The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued a second arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, adding genocide to the list of charges for crimes he has allegedly committed in the war-ravaged Darfur region. The Court’s pre-trial chamber said that there are reasonable grounds to believe Mr. al-Bashir is responsible for three counts of genocide against the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups, including genocide by killing; genocide by causing serious bodily or mental harm; and genocide by deliberately inflicting conditions of life meant to destroy each target group.

Uganda can provide 2,000 more troops needed to bring the African Union force in Somalia to its full strength if no other nation volunteers, the army's spokesman said. "We are capable of providing the required force if other countries fail to do so," Ugandan army spokesman Felix Kulayigye said. "I should say, however, that I think it is appropriate that other countries contribute."

A senior Tanzanian defence lawyer at the UN-backed tribunal for Rwanda has been shot dead outside his home in Tanzania's main city of Dar es Salaam. Jwani Mwaikusa, who also taught law at the University of Dar es Salaam, was killed as he drove into his compound on the outskirts of the town.

International AIDS Conferences—like the one planned for next week in Vienna—can be strange affairs. On the one hand, there is a reason to celebrate: Scaled up treatment campaigns have prolonged millions of lives; HIV testing and education are reaching many more. Yet, on the other hand, there is the reality that more than 33 million people are living with HIV worldwide. Despite efforts to expand treatment, nearly three million more become infected each year. In Zambia alone, over one million people are living with HIV.

The United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator, John Holmes, has allocated some $41 million to underfunded humanitarian operations in nine countries across the globe where people are suffering the effects of hunger, malnutrition, disease, and conflict. The funds made available today will be granted to United Nations humanitarian agencies and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and through them to partner organizations, including non-governmental organizations (NGOs), to cover funding gaps in key humanitarian projects in the affected countries

Amnesty International has called on the Kenyan authorities to halt the forced evictions in a Nairobi settlement that have left hundreds of families homeless and destitute. A bulldozer from the Nairobi City Council flattened market stalls in Kabete NITD on Tuesday night for the second time this week. On Saturday, authorities had demolished around 100 homes and 470 market stalls.

United Nations development chief Helen Clark has lauded the progress made by Ghana towards women’s empowerment and gender equality, one of the eight social and economic objectives known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that world leaders have pledged to achieve by 2015. Miss Clark, who is Administrator of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), was impressed by the “tremendous amount of activity on the legal framework for women,” she said yesterday as she began her three-day visit to the country.

Sudanese government has expelled two foreign employees of the International Organization for Migration working in the country's Darfur region, the agency said Thursday. The organization's Geneva-based spokesman, Jean-Philippe Chauzy, said the Sudanese government gave no explanation for the move. The expulsion order comes days after the International Criminal Court charged Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, with genocide in Darfur.

OSISA seeks the services of a team of consultants to undertake an evaluation of OSISA’s programming in gender and women’s rights in Southern Africa, since its establishment. The evaluation is designed to be an important process that should draw lessons that OSISA ought to learn from its experiences in the past decade, as well as highlight opportunities for the Foundation going forward. The evaluation has two key overarching objectives, namely:

If you had 24 hours to capture your world on film, how would it look? The One Day on Earth project plans to have this question answered by tens of thousands of filmmakers worldwide. They are inviting global citizens everywhere to tell the story of their world during the 24-hour period of Oct. 10, 2010. Filmmakers will be able to share their videos and perspectives from 10/10/10 on

John Muswere, 34, arrived four hours ago at the main bus terminus in Harare, capital of Zimbabwe, after making an unplanned journey with his wife, their three-year-old child and few household possessions from Johannesburg, South Africa, where he spent 18 months working as a mechanic. "I am left with little money on me because I left South Africa in a hurry and before my employer could pay me. All the transport operators are saying my money is too little and I don't know how I am going to leave this place [the bus terminus]," Muswere told IRIN while his wife tried to pacify their wailing child.

Argentina has approved a gay marriage law, making the country the first in Latin America where same-sex couples can wed. Same sex couples will now be granted the same rights, responsibilities and protections that married couples have. President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s government supported the bill and defied the Catholic Church’s opposition to the law.

When Baraka, a young mother in Guidimouni, southern Niger, took her 13-month-old son Abdul to the local health centre, tests showed that he was suffering from severe acute malnutrition and malaria. He spent a week in an outpatient feeding programme but continued to lose weight.

The International Criminal Court ruled Thursday that Congolese militia chief Thomas Lubanga should be freed after his war crimes trial was suspended unless prosecutors mount an appeal within days. Presiding judge Adrian Fulford that Lubanga should be "freed without conditions" as his detention "is no longer fair" given the suspension of the trial.

A reminder to the ANC that it needed to deepen democracy in society arrived at the ANC’s Polokwane conference, where one major gripe against President Mbeki was that he had failed to create “policy coherence” amongst the ANC and its alliance partners, let alone the broader society. Mbeki was criticised for insulating public policy through technocratic methods, and failing to build consensus in society beyond the so-called chattering classes. Whilst Mbeki’s vision for a post-colonial society that worked rested on making unpopular decisions, it was at least palpable.

African countries have to balance their spending on Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for education better. Skills development among teachers, which accounts for only 10% of most countries’ ICT budgets, has to be strengthened. Spending on costly hardware, which covers 90% of most countries budgets, should rather be reduced. This is one of the key recommendations of a communiqué released by participants in the Third African Ministerial Round Table on ICT for Education, Training and Development.

For a while after the global financial crisis broke, we were told that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) would change. The Group of Twenty (G-20) meeting in April 2009 provided a massive increase in resources for the IMF to provide lending to countries affected by the crisis. In return, the Fund announced that it was going to be more supportive of enlarged fiscal deficits and other expansionary measures in the face of the crisis, and provide large amounts of funds to developing countries to cope with the situation.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has added its voice to that of journalists in Africa and around the world who have been shocked by the news of the death of leading Cameroonian journalist Pius Njawe who has been killed in a car accident in the United States. "Pius Njawe was a great friend of press freedom and also a loyal supporter of journalists, not just in Africa, but around the world," said Aidan White, IFJ General Secretary.

The United Nations rural development arm is helping to improve agricultural programmes in West Africa’s Sahel region, especially in Niger, which is currently in the throes of a growing food crisis. Recurrent food shortages have impacted the Sahel, a narrow band south of the Sahara desert also including Burkina Faso, Chad, Eritrea, Mali, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal and Sudan. The last severe drought in 2005 resulted in a famine that claimed 1 million lives and affected another 50 million people.

The political tension in Rwanda is heightening as a leading opponent of Rwanda's President Paul Kagame on Friday called for a boycott of next month's presidential elections because she and a number of would-be candidates have been barred from standing. Victoire Ingabire, the leader of the unregistered United Democratic Forces party who faces charges of crimes linked to genocide denial, told Reuters Kagame faces little competition and is set to easily secure a second seven-year term.