Full Coverage: East Africa

31.07.2007 MAPUTO, July 30 (IPS) - Over 1,000 Mozambicans, including children, are trafficked to South Africa every year where they are forced into prostitution or to provide free or cheap labour. In response, Mozambique's government last week approved a new law which will make human trafficking a crime punishable with long prison sentences.

30.07.2007 As Uganda starts negotiating with the Democratic Republic of Congo about reparations for plundering its neighbour’s resources and committing atrocities there between 1996 and 2001, a senior official in Kampala has suggested the talks may end with no payment being made. Henry Wasswa reports.
From: Institute for War and Peace Reporting

30.07.2007 Managing editor of the banned Daily News is reportedly battling for his life in a Johannesburg (South Africa) hospital after he was shot and seriously injured by a gang of three assailants on July 23, 2007

30.07.2007 The Ethiopian government has denied blocking aid and trade to parts of its southeastern Somali region but analysts and aid agencies say humanitarian access is limited and rising prices of food are evidence of security-related restrictions.

27.07.2007 Zimbabwean women are suffering increasing repression as they mobilize to confront the government in the face of a spiraling economic and social rights crisis in their country, according to a new report from Amnesty International.

27.07.2007 Residents in the Somali capital are becoming cut off from medical services because of the worsening security situation, with people too scared to walk in the streets and public transport deteriorating.

27.07.2007 The trial of Bright Chbvuri the editor of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions’ The Worker magazine charged with practicing journalism without accreditation under the repressive Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), has been postponed to August 29, 2007

26.07.2007 The last two defendants out of 131 still striving to establish their innocence in a long-running treason trial in Ethiopia will begin presenting their defence evidence to the Federal High Court today.

26.07.2007 Officers of Rwanda’s National Police Force have killed at least 20 detainees since November, according to a report by Human Rights Watch. Killing detainees is not the way to establish a state of law, says the human rights group.
From: Human Rights Watch

24.07.2007 Legislation regulating non-governmental organizations in Zambia could severely compromise their work might even result in their operations being closed down, local groups are saying.

24.07.2007 Police in Zambia's capital city of Lusaka blocked Q-FM, a private radio station from mounting their Outside Broadcasting (OB) equipment to cover live a demonstration organised by the OASIS forum and a Collaborative Group on the constitution, outside the gates of Parliament.

22.07.2007 The return of people to the Somali capital has reversed, with almost 10,000 people leaving in the last week alone, according to figures compiled by the UN refugee agency and a network of partners.

20.07.2007 Many initiatives have been undertaken, mostly by civil society organisations, towards the bridging of the digital divide between the north and the south. The pressing concerns have been on the ability of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) to improve the standards of living of the poor in societies.

20.07.2007 Two Ethiopian anti-poverty campaigners are among the last few defendants in a mass trial still trying to establish their innocence in court after they declined to sign a document which might have secured their early release.

20.07.2007 Recently, United Nations Development Programme, (UNDP) launched this years human development report for Zambia in Lusaka. The occasion, which was graced by the presence of the country's vice president, Nevers Mumba was rather sobering. There was just nothing to celebrate. Zambia finds itself in the unenviable 164th position in the world on social and economic performance.

20.07.2007 Civil society fears that the imminent introduction of legislation aimed at regulating non-governmental organisations (NGOs) will severely compromise their work and independence, and could even result in their operations being closed down.

19.07.2007 DAR ES SALAAM, Jul 19 (IPS) - "I began walking when I felt contractions. I delivered on the roadside five kilometres from the hospital," says the 22-year-old Veronica Joseph.

17.07.2007 Harsh penalties, including life imprisonment, have been imposed on six Ethiopian journalists and three publishers in connection with critical coverage of the government during unrest in the aftermath of disputed parliamentary elections in 2005.

17.07.2007 Police in Harare arrested The Standard Photojournalist, Boldwin Hungwe, whilst taking pictures of events as people scrambled for goods at South African owned Makro shop after an invasion by the price control police.

13.07.2007 When a bomb explosion killed two people in Nairobi last month it sparked discussion about the "double-edged nature" of personal media tools such as blogs and text messaging. "These tools are powerful tools for communicating information, but they are powerful tools for spreading disinformation," one Kenyan wrote.