in the DRC shows that “… killer militias in Eastern Congo have been receiving military orders from leaders based in Germany and France and getting finance from two Spanish-based charities linked to the Roman Catholic church in clear breach of the UN sanctions regime. The report also accuses the governments of Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania and Congo-Kinshasa of allowing serious breaches of sanctions and the illegal export of mineral wealth.” Expect the report to be delayed for publication and to watered down, argues Africa Confidential.

The Christian Science Monitor has a story about how Sahrawi activist Aminatou Haidar, “… fresh off winning a prestigious international human rights award in New York, … received no warm welcome when she returned to Morocco last Friday. Instead, she was arrested and deported by Moroccan officials. Her crime? Leaving the citizenship line blank on her customs form, and writing Western Sahara – the disputed Moroccan territory where she lives -on the address line.”

Since 2001 Namibian public health officials have sterilized HIV positive women in the country’s hospitals without their consent. The government still thinks it can get away with it despite being exposed last year.

Staying in Namibia: it is the first country in southern Africa to hold multiparty elections this year. And like earlier elections in Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique and South Africa, the ruling party, SWAPO, won easily again. The opposition is partly to blame, according to The Economist. That’s an odd line of inquiry, since, for starters, SWAPO controls the state (and hence the electoral machinery) and the economy (you accumulate wealth via the ruling party).

Uganda, Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa may have more people connected to the internet now, but Rwanda wants to be the Africa’s first high tech economy by 2020, and they have a plan. Rwanda doesn’t democracy, but it has internet. The Economist is downright giddy.

The strange mix of repressive politics in the West African country, Gabon, and hip hop.