The troubled unity government of Zimbabwe is locked in a "make or break" battle over the constitution that could see the party of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai walk out. Members of Mr Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) boycotted a cabinet meeting led by Robert Mugabe, but sources in the former opposition group said they were not yet ready to disengage.

Zimbabwe will re-evaluate all mining contracts and introduce a "use it or lose it" policy for its mining industry under a proposed law, Finance Minister Tendai Biti has said. The vetting of mining contracts by Zimbabwe's unity government of President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai is likely to surprise investors at a time Harare is wooing them to help repair a battered economy.

Establishing and scaling up early infant HIV diagnosis (EID) programmes is feasible in even the most remote parts of Ethiopia, reported Berhanu Gudetta and colleagues in a study at the HIV Implementers’ Meeting, held in Windhoek, Namibia in early June. Renovation of two regional laboratories making DNA PCR testing possible, coupled with the successful use of dried blood spot testing (sometimes referred to as DBS), increased the numbers of infants receiving early diagnosis and consequently improved early initiation of antiretroviral therapy (ART) for infants aged nought to 18 months.

Unemployment among young South Africans is hovering at 30 percent, shooting up to over 60 percent for youths in their late teens and early twenties. But tertiary education and skills development seem not to be making much of a dent in what is now regarded as a crisis. According to a 2008 report by the Centre for Development and Enterprise, a conservative think tank that researches the effect of poverty and unemployment on South Africa's economic growth rate, 65 percent of the four million youths between 15 and 24 that were available for a job in 2005, were unemployed.

The World Bank has approved US$3.5 million for Liberia for its Costal Defense programme which will target three cities including Monrovia, the capital City of Liberia and two other major cities in the country, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) communiqué has said. According to the EPA communiqué, the fund is also targeted to reduce the impact of climate change and build capacity for Liberians on the magnitude of funds needed to tackle climate change.

Under a new initiative international donors are backing Africa-based policy research to improve local decision-making on complex global issues with potentially enormous humanitarian consequences like food security and climate change. Led by Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and funded by IDRC, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Hewlett Foundation, the Think Tank Initiative will provide core funding for 24 African think tanks over 10 years. US$30 million has been made available for the initial five years.

Electrogaz, Rwanda's public utility, is considering water rationing due to shortages caused by a prolonged drought in parts of the country, officials said. Environmental specialists blame the drought on climate change, with erratic rainfall and frequent dry spells combining to increase water shortages.

Female internally displaced persons (IDPs) will again be able to learn job skills, take literacy classes and receive awareness programmes on reproductive health after the joint African Union-United Nations Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) helped reactivate women’s centres at an IDP camp in the Sudanese region.

South Africa has passed a new law that compels all cell phone users to register their SIM cards. Users who fail to register would be barred from their network services. The new law came into effect on July 1 2009. It seeks to assist the country’s law enforcement agencies investigate and combat serious crimes. In a joint statement to the public MTN, Cell C and Vodacom said all cell phone subscribers have to show proof of identity as well as present a utility bill to show proof of residence to be registered.

The co-chairperson of the Parliamentary Select Committee on constitutional reform, Douglas Mwonzora, on Friday said comments made by Robert Mugabe that the new constitution must be anchored on the Kariba Draft, were just a reflection of Mugabe’s personal view point. Mwonzora told over 2,000 delegates attending the ‘2009 people’s constitutional convention’ that Mugabe’s views were not binding on the constitution-making process. During a question and answer session many delegates had voiced concern that Mugabe was imposing the Kariba draft on the people.

Darfur rebels signed an accord with one of Sudan's main opposition parties in Cairo on Wednesday, agreeing to push for a new transitional government, both sides said on Friday, a move that will infuriate Khartoum. The rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), which attacked Khartoum last year, and the opposition Umma party told Reuters the deal was a "declaration of principles" and shared ideas and did not amount to a political or military

If HIV treatment standards in the global South do not keep up with standards in wealthy nations, history will not judge well current efforts to expand treatment in resource-limited settings, Dr Kevin M De Cock, outgoing head of HIV at the World Health Organization, told the 2009 HIV Implementers’ Meeting in Windhoek, Namibia, earlier this month.

This report by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) outlines the community-based approach to the decentralisation of HIV and AIDS services. The Wellspring of Hope was the first programme in Lesotho to provide HIV and AIDS treatment and care through an entire health service area as a result of this initiative.

More than 10, 000 Nigerian girls held captive as sex slaves in Morocco and Libya are to be repatriated, the House of Representatives Committee on Diaspora has revealed in a statement. The girls reportedly from Edo State, the southern part of the country, aged between 13 and 17, had been held captive by sex slave traders, the statement said.

Uganda will pass a law banning female genital mutilation, which is rampant among pastoralist tribes in the country's eastern region, the president said in a statement on Friday. "The way God made it, there is no part of a human body that is useless," President Yoweri Museveni told a gathering in the eastern Karamoja district.

he United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and IOM are joining forces to tap into key technical expertise among the Somali diaspora in a bid to help rebuild key governance foundations in parts of the country. Somalis with professional expertise in policy and legislation, human resources management and public financial management living in North America, the UK and Scandinavia will be targeted for temporary return for an average period of six months to provide on-the-job peer-to-peer training in their respective fields in northern Somalia initially, including Somaliland and Puntland.

The United Nations Deputy Secretary-General has highlighted the benefits of investing in agriculture, which she stressed is the key to a brighter future for Africa and its people. “Since time immemorial, agriculture has been the cornerstone of development in every region, not just in Africa,” Asha-Rose Migiro told participants at the African Union Assembly in Sirte, Libya.

Barely a week after World Bank gave Mozambique $31 million to help in increasing availability of reliable communication, the country is also to have $176 million loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).The loan is expected to help uplift the southern African country's economy.

The freelance journalists who were barred from covering the COMESA summit recently, have made an application in the High Court to make a court decision legally binding. High Court Justice Bharat Patel ruled in June that the Media and Information Commission (MIC), led by Tafataona Mahoso, was now a defunct body and no journalist should be required to register with it.

The first evaluation of a pilot in Tanzania to provide affordable Internet access to rural communities through a shared wireless (mesh) community network has been completed, and the results look promising. Eight months ago, IICD helped the Tanzania Telecentre Network (TTN) in the rural district town of Sengerema to set up a pilot to share a wireless (mesh) community network. The goal of the network is to make Internet available - and affordable - to large numbers of people who live in the rural areas around the telecentre.