Guinea has halted Sunday's presidential run-off after days of violence, as the military ruler called for fresh regional mediation to prevent the country heading for a 'dead end'. In a solemn televised address to the nation, transitional leader General Sekouba Konate said the West African country risked a 'grave political and social crisis', reports the Daily Nation.

Managers of the Office du Niger irrigation scheme in Mali are using remote sensing data to analyse the efficiency of the system without having to physically check the infrastructure. The information will help them prepare for future expansion.

The discussion on World Trade Organisation (WTO) compatibility in the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between the European Union (EU) and African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries has so far been very narrowly defined, and largely from the perspective of the EU, says the South Centre. In an analytical note, the centre presents a matrix providing a comparison of the EPA commitments the EU is asking ACP countries for, and treatment of these issues in the WTO, including where appropriate, the type of flexibilities available for the different developing country groupings at the WTO.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/496/66982_logo_tmb.jpgIn October 2010 we will publish the 500th issue of Pambazuka News as we reach our 10th birthday. Over that time, we have built up a database of some 60,000 articles and news items on the website - all available for free. Some 2,500 authors have contributed articles, poems, audiovisual materials and commentary. Pambazuka News has become the oldest and largest (and of course most dynamic) citizen journalism site for social justice in Africa.

The number of readers continues to grow - some 660,000 unique visitors to the site during the last 12 months. Pambazuka News has played a significant role in supporting social movements to get their voices heard, and is widely used in advocacy by a wide range of alliances and networks. Pambazuka News provides a perspective of a proud, active and resonant Africa fighting for progressive social transformation.

We think this is something to celebrate. We'd like you to join us in this celebration. If you'd like to send messages of solidarity, congratulations (or even commiserations!), we'll publish them on this site at the same time that we publish a special anniversary issue of Pambazuka News.

We'd also like you to join us by helping us to reach the 1,000th issue of Pambazuka News - forward to the next 500 issues and our 20th anniversary.

We've given you the first 500 free. But now we want your help. Would you consider donating at least $1 for every issue we publish in the future. Make a monthly donation of $4.00 - or an annual donation of at least $48 - to enable Pambazuka News to continue to support the movement for freedom and justice. You can sign up for a .

We want to raise $300,000 to expand the services provided by Pambazuka News to our readers. Please consider this appeal as a serious one: it is the only way we can make sure that Pambazuka News survives and grows, but above all, remains independent.

South African writer and academic Lewis Nkosi has died, writes Margaret von Klemperer. ‘He was a fearless critic, a clear analytical voice. He didn’t have to align himself with any group and spoke his mind on both literary and wider cultural issues.’ Nkosi is survived by his wife and two daughters.

The European Union and Africa have agreed to take joint action to achieve a goal of setting up over 15,500 MW of renewable energy facilities in Africa and pledged to provide sustainable energy to at least 100 million Africans additionally by 2020.

Transparency International (TI) has warned that the failure by governments to address corruption is threatening the fulfillment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In a news release, TI called on governments, donors and non-governmental organizations to adopt anti-corruption measures in all their MDG action plans.

Zimbabwe held a secret auction of diamonds from its Marange fields, where the army has been accused of forced labour and torture, an official said on Tuesday. 'Yes, the sales were carried out this weekend,' said Secretary for Mines Thankful Musukutwa, as reported in the Mail & Guardian.

The recent Mozambican food and fuel riots raise the spectre of food insecurity and social unrest in the future, writes Saliem Fakir. 'We certainly have the capability to feed all of the world’s population, but the political economy of agriculture, food production and distribution somewhat has a greater influence as to whether people can feed themselves or not.'

Campaigners for increased health financing have welcomed the commitment by African Union member states to direct more resources to health. But the needs of the continent seem to dwarf available budgets. Africa, is home to 12 per cent of the world’s population, yet accounts for 22 per cent of the total global disease burden.

Contrary to the claim by Times magazine that the war on drugs, the longest war that has cost American taxpayers $2.5 trillion over 40 years, has ‘no clear enemy’,[1] the NAACP in 2010 rightly condemned the war on drugs as a racist war against African Americans and against the poor generally.[2] Californian voters have also proposed the legalization of marijuana to avoid the unnecessary criminalization of otherwise law-abiding responsible adults, aid the sick who need the drug and create fair employment opportunities and wealth for the people and tax revenues for the state.[3]

Reporters Without Borders has expressed shock at the death of Alberto Chakusanga, the host of a programme on a radio station critical of the government. The first journalist to be murdered in Angola since 2001, he was found dead in the kitchen of his home in the Luanda district of Viana at dawn on 5 September.

Record sums were invested last year in coal power - the most carbon intensive form of energy on the planet - by the World Bank, despite international commitments to slash the carbon emissions blamed for climate change.

Only 46,722 people, approximately a third of the number of the disabled in Angola, receive assistance from the National Association of the Disabled (ANDA), according to the Angolan News Agency (ANGOP). More than 150,000 disabled persons are registered in Angola, but this figure is unreliable as the national census had overlooked areas in the country with large numbers of disabled people.

IkamvaYouth has been working on IkamvaYouth-in-a-box which aims to translate the experiences that many Ikamvanites have collected over the years into an information pack. This super high tech system will enable information to be stored in a central database that will make all the information accessible to those who need it.

Friends of the Earth International says it is outraged by reports that a major UN investigation into Nigerian oil spills funded by oil giant Shell relies more on figures produced by oil companies and Nigerian state statistics than on community testimony and organisations on the ground who work with communities.

Figures from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) presented this week revealing a reduction in the world's number of hungry people in 2010 for the first time in 15 years should be a cause for celebration. Unfortunately, the fall is down to short-term improvements in the global economic climate, rather than real, lasting progress in the fight against empty stomachs, says this article.

We took this opportunity of September 7th, 2010, marked by the meeting of the United Nations Security Council on the recent case of mass rape in the Democratic Republic of Congo, to denounce this war of low intensity imposed on the Congolese populations in the East of their country. The femicide, rape, atrocities, and degrading and despicable human insecurity and fear now characterize the climate of life of people in Ituri, North and South Kivu and across the DR Congo; in a strategy and complicity to balkanize the country.

The UK government has come under fire for delivering 75 per cent of its climate finance for developing countries as loans, which the World Development Movement warns threatens to reverse decades of hard-fought progress on debt relief. Rich countries claimed a key success of the Copenhagen Accord was the announcement of $30 billion of new climate finance to developing countries. But UN Adaptation Fund, set up specifically to manage climate finance, has received just one per cent of money committed so far by donors.

In conversation with Zahra Moloo, Mohamed Abshir Waldo discusses