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.

African leaders remained united in their condemnation of the arrest warrant against Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir and called such a move a “slap in the face” on the ongoing efforts to restore peace in restive Darfur. The issuance of an arrest warrant against the Sudanese President, Bashir has been a hot issue during the African leaders' meeting in Sirte, central Libya and could end up with a total rejection of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Mali consumes 65 million tonnes of wood per year, which represents 90% of the country's energy consumption, according to the Malian government. Despite the adoption of a national programme for the increase in the use of butane gas and the Domestic Energy Strategy (SED), wood consumption remains high in the country.

The International Rescue Committee is launching an emergency measles vaccination campaign targeting thousands of refugee children in Hagadera camp to contain an outbreak of the disease at the massively overcrowded site. The IRC has confirmed six cases of the highly contagious virus and suspects 19 other cases in Hagadera, one of three overflowing camps in Dadaab, eastern Kenya

Sanusha Naidu does a roundup of the week's Sino-African news.

Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) is once again calling on President John Atta Mills and other African leaders currently meeting in Sirte in Libya to condemn the systematic campaign being waged by President Yahya Jammeh’s administration to undermine media freedom and freedom of expression in The Gambia.

Efforts to guard Uganda against looming food insecurity are held back by government’s failure to encourage and sensitize farmers on what specific fertilizer types to use in order to rejuvenate the increasingly less fruitful soils. Scientists warn that despite availability of some improved seed varieties, soils in the landlocked East African country can no longer produce food sustainably to feed a rapidly growing population.

Stakeholders met on July 1 in Harare to discuss Zimbabwe’s external debt, which threatens the welfare of its citizens who have been ravaged by a deep social, economic and political crisis. The Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development (ZIMCODD), a coalition of institutions and individuals focusing on social and economic justice, convened the meeting under the theme “The Economy in Transition Dialogue Conference: Towards a Sustainable Public Debt for Zimbabwe”.

In the third shooting incident in less than two weeks on Egypt’s border with Israel, two Somali refugees were shot dead Thursday morning by Egyptian border guards, according to a Somali refugee living in Cairo. He said that the refugees had been attempting to sneak into Israel, but were stopped and shot by Egyptian police before they were able to enter the Jewish state. At least 6 people have been killed on the border in the past month and a half weeks.

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe met U.S. Under-Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson on the sidelines of the 13th Ordinary Session of the African Union General Assembly in Sirte, Libya on Thursday. The meeting with Carson was the first time in several years that a senior member of the U.S. administration has met President Mugabe, The Herald said on Friday.