The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said that more than 10 million people in developing countries are at risk of new cases of cancer by 2020. The UN nuclear watchdog, in a report released at the UN headquarters in New York, also raised concern over the growing cancer epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa.

The East African Community (EAC) Thursday partnered with the One Laptop per Child (OLPC), a US-based non-profit organisation whose mission is to help provide every child in the world access to a modern education. According to the Memorandum of Understanding signed between the EAC and OLPC, the two organisations agreed to work together to leverage the advantages of the laptops in transforming primary school education and to promote strategies for better access to laptops and connectivity -- especially for the region's underprivileged children.

The Democratic Republic of Congo is “the rape capital of the world”, a senior UN official has said. Margot Wallstrom, the UN’s special representative on sexual violence in conflict, urged the Security Council to punish the perpetrators in DR Congo.

IBSA is a trilateral, developmental initiative between India, Brazil and South Africa to promote South-South cooperation and exchange.

African civil society has strongly criticised the World Bank’s new report on 'Principles for Responsible Agricultural Investment that Respects Rights, Livelihood and Resources'. The World Bank’s report acknowledges and seeks to address the growing problem of 'land grabbing' by foreign investors in Africa. But civil society groups have condemned the report as an attempt to legitimise the land grabbing.

The event is called “Un-Freedom Day”. We call it “Un-freedom Day” because we feel like we are still oppressed by poverty, underdevelopment and injustices directed to us as marginalized communities living in the rural and farming areas. We say that apartheid used racism to exclude the majority of the South Africans, especially indigenous South Africans from accessing economic resources and from participating in the politics of the country. Today we witness class, gender, race and geographical location to exclude the majority of South Africans from participating fully in our democracy. Those of us who live in the rural areas do not have access to our own ancestors’ land, proper education, water and health facilities.

Slowly by slowly and amidst controversy the loop against corruption in Tanzania’s elections is becoming tighter as the new Elections Expenses Act 2009 becomes operational. The Act which was controversially tabled in December 2009 and approved in February 2010 seeks to control the use of funds and curb illegal practices in the nomination process, election campaigns and elections processes.

In this week's roundup of emerging actors news, IMF and Africa agree on public investment borrowing modalities, China shifts its Africa investment strategy, Tata Africa to start assembly plant in Nigeria, and Vodacom’s DRC investment turns sour.

Participants at the recent 6th Partnership Platform Meeting of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) in Johannesburg, South Africa, have agreed that Africa needs speedy and effective measures to eradicate poverty and hunger.

Skeletal academic activity enveloped Tanzania's public universities Thursday as lecturers joined a strike to press for better retirement benefits from the government. While the government remained silent about the strike, a meeting of seven public higher learning institutions held here has agreed to go ahead with the strike.

Nigerians have praised acting President Goodluck Jonathan’s decision to remove the much criticised election chief Maurice Iwu. Opposition Senator Olorunnimbe Mamora told the BBC that his removal was “the beginning of electoral reform”.

Uganda's Vice-President Gilbert Bukenya and several other ministers should be prosecuted for embezzling government money, a leaked MPs' report says. The allegations against them centre on contracts awarded for the Commonwealth summit held in Uganda in 2007. The 174-page draft report was given to Uganda's two main newspapers ahead of the president's meeting with parliament's public accounts committee.

On 22 April 2010, human rights defender Mr Keneth Kirimi was arrested and detained without charge for over two days, and was reportedly subjected to torture and ill-treatment while in detention. Much of his interrogation reportedly concerned the work of fellow human rights defender Mr Stephen Musau. Keneth Kirimi works with Release Political Prisoners (RPP) and is an active member of Bunge la Mwananchi, a grassroots movement which aims to fight social injustice and promote accountable leadership at all levels in Kenya. Stephen Musau is the executive coordinator of RPP.

In celebration of Earth Day's 40th anniversary, the Kingdom of Morocco announced an unprecedented National Charter for Environment and Sustainable Development, the first commitment of its kind in Africa and the first in the Arab World.

European Union governments want to develop a global code of conduct for foreign investments in agricultural land in developing countries, according to a draft paper on food security seen by Reuters. Food security concerns, driven by a sharp rise in global food prices in 2008, have prompted major importers such as China and the Gulf states to invest heavily in African farmland to secure supplies.

It began as a rumour and, having gathered legs, is now about to become viral. Earlier this month, Sani Yerima, the fifty-something year-old, former two-term Governor of Zamfara State and serving Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria reportedly took a fourth wife. Ordinarily, it should be no news that another African man from Nigeria has married a fourth wife. The circumstances of this reported marriage are extraordinary. According to the story, Senator Sani Yerima first divorced his fourth wife, who, after nearly two years of marriage and a baby, is still a teenager and well below voting age in Nigeria.

To mark the World Press Freedom Day, 3 May, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has identified 10 symbolic cases worldwide in which journalists have been killed with impunity. For instance, the CPJ says, in the Philippines, political clan members slaughter more than 30 news media workers and dump their bodies in mass graves.

Rwanda has inaugurated its first-ever wind power station as part of efforts to exploit renewable energies. The wind station sits on the Mount Jali, from where it will feed a big FM transmitter of the Rwandan Office of Information (ORINFOR), also installed on the hill overlooking Rwanda's capital city of Kiga

Zambian police have placed influential opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema under house arrest in Mufumbwe constituency, which has been engulfed in political upheaval in the run-up to today’s parliamentary by-elections. Mr Hichilema’s UPND members allegedly assaulted a man, they claimed had impersonated a policeman, leading to their opposition leader’s arrest.

In March GenARDIS grant winners met for the last time after more than a year of innovative research and work to improve rural women’s lives in countries like Ethiopia, the Dominican Republic and Zambia. With projects as diverse as community radio drama groups, pest control through information access and using technology to promote women’s inheritance and land rights, projects were as diverse as the countries they came from.