The first round of the Ivorian presidential election will take place between the end of February and the beginning of March 2010, the Permanent Consultation Framework (CPC) on the Ivorian crisis announced here Thursday evening.

Namibian President Hifikepunye Pohamba has been re-elected for a second term after winning 76.4% of the vote in last week's poll, official results show. Mr Pohamba's governing Swapo party got 74% of the parliamentary vote, maintaining its two-thirds majority.

Guinea's military government should immediately release or bring specific charges against the human rights defender Mouctar Diallo, Human Rights Watch has said.

The major IFIs have appealed to the governments meeting at Copenhagen to come to a comprehensive agreement on climate change mitigation, pledging to use their own resources to contribute. Some are critical, however, of how ready these institutions are to tackle the issues involved.

Although tobacco use is not as prevalent in Africa as it is in other regions, that will change unless immediate action is taken, the United Nations health agency has warned as it announced a new tobacco control effort for the continent.

South Africa’s top scientists and researchers have come out in support of health minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi after the furore over Home Affairs supplied AIDS death statistics he quoted recently - which may have been incorrect.

A generation of children free from AIDS is possible, according to the Children and AIDS, Fourth Stocktaking Report released by UNICEF in partnership with the joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Population Fund ( UNFPA). However, the authors note the world is not yet on track to meet targets for prevention, treatment, care and support.

Mauritian experts are helping set up cogeneration systems to feed the hunger for electricity in Tanzania, Zambia and elsewhere. An example of how appropriate technology can be applied to problems common to countries in the global South.

People in the West throw away millions of old computers every year. Hundreds of thousands of them end up in Africa, where children try to eke out a living by selling the scrap. But the toxic elements in the waste are slowly poisoning them.

The Ethiopian government has re-opened the trial of four major newspaper publishers in connection with the 2005 post-election violence in the East African nation. The ruling Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Front (EPRDF) has successfully lodged an appeal against the Ethiopian Supreme Court's decision to pardon the four publishers, Siday, Zekarias, Fasil and Serkalem, in connection with the 2005 elections.

A group of Nigerian farmers is suing Royal Dutch Shell, claiming that the oil firm polluted their land in the Niger Delta region. The four farmers allege that oil spilt from the supply lines of a subsidiary of Shell contaminated fish ponds and farms, ruining villagers' livelihoods.

HIV/AIDS is an major issue in our times that is having diverse effects on the lives of women the world over and most especially in Africa. In 2007, an estimated 3.3 million people were living with HIV, 2.7 million people infected with the virus, and AIDS deaths also estimated at 2.3 million (UNAIDS, July 2008).

The International Federation of the Journalists (IFJ) has strongly condemned the murders of Somali journalist Mohamed Amin Adan Abdulle, a reporter with Radio Shabelle and Hassan Zubeyr Haji Hassan, a cameraman working with Al-Arabia TV who were killed this morning in a bomb attack on a hotel in the Somali capital Mogadishu.

Five Ugandan television stations are switching from analogue to digital broadcasting with 200 viewers receiving the signal in the capital Kampala. They are Kenyan-owned Nation Television (NTV), WBS, East Africa Television and Nile Broadcasting Service.

President Jacob Zuma has announced the most significant government-led interventions to stem the AIDS epidemic since its emergence more than 20 years ago, stating that extraordinary measures are needed.

Many Moroccan women's rights groups and political parties, eager to change the country's blanket ban on abortion, are lobbying Parliament for changes to the law in cases of incest or rape.

With less than a year to go to Tanzania's parliamentary and presidential elections, the people have started to give vent to their frustration with the performance of the present government in tackling rampant corruption, local newspapers reported this week.

Gambia women rights group, The Gambia Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children (GAMCOTRAP) will honour ex-circumcisers and their communities at the Basse Stadium in the Upper River Region.

South African agricultural policy is obsessed with market driven agricultural models while disproportionately high numbers of our people remain hungry. This is a hangover from our historical legacy, which continues in the form of internal and external neo-liberal pressures on government to conform to the tyranny of the market.

Kenyan farmers are concerned about climate change as they see crop production decrease because of rising temperatures, unreliable rainfall, soil erosion and drought.