Sudan is Africa's largest country but more than 70% of its population live in its small towns and scattered across rural areas. The country sits strategically between Arabic-speaking North Africa and the Gulf and several sub-Saharan African countries: it is bordered by no less than 12 countries. The civil war in the south of country raged for over 20 years but now seems to be at and but troubles persist in the west of the country. Its oil revenues have created a building boom in the capital and attracted telecoms investment from the UAE (Canartel) and Kuwait (Celtel).

The East African drought has caused food and power shortages in Tanzania and forced the government to implement measures to offset potentially serious humanitarian consequences. In an address to the nation on 28 February, Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete said his administration was well prepared to cope with food and power shortages in the East African country. Still, Tanzanians are hoping that the seasonal long rains that have just begun will provide much needed relief.

The Criminal Investigations Department has taken over investigations into the scandalous acquisition of huge tracts of public land by powerful personalities as documented in the Ndung'u Report. The news broke on the second day of a week that Justice minister Martha Karua declared would be characterised by the arrests of Anglo Leasing and Goldenberg suspects, who have all been asked to surrender their guns and passports.

They come as tourists and we urge them to feel at home in our land and to travel as far and wide in it as they can. Others come as associates of a clique of "conservationists" who have maintained a traditional hold on Africa's conservation policy and practice. Some come openly as researchers or students eager to dig as much information out of the countryside as possible. Yet others live with us, either as "visiting scientists" working in our national research institutions and universities or as "expert" expatriates.

Reports of baboons and hyenas attacking communities in drought-stricken Somalia are becoming common. The wild creatures are said to be locked in competition with human beings in search of water as the merciless drought currently affecting the entire Horn of Africa region exhausts both food and water supplies.

You stagger into the kitchen in the early morning, dying for that first cup of coffee, but the kettle remains stubbornly cold. You may manage to get your car out of the electronically operated security gates, but you might as well have stayed at home because the traffic lights aren't working and there's chaos on the roads. And when you get to work, your computers/cash registers/power tools/espresso machines crash. Elements of this unhappy scenario will have been all-too-familiar to most Capetonians at various times over the past few months as Eskom's ability to produce a regular supply of electricity has imploded. But what's to be done? asks IOL.

Tanzania's power company on Thursday (February 23) invited bids for two gas-powered plants to boost electricity production following a drought that has reduced hydro power. East Africa's worst drought in years is threatening 11 million people with famine, and the power cuts are one of the first signs of what many say will be its widespread cost to the region's economy, as reported by Reuters.

Exotic tree plantations have earned the name 'green death' from eco-activists, who point out that they displace native species, very few of which can live in plantations. Plantations in the eastern parts of South Africa are particularly notorious for consuming grassland, now considered our most threatened biome.

In a surprise revelation, the Botswana government has said that a diamond mine on the land of the Central Kalahari Bushmen would affect 5,027 square kilometres of land - well over a hundred times more than previously announced, reports Survival International.

While most governments see trade as a central ingredient to development, they pay little attention to how trade interacts with the environment. This UN Environmental Programme report looks at national and international environmental agreements and how trade agreements affect the environment. To promote sustainable development, governments have to take a close look at how their trade policies influence the environment.

The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo must act promptly on the recommendations of a Congolese parliamentary investigation that uncovered illegal natural resource exploitation and profiteering from armed conflict, said a leading group of international human rights, environmental and aid organizations this week. In June 2005 the Lutundula Commission, a special National Assembly commission led by parliamentarian Christophe Lutundula, submitted a report on its investigations into mining and other business contracts that rebels and government authorities signed between 1996 and 2003, when Congo was wracked by war. The report found that dozens of contracts are either illegal or of limited value for the development of the country and it recommends their termination or renegotiation.

Global financial institutions, governments, environmental experts, human rights campaigners and local people will today (February 15) discuss ways to protect the rainforests of the Congo (DRC) in a major conference taking place in Kinshasa. 30 international non-governmental organisations, including the Rainforest Foundation, the WorldWide Fund for Nature (WWF), Greenpeace and CARE-International will call on the government of Congo to:
- rigorously respect a moratorium on the issuing of new logging concessions that was approved by Congo's President, Joseph Kabila, in 2005;
- carefully map the country's vast area of forest to show where people are already living and depending on the forest for their survival;
- urgently undertake research into the ways that the forest can be managed in an environmentally sensitive way that brings real development to Congo's many poor people.

The Department of Agriculture is failing to adequately implement the existing flawed regulatory system for genetically modified (GM) crops in South Africa. This emerged from Biowatch South Africa’s recent examination of a sample of GM permits and permit applications. The sample (of 134 permits and 108 permit applications and review documents) is part of a larger batch to which the Department of Agriculture has given Biowatch South Africa access. This follows the Pretoria High Court’s order in February 2005 that Biowatch South Africa be granted access to information about how decisions are made in the granting of GM crop permits.

Many developing countries have privatised grazing land to encourage the development of a commercial livestock sector. Botswana’s beef export industry is often seen as a successful model to be emulated. However, this success is controversial; policies have favoured a small, commercial elite group whilst neglecting pastoralist populations and traditional rangeland practices. Work by the International Institute of Environment and Development’s ‘Securing the Commons’ programme examines current policies towards pastoralist landownership in Botswana. The Botswana model of rangeland policy has generally been viewed positively, largely because of the success of the livestock export sector. When examined more closely, however, this model has several problems.

It is a whirlwind of desperation for Uganda's energy sector. Pro-longed drought has caused a fall in the level of Lake Victoria; hydro-electricity generation is down by more than 50 percent of installed capacity and power outages has become a daily song. Now some are talking about solar energy. Could it be the last toss of the dice in the current energy crisis? Joseph Olanyo takes a critical look.

The current power crisis hitting Tanzania can be resolved with the introduction of large-scale farming of plants known as Jetropha for producing bio-diesel to run thermal power stations. Professor Aggrey Nzali of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Systems of the new College of Engineering and Technology at the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM), explains the usage of plants in power generation.

In the late 1990s - still the early days of South Africa's democracy - Joseph Makhadi couldn't afford to continue his studies at a local technical college. He dropped out and lived, unemployed, in a humble dwelling along with 10 members of his extended family. But in 2002, Makhadi and his family were among 700 households given title to a vast piece of rolling bush in South Africa's Limpopo Province, a result of the government's ambitious land reform programme. Now, the 29-year-old manages the poultry farm owned and operated by the beneficiaries, known locally as the Manavhela community. This week, Makhadi toured the buildings that hold some 6,000 chickens and marvelled at how his future had opened up.

The South African government has postponed a controversial proposal to resume culling elephants from Kruger National Park where overcrowding is causing problems, a leading conservation scientist said. The proposal last year from the national parks authority to end a 10-year ban had outraged many conservationists who said it was unnecessary. "They listened to our arguments and have agreed to postpone the cull, but we don't know for how long," said Rudi van Aarde. "We want at least three years for more research." Van Aarde, on a brief lecture tour of Britain, is professor of conservation ecology at the University of Pretoria and a member of a panel of scientists set up to advise the government on the proposed cull.

Zambia has revised upwards planned spending on new power stations and upgrades to meet increasing electricity demand at its vast copper mines, a senior industry official said. State power utility Zesco required $1.2 billion - up from an initial target of $720 million budget last year - and was in talks with Iran's Farab International and China's Sinohydro on construction of the 750 megawatt Kafue Gorge Lower project and the 120 MW Itezhi-Tezhi power project, the official said, reports Reuters.

What are the effects of policy on housing supply? Is the public sector good at producing, owning and financing housing? What impact do land market regulations have on housing affordability? Are arguments about the benefits of market-oriented and private sector approaches valid? These questions are examined in a paper from the World Bank which condenses lessons from recent research. The authors report that while some of the benefits of market approaches have been exaggerated, they are delivering welfare gains for poor people. They suggest that the common view that just establishing effective property rights will necessarily have a widespread developmental impact is exaggerated.