The IDRC Internship awards provide exposure to research for international development through a program of training in research management and grant administration under the guidance of IDRC program staff. The internship is designed to provide hands-on learning experiences in research program management - in the creation, dissemination and utilization of knowledge from an international perspective.

The Spokesman of the Gabonese government, René Ndemezo Obiang, on Thursday said the country would go to the polls on 30 August to elect a new president following the death on 8 June of President Omar Bongo Ondimba

An editor at Zambia's biggest-selling newspaper has been charged with distributing obscene materials relating to a health sector crisis. The Post sent harrowing images of a woman giving birth in the street to government ministers to highlight the effects of a health sector strike. In May and June, Zambia's hospitals and clinics ground to a halt as doctors and nurses went on strike over pay.

The Somaliland government's disregard for the law and democratic processes threatens the territory's nascent democracy, Human Rights Watch has said in a report. The administration of President Dahir Riyale Kahin has committed human rights violations and generated a dangerous electoral crisis.

Poor rains have heightened food insecurity in Kenya's northwestern region of Turkana, where malnutrition rates in children under five have risen above the emergency threshold, according to humanitarian officials."Poor rains in April, May and June worsened food insecurity in the region, where 74 percent of the population [estimated at 550,000] already depends on food aid," Vincent Kahi, the health coordinator for the International Rescue Committee (IRC), said on 15 July at a press briefing in Nairobi.

The image this week of the former Liberian president Charles Taylor, defiant in a black suit and dark sunglasses, taking the stand in a courtroom in The Hague – the first time an African head of state has been prosecuted for mass crimes – resonates powerfully. For many, the trial represents another victory for international justice and another signal of the end to impunity for the likes of Taylor, Slobodan Milosevic, Saddam Hussein and Alberto Fujimori – presidents who murdered, raped and tortured civilians before eventually finding themselves in the dock. In Africa, however, the Taylor trial elicits mixed – and more complex – reactions.

Kenyan manufacturers have lamented the decline in their export volumes to the US since the introduction of trade rules that do not offer exclusive access to textile products to the American market. The Apparel Sector chairman of the Kenyan Association of Manufacturers (KAM), Jaswinder Bedi, said Kenya's exports to US under the US African Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA) had continued to decline over the last six years.

The Congolese President Denis Sassou-Nguesso has won another seven years in office, according to preliminary results from Sunday's election. The electoral commission said Mr Sassou-Nguesso took 78.6% of the vote. His nearest rival gained just 7.5%. About 2,000 opposition supporters came on to the streets of Brazzaville to protest. They were dispersed by riot police firing tear gas.

Two Sierra Leonean radio stations have been stripped of their licences. The national regulatory body, the Independent Media Commission (IMC), says the stations failed to comply with the country's media code. The IMC announced the withdrawal of the licenses of Radio Unity which belongs to the opposition Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP), and Radio Rising Sun, owned by the ruling All People's Congress (APC) on Jul. 7.

Across most of sub-Saharan Africa, there are fewer than five doctors for every 100,000 people. Each year 20,000 health professionals leave their posts to pursue jobs in urban areas outside their own countries. That’s why innovative approaches to human resource planning and quality service provision are urgently needed if African countries are to reduce maternal death. Such an approach was presented at a recent conference in the Ethiopian capital on Human Resources for Maternal Survival: Task-shifting to Non-Physician Clinicians.

A leading militant group in the oil-rich Niger Delta on Wednesday declared a 60-day ceasefire and said it would seek talks with the Nigerian government. The ceasefire comes 48 hours after militants expanded their attacks beyond the delta with an assault on a fuel-importing facility near the financial district in Lagos, the commercial capital.

The riots that wracked Thandukukhanya township in Piet Retief highlighted just how out of touch the African National Congress (ANC) leadership is with anger on the ground at councillors who abuse their positions to fund lavish lifestyles rather than serving the people who elected them. Days after mobs armed with petrol bombs and knobkierries went on the rampage, burning down several municipal buildings and houses belonging to councillors — including mayor Mary Khumalo — Tim Modise debated the topic on SAfm’s AM Live.

Botswana has refused to admit into the country a group of 41 refugees who were spirited away from a refugee camp in Namibia last week end by a local human rights organization over ‘security fears’. The refugees, including women and children who were driven to the Botswana border by Namibia’s National Society for Human Rights (NSHR, are still stranded at the border.

The Democratic Republic of Congo has criticised a Swiss court's decision to release the assets of its late ex-leader Mobutu Sese Seko to his family. Information Minister Lambert Mende told the BBC that Switzerland had not done enough to ensure the money was given back to the people of DR Congo. He said his country could not appeal because the legal process had ended.

Mauritius appears to have a happy problem with the 400,000 tons of waste it produces each year. The island's only landfill is full and the government must decide whether to turn to incinerating waste - generating electricity in the process - or to compost it, to the benefit of farmers.

Charles Taylor, the former Liberian president, claimed the war crimes case against him was built on lies and deceit as he took the stand as a witness in his trial at a special court in The Hague. Mr Taylor, 61, is accused of orchestrating a campaign of terror in Sierra Leone to gain control of the neighbouring country’s diamond resources, using methods including murder, sexual slavery and the recruitment of child soldiers during a decade-long civil war.

In 2001 the United Nations announced the Millennium Development Goals, pledging to end global poverty by 2015. Paul Collier argued then that it needed to focus its concern on a much smaller group of countries than it had identified. There is, as he argued in The Bottom Billion, an essential difference between a poor family in China and an equally poor family in Chad. Although both enter into the global headcount of families living in extreme poverty, the poor family in China has credible hope that its children will grow up in a society of transformed opportunities: China will be part of the future global economy.

Rival parties from north and south Sudan have agreed new plans to prevent conflict ahead of next week's ruling on their disputed border. The two sides ended 22 years of conflict in 2005 but tension remains high, especially in the oil-rich region of Abyei, claimed by both sides. A court in The Hague is due to rule on the border next Thursday and both sides have promised to abide by its ruling.

The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo should urgently investigate and prosecute senior army officials allegedly involved or complicit in rampant sexual crimes against women and girls, as part of its efforts to combat sexual violence, Human Rights Watch has said in a report. Human Rights Watch also called for a series of other actions to prevent sexual violence during conflict in Congo.

Several Sudanese women have been flogged as a punishment for dressing "indecently", according to a local journalist who was arrested with them. Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein, who says she is facing 40 lashes, said she and 12 other women wearing trousers were arrested in a restaurant in the capital, Khartoum.