With less than a year to go to Tanzania's parliamentary and presidential elections, the people have started to give vent to their frustration with the performance of the present government in tackling rampant corruption, local newspapers reported this week.

Gambia women rights group, The Gambia Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children (GAMCOTRAP) will honour ex-circumcisers and their communities at the Basse Stadium in the Upper River Region.

South African agricultural policy is obsessed with market driven agricultural models while disproportionately high numbers of our people remain hungry. This is a hangover from our historical legacy, which continues in the form of internal and external neo-liberal pressures on government to conform to the tyranny of the market.

Kenyan farmers are concerned about climate change as they see crop production decrease because of rising temperatures, unreliable rainfall, soil erosion and drought.

The United Nations refugee chief has appealed to Spain and Morocco to consider any measure to pave the way for the movement of a Saharawi activist who started a hunger strike last month and whose condition is rapidly deteriorating.

Talks to resolve outstanding issues in the Global Political Agreement will continue over the weekend, amid reports the government will make an ‘important announcement’ next week. Speculation is rife in Harare that the principals might have agreed on the final composition of candidates to sit on the various commissions meant to reshape and democratize the country’s political arena.

Africa faces two linked problems that are holding back the extension of mobile services into a wider range of rural areas: diesel supplies are sometimes unpredictable and prices are high. For the first time mobile operators in Uganda this week sought to address the power problem by forming a consortium.

Blind women, long marginalised in Arab society, should be allowed to rise from the role of mere workers to become dynamic leaders, according to local and international activists who convened in Tunis this week.

Representatives of several humanitarian NGOs have called on the international community to raise FCFA 160 billion (US$ 368 million) in a bid to help impoverished people in the 15 ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) member countries and Mauritania.

Guinea’s capital is on edge following a botched assassination attempt on the head of the ruling junta, with residents bracing for further violence between out-of-control army factions. Pickup trucks carrying heavily armed soldiers moved through the quiet streets of the normally bustling city searching for suspects in the attack, with shops open only part-time and most residents staying indoors.

Uganda's government should reform the country's election laws to improve accountability for election-related crimes and reduce the risk of violence in the upcoming 2011 elections, Human Rights Watch has said in a report.

The discovery of oil in Chad was supposed to allieviate poverty and human suffering, but it's only enriched Western Oil companies and the local dictators.

Three Rwandan peacekeepers from the joint African Union-United Nations mission in Darfur (UNAMID) were killed and others wounded in an attack by unidentified gunmen while collecting water in the north of the strife-torn Sudanese region.

Twelve students from Fort Hare University in South Africa have expressed fears about returning home to Zimbabwe, saying they will be sent to prison for supporting the MDC.

The growth of cellphone use, particularly in the developing world, is providing health experts with a new channel of communication to provide family planning information.

Twenty-two developing countries have agreed to cut tariffs on manufactured goods in a bid to boost South-South trade in the absence of progress in the Doha Round.

The first round of the Ivorian presidential election will take place between the end of February and the beginning of March 2010, the Permanent Consultation Framework (CPC) on the Ivorian crisis announced here Thursday evening.

Namibian President Hifikepunye Pohamba has been re-elected for a second term after winning 76.4% of the vote in last week's poll, official results show. Mr Pohamba's governing Swapo party got 74% of the parliamentary vote, maintaining its two-thirds majority.

Guinea's military government should immediately release or bring specific charges against the human rights defender Mouctar Diallo, Human Rights Watch has said.

The major IFIs have appealed to the governments meeting at Copenhagen to come to a comprehensive agreement on climate change mitigation, pledging to use their own resources to contribute. Some are critical, however, of how ready these institutions are to tackle the issues involved.