Any other group of activists might be in a mood to celebrate. The HIV-AIDS lobby has been among the most successful in the world, winning an impressive $10-billion in new annual funds and tripling the level of global support for AIDS programs since 2003. But instead, the AIDS advocacy groups are in a state of anxiety. Their future is looking increasingly difficult, despite all their recent gains.

The president of Mauritania's Independent National Electoral Committee (INEC), Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Dey, has resigned his position. Dey is a member of the opposition Rally of Democratic Forces (RFD). No reason has been given for the resignation which comes 5 days after the holding of the presidential poll won in the first round by Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz of the Union for the Republic (UPR), Several opposition figures have criticised the result saying there was "fraud a nd manipulation" of the voters' register.

Four candidates of the Front of Congolese Opposition Parties (FPOC) and an independent candidate, who ran for the 12 July polls in Congo, have appealed for the annulment of the election results.

Renowned diplomat and peace maker, Ambassador Bethuel Ki plagat, has been selected to chair Kenya's Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission. Nairobi lawyer Betty Murungi was named vice-chairperson of the nine-member commission in the appointments made by President Mwai Kibaki.

Angola will invest an estimated $1.2 billion in agricultural development over the next four years as part of a food security initiative, according to a government statement. The investment will be financed by a line of credit from the China Development Bank, private investment and other loans, said the statement in the state-owned newspaper Jornal de Angola.

Niger's president has said he will not bow to foreign pressure to abandon his attempt to hold a referendum on whether he can serve a third term in office. Mamadou Tandja told state TV the threat of sanctions would not deter him from doing what was right for the people.

A week after giving birth to her sixth child, Christine Achan walked 60 km (37 miles) from her village in northern Uganda to get life-saving anti-retroviral drugs to stop her and her baby becoming sick with Aids. Doctors say it is villagers like her that the results of Africa's largest and longest running clinical test, the Dart trial, should help.

HIV rates among gay men in some African countries are 10 times higher than among the general male population, says research in medical journal the Lancet. The report said prejudice towards gay people was leading to isolation and harassment, which in turn led to risky sexual practices among gay communities.

The Plateau State Judicial Commission of Inquiry in Nigeria should investigate and call for the prosecution of members of the security forces responsible for the alleged killing of more than 130 people in November 2008, Human Rights Watch has said.

A little over 18 years ago, when the ruling Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) came to power, people were so eager to exercise democracy that even children started to challenge their parents saying "this is my democratic right". Perhaps it was too good to last. Earlier this month a new anti-terror law was passed, granting sweeping powers to the state to detain people it deems threatening. It follows closely on the heels of legislation that severely restricted the operations of NGOs working human rights issues.

Up to 200 people from an informal settlement in the Harare suburb of Gunhill in Zimbabwe face being forcibly evicted without being given adequate notice or any consultation or due process. Thousands of vendors across Harare also face forcible removal from their market stalls. The majority of those to be affected are poor women whose principal source of livelihood is selling fruits, vegetables and other wares at market stalls like Mbare Musika and Mupedzanhamo in Harare.

Aid workers are finding it increasingly difficult to gain access and provide assistance to residents of the Somali capital because of the worsening conflict there, the United Nations refugee agency has reported. This week’s scheduled distribution of 4,000 aid kits in Mogadishu and surrounding areas had to be postponed because of security concerns, UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesman Ron Redmond told journalists in Geneva.

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has called for an end to political violence and committed his party to campaigning peacefully as the country marked the start of a national reconciliation process. The southern African country was plunged into violence last year as Mugabe fought to reclaim power in a run-off vote after being defeated by Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai, now prime minister in a new unity government.

Clashes in central Somalia and the capital have killed at least 46 people, officials and peace groups have said, while a newly-appointed security minister pledged to build strong national security forces. Meanwhile, the African Union (AU) said it was investigating a mystery illness that had killed three Burundian peacekeepers based in Somalia. Eighteen more were in a Kenyan hospital with the same symptoms, an AU official said.

A programme to train students in technical institutions to repair and service computers has been launched by the Ghana Education Service in Accra. The Computer System Support Programme (CSSP) is a two-year pilot programme which will commence in September this year and initially run as a technical institute for senior high school students who offer science programmes.

A major decrease in the childhood mortality rate in children under the age of two (U2CMR), observed between 2001 and 2006 in northern rural KwaZulu Natal, South Africa, was associated with the rollout of antiretroviral therapy (ART) in that region, according to a presentation made at IAS 2009 in Cape Town this week. Although some of the benefit may have been due to the introduction of programmes to prevent vertical (mother to child) transmission in 2001, researchers found that it was most strongly associated with maternal access to ART.

The UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women is a global source of support for country and local-level action to end violence against women and girls established by the General Assembly. Due to the global economic and financial crisis, the Fund is facing a dramatic shortfall in donor contributions.

A landmark meeting in New York, co-organized by the UN refugee agency, has given important impetus to efforts to eradicate discrimination against forcibly displaced and stateless females, including rape, domestic violence and other abuses.

In December 2008, a group of young women staged a protest against the common practice of fattening women before marriage, intended to make them more attractive in the eyes of men. The protest did not immediately result in the end of the practice, but it was a landmark event showing a new assertiveness among Mauritanian women in a society where men use tradition and sharia law to maintain their dominance.

Trial to the murder of Eudy Simelane is resuming at Delmas Circuit Court on 29 – 31 July 2009. This time only three of the four accused, who pleaded not guilty, will appear in court as one of the accused who pleaded guilty is already serving a 31 years sentence. The remaining co-accused Khumbulani Magagula, Johannes Mahlangu and Themba Mvubu are facing charges of robbery with aggravating circumstances, rape and murder.

As health institutions are stepping up to fight HIV prevalence among the gay community Women who have Sex with Women (WSW) seem to be shut out. This is a group which, according to Nomvuyo Dlamini of Durban Lesbian and Gay Community and Health Care Centre, is less researched but also faces sexual health problems. Dlamini says the WSW are generally not regarded as being at a high risk of HIV “but they are.”

The Swaziland cabinet has endorsed a harsh law imposing fine of E50, 000 ($6, 500) for persons convicted of perpetrating domestic violence. The proposed legislation, Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Bill of 2009 which is yet to be tabled in parliament, further says should the convict fail to pay the fine, they should faces up to 10 years in jail.

Providing male circumcision as an HIV prevention measure in Zimbabwe's state hospitals is off to a very slow start, and experts cite the country's crippled health sector as the main reason for the delay. Although about 140 circumcisions were successfully performed at four hospitals as part of a training exercise, health officials told IRIN/PlusNews the government was not yet ready to roll out the programme.

On 14 July 2009, freelance photojournalist Andrisson Manyere and 15 members of the Movement for Democratic Change-T (MDC-T) filed a lawsuit with the High Court demanding compensation in the amount of US$19.2 million from the Co-Ministers of Home Affairs and State Security agents, following their alleged abduction, unlawful detention and deprivation of liberty.

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cc While American officials stress that US foreign policy towards Africa isn't being militarised, Gerald LeMelle thinks differently. Militarisation is essentially about asserting your might to impose your own agenda, LeMelle stresses, something which the doubling of funds to be allocated to AFRICOM (AFRIcan COMmand) in the 2010 financial year would certainly suggest. While Obama's trip to Ghana was officially about celebrating a democratic success, there are fears that America's concern was more for oil and a strategic AFRICOM base. If such concerns are to be refuted, LeMelle concludes, the Obama administration will need to explain how increased military funding relates to its stated aim of promoting and strengthening democracy in Africa.

Obituaries of the late Pan-Africanist Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem continue to arrive at Pambazuka, such was the stature of the man and the esteem with which he was held. In this article Okello Oculi discusses Nigeria's broader historical background in the immediate post-independence period and Tajudeen's many experiences of tumultuous times across different political settings.

cc Two decades after their country's independence, Namibians inhabit a society that remains one of the world's most unequal, writes Henning Melber. The country's common people are the victims of a rapacious, self-serving elite group which is all too happy to cooperate with foreign corporations to exploit Nambia's natural resources for mutual gain. With Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) earmarked in official thinking as the new means towards 'trickle-down' benefits for all, Melber argues that such schemes are nothing more than a strategy for allowing private capital to generate profit from public property at the wider population's expense.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/442/57758_darfur_tmb.jpgStopping genocide is apolitical, purely a matter of conscience and goodwill. At least, that's what the Save Darfur campaign would have us believe, says Bruce A. Dixon. While Save Darfur's good-vs-evil battle has consistently touted a total figure of 400,000 dead in Darfur, sources on the ground indicate that there were actually around 1,500 deaths last year. That people are dying is not to be minimised or downplayed, Dixon contends, but the notion that the US's global might is needed to slay a unified evil is increasingly revealing itself as purely a means to establish domestic consent for military intervention in Africa.

Following Barack Obama's visit to Ghana last week, Gerald Caplan questions the US president's grasp of African affairs. Obama's comments around good governance as a pre-condition for foreign investment are simply false Caplan points out, as any glance at apartheid-era South Africa or contemporary Nigeria and Angola would confirm. If Obama is serious about supporting Africa, he should seek to break with the entrenched twin burdens of self-interested leaders and exploitative Western policies holding back the continent, Caplan concludes, and not merely perpetuate them.

Reactions to Obama’s Ghana visit and the contradictory and somewhat insubstantial speech he made there are the focus of Sokari Ekine’s fortnightly round-up of the African blogosphere. Some are ‘uncritical’ and ‘bordering on the sycophantic’, but there is also ‘balanced and informed analysis’ to be found, says Ekine.

cc The media has presented the G8’s L’Alqila summit promise of US$20 billion for food security and agricultural development in Africa as good news, but a closer look at the figures shows that G8 countries actually take much more out than they put into the continent, writes Yash Tandon.

cc A new, democratic, people-driven and people-centred constitution is key to addressing Zimbabwe’s problems, writes Mutsa Murenje. Examining amendments to the country’s constitution that created the role of executive president, Murenje argues that these have given Mugabe excessive power and undermined the country’s democratic development.

cc The majority of South Africans are dirt-poor, writes William Gumede, something which makes the country's leaders fondness for lavish living on public money all the more unacceptable. President Jacob Zuma must instil a culture of engagement with ordinary citizens among his officials, Gumede argues, one which ends self-serving cronyism and sees public funds directed to those most in need.

cc Disappointed by Barack Obama's Ghana speech, Tendai Marima says the US president's failure to acknowledge the role America has played in African affairs reflects its 'political historical aphasia'. By glossing over 'how African wars and dictatorships are made', Obama reinforces the image of Africa as the 'black hole of war and corruption', Marima argues. The US media may have hailed the speech as a turning point in US–Africa relations, but says Marima, so far 'Obama's foreign policy has not reflected a politics of change but more of the same'.

cc Pan-Africanism is not just a throwback to the post-colonial period, writes Zaya Yeebo, the people of Africa are still ‘united by culture, history and identity’. Africans around the continent feel each other’s pain and are bound together as a people by events, says Yeebo, whether it is the struggle for emancipation in the Niger Delta, or the crisis in the DRC. Charting a history of the Pan-African Movement from the first conference in 1900 to the present day, Yeebo calls for Pan-African solutions to African problems, with Pan-Africanism as a ‘collective understanding’ of how ‘we intend to conduct our affairs in today’s globalised world’.

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Beset by antagonism and lack of solidarity, both the Pan-African and the trades unions movements are letting down Africans, says Vincent Nuwagaba. The reason, Nuwagaba argues, is that there are two categories of members: Those that are 'genuinely passionate about the ideals, values and objectives of the movements, which are centred on social welfare, and those that seek personal and self-aggrandisement'. The movements must ‘extricate themselves from the claws of African predatory leaders,’ says Nuwagaba, who ‘promised too much upon capturing power and have destroyed too much instead’.