Uganda has become the first country in Africa to undertake a reforestation project that will help reduce global warming emissions under the Kyoto Protocol. The Nile Basin Reforestation Project in Uganda is a ground-breaking project being implemented by Uganda's National Forestry Authority (NFA) in association with local community organisations. The growing trees absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, in exchange for revenues from the World Bank BioCarbon Fund paid to NFA and the communities.

President Robert Mugabe has called for a new start to relations with those Western countries he has spent years insulting for their criticism of his leadership. "Our country remains in a positive stance to enter into fresh, friendly and co-operative relations with all those countries that have been hostile to us in the past," he said yesterday at the first sitting of parliament since a unity government was formed with the former opposition in February.

Four African states threatened late on Thursday to veto any accord in the Doha trade round that did not address their demands for a reduction of Western subsidies for cotton. The negotiations on the product, a mainstay of several African economies, are seen as a touchstone of efforts to create a fairer global trading system in the Doha round, where agreement is sought in 2010.

More than one-million babies are stillborn during labour every year – 98% in low- and middle-income countries - yet global policy discussions around these largely silent deaths are mostly nonexistent. On top of this another 904 000 babies die soon after birth due to birth complications, closely linked to almost half of the world’s 536 000 maternal deaths.

Elementary school teachers in Tunisia organised a one-day strike on Monday (October 5th) to show solidarity with the dozens of trade union activists and educators imprisoned for their involvement in protests in Gafsa last June. Four of the 34 people imprisoned for the strike in the southern mining region are members of the Elementary Education General Syndicate of Redeyef-Gafsa

Ten years ago, a move to legalise abortion in Namibia failed. The number of unwanted pregnancies remains high, with many people unwilling or unable to use contraception. Despite the risks, illegal abortions remain common. Misoprostol - a drug used to control ulcers, more usually known by the brand name Cytotec - has become a favoured method for inducing abortion.

Taking practical measures to realize the rights of the child is the greatest gift that we can give to our future generations, said High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay as the Convention on the Rights of the Child turns 20 years old. A two-day commemoration is taking place in Geneva on 8 and 9 October to kick off some five weeks of activities world-wide ahead of the 20th anniversary of the Convention on 20 November.

Despite its six million inhabitants, Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, is far from a city where one can live openly and express their sexual orientation. On this day everywhere in Africa, homosexuality is considered an abomination and a way of relating imported ideas from the West. Just walk the streets of this vast city to understand how difficult it is to receive a same-sex partner. Moreover, within the family, the pressure is often so strong that the paper of a homosexual is like an ordeal.

Mugabe used an appearance at the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) ‘World 2009’ meeting in Geneva, Switzerland on Wednesday to attack the West for what he called the continued violation of Zimbabwe’s airwaves by foreign based radio stations. In a speech that aptly summed up his regime’s attitude towards media freedom, Mugabe told a Council of Ministers meeting that ‘certain western countries had ‘radio broadcasting systems’ that were targeting ‘his’ country to further their ‘obnoxious regime change agendas’.

South Africa said on Friday it had been offered 48 square miles of land for farming in Angola and Uganda but that it would not take up land offers without security of tenure. Agriculture Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson said at a conference Zambia had also offered South Africa, the continent's largest economy, a 48-year lease agreement for land.

The Kenyan Government has accused TEAMS shareholders of colluding to fix internet connectivity prices. Information and Communication PS Bitange Ndemo said the shareholders are making a massive 2,000 per cent from selling their capacity before the cable officially goes live. The shareholders have said that they will first have to recoup their investment before lowering the Internet connectivity prices.

Non-governmental organisations have expressed their satisfaction at the European Commission’s declaration that it would not put "undue pressure" on African and other countries to conclude the controversial trade deals called economic partnership agreements (EPAs)

Thandi Sihadi stands next to a dry tap. As a maize and dairy farmer in one of South Africa’s driest districts, the lack of running water is nothing new to her. In fact, she says, she is one of many new black farmers who may now be fortunate enough to have land, but who still have problems accessing water for farming. Sihadi, a beneficiary of the Hereford land reform project – a project aimed at assisting small-scale black farmers, is from Sekhukhune in Limpopo.

This web-only AfricaFocus Bulletin contains brief excerpts on the role of wind in the world energy economy from the chapter on renewable energy in the new book Plan B 4.0 by Lester Brown.

Local government, NGOs, church and IT leaders from the Kasese district in Uganda have launched a project to help give civil society organisations more influence over government planning and development. IICD will help manage the ICT component of this major project funded by the EU.

More than a million Ugandans driven from their homes by decades of violent conflict are gradually moving back to their homeland in the north of the country thanks to an innovative United Nations-backed farming project, the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) has said. A new rice-based farming system aimed at improving food security and reducing poverty in Uganda has enabled the incremental return of around 1.5 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) after living in makeshift camps for more than 20 years.

Cases of serious sexual violence, including the recent rape of at least one woman by soldiers on an invaded farm, are being investigated, as members of the armed forces continue their illegal seizure of the land. The woman, part of a group of more than ninety farm worker families from Karori farm in the Headlands district, was reportedly raped more than a week ago when soldiers evicted them from the farm.

The University of Oxford, Department of Continuing Education is now accepting applications for the Master's in International Human Rights Law 2010-11 entryThe aim of the degree programme is to train and support future leaders in the field of international human rights law. A central objective of the course is to ensure that participants not only know but can also use human rights law. The curriculum places roughly equal emphasis on the substance of human rights law, its implementation, and the development of human rights advocacy skills. Application deadlines: 20 November 2009, 22 January 2010, 12 March 2010.

The rate of HIV infection among pregnant women in South Africa has remained stubbornly high at around 29 percent for the third year running, according to government figures released on 5 October. The 2008 National Antenatal HIV and Syphilis Prevalence Survey - based on blood samples from 34,000 pregnant women who attended antenatal clinics in 52 health districts - measured HIV prevalence at 29.3 percent, compared to 29.4 percent in 2007 and 29.0 percent in 2006.

As the rainy season approaches, and sewage from pit latrines seep further into the Zimbabwe's groundwater, Irene Ngubeni will be at risk as the country faces another possible cholera outbreak. Even now, just before the rains have started falling Ngubeni is ill. She has travelled the 170 kilometres from her village in Matebeleland North to Bulawayo for treatment after drinking contaminated groundwater.