A US$4 million grant will help Sierra Leone to introduce major reform in its mining sector and revamp the industry. This follows the approval by the Board of Executive Directors of the World Bank of a $4 million IDA grant for the Mining Technical Assistance Project (MTAP) in Sierra Leone.

Mauritian experts are helping set up cogeneration systems to feed the hunger for electricity in Tanzania, Zambia and elsewhere. An example of how appropriate technology can be applied to problems common to countries in the global South.

A generation of children free from AIDS is possible, according to the Children and AIDS, Fourth Stocktaking Report released by UNICEF in partnership with the joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Population Fund ( UNFPA). However, the authors note the world is not yet on track to meet targets for prevention, treatment, care and support.

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.

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.

Although tobacco use is not as prevalent in Africa as it is in other regions, that will change unless immediate action is taken, the United Nations health agency has warned as it announced a new tobacco control effort for the continent.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

In his Kenya diary, Guardian journalist Xan Rice reports on how a decision by the prosecutor of the international criminal court, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, to investigate the 2008 post-election violence in Kenya threatens the corrupt elite.

Conversations with Writers speaks to Ulysses Chuka Kibuuka about religion, writing and the state of publishing in Uganda.

Samir Amin

Once perceived as an icon of progress in Africa thanks to wealth from its copper mines, today over 75 per cent of Zambia's population lives below the poverty line. In this week’s Pambazuka News Khadija Sharife recounts the country’s ‘riches to rags’ story – a story that is being repeated in former resource colonies across the continent, which although ‘politically liberated’ have ‘remained economically chained’.

Construction is cleared to begin on the SIDAREC-Mukuru Kwa Njenga Center, giving the expectant community a powerful tool to end the cycle of poverty. The community center, designed for Slums Information Development Resource Center (SIDAREC) and the needs of Nairobi youth, will give Mukuru residents access to the Internet, computer and technology training, health clinic services, early childhood development programs, and a community theater.

'The proof of the pudding is in the eating'. Meaning that for Kenyans to fully test something they need to experience it themselves. We have seen Parliament boycott the debating chamber whenever the Special Tribunal Bill came up for debate. Now Kenyans are experiencing the bitter taste of Impunity.

Equatorial Guinea is perhaps the world's most striking example of why oil hurts, rather than helps, many of the countries that have it. In this week’s Pambazuka News, Tutu Alicante and Lisa Misol ask whether the US’s Obama administration will stop the country's President Obiang from sucking its people dry.

It is Norwegian interests in the island’s strategic location and offshore oil deposits that are behind Norway’s recent flurry of engagement in Zanzibar’s local politics and peace talks, writes Chambi Chachage in this week’s Pambazuka News.