The UK is crippling sub-Saharan Africa's healthcare system by poaching its staff, UK doctors have warned. With the UK taking over the chair of the G8 in July, there is an ideal opportunity to stop the brain drain from poor to rich countries, they said. The UK should encourage more home-grown doctors and limit the time period that overseas recruits can train and work in the country, they told the Lancet. In 2003, 5,880 UK work permits were approved for health and medical personnel from South Africa, 2,825 from Zimbabwe, 1,510 from Nigeria and 850 from Ghana.

The global movement to reduce the price of medicines and expand access to antiretroviral Therapy (ART) continues to gather momentum. In sub-Saharan Africa, the region with the highest number of people living with AIDS, millions of dollars are being directed at this cause through governments as well as through the global fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Ensuring access to treatment is a human right. It is important that attempts to provide a comprehensive response to the HIV epidemic, including access to drugs, are fully supported. However, there are a number of inadequately acknowledged pitfalls associated with the push to rapidly expand access to ART in this region. Unless the push to expand access to ART is placed within the context of comprehensive health systems development, it may fail to achieve the desired aim of reducing AIDS-related mortality.

Fears that the G8 summit in Gleneagles this July will lack the political will to tackle global warming have increased, following the publication of a document purporting to be a draft G8 communiqué on climate change. Friends of the Earth International said that the leaked document was "far too weak, ineffective and lacks urgency". British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has promised to put climate change at the top of the international agenda at this year's G8 summit, which will be chaired by the UK.

Despite claims that Bt cotton will catapult African farmers out of poverty, recent reports revealed that the majority of Bt small-scale cotton farmers on the Makhathini Flats in South Africa have stopped planting Bt cotton because they cannot repay their debts. A five year study by Biowatch South Africa, has shown that small-scale cotton farmers in Northern KwaZulu Natal have not benefited from Bt cotton and that the hype surrounding this case is just that - a media hype created by American biotechnology companies to try and convince the rest of Africa why they should approve genetically modified crops. A summary of this study has just been published in GRAIN's quarterly magazine, Seedling (available at http://www.grain.org/seedling/?id=330).

The World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) held in Johannesburg in 2002 proposed that countries consider adopting a 10% target for energy supply from renewable energy sources. While this proposed target was not adopted by countries, a number of African energy policy makers and professionals felt it would be worthwhile to evaluate the viability of this target, and the benefits that could arise from its realization. This study was therefore initiated to investigate the viability of the target for Kenya. Two technologies were considered – Geothermal and Biomass-based cogeneration, for their potential contribution to electricity supply in Kenya. The study was based on the review of existing literature as well as survey data collection, and interviews with stakeholders.