CULTURE-SWAZILAND: Women in the Forefront of the Battle Against AIDS

Gogo ("Granny") Mkhatjwa, 62, has had enough of watching her grandchildren die of "the disease that cuts you down completely," as AIDS is colloquially known in the SiSwati language.

RIGHTS-ZIMBABWE: Women of Amazing Courage

When she opened the front door to her house, 28 year-old Patience Makoni (not her real name) thought she was letting in a friend who had called earlier to say she would be visiting her later that day.

RIGHTS-ZAMBIA: Civic Groups File an Injunction to Restrain Head of State

The battle between President Levy Mwanawasa and the women's movement in Zambia is enjoined.

/ARTS WEEKLY/CULTURE-UGANDA: Beauty with a Purpose

The turn-up to beauty pageants, which the majority of Ugandans used to frown on, now includes professionals, cabinet ministers and even religious leaders.

POLITICS-LIBERIA: Women Appeal for Peace

Women in Liberia, tired of carrying the burden of war, have appealed for peace in the strife-torn West African country.

CULTURE-GHANA: Musician Changes her Tune

She used to sing on television in the late 1980s, then a student, preaching love and patience and understanding among lovers and all people of the world.

HEALTH-ZIMBABWE: Providing a Ray of Hope

"When we started in 2001, we used to move from door-to-door looking for AIDS patients," explains the matronly MaSibanda.

HEALTH-ZAMBIA: Campaigners Call for Heavy Sentence for Rapists

Enraged by the rising cases of child abuse, a member of parliament has called for mandatory castration in all defilement and rape cases in Zambia.

CULTURE-TANZANIA: Breaking the Culture of Silence

Antonia Kilegu, 30, looks like a healthy young woman. But when she told a press conference in the Tanzanian commercial city of Dar Es Salaam that she was living positively with the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS many people, including her own relatives, were horrified.

POLITICS-ZAMBIA: Women make slow, but steady Progress

-In the early hours of a cold Winters morning, the streets of Lusaka are thronging with people rushing to work.

CULTURE-TANZANIA: Activists Challenge Gender Inequality As Women Marry Women

-Tanzania still has a long way to go in achieving gender equality and cultures in some communities continue to force women to "marry" another woman in order to bear a son for inheritance purposes.

POLITICS-AFRICA: Gender Dinosaurs At AU Conference

-Womens rights in Africa took several leaps forward when the African Union's executive council insisted that equal gender representation to its governing structure would not be diluted.

CULTURE-MALAWI: Young Women Leaders Rise Up To Challenges

-Faced with high prevalence of HIV/AIDS infection, environmental degradation and sluggish economic growth, young women professionals in Malawi have put their heads together and intensified efforts to bring about a major paradigm shift.

CULTURE-MALAWI: Women Champion For Removal Of Discriminatory Laws

With domestic abuse and violence against women on the rise, Malawian women activists have drafted several bills aimed at ending the suffering they endure in their lives.

POLITICS-TANZANIA: Women Still Face Political Marginalisation

-As the deadline to achieve at least a 30 percent inclusion of women in politics and decision-making in the Southern Africa Development Community, SADC, draws closer, women in Tanzania still face marginalisation in the political arena.

POLITICS: South Africa’s First Female-Led Party Launched

South Africa's first significant female-led political party was launched in South Africa by Patricia de Lille, a former trade unionist and leader of the Pan Africanist Congress.

POLITICS-SOMALIA: Women Hopeful for New Gov’t, Despite Setback

Somali women have been longing for a government that will guarantee them security and a sense of belonging.

POLITICS-NIGERIA: Women Learn the ABC of Winning Elections

Women, who make up almost half Nigeria's population, have gained little in the April polls, despite the vigorous mobilisation and enlightenment campaigns by civil groups, according to women's groups.

RIGHTS: Women Demand Major Say in Africa’s Development

As African leaders and business executives gather in South Africa's commercial capital Johannesburg on Monday for a three-day dialogue within the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), African businesswomen say the "gender blind" blueprint needs a major overhaul to benefit women.

RIGHTS-BENIN: Women Groups Aim Daggers at the Heart of Abuse

After her husband died, Louise Anagonou was banished from their matrimonial home, which she and her husband had built at Ouidah, a small town some 40 kilometres west of the commercial capital, Cotonou.