Concerned about gender based violence, rapidly spiraling out of control in South Africa, a group of committed donors have established a Joint Gender Fund with the aim to provide grants to civil society organisations in support of projects that integrate fighting gender based violence and HIV and AIDS.

Mobile phones are the unlikely weapons being used to fight cassava disease in Tanzania, in a collaboration between scientists and farmers. As part of the Digital Early Warning Network (DEWN) farmers from ten districts in the Lake Zone region of Tanzania will be trained to recognise the symptoms of Cassava Mosaic Disease (CMD) and Cassava Brown Streak Disease (CBSD)

A UN assessment has revealed that flooding in northern Namibia during March severely disrupted HIV and AIDS treatment, care and prevention services. The floods, caused by heavy rains, affected more than 350,000 people in six regions with some of the highest HIV-prevalence rates in the country. The north is also one of the poorest and most isolated parts of Namibia, with limited social services, employment opportunities and infrastructure.

Aid analysts applaud the “courage” of the UK government’s just-released development policy paper, which detailed plans to allocate at least half of all new bilateral funding to fragile states, but question how the government can do the job well without shrinking other aid commitments.

Nearly four months after the death of Franco-Congolese journalist Bruno Jacquet Ossébi, the Committee to Protect Journalists called today for authorities in the Republic of Congo to publicly disclose a report that was prepared weeks ago on their investigation. A magistrate appointed in February to oversee an investigation into the cause of the fire that ravaged Ossébi's residence in Brazzaville, Jean Michel Opo, told CPJ in mid-May that a police commission had given a report to his office.

Uganda, Rwanda and the United Nations High Committee on Refugees set a target date of July 31 for all Rwandan refugees in Uganda to return home, with the U.N.'s refugee commission planning to reduce support for remaining Rwandans in August. The closer that date gets, the more it worries Beatrice Mukasekuru, who has asked that her real name not be used to protect her privacy.

A stringent Bill against homosexuality is in the offing, the state minister for ethics and integrity, Dr. James Nsaba Buturo, has said. Addressing a press conference at the Media Centre, Buturo said the country was besieged by homosexuality, pornography, prostitution, human sacrifice, drug abuse, embezzlement and witchcraft to the extent that it was “dangerously becoming a permissive society.”

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report has revealed that six of Africa’s regions will be unable to grow maize by 2050 as growing seasons get hotter that normal even if the carbon emissions are dramatically reduced. The six countries, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Sierra Leone which most of them are in Sahel, according to the researchers may have nowhere to turn as few countries currently experience their extremely hot projected climates.

In the first case of its kind in Botswana, a woman has successfully sued another woman for publicly revealing her HIV status. The High Court in Lobatse, a city in the southeast, has ruled that Sadi Nokane pay Obakeng Madubela US$1,000 in damages for violating Madubela's right to privacy. Around 55 percent of the population live on two dollars per day.

After a 50-year wait, thousands of Kenyans in Central Province have received the most coveted asset in the country – a piece of land. The move is not only good news for those allocated the land but for the country as a whole as the move will boost food security when the recipients start farming wheat, beans, maize and livestock on the 6,070ha.

Another journalist has been killed in violence-ridden Mogadishu, report the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ), Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ). Mohamud Mohamed Yusuf, a journalist for the private station Radio Holy Quran, was shot in the stomach twice as he was covering the fighting on 4 July in the neighbourhoods surrounding the station, says NUSOJ.

Climate change in Malawi interacts with environmental degradation, notably deforestation, and it is women who suffer most. Women have multiple roles as farmers and bringers of water and firewood and so depend very directly on natural resources. At the same time their position in society means that generally they have less access to income and credit and little or no voice in decision making. That resulting increased vulnerability feeds the spread of HIV and AIDS, for example if women resort to selling sex for food during the hungry months before the harvest. This Oxfam report details the impact of climate change on livelihoods in Malawi, and outlines the ways in which people are adapting to these changes.

The 07-07-07 Campaign, has condemned the 20th postponement of Zoliswa Nkonyana’s murder case, citing incompetence from both the presiding magistrate and the Khayelitsha Magistrate Court. Nkonyana’s case went to court again two weeks ago where it was postponed to 28 September this year. “The delays in Zoliswa’s case have reached ridiculous levels, there have been 20 postponements and 15 of these have been due to delays by defense lawyers”, says Joint Working Group coordinator, Emily Craven.

The Sigma-Tau Pharmaceutical has announced an innovative combination therapy fixed dose to fight Malaria, the disease that is responsible for 250 million cases worldwide and causes more than 880,000 deaths, especially among children under 5 years in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2008, malaria was endemic in 109 countries, 45 of them in Africa.

Women's groups in embattled Mogadishu are stepping into the aid vacuum to assist thousands more displaced by fighting in the capital, civil society activists said. "We have been helping in the past but now the situation is even worse so we have had to assume an even bigger role," said Asha Sha'ur, a civil society member and activist.

Reporters Without Borders is very concerned about the still fraught political situation in Madagascar and its constant impact on the media. Several journalists have been harassed in recent weeks, a website was mysteriously blocked and a radio journalist was held for two weeks after being the victim of a heavy-handed arrest.

Latest publications include , which features contributing chapters from Patrick Bond and Khadija Sharife, Demba Moussa Dembélé, Charles Mutasa and Samir Amin, and Yash Tandon's and Yash Tandon's sales@pambazukapress.org.

The names of key suspects involved in violence after the 2007 Kenyan election have been handed to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Mediator Kofi Annan said he had handed the names in a sealed envelope to the prosecutor in The Hague.

United States President Barack Obama should use his visit to Ghana on July 10 and 11, 2009 to encourage its new president, John Atta Mills, to take a leadership position in Africa on issues of democracy and justice, Human Rights Watch has said.

More than 200,000 people have now been forced to flee the Somali capital Mogadishu since fighting broke out between the Government and opposition groups in early May, in the biggest exodus from the troubled city since Ethiopian forces intervened in the Horn of Africa nation in 2007, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has said. By July 6, the eight-week offensive led by the Al-Shabab and Hisb-ul-Islam militia against the Government had driven a “staggering” 204,000 people from the capital, agency spokesperson Ron Redmond said.