Full Coverage: Africa

30.10.2009 The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme should immediately suspend Zimbabwe for continuing human rights abuses and widespread smuggling in the Marange diamond fields, says a leading interenational rights group.

27.10.2009 The world's biggest mining company, Billiton, is accused of human rights abuses and environmental destruction in a report launched today.
+ Where is the Church of England’s heart invested?

26.10.2009 Lasting respite seems to have returned to Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta with the declaration of an "indefinite ceasefire" by the main militant group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta.

25.10.2009 As Zambia celebrates its 45th anniversary of independence, one expat laments that, despite living in peace, Zambians "are much poorer today than three decades ago". Zambian Economist

23.10.2009 For many Western campaigners, the collapse of apartheid was a highlight – perhaps the highlight - of their political lives. “Separate development” was so disgusting and the enemy so obdurate that success was particularly sweet.

23.10.2009 Islamic Conference proposals for UN protection of religions - rather than protection of individuals for their religious beliefs - should be rejected, say a coalition of international human rights organisations.
+ ASEAN rejects rights NGOs and creates human rights commission

23.10.2009 Mobile phone subscriptions have grown faster in Africa since 2003 than in any other region of the world, says a UN report - but most African nations are failing to keep up with global trends in the use of broadband Internet.

22.10.2009 Iraq remains the top country of origin of asylum applicants (13,200 claims) in industrialised countries for the fourth consecutive year, according to the UN refugee agency. Afghans (12,000) and Somalis (11,000) are the next largest groups as security conditions continue to deteriorate in large parts of their home countries.

19.10.2009 The Mo Ibrahim Foundation announced today that it will not award its $5 million (plus $200,000 a year for life) prize this year. The award is designed to promote African development, with a special focus on good governance.

19.10.2009 Climate Camp protesters at Ratcliffe have a clear message. No more coal. Does this attribute of simplicity compromise the bigger picture of developing countries which lack electricity?

16.10.2009 When campaigners despair of success they need only recall the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa to renew their belief and optimism. But as the Behind the Rainbow declares at the end of the documentary, “South Africa is no longer the world’s greatest fairytale.”

16.10.2009 A former South African army captain who moved to Rhodesia in 1974 and is now one of Zimbabwe’s last white farmers, Michael Campbell is not the obvious choice as the sympathetic subject of a documentary.

16.10.2009 The prosector of the International Criminal Court is looking into last month’s events in Guinea, where at least 150 people were killed when security forces opened fire on an opposition rally.

14.10.2009 Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Eritrea, Sierra Leone Chad, and Ethiopia score worst in a Global Hunger Index, which links the problem to gender inequalities.

14.10.2009 The Congolese government’s military operation in eastern Congo, backed by UN peacekeepers and aimed at neutralising the threat from a Rwandan Hutu militia group, has resulted in an unacceptable cost for the civilian population, says an NGO coalition.
+ Congolese government should push companies to be more rigorous

12.10.2009 In what appears to be a victory for campaigners, the European Commission has conceded that its notorious EPA trade agreements should not be imposed on developing countries. IPS News

12.10.2009 A BBC analysis takes Uganda as a case study to examine the Africa-wide problem that generous funding for HIV/AIDS programmes has not been matched by the broader health insfrastructure. BBC News

12.10.2009 Defying its image of big oil, Texas is fast attracting businesses at the cutting edge of wind technology. If Texas goes low carbon, there is no excuse for any of us.

09.10.2009 The South African Council of Churches has joined in condemnation of what it describes as "savage attacks" on poor, defenceless members of the a Durban community resisting relocation and fighting for a place to call home.
+ Democracy’s everyday death: South Africa's quiet coup

07.10.2009 An exceptional authorisation from the Malagasy transitional government for the export of raw and semi-processed precious woods risks opening a loophole for the legal export of illegally cut timber and encouraging further assaults on Madagascar's endangered forests and wildlife, say conservation groups.