A public disagreement between Zimbabwe's Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, and Finance Minister Tendai Biti over pay increases in public servants' salaries is being seen as evidence of greater divisions between two of the most senior leaders of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

The human and environmental disruption wreaked by drought in Somaliland, where more than 60 percent of people raise livestock for a living, means the self-declared, but barely recognized, independent state should draw up its own plan for climate change adaptation, according to a new report.

Government indifference threatens to put an end to the Uganda Millennium Science Initiative (MSI) project, says former executive director of the Africa Academy of Sciences, Tom Egwang. The US$30 million MSI programme, financed by the World Bank and launched in 2006, has made great progress in many areas including malaria vaccines, fisheries, climate change and agri-biotechnology, says Egwan.

Clinical research in South Africa is in serious decline because of two decades of "disinvestment" — leading to an ageing workforce, "chronic underfunding" of its Medical Research Council and "grossly insufficient" funding for research professorships, says a report.