The ritual is familiar, as leaders of the G8 countries gather for their annual meeting, this year in Canada, and followed immediately by the parallel meeting of the expanded G20 countries. Although they take backseat to major power debate on their own responses to global economic crisis, previous commitments to the development of Africa are to be reviewed and, in part, renewed. But even the upbeat spin from the G8's own evaluation cannot conceal the fact that fulfillment of commitments has at best been "a very mixed picture."

Kenya has announced plans to establish a regional carbon emissions trading scheme to steer Africa's carbon market. This would hopefully position the country as the continent's carbon credit trade hub, finance minister Uhuru Kenyatta said in his budget speech to parliament earlier this month (10 June).

The UK's Department for International Development (DFID) has escaped drastic cuts despite a tough austerity budget, but in a new report the National Audit Office has told the government it should get better value for aid to overseas primary education, and take "a tougher, clearer stance" on costs and performance. Andrew Mitchell, the new development minister, said there would be a spending review.

Minister of Information and Broadcasting Services Ronnie Shikapwasha has cautioned the Media Liaison Committee (MLC) to exercise sincerity when dealing with media issues. Reacting to comments from the MLC spokesperson Amos Chanda, that government had no role in the facilitation of study tours for the media to learn how media regulation was being implemented in the region, Shikapwasha said that his statement was deliberately misunderstood.

Participants at the Annual Conference on African Women in Politics held on the 7th – 9th June 2010, organized by the African Women’s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET)have called on governments to, among other things, strengthen legal and policy frameworks in their countries by aligning them with international and regional principles and standards of democracy in particular those supporting equal participation and representation of men and women in political leadership.

The Rift Valley Institute Great Lakes Course will now take place in Entebbe, Uganda, from 17 to 23 July. Due to security concerns surrounding the elections in Burundi, the course has been moved from the previously announced location in Bujumbura. The syllabus and dates remain unchanged. The Great Lakes course is a residential programme designed for aid workers, peace-keepers, researchers and diplomats.

In the far south of Mali, one of the country’s main agricultural areas, the Sikasso region, is rich in fertile soil. But despite the region’s capacity to feed its people, the children of Sikasso are suffering from alarmingly high rates of undernutrition.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has set up a high-level Millennium Development Group (MDG) Advocacy Group, comprising 17 current and former political leaders, business people and thinkers from around the world to galvanise support for achieving the goals. Ban named Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero as co-chairs of the group.

The African Union has began a 90-day countdown to the International Peace Day, when all guns in the continent’s conflict hot-spots are expected to go silent. But, just for a day. The countdown began on Tuesday and is special for the political bloc given its declaration of 2010 as “the year of peace and security.”

A journalist working for a private newspaper has been shot dead in front of his house in the Rwandan capital. Witnesses say Jean Leonard Rugambage, the acting editor of Umuvugizi newspaper, was fired on by two men who then fled in a car. The authorities had recently suspended the paper, prompting it to start publishing online instead.

A court to mainly try suspected pirates has opened in the Kenyan port of Mombasa, funded by international donors. Pirates based in neighbouring Somalia have made the Gulf of Aden one of the world's most dangerous shipping lanes.

The Lord's Resistance Army, or LRA, has been ruthlessly attacking civilians in the Central African Republic, or CAR, since February 2008. Attacks continued unabated in the country's isolated southeastern Haut Mbomou and Mbomou prefectures, and surged during the first three months of 2010. Despite this deadly track record, LRA violence in CAR, one of the world's poorest countries, has been badly under-reported and gone largely unnoticed. T

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has begun a scheme to boost about 70,000 smallholder farmers in Ethiopia by buying the food they produce to use in the agency’s operations in the Horn of Africa country. Through the Purchase for Progress initiative, which is financed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, WFP plans to buy an estimated 126,000 tons of food from local farmers over the next five years.

South African police were investigating a possible conspiracy yesterday after making six arrests in connection with the attempted assassination of an exiled former Rwandan army chief of staff. Lt-General Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, a dissident Rwandan military commander who fled the country earlier this year, is recovering in a Johannesburg hospital after an attempt on his life that his wife has blamed on the president of Rwanda. The authorities in Kigali have denied any knowledge of a plot to kill General Nyamwasa.

Rich countries were set to figure out how to catch up on their missed aid promises and find new ways to help the world's poorest nations at a time when their own budgets are squeezed. The Group of Eight (G8) nations meet in Huntsville, Ontario, north of Toronto, short by an estimated $18 billion on a 2005 pledge to raise their combined aid to the poorest countries by at least $50 billion.

Leading up to the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, reports have come out alleging that South African authorities had made efforts to hide the homeless population to make areas seem more welcoming to tourists. Now, as the games go on, one organization is taking a stand to raise awareness about the negative impact of the World Cup on the poor and homeless.

The Intersessional Meeting of the Kimberley Process (KP), presided over by Israel as Chair of the KP, concluded on June 24th. On the agenda of the meeting were a number of initiatives relating to the on-going work of the KP and to the consolidation of the process such the creation of an office for administration and support and the establishment of a Working Group on Trade Facilitation. The center of attention, however, was the KP minimum standards implementation in the Marange diamond fields in Zimbabwe.

"Africa is now facing the same type of long-term food deficit problem that India faced in the early 1960s", says a paper by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), a US-based think-tank. In the early 1960s India faced a major food crisis. African countries are not spending enough on agriculture and the overall productivity of the continent has dropped since the mid-1980s, said the paper which looked at trends in public spending on agriculture in Africa.

The United Nations is prepared to support Niger to organise free and transparent elections next year, a UN delegation to the country said. Mr. Abderahamane Niang, who has just led a UN mission to Niger to evaluate its electoral needs, met with all the political stakeholders during the visit.

The International Press Institute (IPI) has expressed grave concern over the recent death threat against Gambian journalist, Abdoulie John, and called for an immediate and thorough investigation into the matter. "We are gravely concerned about reports of threats against Gambian journalist Ab doulie John," said IPI Press Freedom Manager Anthony Mills, adding: "particularly since journalists in Gambia operate under fear of death, harassment and physical harm.