Girls living in Moroccan towns are five times more likely to remain in school as their rural peers. The national attendance rate is around 60%, but is only 16.5% for girls in isolated areas. Given that the distance between rural girls' homes and schools is the primary reason for the disparity, an innovative residential programme may be the solution to keeping girls in school for more than just six years of primary education, organisers recently told a Rabat forum.

Vice president George Kunda on Friday charged in parliament that the government was aware of some people who had married to hide their homosexual activities. Answering a question from Chadiza MMD member of parliament Allan Mbewe during the vice president’s question and answer session, on what government was doing to curb homosexuality in the country, vice-president Kunda said the laws available were stiff enough to punish such people.

Some lie awkwardly splayed on the stairs while others sleep in a neat row outside a church in Johannesburg from where Zimbabwean refugees will soon find themselves having to relocate again. The Methodist Church, in the city centre, has long been a popular destination for thousands of Zimbabweans fleeing their country's political and economic woes and more recently a devastating cholera crisis.

For the past year, Karen Awuor*, 15, has had a new daily ritual– taking antiretroviral (ARV) drugs. She discovered she was HIV positive during an unintended pregnancy that forced her to drop out of school; her baby died after just four months. “When I was in class seven, I got into a relationship with one of my teachers; he promised to pay my school fees if I agreed to be his wife,” she told IRIN/PlusNews.

More opportunities for Chinese investment into Africa are to open up soon, with the announcement that China is to bolster its China-Africa Development Fund by an additional US$2-billion. The state-run equity fund has already invested in 20 projects, totalling a massive $400-million, in Africa since it was established in June 2007.

Copper stockpiling by a secretive Chinese state organisation has helped trigger an impressive rally of almost 35 per cent in the price of the metal this year. Copper’s fortunes are closely tied to the industrial cycle so the price jump, bigger than that of gold, has grabbed attention outside the commodities market, with some questioning whether it could signal a turning point for economic growth.

At the time when financial storm hit the entire world economy, China came to emerge in the global spotlight viewed as the Salvager to rescue the deepening downward spiral from meltdown, as it boasts bulky foreign exchange reserves and the steadily growing economy, decelerating right now, though.

For its Investigative Journalism Helpdesk in Johannesburg, South Africa, the (pan-African) Forum for African Investigative Reporters (FAIR), seeks a Peer mentor/editor to assist investigative journalism projects carried out by African investigative journalists, either individually or as FAIR grantees and FAIR team projects.

On April 10th, family members of the Cuban Five imprisoned in the United States have an appointment in the U.S. Interests Section in Havana , Cuba , to request their visas. This will be the tenth time that Adriana Perez, wife of Gerardo Hernandez, will request a visa to see her husband in a prison in the U.S. where he is serving an unjust sentence. During a decade, the United States government has denied this couple the possibility of seeing each other.

Nigeria and China have signed a contract for a new communications satellite that will replace one sidelined by a power failure, a newspaper reported Wednesday. According to the contract signed in Beijing on Tuesday, the replacement satellite has been named NIGCOMSAT-1R and is due to be launched by 2011 with no cost to Nigeria, the Lagos-based Guardian reported. The new space vehicle will replace NIGCOMSAT-1, which was launched on May 14, 2007, but was displaced on Nov. 10, 2008, because of a solar power failure that occurred on one edge of the satellite.

Zimbabwean professionals, many of them teachers, are coming home and seeking readmission into the public service, in response to a move by the country’s new inclusive government to pay civil servants in foreign currency and relax conditions for rejoining the sector. The influx is a response to calls from President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai for the more than three million exiles, who sought refuge from their country’s chaotic economic situation in Southern African Development Community, SADC, countries and abroad, to return to Zimbabwe to help rebuild the country.

Somali Interior Minister Abdulkadir Ali Omar has been wounded in a deadly bomb attack in the capital Mogadishu. The BBC's Mohammed Olad Hassan in the city says the minister's secretary was killed and a bodyguard also injured. The minister was passing through the capital's bustling Bakara market - a stronghold of the radical al-Shabab militia - when a landmine went off.

Governments made their pledges over the Millennium Development Goals agreed in 2000, but it is civil society that could, more than anyone else, hold them to that promise. Salil Shetty, a civil society man coming as the head of ActionAid to head the UN millennium campaign, believes civil society has moved in from the margins; it is now at the heart of the world campaign for delivering these, and other rights.

In creating a $30 million trust fund to boost the food output of developing countries, China has cemented its role as a major global player in cooperation between developing countries, the United Nations agricultural agency said today. “This historic agreement underlines the importance of the role which China has come to play in the global arena today,” José Maria Sumpsi Assistant Director-General of the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) said after signing an agreement with the Chinese Vice-Minister for Agriculture.

Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Zhai Jun arrived in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) for a two-day visit during which he unveiled humanitarian aid to refugees in the central African country. Zhai and his Congolese counterpart Ignace Gata Mavita held talks before signing economic and trade agreements between the two countries, including 4 million RMB (about 600,000 U.S. dollars) in humanitarian aid to the refugees in the eastern part of the country.

The west's leading economic thinktank expects "very negative" growth this year, its head has warned. However, Angel Gurría, secretary-general of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, said in Beijing that China's gross domestic product would expand by 6-7% – below last November's forecast of 8%. The World Bank cut its growth forecast for China to 6.5% this week.

China will import 1.8 million barrels of African crude in April for the government's strategic reserve, said a trade source familiar with the transaction, as it capitalises on low prices to add to already swollen state stockpiles. The purchase, news of which comes after an industry official said in early March that China's emergency tanks are already filled to the brim, may suggest that stock levels have begun to ease after two months of low crude imports.

The 18th African Human Rights Moot Court Competition will be held at the University of Lagos, Nigeria from 10 to 15 August 2009. Students, academics and judges from all over Africa are invited to participate. All law faculties in Africa are invited to send one faculty representative who works in the field of human rights (dean or another lecturer) who will serve as a judge in the preliminary rounds, and two undergraduate students (preferably one man and one woman) who will constitute the team that represents its university at the Moot Court.

The SA blog awards is a showcase of the very best of South African blogs. The 2009 SA Blog Awards is scheduled for its annual process of nominations and voting this year from 1st March through to 1st April, and the winners announced on 3rd April. Among those in contention is

Rwanda and DRC have set in motion high-level negotiations over the return of warlord Gen Laurent Nkunda after a deal on Monday in which the government ceded too much ground to the Gen Nkunda’s former fighters. Rwanda Foreign Affairs Minister, Rosemary Museminali, was set to meet with her DRC counterpart Alexis Tambwe Mwamba on Thursday, with teams representing security, diplomacy and justice to discuss bilateral cooperation on a number of fronts, including Gen Nkunda’s fate.