Niamey- Niger (PANA) -- After the Higher Communication Council (CSC), another body in Niger, the Multi-sectoral Regulation Authority (ARM) has had a woman, Sory Boubacar Zalika appointed to head it. Full text...

Cape Town- South Africa (PANA) -- South Africa's Durban beaches at the weekend hosted more than 120 female surfers for the fifth edition of the Roxy Wahine Cup, the country's only stand-alone all-girl surf contest. Full text...

Dakar- Senegal (PANA) -- The Mano River Women's Peace Network (MARWOPNET) has been awarded the 2003 United Nations Prize in recognition of its outstanding achievement in human rights. Full text...

Ouagadougou- Burkina Faso (PANA) -- About 100 women from the ten Catholic dioceses of Burkina Faso Friday ended a two-day meeting here, aimed at sensitising people on conflict resolution. Full text...

Kampala- Uganda (PANA) -- Uganda sex workers look set to gain legal status following a change in attitude among MPs towards a law that associates prostitution with being "idle and disorderly," - the legislation police use to harass women on the street. Full text...

Grand Baie- Mauritius (PANA) -- Despite their early motherhood, some 2,600 Zambian girls returned to school after delivering their babies in the past two years, thanks to the adoption of a new policy being propagated continent-wide by the Forum for African Women Educationists (FAWE). Full text...

Cape Town- South Africa (PANA) -- The South African Women Entrepreneurs' Network (SAWEN) Thursday launched its Western Cape branch near Cape Town. Full text...

Lusaka- Zambia (PANA) -- Officials of the Zambian Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) caused a stir here when they opted for a delegation of ten men to represent them at a conference in Lilongwe, Malawi on child defilement and violence against women. Full text...

Paris- France (PANA) -- Women have been accorded a minimal role in the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), according to Yves Marie Laulan, who heads the French Cedimes Institute, which specialises in international co-operation. Full text...

Ouidah- Benin (PANA) -- Some 30 women MPs, NGOs officials and women opinion leaders are meeting in Ouidah, about 40-km from Cotonou, on the UN Millennium Development Goals. Full text...

Manzini- Swaziland (PANA) -- With an increase in all forms of abuse cases in Swaziland, Swazi men have finally taken the bold step of reporting their suffering at the hands of their women to the Swaziland Action Group Against Abuse (SWAGAA). Full text...

Tunis- Tunisia (PANA) -- The ruling Democratic Constitutional Movement (RCD) in Tunisia has said it would, beginning with the next elections, ensure that women constitute at least a quarter of its candidates for seats in Parliament and local councils. Full text...

Mbadlane- Swaziland (PANA) -- Thanks to a thriving wood carving business, Thembelihle Dludlu of Mbadlane in the Swazi region of Lubombo continues to provide for her family after the retrenchment of her husband from the defunct Mpaka coal mine. Full text...

Siphofaneni- Swaziland (PANA) -- To break free from the grip of poverty in her home and community, Swazi teenager Nonciniseko Gamedze is making the best of her talent in dancing 'sibhaca' to raise money for her school fees. Full text...

Kampala- Uganda (PANA) -- Police authorities are holding 22 primary school teachers for allegedly defiling over 50 female students attending various primary schools of Kayunga district, about 120 km east of the capital. Full text...

Johannesburg- South Africa (PANA) -- As South Africans observe the "16 Days of Activism on No Violence Against Women and Children", a local business expert against crime warned Thursday of the negative effects on gender violence the economy. Full text...

Gaborone- Botswana (PANA) -- Gender parity activists in Botswana take to the streets Thursday to protest rising gender-based violence in the southern African nation of about 1. Full text...

Paris- France (PANA) -- The Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) has alarmed the contamination of African women, saying that nearly 70 percent of African girls aged 15-24 were HIV positive. Full text...

Cape Town- South Africa (PANA) -- South Africans in the Western Cape took a stand against violence on women and children Tuesday by coming out in droves to participate in a Men's March. Full text...

Johannesburg- South Africa (PANA) -- South African President Thabo Mbeki Tuesday launched the "16 Days of Activism on No Violence Against Women and Children" campaign, urging the public to wear a white ribbon in support of the anti-violence activism. Full text...

Bamako- Mali (PANA) -- Women's rights activists have agreed with several political parties to launch a framework for consultations towards improving solidarity among women and articulating their interests within political circles in Mali. Full text...

Kinshasa- DR Congo (PANA) -- More than eight million were raped in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's South-Kivu province since the outbreak of the second civil war in 1998. Full text...

Abidjan- Cote d'Ivoire, (PANA) -- Cote d'Ivoire's family, women and children affairs ministry has initiated a women's week from 19-26 November to sensitise the population on the need to end physical, sexual, moral and psychological violence against them and children. Full text...

Bamako- Mali (PANA) -- Mali National Education minister Mamadou Lamine Traore has called for concerted efforts towards the education of girls, whose school attendance in the country averages only 53 percent, as against 70 percent of boys. Full text...

Niamey- Niger (PANA) -- Some 100 journalists from Niger media organisations ended an 11-day gender workshop in Niamey at the weekend. Full text...

Monrovia- Liberia (PANA) -- Liberian have made an impassioned call on the interim parliament to put an end to ongoing "gross human rights abuses" being committed by fighters of various warring faction s against women and children. Full text...

Kampala- Uganda (PANA) -- Polygamous husbands in Uganda will not have it easy anymore after activists, mainly female lawmakers, commenced a campaign to end polygamy in the country. Full text...

Bamako- Mali (PANA) -- Kadiatou Founè Maïga, the first lady prefect in the history of Mali's administration took office Monday as Senior Divisional Officer of Bla, 320 km from Bamako. Full text...

Gaborone- Botswana (PANA) -- Botswana President Festus Mogae has welcomed a UNESCOs report on education for all, which singled out Botswana and Namibia as having achieved perfect gender parity index (GPI) score of "1". Full text...

Lusaka- Zambia (PANA) -- About 61 percent of males and 50 percent of females in Zambia are literate, with urban population about one and a half time (74 percent) more likely to read and write compared to rural residents (45 percent), according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO). Full text...

Rabat- Morocco (PANA) -- University lecturer Rajaa Naji Mekkaoui on Wednesday went down in history as the first Moroccan woman to conduct a religious conference during the observance of Ramadan. Full text...

Nairobi- Kenya (PANA) -- Kenya plans to set up a National Commission on gender and development, according to Sports, Culture and Social Services Minister, Najib Balala. Full text...

Nouakchott- Mauritania (PANA) -- In an unprecedented venture here a woman, Aicha Mint Jeddan is among candidates lined up for the presidential election coming up 7 November in Mauritania. Full text...

Gaborone- Botswana (PANA) -- Botswana's Helene Ditsepe Mhone, winner of this year's UNDP Millennium Development Goals (MDG) award is an exceptional woman who would not even be drawn to comment on the honour bestowed her Wednesday in New York. Full text...

Cotonou- Benin (PANA) -- About 100 leaders of women bodies and community groups are currently attending a 15-day workshop on violence against women in Abomey, about 144 km outside here, organisers said Saturday. Full text...

Nairobi- Kenya (PANA) -- The Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE), Kenya chapter, has embarked on a community sensitisation campaign against harmful traditional practices including female circumcision in the country's central district of Meru. Full text...

Cotonou- Benin (PANA) -- About 50 women ministers and parliamentarians from several West and Central African countries started here Tuesday a five-day workshop to discuss gender budgeting. Full text...

Cotonou- Benin (PANA) -- Plan International has decided to launch a radio campaign aimed at increasing public awareness of children's rights in Benin, the NGO's officials said on Sunday. Full text...

Nairobi- Kenya (PANA) -- A Kenyan university don has expressed concern over the increasing single motherhood phenomenon in Africa, which reportedly accelerated in the last decade at an annual rate of 10 percent. Full text...

Bamako- Mali (PANA) -- Women in Mali's remote northern town of Bourem grouped in some twenty associations have launched a vast reafforestation campaign to combat the surge of sand dunes, according to sources at the environment ministry here. Full text...

Kinshasa- DR Congo (PANA) -- Some 52 percent of Congolese women, oblivious of their rights, suffer injustice, discrimination, exploitation and marginalisation, according to the Women's League for Development, Education and Democracy (LIFDED). Full text...

Lusaka- Zambia (PANA) -- Most women in Zambia usually become mothers before the age of 20, according to latest national survey. Full text...

Banjul- Gambia (PANA) -- The Gambia-based African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR) Friday urged governments in Africa to sign and ratify the newly adopted African Union (AU) Protocol on the rights of women in Africa. Full text...

Lusaka- Zambia (PANA) -- Hundreds of women activists across Zambia staged peaceful protest marches Friday in all main centres to pressure the government to step-up protection for girls through the promulgation of laws that bear stiff punishment for men that engage in under-age sex. Full text...

Tripoli- Libya (PANA) -- Libyan leader Moammar Kadhafi has repeated his call for the liberation and emancipation of women, both in the West and the East, "in a bid to enable them to play their real role in society without any form of abuse, oppression and exclusion". Full text...

Kampala- Uganda (PANA) -- Ugandan education authorities have sacked 20 male primary school teachers including four head teachers in the western Kabale district for allegedly defiling their pupils. Full text...

Lusaka- Zambia (PANA) -- Police in Zambia have questioned paramount chief Mpezeni of the Ngoni ethnic group in the Eastern Province after he was accused of having sex with a 14-year old girl contrary to the law. Full text...

Cape Town- South Africa (PANA) -- The death of an American tourist in Cape Town has thrown the spotlight on a syndicate of prostitutes believed to be drugging and then robbing their clients. Full text...

Paris- France (PANA) -- French lawyer Guylene Rousseau-Missamou volunteered in Paris to go to Nigeria to defend fellow women in that country whose rights are threatened by the application of the Islamic law. Full text...

Addis Ababa- Ethiopia (PANA) -- While the African Union (AU) spearheads the promotion of gender equality on the continent, women's rights advocates have cautioned on the need for leaders to be clear in their conceptual understanding of gender mainstreaming. Full text...