Pambazuka News 353: African Agriculture and the World Bank: Development or impoverishment?

Tunisian journalist and press freedom advocate Sihem Bensedrine and husband Omar Mestiri were allegedly assaulted by police early this month when entering Tunisia from Europe. The government denies the claims, but human rights groups are persisting in their accusations.

The South African health department has called on drug manufacturers to submit bids to supply the government's antiretroviral (ARV) treatment programme, just days before the current ARV tender is due to expire. AIDS experts and activists said decisions on which drugs to include were made with little consultation.

Lillian Akwero and her friends lived through some of Uganda's worst violence, fleeing rebel attacks in which their relatives were kidnapped or killed and villages torched. Now that their lives are about making ends meet rather than basic survival, their hope is that a deal to ensure lasting peace will not be wrecked by the International Criminal Court's arrest warrants against rebel leaders for savage atrocities

UNHCR is picking up its repatriation operation from Senegal with a second convoy on Thursday bringing home more than 250 Mauritanians. We plan to step up the pace of voluntary returns and organize bi-weekly convoys to reach a target of 3,000 returns per month.

Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir and Chadian President Idriss Deby signed a peace agreement on Thursday designed to end cross-border rebel attacks in a region which includes Sudan's conflict-ravaged Darfur area. The signing, witnessed by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) head Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, also aims to revive a string of past pacts that have failed to end fighting on both sides of the Chad-Sudan border.

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