It was not the three days of labour that caused Fatimata Guido the most pain, her urine-stained sheets or the five operations she has had to repair an obstetric fistula. “It is the fear of having sex again, since that is what got me into this situation in the first place.”

The US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has pledged US$2.7 billion over the next five years to advance HIV programmes in Kenya - a 112 percent increase.

Uncertainty surrounding the impasse in Guinea Conakry is forcing Guineans to flee their country. Reports say that about 200 Guineans have been registered to have entered Senegal through its borders with the troubled West African nation.

The search for an effective microbicide has been dealt another blow with disappointing study results from PRO 2000, an early generation microbicide gel that was tested to prevent HIV in women.

While changes in antiretroviral regimens are often impelled by side-effects, a considerable proportion of first-line changes in a west African cohort were found to be due to other issues, according to a forthcoming article in the journal AIDS.

A new police force plan to recruit youths in each community, to help fight the country-wide spate of armed robbery, has provoked controversy and sparked a nationwide debate. Communities are concerned that some area volunteers are known to be ex-child combatants, who may have participated in committing horrific atrocities against civilians.

As the 2010 Soccer World Cup approaches, expected to bring an influx of gay tourists to South Africa, Health4Men, a health centre for men who have sex with men (MSM) in Soweto has urged entertainment venues in all cities to promote responsible sex among gay men. Themed Responsible Sex Promotion by Gay Venues, this initiative is targeting night clubs, bars, taverns, guest houses and sex venues, making available free condoms, lubricant sachets, fact sheets, posters and public health notices.

Madagascar's president, Andry Rajoelina, has called for parliamentary elections early next, saying it is the only way out of the political crisis that has gripped the Indian Ocean Island since January this year.

The Republic of Congo’s civil war may have ended in 2003, but violence against women continues, according to civil society activists and aid workers.

A leading human rights lawyer has launched legal action to try to force Nigeria's President, Umaru Yar'Adua, to hand executive powers to his deputy while he receives medical treatment in Saudi Arabia.

Kenya is seeking the services of leading mobile phone companies in an ambitious campaign to market the East African Community Common Market. In an Obama-inspired campaign -- where ICT played a major role in galvanising public support -- the country plans to educate all the 17 million Kenyans who own mobile phones on how they stand to benefit from the Common Market, whose protocol was signed a month ago.

Morocco is working to improve services for Down's syndrome and other handicapped children, many of whom have no access to local primary schools. Halima, 45, lives in Sidi Kacem with her husband and four children, including an 8-year-old boy with Down's syndrome. For years, Halima hoped her son would be able to attend school in spite of his disability, but no schools in the region cater to children with special needs.

Prisca Musonda is an ardent supporter of Patriotic Front leader Michael Sata and his party. She has travelled with him to most parliamentary constituencies campaigning in elections. But now she fears Zambia’s general elections set for 2011 could turn violent and go wrong for most voters, unless the latest spate of violence can be curbed.

Dulane Jama and his family suffered in silence for three years in a remote corner of eastern Ethiopia before he finally decided to go and look for a safe place to live before they all died. After an arduous and dangerous trek across Somalia, he ended up about four months ago at Dadaab, a sprawling and overcrowded refugee complex in north-east Kenya housing almost 300,000 refugees. Most are Somalis who have fled conflict or persecution in their troubled homeland.

Chadian government forces were forced to launch both air and ground assaults in defense to the appalling offense by the Rebels from the Union of Resistance Forces (URF). This is the major confrontation between the rebels and government forces since May.

The number of reported rapes in camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Bosasso, in Somalia's self-declared autonomous region of Puntland, is increasing and rape has become "a major problem", says a civil society source.

AMERA-Egypt is pleased to advertise the vacancy of Psychosocial Team Leader. The job of Psychosocial Team Leader is full-time for 35 hours per week, and s/he works under the day-to-day supervision of the Deputy Country Director. Its purpose is to develop affective and adequate programming, manage the operation and effective delivery of the psychological and social services for refugees seeking asylum in Egypt.

At the opening of the Copenhagen conference on climate change, twenty UN human rights experts, including Olivier De Schutter, stated that a “weak outcome of the climate change negotiations threatens to infringe upon human rights”. The Special Rapporteur warns that only climate policies deeply rooted in a human rights regime can guarantee minimized impacts upon the most vulnerable.

Sudan wants to attract foreign investors to cultivate vast tracks of land that are currently unused in Africa’s largest country, State Minister for Finance Tarek Shalabi said.

Gender activists from East and Southern Africa have expressed shock at the backward trends in the 50/50 campaign in recent elections. The African Union (AU) has set a goal of achieving parity between women and men in decision-making by 2020, while the Southern African Development Community (SADC) target calls for 50% women in decision-making in all sectors by 2015.