Negotiations towards an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the European Union (EU) and various southern African countries resume in Brussels this week, although compromises are unlikely, players say. The discussions will be observed with keen interest to see what approach the EU’s new trade commissioner Karel de Gucht will adopt.

Cultural leaders in the country have, for the first time, spoken out on the contentious Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009, urging the MPs to pass it in order to safeguard the country’s values and traditions. Under their umbrella body, ‘Forum for Kings and Cultural Leaders in Uganda,’ the custodians of culture expressed anger with the way western countries have put the government on pressure to throw out the Bill.

A dissident Tunisian journalist has been released from prison after serving a six-month sentence for assault. Taoufik Ben Brik, a prominent critic of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, has always claimed his conviction was politically motivated.

The African Centre for Biosafety (ACB), the Berne Declaration (BD) and the Church Development Service (EED) welcome the announcement by Schwabe today that it will not pursue five pelargonium related patents granted to it by the European Patent Office EPO). Mariam Mayet, African Center for Biosafety (ACB): “Nevertheless, we regret that such action comes only after such patents have been challenged by us”.

For hundreds of people seeking refuge in Niger's capital from ever-growing food shortages in the country's interior, this sprawling cluster of straw huts is the first stop. Seydou Sidi, 76, a village chief has seen his neighbourhood in Quaratadji, located some 15 km (9 miles) outside the capital Niamey, swell by more than 200 people in the last three months.

The Federation of African Journalists (FAJ), the African regional organization of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), strongly protests the Zambian government’s on-going attempts to impose a statutory regulatory council on the media in the country, a move strongly opposed by the Zambian independent media community.

The Norwegian embassy in Malawi has warned it will stop supporting government's fertilizer subsidy programme. The initiative rolled out in 2005. The embassy says only should government account for the period 2007/2008, will it continue to support the programme the years 2010 through 2011 per agreement.

Morocco plans to lease 30,000 hectares (74,000 acres) of farmland per year to improve yields, satisfy growing national demand and boost export sales, its agriculture minister said on Thursday. But Aziz Akhennouch told Reuters the north African kingdom had no plans to join a continent-wide trend of selling farmland outright to foreign companies and governments that want to secure their future food supplies.

Abahlali baseMjondolo condemns the continuation attack of our settlements by the City of Cape Town, Law Enforcement, Anti Land Invasion and it’s private agency. On April 22, a house of a member of Abahlali baseMjondolo at UT section at Site B was demolished by the City’s Law Enforcement without any reason.

The Human Rights and Business Country Risk Portal (based at the Danish Institute for Human Rights) will create the first freely available website where companies can access country-specific information on human rights risks alongside tools and advice for managing those risks.

The homosexual movement in Malawi was dealt a heavy blow at the weekend when President Bingu wa Mutharika condemned the act, describing it as foreign and un-African. President Mutharika made the scathing remarks during the consecration of a Roman Catholic Bishop at Limbe Cathedral in Blantyre, Malawi’s commercial city.

The leader of Southern Sudan's second largest party has told the BBC there was "massive rigging" in Sudan's recent landmark elections. Lam Akol, head of SPLM-Democratic Change, and the leaders of eight other southern parties have decided to challenge the result in the courts.

The Somali Journalist Rights Agency (SOJRA) concerns the desperate pleading for help from the prominent and well respected Somali journalist who is currently in exile in Athens, the capital of Greece. A journalist Mohamud Mohamed Hallane, who is well known in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia and in lower Shabelle region contacted SOJRA on Thursday April 29th, 2010 and requested for help while he faced an unkind condition during his dash for freedom.

Against the backdrop of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund's spring meetings this weekend, numerous groups have chimed in on the need for and direction of a new World Bank energy strategy. The bank's review of this strategy, according to which it makes decisions on loans to energy projects in developing countries, is ongoing and is due to be finalised early next year. For now, though, it remains under fire.

The top United Nations envoy to Somalia today appealed to members of the nation’s Parliament to put aside their infighting and to instead focus on meeting the population’s needs and bolstering security. “I am following, with great unease, the unhelpful debate about parliamentary issues now taking place in Mogadishu,” Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative, said in a press release.

Political tension in Masvingo’s Mwenezi district was said to be high, after a 15 year old schoolboy exacted his own revenge last week Sunday by killing the ZANU PF thug who murdered his father in 2008. An MDC official in the area told Newsreel that Nhamo Machacha was stabbed in the stomach by the fifteen year old, after a scuffle broke out at a church service.

South Africa's "willing-buyer willing-seller" land reform programme is not working and the government will introduce new ways to give more land to the black majority, President Jacob Zuma has said. After the end of apartheid in 1994, South Africa's government set a target of handing over 30 percent of commercial farmland to black people by 2014 as part of a plan to correct racial imbalances in land distribution caused by apartheid.

In preparations for the next elections Kenya has made changes to their voting systems, changing it from a paper based model to an electronic version. As of the 12th of April 2010 to the 21st may 2010, Kenya’s Interim Independent Electoral Commission (IIEC) will register voters electronically for the first time ever in 18 selected constituencies. The pilot will cover the 18 constituencies of Kamkunji, Langata, Mvita, Malindi, Dujis, Wajira East, Isiolo South, Imenti Central, Mbooni, Nyeri Town, Kikuyu, Eldoret North, Nakuru Town, Ainamoi, Ikolomani, Webuye, Kisumu Town West and Bonchari.

In a number of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, widespread HIV infection has already translated into full-blown AIDS epidemics. The effects of this disaster on lives and livelihoods are dramatic, yet the economic consequences are difficult to measure using conventional approaches. Although past and current consequences of the epidemic, and responses to these, can be empirically studied, our knowledge of the overall socio-economic impact of HIVAIDS remains deficient. This study focuses on Malawi, as a representative case. It addresses both the short and long term impact of HIV/AIDS by bringing together and analysing findings from qualitative and quantitative studies on the spread and impact of the epidemic.

A landslide in western Kenya after relentless heavy rains has killed 10 people and more may be buried in the mud, the Kenya Red Cross (KRC) said on Friday. KRC said the latest deaths took the number of people killed by floods and landslides in Kenya so far this year to 100. El Nino weather patterns across east Africa are blamed for the wild storms that have hit east Africa's biggest economy. A massive landslide in neighbouring Uganda killed scores of people in a remote village in March.