The war against HIV/AIDS, which has too often been fought in plush offices and conference centres, needs to be reclaimed by people in developing countries, who are most affected, or it will continue to be a losing battle. This was the message from the Global Citizens Summit in Nairobi, Kenya, organized by international anti-poverty agency ActionAid, and attended by a broad range of organisations in the field of HIV and AIDS to discuss using social mobilization to "repackage" the HIV response.

The Africa Advocacy Coordinator leads the Nobel Women’s Initiative’s advocacy and strategic communication initiatives in Africa. The Coordinator is focused primarily on women’s rights and armed violence in Sudan and Darfur, but also provides analysis and support for other Nobel Women’s Initiative issue areas, including violence and repression in Burma and Iran, climate justice and nuclear disarmament.

The NEW PATH: AFRICAN FORUM FOR INTELLECTUAL THOUGHT is published quarterly by the African Research and Resource Forum (ARRF) and provides a forum for innovative thinking about our common future and about how we need to tackle the most intractable problems facing Africa today – focusing on Eastern Africa.

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If your answer to any or all of the above questions is yes, then this 20 days course organised jointly by GIMPA, the Resource Alliance (UK) and the African Women’s Development Foundation (AWDF) Ghana is definitely a must!

Insufficient cheaper alternatives and a large former refugee population are fuelling tree-felling and dependence on charcoal in the self-declared republic of Somaliland, adversely affecting the environment, say analysts. Most urban households use charcoal for everyday cooking. "We use a sack of charcoal every four days because our family is large," said Zahra Omar, a mother of 12, in the capital, Hargeisa.

An estimated 900 babies in the developing world are infected with HIV every day because governments fail to reach pregnant women with prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) services. "We are doing a bad job of testing women for HIV and then following them up, and an even worse job of ensuring that infants receive appropriate prevention and treatment services," Janet Kayita, regional PMTCT advisor to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), told a press conference in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on 25 May.

A group of armed supporters of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) in Techiman, a town in the Brong Ahafo region of Ghana on May 28, 2009 besieged the premises of privately-owned Classic FM physically attacked three persons and vandalised the station.

Pervasive use of ethnic and religious stereotypes by law enforcement across Europe is harming efforts to combat crime and terrorism, according to a report released today by the Open Society Justice Initiative. Ethnic profiling occurs most often in police decisions about who to stop, question, search, and, at times, arrest. Yet there is no evidence that ethnic profiling actually prevents terrorism or lowers crime rates.

When Nora Adhiambo, 21, started working as a housekeeper for a family in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, she expected to cook, clean and look after their young children; not that she would have to regularly have sex with her employer. "He would force me to have sex with him; every time he would sleep with me without a condom and this went on for two years," she told IRIN/PlusNews. "He threw me out when I told him I was pregnant; I realised later that I had not only left that house with a pregnancy but also HIV."

A radio producer was gunned down last week in crossfire in Mogadishu, while another journalist died on 26 May from gunshot wounds suffered while covering fighting in central Somalia in April. They are the third and fourth journalists to be killed in Somalia this year, report the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ), the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative would be will be organising a side event in collaboration with Eastern Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders project and African Policing Civilian Oversight Forum (APCOF) at United Nations Office in Geneva (UNOG) on Extrajudicial Killings in Kenya and Police Reforms in East Africa on the same the day the UN Special rapporteur on Extrajudicial Killings Philip Alston is to present a report on Kenya on 3 June 2009 from 2:00 -4:00 PM in room number 25.

The Institute for Capacity Development (ICD) is pleased to announce to you its short course offerings for the period June – December 2009 in Windhoek, Namibia. ICD invites you; your colleagues and your institution to the management development courses that will enhance your skills and make you more effective at the workplace. ICD courses are aimed at skills transfer and course delivery makes use of you work experience and specific needs and integrated computer based problems and simulations.

Can a joint approach to governance assessment help to improve aid effectiveness? What can be learned from the first Joint Governance Assessment (JGA) undertaken in Rwanda during 2008? A JGA aims to bring government and development partners together to review governance performance based on commonly agreed indicators. This brief from The Policy Practice recommends that such an assessment can prove to be helpful to advancing dialogue, but is likely to be a long-term and difficult process that is only suited to particular circumstances where the process can address joint concerns of government and donors.

The Nigeria Red Cross says conflict-hit areas it has been able to access in the Niger Delta are in better condition than anticipated, but that continued restrictions on aid workers' movement leaves many questions unanswered. Government soldiers are controlling access in and out of the Delta, site of a military incursion launched on 13 May to crack down on Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) militants.

A United Nations-commissioned study shows that land acquisitions are on the increase in Africa, Latin America, Central Asia and Southeast Asia, raising the risk that poor people will lose access to land, water, and other resources.

There was much activity in the magistrates’ courts in Harare on Thursday when human rights lawyers, two senior journalists and WOZA activists appeared in court for separate, routine, remand hearings. Two editors from the Zimbabwe Independent newspaper, Vincent Kahiya and Constantine Chimakure, appeared before Magistrate Catherine Chimanda, who ruled that they will stand trial on June 16 th. This was after the State Prosecutor, Moses Musendo, argued that they face serious charges that justifies them standing trial.

An ANC task team headed by the former Director-General of Health Dr Olive Shisana and heavily laden with trade unionists, is trying to convince the ANC and government to hastily implement a National Health Insurance (NHI) plan that many believe spells disaster for the buckling public health system. Inequities in the health system, which has resulted in the private sector monopolising resources disproportionately, need to be addressed. However, this must be done in a manner that does not destroy the functioning private sector and cause more skilled health professionals to leave the country.

A Non Governmental Organization in Kenya's Nyanza province is set to launch a sexual identity and human rights debate project on Tuesday.Kenya Female Advisory Organization (KEFEADO)’s executive director Dolphin Oketch says the debate will open space for dialogue on sexuality. Oketch says there has been silence on homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexuality and transsexual practices in Kenyan schools, families and the society that must be addressed.

The APC Africa ICT Policy Monitor website was launched in late 2001 with a goal to provide information to African civil society organisations to fruitfully engage in information and communications technology (ICT) policy advocacy in Africa. At that time the idea of ICT policy advocacy was a relatively new one in many countries on the continent, and we wanted governments and policy-makers to recognise that access to and the use of ICTs is a basic human right.

The Somaliland political parties have signed an agreement with the Electoral Commission to fix an election date in the Horn of Africa state. The agreement which is derived from a series of negotiations among the political parties and the electoral committee, saw all parties agreeing to 27 September 2009 as the official day for the polls.