Plummeting copper prices have caused investors to shy away from the $1.5 billion Kafue Lower Gorge Dam, which is designed exclusively for use by foreign mining companies. According to Reuters, the World Bank’s private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), reports that the proposed $1.5 billion Kafue Lower Gorge Dam in Zambia has been put on hold, as many investors shy away from major commitments in light of the financial crisis.

A Niger guerilla faction led by dissident Tuareg insurgent leader Rhissa Ag Boula announced Dec. 16 it had abducted Canadian UN special envoy Robert Fowler, who disappeared with an aide while driving some 30 miles northeast of the capital Niamey. The vehicle was found abandoned. In a posting on its website, Ag Boula's Front of Forces for Rectification (FFR), which split from the Niger Justice Movement (MNJ) in May, said it was holding four people, including Fowler.

This conference will reflect on the diverse and changing notions of ‘the public’, in relation to the production of medical knowledge and health in contemporary Africa. We hope that an improved understanding of this basic social and political concept will help strengthen the connection between public health and social progress and confront the power imbalances in global medical research and health care delivery.

Berghof Conflict Research (BCR) is offering opportunities for supervised PhD social science research starting in 2009, on topics related to BCR's programme areas. Applications, including a research outline (maximum 6 pages), references, CV, and supporting documents should be sent to [email][email protected] by 31 March 2009. Please note that due to the forthcoming holidays we will be able to reply to your requests by 12 January 2009 at the earliest.

Tanzania has reiterated that the proposed land reforms being vigorously pursued by Kenyan politicians that seek to allow foreign citizens to own vast tracts of land within the country are totally out of the question. The Deputy Minister for East African Co-operation, Mohammed Aboud, told reporters in the Ugandan capital Kampala that Tanzania is not ready to adopt the controversial issue of cross-border private land ownership within the region.

A free and fair media is a necessary element in any democracy. The press is the watchdog of the government. They ensure that the truth be told. The government should have no power in a democracy to control news outlets. If the bill is signed the government is essentially stealing the voice of the people so they will be able to declare a "state of emergency" when it is convenient for them. Giving the government a gag hold on the media's ability to report the truth.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has said African leaders are not brave enough to force him from power, the state-run Herald newspaper reports. He told a meeting of his Zanu-PF party that the US was encouraging African countries to oust him, but said it would not be easy to send in an army.

Survivors of Rwanda's genocide and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon have welcomed the life sentence given to its mastermind Theoneste Bagosora. Bagosora and two co-defendants were found by a UN tribunal to have led a committee that plotted the massacre of ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus. Mr Ban said the sentences were a "major step in the fight against impunity".

Why are many African states dominated by one political party? Why are ineffective leaders often re-elected by willing African publics? This research from Michigan State University published by Afrobarometer analyses attitudes to political parties in 18 African countries. It finds a significant gapin public trust of ruling and opposition parties, at least in part because Africans value respect for leaders

Land is at the heart of all economic activity and a subject that has gained prominence the world at large since the 1990s - Land policy reform. Though the challenges vary considerably across regions and countries, the last decade has seen a tremendous increase in the demand for policy advice on land use.

The United Nations published a report by its expert panel that supports what the Congolese people have known and been saying for the longest. Now that the world has acknowledged the nature of the 12 year conflict in the Congo, we may finally start to see policy prescriptions that reflect the truth and include what the Congolese have argued for some time now.

On November 23, civil society groups convened a high-level meeting in Cairo to discuss the West Delta Irrigation project, which is financed in part by a $145 million World Bank loan. The project supports the construction of an irrigation system that will divert water from the Nile to supply modern, export-oriented farms on reclaimed desert lands that have severely depleted groundwater sources.

United Nations-backed talks between the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and a main rebel group, aimed at finding a peaceful resolution to the strife-ridden country’s brutal armed conflict, resumed today after a week-long break. This round of negotiations is slated to end on 20 December when the two sides are set to adopt a framework for substantive dialogue attempting to end the conflict that has been plaguing the eastern part of the vast DRC.

Actor-director Ben Affleck and Rolling Stone singer Mick Jagger have released a short film to help raise $23 million for United Nations efforts to pay for clean water and emergency aid kits for 250,000 people driven from their homes by renewed fighting in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The film – “Gimme Shelter” – set to the Rolling Stones’ song of the same name, was shot last month in North Kivu province, epicentre of the latest surge in fighting.

SADC Executive Secretary Tomaz Salomao has confirmed to Newsreel that it’s secretariat received documents and video evidence from the Zimbabwean government, on alleged MDC banditry training in Botswana. The revelation will outrage the MDC and other pro-democracy activists who claim several abducted activists featured in the video were tortured into making confessions about this ‘military training.’

Authorities in Democratic Republic of Congo have arrested eight foreign businessmen, accusing them of embezzling around $40 million intended for public works projects, the justice minister said on Friday. The men, including Belgian, Italian, French and Lebanese nationals, had received public funds to build roads and schools after winning tenders in 2006.

A portable, hand-held device can provide quick and accurate measurements of blood lactate levels, investigators report in the December 1st of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes. Antiretroviral treatment programmes in resource-limited settings often include d4T (stavudine). Possible side-effects of d4T include increased lactate levels or lactic acidosis, a rare but potentially fatal condition.

Morocco has retracted its reservations on the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), King Mohammed VI announced during a speech on Wednesday (December 10th), the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The UN refugee agency on Tuesday condemned an attack on a vehicle carrying staff of an Italian aid agency that left one person dead and another injured in the strife-torn Congolese province of North Kivu. "UNHCR deplores the cold-blooded murder of a staff member of the Italian NGO, Voluntary Association for International Service (AVSI)," a spokesperson said, adding that armed men had on Monday ambushed the vehicle near Rutshuru town, which is located some 70 kilometres north of the provincial capital, Goma.

Open Access (OA) refers to the immediate and free access for any user to full text online scientific and scholarly material, primarily research articles published in peer-reviewed journals. Open Access means that any user who has access to the Internet, may link, read, download, store, print-off, use, and data-mine the digital content of that article. An Open Access article usually has limited copyright and licensing restrictions.

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe announced on Friday he had invited rival Morgan Tsvangirai to be sworn-in as prime minister in a shared government, but expressed doubt whether he would accept. Opposition leader Tsvangirai, meanwhile, threatened to ask for a suspension of power-sharing talks if the government did not stop what he called the persecution of political opponents.

Members of the Somali parliament allied to Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, the president, have said that they are in hiding after they received death threats. The group said on Thursday that they were in Baidoa, in south-central Somalia, after militia men and soldiers entered parliament.

The Swedish government has suspended 80 million kronor in aid to Rwanda following the United Nations report accusing the country of supporting armed rebellion in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, International Development Cooperation Minister Ms Gunilla Carlsson said.

Nosa Abdalla Anglo, 19, was only a year away from joining a secondary school in Khartoum in 2005, but is still in primary school four years later and worries about her chances of going to high school in 2012. Anglo, a returnee to the state of South Kordofan after fleeing the North-South war, which ended with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005, was in an Arabic-medium school in Khartoum but is now enrolled in an English-medium primary school in her village of Karkaraya, on the outskirts of Kadugli, the main town in the state.

Children in sub-Saharan Africa want to know more about sex and how to protect themselves from HIV, but taboos surrounding children's sexuality can mean life-saving information is kept from them, according to an international NGO. Children in the region say they need access to sex education that is comprehensive, practical, and free from moral judgment, according to the report Tell Me More! by Save the Children Sweden (SC-S).

For the second consecutive year Sierra Leone has come last in the UN Development Programme ranking of human development indicators of 179 countries. Some analysts say Sierra Leone is nonetheless advancing in some areas and that the impact of the country’s 11-year civil war must be taken into account for a full measure of progress.

Reporters Without Borders condemns the government's closure of Viva TV on the night of 13 to 14 December 2008, after the station broadcast a message by former president Didier Ratsiraka. The authorities accused the station, owned by the mayor of Antananarivo, of broadcasting statements liable to "disturb public order and security." Ratsiraka has lived in exile in Paris since 2002.

In response to , I agree with your sentiments around attempting to resolve the situation in a peaceful and democratic way. However, all this has been tried many times before in engaging with ZANU-PF. There is no need to wait for any foreign military intervention to de-humanise the people of that nation; ZANU-PF has already succeeded in that respect. As for democracy, no such luxury exists in Zimbabwe because the current regime will ensure that they will win any election at any cost. Furthermore, there will never be any ‘political process’ when faced with this kind of intransigent evil tyranny. As for peace, will this only be possible if ZANU-PF is the one and only ruling party? But then again, maybe you are in favour of one-party states? Your Marxist rhetoric referring to the intervention of ‘imperialist powers’ is, quite frankly, ludicrous. All that is necessary for evil to perpetuate itself is for good men to do nothing.

Mahmood Mamdani’s is full of factual errors and brushed out truths, which I have numbered and will address below:

(1) Mamdani states ‘Although their strength lay in the countryside, the war vets formed the only alliance that was both independent of Mugabe and ZANU-PF’. Mugabe was and IS their patron, and is not independent at all.

(2) ‘By the late 1990s, market-led land transfers had dwindled to a trickle.’ Well, ask yourself why. After passing the Land Acquisition Act Mugabe had first refusal on every farm sale and he happily gave out 'expressions of no interest' in buying the land because he didn't care a jot whether the people had access to land or not.

Catherine Irura’s article is just so informative. There are things I simply took for granted, like about women during their menstrual cycle – gosh, just unbelievable yet very true at the same time. Keep up the talk on this – this article speaks out loud and clear about the water and sanitation issues in Africa.

I lament with Obama's lies about change followed by a reality of ‘no change’. In fact I cried a week after the elections, because I realised that many of us who stand with marginalised, disenfranchised and chained people in Palestine, Cuba and Afghanistan were let in by too much zeal for change.

As a Ugandan, this resonates with me so well. I remember as a child of the 1980s in Uganda that people were so desperate for change. When Museveni came on board, the entire country literally embraced him, but change soon turned out into a menace and now 22 years down the road, we face a reality of ‘no change’. I hope Europe tames Obama internationally and I really hope Obama can find us some work domestically, because he and his team are now beginning to look like the old wine in new bottles.

Regarding , be glad that you have some financial freedom of choice, because people in other places, like Somalia, don't have access to such things. Somalia has been home to over ten years of near continuous civil war, and it isn't likely to let up anytime soon. Industry and development have been slow in the war-torn country, and there isn't a great deal of social mobility, unless of course you happen to be one of the local warlords.

Some citizens have found a way to make themselves a good living in these times of trouble by turning to one of the worlds' oldest professions, but it isn't one you're likely to see an ad for in the paper, and there isn't a benefits package, retirement, or even much job security, but many people have turned to it at times – that is, piracy.

Yes, Virginia, pirates. Now when most people these days think pirates, they conjure up images of Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom, but that isn't what pirates in the modern world are like. Modern pirates use high speed boats, AK-47s, RPG launchers, and GPS equipment. In recent months, a Ukrainian vessel carrying military equipment and a Saudi ship carrying about 2 million barrels of oil have been captured and their cargo and crews held for ransom. This is one of the primary ways for ordinary citizens to achieve some financial independence in that area, and foreign militaries are starting to send in their navies to fight off the pirates.

The Mo Ibrahim Foundation in association with SOAS and the Centre of African Studies-University of London is organising a Summer School in Dakar, Senegal, in April 2009 on the topic of ‘Governance and Development in Africa’. The residential school is for 25 participants who are policy makers, academics, or civil society representatives from any African country who will gain, through this training, new ideas and experience on the wide issue of good governance and development. We welcome applications from a wide range of backgrounds. Deadline for applications: 20th January 2009.

Barack Obama’s incoming administration could be stuck on the horn of a security dilemma in the strategic but unstable horn of Africa. A widening Somali crisis which has variously challenged both George Bush I and the Clinton Administrations, with disastrous consequences, now confronts Obama with the specter of “Blackhawk down” in Mogadishu.

China’s increasing African involvement often appears to generate more journalism than scholarship, and its coverage all too often tells us more about Western fears and myths than about Chinese intentions and African needs and priorities. African voices, and informed international scholarship are both heard too little. An initial step to remedying the first defect was Fahamu’s 2007 publication African perspectives on China in Africa edited by Firoze Manji and the present reviewer. Chris Alden, Daniel Large and Ricardo Soares de Oliveira's volume goes a long way to remedying the second - though the three editors and many of their contributors are both already known for their substantial individual contributions.

This report has been produced within the capacity building programme on participatory research and action (PRA) for people centred health systems in EQUINET. It is part of a growing mentored network of PRA work and experience in east and southern Africa, aimed at strengthening people centred health systems and people’s empowerment in health. The report presents the work and outcomes from the follow up action research building on a pilot in 2006 that aimed to strengthen community-health centre partnership and accountability in two districts in Zambia.

Kenyan citizens and members of PEN International Kenya Chapter, condemn in the strongest terms possible the pattern of unconstitutional and insane legislation playing out in Parliament with the blessings of your Government. By passing your Government’s repugnant Kenya Communications (Amendment) Bill, 2008, Parliament has infringed on both our God-given human rights, and on our constitutionally recognised civic rights to representation and to freedom of expression, association, assembly, thought, communication, and even of dress.

With the recent sharp decline in Chinese manufacturing output, the global decoupling theory seems to have died a well-deserved death. The idea that developing countries had become less dependent on US economic conditions, and so were insulated from the US crisis, was based on a potent combination of bad analysis and wishful thinking. In fact the first stage of the crisis has primarily affected trade-deficit countries, which included many of the rich countries.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned the arrest by the security forces in Burkina Faso of four organisers of a big demonstration marking the 10th anniversary of the assassination of investigative journalist, Norbert Zongo, in Burkina Faso. The four are leading members of the Coalition Against Impunity which organised the demonstration in the capital, Ouagadougou, last Saturday, in support of the call for a fast-track inquest into Zongo’s murder.

This latest report from the International Crisis Group, argues that the inter-party negotiations to implement a power-sharing government under the Global Political Agreement are hopelessly deadlocked. The ZANU-PF regime has repeatedly violated the agreement’s premises by resuming a campaign of violence against Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) supporters and making pre-emptive appointments.

With a focus on Ethiopia, this paper identifies and analyses the types, prevalence, major causes and effects of violence against girls in schools. It also aims to assess the availability and effectiveness of policies, rules and regulations and concludes with recommendations on ways to reduce violence against school girls. Despite the legal provisions and efforts to reduce and eliminate violence against children, particularly girls, violence and abuse seem to be widespread in Ethiopia - taking place at home, in schools, and in the community at large.

This report by Mindy Schneider of Cornell University looks at food riots around the world, government responses, and states of democracy in 2008.

We have often said that as the poor our only strength is in our discipline. Our numbers mean nothing if we are not organized and we cannot be organized without being disciplined. Our discipline has never been about taking orders from above. Our movement grew out of a rejection of the top down politics of the councillors, the ward committees and the branch executive committees. We have always rejected top down politics in all its forms - including those NGOs that want to remote our movements.

cc. Concerned scholars should revitalise their opposition to Zimbabwe’s Mugabe regime, writes Horace Campbell. While being against any form of opportunistic, external intervention in the country, Campbell argues that scholars must come to offer an effective challenge to ZANU-PF’s persistent retreat into spurious anti-imperialist discourse. Heavily critical of writers like Mahmood Mamdani for echoing ZANU-PF’s claims around the effects of economic sanctions levied against Zimbabwe, Campbell argues that blocking international payments would prove a far more efficacious means of tackling Mugabe’s misappropriation of funds.

Sanusha Naidu provides a round up of this week's developments on China and Africa, at a time when China celebrates 30 years of market reforms.

AIDS is affecting women and girls in increasing numbers: globally women comprise almost 50% of people living with HIV. Nearly 25 years into the epidemic, gender inequality and the low status of women remain two of the principal drivers of HIV. Yet current AIDS responses do not, on the whole, tackle the social, cultural and economic factors that put women at risk of HIV, and that unduly burden them with the epidemic’s consequences.

Stephen Marks looks at the rising influence of China in the global economy in the wake of the financial crisis. China’s top economic decision-makers, gathering for a key meeting in Beijing, were reported to be planning a new tax boost to the economy, as support was pledged to recession-hit firms from airlines to carmakers. But latest figures showed the recession’s impact was worse than expected. Officials began their annual three-day Central Economic Work Conference in Beijing, which sets the tone for policies for the coming year. Informed sources suggested they could by 1 percentage point from the current 5 percent which would amount to a 120 billion yuan ($17.5 billion) boost.

After the break in the 1990s, Russia is making a comeback to the African continent. Effective penetration into Africa requires an integrated approach. We need to make our political contacts in Africa more active. Russia has economic interests on all continents where it is encountering active competition from the United States, European Union nations, or China. Of late, the economic and political interests of these players have intersected in Africa.

China has promised to train 15,000 African personnel in the next three years to strengthen the cooperation in human resources development between China and Africa.