The Commercial, Stevedoring, Agricultural and Allied Workers Union (CSAAWU), the Mawubuye Land Rights Forum, the Trust for Community Outreach and Education, and the Democratic Left Front (DLF) launched the Speak-Out Campaign on the 27th of November 2011 at a mass meeting in Robertson (some 2 hours from Cape Town). Farm workers and farm dwellers spoke of the inhumane living and working conditions that they face each and every day. They do backbreaking work to produce food for everybody yet they are forced to work under unsafe and unhealthy conditions, to drink dirty water, live without electricity, live with threats of evictions, to live on poverty wages and to suffer abuse at the hands of the bosses. The Speak-Out Campaign aims to bring an end to the oppression and exploitation of farm workers and farm dwellers by coming together to build solidarity, strength and hope amongst the rural working class.

Two of the seven men arrested last Thursday, following skirmishes between police and vendors in central Harare the day before, were allegedly tortured to confess their roles in attacking a police officer. Barnabas Mwanaka and Kudakwashe Usavi were among the first group of three to be picked up by the police in a morning raid at Harvest House on Thursday. The MDC-T said Mwanaka is their Youth Assembly secretary for Mbare district.

The Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, the Center for New Community, and Indiana University Press have announced the publication of 'Food Justice', a new issue of the journal Race/Ethnicity: Multidisciplinary Global Contexts that explores the intersection of race and food in the national and global food systems. With a wide range of academic- and activist-authored papers, the issue takes readers through the entire food chain from - 'field to fork' - in an examination of the challenging intersections between race, sustainability, food safety, access to healthy food, land ethics, food worker justice, and food sovereignty.

European banks, pension funds and insurance companies are increasing global hunger and poverty by speculating on food prices and financing land grabs in poorer countries, according to a new report by Friends of the Earth Europe. The report analyses the activities of 29 European banks, pension funds and insurance companies, including Deutsche Bank, Barclays, RBS, Allianz, BNP Paribas, AXA, HSBC, Generali, Allianz, Unicredit and Credit Agricole. It reveals the significant involvement of these financial institutions in food speculation, and the direct or indirect financing of land grabbing.

Alexandre Manguele, the southeastern country's health minister, announced that the first ARVs produced in Mozambique, in partnership with Brazil, will be ready by July 2012. In doing so, it will be the first African country – rather than private sector supplier – to produce its own stocks of the drug, which can prolong the lives of HIV sufferers by decades.

'I believe that African movements are in a process of emerging from the control of the big NGOs that have historically managed their struggle. La Via Campesina in Africa shows that this process will be as powerful as it has been in Latin America, or even more powerful, because this is an awakening that allows them to say, maybe for the first time, "we can speak for ourselves, nobody can speak for us".' In this interview with Alberto Gomez, the national director of UNORCA (Unión Nacional de Organizaciones Regionales Campesinas Autónomas) in Mexico, he discusses the UN climate summit concluded in Durban in December and what it means for agriculture.

Senegal has among the lowest rates of HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa, at less than one percent. But the most vulnerable group is men who have sex with men (MSM), nearly 22 per cent of whom are HIV-positive. Prisons are high-risk environments for the transmission of the disease, due to the prevalence of hard drugs, violence and sexual relations. There is no mandatory testing in prison, and for those prisoners who, either knowingly or unknowingly, are living with HIV, the stresses of living in prison – including overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, and poor nutrition – mean their health is even more compromised.

A tight grain supply outlook after several bumper harvests is set to fan food price pressures in southern Africa, fuelling salary demands and threatening to knock the region's fragile economies out of kilter. Erratic rains have delayed the planting of the crucial maize crop in Zambia, pushing inflation towards double digits, while bread basket South Africa is importing the staple despite abundant harvests because of worries it has exported too much. With a high proportion of households in the region spending much of their limited income feeding themselves, rising food inflation is likely to further stoke union demands in wage negotiations.

Blog Africa is a country summarises a debate over comments made by Democratic Alliance leader Helen Ziille, who has called for the criminalisation of HIV transmission, and saying the state should not have to pay for treatment for those who contracted HIV through irresponsible behavior. The post links to commentaries on her statements. 'What doesn’t seem to have been emphasized enough though,' says Africa is a Country, 'is that while Zille has been spending time on populist and damaging nonsense, we in fact do know how to effectively combat HIV. What we need is politicians with the sense and integrity to make it happen.'

While most nations are dependent to some extent on the world’s 214 million migrants for skills and labour, few ensure these migrants have access to their health systems, something that could have dire public health consequences, according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). Describing migrants’ lack of access to health services as 'one of the biggest challenges facing global health today', IOM marked International Migrants Day on 18 December by calling for more migrant-inclusive health policies.

Cabinet responded to rejection of its latest offer to striking doctors by freezing wage increases across the public sector until Salary Remuneration Commission is constituted. It also ordered a raft of expenditure cut-backs in Government, targeting low-priority areas such as foreign travel, purchases of vehicles, office furniture, printing, and advertising.

This report discusses the availability and quality of health services in two provinces of Angola (Luanda and Uíge) and reports how households perceive the level of quality and utilise the existing services. In addition to quality indicators such as the availability of drugs, equipment and other supplies, the report explores the competence of health workers in diagnosing common illnesses.

Efforts to integrate and modernise traditional medicines in the country have taken an upward turn with the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) gearing for mass production of its newly-developed remedies. According to NIMR’s director for research coordination and promotion, Dr Julius Massaga, the agency is about to forward its own developed drugs for approval.

The Refugee Law Project (RLP), School of Law, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda, in collaboration with the African Transitional Justice Research Network (ATJRN) successfully held its 2nd Institute for African Transitional Justice (IATJ), an annual week-long residential programme with a focus on transitional justice issues in the context of Africa. The Institute, which took place from 20 - 27 November 2011, at the Kitgum Peace Documentation Centre (KPDC), Northern Uganda had as its theme: 'Whose Memories Count and at What Cost?' Click on the link provided to read about the debates that took place.

Who assassinated freedom
And buried it 10 feet under?

Who wrongfully convicted justice
And incarcerated it indefinitely?

Who orphaned peace
Scarring it eternally?

Who crippled progress,
Handicapping it permanently?

Who overthrew hope
And replaced it with fear?

Who paralyzed love?

Who?

With just two cholera cases reported in 2011, Guinea escaped an epidemic in West and Central Africa that infected 85,000 people and killed 2,500 in the first 10 months of 2011. Luck, as well as targeted prevention efforts on the part of aid agencies and the government brought this about, specialists told IRIN, but a far deeper countrywide overhaul of the water and sanitation system is needed to diminish the likelihood of future outbreaks.

Five separate retrospective mortality surveys, carried out by Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and other researchers in prefectures accounting for the majority of the population, show excess mortality above what is considered to be the 'emergency threshold', says Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in a new report. 'And yet the commitment of the country’s government and of the international community is going in the wrong direction. The government has been decreasing its investments in health, as have international donors, while humanitarian assistance has failed to reduce the widespread medical crisis.'

Waterborne diseases, such as typhoid, dysentery and watery diarrhoea - all approaching epidemic levels - are creating concerns that conditions exist for a reprise of the 2008/09 cholera epidemic, which killed more than 4,000 people and infected nearly 100,000 others. The Consolidated Appeal Process (CAP) for Zimbabwe, launched on 9 December, is asking for US$268 million for humanitarian assistance in 2012. The CAP highlights a decade of 'neglect' of the country’s water sanitation and hygiene sector (WASH), which has left 8 million people, or about two-thirds of the population, 'with limited access to WASH and health services'.

Food prices, which increased by just 1 per cent last year, have increased by a whopping 10.6 per cent so far this year. Lower-income South Africans, who spend much more of their total earnings on food, are the biggest victims of this sharp increase in food-price inflation. According to the South African quarterly 'Food Price Monitor' report, produced by the National Agricultural Marketing Council, the cost of the standard Statistics South Africa food basket, expressed as a share of the average monthly income of the wealthiest 30 per cent of the population, is only 2.9 per cent. By contrast, this cost for the poorest 30 per cent of the population was a heavy 36.4 per cent in October.

African farmer and civil society groups in Africa are celebrating the launch of a 'network of African networks', called the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA). They have released a report emphasising that Food Sovereignty can cool the planet, while feeding the world and regenerating ecosystems. 'There are so many challenges facing our continent,' says Anne Maina of the African Biodiversity Network (ABN), one of AFSA’s member networks. 'As 14 PanAfrican networks, representing a huge constituency in Anglophone, Francophone and Lusophone Africa, we are in agreement that Food Sovereignty must be way forward to ensure resilient food systems and ecosystems in the face of climate change and destructive development.'