Experts predict that in the next decade there will be 4 million chronically malnourished children in Mozambique, which despite recent, rapid economic growth and the discovery of large natural gas deposits remains one of the world's poorest countries.

A lecture by an Israeli diplomat at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) was cancelled on Monday, less than 24-hours before he was to speak. The university said: 'The university is committed to a non-racial and democratic society where debate, dialogue and divergent viewpoints are encouraged.'

The attack on Mali's president Diancounda Traore by angry protesters puts the post-coup transition in the West African country in danger, the UN says. The diplomatic efforts by the west African bloc Ecowas to convince the leaders of the March coup to accept Traore’s 12-month transition have been 'put seriously in danger by these latest developments [and] maybe other options will now have to be considered,' France’s UN ambassador Gerard Araud told reporters in Abidjan.

A government minister has warned workers in the kingdom that they cannot invite trade unionists from overseas to Swaziland without permission. Lufto Dlamini, Minister of Labour and Social Security, said Swazi unions could not have any meetings with organisations which had not informed government of their mission. He was reacting to a meeting that took place 21 May between Swazi unionists and a delegation of workers from the UK and the Netherlands.

Madagascar has a low level of HIV prevalence, and managing its AIDS programme should present no major difficulties. But the apparent advantage of a low infection rate, combined with the ongoing political crisis, has brought its own challenges. Madagascar, and the neighbouring islands states of Comoros, Mauritius and Seychelles, are anomalies in the context of HIV/AIDS in Africa. Prevalence is very low - around 0.37 per cent, or 24,000 confirmed cases - and restricted to a few sections of the population. Recent research has revealed that the groups most infected are men having sex with men (14 per cent), intravenous drug users (7 per cent) and prison populations. HIV prevalence among female commercial sex workers is relatively low.

A farmer who says that Heritage Oil dumped dozens of truckloads of waste in a pit dug on his land, a few kilometres north of Murchison Falls National Park, is still waiting for the National Environmental Monitoring Agency (NEMA) to give him the results of tests they conducted in 2009, and for the waste to be removed for permanent disposal elsewhere. Douglas Oluoch, 43, relates that he first came into contact with Heritage in his capacity as a local councillor (LC II) in Purongo sub-county of what is now Nwoya District. In 2008, he says, a Heritage official, who he can identify only as 'Albert', offered to pay him for accepting waste from exploration wells dug within the National Park.

Globally activists are celebrating the decision by the Quakers to divest nearly $1 million of shares from Caterpillar because they sell bulldozers and other equipment to destroy Palestinian lives, homes, trees and land. This courage decision is the beginning of serious disinvestment from Caterpillar. The image below demonstrates how Israel uses Caterpillar bulldozers to destroy Palestinian homes. Similarly, from Australia and the US to Europe, activists globally are celebrating the South African government’s first step in the direction of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign demands, reports the blog,

The International Trade Union Confederation is demanding that the Algerian authorities stop repression of the country’s emerging independent trade union movement. A wave of harassment of members of the National Independent Union of Public Administration Personnel (SNAPAP) has led to seven members of the union’s board, including four women, starting a hunger strike on 6 May. One of them, Fayza Abrakan, has been admitted to hospital in a serious condition.

The daughter of the late ANC veteran Oliver Tambo showed little sympathy for President Jacob Zuma's complaint about a portrait of himself exposing his genitals, The Star reported on Monday. Tselane Tambo posted the following message on a social networking site: 'So the Pres JZ has had his portrait painted and he doesn't like it...He should inspire the reverence he craves...' The 1.85m-high painting titled The Spear is part of Brett Murray's Hail to the Thief II exhibition at the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg. The portrait has sparked debate about freedom of expression and the right to dignity and privacy.

The Mozambique government estimates that 80 per cent of its citizens use charcoal to cook. Almost everyone buys it on the informal market (here's an in-depth look at how that works), where it's the cheapest and most readily available cooking fuel. And it's that demand for charcoal that's feeding the plague of deforestation in Mozambique, where thick forests are razed at an increasingly alarming rate.

Vigilantism has resulted in another necklacing in Khayelitsha. Following a spate of robberies in Khayelitsha B Section, a mob of residents stoned and necklaced suspect Andile Mtsholo, 32, after he was accused of stealing cell phones. A bag full of cell phones was found next to his body. This brings to five the number of people killed by necklacing in Khayelitsha over the past few months.

Angolan security and immigration forces have raped and tortured migrants during deportations of hundreds of thousands of people to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Human Rights Watch said. 'Women and girls have been victims of sexual abuse including gang rape, and of sexual exploitation,' the group said in a report based on 211 interviews conducted since 2009. Angola has deported around 400,000 illegal immigrants - most from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) - since 2003, according to UN data.

The African Centre for Biosafety and Trust for Community Outreach and Education have released a new study which provides an overview of the structure of the seed system in South Africa, the types of seed in use and their pros and cons, the legislative and policy environment, and the role of the public sector in seed production and distribution in South Africa. It aims to identify the trends in the seed sector and consider possible points of intervention to advance the agenda of strengthening small-scale resource-poor farmers in control over and access to appropriate seed for seed sovereignty, which sits at the heart of food sovereignty.

The Rendition Project website is the product of a collaborative research project funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council. Working closely with Reprieve, a legal action charity which has led the way in investigating secret prisons and representing victims of rendition and torture, the Rendition Project aims to bring together and analyse the huge amount of data on rendition and secret detention in the US-led ‘War on Terror’.

The Malawi government will not arrest two lesbians who got engaged recently in Blantyre because the law on homosexuality is currently under review, the Minister of Justice and Attorney General Ralph Kasambara has said. 'Right now the two women will not be arrested or prosecuted, the reason is that the law under which they could have been arrested and consequently prosecuted is under review,' said Kasambara.

Dorothy Dyton and her family have been removed from their land. The government, which owns all customary land, sold it to a sugar company. Like many other African countries, small-scale farmers in Malawi lack secure title to land. And a new law which would allow farmers to register their customary land as private property has stalled in Parliament.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has withdrawn its advisory team from Swaziland, saying it is unable to support the government’s proposed financial reform programme. The IMF was assisting the government in implementing the Fiscal Adjustment Roadmap (FAR), to right-size the budget, where government spending currently exceeds its revenue. 'Government has yet to propose a credible reform programme that could be supported by a new IMF staff monitored programme… the budget allocates an increasing share of resources to some sectors at the expense of education and health,' Joannes Mongardini, head of the IMF team in Swaziland, told a recent press conference.

Plans to create a 26-nation free trade area by integrating three existing African trade blocs by July 2014 are on track and the only major sticking point is likely to be harmonising rules of origin, the three blocs said. The East African Community (EAC), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) aim to create a free market of 525 million people with an output of $1 trillion when they unite.

President Joyce Banda has said she wants to repeal Malawi's laws against homosexual acts, going against a trend in Africa in which gays are being increasingly singled out for prosecution. Banda, who assumed the presidency in April when her predecessor died, made the announcement in her first state of the nation address. 'Indecency and unnatural acts laws shall be repealed,' she said. But repealing a law requires a parliamentary vote, and it is unclear how much political support Banda would have for sweeping changes in this impoverished and conservative nation in southern Africa.

Twenty-five mutineers loyal to a renegade general have been killed in clashes with the army in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the government said. The east of the Central African country remains unstable nearly a decade after the formal end of a vicious civil war which sucked in neighbouring countries and left millions dead. The region has been swept by fresh fighting in recent weeks after hundreds of troops defected from the army over issues including poor pay and living conditions and in support for Bosco Ntaganda, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes.