Kibaki reiterates support for draft constitution ahead of referendum Kenya - Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki has reiterated his support for reforms in Kenya ahead of an 4 August referendum on a draft new constitution, which is expected to become law soon after the vote.

Four former Beninese Ministers may be tried at the country's High Court of Justice for corruption charges, according to a request for indictment from President Boni Yayi to the National Assembly. The Ministers include two former allies of President Yayi and two who served und er the government of his predecessor, Mathieu Kerekou.

Edition 6 of the Chruch Land People newsleteer share some aspects of these different places and the struggles of the people there. There are many things in common across the different experiences and places. But it is also very important to understand the actual situation of each place. In each case, it is necessary to respect the thinking, strategies and leadership of the people over their own lives and struggles. When those who suffer take back their own peoples’ power and take their own struggles forward, then there is the possibility to really transform the situation for the better and to really ensure that others and outsiders (like the government or NGOs) work in a positive way with the people to achieve that transformation.

President Omar al-Bashir's party has said the referendum on whether south Sudan should secede cannot take place until the internal border is decided. A vote on a possible new country without a clear border would be a recipe for a new war, the NCP says. But the former rebels in charge of the south insist the referendum must be held on time.

The Greek authorities should immediately review their policy of locking up irregular migrants and asylum-seekers, including many unaccompanied children , Amnesty International has said in a new report. Greece: Irregular migrants and asylum-seekers routinely detained in substandard conditions, documents their treatment, many of whom are held in poor conditions in borderguard stations and immigration detention centres with no or limited access to legal, social and medical aid.

The Horn of Africa is once again free of polio, with Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda having reported no wild poliovirus cases for more than a year, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and its partners have announced. “Today marks a step towards the achievement of a major objective of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative’s new strategy – stopping polio in Africa,” the agency stated in a news release.

The fight against malaria is integral to boosting women’s and children’s health and achieving the other Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro told Africa leaders, urging them to build on the progress made so far to defeat the disease. “If you continue to see malaria control as an integral part of reaching the MDGs… of building strong health systems… of improving your people’s well-being… then the success we have seen to date will continue, and grow,” Ms. Migiro said yesterday in remarks to the meeting in Kampala, Uganda, of the African Leaders Malaria Alliance (ALMA).

Central African Republic has delayed presidential and legislative elections until January 23 from October 24 due to insecurity caused by rebels, according to a presidential decree read over state radio on Friday. The new date comes after three previous election dates in the impoverished country were scrapped over problems with funding and rebel disarmament, leaving President Francois Bozize in power beyond his mandate, which ended in June.

South Africa’s campaign to test 15 million people for HIV in one year risks being implemented in a way that undermines people’s human rights, the activist Mark Heywood told the Eighteenth International AIDS Conference in Vienna last Thursday. Incidents of coercive testing have been recorded but the lack of effective monitoring procedures means that it’s impossible to know whether those incidents are widespread or not.

Celou Dalein Diallo gained a significant advantage over Alpha Condé, his main rival for the Guinean presidency, when a third candidate said he would back Diallo in a second round of voting in August. But what has become of women candidates for high political office in this West African country? Saran Daraba Kaba, the first and only woman candidate for president, finished a distant 22nd of the 24 candidates who took part in the first round of voting on Jun 27, garnering only 0.11 percent of the vote.

GALZ have welcomed the acquittal of one of their employee Ignatius Mhambi, on the charge of allegedly being in possession of “pornographic material” this just days, after Zimbabwe’s first Lady Grace Mugabe coined homosexuality as “taboo and satanic”. Chesterfield Samba, Director of GALZ said “the Judge on her finding said Magistrate Mupindu who presided over the matter said that there was no prima facie evidence to prove the essential element of the case which, are possession of the pornographic material in question.”

Seraphine Kabasinga, mother of four, has always been scared of malaria. She lives in an endemic zone, just an hour east of Rwanda’s capital, Kigali. “I would use tree branches like cypress as mosquito repellents on windows and close our doors before sunset to protect my family from mosquito bites,” she said. “Today, young mothers are luckier than I was, because if you are pregnant and you go to a health centre for regular checkups, the government gives you a free net.”

The country representative of the World Health Organization (WHO) in The Gambia, Dr. Thomas Sukwa, said the vaccination campaign for the Swine Flu, A(H1N1), though not yet reported in the country, targets only 10 per cent of the nation's population.The week-long, nation-wide vaccination campaign, spearheaded by the Ministry of Heath and Social Welfare, in collaboration with the WHO office in Banjul, started Wednesday.

The population of urban refugees is at risk in Nairobi following the issuance of a by the Government of Kenya requesting them to proceed to the already overcrowded camps of Dadaab. These camps are characterized by harsh living conditions, minimal economic activity, and insecurity, and are situated in remote semi-arid to arid regions with little surface water where the environment is barely able to sustain the local population

The Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC) has granted licences to four new media houses, its chairperson Godfrey Majonga said. The registration comes two months after the new media watchdog issued licences to three daily newspapers -- The NewsDay, The Daily News and The Daily Gazette.

At the International Criminal Court (ICC) review conference last month in Kampala, negotiations to add the crime of aggression to the court’s docket topped the agenda. The crime of initiating offensive warfare had been prosecuted after World War II. But when the Rome Conference established the ICC in 1998 as the first permanent court to try crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide, it deferred a decision on aggression to another day.

Somalia is one of the most dangerous places on earth to be a journalist. More than 30 reporters have been killed by armed groups since 1992 - including nine in 2009. The most recent journalist killing occurred on 4 May 2010, when three gunmen shot dead broadcast journalist Sheik Nur Mohamed Abkey as he was returning home from the state-run Radio Mogadishu. Members of the armed opposition group al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the killing.

Peacekeepers on patrol in the west of the war-ravaged Sudanese region of Darfur were ambushed today by unidentified gunmen, with seven blue helmets sustaining injuries, the United Nations reported.
According to the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), the troops returned fire on their attackers, who fled the scene. The joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur, known as UNAMID, immediately sent reinforcement troops to the scene of the clashes.

Ghana has achieved 99.99 per cent reduction of the Guinea Worm disease since its inception two decades ago. From a high of 4,136 cases recorded during the peak of its outbreak in 2006, only eight cases have been reported in Ghana since the beginning of January 2010, the last case was recorded in May.

Rwanda's upcoming presidential poll will be free, fair and more competitive than 2003 when incumbent Paul Kagame won over 90 percent of the vote, its electoral commission said on Friday. Donors say the introduction of a revised electoral code should ensure a peaceful and technically sound ballot, following the European Union's recommendations after the 2008 legislative elections where they found procedural irregularities in over half the polling stations.