If people don’t receive comprehensive sex education growing up, what is another option for disseminating critical sexual and reproductive health information to them? By targeting young married couples in Egypt, The Mabrouk! ('Congratulations!') Initiative strategically focuses efforts on young couples preparing to start a family. Established in 2004, the initiative combines a multimedia campaign with interpersonal and community empowerment approaches as part of the Communication for Health Living (CHL) project to create sustainable social change related to health practices.

Unless the money needed for tuberculosis is invested now the world will face a drug-resistant epidemic that will affect everyone in the world, warned Dr Nils Billo, Executive Director of the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union). Speaking at the launch of the World Health Organisation’s Global Tuberculosis Control Report, Billo said that TB very often fell between the cracks even though it was a critical problem in many countries, including the former Soviet Union, Russia and Asia.

A group of civil society organisations have called on the Ugandan government to take all appropriate measures to ensure the full respect of fundamental human rights and adequate protection from violence for people suffering discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Thousands of public servants in Swaziland are due to lose their jobs in cutbacks as part of a government bid to gain approval from the International Monetary Fund for a loan. But some Swazis would rather see the budget slashed for the country’s autocratic royals. The civil service of the tiny Southern African monarchy comes with a high wage bill, as 50 per cent of national spending going towards 35,000 state posts.

Radio Horseed Media FM director Abdifatah Jama Mire has been released after 86 days of detention in Bosaso, in the semi-autonomous northeastern region of Puntland. Sentenced to six years in prison for broadcasting an interview with the head of a rebel group linked to Al-Qaeda, he was pardoned by Puntland President Abdirahman Mohamed Farole.

Fighting between two sub-clans over grazing pasture and water has left 20 dead and thousands of families displaced from several villages in central Somalia, say locals. 'In my own town of Galinsor, about 1,300 families [7,800 people] have been displaced, out of a total population of 5,500 families,' Osman Abdi, an elder, told IRIN on 9 November. 'Many of the families have fled to surrounding villages and are living in the open or sheltering under trees.'

The European Action Day is an initiative of the European Coalition for Corporate Justice (ECCJ – a European network bringing together over 250 civil society organisations present in 15 European countries to take measures that will stop corporate abuses and provide access to justice for victims of these abuses. 'From mercury poisoning in South Africa to child labour in India, companies, including European ones, continue to get away with breaches of environmental and human rights standards,' states Ruth Casals, ECCJ’s coordinator.

The visible aftermath of violence is easy to see at the tent camp of Gdaim Izik and the Western Sahara city of Laâyoune, still reeling from two days of deadly clashes with Moroccan troops, less clear is a death toll or the actual circumstances surrounding the military action. The crisis began early Monday (November 8th), when Moroccan forces intervened to disperse a tent camp near Laâyoune set up three weeks ago to protest against Morocco's social policy in Western Sahara.

Internationally acclaimed Kenyan poet, playwright and activist Shailja Patel has launched 'Migritude' in the US. 'Part memoir, part political history, part performance tour-de-force', the project 'weaves together family history, reportage, and monologues of violence, colonisation, and love, to create an achingly beautiful portrait of lives and migrant journeys undertaken in the boot print of Empire.’

Google has launched Google Voice Search in South Africa to enable internet users to use their natural voice to speak into their cell phones for Google searches. Google senior staff engineer Johan Schalkwyk has said 'you speak into your phone and it sends your voice over the network where it's analyzed and you get your search results.'

A text message from a clinic each week resulted in better adherence and a higher level of viral load suppression among people with HIV after starting antiretroviral treatment in Kenya, a randomised controlled trial has shown. The results were published in the Online First section of The Lancet this week. The trial was sponsored by the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).

Dozens of NGOs have expressed their 'concern about the continued deterioration of freedom of expression in many parts of Africa in 2010' in a resolution adopted this week at a major gathering of civil society from across the continent. The 'Resolution on Freedom of Expression and Protection of Journalists' came out of the Forum on the Participation of NGOs held in Banjul, The Gambia, in advance of the start of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights ordinary session.

Reporting to the Head of International Grants and managing a small team, you’ll lead on the delivery of our trade and climate change programme strategies, and the development of our social investment strategy as well as playing a critical role in strengthening corporate and other relationships that will enable us to fulfill our mission.

The shortage of doctors in Zimbabwe has reached crisis levels with the country having only 21 per cent of the required medical practitioners amid other frightening statistics on the worsening health situation, a Parliamentary report has revealed. 'Child health status indicators are worsening with infant mortality and under-five mortality rising from 53 percent to 77 per 1?000 live births in 1994 to 67 and 94 per 1?000 live births respectively in 2009,' a Parliamentary report said.

Urging his compatriots to remain grateful to him for his 'numerous developments and the transformation that has taken place in the country', Gambian leader Yahya Jammeh on Monday declared that he would not run for presidency in the 2011 elections, which will mark the end of his third five-year term. Jammeh told local authorities, politicians and other stakeholders drawn from all the regions in the country at the State House in Banjul, that democracy must be respected in the country, PANA reported from here Monday.

Gunmen have attacked an off shore oil rig operated by exploration firm, Afren, kidnapping five crew members including foreigners and injuring two others, the company said on Monday. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) made no immediate claim of responsibility but threatened to carry out new attacks on oil infrastructure in the country. A resurgence of violence in the Niger Delta would be an embarrassment for President Goodluck Jonathan, who is the first Nigerian President from the region.

Every year a noxious black smog hangs over Egypt as the seasonal burning of rice straw by farmers begins, and with it comes a surge in allergic reactions and lung infections. The inky haze lasts from October to November; it is a time when hospitals see a rise in patient numbers, and parents consider keeping their children out of school to avoid the worst of the throat-burning smog. 'Straw burning-induced pollution causes acute health problems,' Mahmud Abdel Meguid, chairman of the state-run Abbasiya Chest Hospital, told IRIN.

The United Nations Working Group on the use of mercenaries will carry out an official visit to South Africa from 10 to 19 November 2010 to examine the regulatory and oversight system in place to monitor the activities of private military and security companies. The UN expert body will hold discussions with government authorities, parliamentarians, civil society organizations, representatives of the diplomatic community, as well as representatives of the private military and security industry based in South Africa. In these discussions, the Working Group will focus, among other things, on the content and possible impact of the relevant legislation adopted in 2006.

Women in Uganda’s rural areas will learn about domestic violence against women through the use of different ICT tools to build awareness around the issue, but they will also learn to report and prevent it - and the mobile phone will be playing a big part in their campaigns - from frontline SMS, to around-the-clock hotlines. Other tools being used include web 2.0 and online publishing tools, as well as radio.

Golden Misabiko

Veli Mbele

Johary Ravaloson