Thousands of hectares of fragile mountainous forest in north-eastern Tanzania have been preserved through a recently completed seven-year biodiversity project managed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The Eastern Arc Mountains project, financed by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), was concluded last month after an independent evaluation reported that at least 10,000 hectares of forest had been saved from destruction, and that the rate of forest loss had been reduced by 10 per cent.

The harassment of MDC members is continuing across the country amid widespread fears that ZANU PF has started an early election campaign. MDC deputy organising secretary, Senator Morgen Komichi, was arrested on Wednesday at Lupane police station in Matabeleland North province, on charges of communicating so-called ‘falsehoods’. Komichi had gone to Lupane after being told to report to the police station last week, where he was apparently wanted for questioning about comments he made at a party rally in Hwange earlier this year.

In Kampala, Uganda, men who have sex with men who have suffered homophobic violence or abuse are five times more likely to be HIV-positive than other men, Joseph Barker told the Eighteenth International AIDS Conference on Tuesday. Just under 40% of men had ever been physically abused, four out of ten had been blackmailed at some point, and a quarter had been forced to have sex.

Tunisian college graduates are prepared for the demands of their discipline, but face great challenges in finding a job in their own field. "Most of the institute graduates are still unemployed or have started working in fields not related to their discipline," said Hayet Et Beji, a graduate of Tunisia's institute for heritage preservation. "What made the higher education ministry abandon the discipline is that it has no feasible way of integrating its graduates into the job market."

European Union (EU) Trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht has appeased leading European civil society organisations about the negotiations for a Southern African economic partnership agreement (EPA), promising "not to put undue pressure" on countries. According to Marc Maes, trade policy officer at 11.11.11, the move signals an "EPA-fatigue" in Europe. 11.11.11, the Flemish North-South Movement working against poverty, protested about the European Commission’s treatment of Namibia.

Thomas Lubanga, a former Congolese rebel leader, will remain in jail in The Hague after the appeals panel of the International Criminal Court (ICC) said it feared he might not reappear if another trial is ordered. Judges at the ICC ordered Lubanga's trial halted on July 8, saying that Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the court's chief prosecutor, had not complied with an order to turn over certain information to his defence.

Slightly built Nokwanda, 12, buried her head in her hands every time someone asked her a question. Her participation in a recent UNICEF-supported photography workshop here looked like it would be limited. Yet when asked to pick a favourite photograph, Nokwanda was transformed. She knew immediately which to choose, pointing to a photo of police officers at the Lyndhurst Primary School, which she attends.

Nigeria's Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said it is targeting 70 million voters in its planned fresh voter registration exercise, after the government acceded to the commission's de mand for 72 billion naira (about US$500 million) to compile a new electoral register ahead of 2011 polls.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has condemned death threats and outrageous claims made last week by a member of Swaziland's royal family against local journalists over their critical coverage of the country's leadership. During a 21 July public forum called the Smart Partnership National Dialogue in the central commercial city of Manzini, Prince Mahlaba, brother of Swaziland's absolute ruler King Mswati III, was quoted by local media as saying: 'I want to warn the media to bury things that have the potential of undermining the country rather than publish all and everything even when such reports are harmful to the country's international image. Journalists who continue to write bad things about the country will die.'

Four years after the moratorium on Terminator technology was reaffirmed by the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), proposals to develop and commercialize ‘genetic-use restriction technologies’ (GURTs) are back on the agenda for policymakers and the biotechnology industry. Terminator is a threat to food sovereignty and agrobiodiversity: ending the moratorium on Terminator will increase control of seed by transnational corporations (TNCs) and restrictions on farmers’ rights to save and plant harvested seed. Additionally, pollen from genetically-modified (GM) crops with Terminator will contaminate non-GM and organic crops, and native plant species.

The UN refugee agency has urged Saudi Arabia to stop deporting Somalis, saying 2,000 people have recently been sent to Mogadishu. The UNHCR says those forced back to the Somali capital are at risk. There is almost daily fighting there between Islamist militants and government troops backed by African Union peacekeepers.

The global carbon market, which trades “pollution rights” to encourage industry to cut greenhouse gas emissions, grew in 2009. Far from signaling a success, this reflects a huge increase in fraud, the dumping of surplus emissions permits by industry, and a rise in financial speculation.

The high-level debate which opened in Kampala, Uganda, yesterday on “Promoting Maternal, Infant and Child Health and Development in Africa, ended this evening with an agreement by Africa’s leaders on an action plan to kick-start the effective implementation of existing resolutions and decisions on maternal, infant and child health in the continent.

A local variety of the nutrient-rich, blue-green algae known as spirulina could boost incomes for women in Chad who harvest the product as well as help fight nutrition, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has reported. The agency is running a $1.4 million project in which women are gathering and processing the product, known locally as dihé, from the shallow pools of water on the edges of Lake Chad where it forms at certain times of the year.

South Africa cannot afford pay demands from thousands of public service workers and hopes a deal can be reached next week before a strike widens to nearly a million workers, a minister said on Friday. Thousands of workers from the Public Servants Association union walked off the job on Thursday, causing little impact so far to Africa's biggest economy. But that could change if the country's biggest labour group makes good on its threat to join the strike next week, which could cripple commerce.

Continuing high rates of low to follow-up in antiretroviral treatment programmes among people already on treatment and those waiting to start treatment are a symptom of health system failures, not the fault of patients, the Eighteenth International AIDS Conference heard last week. In a session at the International AIDS Conference that focused on retention in care of ART patients, studies from Malawi, Tanzania and Mozambique were presented that dealt with reducing loss to follow up and treatment default.

Sudanese refugee Josephine Poni Daniel can be as shy as any other 16-year-old when discussing unfamiliar subjects. But ask about her first love, music, and her face brightens and she becomes vivacious and outspoken. "Music is fun; when I write lyrics or sing the music I feel good and forget my troubles," says Josephine, lead singer for The Golden Blue Girls, one of three winners of a music contest that's raising money and awareness of refugees' education needs in far-off Japan.

Uganda has opposed the pending recognition of a South African gay rights group, Coalition of African Lesbians (CAL), as an official observer at all African Union conferences, and to contribute to the NGO’s forum. “The African Charter and the Constitutive Act setting up the AU tell us to protect African values among our key objectives. These (gay rights) are alien to our culture and values. We shall continue to resist and fight them because common sense dictates against them. They are outlawed in Uganda and most African countries,” the foreign service officer, ambassador Rosette Nyirinkindi, asserted.

Africa's unified stance at the Copenhagen climate summit last December showed that the continent has woken up to potential 'climate cash' from international mitigation and adaptation programmes and confirmed African leaders' political commitment to tackling climate change. But the skills and infrastructure needed to use climate cash for making sense of local climate change impacts and also for designing and managing sustainable development projects are still thin on the ground in many African countries.

In this week's roundup of emerging powers news, the World Bank says foreign investors are crowding out African producers, Singapore leads ASEAN investment into Africa, AU wants to replace Western partners with China, China and Rio Tinto complete Guinea mining deal, and China invests heavily in Brazil, elsewhere in pursuit of political heft.