The International Detention Coalition has released a media statement for Universal Children’s Day 2009, which calls upon States to stop the detention of refugee, asylum seeker and migrant children and to use community alternatives to the detention of children and their caregivers.

An Abu Dhabi-based private sector investment firm has signed a contract to lease up to 700,000 hectares of farmland in Morocco, a company executive has said. Food prices have risen sharply over the past year, prompting governments and private sector firms in the Middle East to look into ways of securing supplies, as most of the food in the region is imported.

At the age of 42 years, Isabirye Kakaire Mutwalibi of Bulugodha village, Iganga district, one of the poverty-stricken districts in Eastern Uganda, boasts of seven grand children. He will be recording his eighth in the next five months, giving him a small edge of three grandchildren ahead of his age mates, all under 45 years.

International aid organisation Oxfam has criticised the Belgian Customs for the routine seizure of generic medicines sent to Africa from India or China, under the cover that they are fake. Contending that some of the medicines are generic versions, with undeniable therapeutic properties, the organisation therefore demanded an analysis of the seized drugs to confirm whether or not they are fake.

Sierra Leone’s anti-corruption commissioner has a simple message for foreign investors coming to his country for its mines and oil — offer bribes and you could find yourself in prison.

At least 3,000 foreigners, mainly Zimbabweans, have fled their homes in the De Doorns farming area on the Western Cape after they were attacked by South African mobs, the Red Cross said Wednesday.

The African Union Panel of the Wise held its seventh meeting at the African Union Commission in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on 9 and 10 November 2009 under the chairmanship of Ahmed Ben Bella.

High school students in the Niger capital, Niamey, learned to put HIV/AIDS and reproductive health in a broader context during a recent essay contest. "In preparing my essay I learned that AIDS is not a death sentence," said one female student who requested anonymity. "This kind of exercise should be encouraged because it allows students to increase their knowledge of AIDS and its consequences."

James Donkor, a journalist working with community radio station Radio Progress, in Wa, the capital of Ghana's Upper West region, was reportedly assaulted on 24 October 2009 and briefly detained by two policemen in the area. The journalist, who had photographed a man the policemen had allegedly tied to an electric pole, was accused of "disrespecting" the police officers.

Even when Guinea is not facing political crisis and reeling from a massacre, daily life is gruelling for many and instability is never far away. In this country that holds 30 percent of the world’s reserves of bauxite, the primary ore in aluminium, most people live hand-to-mouth; only about 19 percent of the population have access to proper sanitation facilities; malnutrition is widespread.

Reported cases of kala azar infection, a deadly disease also known as visceral leishmaniasis, have continued to rise in Southern Sudan, according to medical workers. "We are clearly in the midst of a kala azar epidemic," Jill Seaman, working in the Old Fangak clinic in Jonglei State, run by the Sudan Medical Relief organization, said.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has been feeding people in Lesotho since 1965, yet the tiny mountain kingdom is still not much closer to achieving food self-sufficiency. Time to overhaul the approach, aid agencies say. WFP generally only ships and provides food in crisis situations like civil conflicts and natural disasters. Programmes sometimes linger on after the emergency has passed, when food aid used is to help communities rebuild, but the goal is usually to move out.

Some 20,000 people wounded in Sierra Leone's war are receiving micro-grants as part of efforts to rebuild lives and livelihoods in the still fragile country. The initial grants of 300,000 leones (US$80) each are part of a government "reparations" programme, implemented by the National Commission for Social Action (NaCSA).

Three years after the Kenyan government began to promote emergency contraception as part of its family planning strategy, the “morning-after pill” remains as controversial as ever: critics argue that unless the public is better educated about its purpose, it risks undermining the messages of abstinence and protected sex, putting impressionable young people at risk of HIV.

Facing History is working in close partnership with Skylight Pictures to bring the documentary film, The Reckoning: The Battle for the International Criminal Court, and additional film modules into classrooms around the world. This is an invitation to join a free online workshop about justice, genocide, and the role of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Red Card is a component of a health communication campaign led by C-Change in Madagascar that was designed to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS and to curb associated risky behaviours by "letting girls call the shots" and sparking conversation between parents and adolescents. The campaign appropriated the signal soccer referees use to kick aggressive players out of a game; paper Red Cards were distributed to 1.5 million young women across Madagascar.

Former president Thabo Mbeki, together with his controversial health minister, Manto Tshabalala- Msimang, must be charged with genocide, says the SA Communist Party youth league. Young Communists League leader Buti Manamela said Mbeki and Tshabalala-Msimang denied hundreds of HIV-positive people access to antiretroviral drugs when they were in government.

The newly appointed Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, its causes and consequences, Ms. Rashida Manjoo, wishes to carry out a comprehensive research project on the topic of reparations for women who have been subjected to violence. The findings of the research will inform her first annual report, which will be presented at the 14th session of the Human Rights Council in June 2010. The consultant is expected to undertake a study that addresses in a comprehensive and coherent manner the main issues raised above and identify the challenges in the field of reparations to women who have been subjected to violence as well as any good practices and lessons learnt.

An apparent surge in the purchase of African land by foreign companies and governments to grow food and other crops for export has set alarm bells ringing on and off the continent. The headlines have been strident: “The Second Scramble for Africa Starts,” “Quest for Food Security Breeds Neo-Colonists,” “Food Security or Economic Slavery?”

Without adequate security or resources for education, young women and men in refugee camps would turn to prostitution or violence, the United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Chad said at a Headquarters press conference.Michele Falavigna, reporting on the humanitarian situation in Chad after his first three months, said the country had been at war for 40 years and had virtually "never known peace and development".