Scientists are pooling remote-sensing satellite data and geographical information services for two pan-African digital observatories that will provide accurate and readily accessible information on biodiversity and forest cover for policy-makers. Under a grant awarded in 2009, the European Commission's (EC) Joint Research Centre (JRC) is supporting the development of the observatories, details of which were discussed at the fourth EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF 2010).

When Macklean Kyomya came to the Ugandan capital, Kampala, at 19, she found work as a lap-dancer in a nightclub and was soon accepting money from clients in exchange for sex. "I enjoyed the feeling of power I had over men; I had a pimp who looked after me so I was never forced to do anything I didn't choose to," she told IRIN/PlusNews. "I was still doing my A-levels, so the money helped pay my way."

A series of meetings to educate residents about xenophobia in the informal settlement of Du Noon, Cape Town, will begin on 7 July and run until the final game of the FIFA World Cup on 11 July. On 27 June units of the South African army were deployed to the township in what police described as an "anti-crime operation", after widespread reports had been circulating that foreign nationals would be attacked on 12 July - the day after the final soccer world cup match.

Cameroon's government has rejected the claim by a gay asylum seeker in the UK that he would face persecution if he returned home. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court in London ruled in favour of the man, and a similar claimant from Iran.

Nigeria's president has said the hundreds of posts on his Facebook page helped persuade him to reverse his suspension of the national football team from international competition. "I have listened to your voices," Goodluck Jonathan said in a posting on the social networking site.

The Mozambican government has adopted various policies to address the effects of climate change, with special attention to women as studies show that they are more adversely affected by this phenomenon. The south-east African country, with its coastline of 2,700 km stretching along the Indian Ocean, has increasingly been subjected to environmental disasters over the past decade.

The progress made by Guinea-Bissau following last year’s political crisis could be jeopardized unless major reforms in the areas of defence and security are carried out, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says in a new report. Recent months have witnessed rising political and security tensions in the country, where a series of political assassinations last year had threatened security and stability but where order was restored with the election of Malam Bacai Sanhá in the June 2009 presidential election.

South African unions dropped a threat to strike at power utility Eskom this week after receiving a higher wage offer, ending concerns about electricity supplies during the soccer World Cup. Widespread power cuts could also have dented manufacturing and mining companies' output in Africa's biggest economy, the world's top platinum and fourth-largest gold producer.

An international autopsy team looking into the death of a prominent Congolese human rights activist was unable to give a conclusive cause of death. The death of Floribert Chebeya, whose corpse was found in his car last month after he was summoned to see the police chief, caused outrage and led to calls for an international investigation.

The World Bank has approved financing in the amount of US$44.7 million from the International Development Association (IDA) to the Government of Ghana as additional funding for the ongoing eGhana Project. The original eGhana Project of US$40 million was approved in 2006 to support the Ghana Information Communication Technology (ICT) for Accelerated Development Program.

With a view to raising awareness about available protections of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Kenyans in the Bill of Rights Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) and Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya hosted a Civic Education day on 19 June. The proposed new constitution, a summary of 18 chapters, was a theme for this day with discussions on how it will affect the Kenyan LGBT community.

The genetically diverse and "exquisitely well adapted" traits of Africa's livestock should be better harnessed to meet the continent's needs. Seventy per cent of Africa's rural poor keep livestock and 200 million people depend on the animals for their livelihoods. African livestock breeds have successfully survived, and adapted to, an extraordinary range of diseases and climate changes. But they are currently being displaced by "exotic" breeds imported from the developed world.

Twelve-year-old Rama* in Senegal’s Sédhiou region is still in school instead of wedded to a man in his 40s, after community members convinced her father to abandon the family’s plan to give her away. But in most cases family or social pressure to marry off young girls still wins out in many regions of the country, researchers and educators say.

An undersea cable that brought high-speed net access to East Africa for the first time has been hit by a fault, knocking many in the region offline. The owners of the Seacom cable said the exact cause of the fault was "still being investigated", but was thought to originate off the Kenyan coast.

The sun has almost set on the Soccer World Cup and its seeming suspension of our South African 'normalcy'. No doubt, many will try their best to continue to bask in its positively proclaimed 'developmental legacy'; but, as sure as the sun will rise on the morning after, so too will the reality of that ‘normalcy’ bite us like an unhappy dog. Nowhere will this be more apparent than in the world of South African soccer itself.

New research identifying Haiti and Mozambique as the countries most vulnerable to economic losses from natural disasters also classifies a number of industrialised economies, including Italy, Japan, China, USA, Spain and France, as "high risk" environments for investors, insurers and business.

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) has welcomed Namibia’s decision to remove travel restrictions for people living with the virus, a move that aligns the country’s laws with international public health standards. The new legislation lifting restrictions for people living with HIV/AIDS and other contagious diseases took effect in Namibia on 1 July. Restrictions that limit movement based on HIV-positive status only are discriminatory and violate human rights, according to UNAIDS.

Constitutional outreach teams have now been deployed to every corner of the country, three weeks after the program was launched in Harare. SW Radio Africa is reliably informed that the Constitutional Parliamentary Committee (COPAC) that is leading the reforms has this week received less complaints from its teams conducting public consultative meetings.

HIV doctors and activists have slammed a male circumcision clamp that is being aggressively marketed in South Africa and the rest of the continent with a small study showing that it is much more painful that the surgical route and has more adverse events. In a joint statement the Southern African HIV Clinicians Society and the Treatment Action Campaign said although they supported the implementation of a country-wide voluntary male medical circumcision (VMMC) programme, they had concerns about the Tara Klamp.

Robust early increases in CD4 cell count reduce the risk of death for patients with HIV, even those who are severely malnourished, investigators from Zambia report in the online edition of AIDS. The large, prospective study showed that an increase in CD4 cell count of less than 100 cells/mm3 six months after starting HIV treatment was associated with an increased risk of mortality, especially for those who were malnourished.