Deforestation worsens famine in Africa, but drylands restoration could help. Millions of people across the Horn of Africa are suffering under a crippling regional drought and tens of thousands have died during the accompanying famine. The best hope in the short-term is food aid and logistical support, but in the longer term, dryland reforestation efforts may help improve food security, argues a new report from the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), which links human-caused land degradation, including deforestation, to intensified drought.

The high rate of HIV/AIDS prevalence in Nebbi district has been attributed to lack of sensitisation of the community on the danger of the disease, says Rev. Fr. Juvenile Ayelangom, the Nebbi director of Caritas, a Catholic church organisation.

Africa Monitor reports (includes video) that higher global food prices are likely to spell trouble for aid organisations working to relieve famine in the Horn of Africa. Food prices are on the rise again, according to a new report issued last week by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

The rape of girls and women remains a major concern in South Africa, and the health care sector needs to be better equipped to collect evidence to prove sexual violation to help secure the conviction of perpetrators by the courts. The Foundation for Professional Development, a project of the South African Medical Association, is trying to improve how rape survivors are treated. It’s currently training health care workers to counsel victims of rape and to collect forensic evidence to help survivors build strong legal cases should they want the justice system involved.

Bernard Baha of the Land Rights Research and Resources Institute points out in the paper 'The Politics of Investment in Large Scale Agricultural Ventures' that Tanzania has always been a country in the spotlight concerning cases of land grabbing for various uses. In the recent past there has been a lot of information in both print and electronic media about land being taken for various investment purposes. Little is known about these deals between the government and foreign investment companies eyeing Tanzania as a destination for agricultural investment.

Kenya has finally joined a growing number of countries in the world which have allowed the importation, growing and commercialisation of genetically modified organisms. The National Biosafety Authority (NBA) gazetted the final regulations that allow for the commercialisation of genetically modified organism in Kenya. This means that on application to the agency, one can import such products for commercial use, and soon, modified seeds and planting materials will be available to Kenyan farmers.

The purpose of the 5th Africa Conference on Sexual Health and Rights is to catalyze dialogue on the interrelationship between, culture, sexuality and attainment of sexual health for all in Africa.

HIV affects older people in two main ways. Large numbers of older people are themselves living with HIV. Many are also taking on vital caring responsibilities for loved ones living with HIV and the children orphaned by AIDS. This briefing is aimed at the European Union (EU) and member states. It sets out the need to strengthen the response to HIV in Africa by providing interventions on the basis of genuine need rather than age.

An article in Health New’s 'Health Canal' describes the disappearance of mosquitoes carrying malaria in areas of sub-Saharan Africa. The article explains why there may still be cause for concern in the malaria fight.

Although the 2010/11 agriculture season was affected by a number of shocks including localized floods during the first half of the season and midseason long dry spells, national staple food availability is estimated to have increased, as indicated by the recently released preliminary production estimates from the Ministry of Agriculture. These figures indicate that 2010/11 cereal production (maize, sorghum, millet, and rice) was about 2.91 million MT, an increase of 4.6 percent over last year and 21.5 percent above the five?year average.

While the focus of HIV and AIDS interventions has always been on the 20-40-year-olds most likely to be infected, African democracy institute Idasa warns that health workers and social planners have neglected to take into account the elderly who have contracted the virus – and their numbers are growing.

After 30 years and over 20 million deaths in Africa alone, US researchers report that early treatment of people infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that leads to AIDS cuts transmission of the disease by over 96 per cent. Announced by the US National Institutes of Health on 12 May after a six-year, nine-country clinical trial that cost $73 million, the discovery that anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) can make people living with HIV far less infectious means that humanity finally has the tools to reverse the epidemic.

Institutions such as United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and pan-African rice research organisation AfricaRice are promoting the adoption of national seed policies that will support sustainable growth and development of the seed sector in West Africa.

Kenyans outraged over lost loved ones accuse public hospitals here of frequent medical negligence. Aware of a shortage of space and personnel, the government has been working to build and upgrade hospitals and train more doctors, thanks to funding from the Chinese government. Meanwhile, a group of citizens has formed a foundation to speak out against medical negligence, reports Global Press Institute.

A consortium of East African institutes is researching new seed varieties better suited to dry areas to combat the effects of climate change in the region. The partnership, comprising seven universities and institutes in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, and funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, will also disseminate technical knowledge to agricultural extension services and farmers, and promote new insurance and financing schemes for building resilience to climate change.

The failure to implement prevention programmes for mother-to-child transmission on an appropriate scale has resulted in hundreds of thousands of preventable HIV infections among newborns, a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine says. The results of this study, it is hoped, will influence guidelines in the direction of even earlier initiation of antiretroviral therapy.

Yash Tandon draws on the recent massacres in Norway to examine the polarising of identities, which he describes as 'the most dangerous cancer of our times'. 'Why and how do all these multiple identities get reduced to two nominal but highly dangerous polarised identities - "them" and "us"; the "insiders" and the "outsiders"; the "included and the excluded"? In whose interest are these binary identities created, and by who?'

Some researchers are pointing to land investment deals in Africa, also called land grabs. According to a recent study by the Oakland Institute these deals increase price volatility and supply insecurity in the global food system. The organisation says massive amounts of land are sold or leased to foreign companies. In 2009, this amounted to an area the size of France. For more, listen to this interview posted online by Free Speech Radio News with Anuradha Mittal, executive director of the Oakland Institute.

While countries are rolling out new tests that will enable them to diagnose more patients with drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB), a worldwide shortage of the drugs to treat these patients is likely, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) warns. DR-TB can occur when TB patients do not complete their initial course of TB treatment. The only way to test for DR-TB is through cultures or via molecular testing – neither of which has been widely available in many high incident countries - until the advent of the GeneXpert, a two-hour molecular TB test released in 2010.

In recent years Madagascar has experienced a slow, seemingly unstoppable decline of its fragile economy, that has put a strain on the lives of millions of Malagasy citizens. After two and a half years under the administration of the transitional government of Andry Rajoelina (half a presidential mandate), the economy has been ranked worst in the world by Forbes magazine; thousands have lost their jobs and a food crisis is looming in the southern region of the country. Food crises in the region have been recurrent over the past decade, but an independent United Nations expert has warned that the sanctions imposed on Madagascar have made the situation untenable from a food security standpoint.