Namibia has commissioned a second uranium mine despite strong opposition from human rights and environmental groups who fear it could pose an ecological hazard. The Langer Heinrich Mine, 80 km east of the coastal town of Swakopmund in the protected Namib Naukluft Park, was officially opened last Thursday. The mine is wholly owned by Australian exploration and development company Paladin Resources, which got a government go-ahead last month after being awarded a 25-year mining licence by the Ministry of Mines and Energy.

By all accounts, the Bisasar Road Landfill in Durban is an unsavoury place. Plunked in the middle of an Indian suburb more than 20 years ago, the site spreads the odour of rotting garbage over the surrounding community and emits thousands of tonnes of harmful methane gas into the atmosphere each year. Strange as it may seem, though, the stench may turn out to be the smell of money - if a controversial carbon financing deal signed last year between the city and the World Bank gets off the ground. At the inaugural Carbon Expo held in Cologne last June, Durban's Landfill Gas to Energy project became the first in Africa to be financed through an emerging global market in carbon credits.

Advocates of changes to land ownership in African countries often promote increased privatisation of land rights, giving ownership to individuals. This contrasts with traditional tenure systems which keep key land rights, including the right to sell, in the community.

The economy of post-apartheid South Africa continues to grow. Yet between 45 and 55 percent of the population remain in poverty. This inequality is most obvious in rural areas, where over 70 percent of poor people live. Policymakers are increasingly recognising the importance of rural land reform to poverty reduction.

The Africa Water Journalists Network seeks to promote dialogue, information exchange and coverage about water issues among African journalists. Its website provides news and information, and a database of more than 1,000 journalists who have joined the network. A blog allows journalists to share comments and opinions on various water-related issues.

The Oak Institute for the Study of International Human Rights in the US was established in 1998 by a generous grant from the Oak Foundation. Each year, it hosts an Oak Human Rights Fellow to teach and conduct research while at residence in the College and organizes lectures and other events centered around the fellow's area of expertise. The purpose of the fellowship is to offer an opportunity for prominent practitioners in international human rights to take a sabbatical leave from their work and spend a period of up to a semester as a scholar-in-residence at the College.

With your help the Ghana National Coalition against the Privatisation of Water (NCAP) has successfully forced several water companies to withdraw their bids on the Ghana water privatization project and stalled the project for four years. Now, we are calling on you again to take one more action to stop the remaining bidding companies from taking over Ghana’s water.

Scientists have announced an outbreak of a devastating wheat disease that could wipe out the entire crop in Kenya. The stem rust disease has affected farms in Njoro and was spreading fast, raising fears of a food shortage. A panel of experts working under the Global Rust Initiative sounded the alarm after a study to evaluate the threat of the disease first detected in Uganda in 1999. The initiative, which includes the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute, said the disease had the potential of spreading worldwide, causing a global catastrophe.

The recently released Social Watch Report 2005, argues that water needs the protection of international law. Since the second half of the 1970s, and in particular since the first major world conference on water (organized in 1977 by the United Nations at Mar del Plata, Argentina), world leaders have been aware of the scale of the problems concerning access to water of sufficient quantity and quality, and of the risks associated with growing shortages and degradation of the supply. The Mar del Plata conference set out the basic facts and made water one of the top issues on the international political agenda. And yet the ‘water crisis’ has continued to worsen. Follow the link to read the article and download the report.

The Justice Initiative has released a report assessing the availability of legal remedies for addressing corrupt practices in the natural resource industries. Legal Remedies for the Resource Curse is a digest of practical experience in using law to combat corruption across jurisdictions. When resource extraction companies can obtain oil, diamonds, gold, coltan, timber, and other natural resources through covert contacts with unaccountable government officials, the losers are the people in the communities where the wealth originates. The power of corrupt governments frequently derives from monopoly access to natural wealth, bolstered by foreign government and industry allies.

Oil firms and African states have been accused of "contracting out" of their human rights obligations in Africa's biggest investment project. The Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline contract may impair the countries' ability to protect farmers, fishermen and others affected, Amnesty International says.

The devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in the United States has given added urgency to Benin's plans to protect its coastline against erosion. The quick advance of the Atlantic Ocean is visible in the small West African nation. The fury of the sea waves have eaten up many homes, hundreds of beach residents have been forced to pack up and go, and experts are warning of catastrophe if vigorous action is not taken immediately. One great danger is that the country's main city, Cotonou, with a population of more than 500,000, lies below sea level - like New Orleans in the US. So should there be violent floods, a large chunk of the city could be submerged by water and possibly even wiped off the map. .

About 50 million more people, most of them in Africa, could be at risk of hunger by 2050 due to climate change and reduced crop yields, scientists predicted on Monday. Roughly 500 million people worldwide already face hunger but rising levels of greenhouse gases could make the problem worse. "We expect climate change to aggravate current problems of the number of millions of people at risk of hunger, probably to the tune of 50 million," said Professor Martin Parry of the Hadley Centre of the UK Meteorological Office. "The greatest proportion, about three-quarters of that number, will be in Africa."

On September 6-7, the OECD governments are expected to take a decision on whether to allow special financial terms to take effect for hydropower projects that are financed with official export credits. They are also expected to decide whether the current environmental guidelines of Export Credit Agencies are sufficient to mitigate the negative impacts of large hydro projects. Non-governmental organizations have for many years advocated that Export Credit Agencies offer favorable financial terms for sustainable energy technologies like wind, solar, and geothermal.

Construction has begun on a 700 km pipeline that will transport Nigerian natural gas from the oil fields of the Niger Delta along the West African coast to Ghana, via Benin and Togo and promises cheaper and more reliable power for millions of residents by the end of 2006. The West Africa Gas Pipeline is part of the West African Power Pool, an ambitious project launched by the regional economic body ECOWAS in 2000, which aims to increase the trade in energy between member states and encourage investment in the power sector. The pipeline is expected to cost US $617 million, project officials say.

Conservationists have moved hundreds of squatters out of Liberia's largest national park, putting an end to their slaughter of wildlife and illegal gold mining. Alexander Pearl of Conservation International said about 500 people had been transported out of Sapo National Park in south-eastern Liberia during a five-day programme carried out in conjunction with UN peacekeepers and the government.

The Minister of Solid Minerals and Chairman of the Nigeria Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (NEITI) Dr. Obiageli Ezekwesili, has said that the body is determined to wipe out corruption and unwholesome practices from the oil industry. Ezekwesili, who spoke while receiving the British High Commissioner, Richard Gozney in her office said, the hitherto inaccessible revenue records of the nation's oil and gas industry would henceforth become public notice.

This article from Studies in Women's Law No. 57, produced by the Institute of Women's Law at the University of Oslo argues that land is a vital resource for rural livelihoods. “Establishing and clarifying land rights through formalisation has become a key issue in development policies that aim to promote more productive uses of land,” it says. The report looks at some land reform initiatives from a gendered human rights perspective.

Mr.Abdulai Darimani, programme officer in the Environment Unit at TWN-Africa, has said that one of the reasons why money from mining has, contrary to popular belief, no benefit for domestic revenue is because companies are allowed by policy to retain as much as 40-90 per cent of their earnings in offshore accounts. Speaking as a panellist on an Accra-based private radio station CITI 97.3FM’s "Business Digest" programme, he argued that there are "high levels of offshore retention and low levels of royalty rates permitted by many national mining policies in Africa", adding that "Ghana’s shift to a HIPC status from a position of praise on its liberal mining policy best illustrates that the country does not benefit in any significant way from mining."

Having enough water for food production is a key issue in many countries. As water becomes scarce and food requirements increase, there will be a need to produce more food using less water, to protect the quality of water and the environment, particularly in Africa. To achieve this, it will be necessary to improve women's access rights to water. Research from the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations looks at the issues facing poor communities, and especially women, trying to ensure access to water.