The Ministry of State for Development of Northern Kenya and other Arid Lands is tasked with addressing the ‘unique challenges’ facing its area of responsibility. These challenges have their roots deep in Kenya’s past, and specifically in the creation of the Northern Frontier District by the colonial regime.

Police are investigating the death of a human rights activist and university lecturer Bantu Mwaura, whose body was found outside his gate at Sunlight estate in Nairobi’s Lang’ata area, on Monday morning. Sources said that family members of Bantu, who was also a renowned thespian, director, poet and storyteller, had reported him missing on Friday. Bantu was a respected poet whose work in English, Kiswahili and Gikuyu has been published in several journals.

4strugglemag is an independent non-sectarian revolutionary voice. We are unapologetically anti-imperialist and solidly in support of progressive National Liberation, especially the struggles of New African/Black, Mexicano/Chicano, Puerto Rican and Native American Nations presently controlled by U.S. imperialism. Reflecting the work and principles of political prisoners held by the United States, 4strugglemag advocates for Justice, Equality, Freedom, Socialism, Protection of our Mother Earth, Human Rights and Peace.

Gender Links, a Southern African NGO based in Johannesburg specialising in gender, media, women’s rights and governance, seeks the services of experienced individuals in SADC countries (Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe,) to serve as field officers for its gender justice and governance programme. The main task of the incumbent, each of whom will be based in their home countries, will be to work with local councils, partners and stakeholders to develop gender and gender violence (GBV) action plans for local government at the district level as well as providing backstopping and support.

Zimbabwe's teachers have vowed to go on strike when the new school term begins next week after government reneged on a pledge to increase their salaries. "There has not been any concrete response to address the issue of teachers salaries," Tendai Chikowore, president of the Zimbabwe Teachers' Association told AFP. "We issued an ultimatum to the minister to say if the issues of remuneration of teachers are not addressed before schools open, teachers will not report for work."

African nations must stop signing away their natural resources in skewed deals with foreign firms, the African winner of the 2009 “Green Nobel” prize said in an interview. Ona, a wheelchair-bound Gabonese activist, has won the African 2009 Goldman Environmental Prize for a decade of activism to protect the Congo Basin Rainforest, the second largest rainforest in the world.

Cut Off My Tongue explores the truths that shape us as Kenyans - our beliefs, the way we behave and why. It is no ordinary reading of poetry, but a spirited invocation to Africans to colonize and mold their own history. It is a show about land, about tribe, about personal discovery, about identity and relationships. The show makes you think and laugh at the same time. It rants, sweats, breaks into song and dance!

Zanzibar marks the International Malaria Day this week with a remarkable record of combating the disease in the isles, as medical authorities put emphasis on ‘proper malaria diagnosis before treatment or using medicine.” “Some people including medical practitioners prescribe malaria treatment before diagnosis,” medical practitioners said here yesterday at one-day workshop on “updating journalists about malaria in Zanzibar. Malaria prevalence in Zanzibar has dropped from 40 per cent in 2004 to one per cent or less in 2007, according to Zanzibar Malaria Control Programme (ZMCP) statistics.

The accused, Constance Rukia, was taken to court on Monday and charged with assault causing bodily harm (under section 251 of the Penal Code). The case will be mentioned on Monday April 27 at the Chief Magistrate’s Court. So far, COVAW and KHRC are the only organizations that have officially agreed to watch brief for the case and several activists have written statements of support on internet listservs in reaction to the hate crime that happened last week. We would like to see a bigger show of solidarity particularly from within civil society

Days after a judge confirmed Shell Oil will stand trial here May 26 on charges it was complicit in the murders of Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Nigerian activists, environmental and human rights groups announced they have formed a global campaign to hold Shell accountable and demand that it stop gas flaring in Nigeria.

Gender Links, a dynamic Southern African NGO that promotes gender equality through its media, justice and governance programmes, seeks to fill the post of knowledge and training manager for an initial three year period.

South African History Online and the Centre for Sociological Research at the University of Johannesburg issues a call for papers for a conference to be held in September 2009 in Johannesburg South Africa. We are committed to critically engaging with Dadoo's legacy, interrogating impulses of the time that might have been written out of history and crucially wanting to ask if the solutions that Dadoo and his generation sought in building non racialism and socialism have anything to say to the present generation and the striving to build a democracy in the context globally the contemporary configuration of economic and political power relations and locally the legacies of apartheid.

Army troops in the Central African Republic killed up to 30 civilians in February in the Ndele region, a BBC investigation has found. Witnesses say the government soldiers shot dead 21 people in the village of Sokumba, about 70km (44 miles) from the border with Chad. Other human rights abuses committed by both the national army and rebels have been reported in the area.

High food prices persist in developing countries despite an improved global cereal supply situation and a sharp decline in international food prices, FAO has warned in its latest Crop Prospects and Food Situation report. This is creating further hardship for millions of poor people already suffering from hunger and undernourishment.

The number of Sudanese refugees returning home from Uganda this year with the assistance of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has topped the 20,000 mark. This brings the total number of people helped home by UNHCR since the signing of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which ended Sudan’s long-running north-south civil war, to nearly 150,000, including 85,000 from Uganda. An additional 160,000 others have repatriated on their own from neighbouring countries.

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai tried to put on a brave face Wednesday by suggesting that talks aimed at resolving outstanding issues in the unity government had not reached a deadlock. But events so far show his optimism is misplaced. Crippling the coalition are issues around the fact that Mugabe stripped off the communications sector from a ministry controlled by the MDC, the delay in swearing in Deputy Agriculture Minister Roy Bennett, fresh farms invasions, the continued detention of political prisoners and the appointment of governors, ambassadors and permanent secretaries.

South Africa will face tough choices in the years ahead as its government strives to extend treatment to all who need it through the public health system, a leading health economist told the Fourth South African AIDS Conference earlier this month. Dr Susan Cleary, the director of the Health Economics Unit at the University of Cape Town’s School of Public Health and Family Medicine, outlined the financial dilemma that South Africa will face in the coming decade as the number on HIV treatment grows.

The global economy, which is experiencing the most severe recession since World War II, is projected to shrink by 1.3 percent in 2009, with a slow recovery expected in 2010, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reports in its April World Economic Outlook (WEO) released on Wednesday. Although the rate of contraction should ease from the second quarter of this year, output per capita is still projected to decline in countries representing 75 percent of the world economy. It is expected that growth will re-emerge in 2010 at a pace of 1.9 percent, which is sluggish in comparison to past recoveries.

In Uganda, a fast, cheap diagnostic test based on vinegar is invigorating the battle against cervical cancer. Health activists are raising money to put it in a mobile clinic and health officials are eyeing a national rollout.

Some of the developing world's largest rivers are drying up because of climate change, threatening water supplies in some of the most populous places on Earth, say scientists. Researchers from the US-based National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) analysed data combined with computer models to assess flow in 925 rivers — nearly three quarters of the world's running water supply — between 1948 and 2004.