POLITICS-SOUTHERN AFRICA: Electoral Code to Make Its Debut

Voters in Botswana go to the polls this week to elect a new parliament and local government. The diamond-rich nation will become the first to test a new electoral code of conduct adopted by the Southern African Development Community in August.

DEVELOPMENT: An Ambitious Agenda for the Helsinki Process

Their typical day starts at five in the morning or earlier. Balancing a pot on their heads – and sometimes with a baby strapped to their backs – women in rural Africa may walk up to 12 kilometres a day to fetch water.

HEALTH-ZAMBIA: HIV-Positive Prisoners Find Freedom a Mixed Blessing

The HIV pandemic has proved a divisive force in several African countries, not least Zambia.

HEALTH: Chile Making Headway in Fight Against HIV/AIDS

After one year of implementation, a project financed by the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria and carried out jointly by government and civil society agencies has succeeded in slowing down the spread of HIV/AIDS in Chile, although prevention still remains a difficult task.

HEALTH-SENEGAL: Adverts Spark Debate on Traditional Medicine

A Nigerian traditional healer who goes by the name of "Papa Magic Pot" may appear more comical than threatening. However, he and several other Nigerian healers have caused consternation in Senegal.

HEALTH-BURKINA FASO: Activism Clashes With Tradition

Government and civil society representatives from around the world met in Kenya recently to debate how best to end female genital mutilation - a laudable effort. However, a case in Burkina Faso has exposed the limitations of their campaign.

HEALTH: UNICEF Urges Greater Commitment to Reducing Child Mortality

First, the good news: while nearly one in five children was dying before the age of five in the early 1960s, this figure had dropped to less than one in 12 by 2002.

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.

DEVELOPMENT: Activists Urge US to Lobby Hard for Debt Forgiveness

Development groups and economists are stepping up the pressure on rich nations to act on a proposal backed by the United States to cancel the debts of the world's poorest poor nations.

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.

HEALTH: Tuberculosis Resurges in Southern Africa

Fuelled by a burgeoning AIDS problem, tuberculosis is on resurgence in southern Africa where health officials are beginning to talk of integrating programmes to fight the two diseases.

CULTURE-SOUTH AFRICA: Helping Men Become Men

In the Nguni languages, which include Zulu and Xhosa, an "indlavini" is a violent and reckless man who disrespects elders and tradition. The indlavini emerged in the early twentieth century, when millions of South African men migrated to towns – looking for jobs in the gold and diamond mines.

EDUCATION-SOUTH AFRICA: Are Preschoolers Getting Their Due?

"Give me a child until he is seven, and I will show you the man," goes the old Jesuit saying – an advertisement, if ever there was one, for the virtues of preprimary education.

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.

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.

HEALTH-ZAMBIA: In a Quagmire Over AIDS Testing

Voluntary testing or mandatory testing? That is the question AIDS activists and government officials are grappling with in Zambia, where about one million people have already died in the pandemic since the late 1980s.

HIV/AIDS-THAILAND: A Buddy and Hope for Life

While Charoen Orn-Norm and Aranya run a successful recycling business in this border town, just a stone's throw away from Burma, seldom, however, do their clients realise that one of them is HIV positive.

POLITICS-ZIMBABWE: The War That Might Not Have Been

Two years after Zimbabwean troops returned from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Zimbabwe’s public remains largely unaware of the activities of the mission.

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?

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.