The uneasy partners in Zimbabwe's national unity government have one more issue to divide them: President Robert Mugabe's appointment this week of a new Supreme Court judge and four High Court judges without consultation with Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, to which his Movement for Democratic Change immediately objected.

Thihako Mukena paddles his mokoro slowly across a soccer field, pointing with a smile towards the goalposts that barely clear the water’s surface. Heavy rains in Angola months earlier have meandered down the Okavango to his doorstep: the river is at its highest point in nearly fifty years. His house is now cut off from the mainland, and 18-year-old Mukena navigates his way to school in the dugout canoe.

Despite some progress in Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region, violent clashes between Government and rebel forces persist, civilians are still dying or being displaced and humanitarian workers are still coming under attack, the top United Nations official in the region has said. “Results have been mixed despite our best efforts,” the head of the joint African Union-UN Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), Ibrahim Gambari, told the Security Council, presenting Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s latest report on the region, where seven years of conflict have killed an estimated 300,000 people and driven 2.7 million others from their homes.

The European Union (EU) and the Food and Agriculture Or ganization (FAO), in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security (MAFS) are offering assistance to about 36,000 farmers in Lesotho, more than half of its vulnerable farmers. Soaring food prices and the recent global economic downturn struck Lesotho hard, especially the majority of its 1.9 million people that rely on agriculture.

Kenya's Water Minister Charity Ngilu said the country had signed the controversial Nile Basin Agreement, allowing it to effectively put the Nile Waters into use for irrigation and other national development priorities. Kenya, with a small share of Lake Victoria, the source of the world's longest river, running some 6,695 kilometres across nine countries with a combined population of 400 million, said it signed the Nile Basin agreement because an earlier one signed in 1929 was obsolete.

Deputy Manager, Regional and National Programme of the International Service for Human Rights, Mr. Clemen Nyalatsossi Voule, has said impunity is persistent in Africa in spite of the drafting and adoption of human right resolutions by rights' defenders on the continent.

The Movement for Democratic Change has condemned the engagement and involvement of prominent "media hangman" Tafataona Mahoso in the reform of the media industry currently being spearheaded by the Zimbabwe Media Commission. This follows reports that Mahoso, former chairman of controversial Media and Information Commission, has been appointed chief executive officer of the ZMC.

Zimbabwe’s labour body on Thursday called for fresh elections to choose the country’s next leader, citing “lack of progress” in the 15-month old coalition government between President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) that sired Tsvangirai’s MDC party said the government of national unity (GNU) has since inception in February last year been embroiled in disputes which are stalling progress.

Rural people in several parts of Cameroon are protesting a government policy that allows the government to sell or lease vast parcels of arable land to foreign investors. Supporters say the deals could bring much-needed investment to agriculture. But critics warn that the policy could lead to more subsistence farmers losing their lands — their only source of food and income.

A “green revolution” led by Africa’s small farmers, and harnessing the latest technologies and innovations, is vital if the continent is to reduce extreme poverty and hunger by 2015, just two of the eight globally agreed Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), according to a new United Nations report. The 2010 Technology and Innovation Report, issued by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), warns that “ineffective farming techniques and wasteful post-harvest practices” have left sub-Saharan Africa as the region most likely to miss the MDGs on poverty and hunger.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on the government of Madagascar to investigate a Saturday raid on the opposition radio station Fréquence Plus that resulted in the arrest of an opposition leader while he was on a live radio programme.

Guinea's Interim Head of State, Brig.-Gen. Sekouba Konate, has re-stated his commitment to holding presidential elections 27 June 2010, a ccording to a communique issued by the International Contact Group on Guinea (ICG-G), which met in the nation's capital, Conakry, last weekend.

The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) has recommended a fresh look at the continent's informal industries, saying new policies to address the quality of jobs and financing were required for their survival. UNECA's chief economics analyst, Adam Elhiraika, said Tuesday that although the informal sector in Africa plays in important role in creating jobs and driving economic growth, the sector faced a series of setbacks, including lack of loans and policy support.

Salva Kiir, the leader of south Sudan's former rebel group the SPLM, has been sworn in as the first elected president of the semi-autonomous southern region. It follows his landslide victory in April's elections, part of the peace deal that ended a 21-year civil war between north and south.

Pambazuka reader Farai Kashiri responds to Riaz Tayob’s critique of Moeletsi Mbeki’s AFRICOM address.

"A new earthquake" is what peasant farmer leader Chavannes Jean-Baptiste of the Peasant Movement of Papay (MPP) called the news that Monsanto will be donating 60,000 seed sacks (475 tons) of hybrid corn seeds and vegetable seeds, some of them treated with highly toxic pesticides. The MPP has committed to burning Monsanto's seeds, and has called for a march to protest the corporation's presence in Haiti on June 4, for World Environment Day.

Fatima Yadik, a mother of 12 and grandmother of 18, recently settled in the Central African Republic town of Yaloké after 60 years with her nomadic community. Her camp of Peuhl nomads was attacked by bandits who killed all the men and stole their cattle. Peuhl people are often targeted by bandits because of the relative wealth of their livestock. Fleeing to safety, Ms. Yadik and her family joined the growing number of nomadic peoples across Africa’s interior who are escaping poverty and insecurity in the countryside in favour of life in towns and cities.

Ethiopia’s opposition says the style of deploying the police and the army might cause post-election violence if the forces intervene during celebrations of victory or expression of disgust at the vote outcome. Ethiopia’s opposition leader Beyena Petros, the chairman of a coalition of eight opposition parties, Medrek, said he was personally scared that the security forces' misreading of the public mood could cause post-election violence.

The Kenya government Thursday placed its veterinary department on high alert over a possible outbreak of a Rift Valley fever epidemic in the North Eastern, Upper Eastern and Rift Valley provinces. Livestock Minister Mohamed Kuti, while issuing the alert, announced that a massive vaccination campaign was due to begin in the affected regions to prevent an outbreak of the disease.

The Constitution Commission that reviewed Angola's constitution, which had been in force since February 2005, was dissolved on Wednesday by the National Assembly during its 12th plenary ordinary session.