Rich countries must repay their climate debt by making big cuts to emissions and providing developing countries with the finance and technology needed, global anti-poverty agency ActionAid said in a release on the World Bank's annual World Development Report."A broad coalition from Bolivian President Evo Morales to the World Bank is united in saying that past emissions matter and that rich countries have to confront this rather than avoid it," Tom Sharman, ActionAid's head of climate change, said in a statement.

Participants attending a regional conference, entitled 'Regional Conference on Protection Challenges to Climate Change in West Africa', have ended their two-day conference in Lome, the Togolese capital, with a call for the use of a human rights-based approach to address climate change challenges in the region.

Land grabbing of small farmers’ land by large national and foreign companies is becoming an increasingly concerning issue in Mali. After investing in various sectors of the economy in Mali and in Africa, these national or multinational corporations are looking for new avenues of opportunity, namely land.

The Gulf’s first agricultural investment fund is due to launch next month, focusing on land acquisitions related to cash-crop farming. The US$350 million (Dh1.28 billion) fund, which will focus initially on rice farming in Africa and cereal cultivation in eastern Europe and former Soviet countries, is actively seeking joint ventures with Gulf family-owned conglomerates and sovereign wealth funds.

Land owners at Koya Chiefdom together with chiefdom elders and officials of Quifel have signed a 50 years land lease agreement for agricultural purposes. The ceremony took place at the Roman Catholic Hall in Masiaka on Friday 11th September, 2009 in the presence of officials from Quifel and legal practitioners representing both parties to the agreement.

The British oil trader Trafigura has offered to pay out in a historic damages claim from 31,000 Africans injured by the dumping of toxic waste in one of the worst pollution disasters in recent history, the Guardian can reveal. The compensation deal for the victims of toxic oil waste dumping in west Africa – likely to be confirmed imminently – means the full extent of attempts to cover up what really happened can be spelled out for the first time.

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights of the Organization of American States (OAS) condemned Brazil for illegal wiretaps of the Landless Workers Movement (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra, MST) in the southern state of Paraná.

Global climate talks aimed at reducing harmful emissions should be resolved fairly, taking into account the interests of both rich and poor countries, South African President Jacob Zuma said on Friday. South Africa, whose over-reliance on coal-fired power stations make it Africa's worst polluter, said on Thursday it would not agree to any emission-cutting targets if doing so hurt its recession-hit economy.

September 10 marks the 40th anniversary of an African refugee convention, which the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR) hails as “groundbreaking” for having paved the way for millions on the continent to receive protection and assistance. Under the 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, a refugee was defined as a person having “a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion.”

Kenya has launched a multi-million dollar appeal to help restore a vital forest resource which is threatened with extinction due to human encroachment. The appeal to save the Mau Forests Complex was launched late Wednesday by the Government of Kenya at a Partners Forum hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

As riots by supporters of Uganda's dominant Buganda kingdom over its (kingdom) disagreement with the government continued in various parts of the country, amid fears that dozens of lives may have been lost, President Yoweri Museveni has opted for dialogue to end the violence.

Ethiopian Recycler criticises Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's record and the praise he receives from the West.

Ethiopian health authorities have dedicated three hospitals in the capital Addis Ababa to patients suffering from acute watery diarrhoea (AWD), according to a health official. Thousands of people have been infected and 34 killed by the outbreak, says the Health Ministry. Ahmed Imano, head of public relations in the ministry, said there were fears it could escalate with the rains.

Four days of intense rains in Niger’s northern Air Mountains and desert towns at its base have affected 7,000 households, damaged 3,500 homes and caused widespread livestock and agriculture losses mostly in the commune of Agadez, according to local officials. Agadez commune is one of 15 communes in Agadez region.

This report outlines how climate change is expected to have serious environmental, economic, and social impacts in South Africa. It states that rural farmers, whose livelihoods depend on the use of natural resources, are likely to bear the brunt of adverse impacts. The research uses a “bottom-up” approach to gain insights from the farmers themselves based on a farm household survey collected from 794 households in the Limpopo River Basin of South Africa for the farming season 2004–2005.

Plans to link Europe to what would be the world's biggest hydroelectric dam project in the volatile Democratic Republic of Congo have sparked fierce controversy. The Grand Inga dam, which has received initial support from the World Bank, would cost $80bn (£48bn). At 40,000MW, it has more than twice the generation capacity of the giant Three Gorges dam in China and would be equivalent to the entire generation capacity of South Africa.

Africa's climate change negotiators led by Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi have threatened to withdraw from the upcoming global climate change talks. The Ethiopian PM said Africa might have to walk out if the December climate negotiations in Copenhagen, Denmark, failed to agree with Africa’s minimum position. “If need be we are prepared to walk out of any negotiations that threaten to be another rape of our continent,” he said.

The Namibian government has expressed frustration with the slow pace of the land reform programme, saying at the current pace of land resettlement, government will not meet its 2020 target of addressing the skewed land ownership pattern. In a startling revelation, the Ministry of Lands and Resettlement said that the land reform programme in Namibia had been slow.

the latest briefing from the International Crisis Group, examines the exploitation of oil revenues. Since 2003 they have contributed greatly to the deterioration of governance in Chad and to a succession of rebellions and political crises. The regime uses the revenues as a means to reward its cronies, co-opt members of the political class, and acquire the military means enabling it to reject genuine political negotiations. This has further limited space for the political opposition and civil society and helped keep the country in a state of political paralysis, stoking the antagonism between regime and opponents.

Crouched on a low wooden stool in front of his mud hut in the village of Pangar, Alain Selembe puffs away at his clay pipe, his gaze lost in the surrounding forest, quite oblivious to the noise made by his two playing daughters. All he hears is the rumbling of bulldozers opening up a 30 kilometre road from Deng Deng village to the confluence of the Lom and Pangar rivers, where the government plans to construct a new dam.