The preparations for the SAHR 2003 are underway. The theme for this year is equity. We would like to invite you to submit your suggestions on what you think should be covered in this Review, by 15 Feb 2003.

Faced with increasing numbers of people living with HIV/AIDS, the Federal Government plans to establish 100 centres for its Anti-Retroviral Drugs (ARV) programme this year. To achieve the desired results, it has also concluded arrangements for pharmaceutical companies to begin local manufacture of the anti-retroviral drugs.

Solidarity for Peace in Zimbabwe has called on competing cricket teams, cricket unions, reporters and cricket supporters to insist that the security shields around cricket grounds be removed. "We are told their purpose is to protect the players. In reality we know that their real purpose is to prevent the cricketers and visitors from seeing the plight of people outside," said a statement.

In a "dramatic policy U-turn," the Ugandan government has agreed to increase health sector spending with money from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a move that will increase the country's resources devoted to health care, including HIV/AIDS, the Lancet reports.

A group of Guguletu youth - some victims of domestic violence and some affected by it - say perpetrators of rape, women and children abuse should be punished more harshly. National Adolescent Friendly Clinic Intiative 's Sbongile Pilane and his peers, all adolescent youth, are educating thousands of other youth them about their sexual rights and the prevention of HIV/AIDS.

Any person infected by a life-threatening sexually transmissible disease who failed to disclose that to his or her partner before having sex is guilty of rape, the SA Law Commission (SALC) said on Tuesday. "Intentional non-disclosure by a person that he or she is infected by a life-threatening sexually transmissible infection in circumstances in which there is a significant risk of transmission of such infection to that person prior to sexual relations with another (consenting) person amounts to sexual relations by false pretences and would therefore constitute rape," it said in a statement.

Last Year alone, about 3,000 nurses left the country to seek greener pastures in other countries. This is the picture given by the President of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA), Dr. Jacob Plange-Rhule. Ten years ago, there were 20,000 nurses. Today there are 9,000, in spite of the increase in population and the growing number of health facilities.

The Hospital Doctors' Association (HDA) met this week to discuss whether doctors should down stethoscopes once again to press the government for an 80 percent pay rise promised to all civil servants.

The network of people living with HIV/AIDS in Nigeria (NEPWHAN), has expressed concern over the increasing rate of HIV infections and number of deaths due to HIV/AIDS in Nyanya, an Abuja suburb. The rise in the rate of infected persons is despite current interventions at prevention, care and support for people living with the disease.

Aids dissident Roberto Giraldo, in South Africa for the second time in two months to talk to health officials, says Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang agrees with his controversial views. But the minister of health denies this. Giraldo, who has given a talk on HIV and nutrition to the health ministers from the 14 Southern African Development Community countries during his latest visit, also claimed that the 14 ministers believed correct diet could cure Aids.

Imprisoned Tunisian Internet activist Zouhair Yahyaoui is in the fifth day of his hunger strike to protest the harsh conditions of his confinement. Zouhair Yahyaoui founded TUNeZine.com soon after he graduated from college. Yahyaoui has been held captive since June, 2002, when he was sentenced to 24 months for posting satirical criticism of the Tunisian government on his Web site, Tunezine.

A prominent human rights activist imprisoned for the past nine months in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has been on a hunger strike for one week in protest against the lack of medical care being made available to him.

Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) Health Minister Mashako Mamba told IRIN on Tuesday that "more than" 2,000 people had died as the result of an influenza epidemic that had been sweeping across parts of the country for one-and-a-half months.

Authorities have confirmed nine hunger-related deaths in an isolated area of north-western Mozambique. The country is among six nations in Southern Africa experiencing food shortages due largely to consecutive droughts, failed government policy and the impact of HIV/AIDS. About 15 million people face hunger in the six affected countries.

The year 2002 in Southern Africa was marked by a scramble for food by the over 14 million people who face starvation, and by humanitarian agencies begging international donors for the urgent funds needed to buy food and to prevent a catastrophe.

Luanda is the kind of city that, at once, depresses and lifts your spirits. It is also more than a city; spending a while in it is an experience, the memory of which, instead of fading over time, lingers on only to strangely intensify, as more insights prod the mind, and deeper emotions fill the heart. The blessing of peace in Angola is accompanied by an almost tangible sense of urgency among the people we worked with, that not a day should be lost now in the awesome task of looking ahead and rebuilding a nation crippled by thirty years of civil war. One NGO poised to do this is Angola 2000, who with Open Society funding, entered into a collaborative partnership with the Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) from South Africa. Angola 2000’s vision is to nurture the fragile but oh so longed for peace, by sharing among all Angolans, AVP’s practical skills of authentic communication that builds respect for self and others, and the effective non-violent resolution of interpersonal conflict.

Southern Africa's food crisis is not a short-term transitory phenomenon that will be over when this year's harvest is gathered. It points, instead, to a failure of development policies and the impact of HIV/Aids, for which there are no easy solutions, humanitarian officials acknowledge.

Virva Hautala and Sanna Simonen lend a hand at a pump, manually extracting life-preserving water from a borehole beneath the parched earth. The Finnish aid volunteers urge the children queued with plastic containers not to waste the precious fluid, as they pump and carry their water rations on their heads back to homesteads, up to 10 km away.

Hailed as a "quantum leap" in the fight against the HIV/Aids pandemic, the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria has become a focal point for funding efforts to bring the epidemic to heal.

The Head of Mission is in overall charge of all aspects of the Mission in the field. The HoM coordinates the programmes and represents Action Against Hunger in meetings with local authorities, other agencies and donors. He/she also manages the expatriate team, oversees the budgets, administration and local staff. The HoM is the link person between the Desk Officer in HQ and the field team for all aspects of the mission's running and for development of the mission strategy.