Tasha Ncube* has no kind words for the police. Early last month, the 31-year-old mother of two was beaten several times by her husband over what she says were small arguments. 'I reported him to the police.' But Ncube did not get the response she expected. 'They said I should go back home and ask relatives to mediate as they were getting many reports from women who withdrew charges after the husband apologised. I was so angry I did not know what to say…' Like many other women, she returned home to continue life with her abusive husband.

Villagers in Uzumba-Maramba-Pfungwe area in Mashonaland East province have expressed concern over mining activities by a Chinese company, which they accuse of endangering their lives and that of animals along the Mazowe river. The villagers in Zambu under headman Mushambi in Chief Chinhanga’s area complained of water pollution and siltation being caused by disposal of waste by a Mingehang Sino Africa Mining Investment gold milling plant, which is a few metres from the river.

With the 2011 referendum rapidly approaching, there are expectations of a return to Juba of the 1.5 million Southerners still residing in Khartoum or in the diaspora, says this policy brief from the Overseas Development Institute. Extreme vulnerabilities facing many of Juba’s residents and chronic high levels of violence will have to be addressed. The paper argues that a gender perspective is of particular importance in such a process, because it will better inform an understanding of the causes of insecurity and violence and help inform more strategic peacebuilding programmes

Crops are failing in Somalia because of poor rains, a unit of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation said, raising the prospect of drought and increased hunger in a country where millions already depend on humanitarian aid. Below average rainfall in Bay, Shabelle, Gedo, Bakool and Hiran regions in southern Somalia has already led to early crop failure with planted seeds not germinating in some areas,' said the Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit (FSNAU), managed by the FAO, in a statement.

'After years of being told about the millions of illegal foreigners in the country who are responsible for the high crime rate and who deprive South Africans of jobs and housing, the government has suddenly managed to lose a million Zimbabweans. Where did they go?' asks this article on the Lawyers for Human Rights website. 'With the deadline for the issuing of special permits for Zimbabweans rapidly approaching, and with doubts surrounding government's ability to process all those seeking permits to avoid facing deportation, the government has adopted a new purpose - and a new set of numbers to suit this purpose.'

Trade ministers from the East African Community (EAC) economic bloc plan to continue trade talks with the European Union despite missing a November deadline, a top Kenyan official said. David Nalo, permanent secretary to Kenya’s East African Community Affairs ministry, told Reuters he expected the negotiations to last another year. 'Ministers of Trade in Arusha have agreed to engage with (the European Commission) and complete the negotiations that will lead to the signing of a full EPA,' Nalo said by telephone.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres has pledged a renewed commitment to address the continuing problems faced by refugee women and girls around the world. 'Clearly, many challenges remain,' Guterres said in a special message to staff to mark the start of the annual 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence, an international campaign originating from the first Women's Global Leadership Institute in 1991.

A thousand babies are infected with HIV every day - in pregnancy, during birth and through breastfeeding. Close to 400,000 African children are infected with HIV every year. The situation points back to the high HIV prevalence amongst women of reproductive age, especially in Southern Africa. Zambia is one of the countries recognised for making progress in addressing the problem.?? Seventy thousand Zambian women between the ages of 15 and 40 have HIV; the health ministry says 85 thousand children are living with the virus.

Two Congolese student leaders in Harare were last week allegedly abducted by suspected state security agents, and grilled about their relationship with Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) opposition leader Sapard Tshimanginda Kalala. The students claim they were held for over 24 hours. Kalala, a renowned academic who heads the National People’s Patriotic Party of the Congo will be challenging DRC President Joseph Kabila, who has very close ties with President Robert Mugabe, in next year’s elections.

FARUG calls on the minister for ethics and integrity to 'reverse his absurd decision’ to call off a conference for commercial sex workers, in contradiction to the Global Fund’s recommendations and guidelines for fighting HIV/AIDS in Uganda.

The first ever formal meeting between the two African Union bodies charged with promotion and protection of good governance and human rights on the continent took place in Gambia on 12 November to discuss freedom of expression. ARTICLE 19, in collaboration with the Special Rapporteur of the African Commission on Human and People's Rights (ACHPR), organised the high level meeting between the African Union (AU), the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) Secretariat and key freedom of expression experts from across the continent.

The aim of the research was to understand the lived lives of lesbian identified woman in Tshwane (Pretoria). The idea was to investigate their psychosocial and sexual histories through in depth qualitative interviews. Most funded research projects exclude lesbian, bisexual and transgendered women, since the focus is mainly on MSM. This translates into a lack of appropriate service provision to lesbian identified woman. The health, specifically sexual health issues of lesbian women, is often completely ignored, especially when it comes to HIV issues.

As wealthy investors continue to buy up agricultural land in the developing world, stakeholders disagree over how to regulate such transactions. 'Everyone agrees that you can't have a wild-west scenario where countries and companies are going into countries and getting land for next to nothing,' Michael Taylor, programme manager with the International Land Coalition (ILC), a global alliance of land rights organisations, told IRIN from Rome. 'The problem is that there are different entrenched interests and it's hard to reconcile the two sides.'

Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has suggested that African countries should set up a special fund for infrastructural development to accelerate productivity and growth on the continent. He suggested a $100 billion fund that will be guaranteed by the governments to address inadequacies in roads, power and transport, stressing that there must be regional co-operation to tackle the challenges of development in Africa.

Namibia's ruling party overwhelmingly won last weekend's local and regional elections, claiming 92 per cent of constituencies in regional voting, officials announced late last Monday. The South West Africa People's Organisation (Swapo), which has ruled Namibia since independence in 1990, won 98 out of 107 constituencies in the regional vote, state broadcaster Namibia Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) said.

Researchers are working on nanotechnology cures for age-old diseases, but is it affordable, what are the risks and what policies would ensure the best use of an expensive technology? SciDev.net looks at whether developing countries can use nanotechnology for heath care, the relationship between nanotechnology and health equity and how it is already being used.

This Atlas is a visual account of Africa's endowment and use of water resources, revealed through 224 maps and 104 satellite images as well as some 500 graphics and hundreds of compelling photos. However the Atlas is more than a collection of static maps and images accompanied by informative facts and figures: its visual elements vividly illustrate a succinct narrative describing and analysing Africa's water issues and exemplifying them through the judicious use of case studies.

Olivier Mushiete sees himself as a pioneer: His ever-expanding acacia forest on the Bateké plateau, 120km east of Kinshasa, is central Africa’s first carbon sink plantation. 'Each hectare of acacia trees can capture 25-30 tons of CO2. They grow quickly and have no known predators, parasites or viruses. What’s more, they are leguminous so their leaves fertilize the soil. They’re great,' he enthused. Every day the plantation traps several tons of CO2. Mushiete, an agricultural engineer, has sold some of this sequestered greenhouse gas, in the form of carbon credits, for US$4 million, with the first payments due in 2012, once the first trees reach maturity.

Two Egyptian opposition pages on the social network site Facebook were deleted ahead of Egypt's parliamentary election on Sunday then restored after discussions with the site's administrators, web activists who run the pages said on Friday. The activists said they suspected the Egyptian government had played a role in the disappearance of the pages, possibly by covertly bombarding Facebook with complaints about the pages that resulted in their removal, but offered no evidence to support the allegation.

This case study describes some of the methods and activities developed by the Relay programme, which provides training and facilitates relationship-building among key stakeholders to support more in-depth, research-informed media coverage of complex, under-reported or misreported development. It describes how the methods and activities were applied in Kenya to the issue of tax and governance. Ultimately, the case study aims to inform the work of a broad group of actors, including researchers, communication specialists, media development practitioners, infomediaries, editors and media managers, as well as organisations interested in funding initiatives to improve research-informed development.