HEALTH-UGANDA: EU Supports Law Threatening Access to Medicines

The European Union (EU) is funding the drafting of Uganda’s controversial Counterfeit Goods Bill, a proposed law that has caused an outcry as it threatens access to life-saving generic medicines in this low income East African country. Some 90 percent of medicines used in Uganda’s health-care system are imported, of which about 93 percent are generics.

RIGHTS-MALAWI: Country Not Safe for Homosexuals

Malawi is quickly becoming unsafe for homosexuals as the country’s police service recently launched a campaign to hunt down and arrest prominent people who are suspected of being gay.

KENYA: Proposed Constitutional Amendment Sets Back Women’s Rights

Lillian Mutuku, a 34-year-old mother of three, describes her home in Katine area, in Kenya’s Eastern province Tala, as a harsh place to live. The soil is poor, she says, the sun beats down mercilessly and vegetation is sparse.

KENYA: New Bill to Improve State Witness Protection, If Passed

Kenyans affected by the violence that erupted after the country’s disputed presidential elections in 2007 may soon be able to speak out without fear. A new bill will offer better protection to state witnesses.

EDUCATION-TANZANIA: Pregnant Teens Forced Out of School

Pregnancy is the leading cause of dropouts for school girls in Tanzania. And a national law forbidding young mothers to return to school after giving birth did not make it any easier for them to continue their education.

TANZANIA: Weather Changes Turn Farming into Gamble with Nature

Changes in weather patterns have turned agriculture into a gamble with nature for Tanzanian farmers. Prolonged droughts and floods have made the lives of small-scale farmers, who don’t have access to irrigation, extremely difficult.

ENVIRONMENT-UGANDA: Landslides – Experts Warn Worst is Yet to Come

Fourteen-year-old Isaac Wadyegere of Bundesi village in Bududa district woke up to a rainy and chilly Monday morning and went to school as usual. But Mar. 1 was not a usual day in eastern Uganda.

MALAWI: Patrilineal Inheritance Prevents Women’s Access to Land

Mercy Gondwe, 51, from Rumphi in northern Malawi, was married for 34 years. When her husband died in 2008, she assumed she would inherit the land they had been cultivating together since they got married. But this was not the case.

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY: ‘We Will Demonstrate, As They Celebrate’

‘Equal rights; equal opportunities’ may be the theme for this year’s International Women’s Day, but while women around the world celebrate, a group of Ugandan women are protesting against the suppression of their rights.

HEALTH-SOUTH AFRICA: Five Years to Children Born Free of HIV

A world where all children are born free of HIV infection is possible in only five years if donors continue to fund global efforts to combat the virus.

MALAWI: Climate Change Is Changing Farming Methods

As they slept soundly on the night of Feb. 28, a family of four was killed when their house collapsed over their heads in Malawi’s southern district of Chikhwawa.

UGANDA: Pressure Mounts to Make Public Oil Agreements

Uganda’s members of parliament (MPs) are pressurising government to make public details of oil production-sharing agreements it signed with various international oil companies.

EAST AFRICA: Improving Local Access to Family Planning

A severe shortage of highly-trained medical personnel is one of the many challenges to providing health care at a local level across Africa. Task shifting - permitting less-specialised people to carry out certain functions - is one proposal to over come this, but it is meeting resistance.

EAST AFRICA: Women Want Visibility in Regional Union

As the East Africa Community (EAC) gradually moves towards a political confederation, women’s rights groups from the five member states are pushing for an East African Protocol on Gender and Development to bridge the gender gaps within the integration process.

ETHIOPIA: Dam Critics Won’t Go Away

Ethiopia is building a 240-metre high dam on the Omo River that is intended to end the country's electricity shortage and supply power to neighbouring countries. Not everyone's happy.

UGANDA: Early Diagnosis of HIV Still Elusive

HIV-positive Justine Kirumira* is a mother torn between doing what is right for her daughters and her own fear of HIV/AIDS. She suspects that her eight and 12-year-old daughters may also have the virus. But she may never know the truth of their status because she refuses have them tested.

KENYA: Insuring Pastoralists Against Increasing Risks

The droughts in the Turkana region were less severe when she was growing up, says Laura Letapalel, and pastoralists could still find some grass and water for their animals. Now, she laments, the droughts are longer and there is nothing to eat.

KENYA: Victory for Anti-Abortion Lobby

The threat by influential Christian leaders to mobilise a vote against Kenya's draft constitution if it does not explicitly prevent any expansion of abortion rights appears to have succeeded.

RIGHTS-UGANDA: Fugitives in Their Own Country

Every morning Pepe Julian Onziema wakes up not knowing if she will live to see another rising sun. Onziema is transgender and she lives in fear for her life because of a national campaign against gay people.

KENYA: Documenting Sexual Violence

The testimonies of women who survived sexual violence during post-election conflict in 2008 should be heard, say advocates. The magnitude of the crimes committed against women because of their gender must be recorded and prosecuted to prevent such violence from occurring again.

POLITICS-UGANDA: Sharing the National Cake

Their caricatures show great wealth and status, being driven in flashy four-wheel drives surrounded by bodyguards, and receiving benefits including mansions, cars, medical care and travel and sitting allowances. They are treated as Very Important Persons.