DEVELOPMENT-SOUTHERN AFRICA: Zambezi Stakeholders to Take Action

Stakeholders in the Zambezi River Basin are holding their annual meeting this week with the aim of matching their needs with a commitment to action.

ENVIRONMENT-AFRICA: Greenhouse Gas Targets Elusive After Climate Talks

International talks on climate change held at a conference in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, ended Friday without having established a solid timetable for cuts in greenhouse gas emissions after the Kyoto Protocol expires.

DEVELOPMENT-AFRICA: If You Can’t Escape Climate Change, Adapt to It

A conference on climate change, about to wrap up in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, has heard that adaptation to the effects of shifting weather patterns can play a key role in efforts to address climate change - alongside the bid to lessen greenhouse gas emissions.

HEALTH-MOZAMBIQUE: Ensuring that a Jail Sentence Is Not a Death Sentence

Like most other Southern African countries, Mozambique battles a high HIV prevalence rate, with those in need of anti-retroviral medication experiencing difficulty obtaining it at the best of times.

ECONOMY-ZAMBIA: Conflict Looms Over Revision of Mineral Tax

The Zambian government's recent move to increase the mineral royalty tax could meet with resistance from foreign mining companies in the copper-rich country. This may bring mining interests in direct conflict with ordinary citizens who feel they are benefiting neither from the higher international copper price nor from privatisation.

HEALTH-SOUTH AFRICA: Solidarity With Developing Nations – At a Cost

As concerns continue to be expressed about the departure of African medical professionals for wealthy countries, South Africa says it is not recruiting health workers from developing nations - something that also reflects the country's own experience of the medical "brain drain".

ENVIRONMENT-AFRICA: Changing Climate, Changing Lives

Marginalised communities attending a United Nations conference on climate change being held in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, have given accounts of how their lives are being altered for the worse - something they blame on climate change.

DEVELOPMENT: Turning the Tide on Human Suffering

If the world's growing water crisis remains unresolved - depriving clean water to more than one billion of the world's six billion people - it will jeopardise the U.N.'s longstanding battle to reduce global poverty, hunger and disease by its targeted date of 2015, the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) warned Thursday.

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-MOZAMBIQUE: Citizens Become Judge, Jury and Executioner

With a lack of faith in the police seeming to have escalated in certain suburbs of the Mozambican capital, Maputo, citizens have lately resorted to taking the law into their own hands, and meting out rough justice to alleged criminals. This has resulted in a body count of over 20 since August.

DEVELOPMENT: Ireland Offers Malawi Aid After HIPC Compliance

Malawi's compliance with the requirements of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative has opened the door to a commitment by Ireland to increase aid to the Southern African country.

DEVELOPMENT-LESOTHO: Pension System Works, Despite IMF Scepticism

Twenty dollars seems a meagre amount, but it has brought an end to backbreaking toil and food insecurity for many of Lesotho's elderly.

BOTSWANA: Unemployment Surges as Government Plans Fail to Take Off

Botswana is still widely cited as Africa's economic success story, but fears are emerging of a reversal because of soaring unemployment and the sluggish implementation of government plans.

ZIMBABWE: Government Accused of Persistent Human Rights Abuses

"I was arrested a dozen times," notes Tapera Kapuya, a student leader at the University of Zimbabwe between 2001 and 2002, who says he was the target of both police and the Southern African country's intelligence agents.

CHINA: Winning Friends and Influence in Africa

Accused of supporting corrupt African regimes to facilitate its imports of oil and raw materials from the resource-rich continent, China is staging a grand diplomatic forum to defend its dealings with Africa.

HEALTH-SOUTH AFRICA: The Prospect of Unity in the Fight Against AIDS

A few minutes before the deputy president of South Africa, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, stepped into the conference hall, a participant burst into song. Soon she was joined by her colleagues in welcoming the guest of honour.

POLITICS-AFRICA: The Ultimate Golden Handshake

Various African researchers and civil society groups have given a mixed response to the launch of a five-million-dollar prize for African leaders who relinquish power and promote good governance.

ECONOMY-NAMIBIA: A Range of Woes Underpins Unemployment

One of the most pressing issues facing Namibian officials at present is the country's high unemployment rate. According to the latest 'Namibian Labour Force Survey', which was presented to parliament earlier this year, 36.7 percent of the country's population is currently unemployed, up more than three percent since the previous survey in 2000.

ECONOMY-ZAMBIA: Making Debt Relief More of a Relief

While Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa won another term in office during last month's general elections, matters that plagued him in the course of the campaign are unlikely to dissipate now that polling is complete - particularly a sense that funds freed up by debt relief are not tangibly improving the lives of Zambians.

DEVELOPMENT-KENYA: Flying Toilets Still Airborne

An overflowing pit latrine empties its contents in a thick stream of worm-infested filth at the doorstep of Catherine Kithuku's home in Matopeni, a slum on the outskirts of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

EDUCATION-NAMIBIA: “No Wonder Our Pass Rate Is So Poor”

"God looked at my work and he was pleased. But when he looked at my salary, he wept," says the computer-generated poster in Norbert Booi's office at A. Shipena Secondary School, a government school in Windhoek's oldest suburb, Katutura.