For hundreds of people seeking refuge in Niger's capital from ever-growing food shortages in the country's interior, this sprawling cluster of straw huts is the first stop. Seydou Sidi, 76, a village chief has seen his neighbourhood in Quaratadji, located some 15 km (9 miles) outside the capital Niamey, swell by more than 200 people in the last three months.

In many African countries, prison conditions are awful, and have been for years. The prisons are overcrowded. Prisoners often get little food. HIV and TB are widespread, and healthcare is inadequate. Large numbers of pre-trial detainees, often held for long periods awaiting trial, mix with the general prison population, and frequently have inadequate legal counsel.

Participants at the recent 6th Partnership Platform Meeting of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) in Johannesburg, South Africa, have agreed that Africa needs speedy and effective measures to eradicate poverty and hunger.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said that more than 10 million people in developing countries are at risk of new cases of cancer by 2020. The UN nuclear watchdog, in a report released at the UN headquarters in New York, also raised concern over the growing cancer epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa.

The quality of research examining HIV prevention programmes targeted at young people in Africa is poor, according to the authors of a systematic review and meta-analysis published in the online edition of AIDS. Moreover, evidence that such prevention programmes had an effect was limited and confined to sub-groups.

There are growing calls for a forensic audit into Khomanani, Government’s flagship HIV prevention campaign which has cost the taxpayer millions of rand but has very little to show for it. The Khomanani Communication Consortium (KCC), with principal parties Sadmon Projects and Consulting, Sizwe Ntsaluba VSP, Izwi Multimedia and TBWA Hunt Lascaris, won the lucrative R190-million government tender in May 2007.

Despite the progress that has been made in the AIDS response in Africa, many challenges remain that prevent people from accessing the HIV prevention and treatment services they need, a top United Nations official said during a visit to Senegal. Michel Sidibé, the Executive Director of the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), noted that in 2008, about 45 per cent of pregnant women living with HIV in Africa were receiving antiretroviral drugs to prevent transmission to their children, up from 35 per cent the previous year.

More than 77 million children in 16 countries will be vaccinated against polio from tomorrow (24 April) in the critical second round of a synchronized effort to stop a polio outbreak across west and central Africa. However, Burkina Faso and Sierra Leone have postponed their campaigns until 7 May after vaccine delivery was delayed by the closure of airspace in Europe due to the volcanic eruption in Iceland. Existing stockpiles in the other 16 countries will allow this vaccination campaign to go ahead.

Organic agriculture using natural farming methods rather than fertilisers and pesticides has made significant gains in African countries – not just among farmers but among consumers too. Africa needs to triple agricultural productivity by 2050 to keep pace with population growth.

The sixth Partnership Platform (PP) Meeting of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) opened Thursday in Johannesburg, South Africa, providing participants with an opportunity for multi-partner peer interaction, review and experience sharing among the core institutions and partners involved in CAADP implementation.

The first-ever African Grandmothers' Gathering takes place on Mother's Day weekend in Manzini, Swaziland - and forty-three Canadian grandmothers will be there, representing thousands of women who form the Grandmothers to Grandmothers Campaign of the Stephen Lewis Foundation. Since 2006, the campaign has raised more than seven million dollars to support African grandmothers who are parenting their orphaned grandchildren in the most challenging of circumstances.

Les rédacteurs en chef

Tidiane Kassé

Souleymane Bassoum

Amady Aly Dieng

Roland Lumumba

Libyans are criticising an April 4th government report that describes the country's health care as expansive and top-of-the-line. "Reports like this are created at a time of need to tell lies," Libyan rights activist Mohammed Sehim said.

In Lusaka, the capital city of Zambia, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is responding to the worst cholera outbreaks in the country for many years. Over the last five weeks the number of cholera cases has risen dramatically to more than 4,500, while more than 120 people have lost their lives. Despite hopes that the outbreak has reached its peak the previous week and that the number of cholera cases will start decreasing, heavy rains that continue to cause severe floods in the city could potentially worsen the situation in the coming weeks.

The Malawi government will soon draft a law that will outlaw polygamy. Minister of Gender, Women and Children Development Patricia Kaliati said the move intends to help stop growing rates in HIV and AIDS cases.

HIV/AIDS could pose a security concern in Africa due to high infection rates among military forces, Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete has cautioned, saying the loss of personnel not only af fected military preparedness but also increased costs of recruitment and training of replacements.

Egyptian private equity firm Citadel Capital is seeking to buy Kenya’s firms and long-term land leases as it seeks agro-based raw materials to feed its food business. Citadel’s consumer food business, Gazour, is keen to cut reliance on imports to supply its Egyptian plants by controlling the supply chain from farmer to the shop shelf to protect it from global commodity price fluctuations

With piracy raging in the Indian Ocean, international disputes over undersea oil and gas, and chronic overfishing, the oceans have rarely been subject to such varied and environmentally damaging conflict outside a world war. In Who Rules the Waves? Denise Russell gives us a rare insight into these issues and how they could be resolved.

Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has damned a recent report by the US Department of State into the country’s human rights practices in 2009 as ‘Lies, lies and implausible lies’. Alemayehu G. Mariam imagines how Zenawi might respond to a sample of the findings included in the document.

As 36 imprisoned Saharawi activists continue a hunger strike from seven Moroccan jails, Konstantina Isidoros writes of the 'groundswell of international condemnation of Morocco's behaviour'. Protesting against Morocco's longstanding occupation of Western Sahara and the human rights abuses suffered by the indigenous Saharawi population, the hunger strikers' action represents the latest peaceful challenge to the Moroccan state's illegal claims on Western Sahara, stresses Isidoros, from individuals widely recognised as 'prisoners of conscience'.