This year's 8th Annual Digital Africa Summit is set to be Africa’s premier ICT business summit, creating more opportunities for learning, partnerships and business, with ICT’s, telephony and broadband being globally recognized as a prerequisite for social and economic development the opportunity to engage positive change has never been greater.

Three major public-sector unions launched a general strike Wednesday (March 3rd) after two months of negotiations with the government reached an impasse. "We're not fans of strike action," Democratic Labour Federation general secretary Abderrahman Azzouzi said, "but after a two-month halt in the negotiation process, we had to do something."

The 4th International CBA conference (21-27th February) gathered representatives from the developing world to share knowledge and developments in community-based adaptation. The Community Based Adaptation Exchange (CBAX), an IIED and IDS project, collaborated with the AfricaAdapt Network to report from the conference via blogs, photos and videos. The coverage of the event has been hosted on the CBA-X platform.

About 27 students, suspended from UMthwalume high school, on suspicion that they are homosexuals, have been allowed back in school. This was a result of a meeting between parents of suspended learners, the school governing body and the Department of Education of Ugu Municipality in KwaZulu-Natal

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has signed a grant agreement of US$8 million with the Republic of The Gambia to improve the production and marketability of livestock and horticulture products, specifically targeting rural women and youth nationwide.

HIV stakeholders are calling on the Medicines Control Council (MCC) to speed up the registration of critical anti-HIV medication or face legal action. The Southern African HIV Clinicians Society has sent an appeal to the health minister to intervene and address the MCC registration process which they describe as the single biggest obstacle to getting affordable access to medicines.

A study presented at the recent Seventeenth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections founds that Ugandans presenting at a TB clinic grossly overestimated the likelihood that they had HIV. It also found that those who thought they had HIV were significantly less likely to refer members of their household for HIV testing than those who did not think so.

Maghreb countries should abandon protectionism in order to boost lagging regional trade, according to participants in a recent conference on economic integration organised by Tunisia's Foreign Ministry. The conference on Maghreb Economic Integration, which was held on February 17th to mark the 21st anniversary of the establishment of the Maghreb Union, was attended by high-ranking Tunisian officials, businessmen and professors.

Education - particularly the education of girls - is fundamental to development, and is increasingly recognized as not only a national but also a global responsibility. The recent international effort called the Fast Track Initiative has significantly expanded basic education, notes Oxfam International in a new report.

Al-Shabab, the Somali Islamist opposition group, has announced it will stop World Food Programme (WFP) operations in Somalia. The armed group said on Sunday that food distributed by the UN agency had disadvantaged local farmers and accused the WFP of being politically motivated.

Medical male circumcision is now widely recognized as an important HIV prevention tool, and several African countries have included it in their national HIV strategies. IRIN/PlusNews lists the progress of 13 nations in eastern and southern Africa identified as priority countries for male circumcision scale-up by the UN World Health Organization.

Civil society organisations have warned of worsening human rights abuse at the hands of state security agents, explaining that in the last three months there has been an escalation in the number of threats, intimidation and harassment against its members.

The Government has unveiled the National Information Communication strategic plan that will run from 2010 to 2014, and is expected to usher the country into the global information "super highway".

Slower progress towards achieving Millenium Development Goals on health is strongly correlated with a country’s burden of HIV disease and non-communicable diseases, according to an analysis by researchers from the London School of Hygiene, Oxford University and the University of California San Francisco published today in PLoS Medicine.

Kenyan companies are missing billions of shillings in new revenue because of lack of expertise to develop projects that help reduce carbon dioxide emissions and therefore earn from the global carbon trading market. The global carbon trading market, which rewards projects that help reduce emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, is now worth estimated Sh12.5 trillion ($170 billion), according to industry data provider, Carbin Point, but only a very small fraction of this money, estimated at two per cent, is coming to Africa.

The opening of an exhibition by young, black women artists at Constitution Hill turned sour when Arts and Culture Minister Lulu Xingwana stormed out of the exhibition, calling the work "immoral". Xingwana, whose department gave R300,000 to the Innovative Women exhibition, which was launched in Johannesburg to coincide with Women's Day last August, left before she was due to speak at the opening.

Women & Mobile: A Global Opportunity is a study on the mobile phone gender gap in low and middle-income countries. The study report was launched at the Mobile World Congress by Rob Conway, CEO of the GSM Association (GSMA), Cherie Blair, Founder of the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women and Brooke Partridge, CEO of Vital Wave Consulting. The Mobile World Congress was held in Barcelona, Spain, from 15 - 18 February 2010.

A husband and wife can keep separate homes, but only with the husband’s approval. A divorcée can keep her ex-husband’s name – if he agrees. A girl should be able to marry at 15. These and a dozen other changes to the family code are being proposed by Mali’s top Islamic council, even though they were blocked last August after strong opposition from some Muslim leaders.

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe said on Thursday that he was prepared to stand for re-election if asked to do so by his Zanu PF party. "If Zanu PF says yes, I will," 86-year-old Mugabe, who has ruled the former British colony since independence in 1980, told journalists in a rare press conference. Elections are due in two years.

HIV has become the leading cause of death and disease among women of reproductive age worldwide, the UN programme on HIV/Aids says. At the start of a 10-day conference in New York, UNAids launched a five-year action plan addressing the gender issues which put women at risk.