Improving water quality and access can help lower maternal mortality rates, say advocates. Now a new fellowship program is being launched to explore various solutions to the maternal health problem in the world's poorest nations.

Two Kenyan lesbians have been released on bail after being allegedly arrested for lesbianism, and later being charged with stealing, an offence which the women refuted suggesting it was blackmail. According to the co-ordinator from the Solidarity with Communities in Distress (SOLCODI) Program which advocates for the gay and lesbian community, the women are being blackmailed because they are lesbians.

As a key United Nations meeting approaches involving 141 countries, governments are deadlocked about meaningful monitoring of their compliance with the United Nations Anti-Corruption Convention. The meeting will be held in Doha, Qatar on 9-13 November. Decisions made or avoided there could mark a turning point – for better or worse – in global efforts to curb corruption and its destructive impact on millions of people.

Media professionals in South Africa say a possible new bill is in reality a form of censorship, obstructing journalists from doing their jobs, reports the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA). Meanwhile, the Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI) is concerned about another bill already signed into law that has introduced a system of pre-publication censorship.

One hundred thousand poor people in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, will benefit from a Kshs. 600 million pilot programme to be undertaken b y the government and development partners to transfer cash to the vulnerable poor, the Prime Minister's Office has said in a statement.

Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai on Thursday said he had called off a boycott of power-sharing ties with President Robert Mugabe that had paralysed the fragile unity government for three weeks. His announcement comes after a Southern African leaders' emergency summit aimed at ending the power-sharing deal impasse in the country.

A group of parents in Sierra Leone has accused a charity of sending more than 30 children abroad for adoption without consent during the country's civil war. The parents say they have no idea what happened to their children after they were handed over to Help a Needy Child International (Hanci).

Congolese armed forces in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo have brutally killed hundreds of civilians and committed widespread rape in the past three months in a military operation backed by the United Nations, Human Rights Watch has said.

Africa’s efforts to meet the global anti-poverty targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by their 2015 deadline are threatened by the impact of the global financial crisis on the continent’s economies, said Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro.

Nearly 30,000 victims of toxic dumping in the Ivory Coast may be deprived of £30m compensation after an African court froze the bank accounts into which the money has been paid. British lawyers for the victims are concerned that the legal action is the first step in the expropriation of the funds, released to the claimants this year by Trafigura, a London-based international oil trading company.

A retreat from international funding commitments for AIDS threatens to undermine the dramatic gains made in reducing AIDS-related illness and death in recent years, according to a new report by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).The MSF report highlights how expanding access to HIV treatment has not only saved the lives of people with AIDS but has been central to reducing overall mortality in a number of high HIV burden countries in southern Africa in recent years.

Namibia President Hifikepunye Pohamba, earlier this week likened the European Union's trade negotiations with Namibia to the days of apartheid, saying the powerhouse is refusing to treat the country as an equal and listen to its concerns about the controversial economic partnership agreement (EPA).

This article explores how globalisation is challenging activist groups that use a human rights framework that has traditionally been used to hold national governments accountable for human rights violations.

The International Lutheran Council (ILC) a world wide association of Lutheran churches has unanimously adopted a statement against homosexuality at the recent international gathering held in Seoul, Japan 26-31 August. Themed “In Christ: Living Life to the full” and held in Seoul, Japan, 26-31 August, the conference was organised with the aim to confront the homosexual debate which according to the council has divided and brought bewilderment within various congregations including the Lutheran Church.

Mortality rates, which have been increasing in South Africa since the 1990s, are on their way back down, reflecting a downturn of the AIDS epidemic and signalling longer lifespans for South Africans, statistics published today reveal.

Interface is a new journal produced twice yearly by activists and academics around the world in response to the development and increased visibility of social movements in the last few years - and the immense amount of knowledge generated in this process. Interface welcomes contributions by movement participants and academics who are developing movement-relevant theory and research.

The reproductive health expert of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Fanding Badji has called on African governments to show more political will in the fight against obstetrical fistula in Sub-Sahara Africa.

The International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor says he will request ICC judges to open an investigation into Kenya's post-election violence. Luis Moreno-Ocampo made the comments after meeting Kenya's president and prime minister, who said they would co-operate with the ICC probe.

"All shall call." This phrase was popularised by Pallo Jordan in the mid 1990's, and became a catchphrase of telecommunications transformation in South Africa. It echoed the idea espoused by Jordan at the Plenipotentiary meeting of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) that access to telecommunications was a right, not a privilege.

A network of African civil society and international organizations today called upon African Union (AU) states to use the AU's upcoming session about the International Criminal Court (ICC) to promote the court's ability to prosecute the world's worst crimes fairly and effectively.