More than a million Ugandans driven from their homes by decades of violent conflict are gradually moving back to their homeland in the north of the country thanks to an innovative United Nations-backed farming project, the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) has said. A new rice-based farming system aimed at improving food security and reducing poverty in Uganda has enabled the incremental return of around 1.5 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) after living in makeshift camps for more than 20 years.

Cases of serious sexual violence, including the recent rape of at least one woman by soldiers on an invaded farm, are being investigated, as members of the armed forces continue their illegal seizure of the land. The woman, part of a group of more than ninety farm worker families from Karori farm in the Headlands district, was reportedly raped more than a week ago when soldiers evicted them from the farm.

The University of Oxford, Department of Continuing Education is now accepting applications for the Master's in International Human Rights Law 2010-11 entryThe aim of the degree programme is to train and support future leaders in the field of international human rights law. A central objective of the course is to ensure that participants not only know but can also use human rights law. The curriculum places roughly equal emphasis on the substance of human rights law, its implementation, and the development of human rights advocacy skills. Application deadlines: 20 November 2009, 22 January 2010, 12 March 2010.

The rate of HIV infection among pregnant women in South Africa has remained stubbornly high at around 29 percent for the third year running, according to government figures released on 5 October. The 2008 National Antenatal HIV and Syphilis Prevalence Survey - based on blood samples from 34,000 pregnant women who attended antenatal clinics in 52 health districts - measured HIV prevalence at 29.3 percent, compared to 29.4 percent in 2007 and 29.0 percent in 2006.

As the rainy season approaches, and sewage from pit latrines seep further into the Zimbabwe's groundwater, Irene Ngubeni will be at risk as the country faces another possible cholera outbreak. Even now, just before the rains have started falling Ngubeni is ill. She has travelled the 170 kilometres from her village in Matebeleland North to Bulawayo for treatment after drinking contaminated groundwater.

In Diohine, a village of some 3,000 inhabitants in the Fatick region of central Senegal, real progress has been made towards educating all children, in spite of a lack of infrastructure. Diohine has two public primary schools, each serving different neighbourhoods, and a third, privately-run Catholic school that was the first to be established, in 1948.

William Kamkwamba, from Malawi, is a born inventor. When he was 14, he built an electricity-producing windmill from spare parts and scrap, working from rough plans he found in a library book called Using Energy and modifying them to fit his needs. The windmill he built powers four lights and two radios in his family home.

The International Rivers Network has released a new report damning the Mozambican project to dam the Zambezi river and build a huge hydro-power station at Mphanda Nkuwa. The network has said while the choice is to create more power, the region would be without water in the future. "That's a choice Southern Africa could face in a few years if current plans to build more large dams on the Zambezi proceed," the network criticised.

Panic has gripped the Far North Region of Cameroon after five people died of what has been reported to be cholera. A cholera epidemic was recently reported in Mayo Tsanaga division in the Far North Region of the country. The outbreak first reported on 2 September 2009 has now spread to Mayor Sawa Division still in the Far North region.

Somalia's U.N.-backed government has recruited more than 170 young Kenyans and former servicemen to help it fight rebels in the failed Horn of Africa state, local leaders in eastern Kenya said. Mohamed Gabow, the mayor of Garissa, told Reuters the enrolment of ethnic Somali Kenyans was being conducted at a home in Bulla Iftin village, on the outskirts of his town.

Yesterday (8 October) I was at the bail hearing for the 'Kennedy 8'. I came to Durban from Cape Town to meet up with staff members of the Clare Estate Drop-in Centre which operated in Kennedy Road supporting orphaned and other vulnerable children until the recent attacks where the CEDIC was ransacked and forced to close. I attended the hearing to find out more about what has been happening in Kennedy Road since the 26th of September. At the hearing, about 100 or so members of the social movement Abahlali baseMjondolo packed the court room to see their fellow activists. The few hundred who could not fit inside waited patiently in the adjacent foyer.

This is the declaration issued by the Heads of State and Government of Africa and South America, meeting in the Second Africa-South America Summit (II ASA) in Nueva Esparta State, Isla de Margarita, Venezuela on 26 and 27 September of 2009.

Umaru Fofana looks dishevelled. His hair is overgrown and people who do not know him could be mistaken for thinking he just joined an Afro band. And his hanging beard will surely solicit suspicious glances. But Fofana is not some musician or an unkempt hobo. He is the president of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ) and his appearance is all for the cause of media freedom. The association petitioned the court for an interpretation and repeal of the criminal and seditious libel law contained in the Public Order Act of 1965.

Less than a third of Malawi's children attend pre-school; the others will lag behind their peers for their entire school careers. For most Malawian children, school only starts at the age of six - or sometimes even later - when they enter primary school. Pre-schools are mainly privately-owned and regarded as a luxury since most families cannot afford to pay the fees.

LGBTI activists and human rights defenders have spoken against homophobic attacks by Zehir Omar, amongst others, aimed at High Court Judge Kathy Satchwell doubting her competence to be a Constitutional Court Judge because of her sexual orientation.

Uganda has become the first country in Africa to undertake a reforestation project that will help reduce global warming emissions under the Kyoto Protocol. The Nile Basin Reforestation Project in Uganda is a ground-breaking project being implemented by Uganda's National Forestry Authority (NFA) in association with local community organisations. The growing trees absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, in exchange for revenues from the World Bank BioCarbon Fund paid to NFA and the communities.

President Robert Mugabe has called for a new start to relations with those Western countries he has spent years insulting for their criticism of his leadership. "Our country remains in a positive stance to enter into fresh, friendly and co-operative relations with all those countries that have been hostile to us in the past," he said yesterday at the first sitting of parliament since a unity government was formed with the former opposition in February.

Four African states threatened late on Thursday to veto any accord in the Doha trade round that did not address their demands for a reduction of Western subsidies for cotton. The negotiations on the product, a mainstay of several African economies, are seen as a touchstone of efforts to create a fairer global trading system in the Doha round, where agreement is sought in 2010.

More than one-million babies are stillborn during labour every year – 98% in low- and middle-income countries - yet global policy discussions around these largely silent deaths are mostly nonexistent. On top of this another 904 000 babies die soon after birth due to birth complications, closely linked to almost half of the world’s 536 000 maternal deaths.

Elementary school teachers in Tunisia organised a one-day strike on Monday (October 5th) to show solidarity with the dozens of trade union activists and educators imprisoned for their involvement in protests in Gafsa last June. Four of the 34 people imprisoned for the strike in the southern mining region are members of the Elementary Education General Syndicate of Redeyef-Gafsa