After graduating from a teacher training college in Kenya thanks to a United Nations-backed scholarship scheme, three Somali men are returning to the refugee camp they grew up in to help the next generation of children. Aden Yusef Mohamed, Ahmed Aden Hasa and Hish Mohamed Maow ranked in the top 20 among the 500 students they graduated from the two-year programme at the Nakuru Teachers Training College.

Villagers in districts of Mashonaland East provinces have been told to brace themselves for more political violence, following ‘promises’ from ZANU PF officials they would be dealt with after the 2010 World cup finals. Pressure group, Zimbabwe Democracy Now, issued a statement Thursday detailing how Mike Chiwodza, a ZANU PF district chairman, has been going around the province telling villagers ‘We will kill you after the World Cup.’

The quality of research examining HIV prevention programmes targeted at young people in Africa is poor, according to the authors of a systematic review and meta-analysis published in the online edition of AIDS. Moreover, evidence that such prevention programmes had an effect was limited and confined to sub-groups.

A protest march will take place in Pretoria on Freedom Day, April 27, to demand equality for lesbians and gays in both the U.S. and Uganda. Organised by Up & Out, the University of Pretoria's gay organisation, the protestors will march from the Ugandan Embassy to the U.S. Embassy. The U.S. has been slammed by the organisation for its continued refusal to grant same-sex couples federal marriage rights and benefits. "How can a supposed first world nation decide to do such things?" asked Up & Out in a statement.

The Fourth African Conference on FOSS and the Digital Commons (IDLELO 4) to be held from 17th - 21st May, 2010, in Accra at the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT (AITI-KACE). This knowledge-building and sharing event under the theme: “Development with Ownership” is a forum for African experts and their global partners to share experience in order to expand awareness of the 'open' philosophy and the creation and use of open technologies for the benefit of our people.

A World Bank report said that some 64 million more people would be living in extreme poverty in 2010 due to global recession. "The economic crisis and recession have substantially increased the challenge of meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) targets," the World Development Indicator (WDI) 2010, released by the bank on Wednesday, stated.

African Union (AU) Commission Chair Jean Ping is in the US for a series of meetings, including the first annual US-AU High Level Bilateral Meeting at the State Department here. During his trip, Ping, who is leading an AU delegation, will discuss issues of mutual concern with some of the most senior US officials, including the Attorney General, USAID Administrator Raj Shah and the U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk.

The protagonists in Madagascar's political crisis have agreed to attend talks in South Africa on April 28. President Andry Rajoelina ousted Marc Ravalomanana with the help of dissident soldiers in March last year after weeks of popular protests. The two have been at loggerheads ever since as international mediators work to install a unity government.

A video showing election fraud during Sudan's election is being circulated online. Sudan's National Elections Commission has dismissed it as fake. The video show election officials stuffing ballot boxes. Oppoition groups claim that the video proves their claims of rigging by by the ruling National Congress Party (NCP).

The Democratic Republic of Congo army killed at least 11 civilians as it retook the airport in Mbandaka from rebels this month, a rights group says. The Asadho campaign group says it has confirmed 11 killings but suspects another 31 during the Easter attack. Nine of the dead had been in detention for three months but were then accused of being rebels and killed, it said. The government is investigating.

French state-owned company Areva continues to deny any wrongdoing after findings that populated areas in Niger remain contaminated with high levels of radio-activity. The company seems to be escaping censure partly because of lack of data on cancer-related causes of death among Nigeriens working at or living near the uranium mines.

On April 13 the number two in the Vatican hierarchy, the Pope’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, claimed that there is a link between homosexuality and paedophilia. The LGBT movement worldwide has risen up against this false, despicable and anti-scientific statement from the Vatican, which is trying to deflect attention from priests’ sex crimes by blaming LGBT people.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has spoken out against the large number of rapes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), voicing concern at the impunity with which the attacks are being carried out. On average, 14 assaults have been recorded daily over the past three months, but “we fear that the real numbers could be much higher considering that many survivors keep silent for fear of being ostracized,” agency spokesperson Melissa Fleming told reporters in Geneva.

Tanzania is deporting 57 Somali migrants who illegally entered that country last month, officials said. The migrants who were fleeing from the war in Somalia are mostly youth and included six children, officials said.

Two Eritrean rebel groups said they killed 11 government soldiers and wounded some 20 others in a coordinated attack on military camps in southern Eritrea. The groups -- the Red Sea Afar Democratic Organisation (RSADO) and the Eritrean National Salvation Front (ENSF) -- said in a joint statement that they had briefly taken control of the camps on Thursday and seized weapons and military intelligence.

On April 19, an Assembly of the Social Movements was one of the first activities on the agenda at the People's World Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba, Bolivia. The Assembly highlighted the popular focus of the conference, which was organized by the Bolivian government after the failure of governments and industries to negotiate a plan to stop climate change in Copenhagen last December.The conference is being held from April 19 thru 22 and is meant to amplify the voices of those who were not heard in Copenhagen.

A Cabinet committee has recommended changes to Ndorwa West MP David Bahati’s anti-gay legislation that preclude the possibility of discarding it, Daily Monitor has learnt. But the report, which is yet to be discussed by Cabinet, indicts Mr Bahati for not applying the kind of sophistication that would have anticipated the international condemnation that came after the draft legislation was tabled in Parliament last year.

Former regional diplomat Sir Ronald Sanders and British trade expert and journalist David Jessop regularly take their time to write in the press on matters pertaining to relations between the Caribbean and the European Union, particularly in the field of trade. I am not sure how many of us who do read really consider the implications of what they have to say.

The continent of Africa, already facing severe food shortages, has in recent years been targeted for land acquisition by countries from outside the region. The trend started in the 1990s when countries such as Sudan allowed rich Gulf countries to buy agricultural land in the areas irrigated by the bountiful waters of the White and Blue Nile. The oil bonanza had not yet materialised in Sudan. Under virtual sanctions from the West, it was facing severe economic constraints and was caught in a bloody civil war.

The Cairo Refugee Film Festival (CRFF) is an Initiative that started in 2009 with the aim of organizing a film festival commemorating the World Refugee Day in June. For more information on last festival, please . This year, the initiative is supported by several collaborators namely St. Andrew’s Church and Congregation (Refugee Ministry), the Center for Migration and Refugee Studies (CMRS) at the American University in Cairo, Egyptian Foundation for Refugee Rights (EFRR) and Tadamon: Egypt-Refugee Multicultural Council as well as others.