Malnutrition among children under two years of age is one of the leading challenges to reducing global hunger and can cause lifelong harm to health, productivity, and earning potential, according to the 2010 Global Hunger Index (GHI). In Sub-Saharan Africa, low government effectiveness, conflict, political instability, and high rates of HIV and AIDS are among the major factors that lead to high child mortality and a high proportion of people who cannot meet their calorie requirements. In some countries of Sub-Saharan Africa, for example Burundi, Madagascar, and Malawi, about half of the children are stunted (low height for age) due to poor nutrition.

omali government troops and allied forces retook the south-eastern town of Bulo Hawo near the Kenyan border on Sunday after defeating al-Qaeda-inspired al-Shebaab Islamists, officials and witnesses said. The Shebaab control large swathes of southern and central Somalia and have wrested control of much of the capital Mogadishu, where they have relentlessly attacked government and African Union forces.

A collection of human rights organisations have expressed their full solidarity with Al Dostour's journalists and Ibrahim Essa, editor-in-chief of the newspaper. They have appeal to all civil society organisations to not only guarantee the journalists' rights but to combat the government's plan to impose restrictions on independent mass media ahead of the parliamentary elections. The organisations have expressed their deepest worries over the restrictions imposed on freedom of opinion and expression in general and Al Dostour newspaper in particular.

An academic dispute about whether concurrent sexual partnerships are really a major factor behind high rates of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa could affect the future of prevention programmes. The relatively common practice in many African countries of having ongoing relationships with two or three partners at the same time, has led researchers to explore concurrency as a possible explanation for why parts of the continent have been so hard hit by HIV.

The Ethiopian government is using development aid to suppress political dissent by conditioning access to essential government programs on support for the ruling party, Human Rights Watch has said in a new report. Human Rights Watch urged foreign donors to ensure that their aid is used in an accountable and transparent manner and does not support political repression. The 105-page report, 'Development without Freedom: How Aid Underwrites Repression in Ethiopia,' documents the ways in which the Ethiopian government uses donor-supported resources and aid as a tool to consolidate the power of the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF).

Under a new proposal from the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), a trade bloc of 19 African nations, the bloc would carry out science-based risk assessments on growing commercial GM crops in any of the bloc's countries. If COMESA finds the crop safe for the environment and for human consumption, the crop could then be grown in all COMESA countries, although individual countries would retain the right to withhold, says an editorial in nature.

Activists have warned that Egypt telecommunication regulator’s new rules for companies sending text messages to multiple cellphones will stifle efforts to mobilise voters ahead of upcoming parliamentary elections. Reform groups in Egypt, as well as elsewhere in the region such as Iran, have increasingly relied on the Internet and cellphones to organise, mobilise and evade government harassment.

Two political protesters have been killed and several others injured in street clashes with police in Guinea's capital, Conakry, just days before a presidential run-off election. According to witnesses, the police were initially attacked on Tuesday by supporters of Cellou Dalein Diallo, the leading candidate contesting the October 24 poll.

The Ugandan Rolling Stone tabloid has published an article entitled ‘100 Pictures of Uganda’s Top Homos Leak’ calling for the ‘hanging of homos’ in Uganda in its issue of 2 to 9 October, 2010, Vol.1, No. 5. The article shows pictures of some of the 100 alleged homosexuals and other human rights activists, alongside their names and a description of their professional jobs and private life, including where they live or work. The article also calls on the government of Uganda to take strong action against them.

I'm a historian at Yale University in the USA who just happened upon your online news service, and who has a special request. I'm writing a history of something called the World Youth Festival, a Soviet-sponsored event which met 13 times between 1947 and 1989. My research has taken me to Russia, Europe and across the USA. But sadly, I have not yet made it to look through African archives or interview African participants. I therefore would be especially grateful if you would put a call out to your readership in search of anyone who might be willing to speak with me about their experiences at the Festival, or who perhaps has written material (letters, diaries, memoirs) that they'd be willing to scan and share with me.

Write to .

The Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy are seeking entries from inspirational and innovative local sustainable energy programmes from Asia, Africa and Latin America. Entry is free, and up to six winners will receive £20,000 each in prize money for programme development, with one overall Energy Champion awarded £40,000.

The International Women's Media Foundation (IWMF) is offering 10 fellowships to enhance news media coverage of complex issues surrounding HIV and AIDS in South Africa. The IWMF will partner with media organisations in South Africa to identify eligible senior reporters working on HIV/AIDS.

Four NGOs have criticised a social movement for disrupting ordinary life in Cape Town with a protest campaign aimed at highlighting a lack of service delivery in informal settlements. But Abahlali baseMjondolo, which has launched the strike in informal settlements, have responded, saying they have never called for violence and accusing one of the NGOs, the Treatment Action Campaign, of double standards. This post contains the original statement issued by COSATU Khayelitsha, the Treatment Action Campaign the Social Justice Coalition and Equal Education, calling for a rejection of Abahlali baseMjondolo's tactics and a responding statement from Abahlali baseMjondolo.

A delegation of Indian political and business leaders was due in the East African Community (EAC) region this week with new incentives to increase Delhi’s presence in the region as the Asian giant moves to eat into the presence of China and Europe, the Indian government announced. Senior officials from 187 Indian companies will be participating in the ‘Namaskar Africa’ and ‘India-East Africa Business Forum’ events in Nairobi, opening on October 14. Representatives from the EAC countries will also be there for a preview of what India has to offer.

Malawian vice president Joyce Banda has called for tolerance towards homosexuality, at a meeting hosted by the Inter-Faith AIDS Association (MIAA) held in Blantyre, Malawi, on 29 September this year. Banda made the call when she officially opened a Religious Leader’s Policy Advocacy Conference in Blantyre, stating that same sex practices are reality in Malawi and that religious leaders need be tolerant on such issues in order to fight HIV and AIDS.

The launch of the Decade of the African Woman from 2010-2020 happens this week in Nairobi as delegates at another women's event in Johannesburg have noted that African women continue to be left out of the media. At the first day of the Fourth Annual Gender Links Gender and Media Summit in Johannesburg, the results of the Gender and Media Progress Study (GMPS) were highlighted and the lack of progress since the 2003 Baseline Study was widely discussed.

Social interaction between host community members and refugees are taking place within the camps at a significant scale, according to a September 2010 study entitled 'Socio-economic and Environmental Impacts of Dadaab Refugee Camps on Host Communities'. One of the findings of the study is that refugees are seen as getting the better deal as international humanitarian standards are applied to refugees but not to host communities.

The latest round of talks between north and south Sudan over the future of the oil-producing Abyei region has failed to reach an agreement. The issue stands as a key hurdle ahead of referendums in the country, and according to the north's National Congress party (NCP) and the south's ruling Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), 'serious efforts and many productive discussions, [the delegations] did not succeed in reaching agreement on the eligibility criteria for voters in the Abyei Area referendum'.

Only a handful of African governments have so far pledged financial commitment to a planned US$600 million endowment fund to support the activities of the fledgling African Network for Drugs and Diagnostic Innovations (ANDI) initiative - and none have yet paid up. ANDI aims to be the first pan-African health research and development (R&D) network, tackling Africa's diseases with home-grown drugs and diagnostics.

Faced with the woes of the global economic crisis, an increasing number of Moroccan expatriates are coming back home. Meanwhile, the government is intensifying effort to aid the community abroad as well as help them maintain ties with their home country. The number of Moroccans living abroad (MRE) that have decided to return home is up 8 per cent year over year.