WORLD WATER DAY-KENYA: Holes in the Legal System, Leaks in the Pipes

Kenya's capital, Nairobi, takes its name from a Maasai word meaning "place of cool waters". In parts of the city, however, this term is less descriptive than ironic - as demand for water is outstripping supply.

DEVELOPMENT-MOZAMBIQUE: What To Do When a Cyclone Hits

Sandra Alberto (picture) was heavily pregnant when Cyclone Favio struck Mozambique earlier this month on 2 March, ripping the zinc roof off the house she and her two children had taken refuge in.

DEVELOPMENT-AFRICA: Forced to Choose ”Which Rights to Violate”

Images of tiny, malnourished African children, some scavenging for leftover food, have continued to grace the covers of brochures, posters and video clips of aid agencies since the devastating famine that claimed more than one million lives in Ethiopia 22 years ago.

HEALTH-AFRICA: Facing AIDS, Malaria Amidst Brain Drain

As though the decimating effects of HIV/AIDS and malaria were not enough to deal with, African countries also have to battle with the continuing exodus of health professionals leaving the continent for greener pastures.

DEVELOPMENT-AFRICA: MDGs Depend on Power Relations Changing

‘‘The people of Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta are poor not because they do not have resources but because they do not have political power. Those who wield power in Nigeria are building skyscrapers in Lagos and Abuja while there is nothing in the Niger Delta. It is the same at the global level.''

DEVELOPMENT-ZIMBABWE: A Herculean Effort Is Needed

‘‘You cannot talk of halving poverty when our country is going in the opposite direction. We are totally lost,’’ says Maxwell Tambarare, a teacher in Chiredzi, a region to the south east of Zimbabwe.

DEVELOPMENT-MALAWI: Outlook Remains Bleak for the Poor

Grace Kafere is tired. She has been on her feet for close to five hours, bending over as she moves up and down in a forest gathering twigs and branches to sell as firewood.

MAURITIUS: Syringes and Needles Now Part of Anti-AIDS Arsenal

In contrast to the rest of southern Africa, intravenous (IV) drug users have become the group most vulnerable to the transmission of the HI virus in Mauritius. This has led the Mauritian government to introduce a syringe and needle exchange programme in a bid to stem HIV infection among Mauritian drug users.

EDUCATION-MOZAMBIQUE: Orphans’ Choice: School or Survival?

The school year kicks off in Mozambique with more children enrolling for primary school than ever in the past. But educational prospects remain bleak for orphans like Regina Massango.

DEVELOPMENT-TANZANIA: Sachs Says It Is Possible to Meet MDGs

World renowned economist and director of the United Nations (UN) Millennium Project, Jeffrey Sachs, is a harbinger of good news. During his visit to Nairobi, capital of Kenya, in mid-January he emphasised that it was still possible to meet the MDGs before 2015.

CHALLENGES 2006-2007: Malawi On Track to Meet Child Mortality MDG

Looking at Patience Ziyenda, 37, one would say that she is a jovial woman. But deep inside, Patience is sad. She is among the many women in Malawi who have been struck by the catastrophe of child mortality.

DEVELOPMENT: Report Details Toll Taken by Lack of Water, Sanitation

The 2006 Human Development Report, 'Beyond Scarcity: Power, Poverty and the Global Water Crisis', focuses on the ongoing problems that surround provision of potable water and sanitation. The document is being launched Thursday in Cape Town, South Africa, by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

RIGHTS-COTE D’IVOIRE: Disability and Sex Can Share the Same Bed, Say Women

Marginalised by society because they have few legal or institutional forms of protection, disabled women in Cote d'Ivoire are now coming out of the shadows and demanding their rights - particularly those related to their sexual and reproductive lives.

HEALTH-UGANDA: USAID’s Malaria Control Plan Risks Public Disapproval

A population explosion in the highlands in south-west Uganda has turned fertile wetlands into breeding grounds for malarial mosquitoes.

HEALTH-KENYA: ‘Break the Silence on Abortion’

Local communities have been urged to act as agents of change and break the silence on illegal abortions fuelling Kenya's maternal mortality.

SCIENCE-SOUTH AFRICA: From "Publish or Perish" to "Publish and Vanish"

"Publish or perish" is the warning given many academics at the start of their careers. But it's publication of a very particular kind that scholarly researchers crave.

HEALTH-NAMIBIA: In Prisons, a Little Latex Could Go a Long Way

A piece of legislation nearly 30 years old that outlaws male-to-male sodomy may, at first glance, appear more a target for gay rights activists than AIDS campaigners. Seen in the context of Namibia's prisons however, the 1977 Criminal Procedures Act raises questions that relate to both health and rights.

MEXICO: Wilma Devastated Hotels, Tourism Workers’ Shacks Alike

Much less visible than the damages caused by Hurricane Wilma to Cancún's luxury hotels on Mexico's Caribbean shoreline is the destruction of the tumbledown shacks built well out of view of the hotel strip, which house the tens of thousands of workers who serve the industry.

POLITICS-SUDAN: Remember Darfur

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has renewed calls for the international community to press for peace in the western Sudanese region of Darfur.

HEALTH-SWAZILAND: A Message to Teenagers – Take Charge!

A new advertising campaign aimed at curtailing teenage HIV rates by promoting abstinence is using a combination of traditional and modern values in its appeal to Swazi youth.

HEALTH-SOUTHERN AFRICA: AIDS Orphans – a Silent Tsunami

Twelve million and counting: that is the number of children who have lost one or both parents to AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. This figure is expected to double by 2010.