UGANDA: Familiar Pledges on Child and Maternal Health in Africa
Kampala - During the three-day summit of African Union heads of state, roughly 37,000 children and 2,000 women died across Africa, mostly from preventable causes, says a civil society coalition for child and maternal health.

ZIMBABWE: Rural Children with HIV a ‘Lost Cause’
Guruve - Zimbabwe, Mugarakamwe Clinic is situated in one of the poorest districts in Zimbabwe’s Mashonaland Central province, some 200 kilometres north of Harare. Government-run rural clinics in these areas lack essential drugs and the most basic clinical supplies such as cleaning agents, surgical gloves and bandages.

MALAWI: Government Money-Saving Measure Costs Traders Dearly
Lilongwe - The Malawian government’s new cost-cutting prohibition on the hosting of conferences and workshops on the shores of Lake Malawi has hit small-scale merchants who ply their trade on the roadsides and beaches of the fresh-water lake.

KENYA: Jury Still Out on Traditional Birth Attendants
Nairobi - The Kenyan government has proposed banning traditional midwives. Home deliveries by traditional birth attendants are considered to be a major contributor to maternal deaths.

ZIMBABWE: 'Free'Maternal Health Care Too Costly For Most
Bulawayo - As African Union heads of state consider child and maternal health at the 2010 summit in Kampala, Uganda the question of user fees has reared its head in Zimbabwe.

MALAWI: Women Candidates Desperate to Finance Freebies for Voters
Lilongwe - Many of the female candidates intending to contest Malawi’s November 2010 local government elections are dreading the worst because they do not have enough financial resources to compete favourably against their male counterparts.

MALAWI: Women Candidates Desperate to Finance Freebies for Voters
Lilongwe - Many of the female candidates intending to contest Malawi’s November 2010 local government elections are dreading the worst because they do not have enough financial resources to compete favourably against their male counterparts.

NAMIBIA: Football Leaves Legacy of Hope in Namibia
Windhoek - Throughout the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, organisers have insisted that the legacy of the event goes far beyond the sporting spectacle.

LIBERIA: Liberian Woman in the Centre Circle
Monrovia - Despite an increased number of female representatives in Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s cabinet, women in the country still remain firmly on the bottom rung of society. They're the most vulnerable members of the community in terms of access to education, access to health and access to justice.

LIBERIA: Liberian Woman in the Centre Circle
Monrovia - Despite an increased number of female representatives in Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s cabinet, women in the country still remain firmly on the bottom rung of society. They're the most vulnerable members of the community in terms of access to education, access to health and access to justice.

MADAGASCAR: Calls for Equality to be Written into New Constitution
Johannesburg - Madagascan female activists are asking that the right of women to participate directly in politics be included in a new draft of the country’s Constitution.

ETHIOPIA: Unique Community Leads on Gender Equality
Awra-Amba - Decades before Ethiopia’s Family Law recognised the problem of early marriage in 2005 and set the minimum age for marriage at 18, Awra-Amba had set a minimum age for marriage at 19 for women and 20 for men.

ANGOLA: Drilling Ever Deeper, Hoping for the Best
Luanda - While BP struggles to contain an oil spill that U.S. government estimates indicate is now the largest ever in the Gulf of Mexico, questions are being asked about how well prepared Africa's oil-producing countries are for a similar incident.

UGANDA: HIV-positive Teens Infecting Other Teens
Kampala - In Uganda, At least 30,000 infants are born with HIV every year. According to Dr. Steven Watiti of the Mildmay Centre, many of these infants have grown to adulthood posing a health risk to other teenagers through unsafe sex.

ZAMBIA: Need to Mainstream Gender Equality into all Policies
Lusaka - Despite the adoption almost a decade ago of a national gender policy that aims to ensure fair participation of men and women in the development process, most of the Zambian government’s policies still remain gender blind, say civil society and women's rights associations.

UGANDA: Too Young to Know, Yet Too Young to Die
Kampala - In Uganda late entrants become young adolescents while in primary school and cannot access teenage sex education. This is because they fall out of the ‘age-appropriate’ bracket set by the ministry of education and sports national guidelines on HIV/AIDS.

WORLD: "Anti-Counterfeit Deal Threatens Accessibility of Drugs"
London - A proposed anti-counterfeit trade deal between 10 countries and the European Union (EU) could create "a new set of barriers to the export of generic medicines to low income countries".

ZIMBABWE: Doubts Over Zimbabwe Diamonds
Bulawayo and Tel Aviv - Three days of tense deliberations by members of the Kimberley Process have failed to reach consensus on whether diamonds from Zimbabwe's Marange fields should be certified as conflict-free.

DEVELOPMENT-ZIMBABWE: Selling Scrap Metal to Scrape By
Bulawayo - Desperate Zimbabwean women are scrambling for scrap metal to survive. The demand for scrap metal has caused an increase in vandalism.

KENYA: PMTCT Means Rural Families Survive Another Generation
Nairobi - Although Prevention of Mother-To-Child Transmission (PMTCT) treatment is provided free of charge in Kenya, poor attendance at antenatal clinics, especially in rural areas, keeps women from and from accessing treatment.

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