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.

South African president Jacob Zuma has declared his intention to have a decision on Agriculture at the UN COP17 climate negotiations in Durban last week; while the World Bank is promoting so-called 'Climate Smart Agriculture' and carbon offsets as the future of African agriculture and climate solutions. But civil society groups in Durban are concerned that this vision for African agriculture will lead to land grabs, farmer poverty and food insecurity, and only worsen global climate change.

Fears of what climate change will do for African agriculture are real and in southern Africa farmers are taking action to ensure that negotiators at 17th Conference of Parties (COP 17) in Durban get the message. The Southern African Confederation of Agricultural Unions (SACAU) – granted observer status at the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) session – wants the global negotiations to put agriculture firmly on the climate change agenda and establish a work programme that will outline and coordinate necessary responses such as a specific allocation to the sector under the Green Climate Fund.

The name Solomon Abera will forever be etched in the collective memory of Eritrea's press corps. On 18 September 2001, as the world focused its attention on the terrorist attacks on the United States, the government of Eritrea borrowed Abera's voice to sound the death knell, on state-controlled airwaves, of the Red Sea nation's independent press. Shortly after Abera read the announcement, the government rounded up leading independent newspaper editors and a dozen ruling-party dissidents calling for democratic reform - all of whom have disappeared in custody. On 2 December, the Committee to Protect Journalists said they learned that Solomon Abera, who lived in exile in Germany after fleeing government censorship and intimidation in 2005, was no more.

China will increasingly look to Africa over the next decade as the world's most populous nation seeks to ensure it has sufficient food supplies, according to a study. While China has is recent years turned to Africa to secure energy and raw material resources to fuel its rapidly-growing economy, it will soon be for food commodities, according to Standard Bank research analysts Simon Freemantle and Jeremy Stevens.

Since Saturday, 19 November, more than 12 makeshift hospitals have been established in Tahrir Square and floods of doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other health professionals have swarmed in to offer their services, writes Amani Massoud in relation to the voluntary medical effort to treat those injured in clashes against military rule. 'The swiftness and efficiency with which the hospitals are established and managed bears little resemblance to the make-shift hospitals characteristic of the initial uprising in January. Nine months of experience that followed the beginning of the revolution has made hard-core emergency medics out of young doctors.'

In 2007, Robert Amakobe went public and declared that he was HIV positive. He formed the Elwesero Men’s Support Group with other men who were public about their HIV status. Theirs was probably the first men’s HIV support group in Kenya. It has become an important force in diffusing the stigma around HIV and AIDS in their community, reports Farm Radio Weekly.

Kenyan doctors are set to go on strike from December 5, saying talks with the government over their terms of service had stalled. The Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union accused the government of dragging its feet in starting negotiations. The 2,300 doctors in public hospitals issued a 19-day strike notice. They are demanding a 300 per cent salary increase and hardship allowances.

The facts in much of Uganda and Sub-Saharan Africa present a harsh reality: only 28 per cent of all health centres have the required supplies and equipment to offer basic emergency obstetric care, while 32 per cent of hospitals in the districts have the supplies, equipment and staff to offer patients caesarean sections. Challenges for midwives with transportation, improper or non-functional medical equipment and lack of doctors and supporting medical staff are ongoing, says this article, which profiles a dedicated Ugandan midwife.

While it is known the famine is in the five countries of Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, Djibouti and Sudan in the Horn of Africa, the epicenter is Southern Somalia. The story of Somalia is not a simple one and cannot be told in the framework of famine alone. The protracted conflict in Southern Somalia, US foreign policy toward the region, lack of a national government and of course the presence of Al Shabab are all attributed to contributing to the worse famine in the country’s history. This Priority Africa Network document provides resources for understanding the famine.

The Executive Director of the Roll Back Malaria partnership, Awa-Marie Coll-Seck, has expressed fears that the current international financial crisis could shift the commitments of donors from malaria control in Africa.'The international community strongly mobilized to increase its commitments from 100 million dollars in 2000 to almost 1.5 billion dollars now. Today we have fears to see this dynamics called into question as a result of the financial crisis which can lead to a change in national priorities,' she told PANA in Paris.

Kenyan doctors are concerned at the slow pace of talks with the government meant to avert a national strike slated for 5. December. The Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union said the government was dragging it’s feet in kick-starting negotiations. The 2,300 doctors in Kenya’s public hospitals have issued a 19-day strike notice.

‘What if anything has Libya got in exchange for all the death and destruction that have been visited on it over the past seven and a half months?’ asks Hugh Roberts.

The switch by many farmers in Kenya's Rift Valley province from staple cereals to more profitable coffee is likely to increase the country's dependence on grain imports and possibly affect food security, agricultural experts have warned. 'It is unsafe to use our land for crops with the hopes of being fed by other countries,' said James Nyoro, managing director for Africa of the Rockefeller Foundation. Kenya will have to import 2.3 million tonnes of cereal during the 2011-2012 marketing year to meet demand, a year-on-year increase of 37 per cent, according to the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation, which estimated domestic harvests of maize - a staple for 90 per cent of Kenyans - at 2.5 million tonnes, down 18 per cent because of poor weather.

Forbes recently published its first list of Africa’s 40 Richest people. This blog post takes a more detailed look at the lists and notes the enormous concentration of wealth on the list, that those on the list come from only six countries, that there is a huge spread of wealth even amongst the richest and that the list is an all-male cast.

A four-fold increase in polio has been reported in Nigeria, with the disease spreading to other countries, a World Health Organisation official says. Forty-three cases were reported in Nigeria this year, compared to 11 last year, the official, Thomas Moran, said. Curbing the polio virus in Nigeria is key to eradicating the crippling disease in Africa, he said.

This briefing note offers a preliminary assessment of the compatibility between the WTO and efforts to protect the human right to adequate food as part of the post-crisis food security agenda. Existing WTO rules do include certain flexibilities for States to pursue food security-related measures. From a right to food perspective, certain elements of the draft modalities in agriculture are an improvement on the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA), most notably proposed changes to the green box criteria on public stockholding for food security. However, many of these modifications to the AoA are relatively modest and even these are by no means assured with the outcome of the Doha Round highly uncertain.

Doctors in public hospitals are demanding a 400 percent pay increment. This is one of the resolutions by the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU), which has threatened to call a strike over poor terms of service. The union also wants its members compensated for working at odd hours.

'We write to you at this critical juncture to alert you to the potential individual and public health consequences which may ensue from the implementation of the immigration policy to deport. Our organisations are greatly concerned that, with the lifting of the moratorium and the resumption of deportations of Zimbabweans, there will be inevitable dire health consequences which will arise as the deportation process intensifies.'

South African health experts are calling on governments to use legally available mechanisms to promote the production or import of generic drugs in their countries. Pharmaceutical patents continue to drive up drug prices, making it expensive to treat patients. This often leads to limited access to health care, especially in developing countries where the disease burden is high, but public health budgets remain low, experts said.