An Ethiopian judge sentenced a journalist to prison on Friday in connection with a January 2008 column that criticized Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s statements about religious affairs in Ethiopia, according to local journalists.

Researchers have reported results of a clinical trial showing that a new vaccine - Mycobacterium vaccae (MV) - is effective in preventing tuberculosis in people with HIV infection. The DarDar Health Study, named for Dartmouth and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, found that MV immunization reduced the rate of definite tuberculosis by 39 percent among 2,000 HIV-infected patients in Tanzania.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has given a grant of $7 million over five years to the American Cancer Society to lead and coordinate the African Tobacco Control Consortium, a global coalition of public health-oriented organizations focusing on using evidence-based approaches to stem the tobacco epidemic in Africa.

An estimated 5.23 million people will require emergency food assistance up to December 2010 with the net food requirement including TSF needs being 290,271 MT estimated to cost around USD 231.3 million according to the Joint Government and Humanitarian Partners' Humanitarian Requirement Document released on 2 February 2010

Cancer control programmes - Up to 40 per cent of all cancers could be prevented through changes in lifestyle and improved prevention and screening policies, the WHO Regional Office for Europe said ahead of the World Cancer Day on 4 February.

The Egyptian government has announced that it would be sending a committee to assess farmland in Uganda to grow wheat to then import back into Egypt. Egypt is the leader in wheat consumption and has historically relied mostly on imports. According to the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics, Egypt consumes 14 million tons of wheat a year but is only able to produce 8 million tons.

Networks of people living with HIV in southern Sudan are trying to overcome deficiencies in the limping health system and broken infrastructure by spreading information about the pandemic and reducing stigma and denial.

Twenty kids, five weddings (and more to come?) and a whole lot of polygamous loving going on, marital and extra-marital. Some say it is a private matter, but like it or not, just as with any celebrity, Zuma’s sexual behaviour is not private.

Ethiopian judge sentenced a journalist to prison on Friday in connection with a January 2008 column that criticized Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's statements about religious affairs in Ethiopia, according to local journalists. Federal High Court Judge Mohammed Omar sentenced Editor Ezedin Mohamed of the Muslim-oriented newspaper Al-Quds to one year in prison.

Khadija Sharife looks at how commercial and political interests in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s mineral and natural resources have shaped the country’s history, with devastating consequences for its people, wildlife and environment. Will a new concession with China enable the Congolese to ‘really feel what all that copper, cobalt and nickel is good for’, as President Joseph Kabila says, or will the country continue to be seen as ‘a resource-rich bargain bin, open for business’?

The announcement in late 2009 that the government had approved a new HIV/AIDS policy in the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) was widely welcomed by AIDS and human rights lobbyists as long overdue. A November 2009 statement by the SANDF noted that the new policy made provision for the "recruitment and selective deployment of HIV-positive members" of the military and complied with a High Court ruling in May 2008, which found the previous policy of excluding HIV-positive people from recruitment and foreign deployment unconstitutional.

Governments, aid agencies and donors must join forces now to ensure that severe food insecurity in the Sahel does not lead to famine, says the European Commission humanitarian aid department (ECHO).

Agricultural researchers should spend more time improving local seeds and less time developing hybrids from "outside", farmers in West Africa have said. And research should broaden from narrow concerns such as improving a single crop to wider studies that take into account the environment in which farmers operate, they said.

New vaccination programmes against rotavirus are starting to have a positive impact, and could eventually prevent hundreds of thousands of child deaths a year, according to a new report.

People with HIV who selected treatment partners to support their adherence were more likely to return to the clinic to collect further doses of antiretrovirals, and showed a higher rate of viral suppression after six months of treatment, but showed no longer-lasting advantage in terms of viral suppression, CD4 cell counts or mortality, Nigerian and American researchers report in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes.

An analysis of the cost-effectiveness of male circumcision for HIV prevention in Rwanda has concluded that circumcising newborn babies would be cheaper and prevent more infections than providing the operation to adolescents or adults.

A Human Rights Watch report has revealed details of health care providers withholding care or engaging in treatment that intentionally inflicts pain on patients for no medical reason. World report 2010 details major human rights violations in more than 90 nations and territories worldwide. It is a record of investigative work carried out by the organisation in 2009.

South Africa faces potentially huge cuts in donor support for its HIV/AIDS programme over the next five years, yet it needs an extra R2-billion a year to reach all those who need antiretroviral treatment. “US government funding is going to come down dramatically over the next five years,” warned Dr Roxana Rogers, USAID South Africa Health Team leader last week.

‘Towards Food Sovereignty’ is an online book with full color photo illustrations and linked video and audio files. It describes the ecological basis of food and agriculture, the social and environmental costs of modern food systems, and the policy reversals needed to democratize food systems.

The following is joint statement by the International Association of Health Policy and the Federación de Asociaciones para la Defensa de la Sanidad Pública calling on international health organisations to ethically establish proper social and healthcare systems for the people of Haiti.