RIGHTS-ZAMBIA: Cyberspace Casts Light on the Lives of Death Row Inmates

"Can governments solve urgent social or political problems by executing a few or even hundreds of their prisoners?" asks Benjamin Mawaya, sweltering on death row in Zambia’s Mukobeko high security prison in Kabwe, 150 kilometres from the capital of Lusaka.

MOZAMBIQUE: Agriculture Input Fairs – A Chance to "Live in Dignity"

Despite a chain of misfortunes, 75-year-old Gonçalves Mandlate faithfully works his plot soon after sunrise each day, hoping that his life, and those of the five grandchildren who live with him, will improve.

DEVELOPMENT-NAMIBIA: No Water In Babylon

Cardboard and rickety tin structures jostle for space on a barren outcrop in the sprawling suburb of Katutura in Namibia’s capital Windhoek. A putrid smell hangs in the still, afternoon air as flies wing their way over the debris.

TRADE: Italian Delegation Finds More Than Big Five in S. Africa

‘‘Italians used to think of Africa in terms of safari and animals, especially the Big Five. Now they are realising that there’s business potential in South Africa,’’ says Giovanna Roma, secretary general of the Italian South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Northern, Eastern and Western Cape.

HEALTH: A New Weapon in the Fight Against Anaemia

A nutritional supplement known as Sprinkles, which is a simple powder that parents can easily add to their children's food, reduces childhood anaemia by more than half, according to a recent study published in the Journal of Nutrition.

SOUTHERN AFRICA: Unequal Water Resources Present a Challenge

Water resources are unevenly distributed throughout the countries of Southern Africa. The region boasts of some of the world’s largest lakes and rivers, but is also a land of vast deserts.

Q&A: "What&#39s Important Is the Need, Not the Politics"

When conflicts and natural disasters flare up around the world, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) plays a critical role in delivering relief through a wide and complex array of U.N. agencies and non-governmental aid groups.

TRADE: EPAs May Stifle Uganda&#39s Struggling Flower Industry

Uganda's flower industry needs government incentives and preferential European Union (EU) access to succeed, say members of the east African nation's floricultural sector.

HEALTH-ZIMBABWE: Running Errands of Mercy in the Age of AIDS

Priscilla Ndlovu feels like she has seen it all. She works as a member of one of myriad community home-based care groups, the prevalence of which shows the extent of HIV/AIDS in Zimbabwe, highlighting the country’s struggle to control the pandemic.

DEVELOPMENT-TANZANIA: More Women Dying Preventable Deaths

"I began walking when I felt contractions. I delivered on the roadside five kilometres from the hospital," says the 22-year-old Veronica Joseph.

ECONOMY-MALAWI: Uranium Mining Sparks Controversy

Malawi will have its first-ever modern mining project located in the northern town of Kayelekera in Karonga by early next year if plans by an Australian mining company, Paladin (Africa) Limited, are successful. In April this year, the Malawi government granted the mining company a licence to exploit up to 34,5 million tons of uranium.

DEVELOPMENT-ZIMBABWE: Maternal Deaths, The Neglected Tragedy

''It is a nasty experience which I do not want to be reminded of. But if you try to keep it to yourself it will remain a shock for a long time. I cannot even explain the pain I felt after being told that I was carrying dead bodies in my womb,’’ said Sesedzai Manzanga, a Harare teacher, as she recounted giving birth to a dead set of twins two years ago.

HEALTH-MOZAMBIQUE: Enter Malaria, Another Companion of HIV/AIDS

Anita Elena looks frail after months of chronic diarrhoea. ‘‘I prefer this illness to malaria because malaria kills you rapidly,’’ says Elena, sitting on a reed mat in front of her makeshift two-roomed stick and mud home, which she shares with her husband and three children. ‘‘My older brother died of malaria five years ago. He went rapidly.’’

TRADE-SENEGAL: Africa &#39&#39Will Not Be the Winner&#39&#39 of the EPAs

''I do not know if a winner will emerge from the signing of the economic partnership agreement under the current conditions but I know for sure that Africa cannot be the winner,'' says Amadou Ba, who heads the international negotiations division at Senegal’s ministry of commerce.

CULTURE-ZIMBABWE: &#39&#39It Is Unlawful to Speak the Truth&#39&#39

"If I am going to change anything in my script it will be punctuation marks. I am not changing anything else,’’ said Cont Mhlanga, a prominent Zimbabwean playwright and founder of Bulawayo-based Amakhosi Theatre Production House. He was responding to the banning of his play entitled ‘‘The Good President’’.

MALAWI: ”All-Day Electricity”-As Long As It Is Not Peak Time

Patients have over many years frequently been denied scheduled surgical operations at the Holy Family Hospital in Malawi’s southern region due to abrupt power cuts.

AFRICA: Child Bride Symbolises Reasons Why MDGs Will be Missed

The woes of the child bride in many ways illustrate the conditions underlying the failure of African countries to achieve many of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

WORLD POPULATION DAY: Enlightened Men Prescribed for Maternal Health

What is a common factor in ensuring that women do not marry too young, do not have more children than they can cope with, do not die giving birth - and contract HIV in smaller numbers? Men.

POLITICS-ZIMBABWE: The Cycle of Violence Continues

Pius Ncube, the outspoken Catholic archbishop of Bulawayo in southern Zimbabwe, has urged President Robert Mugabe to step down - this as the country faces deepening political and economic woes.

ENERGY-SOUTH AFRICA: Putting Sunshine in Your Taps

Solar water heaters offer people the chance to save money, increase the security of the local and national energy supply - and cut down on greenhouse emissions said to cause climate change. Yet, roofs throughout South Africa are noticeably bare.

POLITICS-AFRICA: Slowly Does It

A gradual approach to pan-African government has won the day at the annual African Union (AU) summit that ended Tuesday in the Ghanaian capital of Accra, where a stormy debate on this issue continued into the night.