Botswana’s government is this week promoting the Central Kalahari Game Reserve as a top tourist destination, but it has banned the reserve’s Bushmen from accessing their own water. At this week’s INDABA tourism fair in Durban, the Botswana Tourism Board is promoting Botswana as a top travel destination, and the government has just awarded a safari concession in the reserve to a South African tourist company, the Safari & Adventure Company, close to the Bushman community of Molapo.

When in August 2002, the government of Zambia rejected a shipment of humanitarian aid because it contained genetically modified corn, it unleashed a new debate: Is the use of genetically modified foods justified in the alleviation of hunger in the world’s poorest countries?

Shell says it requires an additional $3 billion (N375 billion) and the resolution of the Niger Delta crisis to be able to end gas flaring in the country, insisting that it will be unable to meet the December 2008 deadline due to insecurity in the oil-rich region and funding shortfalls.

Shell-headquarters in the Netherlands is held liable by Friends of the Earth Netherlands/Nigeria and four Nigerians, for the massive damage that oil spills are causing to villages in the Niger Delta of Nigeria. Last Friday, Dutch lawyers representing the plaintiffs summoned Shell to clarify its role concerning oil spills. In early June, based on Shell-headquarters' response, the plaintiffs will decide whether to proceed with the lawsuit.

Along with its economic presence, China has rapidly expanded its environmental footprint in Africa. An important objective of China's Africa strategy is to extract natural resources which have so far not been accessible. Such resources are often located in fragile ecosystems and countries plagued by corruption and conflict. As a long-term partner in Africa's development, China has an interest in addressing the environmental impacts of its projects. The Chinese government has issued guidelines on the impacts of overseas investments, but will need to strengthen them further.

This landmark book encompasses a comprehensive quantitative analysis and assessment of the extent of potential economic impacts of future climate change, and value of adaptation measures in Africa for different zones, regions, countries and farm types.

The Johannesburg High Court has ruled that the City of Johannesburg’s practice of forcibly installing prepayment water meters in Phiri, Soweto is unconstitutional. It also set aside the City’s decision to limit its free basic water supply to 25 litres per person per day and ordered it to provide the residents of Phiri with free basic water in the amount of 50 litres per person per day. The City was further directed to give the residents of Phiri the option of an ordinary credit metered water supply.

As the global community marks World Intellectual Property Day 2008 (26 April), an eight-country African research network is being launched with a mandate to investigate the relationship between copyright and education in African countries. The network, called the African Copyright & Access to Knowledge network (ACA2K network), is a multi-disciplinary team of researchers from Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Mozambique, Senegal, South Africa and Uganda, supported by a team of international advisors.

A Sudanese climate researcher has been honoured by the UN Environment Programme in recognition of her work on climate change and adaptation in conflict-stricken Darfur. Balgis Osman-Elasha, a senior researcher at Sudan's Higher Council for Environment and Natural Resources, was presented with a 'Champions of the Earth 2008' award this week (22 April), along with six other awardees from Bangladesh, Barbados, Monaco, New Zealand, United States and Yemen.

Sudan has contracted two Chinese companies to raise the height of Sudan’s Roseires Dam. China’s involvement in this project is significant, given that the Roseires Dam supplies more than 70 percent of Sudan’s hydropower and that China has also been criticized for ignoring not only Darfur, but also the human rights abuses and environmental consequences arising from Sudan’s dam projects.

As President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga sought to pave way for the resettlement of internal refugees in the Rift Valley, local MPs were opposed to the approach. The MPs, who have stated their position clearly in and outside Parliament, are against what they call a “superficial” solution to the problem without addressing the underlying causes.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo’s vast tropical rainforest is a true natural treasure, home to over a thousand species of plants and hundreds of species of mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. The tropical rainforest of the Congo Basin is the world’s second largest, after South America’s Amazon Rainforest. Situated in the heart of the African tropics, the DRC is home to the greatest expanse of rainforest in all of Africa. Unfortunately, the global trend toward tropical deforestation has not left this region untouched.

April is the beginning of the rainy season for the DRC's eastern provinces, a time when perpetually more water gets dumped on an already drenched region. But despite an abundant rain supply and churning rivers, access to clean water has been a persistent problem for this Central African nation. As large as Western Europe, the DRC is still attempting to pick up the pieces after a decade of war and attendant upheaval that claimed the lives of over five million people, according to recent figures from the International Rescue Committee (IRC) relief organisation.

Seven African governments and the world's largest banks and construction firms meet in London today to plan the most powerful dam ever conceived - an $80bn (£40bn) hydro power project on the Congo river which, its supporters say, could double the amount of electricity available on the continent.

Squatting in the scorching sun, Adan Hassan Mahamud pointed to the parched landscape around Hamure village, 280km east of Bosasso in the self-declared autonomous Somali republic of Puntland. "I have seen droughts but nothing like this in 12 years," Mahamud, 80, said. "Many in the community have lost a large number of livestock - their only means of livelihood."

Amnesty International (AI) has expressed worry over the deteriorating human rights situation, including reported claims of detention without trial or charged, torture and killing of political opponents in Equatorial Guinea government, ahead of the parliamentary and local elections scheduled for 4 May 2008.

Reporters Without Borders called on the Sudanese government to lift its almost three-month censorship of the privately-owned press in Khartoum which has intensified in recent days with the seizure of six daily newspapers.

Several water boreholes have been sunk in preparation for a diamond mine in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR), Botswana, but the Bushmen who live there are forbidden from taking any water at all from their own borehole in the reserve.

The young man who agreed to be called Hamed has come a long way to do nothing. The Ivoirian would prefer to work but, after sneaking into Israel from Egypt about a month ago, he's got nothing better to do than sit in a park everyday in central Tel Aviv, wait, and hope for a government decision on his refugee application.

Of the 50 million seedlings planted every year in the 11 northern Nigeria states worst effected by desertification, 37.5 million wither and die within two months, environmental officials say. “The 12.5 million seedlings that make it to maturity are not enough to create a deforestation-reforestation equilibrium, especially given the fact that a large number of the trees that grow are later chopped down,” Kabiru Yammama of the National Forest Conservation Council of Nigeria [NFCCN] told IRIN.