When Citadel Capital announced its plan to open an eastern Africa office in Nairobi by January this year, there was little excitement even as the Egyptian firm went ahead to explain that its interest in the region will extend to food transport. By the time the announcement was made late last year, Citadel Capital was already a household name in the region –just fresh from acquiring a stake in struggling Rift Valley Railways (RVR).

Canada will grant Mali CFA F 9.3 billion to enable the African country train health professionals for a period of six months, according to a memorandum of understanding (MOU), signed Wednesday in Bamako, the capital, between the two countries. The grant will also enable Mali to implement its Programme for Health and Social Development (PRODESS) and the Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategic Framework(GPRSF).

The remains of late Nigeria's President Umaru Yar'Adua were laid to rest Thursday evening in his home town of Katsina in the country's northern part. After funeral prayers led by the Chief Imam of Katsina, Mohammed Aliu, the body, draped in the national flag, was taken by foot some six kilometres away to the Dan Marna cemetery, one of the top cemeteries in the ancient town.

The April edition of the , Rwandan refugees in Uganda fear forced repatriation as threat of Cessation Clause looms, Ethiopians repatriated from Puntland, urgent action needed to save lives of Saharawi activists, and Kakuma Refugee Free Press threatened.

Were it not for the police men in blue tunics with a Botswana coat of arms patrolling the cordoned off area, most visitors to the Dukwi refugee camp would barely realize that they are in Botswana. The camp, which is synonymous with Botswana’s hard line policy towards refugees, is a grim hovel where those inside have different rights from those outside. Residents can not move out of the camp without an official pass.

We, representatives of organizations of farmers, fisherfolk, Indigenous Peoples, pastoralists, women’s groups, NGOs and other civil society organizations met on May 4 2010 here in Luanda to deliberate on issues affecting food security in Africa during the 26 FAO Regional Conference for Africa. The objective of civil society’s engagement in this process is to contribute critically and provide own perspectives informed by social organisations and communities experiences in their efforts to achieve food security and food sovereignty.

The announcement that South Africa would host the 2010 World Cup prompted a whirlwind of heavy investment in infrastructure, with high expectations for an economic boom. Obviously, the 2010 World Cup will also boost tourism, but how far will these benefit society as a whole, not just a privileged few? asks Nasser Kigwangallah.

They may number as few as 100 men, women and adolescents, but Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) units scattered across the forests of northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo's Orientale Province have sown sufficient terror to make some 318,000 people take flight, abandoning their homes and fields, in many cases to the uncertain sanctuary of urban centres.

With increased globalisation, urbanisation and growing prosperity, the world's ecosystems will continue to pay a high price as the toll has never been greater, according to two new UN reports.

About 210,000 primary school students from eight of Angola's 18 provinces will benefit from two million text-books offered to the Ministry of Education by the European Union (EU).

More than 10 African heads of state and government were converging here Wednesday for the three-day conference of the World Economic Forum that is specifically dedicated to the continent's economic future. A brainstorming session on 'Turning Vision into Reality' was billed to kick- start the meeting by examining the current, changing global landscape and identify opportunities that can unlock Africa's growth potential and the barriers to social and economic progress in the coming year.

The Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) of the University of the Western Cape, Isandla Institute and Studies on Poverty and Inequality Institute (SPII) with support from the Programme to Support Pro-Poor Policy Development (PSPPD) of the Office of the Presidency, and the Chronic Poverty Research Centre (CPRC) form a partnership to host a three-day national conference on structural poverty to be held in Johannesburg, South Africa on 20 - 22 September 2010.

Security officials in Ghana are cracking down on migrant Fulani herdsmen, accusing them of rape, vandalism, destruction of farms and armed robbery, but conflict resolution specialists say the herdsmen are being manipulated and the government must abide by regional right-of-passage laws.

A new study of adult mortality tells the tale of HIV over decades and across borders and how treatment may have helped to rewrite the ending. Published in The Lancet’s 30 April early online edition, the study compares adult mortality between 1970 and 2010 in 187 countries.

A few days ago, 9000 workers at the Naga Hammadi aluminum factory in Upper Egypt staged a protest, demanding that the Egyptian government raise the minimum wage to LE1200, and calling for a withdrawal of confidence from their official trade union committee.

The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions says the controversial diamond mine in Chiadzwa, Manicaland Province, must be nationalised. ZCTU chairman Lovemore Matombo said no single individual or company should be allowed to exploit the diamonds now at the centre of a row between a British company which claims title and the state-owned Zimbabwe Mining Development Company (ZMDC).

On the occasion of World Press Freedom Day, Sokari Ekine reflects on the murders of three Nigerian journalists. She accuses the Nigerian press of colluding with government in its own oppression and presenting an illusion of the free press by failing to defend its own members.

Two out of three gay South African respondents to an online survey said that going online had helped them accept their sexual orientation and many admitted to coming out online before they did so offline. But the voices of transgender people rarely appear in studies and surveys.

Most NGOs and UN agencies in Niger agree that in 2010 humanitarian actors are better geared to respond to the food security crisis than they were in 2005, but some say there is a risk of repeating mistakes in information-sharing, planning appropriate responses, and raising funds more quickly. "There are similarities to 2005 that donors and the aid community must heed in order to avert a disaster in 2010," warned CARE, an NGO focusing on poverty eradication, in a communiqué on 26 April.

Schoolchildren in South Africa are having less sex, and those that are, are doing it more safely, the second National Youth Risk Behaviour Survey by the Medical Research Council (MRC) has found. Over 10,000 students in their last three years of high school participated in the survey, which showed "significant reductions" in risky sexual behaviour.