Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo argues that stopping most aid to Africa would spur economic growth. Even in the middle of this financial crisis, President Obama and other world leaders still find money in their budgets for foreign aid. In fact, some would argue it’s vital to continue giving financial aid to poor countries at a time such as this. Dambisa Moyo goes the other way.

Africa's COMESA trade bloc is preparing a financial rescue package for Zimbabwe to help the southern African nation to rebuild its shattered economy, a senior official has said. Finance ministers from Africa's largest trading bloc met to discuss the package ahead of a heads of state summit this weekend in the Zimbabwean resort town of Victoria Falls, said Chungu Mwila, COMESA's director of investment promotion.

Heavy fighting has erupted in central Somalia between a pro-government Sufi Muslim group and Islamist hardliners. At least 10 people have been killed in fighting near the town of Webho. The clashes come after the Sufi Ahlu Sunna Waljamea sect pledged to defend President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed at a meeting of moderate Islamic leaders.

The very survival of women and children in Africa may depend on the newly-launched Campaign on Accelerated Reduction of Maternal Mortality in Africa (CARMMA). According to latest estimates by the African Union (AU), over the next ten years there will be 2.5 million maternal deaths, another 2.5 million child deaths and 49 million maternal disabilities in Africa alone if urgent actions are not taken.

An independent United Nations expert has called on the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to protect human rights workers and prosecute those who threaten or attack them. Human rights defenders, including lawyers and members of non-governmental organizations, “face illegitimate restrictions of their right to core freedoms, i.e. freedoms of opinion and expression, peaceful assembly and association,” said Margaret Sekaggya, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights.

Madagascar's former leader Marc Ravalomanana rejected on Friday the jail sentence against him for abuse of office and accused the country's army-backed government of flouting rule of law. Exiled in South Africa, Ravalomanana called on the Malagasy people to unite in rejecting the leadership of new incumbent Andry Rajoelina, who led weeks of popular protests against him earlier this year and seized power with military

This series of seven 8-page briefs, all with the title "Revitalizing Underutilized FP Methods", looks at how the ACQUIRE Project (which stands for Access, Quality, and Use in Reproductive Health) integrated various communication strategies to stimulate authentic community demand for the intrauterine device (IUD) and vasectomy in seven countries – Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Honduras, Kenya, and Uganda.

The Head of Policy and Advocacy is responsible for providing strategic leadership, planning, delivery and reporting on ACORD’s thematic work. S/he will coordinate strategic analysis and monitoring of policy issues and provide leadership in the development and implementation of ACORD’s external advocacy and alliance building strategy. S/he shall promote a sound media relations strategy designed to influence internal and external processes and link national to Pan-African initiatives. Closing date for completed applications is: June 19th 2009

The ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) on June 2, 2009, officially denied any involvement of its members in the recent vandalisation of privately-owned Techiman-based Classic FM in the Brong Ahafo Region of Ghana. The regional chairman of NDC, John Owusu Agyeman, told Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) in a telephone interview that no party member took part in the alleged attack on the radio station and therefore called for police investigations into the matter.

Sanusha Naidu compiles a list of the top stories on Sino-African relations.

Almost a fifth of the oil imported by the U.S. comes from Africa, and in the decade to come this percentage will rise. The eastern part of Nigeria, from which Big Oil has pumped more than a trillion dollars worth of black gold since the 1960s, remains the poorest part of the country, and one of the most ravaged and polluted on earth. Thousands of gas flares have burned for decades, generating acid rains that have poisoned fisheries and crops.

There has been another delay in the Wiwa v. Shell trial, causing teeth-gnashing by journalists who have dedicated resources to cover the trial, hand-wringing by Ogoni people and human rights & environmental justice supporters worldwide, and head-scratching by nearly everyone else following along.

The Kenyan government should rapidly fulfill its February 2009 pledge to provide more land for its mushrooming Somali refugee population, and donors should step up their financial support for the refugee camps, Human Rights Watch has said. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) announced four months ago that Prime Minister Raila Odinga of Kenya had made a commitment to provide land to help relieve congestion in three chronically overcrowded camps near Dadaab in northeastern Kenya. But the Kenyan government has yet to make any land available.

The number of Somalis forced from their homes in Mogadishu has now topped 96,000 since the start of fighting between government forces and armed opposition groups on May 8. Out of this latest total of displaced, an estimated 35,000 are still in the city, looking for shelter in more secure areas because they have no means to leave.

Some 110,000 Sudanese refugees over the age of 18 in eastern Chad will receive identity cards under a new programme launched with the support of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). “The ID cards are the equivalent of a ‘refugee passport’ allowing free movement within the host country and providing access to some basic services in line with the 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention,” agency spokesperson Ron Redmond told reporters in Geneva.

As Ken Saro-Wiwa stood before the hangman’s noose in Port Harcourt, Nigeria’s oil capital, he spoke not just of his imminent death but also of the campaign against Royal Dutch Shell that had won him international attention. Sentenced to death after a deeply flawed trial, he had come to be seen as a martyr by those opposing alleged abuses involving the oil industry in his country. According to fellow activists, his last words before his execution were: “Lord, take my soul but the struggle continues.”

An effort to fight global poverty and hunger may become a Trojan horse to force genetically engineered crops on countries and farmers that do not want them. In the Senate, Senators Bob Casey (D-Penn.) and Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) introduced the Global Food Security Act, which increases funding for agricultural research in the developing world, and a companion bill in the House of Representatives is expected to be introduced soon.

In a particularly infuriating Article, the NewYorkTimes sites developing countries as the toughest places to monetize web traffic for web services like YouTube, Facebook and MySpace. The article makes the argument that countries in South America, parts of Asia and Africa, are particularly hard to monetize due to the increased costs of serving rich media (like video and flash advertisements) to low bandwidth regions of the world.

The Kenya Human Rights Commission has now documented 40 cases of castration, severe sexual abuses and unlawful detention, which were carried out by officers of the British Government. The actual number of Kenyans who suffered this barbaric treatment at the hands of British officers in fact runs into their thousands. In recent years, following exhaustive research by historians, it has become clear that far from being the acts of a few rogue soldiers, the torture and inhuman and degrading treatment of Kenyans during the Emergency Period (1950s to early 1960s) resulted from policies which were sanctioned at the highest levels of Government in London.

What is the media’s role in development and how can they take a more meaningful part in helping rural communities in African, Caribbean and Pacific countries to achieve the millennium development goals? These are the core issues to be addressed in Brussels, Belgium from 12 to 16 October, when the ACP/EU Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), together with its partners, will host an international seminar on the "Role of the media in agricultural development in ACP countries".