Nigeria's former corruption fighter Nuhu Ribadu has said no-one will be safe from prosecution if he is elected president next year. The elections have been set for January but may be postponed. Election officials, who have asked for a delay, however insist that the new president will be inaugurated in May, as planned. Mr Ribadu came to prominence as head of Nigeria's anti-corruption agency before being sidelined in 2007. He returned from exile in June, after saying he had fled because attempts had been made on his life.

At the age of 13, Chantal Kifungo* is mother to a ten-month-old baby girl. It wasn’t her choice. Almost two years ago, she was raped by her stepfather – and fell pregnant with his child. "My mother was in hospital because she had complications with her own pregnancy. I was left alone with my stepfather. One night, he came home and raped me. I tried to shout for help but nobody heard me," Chantal says while nervously playing with her hands in her lap.

Culminating a global summit on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Heads of State and Government, along with the private sector, foundations, international organizations, civil society and research organizations, kicked off a concerted world-wide effort to save the lives of more than 16 million women and children. At a special UN event to launch the “Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health”, stakeholders pledged over $40 billion in resources for women’s and children’ health.

Around 73 WOZA activists arrested Monday, following a demonstration at the Parliament Building in Harare, were eventually released on free bail on Wednesday. The activists marched to commemorate International Peace Day and police arrested them at the end of the march, first charging them with ‘obstructing traffic’ before later changing this to ‘criminal nuisance’.

The objective of this topic is to enable research on common challenges that are relevant to all sub-Saharan African countries and that could be met more effectively by them collectively rather than individually. In order to meet this objective, the research should be multidisciplinary oriented, including the humanities, use and integrate quantitative and qualitative methodologies, develop forward looking approaches when relevant and create knowledge platforms to ensure exchange and transfer of knowledge within Africa and with Europe.

Leaving your children behind in your home country is by no means easy, but more and more people are moving to crossing our borders in the hope of making a better living. Zoopy TV's newsteam spent a day with Belinda, a Zimbabwean who now works as a domestic worker in South Africa.

A pilot project using 'early warning indicators' (EWIs) to minimise antiretroviral (ART) resistance in Namibia has provided further evidence of the potential value of this strategy in settings where routine viral load monitoring is not feasible. With more than four million people in the developing world now receiving antiretroviral therapy, but few of those people able to access the relatively costly laboratory tests that are a standard component of HIV medical care in wealthy countries, there is ongoing concern that high rates of undetected treatment failure could cause widespread drug resistance.

Cheating, mistresses and having more than one partner might sound very sexy and intriguing. But beneath the surface lies a dangerous web of sexual partners which is leading to the rampant spread of HIV/AIDS. This documentary which was aired on e-tv's 3rd Degree in South Africa, engages with a group of HIV+ individuals who all contracted the disease by having sexual relations with more than one person at a time, examines why they did so, and how they hope to educate others to not follow in their footsteps.

'President [Robert] Mugabe [leader of ZANU-PF] and Prime Minister [Morgan] Tsvangirai [leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)] must apologise to me because I was beaten on the head and all over the body by ZANU-PF militia and sustained a broken leg. My daughter-in-law, who was pregnant, and my six-year-old grandson were locked in a house which was then set on fire.' - Juliet Mashoko, a 61-year-old grandmother, attended the recent Survivors Summit in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare, organised by Heal Zimbabwe.

Hectic lives, jam-packed schedules and the all-too-common feeling of powerlessness can keep us from doing what we can to make a difference — even if that difference is simply offering a donation. Social media and the social good movement has revolutionized and re-energized fundraising, with mobile apps making it easier than ever before to do what you can to help others. And it can be surprisingly simple. Knowing that your ability to help others is but a tap away should be motivation enough for you to download these apps and start pitching in.

The election commission in Guinea has proposed 10 October as the revised date for the presidential election run-off. The poll was due last Sunday, but was postponed following violent clashes between rival supporters. The new date must be approved by the head of Guinea's military government, Gen Sekouba Konate.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has called for universal testing and treatment for HIV to help combat the pandemic, the local media reported.The state-owned Herald newspaper quoted the veteran leader, who is attending the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York, as saying HIV should be treated the same way as diseases such as smallpox where nations vaccinated their entire citizens against it.

Featuring a rich representation of African poetic and musical voices, Poetry Africa on Tour kicks off at the Cape Town ICC on Sunday 26th September. Further satellite programmes take place in Harare, Zimbabwe, on 28th and 29th, then Blantyre, Malawi, on 1st October before culminating at the main Poetry Africa festival in Durban from4th to 9th October.

After she became a mother just before her 15th birthday, Diana Ricardo* was forced to drop out of school and give up her dreams of a brighter future. Ricardo says she was impregnated by a teacher, who afterwards refused paternity testing claiming he could not afford a second wife. Ricardo’s case is not unique. Worrying statistics around sexual abuse in schools and high female drop-out rates means Mozambique and other countries in the sub-Saharan Africa region may not reach the 2015 education and gender targets set out in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

NGOs are outraged after confirmation that the world's largest bank will finance the destructive Gibe 3 hydropower dam. The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) is underwriting a $500 million contract awarded 13 May to Dongfang Electric Corporation for the dam's turbines and electro-mechanical works. Although ICBC has not publicly announced the loan, an official confirmed 8 September by email that the financial agreement between ICBC and the Ethiopian government was signed in July. The funding undermines ICBC's efforts to build a global reputation as a socially and environmentally responsible lending institution.

Completing the stalled Doha round of trade talks is 'technically doable' by November 2011, World Trade Organisation (WTO) chief Pascal Lamy said Wednesday. 'Celebrating 10 years of negotiations may not be a big occasion for champagne,' Lamy acknowledged in remarks in Washington, little over a year before the talks hit their 10-year anniversary. Nevertheless, he said that nations involved in the talks could formulate an agreement by November 2011.

Expectant mothers living in internally displaced people’s camps in western Kenya need qualified medical help to minimise the possible risks associated with delivery, the residents said. 'It is by God’s grace that mothers and children survive,' Paul Thiongo, chairman of Pipeline IDP camp along the Nakuru-Eldoret highway, said. 'Safety during birth is a luxury here; even getting three meals is like a dream. Though it may sound odd for us to be depending on traditional birth attendants [TBAs] in the 21st century, there is not much choice.'

Amnesty International on Tuesday warned that the plan of action on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) agreed by governments fails to uphold the rights of the world's poorest. Despite overwhelming evidence that millions are being left out of the MDGs because discrimination and other human rights violations prevent them from accessing basic services, world leaders failed to seize the opportunity to put human rights at the heart of the MDGs, during a UN summit in New York this week, said Amnesty.

“Why is it when people make films about Africa, they always show the bad parts of Africa?” Is an American with extensive world and filmmaking experience more capable of capturing realities on the African continent than a less-experienced African filmmaker? Is a South African filmmaker who has not left his country more credible to shoot a film in the Congo than a Westerner who has a career background in war-torn societies?

Mozambique plans to register non-contract cell phone users, weeks after an anonymous viral text message campaign fuelled riots that killed 14. Communications Minister Paulo Zucula said the new law would improve security for internet banking and prevent crime. 'The main idea is to educate citizens about the way to use, with responsibility, the services put in place by the state,' he said.