Researchers have started testing the safety a vaginal ring containing an antiretroviral drug in South Africa in the hope that it has the potential to prevent HIV infection in women. The clinical trial, known as IPM 015 will test the safety and acceptability of the dapivirine-containing vaginal ring – which is successfully used in Europe as a delivery method for hormonal therapy and birth control.

TB patients who have knowledge regarding the relationship between TB and HIV or have been counselled on HIV are more likely to report having used a condom during sexual intercourse, according to a study presented at the 2nd South African TB conference held in Durban last week.

The United Nations envoy in Côte d’Ivoire has urged a new impetus for the country’s electoral process and reunification efforts to overcome the ongoing political impasse and make progress towards the holding of the long-delayed presidential polls. The objective in the immediate future is to concentrate on the production of the definitive electoral list, Y. J. Choi, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative, said in Abidjan on Wednesday following a meeting with the head of the Democratic Party of Côte d’Ivoire, Henri Konan Bédié.

The UN refugee agency has reported it had been told by the government of Libya to close its office in that country and halt activities. Speaking at a press briefing in Geneva, UNHCR's chief spokesperson, Melissa Fleming, told journalists that UNHCR was hoping the closure would be temporary and that negotiations to find a solution were continuing. However, she indicated that until the matter was resolved there would be difficulties in meeting vital refugee needs.

UN Standing Committee on Nutrition has called for more diverse food sources to curb the impact of climate change on agriculture. The committee made the call in its latest publication. It reported that climate change trends will also affect food and nutrition security.

The global economic recovery continues to advance, but Europe's debt crisis has created new hurdles on the road to sustainable medium term growth, cautions the World Bank's latest Global Economic Prospects 2010 released on Wednesday. The World Bank projects global GDP to expand between 2.9% and 3.3% in 2010 and 2 011, strengthening to between 3.2% and 3.5% in 2012, reversing the 2.1% decline in 2009.

Scores of infants in northern Nigeria could be left with long-term neurological damage from lead poisoning caused by illegal gold mining which has already killed at least 170, most of them under five. Authorities in the state of Zamfara, aided by international agencies including Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), the World Health Organisation and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), are helping treat the sick and bury mines to try to contain the pollution before heavy rains due next month

Food insecurity and livelihoods have been compounded by a critical lack of water in the worst-hit southern province of Zinder. "The women with whom I've spoken in villages have said water is their first problem," UN Under-Secretary General John Holmes told journalists during a visit to Zinder in late April.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has called on Sudanese authorities to release up to a dozen journalists who have been held for over two weeks in two separate incidents in the North and South of the country. In Kharthoum, deputy Editor Abu Zar al-Amin and reporters Ashraf Abdel Aziz and Dahab Ibrahim, all working for the opposition owned Rai al-Shaab's newspaper have been in detention since 16 May accused of undermining relations between Sudan and the United State

Survivors of the brutal conflict that has wracked northern Uganda for two decades, most of them young people, must be helped back on their feet by supporting their efforts to acquire skills that will help them reintegrate into society, a United Nations envoy has said after spending a week in the country. “Armed conflict creates victims, but also survivors whose resilience must be reinforced by government, international organizations and civil society as well as adequate rehabilitation and reintegration programmes,” said Radhika Coomaraswamy, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict.

South African Foreign Affairs officials in Pretoria are making frantic efforts to squeeze in a meeting between President Jacob Zuma and the three principals who will be at the official opening of the FIFA World Cup. The World Cup opens in Johannesburg on Friday and Robert Mugabe, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and his deputy Arthur Mutambara have been invited to attend. The three will travel to the football extravaganza having failed to agree on any of the outstanding issues in the GPA during their Tuesday meeting in Harare.

For lies to continue to hide the truth they must be constantly sustained and maintained. For truth to be able to emerge from under the lies we have to constantly remember what has really been said and done, by whom and for what purpose. We have often said that the attack on our movement in the Kennedy Road settlement on the 26th and 27th of September last year was planned at a very high political level. It was planned outside of the Kennedy Road settlement.

Behaviour change and high AIDS death rates contributed to the substantial decline in HIV prevalence in Zimbabwe from 29% in 1997 to close to 16% in 2007 according to findings published by Simon Gregson and colleagues in the April 20th advance online edition of the International Journal of Epidemiology.

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.