Media watchdog, the Media Institute for Southern Africa – Zimbabwe, has expressed grave concern over the upsurge of hate speech against the private media and perceived opponents, by members of ZANU PF and the state controlled media. Earlier this week army commander, Lieutenant-General Phillip Valerio Sibanda, berated foreign based Zimbabwean radio stations, accusing them of being at war with Zimbabwe and urged the military to ‘guard against them’. This has been widely seen as meaning that journalists broadcasting into Zimbabwe are legitimate military targets because they threaten the state.

Preparations for elections in Botswana, Namibia and Mozambique are now at an advanced stage with the respective electoral commissions announcing polling dates. Botswana and Mozambique will go to the polls on 16 and 28 October respectively, while Namibia will hold its elections on 27 and 28 November. Botswana is holding general elections to choose new parliamentarians. The Parliament will then act as an electoral college to choose the President.

Researchers have been keen to assess the impact of emerging donors on the development paradigm. The particular aid policies of China, India, South Africa et al have been carefully considered to garner how emerging donor approaches differ from the ‘traditional’ OECD-DAC (Development Assistance Committee) funders. Yet little consideration has been given to the implications of the new aid actors’ activities for future OECD-DAC donor policy as a whole. This paper seeks to detail implications for donor policy.

Nigeria's armed group fighting for a greater share of oil wealth has decided to extend a two-month-old ceasefire in the Niger Delta by 30 days but warned a government amnesty programme had not yet addressed key issues. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend), with an estimated 10,000-strong force, has been behind deadly attacks on oil installations in Nigeria that have disrupted production.

The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) has signed a five-year poverty reduction compact granting $540 million to the Republic of Senegal for road rehabilitation and food security initiatives in some of the poorest regions of Senegal. The grant was signed by the Acting Chief Executive Officer Darius Mans and Senegalese Minister of Finance and Economy Abdoulaye Diop, with the US Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton and President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal presiding at the signing held at the US State Department in Washington, D.C.

Average life expectancy in Swaziland has plummeted from around 60 years in the 1990s to just over 30 years today. Few would deny that HIV/AIDS is largely to blame, but the reasons why the epidemic has devastated this tiny, southern African country more than any other are less clear. "Foreign observers look at Swaziland and can't figure out why the numbers [of HIV infections] remain so high," said Harriet Kunene, of The AIDS Support Centre in the central commercial town, Manzini.

Land grabbing of small farmers’ land by large national and foreign companies is becoming an increasingly concerning issue in Mali. After investing in various sectors of the economy in Mali and in Africa, these national or multinational corporations are looking for new avenues of opportunity, namely land.

Africa registered 8,000 cases of the H1N1 A flu, called swine flu, 46 of which resulted in deaths, out of the the 164,152 cases reported throughout the world, a researcher with the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Sénégal, Dr. Mang Coly, has disclosed. Coly said South Africa was one of the most affected countries in the continent with 5,877 cases of contamination, followed by Tanzania, with 96 cases, Mauritius , 69 cases, and Kenya, 85 cases.

Sixteen people died and 49 others are missing and presumed dead in three separate incidents involving smuggling boats in the Gulf of Aden over the last 48 hours, the UN refugee agency has said. The UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a statement that the first incident took place early Sunday morning off the coast of Radfan, some 150 kilometres east of the Mayfa'a reception centre.

Two weeks ago, Global Voices Online reported the story of Januário Alves de Santana, a black man who had been beaten and punched by security guards of one of the largest international retailers in Brazil. He was waiting for his family in the car park of a supermarket when he was accused of trying to steal his own car, under the argument that, being black, he would not be able to afford a luxury car.

South Africa's Sumbandila Satellite blasted off into space on Thursday evening. The blast-off was accompanied by rousing applause and delight by keen South Africans who had traveled to Baikonur, Kazakhstan to witness the event. Among the guests were Science and Technology Minister Naledi Pandor. She said the launch of Sumbandila which is Venda for "lead the way" has paved the way for bigger and better things.

Zimbabwe's Finance Minister Tendai Biti said on Wednesday he had blocked possible "unprocedural use" of IMF aid allocated to the country under a global assistance agreement for member states hit by a global crisis. Biti dismissed as "rubbish" reports in state media that he had written to the International Monetary Fund effectively rejecting over $500 million in IMF special drawing rights extended to Zimbabwe because Harare has external debts of about $5.7 billion.

The number of incidents against humanitarian workers operating in the volatile North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has surged by 26 per cent in the first six months this year, and the attacks are becoming increasingly violent, according to a United Nations report.

Millions of years ago, Madagascar separated from the other continents and evolved separately. Today it has about 12,000 plants most of which can be found nowhere else in the world. Many of these plants have medicinal properties, but their habitat is under threat. In the town of Tolear, people rely on herbs as the nearest hospital is far away. Traditional healers combine plants and a little bit of magic to cure patients.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) António Guterres visited Sahrawi refugees in the Algerian governorate of Tindouf last week as part of an effort to reunite families separated by the Western Sahara conflict. Guterres, whose five-day tour of Algeria and Morocco ended Saturday (September 12th), said the UNHCR's proposal for a direct, straight-line land corridor between Tindouf and Laâyoune had been accepted as the best solution by all parties.

This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains excerpts from several articles with commentary both on U.S. policy and on other aspects of the situation in Somalia. Elizabeth Dickson in Foreign Policy comments on disagreements within the U.S. government about the shipment of arms supplies to the government in Mogadishu. Minnesota Public Radio comments on repeated airport searches of two prominent Somali-American professors at the University of Minnesota.

The term arbitrage traditionally refers to taking advantage of the price differential (the gap) between two or more markets. One example is how search engine marketers use arbitrage to make money off of Google Adwords with keyword buying and landing pages. Another is when traders take advantage of differences in exchange rates on currencies in two separate markets.

Floods in northern Nigeria’s Adamawa state have left over 2,000 people displaced, many of them with no access to clean drinking water, leaving officials worried about a potential cholera outbreak. Five districts – Fufore, Demsa, Yola North, Yola South and Numan – were flooded in August and early September, when the River Lagdo burst its banks, according to the Nigeria Emergency Management Agency (NEMA).

It was in many ways a shotgun marriage, except that both the parties in Zimbabwe's unity government were equally unwilling. On 15 September 2008 President Robert Mugabe, leader of ZANU-PF, and Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), and Arthur Mutambara, leader of a breakaway MDC faction, signed the Global Political Agreement (GPA), paving the way for the unity government to be established in February 2009.

A civil society group has been launched in the Senegalese capital of Dakar to advocate for the enforcement of human rights in The Gambia. The Coalition for Human Rights in The Gambia was formed by Gambians living in Dakar and Senegalese and other international human rights, media and civil society groups. These include Amnesty International Senegal branch, The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), Federation of African Journalists (FAJ) Press Union (Synpics), African Assembly for the Defence of Human Rights (RADDHO), Inter Africa Network for Women, Media, Gender and Development (FAMEDEV), Network of Press and Parliament in Senegal (Reppas) and Radio Alternative Voice for Gambians (AVG).