HEALTH-UGANDA: HIV-Positive Movers and Shakers

The fragrance of ginger and paw paws from market stalls floats into the tiny room where Musisi Josephus Gavah shows visitors a thick ledger - the register of members of the Mukono District Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS.

EDUCATION: Lessons For Providing Adequate Schooling in Africa

Various African governments received a stinging rebuke this week for failing to live up to promises to improve children’s education in their countries.

POLITICS-UGANDA: Amnesty Via the Airwaves

His left leg missing, Jackson Acama stands uneasily on crutches. At 42, he is one of the oldest former rebels from the Lord’s Resistance Army to have taken up residence at the World Vision rehabilitation centre in Gulu, northern Uganda. By Acama’s own account, he was a major in the notorious guerilla movement.

RIGHTS-KENYA: In the Name of Chastity, Girls Go Through Pain, Humiliation

Judy Santeyan and her sister Dorcas Keiwua have been badly mutilated, after being forced by eight persons to undergo unsafe traditional circumcision in Kenya.

DEVELOPMENT-ZAMBIA: From Famine to Feast

It has been a bumper year for Zambia on the agricultural front. According to the head of the country’s Food Reserve Agency, Frida Luhila, Zambia is now able to export maize for the first time since the ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy came to power in 1991. Maize is the country’s staple food crop.

POLITICS: The War in Northern Uganda ‘Coming to An End’

The conflict in northern Uganda, which has claimed thousands of lives and displaced about a million people, is losing momentum and slowly grinding to a halt, religious leaders and human rights groups say.

RIGHTS-KENYA: Massacre Survivors Fear Returning to Burundi

The killing remains vivid in their minds. And the deep scars on their bodies will for a long time remind them of the slaughter of their compatriots at a refugee camp in the tiny central African nation of Burundi.

CULTURE: Rwanda ‘Turning’ Its Back on French Language

Since the 1994 genocide, relations between France and Rwanda have been chilly due to France’s links to the Hutu-dominated regime which incited the carnage.

RIGHTS-AFRICA: Female Genital Mutilation in the Spotlight

Difficult to speak about and dreadful to endure, female genital mutilation is taking a toll on the women of Africa.

POLITICS-AFRICA: The Continental Legislature Puts Down Roots

It was a telling incident. While several religious leaders were invited to say a prayer at Thursday's opening of the Pan-African Parliament's second sitting, an imam was not amongst them.

HEALTH: New Drug Formulas Needed for Children With AIDS

With HIV-infected children dying much faster than adults – shockingly, one-half by their second birthday – doctors are scrambling to design new treatment protocols that work even in the most resource-poor settings.

RIGHTS-KENYA: A Glimmer of Hope for the Ogiek

It's probably fair to say that the plight of the Ogiek receives little attention on a continent with more than its share of political and economic crises.

POLITICS: Soldiers of Fortune Likely to Roam Africa for Some Time

Debate about the role played by mercenaries in Africa has been revived in recent months, following the arrest and subsequent sentencing of 68 men accused of plotting to overthrow Teodoro Obiang Nguema: president of the tiny, oil-rich state of Equatorial Guinea.

POLITICS-SUDAN: Ire on the Part of Government Officials

Sudan’s government has launched a scathing attack on the United States, accusing it of spearheading a campaign to have the United Nations apply sanctions against Khartoum over the crisis in Darfur.

HEALTH: The Divergence of AIDS, and Sexual and Reproductive Rights

AIDS prevention efforts and initiatives to support sexual and reproductive health would seem to be natural allies. Why is it then that projects to advance these causes so often proceed in isolation of each other?

ECONOMY-AFRICA: IMF Chief Sees a Glimmer of Hope

For Africa to outgrow its economic woes, it will need a heavy dose of financial assistance from the world’s richest countries, says Rodrigo de Rato – managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

RIGHTS-KENYA: Women Seek Access to Land

A campaign to set up a women’s land movement has kicked off in Kenya, at a time when the East African country has embarked on a controversial land-reform debate.

POLITICS: Marauding Militias Remain a Thorn in Somalia’s Flesh

As Somalia inches closer to peace, a new parliament, which sat in neighbouring Kenya this week, is faced with a daunting task of disarming the marauding militias, responsible for the chaos in the Horn of African nation.

HEALTH: At Three Cents a Unit, Condoms Often Rare as Hen’s Teeth

‘Countdown 2015: Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights for All’, a conference that wrapped up in London Thursday, was awash with statistics on a range of matters. One statistic had particular resonance, however - namely that men in sub-Saharan Africa only have access to an average of three condoms a year.

POLITICS: Darfur Overshadows the Peace Process in South Sudan

The crisis in the Sudan’s western region of Darfur has overshadowed the peace process in the south of the country, where more than 2 million people have been killed since 1983.

HEALTH: Men – Final Frontier for Education on Sex and Family Planning?

It's not as if men are conspicuous by their absence at 'Countdown 2015: Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights for All'; quite a few have braved the meeting, even though it must be disheartening to hear the shortcomings of their gender so thoroughly dissected.