A proposed initiative to distribute condoms to Rwandan secondary school students has divided parents, teachers and other members of society, with some cheering the plan and others concerned that teens are not mature enough to use condoms responsibly. Local NGOs, including Health Development Initiative (HDI-Rwanda), Rwanda NGOs Forum on HIV/AIDS and Health Promotion, and Association Ihorere Munyarwanda are fronting the initiative on the grounds that young people must be protected from HIV and other sexually transmitted infections and unwanted pregnancies.

The shortage of health workers in Uganda is a 'crisis', says the Minister of Health, and activists say expectant mothers are bearing the brunt of the country's staffing deficiency. Just 56 per cent of Uganda's available health positions are filled. Parliament's recent refusal to reallocate part of the country's budget to hire more doctors, nurses and midwives has now become a rallying point for Uganda's maternal health advocates.

Japanese women have launched a petition to stop the government from exporting nuclear power plants and sending food from disaster areas contaminated with radioactive waste as aid to developing countries.

Health officials in Ghana say breast cancer is a growing problem compounded by untrained medical practitioners, a lack of equipment, and unhealthy, sometimes fatal, cultural beliefs. Historically, breast cancer has received scant attention in this West African country. International donors and institutions have been focused on communicable diseases like malaria and HIV/AIDS. Despite the fact that, according to Ghana Health Services (GHS), non-communicable diseases are the leading causes of death.

The families of 90,000 Nigerien migrants forced home because of the uprising in Libya face greater hunger and poverty now they no longer receive regular remittances, the International Organisation of Migration (IOM) said. The men were mostly working on construction sites and farms in Libya, which borders Niger. An IOM poll showed 86 per cent used to send enough money to support five family members in Niger, and that their return had 'an overall negative impact' on the lives of hundreds of thousands of others living in areas hit by chronic food insecurity and underemployment.

Malawi's fertiliser subsidy scheme, credited for transforming famine-prone Malawi into an exporter of maize, is in danger. The executive director of the Malawi Economic Justice Network, Dalitso Kubalasa, explained the government's woes in précis.'Fuel and fertiliser are scarce because the suppliers can't get the forex needed to pay for the stuff. There's no forex in Malawi's banks because Malawi has allowed itself to become dependent on a single forex earner, tobacco, and the tobacco price slumped last year. The freeze in Western aid tied Malawi's other hand, as it were,' he said.

In this video, Al Jazeera reports on a coalition of activists who have taken the Ugandan government to court in a landmark lawsuit regarding the cases of two women who bled to death unattended while giving birth in hospitals. The activists argue that the women's rights to life and to maternal healthcare have been violated.

Stereotypes and misconceptions linked to sexual orientation and gender can have adverse consequences on the health of lesbians. The aim of this project from the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association is to demystify 'myths and realities' on certain aspects of lesbian health, such as breast and cervical cancers, HIV and sexually transmitted infections and well-being.

'The current food crisis in East Africa is an extreme example of the broken food system. In a world with enough food for everyone, over 13 million people are fighting for their lives. It’s the world’s worst food crisis in many years. Droughts may be inevitable in this region, but disasters are not. Years of neglect of pastoralists and small scale food producers - those who can, with the right support, significantly boost the availability of food locally – has been a key contributor to the crisis. Action to address the long-term issues that make people vulnerable in the first place, like the right investment and like ensuring climate change does not intensify the challenges facing the region, means disasters will not be inevitable.'

More than 450 economists from over 40 countries have called on the G20 finance ministers, who met in Paris recently, to take urgent action to stop financial speculation in commodity markets driving up food prices and fuelling hunger. 'Excessive financial speculation is contributing to increasing volatility and record food prices, exacerbating global hunger and poverty,’ say the economists in a letter to the finance ministers. ‘With around 1 billion people enduring chronic hunger worldwide, action is urgently needed to curb excessive speculation and its effects on global food prices.'

A new vaccine against malaria will help reduce African children's risk of acquiring the disease by about half, according to the first results of an ongoing phase III trial. The vaccine has been developed by the British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline's lab in Belgium. Known as RTS, the vaccine is the first of its kind to attempt to block a parasite, rather than bacteria or viruses.

Genetically modified (GM) food aid bound for Africa has long been a bone of contention among governments, scientists, activists, consumers and aid workers. On 18 August a drought-affected Kenyan government fired the head of its National Biosafety Authority for expediting the process to import milled food aid which might have contained genetically modified organisms (GMO). In the weeks preceding and after the incident, public debate on the issue was distorted by extreme positions either for or against GM food, say this IRIN report.

At least seven children have died from a suspected diarrhoea outbreak which has affected over 6,000 children in two towns in Zimbabwe over the past week, a state newspaper said. 'Seven children died in Masvingo and Kadoma last week following a diarrhoea outbreak which has seen a total of 6,472 cases being recorded in the two towns,' The Sunday Mail reported. 'The main problem has always been unclean water and poor sanitation,' the newspaper quoted Portia Manangazira, director for disease control in the health ministry, as saying.

Issue No.21 of Amandla Magazine is now available. Apart from a focus on the issue of unemployment, it contains a Q&A with Ronnie Kasrils and articles on the euro crisis, the Occupy Wall Street protests and the arms deal.

More than 200,000 Malawian farmers who depend on government subsidies to grow enough food to feed their families will have to go it alone when the agricultural subsidy programme is pruned. During the 2010/11 farming season 1.6 million farmers received vouchers to buy heavily subsidised fertilizer and maize seed, costing the government and donors 23 billion kwacha (US$152.3 million). Now, in the midst of a crippling economic crisis, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security has announced that only 1.4 million farmers are eligible to receive vouchers for the 2011/12 season.

HIV/AIDS flourishes as a result of ‘social problems rooted deeply in global economic structures and require political and social interventions,’ writes Brian K. Murphy. If we want to control it, ‘social and economic justice’ are far more important than philanthropy.

The training of more doctors, the refurbishment of nursing colleges, the appointment of retired nurses and specialists and the building of more hospitals and medical faculties are some of the plans presented by health minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi and the launch of the Human Resource for Health Strategy. 'A number of studies and our own assessment attest to significant gaps in the planning, production and deployment of human resources for health. Further evidence indicates that the training and production of certain key health worker categories has stagnated or reversed over the years. The weak management skills in the public service aggravate the situation even further,' he said.

A new report on global hunger pinpoints factors at the heart of spikes in food prices it says are exacerbating the unfolding food crisis in the Horn of Africa. The Global Hunger Index (GHI) points to climate change, growing demand for biofuels, and increasing commodities futures trading in global food markets as the causes of price increases in food, which it says were also at the root of the food crisis of 2007-2008.

Heavy fighting between government forces and militant Islamists in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, has forced the closure of a hospital, an aid group says. Dr Ahmed Mohamed said the shelling of a maternity unit run by SOS Children on 10 October killed one staff member and forced patients and staff to flee. This was the first time in 25 years that the hospital had closed, he said.

The HIV and AIDS discussion needs to become inclusive of citizens so that their needs can be reflected in policy design at every level of government, says this report. When citizens become active in facing up to problems such as HIV with policy makers and planners, they develop capacity and confidence to take ownership and responsibility for common concerns in public life.