Task-shifting is the key to helping to reach South Africa’s goal of treating at least 80% of those in need of antiretroviral therapy (ART) by 2011, according to a joint statement by Médecins sans Frontières (MSF), Reproductive Health and Research Unit (RHRU) of University of the Witwatersrand, the Southern African HIV Clinicians Society, and Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), released at the Fourth South African AIDS Conference in Durban earlier this month.

Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika won 90.24% of the vote to secure his third mandate on Thursday (April 9th). The participation rate is 74.54%, Interior Minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni announced Friday morning. Although voting was held under tight security and Zerhouni affirmed that the poll was conducted in "good conditions", several attacks were reported. A bomb exploded at a polling station in Imeghenine, near (Boumerdes) and a police officer was killed by a roadside bomb in Tebessa.

The economic partnerships agreements (EPAs) will push African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries ''deeper'' into poverty and negatively affect the livelihoods of people living in ACP countries. These trade deals ''will prevent'' African countries from achieving the United Nations’ millennium development goals (MDGs). Several speakers at a two-day workshop on EPAs in Johannesburg, South Africa, were in agreement that the EPAs will do more harm than good to ACP countries.

U.S. Senator John Kerry said after talks with senior Sudanese officials on Thursday Khartoum would allow some foreign aid to be restored in its western Darfur region but that it was not sufficient. "Time is of the essence to avert a humanitarian catastrophe," said Kerry, who heads the U.S. Senate's Foreign Relations Committee and is leading a congressional delegation to Sudan.

A referendum on the revision of Comoros' constitution will be held on 17 May, President Ahmed Abdallah Sambi announced in a message broadcast on national radio and television stations, stressing that the referendum campaign would be held from 26 April to 15 May. “Those who do not want the revision of the constitution are free to campaign against it but they do not have the right to prevent the referendum from being held; a constitutional prerogative devolved on the head of state is a right of the people to exercise its sovereignty,” Sambi declared.

Botswana has offered a US$70 million credit line to help revive struggling Zimbabwean industries, a senior Zimbabwean official said on Thursday. “Botswana is proposing to provide US$70 million in credit support for some industries, all that is left is to tie up the agreement,” the official said.

The Eritrean government is turning its country into a giant prison, according to Human Rights Watch. The Horn of Africa nation is widely using military conscription without end, as well as arbitrary detention of its citizens, says HRW. Hundreds of Eritrean refugees forcibly repatriated from countries like Libya, Egypt and Malta face arrest and torture upon their return, says the group.

Kenyan authorities should clearly instruct all officials to protect refugees and asylum seekers in accordance with international law, Human Rights Watch has said. A senior Kenyan refugee official recently admitted that security forces might cause problems for asylum seekers arriving from Somalia because those forces “do not understand the implications of such actions.”

On paper rebels and the military in Chad are in agreement: a child should not be part of any armed forces. But renewed insecurity over the last few months has triggered an increase in child recruitment, humanitarian workers say. In May 2007, during a return to calm following a peace accord between the government of Chad and various rebel groups, the government signed an agreement with the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) to remove children working from armed forces and rebel groups and assist them.

The joint United Nations-African Union (AU) peacekeeping mission in Sudan’s war-ravaged Darfur region has reported that the security situation remains calm as scheduled troop rotations begin among some units. The hybrid operation, which is known as UNAMID and is tasked with quelling violence and protecting civilians, had reported over the past month a rise in attacks on peacekeeping staff, armed banditry, the burning of shelters in camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) and harassment of civilians

Since the formation of the coalition government the MDC has been running around trying to put out fires created by ZANU PF, but Robert Mugabe has been consistent from the very beginning in making unilateral decisions such as the appointment of permanent secretaries and governors. He has also refused to budge on the issue of the appointments of the Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono and Attorney General Johannes Tomana, despite the two MDC formations insisting that the appointments were irregular.

Paediatric antiretroviral therapy is feasible in decentralised, nurse- and counsellor-led programmes in public health clinics in rural areas in South Africa, according to research presented at the Fourth South African AIDS Conference in Durban earlier this month.

Burundi, an important host country for refugees over the past four decades, has just established a specialized office for asylum with help from the UN refugee agency. The development comes a year after the country passed its first asylum law. "The refugee agency welcomes these important steps towards improving refugee protection in Africa's Great Lakes region," said Bo Schack, the UNHCR representative in Burundi. "The government will now be clearly in the driver's seat," he added.

The Parliament of Uganda strongly condemned homosexuality during its session on Wednesday 15 April where Ethics and Integrity Minister James Nsaba Buturo presented a hard-hitting statement that the country should not compromise on the values it stands for. Following Buturo’s statement, several MPs also condemned homosexuality and called for stern action.

Ethiopia's plans to build Gibe 3 Dam now threaten the food security and local economies that support more than half a million people in southwest Ethiopia and along the shores of Lake Turkana. Construction began in 2006 with flagrant violations of Ethiopia’s own laws on environmental protection and procurement practices, and the national constitution.

The Burindi Minister of National Defence Forces (FDN), Lieutenant General Germain Niyoyankana, announced on Thursday a new agreement aimed at demobilizing, disarming and reintegrating 8,500 ex-combatants of the National Forces of Liberation (FNL). The agreement was signed in Pretoria under the South African mediation and aims at reintegrating 3,500 ex-rebels into the different defence and security departments -- 60 per cent in the regular army and 40 per cent in the national police for mula, Niyoyankana said.

Multinationals accused of human rights abuses can no longer feel safe now that the oil giant is facing allegations of complicity in the execution of Nigerian activist Ken Saro-Wiwa. Could this be the beginning of the end of the age of impunity? Fourteen years after the judicial murder of the Nigerian novelist, environmentalist and human rights activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Shell is about to go on trial in New York, accused of complicity in his execution.

Guinea's military leader has said he has the right to contest elections promised this year, despite previously pledging to stand down. Captain Moussa Dadis Camara angrily accused politicians of thwarting his government's efforts and of failing to respect its authority. He also accused businesses of sabotaging his government and ordered them to reverse recent price hikes.

The most potent question in public debate right now is whether or not to send “moribund President and ineffective Prime Minister” et al packing through fresh elections. The coalition government stands accused of failed leadership - their accuser, the discontented 70% of Kenyans per recent opinion polls and now the clerics. The prayers before the public court are that an urgent decision be reached on whether or not fresh elections should be held right away.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has called on the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Gambian authorities to enforce the ruling of the Community Court on the disappearance of the journalist Chief Ebrima Manneh more than three years ago after the Attorney General and Minister of Justice declared before the parliament last Monday that “Chief Ebrima Manneh is not in State custody”.