Civil society activists are protesting the closure of a factory that produces the only UN World Health Organization-pre-qualified version of a life-prolonging antiretroviral (ARV) drug for infants. Pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS), which owns the French factory that produces didanosine, a second-line ARV for babies weighing less than 10kg, will shut down the plant in June 2010, stopping production of the drug until at least February 2011, when regulatory approval of a new United States-based manufacturing site is expected.

MTN Group Ltd. ended talks with Weather Investments S.p.A to acquire $10 billion of assets of Orascom Telecom Holding SAE, abandoning a potential deal for the fourth time in two years. The discussions “have been terminated,” Johannesburg- based MTN said in a statement, without giving a reason. The talks failed after Algeria’s government blocked a possible sale to MTN of Orascom’s largest and most profitable unit, Djezzy.

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Aid to poor countries should be tailored more towards benefiting European firms, a top-level Brussels official has recommended. Andris Piebalgs, the European Union's commissioner for development, is seeking a new aid strategy that has "value for money" as an overriding priority.

A recent march by over a thousand Ghanian Muslims against “the growing activities of gays and lesbians” in this West-African country, could hamper initiatives that target Men having sex with Men (MSM), such as HIV and Aids interventions, activists have warned. Mac-Darling Cobbinahof the Centre for Popular Education and Human Rights Ghana, an organisation that also caters for the MSM community said, following a march that went through principal streets of the Metropolis against homosexuality, after an alleged report that close to 60 gays and lesbians from eastern

“I would like to thank everybody for the support that I have been given since Friday and before that,” The Post editor Fred M’membe told Reporters Without Borders as he was released this afternoon from Lusaka prison, where he had just spent three days. “I am very grateful to my fellow journalists,” said M’membe, who was sentenced to four months in prison with hard labour on 4 June on a contempt of court charge. “I have received more than the support I thought I would get and I deserve.”

An experimental treatment for Ebola that could potentially save human lives has been shown to be completely effective in monkeys. If approved for human use it would be the first treatment for the deadly disease, according to Thomas Geisbert, a microbiologist at the US-based National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories Institute.

Allegations of massive fraud during May’s local elections in Burundi have cast a shadow over the country's democratic transition, prompting international calls for compromise rather than confrontation. Attributing the ruling CNDD-FDD’s landslide victory to ballot-box stuffing, vote-buying with state resources, the illegal use of proxies and a lack of secrecy in some polling stations, 13 opposition parties have announced a boycott of the 28 June presidential race, leaving President Pierre Nkurunziza as the only runner.

There is intense lobbying for the finalisation of a formal trade agreement on agricultural products between Namibia and China. The general mood in government corridors is explicitly clear that as of next year trade flows from Namibia to China should add tangible value to the local economy, instead of comprising minerals exports, as is the present case.

Outrun by large Chinese state corporations, now India is making ground in its fastest growing sector - telecommunications. The $10.7bn acquisition by Bharti Airtel, India’s largest mobile network, of the African assets of Kuwait’s Zain is a long awaited foray across the Indian Ocean.

The ICHRP is pleased to announce the publication of its new report Irregular Migration, Migrant Smuggling and Human Rights: Towards Coherence. Migration policies across the world are driven by three core concerns: border and law enforcement, economic interest, and protection. The report argues that official policies are failing partly because protection has been marginalised. Intensified efforts to suppress migration have not deterred people from seeking security or opportunity abroad but drive many into clandestinity, while the promotion of open economic markets has attracted millions of people to centres of prosperity but tolerated widespread exploitation. As a political consequence, discussion of migration is widely polarised and distorted by xenophobia and racism.

Six countries in Central Africa have committed to end the recruitment of child soldiers, a move welcomed by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) as a step forward in giving all young people in the region a better life. In the N’Djamena Declaration adopted yesterday, the six – Cameroon, Chad, the Central African Republic (CAR), Niger, Nigeria and Sudan – outlined their commitments to child protection in line with global standards, including those in the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict.

UNHCR is concerned about delays in a search-and-rescue operation involving a boat carrying more than 20 people, mostly Eritreans, near Malta. Distress calls were received on Sunday evening, including by UNHCR, and passed to Maltese and Italian maritime authorities. It is unclear which country had search-and-rescue responsibility when the distress calls were first sent. According to information made available to UNHCR, the boat was only rescued late on Monday, and by Libyan vessels.

UNESCO has said that although social science from Western countries continues to be of great global influence, the field is expanding rapidly in Asia and Latin America, particularly in China and Brazil. Quoting from its findings in a 2010 World Social Science Report - "Knowledge divides", UNESCO said in sub-Saharan Africa, social scientists from South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya produced 75% of academic publications

Sudanese President Omer al-Bashir has agreed to negotiate with the Southern Sudan on a pre-referendum that could herald the split of the semi-autonomous Southern Sudan from mainland Sudan. The Sudanese leader met the top leader of an African Union special panel on Darfur, Thabo Mbeki, former South African President, and announced he was ready for pre-referendum negotiations.

Zimbabwe's first private daily newspaper hit the streets to break a state monopoly established years ago after President Robert Mugabe's government banned a pro-opposition newspaper over a registration dispute. Mugabe, in power since independence in 1980, was forced to form a power-sharing government over a year ago with his rival, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, to tackle an economic and political crisis, including opening up the media industry.

The lawyers and paralegals of the Puntland Legal Aid Center go weekly to visit the 24 IDP camps that are scattered in and around Garowe to help displaced people with legal issues. The staff of the Center inform the IDPS of their rights, provide them with legal advice, and when needed, with free representation. Today, Youssuf, the Director of the Center, and Asha, a paralegal, are taking us to the Ajuran camp, by the river in Garowe.

The notorious rebel group known as the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) is carrying out ever more deadly attacks in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and also continues to abduct children to use as soldiers in its ranks, United Nations aid workers reported. The rebels have murdered an average of 102 civilians every month in the DRC’s Orientale province since last December, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said, compared with an average of 64 per month in the previous two years.

A court in Finland has sentenced a Rwandan pastor, Francois Bazaramba, to life in jail for his participation in Rwanda's genocide. Bazaramba, 59, moved in 2003 to the Scandinavian country which allows prosecutions for crimes against humanity wherever they are committed.

A human rights campaigner has been sentenced to three years in jail by an Angolan court that convicted him of committing crimes against the state, in what his lawyer says is part of a crackdown on activists. A judge found Angolan rights activist Andre Zeferino Puati guilty late on Thursday after authorities found documents in his possession aimed at inciting people to protest against the government, his lawyer said.