TrustAfrica is looking for an exceptional individual to serve as its Program Coordinator. The successful candidate will have extensive experience in philanthropy in Africa and a deep understanding of the challenges TrustAfrica seeks to address. The position is based at TrustAfrica headquarters in Dakar, Senegal. Qualifications, Skills, and Characteristics required include: a good graduate degree; at least five years of successful grant-making experience at the international level and experience in at least two subregions of Africa; management experience in a nongovernmental organization in Africa is a plus; good understanding of African affairs. The successful candidate will also have knowledge of the main issues relating to TrustAfrica’s program areas (peace and security, regional integration, and citizenship and identity) and a good network of contacts from across Africa.

Years of secessionist trouble in Senegal’s southern Casamance region claimed the life of a 10-year-old boy last week, killed by an anti-tank landmine over a year after the signing of a hard-won peace deal. The child, Cherif Sane, died while out collecting cassava with two friends from farms in the forested region around his village Dijbelor Baraf, some 5 km south of Casamance’s main city, Ziguinchor.

The RHC will 1) facilitate the acquisition of emergency preparedness, mitigation, and response 2) perform the designated activities under the direct supervision and in consultation with the Regional Director as the designated “Humanitarian Lead,” activating Humanitarian Response Department support, coordinating with the regional office, activating the Oxfam International and partner’s network, and otherwise implementing contingency plans 3) The RHC will also support integration of conflict transformation skills.

As soon as Moussa Diouf saw the bird lying sick on the ground, the young man from a village on the edges of Senegal’s giant Djoudj bird reserve, dropped it in a plastic bag and dashed off post-haste to the main rangers’ office. Diouf was worried the bird might be carrying “the new sickness”. But the head ranger smiled on opening the bag. “It’s a common sparrow which is moulting and has become vulnerable because it can’t fly very far,” said Major Ibrahima Diop, who heads a squad of 43 rangers working in the Djoudj reserve, a national showcase of 16,000 hectares of low-lying mangrove swamp.

The incumbent will, under the supervision of the General Director, carry out the Five Years Strategic Plan and contribute to PIWA's institutional building. S/he will develop new operational partnerships and maintain relationships with organisations that are active in fields that interest PIWA, amongst other duties. Applications must be received by February 15.

The CODESRIA Advanced Research Fellowship Programme is designed to contribute to the reinforcement and promotion of a culture of concentrated and extended reflection among African scholars. It is particularly targeted at a younger generation of post-doctoral African scholars interested in carrying out advanced research on any aspect of the African social reality, historical or contemporary. The programme is open to candidates from all disciplines of the Social Sciences and Humanities.

Former Senegalese prime minister, Idrissa Seck, was released from prison on Tuesday after more than seven months in detention on charges of corruption and threatening state security. An investigating panel of the Senegalese high court ordered the release after examining charges against the 46-year-old one-time top ally of President Abdoulaye Wade.

The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) was established in 1973 as an initiative of African scholars for the promotion of multidisciplinary research that extends the frontiers of knowledge production in and about Africa, and also responds to the challenges of African development. Within the broad framework of the mandate defined for the Council in its Charter, various research and training programmes have been developed over the years for the purpose both of mobilising the African research community and responding to its needs. The Council also has a robust publications programme which has earned it a reputation as one of the leading scholarly publishers in Africa.

The CODESRIA Democratic Governance Institute is an interdisciplinary forum which brings together African scholars working on topics related to the broad theme of governance. The aim of the Institute is to promote research and debates on issues connected to the conduct of public affairs and the management of the general development process in Africa. The Institute was launched in 1992 and has been held every year since then in broad collaboration with the Cheikh Anta DiopUniversity, Dakar, Senegal.

Like many Senegalese, Ibou Seck stopped taking his tuberculosis treatment before the course was up, prolonging his illness, risking death, and ultimately reducing the effectiveness of the drugs for other patients. “I didn’t have any support from my family so I stopped my treatment early. I was left alone, isolated in a back room near the chicken house while everyone in the district gossiped about my illness,” explained 36-year-old Seck, who works as a mechanic in the capital, Dakar.

Condemning a broadcasting bill passed by Senegal's national assembly on 21 December 2005 as "poorly drafted, ambiguous, unfair and repressive," Reporters Without Borders has urged President Abdoulaye Wade to refuse to sign it into law in order to restore some calm to the ongoing debate about press law reform. Approved by just 11 votes to 2 in a 120-member parliament, the law would create a National Council for the Regulation of Broadcasting (CNRA) which, in Reporters Without Borders' view, would probably threaten press freedom.

Three decades of increasingly patchy rains and drought are taking a heavy toll on the people of the Sahel nations, the semi-arid countries strung along the southern fringes of the Sahara, according to a group of scientists and specialists on climate change. “We’ve noted an increasing number of extreme events across the Sahel, where you can have heavy rain all of a sudden then nothing for several weeks,” Arona Diedhiou, a research fellow at Senegal’s Institute for Research and Development (IRD), said after a weeklong seminar on climate change organised by the Amma-Afrique project.

It takes at least two people to circumcise a girl, one to hold her legs and the other her arms," said Ourey Sall, who for years performed the procedure. "Afterwards, we apply a mixture of goat droppings and plants to stop the bleeding." It has been five years since she put down the knife, breaking a tradition handed down from her mother, and her mother before that. It was a difficult decision but one being made more and more in Senegal today. On this day, Sall was among a crowd of men, women and children attending a ceremony in which members of 70 villages from the country's northeastern Matam region publicly renounced female genital mutilation (FGM) as well as forced and early marriages, according to IRIN.

Results of further tests on blood samples from South Kordofan have confirmed a yellow fever outbreak, the World Health Organization reported, adding that at least 121 people had died as of Monday. Initial field investigations and rapid tests conducted by the Sudanese health ministry had indicated a dengue fever outbreak. The tests followed earlier reports of a haemorrhagic fever outbreak in the area.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has expressed shock and condemnation of a heavy-handed police crackdown that saw all Sud FM radio affiliates throughout the country shuttered on 17 October 2005. The stations' employees have also been arrested. At around 8:40 a.m. (local time) on 17 October, Sud FM's Dakar station was forcefully shut down by police, who proceeded to arrest all employees on site at the time. When reached by RSF, authorities at Dakar's central police headquarters refused comment.

Over 30 African Ministers of Gender and Women's Affairs gathered Wednesday, October 12 in Dakar, Senegal, for a meeting of one of Africa's key groupings on women's affairs. Its core objective is advocacy for gender-sensitive policies and institutional changes at all levels. ECA and the AU have adopted a joint strategy to follow up on the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of this document and the Solemn Declaration on Gender and Development in Africa. The Dakar meeting will concentrate on defining a common national approach to this strategy, renewing membership of the CWD, and reviewing the work programme of ECA's gender division, the African Centre for Gender and Development, for 2007.

Health authorities launched an emergency yellow fever immunisation drive in one of the most under developed regions of Senegal after officials confirmed the killer virus had claimed one life raising fears of more deaths to follow. The confirmation of a single case of yellow fever in Tambacounda last month, some 500 km east of the capital Dakar, is officially an epidemic according to World Health Organisation (WHO) classifications.

In August and September 2005, a GEH-funded project investigating corruption in the Senegalese health care system had its findings published in a number of Senegalese daily newspapers, creating a storm of activity, debate, resignations and firings. Research findings revealed widespread corruption in the Senegalese health sector, and were presented to and discussed before the country's Council for Economic and Social Affairs. For the articles and preliminary analysis, visit the URL provided.

Sitting in a classroom and wearing a shirt, tie and perfectly polished shoes, Lamine, a computer science student in Senegal's capital city, admits he has no idea whether or not he is HIV-positive. "I've never been tested and I don't think I'll do it anytime soon," said the 25 year-old Dakar resident. "I'd rather not know. I want to live happily and not have to worry about getting AIDS."

In the Senegalese village of Yoff, just a few kilometres up the coast from the capital Dakar, the hundreds of canoes lined up along the seaside tell the whole story. Despite growing urbanisation, fishing by traditional methods remains a vital occupation, a key part of the country's economy - and just as important, a way of life. But this sector is now threatened, reports the BBC, not only by the competition of the huge boats of the industrial sector, both local and international, but also by its own unregulated development and practices.