United Nations agencies have developed a new Internet-based system to provide vital agricultural information to decision-makers in developing countries in a bid to fight hunger and rural poverty. The GeoNetwork's InterMap viewer allows users to overlay maps from multiple servers and create composite maps on themes such as soil quality, vegetation, population density and marketing access. The new technology is already deployed in Mozambique, Senegal, South Africa and Uganda.

The Spanish NGO, Equatorial Guinea Solidarity Forum (FSGE) announced this week that it is to lodge a lawsuit in the Spanish courts calling for the investigation of bank accounts in the name of Equatorial Guinea's President. The move follows the US Senate's report last week which found around $700m in the Washington-based Riggs bank in accounts under the names of Obiang, his family and associates.

President Kibaki announced on Monday that his government would not protect anybody found guilty of corruption. But he emphasised that the fight against the vice must not be out of hearsay. "The institutions of government responsible for fighting corruption are investigating the alleged corruption, and anyone who has evidence is encouraged to forward the evidence to enable us to facilitate and conclude the investigations," he said. The President said he was aware of his obligations, and would not waver on his crusade against graft.

Operations of the National Anti-Corruption Steering Committee launched by President Mwai Kibaki last week have not taken off due to a lack of budgetary allocation. Twice in the last week, scheduled meetings for the committee members have been postponed at the last minute, both times via SMS. The committee has now delayed the next meeting till August 11th.

In Human Rights and Development, award-winning author Peter Uvin extends the examination of development aid and human rights violations that he presented in his book on the Rwandan genocide, Aiding Violence. Whereas that book is diagnostic, Human Rights and Development is prescriptive - a response to requests from development and human rights organizations to help them effect strategies for reducing conflict and improving human rights outcomes.

There are twelve papers in this series available as a set. The papers, by distinguished African scholars, address current issues and debates on governance, civil society and globalisation. The contributors include Abdalla Bujra, Ali Mazrui and Subhash Narula.

Lecturers at Moi University want the Government to order fresh elections for the Senate and faculty deans. The lecturers sought the intervention of the Ministry of Education, saying their calls to the university's administration to call the elections had failed. "The senate should have been dissolved by now and elections held for members as well as deans of all 160 faculties," they said. They claimed the elections have not been held for the past 20 years and those holding the posts of deans were appointees of the Vice-Chancellor.

Despite the increase in awareness of women and children's rights, many cases of abuse remain unreported to the authorities. And concerned with the situation, Lifeline/Childline, which implements other programmes, such as counselling and hotline services, has identified the need for a child-focused programme. Through the programme, the organisation uses educational drama for young children as a means of interacting with primary school learners, informing them about sexual assault and building skills to address it.

Despite continuing insecurity in Burundi's western province of Bujumbura Rural, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) continues to deliver food aid to thousands of people affected by the country's long-running civil war, the agency reported on Friday. WFP said it had resumed food distributions on Monday in the most troubled commune of Kabezi in Bujumbura Rural, south of the capital, Bujumbura.

Child rights campaigners are looking to amend current Zimbabwean legislation to make birth registration easier, as nearly a third of all children do not possess a birth certificate, restricting their access to public services. Zimbabwe has ratified the Convention of the African Child, which emphases a child's right to a name and nationality, and makes registration immediately after birth compulsory. But neither the Zimbabwean constitution nor the Births and Deaths Registration (BDR) Act expressly state that a child has the right to be registered.

South Africa's top prosecutor, Bulelani Ngcuka, has asked to resign after his corruption allegations against powerful Deputy President Jacob Zuma sparked a damaging political row within the ruling African National Congress. Ngcuka heads South Africa's Scorpions Unit, which last year investigated Zuma on suspicion of soliciting bribes from a French firm in exchange for contracts in a multi-billion dollar government arms deal. Zuma has denied any wrong-doing and will not be standing trial. In October, Zuma's financial advisor, Schabir Shaik, is to face trial on similar charges.

Mauritania's government named nine new ministers on Sunday in the first Cabinet reshuffle since President Sid'Ahmed Ould Taya was re-elected last year. No reason was given for the reshuffle, but it comes a week after the President publicly vowed to fight corruption. Five of the outgoing ministers were accused in February of skimming 325 million ouguiyas ($1.25m) from an aid project distributing food donated by the UN World Food Program, the US and other international donors.

Several ministers under Malawi's former president, Bakili Muluzi are to face charges connected with the embezzlement of some $92 million from the state, the Chief Prosecutor, Ishmael Wadi, said on Friday. Making his announcement, he remarked, “I am sad to report to the entire nation and the donor community that 10 billion kwacha were lost through fraud and corruption involving some former cabinet ministers”. The World Bank has said that high-level graft had worsened in the past five years and had “significantly slowed down economic growth.”

The consistent failure of rich countries to fulfil their promises is threatening to undermine world trade talks and perpetuate inequality and poverty, warned international agency Oxfam in a report released this week. With less than a week to go before the World Trade Organisation (WTO) meets in Geneva to negotiate reform proposals, Oxfam is accusing rich countries of neglecting developing country needs and imperilling the entire Doha Development Round. According to Oxfam’s report, 'One Minute to Midnight', the draft negotiating text released earlier this week by the WTO shows evidence of considerable rich-country influence and does not adequately address key areas of interest for developing countries, like export dumping and market access. Because of this imbalance, the talks next week may fail, which would have dire consequences for the future of multilateralism and global poverty reduction.

*SMS for women's rights: Use your mobile phone to sign the petition! Sign up by SMS (text messaging) to the petition in support of the ratification of the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa. Send a message to: +27832933934, with the word ‘petition’ and your name in the message. You will only be charged the cost set by your network provider for sending an international SMS.
* Editorial: Neo-liberal globalisation and its social consequences: Kiswahili translation
* Comment and Analysis: Media Repression in Zimbabwe
* Pan-African Postcard: Dearth of inspired leaders, but hope for AU
* Conflict and Emergencies: DRC – Rwanda named in UN report
* Human Rights: Plans for tighter controls on NGOs
* Women and Gender: Ending violence against women
* Development: Birthday blues for World Bank
* HIV/AIDS: Bangkok – What did we learn?
* Racism and Xenophobia: UN report says cultural diversity vital
* Courses, Seminars and Workshops: Peace-building in war torn societies

A day after the deadline for all Somali groups to show mediators at a reconciliation conference how they would share seats in a proposed parliament, delegates from two of the country's four major clans were still haggling over how to distribute the posts, sources close to the mediators said. Foreign ministers of IGAD member states, who met in Nairobi on 15 and 16 July, had given all clans until 20 July to hand in their lists showing how the seats they had been allocated in the proposed 275-member Somali Transitional Federal Assembly would be distributed among their subclans.

Uganda's external debt last month hit an all-time high of $4.3 billion, despite a commitment by the government to reduce the burden, as the effects of the charged political atmosphere created by debate over President Yoweri Museveni's third term and the grant of a federal status to the Buganda kingdom begins to bite. Debt service payments have also risen from $133 billion in 1999/2000 to $172million in the 2002/03 financial year, before reaching the current rate of $180 million, thus making the benefits accruing from the debt relief initiative announced by donors in 1998 negligible.

According to a June Unicef nutrition fact sheet, the slow national trend of improvement in nutrition across the sub-region in the 1990s ceased and after some worsening starting in the late '90's, deteriorated sharply with drought in high HIV/AIDS prevalence areas. There has been limited recovery in Zimbabwe linked to the humanitarian response, and possibly Malawi, however, there is evidence of progressive deterioration overall. The fact sheet says approximately 5% of children in southern Africa less than 59 months may have HIV/ AIDS and may be failing to grow as a result. The increasing levels of malnutrition overall in young children may measure a mix of HIV/ AIDS and deprivation - the indirect impact of HIV/ AIDS on malnutrition is linked to worsening poverty.

The Rwandan military is backing a rebel group that has battled Congolese forces and U.N. peacekeepers in eastern Congo, a flagrant violation of U.N. sanctions and the terms of a fragile peace accord, an unpublished U.N. report says. The 49-page report, which was prepared by a panel of four U.N. sanctions experts, also charges that Rwandan troops forcibly entered a U.N.-controlled refugee camp in Cyangugu, Rwanda, rounded up 30 young men and pressed them to join the Congolese rebels. They were released after officials from the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees protested, according to the report, scheduled for release on Tuesday.

The Nigerian Inspector General of Police, Mr Tafa Balogun, announced this week that: "In the last 12 months a total of 900 policemen caught extorting money from motorists have been sacked by the force." He made the announcement at the formal inauguration of the 'Committee on Police Performance Monitoring', a civilian oversight outfit set up by the Minister of Police Affairs, Broderick Bozimo.