Microsoft will want to be a player rather than just a big spender in South Africa’s black empowerment policy, the company has said following the announcement it would spend about half a billion rands (about US$ 64 million) in the next seven years to boost local business partnerships.

African nations must pool resources to promote local pharmaceutical innovation, say Ibrahim Assane Mayaki and Carel IJsselmuiden. Africa bears a quarter of the world's disease burden, yet accounts for less than one per cent of global expenditure on health. About half of the continent's population lacks access to essential medicines and the few drugs that are available often come from outside — Sub-Saharan Africa imports nearly 90 per cent of its medicines.

Does your community need access to information but has limited or no access to the internet or email? Do you want to be able to share more information than 160 characters allows? Freedom Fone offers the possibility to extend the reach of information to citizens and groups presently excluded from the information loop because of lack of access to resources such as computers and the internet.

Zimbabwe is expected to pass legislation that could help it take better advantage of information technology, despite the economic crisis that has gripped the country. The Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Bill, which would pave the way for implementing a strategic ICT plan launched in February, is currently awaiting cabinet approval before it goes to parliament for further scrutiny.

The rise of an organized poor people's movement in South Africa's most populous province, KwaZulu-Natal, is being met with increasing hostility by the ruling African National Congress (ANC) government, which claims to be the legitimate representative of the poorest of the poor. South Africa has been rocked by increasingly frequent service delivery protests - a euphemism for communities taking to the streets to voice their frustration with the alleged slow pace of social service provision - but it is the formation of a militant non-aligned social movement, Abahlali Basemjondolo - shack-dwellers movement, in Zulu - that is causing greatest concern.

In March GenARDIS grant winners met for the last time after more than a year of innovative research and work to improve rural women’s lives in countries like Ethiopia, the Dominican Republic and Zambia. With projects as diverse as community radio drama groups, pest control through information access and using technology to promote women’s inheritance and land rights, projects were as diverse as the countries they came from.

In this week's roundup of emerging actors news, Moroccan prime minister meets Communist Party delegation, China to embark on multi-billion dollar investment in Ethiopia, South Africa boosts coal supplies to China and India, and Korea has important lessons to teach Africa.

A World Bank report said that some 64 million more people would be living in extreme poverty in 2010 due to global recession. "The economic crisis and recession have substantially increased the challenge of meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) targets," the World Development Indicator (WDI) 2010, released by the bank on Wednesday, stated.

African Union (AU) Commission Chair Jean Ping is in the US for a series of meetings, including the first annual US-AU High Level Bilateral Meeting at the State Department here. During his trip, Ping, who is leading an AU delegation, will discuss issues of mutual concern with some of the most senior US officials, including the Attorney General, USAID Administrator Raj Shah and the U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk.

The protagonists in Madagascar's political crisis have agreed to attend talks in South Africa on April 28. President Andry Rajoelina ousted Marc Ravalomanana with the help of dissident soldiers in March last year after weeks of popular protests. The two have been at loggerheads ever since as international mediators work to install a unity government.

A video showing election fraud during Sudan's election is being circulated online. Sudan's National Elections Commission has dismissed it as fake. The video show election officials stuffing ballot boxes. Oppoition groups claim that the video proves their claims of rigging by by the ruling National Congress Party (NCP).

The Democratic Republic of Congo army killed at least 11 civilians as it retook the airport in Mbandaka from rebels this month, a rights group says. The Asadho campaign group says it has confirmed 11 killings but suspects another 31 during the Easter attack. Nine of the dead had been in detention for three months but were then accused of being rebels and killed, it said. The government is investigating.

French state-owned company Areva continues to deny any wrongdoing after findings that populated areas in Niger remain contaminated with high levels of radio-activity. The company seems to be escaping censure partly because of lack of data on cancer-related causes of death among Nigeriens working at or living near the uranium mines.

On April 13 the number two in the Vatican hierarchy, the Pope’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, claimed that there is a link between homosexuality and paedophilia. The LGBT movement worldwide has risen up against this false, despicable and anti-scientific statement from the Vatican, which is trying to deflect attention from priests’ sex crimes by blaming LGBT people.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has spoken out against the large number of rapes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), voicing concern at the impunity with which the attacks are being carried out. On average, 14 assaults have been recorded daily over the past three months, but “we fear that the real numbers could be much higher considering that many survivors keep silent for fear of being ostracized,” agency spokesperson Melissa Fleming told reporters in Geneva.

Tanzania is deporting 57 Somali migrants who illegally entered that country last month, officials said. The migrants who were fleeing from the war in Somalia are mostly youth and included six children, officials said.

Two Eritrean rebel groups said they killed 11 government soldiers and wounded some 20 others in a coordinated attack on military camps in southern Eritrea. The groups -- the Red Sea Afar Democratic Organisation (RSADO) and the Eritrean National Salvation Front (ENSF) -- said in a joint statement that they had briefly taken control of the camps on Thursday and seized weapons and military intelligence.

On April 19, an Assembly of the Social Movements was one of the first activities on the agenda at the People's World Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba, Bolivia. The Assembly highlighted the popular focus of the conference, which was organized by the Bolivian government after the failure of governments and industries to negotiate a plan to stop climate change in Copenhagen last December.The conference is being held from April 19 thru 22 and is meant to amplify the voices of those who were not heard in Copenhagen.

A Cabinet committee has recommended changes to Ndorwa West MP David Bahati’s anti-gay legislation that preclude the possibility of discarding it, Daily Monitor has learnt. But the report, which is yet to be discussed by Cabinet, indicts Mr Bahati for not applying the kind of sophistication that would have anticipated the international condemnation that came after the draft legislation was tabled in Parliament last year.

The sixth Partnership Platform (PP) Meeting of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) opened Thursday in Johannesburg, South Africa, providing participants with an opportunity for multi-partner peer interaction, review and experience sharing among the core institutions and partners involved in CAADP implementation.