The Africa Commission is holding a conference on youth and education on 16 June. At the first meeting of the Africa Commission in Copenhagen on 16 April it was decided to set up five thematic conferences in various places in Africa during the next half year. Here the participants will discuss and investigate various aspects of the Commission’s focus on youth and employment.

Workers from the public and private sectors throughout the country launched a two-day strike on 8 April to protest high living costs and demand salary increases. In Ouagadougou, the capital, few shops were open. In Bobo-Dioulasso, the second largest city in the west of the country, the central market was closed.

A coalition of civil society organisations that on recently mobilised several thousand people to take to the streets of Ouagadougou and other towns and cities in Burkina Faso has threatened a nationwide strike if the government does not find a way to lower prices.

A meningitis epidemic has killed 519 people out of 5,046 cases reported in Burkina Faso since the start of January, new health ministry figures said Thursday. Ousmane Badolo, a ministry epidemiologist told AFP "we've gone over the 500- dead mark". Dr Badolo said that of 16 affected districts in Burkina Faso, the outbreak had reached epidemic levels in eight. The last official figures issued on March 9 reported 441 deaths out of 4,061 cases.